[LINK] Smart enough for the 2020 forum?

[Jan Whitaker]

At 04:23 PM 4/02/2008, Sylvano wrote:
>I can't help but whince when contemplating the conflation of the 
>many goals in this press release, including the encouragement of 
>ideas, the fostering of discussion and debate, developing policy, 
>formulating strategies and identifying distinct technological 
>implementation plans.

Has anyone seen an application form to indicate interest? They have 
said the participants must pay their own way. That will limit some 
people's ability to attend without sponsorship. The selection groups 
nominated so far are the same old same old: business, academia, 
community and industrial organisations. I wonder where the 
generalists will come from? All of those have vested interests by default.

I've been working with an ad hoc group on a strategic planning model 
for just these types of future planning initiatives and it takes much 
longer than a weekend to get anything of worth, no matter how expert 
the participants are. People run out of mental energy after a few 
hours of this level of thinking. They need process time away from the 
in person discussions. And the breadth of these issue topics is 
daunting, besides the range of involvement from policy through to planning!

It will be interesting who is selected and how it turns out. I 
wouldn't mind raising my hand for either the first one which 
addresses education or the eighth which deals with the future of the 
arts. But I probably have no chance of even being considered since 
I'm not aligned with any of the four main groups listed.

This is an interesting thing that hasn't been pointed out in the media:
In addition to those participating in the Summit, all Australians 
will be invited to make submissions on each of the 10 future 
challenges. These will be submitted to the Department of Prime 
Minister and Cabinet which will act as the secretariat for the 
Summit. An Australia 2020 website will provide a digital forum for 
this purpose.

Jan



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