The nuts and bolts of preparing a local or regional development strategy - a new series

From time to time I get asked about the best way of preparing a local or regional development development strategy.

Most of these strategies, and especially Government funded ones, fail. They generate a report but no action. The reasons Government funded ones especially fail is that the terms of the grant usually focus on the report, whereas effective planning is all about process.

Peter Drucker, the management guru who did so much to define strategic planning, described it as the futurity of current decisions. By this, he meant simply that planning was effective to the degree that it influenced what we did now, taking the future into account.

Over the next few posts I propose to provide a nuts and bolts guide to the whole process, drawing from my previous writing and experience.    

Reason for the pause in posting

It is a very long time since I last posted. I have not lost interest. It's just that I have been busy and also working out how best to use my various blogs.

Not really a good excuse I know, but its true. Watch this space.

The importance of rocket

Photo: Rocket growing

Anybody who reads this blog on a regular basis will know that I love gardening. Yet I sometimes struggle to keep the garden going.

The reason for this is simple.

Like all of us, and especially those who live in metro areas as I do just at present, time is short. So my family likes me gardening, but only if I pick and present the results to them. That's fine, but i am busy too. So my vegetables die away.

This morning eldest, who is on a bit of a health kick, asked if we had rocket in the garden. I said no. We always used too, but I gave up because I was really the only one who picked and and ate the salad vegetables.

Now eldest daughter has offered to buy the seeds and seedlings if I will plant them. Boy, do I feel chuffed. I only need the smallest encouragement to launch back in.

Opportunities for the professions in Regional Australia - Introduction

Back in October 2006, I put up Practising Law in Regional Australia dealing with the opportunities open to those who wanted to practice law in Regional Australia. At the time, there were opportunities because so many new lawyers were opting to stay in the metro areas.

Two years later the position is just the same. Now the Law Society has put forward proposals to try to redress the situation by, for example, forgiving HECS debt. Legal Eagle alerted me to this in her post Bush lawyers. This includes a link through to the original newspaper story.

The reasons for the current shortage of lawyers in regional Australia as well as other professionals are quite complex, combining structural and cultural reasons. Discussions on the reasons, and I am no exception, generally focus on the nature of the problem. In doing so, we ignore a simple fact, the opportunities open to those who are prepared to move.

Given this, I thought that it was time that I revisited the opportunity side in a series of posts, setting out the reasons why the Regional Australia option is worth considering. I will add later posts to the end of this one as they are completed.

Will Owen's blog - an education in Australian Aboriginal art

Photo: Darby Jampijinpa Ross, "Ngapapkurlangu (Rainwater Dreaming)," 1989.

From time to time on this blog I have featured photos of Australian indigenous art from Will Owen's Aboriginal Art & Culture: an American eye.

I first really became aware of current indigenous art back in the 1970s when I used to browse through a small gallery in the Canberra suburb of Manuka. I was interested because Australian pre-history formed a key part of my honours degree at the University of New England.

Will has a particular focus on remote area art. His blog is a key resource for all those wishing to access this part of the Australian regional experience.

Australian rainfall projections - October to December 2008

The attached map from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology shows the rainfall outlook for the period October to December 2008.

With the exception of the south east corner, the projections are for above average rainfall across the continent.

Need for a new approach to regional development in Australia

I try to avoid overt campaigning or political comment on this blog because it risks detracting from the blog's primary purpose, the promotion of the joy and variety of life outside the metros. However, I now feel obliged to make an exception to this rule.

The latest Australian Bureau of Statistics population projections suggest a continued drift to the metros. At 30 June 2007, 64% of Australians lived in a capital city. By 2056 this proportion is projected to increase to 67%.

I think that this is absurd. We have many areas of Australia that can not only absorb new people, but need them.

The metro drift has deep historical roots. The process has always been reinforcing. To those that have shall be given.

We need to break this cycle. Yet our capacity to do so seems always limited, condemned to a bitsy, ad hoc approach.

Just at present the current global economic crisis has led to calls for new infrastructure spending, something that I support. However, there is a very real risk that this increased spend will end up dominated by metro needs.

This holds even where spend itself is outside metro areas. An example is coastal highways linking metro centres.

Most people who visit this blog come because they have particular information needs. This means that the number of repeat visitors (the type of people who usually comment) is small. Still, I would be very interested in ideas as to what might be done to turn things round.

I would be especially interested in ideas at local or regional level. What do you need to improve your local situation?

Charles Darwin University offer $2.3 million in scholarships boost elite engineering course

Scholarships valued at more than $100,000 each are on offer to build the infrastructure of the Northern Territory.

A new Bachelor of Engineering Co-operative degree program has been created by Charles Darwin University (CDU) to link with local and national industry, combining paid work with study. The Northern Territory Government Department of Planning and Infrastructure (DPI) is providing $2.3 million to fund up to 20 scholarship places on the new course. The scholarships are valued at up to $117,156 each, with recipients receiving a stipend of $15,000 for each full year of the four and a half year degree course. The remainder of the scholarship award – almost $50,000 for each student – is in the form of paid work placements with the DPI.

