Robert Hickson • Apr 07, 2021 •
Here’s a few short interesting developments or discussions I’ve seen recently. Loosely bundled together in a theme of “values.” Irregular labour Is the private sector the best provider and facilitator of “gig work”? That’s challenged in a New Yorker profile of Wingham Rowan, an English social entrepreneur. For many years he has been trying … Read More
Guest Author • Mar 23, 2018 •
Jennifer Beckett, University of Melbourne and Monica Whitty, University of Melbourne This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. Six months after the explosive allegations of sexual harassment against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein came to light, giving impetus to the #MeToo movement, this series looks at the aftermath of … Read More
Michael Reddell • Oct 19, 2017 •
The 13th annual TIN (“Technology Investment Network”) report was released a couple of days ago. I’ve largely managed to ignore the previous twelve – breathless hype and all – but for some reason I got interested yesterday, and started digging around in the material that was accessible to the public (despite lots of taxpayer subsidies the full report is … Read More
Robert Hickson • May 30, 2016 •
Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) has a futures group. They’ve just released a report called Australia 2030: navigating our uncertain future. There are some nice aspects to the report, and it is good to see rigorous futures techniques being applied in our hemisphere. But, overall, I was underwhelmed. The report is based around four scenarios: Digital … Read More
Robert Hickson • Jan 20, 2016 •
It’s Davos time again. As usual the World Economic Forum publish their Global Risks Report to coincide with that. Source: World Economic Forum http://reports.weforum.org/global-risks-2016/shareable-infographics/ Also as usual, it mostly seems to be the here and now issues that pop to the top. That’s not surprising, given that it is based on a perceptions survey. It … Read More
Robert Hickson • Sep 09, 2015 •
Following on from my last post about robots, evolution, and metaphors, the Journal of Economic Perspectives has, for a non-economist, a surprisingly good pair of other articles in the same issue. Both Mokyr et al. and Autor provide good historical perspectives on how economists and others have a poor track record of predicting future … Read More
Robert Hickson • Jan 15, 2014 •
This week Radio NZ National has been running a BBC series on the MINT economies – Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey. Jim O’Neill, the economist who coined the term BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India & China), visits each country to look at the opportunities and challenges facing these countries as they attempt to become leading economic powers. The series … Read More
Robert Hickson • Sep 24, 2013 •
After posting yesterday’s energy forecasting blog two pertinent articles on China popped up in my e-mail. The first noted that China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection appears to be taking a tougher line against some of the country’s biggest oil companies. Two have been banned from building new refineries and expanding existing ones because they have failed to meet … Read More
Robert Hickson • Jun 27, 2013 •
There’s a lot of intellectual as well as commercial interest in predicting what the next big technological developments will be. Last month McKinsey Global Institute published its list of 12 potentially economically disruptive technologies. This follows on the heels of Technology Review’s annual top 10 breakthrough technologies. For followers of the future there is likely to … Read More
Robert Hickson • Jun 19, 2013 •
Is our cyber future going to be the playground of spies and hoods? Is it already a mash-up of Big Brother and the Sopranos? And how much does it matter? The recent national and international revelations about electronic surveillance (not to mention large scale accidental privacy breaches by some government agencies) are alarming to many. More so probably … Read More