A friend of mine sent me a link to a report through delicious about the housing market which read: you should read it. So I did. It’s about the housing crisis… something to which I recently *cough* shameless self-promotion *cough* wrote about for a journal article here.  Let’s have a look at the numbers and see where we stack up as a city here is a peek at the top ten report on housing affordability from a leading guru.  Firstly however lets look at the overall problem… housing has outstripped median income in most Australian cities.  Please note all of these pictures have been pawned borrowed referenced from the above report, these are not mine:

What this actually means in terms I can understand is this:  Housing has gone up in this country while the income we make has not multiplied by the same amount.  That is, if we are to measure housing affordability and median income over time we are to see that this graph shows that while housing prices have risen, income has not by same factor.  The following is even more staggering:

This report shows a stunning fact that the place I grew up (well since 1985-1995) is now the least affordable region in the entire world! The numbers in the top column that read 9.6 represent the amount of median income you would need to purchase a house in that area.  The another represents a rank score in terms of overall affordability (please see the report for more details).   An example from my own life is someone I know bought a place for around 2.4 times their income in 1990 on the Sunshine Coast and now it would take 6.4 times their income in same location.  They have had pay rises and dual income, yet the gap continues to widen.

That aside (POP goes my dream), here is another astounding fact about this report. The city I presently live in (Brisbane), scores marginally better:

I thought this to be bullshit at first but I looked into it.   I checked my income (as a family) and did the maths.  A house in our area is 6.1 times what I earn when compared to the median price of 430k.   6 times!  This is a major concern for those of us that are this far behind the eight ball.  Yet, if we take the strategic view and say that 68% (as of 2006) are mortgage owners then 32% are in the minority which has me fighting a losing battle.  I would like to say though that if we don’t take steps to correct this situation, as the demographia report suggests (i.e. government control of land ownership, increasing of supply of land and other solutions… read it!) then we are placing plummeting home ownership rates in conjunction with plummeting rental availability which also ties into things like government housing (a 9 year wait at present) and a host of other issues (homelessness for example).

Towards a solution

I think it’s time we discussed this and began addressing the plummeting levels of affordability in Australia and the regions beyond.  We simply cannot allow this situation to become so bad that we see housing affordability slip below the 50% mark.  I think we need to engage stakeholders like government, developers, economists, practitioners, renters and home owners to begin to come up with new ideas to beat this crisis… yes we need a strategic systems view and a systems solution.   Yet, I can’t see one… can you?

It interesting for me to note that recently developments in software packages I use have only made cosmetic changes to the product, i.e. new shiny buttons, instead of making major changes to functionality.  This frustrates me.  If a product is working well and it has positive feedback from the public, by and large, why would you change it just to change it?  This mentality is so ingrained in the software industry that it’s enough to make you want to cry.   Take a look at any product you like be it: Windows, Snow Leopard, Word and even a lot of open source packages and you can see that these changes are changes for the sake of change, a lot of the times as a profit driven motive to make the same people, loyal people, buy a product that has very little new value for them.

Having been involved in software development for a short period, I have to admit that there is a level of competitiveness in the field that drives you to make changes.  Having said that, there is a lot of ‘development’ which is nothing more than changing clothes and putting new shiny buttons on the package instead of iterative development.   I am thinking of a certain financial package that has become the God of accountants in Australia.  The same product has had the same basic functionality for years yet they keep making changes and slugging their customers each cycle.  Having used a version from 5 years ago and recently seeing one that has undergone 5 development cycles, I can say that it looks almost the same.  Yet, the company in question, had to pay $400 for a license for the new one and God knows much for the ones inbetween.

This has to stop, it’s nothing but a profit driven licensing model that has been a scam since the beginning.  It’s as bad as Microsoft charging people to use their development tools to make software for Windows!

I read a post by Alison yesterday, received a few comments about the last post I did on emergent strategy and have an email conversation or two and got to thinking about the concept of the future.   What an odd concept.  The future?  I define it as a place beyond our present where another form of existence… exists!  In my previous post on emergent strategy I assume the existence of a path let me clarify.

For a path to exist it means that one was already created by thinking about it.  By virtue of the selection of the variables we use to define the future what we expect can become what we get.  So to say “path” is to imply that it was there before I thought about it.  Chances are it wasn’t.  So when you think about the future think about this, for it to exist it needs people to think it exists.  If it were to involve anything outside of what you think, then it would probably come from nature.  An external unplanned seismic event can change your planned future.  Then again, it may not. I am sure I am watching far too much summer viewing ala Eli Stone.