Chief Executive Officer of the DPI, Richard Hancock said students would gain practical knowledge and work experience on a range of infrastructure projects to build the Territory.

“These work experience placements will provide students with on-the-job skills and experience, and opportunities to develop close working relationships with professional engineers,” Mr Hancock said.

The scholarship program also will allow students to participate in relevant work placements in both the private and public sectors. CDU’s Head of School of Engineering and Information Technology, Professor Friso De Boer said the quality and structure of the Co-op degree would provide benefits to the NT by supplying more job-ready engineers to the workforce, while the scholarship program would attract and retain the best and the brightest in the Territory.

No application is required. Eligibility for the Co-op degree and DPI scholarships will be assessed on academic merit, with a minimum TER score of 85 for high-school leavers. Eligible candidates will be contacted directly.

Visit the CDU Scholarships website for further information.

China and Regional Australia 4 - attracting Chinese tourists 3: providing the right information

Photo: Lonely Planet Guide to Shanghai.

Frankly, most Australian regional areas are absolutely hopeless when it comes to selling their own story. This is a pity, for when it comes to both official material and the conventional guide books, most regional areas get squeezed into a few sentences. How can you sell on this basis?

Then if you look at local material, this is also pretty hopeless, a series of disconnected pieces of paper generally focused on attractions in the main regional center. I get so frustrated at this. It is hard to get the story across that we can do better.

To illustrate what I mean, take the mainstream conventional guide book. If we were to apply this to, say, Armidale, we would have the following structure.

The first few pages might deal with general history and geography, the last pages with travellers tips.

The middle section might be broken into two part. The first might deal with Armidale, the second with the surrounds. Both would incorporate maps and photos. All sections would contain references to the area's unique culture.

Hang on, I can hear you say, unique culture? What is unique about Armidale?

Well, to the overseas visitor all of Australia is unique. Further, each area has its own very specific features. We need to point to both.

Once an English language version has been completed, then turn it into Chinese. That way, your visitors have something that will bring their trip back, an aid to memory.

There is a special problem here because many current publications are littered with ads. I can understand this. Most local tourism authorities are short of funds and look for anything that might help defray costs. Yet in most cases the ads both twist content and detract from reader enjoyment. You really need ad free if you are to get best results.

Back to the entry post in this series

China and Regional Australia 3 - attracting Chinese tourists 2: telling a story

This is part of a Chinese mega store in Shanghai. Click on the image to get a full feel. While the overall footprint is smaller than one of our big malls, the size and crush of people is overwhelming.

If you are going to attract Chinese tourists, any tourists for that matter, you have to be able to tell a story. Many of our regional areas are very bad at this.

Proud of you parks and civic facilities? Forget it. This won't sell. Proud of your shopping centre and the fact that you have good coffee? Forget it. This won't sell.

Each regional area has different features. Each has its own history, its own life style You have to focus on this.

To illustrate what I mean by taking an area that I know especially well.

If I had a Chinese tour party in Armidale, I would focus one day on mining.

On a day trip, I would start by telling them a little of the history of mining in the area, focusing on the hazards and romance including the role played by the Chinese, the old (California) and new (Australia) gold mountains.

Our first stop would be Uralla where I would take them to the museum with its Chinese Joss House, then to Thunderbolt's statue and grave. Plenty of time for photos. Then on to Inverell with its sapphires. After trying fossicking, there would be time to look at and buy sapphires.

From Inverell to Tingha with its Chinese store museum. Tin, the Chinese presence, the old Chinese store that is now a museum. Then back to Armidale.

This is quite a long day trip with plenty of relevant material.

On a second day I would show the romance of wool. This would focus on the establishment of a new order in a strange land, of wealth and privilege, of the way wool helped form elements of the Australian character.

I would start with Booloominbah, the big White town house that now forms the core of the University of New England. I would follow this with a country tour, including a visit to a working sheep property. Lots of animals. And I would again make certain that there were things to buy, plenty of wool products. On the trip, I would (among other things) explain Waltzing Matilda, teaching our guests to sing the song.

This is only a bare sketch, but it illustrates my point.

In terms of other things that our visitors might do, there is of course a tour of the city and its immediate attractions. Then, too, they might need some choice.

This depends in part on what is on in town. If the markets are on, that is one option. Racing would be a second. Beyond that, things are available like a gorge tour, a helicopter flight, a winery visit, a horse ride.

In all this, there is the need to treat the visitors as guests. A welcome by the mayor, the local Chinese community or the University, learning Australian cooking, meeting Australians in their own homes, the list of possibilities is quite extensive.

In all this, we need to remember my opening point, the need to tell a story.

Back to the entry post in this series.