Newsletter Volume 31 Issue 12, Dec 2019
From The Editor
After a bad news year like 2019 we could do with some good news. Future Crunch steps up with the message that “what we saw on our screens in 2019 was not the world. It was a negative image of the world, in both the photographic and tonal senses….Here’s a better picture.“ See below 99 Good News Stories You Probably Didn’t Hear About in 2019 (Future Crunch also gives month by month details of Good News and we show the 9 to 29 November 2019 figures, e.g. “The world’s largest multilateral financial institution, The European Investment Bank, has agreed to stop all financing for fossil fuels within the next two years. Guardian.”)
Some local good news, involving our own Julian (Jolly) Day, comes from a November 29, 2019 MBA News article by Ben Ready, Managing Editor. “A team from AGSM@UNSW Business School has won the Australian leg of the Global Management Challenge. Team Pinnacle will now represent Australia in Lisbon in early 2020 to compete against the winners of over 30 countries to decide on the world-wide winner... The Global Management Challenge (GMC) is the world’s largest Strategy and Management Competition…. Julian Day, CEO of Consensus that runs the GMC in Australia and New Zealand congratulated Team Pinnacle on their win”. See below, AGSM Team Wins Global Management Challenge
“The theory holds that most children will acquire “natural” skills – such as learning to listen to and speak a native language – without schools or instruction. We have specifically evolved to acquire such knowledge automatically. It is called “biologically primary knowledge….But there is another category of knowledge – “biologically secondary knowledge”, which we have not evolved to acquire. It consists of virtually every topic taught in schools from reading and writing to science and maths.” This quote is from a December 12, 2019 in The Conversation by John Sweller, Emeritus Professor, UNSW. “This is the first of two essays exploring key theories – cognitive load theory and constructivism – underlying teaching methods used today.” See below, I had an idea in the 1980s and to my surprise, it changed education around the world.
“the internet is full of grifters, tricksters, and outright liars who rely on people’s basic trust to amplify their message. It’s worth slowing down and carefully navigating their traps — to avoid spreading an alarming false rumor, getting angry at a group of people for something they didn’t do, or perpetuating an honest misunderstanding.” This quote is from a Dec 3, 2019 article in The Verge by Adi Robertson, who says “It took me years to really understand where all the information I saw online was coming from. So this isn’t just a guide to spotting when something is fake. It’s a system for slowing down and thinking about information — whether that information is true, false, or something in between.” The article has a Further Reading Guide with links to other research organisations and institutes. You can also listen to the discussion on The Vergecast. See below, How to fight lies, tricks and chaos online.
Current Issue
Articles in the current Issue cover:
99 Good News Stories You Probably Didn’t Hear About in 2019
“New surveys revealed that the population of humpback whales in the South Atlantic region now number 24,900 — almost 93% of their population size before they were hunted to the brink of extinction. BBC.”
AGSM Team Wins Global Management Challenge
“The competition challenged us to develop a strategy that we truly believed in. We were able to understand the intricate connections between internal (marketing, finance, operations, HR) and external factors (economy, exchange rates, competitors) impacting our organisation’s success, and refine our decisions quarter by quarter to complement our corporate strategy.“.
I had an idea in the 1980s and to my surprise, it changed education around the world
“ People can acquire secondary knowledge in two ways. The easiest and quickest is by listening to other people or reading….But if other people aren’t available, secondary knowledge can be discovered during problem solving – such as engaging in research. Such discovery, or inquiry, works but is slow and inefficient. It should only be used when we cannot obtain needed information from others.,”
How to fight lies, tricks and chaos online
“The first step is honing your sense of when a given piece of content is too good (or bad) to be true. Once you start looking, you’ll notice specific subtypes of this content — like ragebait designed to get traffic from people’s anger, hyperpartisan appeals that twist the facts, or outright scams. The techniques are relatively common across different types of story, and they’re not hard to recognize.”.
QESP Blog
Climate, economy, drought, bushfires and the election made 2019 a big year in fact checking
(QESP Editor’s Note: This is a link to an RMIT ABC Fact Check review by Josh Gordon, Economics and Finance Editor, on 19 December 2019. It includes the 2019 Fact Check Golden Zombie award — for a “debunked claim which refuses to die” )
See Climate, economy, drought, bushfires and the election made 2019 a big year in fact checking
Events
Consensus Software Awards
World’s Most Successful Awards
2019 Awards Presentations
The 2nd set of Consensus Software Awards and GreenTech Awards were co-presented on 12th December by Richard White, Founder & CEO, WiseTech Global (Winner in 2004) and Julian Day, Founder & CEO, Consensus. Thanks to Phil Redding for MC’ing the event.
The next round of Consensus Awards in 2020 will be open from late January through to end of April with the Awards presented in mid June. For further information, please contact: Julian Day on 0413 309 056.
Quote of the Day
Developments in information technology and globalised media mean that the most powerful military in the history of the world can lose a war, not on the battlefield of dust and blood, but on the battlefield of world opinion. Timothy Garton Ash
Quote from Yesteryear
The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate anything. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform. Ada Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron and considered to be the first computer programmer.
Wishing all our readers a happy and successful year in 2020.
Ted Smillie
QESP Chair