So I can add to my last post a singular yet profound thought about the emergent nature of strategy: a path is the outcome of a thought process, yet in reality when we think it out, it never plays out the same as it did in our heads.  Now, our heads are our enemy.  They tell us of things that are true and false.  The falseness of a path or the trueness of it, may change when we change our assessment of it’s viability.  So if I decide to change my mind, my future changes until I change it again.  The path keeps changing or it is many moving paths that exist as thoughts of action to be taken… not actual actions.  I can be like Tim Ferris and set goals or make companies or be like my dog and sit around and do nothing.  The outcome of what I do still goes back to what I think and what I think determines the course of actions I am likely or not likely to take as the future I have evidently created unfolds in real time.

That said, I have met the odd person who has a deeper sense of destiny that I do.  You believe that these people are precisely where they are meant to be and they have a deep underlying confidence that their life is what they knew it would be.  These kinds of people are there, and this shoots a massive hole in the idea of emergent strategy.  They have the grand narrative, the underlying concept, why don’t I or others?  Perhaps this small percentage of people (less than 1%? yeah I looked it up, made it up, rolled a dice, shouted, pulled a rabbit number out of hat) are more tuned in that the rest of us and have an inward comprehension of destiny that scopes beyond my interpretation of it.  See when you pull a truism you run the risk of falling into the either/or trap.  If one is true, then the other is not.  What if both are not true?  Or they are different versions of different narratives we have created because inwardly we like the ideas we find because of our self.

Therefore, everytime you think of something or frame a new future, you frame new actions and interpret this as a mini-destiny if you will.  These of course must be open to change and revision as you need to change them.  You can’t set them in stone and expect to find “the answer”.  Does life follow a grand narrative?  Derrida would say no, but I say it does.  It just may be a non-linear iterative one that is totally created by us, written as a reflection of the things we externally magnetise to,  and the social context we live in.  It might be a fragment, that is not connected to anything else.  Is the search for meaning futile… no because we can’t stop even if we tried.  Meaning is what we look for in all that we do.  Even if we say there is no meaning, we have found meaning in the meaningless.

To finish up this obscure holiday post I think that perhaps one should not write a blog whilst reflecting on the future.  It is such an abstract concept that it leads to thinking as redundant, bizarre and formally lateral as shown above.  At the same time, it makes you think: how much of my life is the result of my thinking or what I am unconsciously harbouring around in my head?  All of it?

On recent expedition to the internet I discovered that another site (nameless it will remain) that promised access to riches in a quick, easy and sure-fire manner.  This got me thinking about life (of course).  In life we often spend a very long time looking for shortcuts.  There is probably nothing wrong with looking for the “shortcut to glory” but there is something very wrong with making a promise based on the illusion of such.

We live in a shortcut society

There I said it.  We live in a society that demands we create short ways of doing things, whether it be ad-hoc applications of the so-called “power law” or the adaptation of techniques designed to save time.  I have heard this rhetoric for a while, that you develop new ideas as “leverage” and this leads to ultimate power and success.  So far in my short life anything that I have wanted (doctorate, children, marriage, friendships) has come at a price.  There is indeed nothing that comes at a price.  Given that we live in a shortcut society, we should therefore be wary of “quick” “easy” and “sure-fire” solutions to the problems we face.

So what is life really all about?

I am sure I have no idea.  My last post about emergent strategy reflects what I am going through at the moment with my life.  What comes next?  I am not certain as I am sure most of you are.  The lack of certainty and general malaise that comes with it reminds me that I still have the burning sense of achievement in my stomach, yet defining this shapeless void is particularly difficult.  I know that if I was rich perhaps I would be happier?  I doubt it.  Having money does not lead to happiness or success.  Success in the truest sense escapes definition for me at present perhaps because I don’t what it would look like if I saw it.  If I did see it, how would I know it?  I wouldn’t.

The question is then would a sure-fire way to make riches even exist.  If it did would it solve my problems?  Every time in society when we lean on the “quick” solution we only need another “quick” solution to fix the previous one.   Can I suggest that if something is too good to be true it usually is.  This isn’t a truism, especially when we consider the masterwork of chocolate known as the crunchie (yes it’s as good as it sounds) or when you see a magnificent view or notice how much you love your children.  There are things that are good enough to be true.  However, most things that are designed to make you rich quick usually make you poor(er) quicker.

