15 June 2007
Lessons-Learned from the Australian Engagement
Overview:
In the course of business, it is important to capture critical lessons-learned to enable successful new enterprises.
A tremendously valuable positioning in an overseas market has led to the Company being selected as the prime vendor of choice for the Government Customer Down Under. In order to continue the steady progress of this innovative project, support from North America, beyond that of software services, was requested.
Accordingly, and in the absence of any other guidance in regard to executing the tasking, the following is provided in the event that any other such assistance in the form of personnel augmentation is required. The following topics are addressed, alphabetically:
Adventures on Foot:
Sooner or later we have to set out on foot. Remember to look both ways, and the fact that the first look you will take is wrong. Inattention to this detail in America almost cost the life of Winston Churchill, and could cost you yours. Be alert. See: rental cars.
Australian Capital Territory (ACT):
ACT is the Australian equivalent of the District of Columbia. It should be New South Wales, but all the other states refused to let Sydney be the capital, and so there.
Australia-New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC):
Colonial troops nominated by the British High Command for the invasion of the Dardanelles. The campaign was inspired by Winston Churchill to attack the “soft underbelly” of Europe and capture Constantinople, taking the Turks, allied with the Germans, out of World War One. Daring in its audacity, it could have been something brilliant, but was not. The operation, as conceived by he Imperial General Staff, was seriously flawed and after slow initial success and great bravery, devolved into a bitter hand-to-hand stalemate that killed thousands of “Diggers.” The courage and sacrifice of the ANZAC is said to have led directly to the recognition that the two South Pacific colonies should have nation-state status in the British Empire; it intensified a contempt in the troops for the Pommie Bastards of the Imperial War Staff that planned the evolution, and on the Turkish side, the charismatic Kamel Attaturk rode his crest of fame from the great battle against Imperial forces into creation of the secular Turkish State after the conclusion of World War One.
The National War Museum’s gallery devoted to the campaign tells the story of the slaughter that unified a new nation in personal and intimate terms. Other galleries are devoted to other chapters in an illustrious history. It is the best-or at least the most moving- visit in Canberra.
Australians:
Australians are some of the greatest people in the world. Kings and Queens of the laid-back, making Californians look like overachievers, while accomplishing the extraordinary as a matter of course. Fiercely independent and proud, they have a heritage of courage and self-sufficiency. They have a unique relationship with the other former British Colony in the Antipodes, New Zealand. See: ANZAC.
Belconnen:
An anonymous district filled with anonymous office buildings on the other side of the Black Mountain wildlife refuge from Canberra’s City Centre. You can see kangaroos from some of the Government buildings. I have no idea how to find it, since it is off the hotel maps, and the internet view could not distinguish “Chan Street,” the address of the customer, and Chandler Street, which is a commercial adjacent property. See Strange Corporate Policies and Adventures on Foot.
Betting Problems:
See deployments.
Canberra:
Capital of Australia, located in the Australian Capital Territory. See ACT.
Cash:
Your ATM card from home should work, and you are going to need it. Casual prices, partly driven by the lower value of the Australian dollar against the greenback, are staggering, and seem in some cases, to run about 20% more than back in the States. Do not be surprised at the $25 buffet breakfast at the hotel, no wonder how this is possible on a daily food per diem allowance of $58. See: Strange Corporate Policies.
Christine:
The most powerful woman in Australia, arguably more powerful than Prime Minister Howard. She is the IBM contract security individual who handles the vital minutia of the paperwork which permits corporate access to the government facility. She is a stickler for accuracy in paperwork, with a cheery inflection that rises at the end of each sentence. A pert woman of a certain age, she sports a pixie haircut and the ability to insist on the strangest of requirements while making them seem perfectly reasonable, and a product of the paperwork morass that we are contracted to fix. She is from Melbourne. Don’t cross her.
Clearance, Security:
Far more demanding than anything required by the US Department of Defense. They are the only institution on earth who will have original certified copied of your birth certificate, marriage license, complete divorce decree and death certificate (if applicable) including the National Security Agency. You will become confused by the separate clearance and business visa process, which require similar but slightly different documentation (see visa).
