If you read just one such book/article on innovation (or any business topic for that matter), chances are that considered in isolation it seems to make sense, and you’re like “a-ha! So this is how it goes!”. And you’d be wrong. Read another one and you’ll begin to understand that, as in most matters prone to over-simplification, as soon as you take a look at more than one piece of advice you will find they conflict. Read a few more and what emerges is what could either be called a mess where everybody conflicts with everyone else or a healthy discourse on a complex topic. In any case, nobody can claim they have the whole thing figured out holistically and universally.

Now, one area of such conflicts that has risen again is whether innovation is the result of perseverance, a matter of coming up with great ideas in the first place, pivoting from your plans when needed or perhaps something else. Pivoting in this context (for those who are not familiar with the term that was coined by Eric Ries) basically just means changing course when something isn’t working and trying your best to identify, in as lean, fast and cheap way as possible, when that something isn’t working.

Those who subscribe to the perseverance camp – that you need to be ready to stick to something long enough and eventually you will succeed – rightly point out that many innovations are the result of doggedly pursuing a goal despite adverse experiences or advise or even market feedback to the contrary. I can’t help but think that many innovations would’ve been impossible if the people working on them had followed Ries’ advice on pivoting. The first argument against this camp is along the lines of the old definition of insanity: “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. But the thing is, it’s essentially impossible to keep doing the exact same thing because, at a minimum, the environment around you changes constantly.

One of the examples given by the “persevere” camp is Rovio, and how their runaway success Angry Birds was the company’s 52nd game. Rovio, however, is a bad example – one could just as easily argue that all they did was pivot 51 times, and eventually found a hit.

Things that require years and years of development are a better example; it’s hard, if not impossible, to use “lean startup” methodology for products that require groundbreaking research. Sometimes it is prudent to just keep trying. And as much as people extol the creative innovations of startups (to which the lean startup methodology is, quite naturally, most applicable), sometimes it is necessary to have a (really) big company to successfully bring out a big-hitting innovation. Like, say, the iPhone – which required not only huge resources but also perseverance to create in the first place – and once it was out in the market; the original iPhone was not a blockbuster in terms of initial sales. And what comes to other businesses, far too often people forget that practically all other areas of business move far slower than electronics.

My view on all this is that there is a very simple top-level answer: it depends. And as much as that seems to be a cop-out, I think it’s much of the other advice that is a cop-out – and not only a cop-out, but outright misleading. Giving innovators a “formula” for success, or companies a “proven method for innovation” makes for a good story and good business because people always seem to want a simple success formula.

It does not, however, make the advise valid or even valuable. It’s also worth remembering that neither pivots nor MVPs nor really any of the other “new” terms out there are really new – they are just new ways of formulating existing concepts and approaches that have been used long before someone coined the specific terminology.

Don’t get me wrong – I don’t think that all innovation advise that’s out there is useless. There are many lessons to be learned from many of the innovation “camps”, with the emphasis on the plural. You need to consider the entire spectrum, take the bits relevant to your organization and apply them with whatever modifications are necessary.

To end with, here are some recent views on innovation:

• Andrew Hargadon: To Pivot or Not To Pivot
• Josh Linkner / Fast Company: The dirty little secret of overnight successes
• Harry West / HBR: Innovating in the scary zone
• Dennis Stauffer / Innovation Excellence: Perseverance Not Key to Innovation

Our first stop was at Grampians National Park, another awesome national park. The scenery was breathtaking, even if it was a bit chilly the first day there.

The MacKenzie waterfall was one of the most beautiful waterfalls I’ve ever seen. Look at the people to the left of the waterfall on one of the photos to get an idea of its size. And having a kookaburra sitting on a branch next to the falls made the whole scenery just perfect.

Adelaide seemed like a very clean, convenient and nice city. We managed to cram in quite a few things – including Australia’s biggest train museum that our son was completely thrilled about but even the adults found surprisingly fascinating. Given it was a short visit, we didn’t get to see all the places we wanted to, so there are things left for next time as well.

The view of the edge of CBD from our hotel in the day and during the night. The Adelaide Hills on the background are one place that we have to explore much more when we come back.

Adelaide Central Market. Good place to pick up some fresh food. And coffee. And sweets.

Botanical Gardens:

Driving back, we took the coastal route through Great Ocean Road via Warrnambool where we stayed at a friends’ place. Some people say the drive is boring, but with most of the road from Adelaide to the coast looking like this, I cannot agree. It was a narrow country road, but also extremely beautiful and having very little traffic on it made it a pleasure to drive.

Along the Great Ocean Road, the Loch Ard Gorge is one of our favorite spots. It’s a wonderful little cove amidst the huge cliffs and really a place that looks like something straight out of a movie.

So I gave some thought on what have been my best purchases over the years. Some fall into the physical products category, while some are subscriptions or memberships and some more go under software products. So just in case anyone cares, these are what I consider have been my best purchases ever:

The first thing that comes to my mind is my trusty camera, Canon EOS 5D along with the lenses. Now five years old, it still works like a charm and keeps producing excellent-quality photos. That alone is a minor miracle from a piece of modern electronics, most of which suffers from planned obsolescence in the 12-24 months time frame. It was an expensive investment at the time, but has totally been worth it and an essential cornerstone of my photography hobby – and when it eventually does break down, I will get the same model at whatever its latest iteration will be at the time.