So I will end this somber post with a warning.  Everything that has value, work, life, God, cheese, the things in between, all of the above etc, is based on something that took time to make.  In life the things you value the most are more than likely the things that took the most time to make.  A happy marriage for example takes listening to your wife and doing what she says I mean following orders, working hard to build the life your wife wants, takes time, thought and effort. You don’t arrive anywhere without building, patience and work.  Now I know work sucks, but what would you rather a quick, easy, sure-fire solution that leaves you worse off than when you said.  Let me leave you with something out of context:

Wise words often fall on barren ground, but a kind word is never thrown away – Arthur Helps.

Here’s an idea.  In a recent conversation on this blog I have noticed that I hold a particular view about the emergence of strategic direction.  For example, when I started this blog I had no particular direction in mind and I had no real niche to draw from.   However, I noticed that most of the major direction in my life emerges.  Yes there have been times when I intentionally set out to do something and it worked, but the direction it was leading me to wasn’t obvious.  Take for example my recent doctorate.

I was told early on that you got a doctorate to become an academic.  I have since found that I enjoyed the practical application of ideas so much that I am wondering if I will continue as an academic in the next year.  That said, this emerged from the terrible experience of doing a Ph.D. so perhaps I am speaking out of exhaustion, terror and the thought of becoming a lifelong nerd.  Nevertheless, I learned through the process that I love applying ideas.  I love seeing them at work and I love putting them to use.  This emerged through the process.

When I started this blog it was more for personal development.  But, I have learned that I like speaking more about general ideas and concepts rather than simply specifically personal development.   So I followed the path I was leading myself in.  In this sense I wonder if in a lot of real world problem solving endeavours and strategic applications we actually find ourselves following what emerges or if we are trying to make things happen.  Emergence means following patterns as we notice them.  Is this even possible?

There are clearly times when we plan in advance and it helps us.  On the other hand there are times when a direction emerges outside of normal planning and following it seems logical.  Now I haven’t adapted these or even thought about them before writing this post.   Perhaps I need to put these down into a forum or something… who knows.  All I really know is sometimes there is a framework that emerges out of a situation and we should follow it… it wasn’t planned and/or thought out. As a matter of fact this requires an intuitive leap.

In reality most of the things we do require this kind of leap and yet I don’t remember once being told by my lecturers that AT LEAST HALF of my life decisions would require an intuitive leap.  We are taught about ambiguity, strategy and so on without ever being told that strategy sometimes emerges out of the muck.   I remember once I was looking to buy a new dog.  I analysed, thought out the plans and considered the alternatives.  One day I woke up and thought I am just going to buy the dog.  So I packed up the kids and hammered it down to the Animal Welfare League of QLD to get a dog we had picked off a website.

When we got there, the dog we picked wasn’t suitable.  He wouldn’t negotiate the children or even come out of his little house to say hello.  I was devastated having driven all the way from Brisbane to the Gold Coast to get a dog!  I knew however that the timing was right and I knew intuitively that a dog was there for me.  We hassled the volunteer in charge of dog dispersion and after a time she brought out an old dog that loved the kids and was 100% suitable.  I can’t say what really made me think that the dog was there… God or perhaps advanced precognition?  I just knew that I had to take an intuitive leap.  I knew it!  As I know now with things in my life… it’s time to take another leap to find the answer to my present problems… but that is a whole other post for another day.

I want to leave you today with this thought… don’t try and make things happen sometimes… just sit back and see if you can see where the pattern (hello FRINGE) is leading you.  There is something that you need to do and if you think about it, perhaps with some wise counsel, it will become obvious.  It is becoming obvious… though it isn’t quite yet.   The thing is as patterns emerge and you follow them without much thought … you find out new and interesting realities that you never knew existed!  Happy hunting!

And here’s why:

It never works and I never follow through.  I should work on my follow through and discipline, but that’s precisely the point isn’t it?  I have resolutions to make me disciplined.  It never works.  Instead I usually set goals that I can’t achieve then get depressed when I don’t achieve them.  Yes, that’s right, last years goal was to buy a house… with cash.  It didn’t happen.  This years goal will be the same because as the saying goes: ‘A fool returns to his folly’ or ‘a dog returns to his vomit’.  The latter is less appealing, I don’t like the taste of vomit.

Well are you setting resolutions? I ain’t this year because I don’t see the point of setting small goals when I can reach those.  I want to win big, just like Elvis.