Coffee:
There is drip coffee but don’t count on getting it. It is mostly espresso-style Italian. It comes in long white and long black. Get used to it. The alternative is Nestles instant. You can bring drip grind and a press, but it will be a hassle to carry. You can buy a French Press at the Canberra Mall in City Centre and use it in your room at the tourist hotel on the approved Company list with the ubiquitous hot-water boiler. Or you can walk to the Starbucks near the merry-go-round and hope that what they have is fresh. They will not necessarily have it on hand and you may have to wait for the courteous staff to brew it for you. (See Strange Corporate Policies.)
Consultant:
An international expert sent to advise a relatively well-functioning government organization on matters with which he knows nothing whatsoever. See Strange Corporate Policy.
Deployments:
Imagine you are a Lieutenant again and everything you have done since never happened. Just do what they tell you to do, even if it is not anything you would do on a bet. See: Strange Corporate Policies, Betting Problems.
International Australia:
Located at 8 Brisbane St near Capital Hill, there is no reason to go there, even though the address is on everyone’s e-mails. Everyone you need will be on site. (See Christine, Lavish Corporate Overhead).
Internet:
The very fabric of modern life. The way you thought you were going to stay in touch with back home. The mental comfort food of constant communications equivalent to mac n’ cheese. Connections are available at the Novotel tourist hotel for as little as 30-cents a minutes. No shit. Metered like a pay-phone. $27 dollars for two hours access. A product of a vicious state-empowered monopoly just as evil at the AT&T in the worst of the old days of imperial corporate hubris. An impediment to moving ahead to a new world of commerce, streaming media and progress. See Telstra.
Lavish Corporate Overhead:
A building located at 8 Brisbane Ave, which no one has ever seen.
Life:
Put it on hold. Do not have any relationships, or issues that require personal attention. Pretend you are in the military again, that the hotel is a barracks, and you are happy that the Captain has suddenly declared the ship a no-smoking area on your Indian Ocean deployment and the next port visit is a month away. See Deployment.
Ministry of Ins and Outs:
The Ministry is the organization entrusted with execution of two missions in dynamic tension, the first of which is to be the Koala Bear face of a welcoming nation to tourists and hopeful immigrants with suitable skills. The other is relentless enforcement of the Migration Act of 1958, which is the bastion which preserves this nation of twenty millions from the billions to the north and northwest. Two significant errors in process, documented in the Palmer and Conrie Reports, have caused a multi-million dollar overhaul of the infrastructure architecture.
The Ministry HQ is located in the lovely suburb of Belconnen, one of the several named satellite areas of Canberra.It is about 8 kilometers outside the city centre where the approved company hotel is located. Your options are foot, cab, bus and rental car. The walk is about five miles and not advisable (regularly) in summer or winter. Cabs are possible, since they are easy to get at the hotel, but tough to acquire at the customer site. The bus works, if you are a mass transit aficionado, but requires walks on either end. (See rental car).
Novotel Hotel:
Reputed to be one of the finest hotels in Canberra. Conveniently located next to the bus station on Northbourne Ave, near the City Centre. Close to some really cool apartment long-stay hotels with nice balconies and a Mediterranean flair, one of them right across Alinga St. at the Darwin Building near Vernon Square that are not on the approved Company list. The Novotel is one of only three Company-approved hotels in the Australian Capital Region. Good spa, pleasant staff. Totally inadequate dimensions to parking spaces in the basement, calculated to have the rental car trashed with door-dings, No smoking and proud about it, so there are all manner of people outside the front door at all hours looking miserable, and in the other hours, looking miserable upstairs. Many rugby and Australian Rules football clubs stay on the weekends. See rental cars and sports.