The next thing is also related to my hobbies, namely cooking – and the best purchase in that category have been the few Zwilling knives that I own. They make chopping and cutting a joy. Other great kitchen purchases have been the Krups blenders that I’ve written about earlier as well. Again, I have to admire a modern kitchen appliance that can handle 10+ years of active use.

There have been several books that I consider very good investments, many of which I’ve briefly touched on in this blog as well. From cooking ideas to self-education on a number of topics, I still in the age of Internet find books to be an invaluable resource. While I increasingly now buy Kindle books rather than physical ones, I can’t imagine I will ever stop buying physical books altogether – some books still work far better as the physical kind.

On the magazine front, I consider my digital subscription to The Economist money well spent; this allows me to keep in touch with what the more sane portion of mainstream media is thinking of, as well as many macro-level global economic/geopolitical/other trends.

There are at least two memberships that have been great. First, membership at the Friends of the Zoo in Victoria has been well worth the money. All three zoos in the Melbourne area are great and our kids love them.

There’s also another membership that, while a very recent addition, has already proven its value: the Alternative Technology Association (ATA). Their magazines Sanctuary – Modern Green Homes and ReNew – technology for a sustainable future are absolutely wonderful, packed with invaluable information and data and, most importantly, geared towards real-life, local & resilient solutions and for people with real-life incomes. I’ve seen too many “sustainable” homes elsewhere that are really only suitable for people with $1M+ budgets, which makes me wonder just how sustainable they really are.. In any case, the ATA is a very down to earth and fact-based outfit, and the magazines are among the best I’ve ever read.

On the software side, there is one piece of commercial software that clearly stands out – I love Adobe Photoshop. It’s expensive, but I still love it. At the other end of the spectrum, there are a number of apps that I consider well worth the money – most recently 53′s Paper for the iPad, which has actually made doodling on it not only usable but fun.

Luckily, thanks to both benefits naturally derived from my lifestyle and by using some active ad prevention, I live relatively ad-free.

Take the biggest ad medium of them all, television. Turns out people in Finland and Australia watch pretty much the same amount of TV; 3hrs 9mins per day in Australia vs 3hrs 13mins in Finland [1], [2]. I find this an amazing amount of time. I watch zero hours of television per day, week or even month. None.

(For many years, we didn’t have a television at all. When people heard that, most were perplexed, even astonished, and asked “So what do you DO in the evenings then?!” as if watching TV would have been the only socially acceptable or imaginable activity. I cannot help but be amazed at the lack of imagination or interest in other things that these people displayed just by posing that question.)

The other mass media, radio, is a similar story. People spend a lot of time listening to the radio; Australians a little over two hours per day on average, Finns a little over three hours [3], [4]. Me? Approximately 10 minutes per week; the round-trip time on my weekly grocery drive.

What about the Internet? Online advertising is supposed to be one of the biggest things since sliced bread, and I spend a lot of time on the Internet – but almost entirely ad-free. All I can say is thank goodness for the ad-blocking software, which I love to bits. I’d pay for that, it’s that important to me. When accessing the Internet on someone else’s machine, I’m absolutely astonished how much crap they can stuff on most pages, making them essentially unbearable. And no, I have no problem paying for quality content, so you don’t get to call me a freeloader that relies on offloading the business of eyeballing ads to other people.

Mobile is a little bit trickier, and the mobile devices’ browsers really need good ad-blocking software. Again, I’d pay for that. But since my primary use of mobile devices does not involve random browsing, ads are not a big problem there.

So what, if any, advertising channels do reach me? Somewhat ironically, turns out they’re the oldest advertising channels – outdoor advertising and fliers / printed media. While I’ve transferred all of my newspaper and media readership online, we still have a mailbox that gets stuff put in it – although most of the time it’s just a proxy repository for the recycling bin. So that leaves outdoor advertising, which for the most part just reinforces my views on advertising: that the vast majority of mass advertising is, to put it as politely as I possibly can, not very good.

(Specialized, well-executed and targeted ads are a different matter as they serve the useful purpose of raising awareness of interesting companies/products/services – but they’re a small minority of the overall flood of advertising. I am yet to be creeped out by systems that would serve spookily relevant ads.)

Do ecologically responsible people have a secret dress code?

I like to think of myself as a person both enlightened about and concerned about environmental and ecological matters; “green” to a certain degree, if you will. That means I’ve frequented events and places where such topics are discussed, and I’ve noticed that I clearly stand out from the crowd on most occasions. Whereas I’m often dressed along the lines of business casual, it seems that “green” folks, particularly the hard-core variety, have some kind of a secret dress-code that requires colourful outfits, shabby hairstyle, preferably a beard, and clothes – or at least bags – made from hemp etc. So can you not be really green unless you dress the part?