Rental Car:
Abandon all hope, unless you have recently lived in the UK or Japan. Add the experience of driving from the airport to Central Canberra at the end of the 30+ hour trip, you will be lucky not to wreck it on the way to town. This operator managed to weave into town, around the three major circular round-abouts enroute, once flying off toward the hinterland. It will be terrifying, and have you questioning your ability to operate any sort of motor vehicle ever again. The thought of driving to the hinterlands of Belconnen filled the off day with dread. It is not as bad or difficult as one might think. But take caution. Perhaps as a statistical acknowledgment of the problematic nature of issuing rental vehicles (which cost as much as 30% more than they do in the States) to spacey Yanks, there is assessed a charge of nearly a $1,000 at rental. Maybe they will give some of it back. I’ll have to let you know how that turns out.
Seasons and Dress:
Business with the customer is coat and tie. Pack a couple suits and a bunch of shirts. Feel like an idiot when you are dealing with senior government officials in a muscle shirts and Maori tattoos. We have our standards. Make your deployment in the winter of North America. It is pleasant and warm in Canberra. Winter is cold and raw, and you should plan accordingly, even though you cannot believe it as people splash in the pool down below and the temperatures rise into the 90s and summer is all around.
Think black, think early darkness, think winter solstice. I couldn’t do that and I am paying for it. You can’t pack enough for a three-week deployment anyway, without going the way of the Steamer Trunk and a husky porter. Demand that your deployment be when it is pleasant. When they tell you to go anyway, pack a top-coat, and gloves are a reasonable and prudent accessory.
Sports:
Australian Rules Football and the savage Rugby Football rivalry between Queensland and New South Wales in the contest billed as Origins 2 will capture you in rapt fascination of scantily-clad men hitting one another really hard. Not as intense as the contests of Australia vs New Zealand on the anniversary of ANZAC day, once reserved for remembrance of the shared sacrifice, and now more akin to the 4th of July and Mardi Gras. See ANZAC.
Strange Corporate Policies:
Avoid large international corporations, since they update travel policy and per diem rates infrequently, lack agility in assessing changes to local conditions, and have shaved infrastructure to the point that employees are expected to find their own way half-way around the world, driving cars on the wrong side of the road, with cell phones on a different standard than the ones at home base, and find work sites without maps or external support, while receiving dunning messages from home plate at 30-cents a minute demanding compliance with time card submissions to which the local contracting officials will not provide. See: Deployments.
Telstra:
A vicious, backward, arrogant, all-powerful state-empowered monopoly. See Internet.
Travel:
American express overseas travel is wonderful. They will hook you up, and fix the policy issues to travel business class since the total trip will be something like 30+ hours, door-to-door. The leg between CONUS and Australia can be done from Los Angeles or Chicago, and will be about 14 hours. It is a killer, one of the longest flights in the commercial world. A dose of melatonin can aid sleep, but too much can leave you logged-out on arrival. See Rental Car.
Travel Timing:
Do not plan on arriving Sunday morning to go to work on Monday. Your body will be entirely on its head. Plan to travel Thursday to arrive Saturday and give yourself a chance to not drool on the customer.
Visa:
You cannot work without the real stamp, and don’t think that because your electronic version is approved and gets you transit into the country you are done. You will waste a business morning getting the actual visa stamp on your passport. The office is located at 3 Lancombe St. Don’t expect anyone down there to know it. They will just tell you to get it “some-weahr downtown.” The key landmarks, based on communication from other deployers, is that there is a Mort Street McDonalds, and a gas (petrol) station across the street. The office is an unassuming building around the corner, north of the petrol station at 03 Lancombe St.
Get there early, and take a number.
Walking Distance:
There is little that is not within walking distance from the City Centre, considering that indigenous people once covered hundreds of miles on Walk-Abouts. See: Wig and Pen.
Wig and Pen Pub:
Best micro-brewery near the Bus Station and the Novotel. See: Walking Distance.
Wireless connectivity:
Buy the cheapest possible GSM phone from the first guy at the first desk inside the powered glass doors at the Canberra City Centre Mall. Try to figure out what your ring tone is, or what it means. See: Telstra.
Cheers, Mate!