This presents a dilemma; I firmly believe one of the reasons many “green” ideas sometimes lack credibility in the mainstream business and media is that their spokesmen and -women look “too different” from the dominant style in the fora that they present in. It’s a well known and researched fact that unfamiliar/different looks have a clear (often negative) impact on how the person is perceived. Sometimes I feel that my attire (and mind you, I don’t don things like Armani suits anywhere – but I do lack the hemp clothes and the beard, too) has a similar impact on the “other” side; people feel sceptical because I don’t look the part. So it goes both ways, and it’s as if my looks don’t match my values.

All of this is obviously wrong, damaging to both sides and can seriously limit the possibilities of real progress being made. Which brings me to another point, namely..

Limiting cross-domain co-operation through segregated terminology (or: we don’t learn from each other because we don’t understand one another)

Ever talk to, say, an investment banker? Or a climatologist? Or a network designer? Or an economist? Or any specialist, really – they all employ a very unique vocabulary, acquired from studies and from experience. Regardless of their speciality, there is an abundance of special words and abbreviations that are most often only understood by the that particular group of people. People who don’t understand the terminology are automatically assumed of being incapable of understanding the concepts either, and are pretty much immediately disqualified as potential sources of advice. Because what do they know, they don’t even know what a CDS, or CDN, or CDA, or whatever it may be, stands for!

Unfortunately for everyone, the vast majority of the concepts could be discussed in plain language, or at most simplified only a little, into a form that most people of normal intelligence would be able to understand. At least the gist of whatever it is. But few people from any profession take the time to explain their field in simple terms; some are simply unable to speak normally any more, and maybe other “experts” take some bizarre pride in being able to talk in a complex manner with their peers, extract some odd sense of superiority in being able to speak what in essence is a foreign language even though the language may be the same, or some other reason. And it need not be because of arrogance, maybe people just don’t really understand that everyone does not understand their terminology. I know I often think – whether I’m talking about a fact, situation, term or whatever – that “well if even I know this, how could not everyone?”

But malicious or not, these communication and co-operation barriers are also very damaging. It inhibits or even prevents the cross-pollination of ideas, concepts, solutions and methods between different groups of people, different lines of research and different types of businesses. I love cross-domain stuff, and some domains have an annoyingly steep learning curve before you really can even begin to scratch the surface. Maybe people working in every domain should strive to make theirs more approachable to the rest of the people and more understandable to everyone. People in all domains could learn so much, and maybe success stories like IDEO could become much more common.

So what, if anything, is different in Australia, using my previous home countries Finland and United States as the comparison points? The usual disclaimers about these all being incomplete, generalizations, personal non-scientific observations, YMMV etc apply. (Note that I’ve later made a couple of additions to the list later on, preceded with the addition date)

Business & infrastructure

• Australian businesses are a curiously risk-averse bunch. Curiously because there’s lots of grassroots innovation and invention going on, but you wouldn’t believe it if you looked at just the enterprises. It is partly because of this that has led to a situation where many areas of technologies are, as many expats and foreigners often note, “behind” in Australia compared to other parts of the world. This is not a universal feature, however – for example in the area of mobiles (devices, services, even networks to some extent) and usage of social networking tools I would argue Australia is ahead of Finland, the self-proclaimed leader of mobility until some years ago. Of course, Ground Zero for mobile and social stuff is still San Francisco. In water conservation Australia is also, understandably, far ahead of many countries.

• There are lots more small businesses here than in Finland; it is evident right down to the streets, with countless lively suburbs filled with small businesses. At least in Melbourne, there are not many strip malls to speak of, but there are many, many wonderful small suburb centers with all the services provided in an almost quaint fashion, starting from the butchers to fish shops, flower shops, fruit shops etc. Not that Australia is immune to people shopping online or at supermarkets; most book stores have gone under and many smaller shops are under pressure, but at least they’re still there unlike in Finnish suburbs, let alone American suburbs. I consider these relatively distributed and localized economies to be extremely positive and important. The distributed nature applies to sectors such as health care as well, with many GPs and even specialists practicing at their home offices or at small medical centers that are dotted everywhere.

• What’s more, there are many small businesses who are completely happy being small and profitable. While many do aim for continuous growth, there is also a clear feeling that there are many small businesses who are completely content as they are – small or smallish and profitable, with no need to drive for continuous growth. I think that’s admirable.

• Many people like to make fun of Metro, or whoever happens to be the operator of the local commuter train system in Melbourne. It does have its share of problems, but overall the trains work well and so do the trams. News from Finland how VR is failing left, right and center has tempered my critique of the system here, and I would say the public transport system in Melbourne is okay. Obviously it could work better, but it’s a geographically huge city so there’s only so much one can reasonably do.

• Traffic is, in a word, polite. There is next to no speeding (speed limits are enthusiastically enforced) and driving is a remarkably smooth, low-stress experience compared to Finland. Of course there are traffic jams, but bad behavior on the roads is minimal. To exaggerate only slightly, everyone is polite, people give way at the slightest hint, be it for another car or a pedestrian. If there’s heavy rain or fog, people promptly slow down significantly. Contrast this to the Finnish drivers who seem to think it’s fine to travel at 120km/h on icy roads with visibility of 10m and it’s just baffling. Over in Boston, of course, everyone sped and you got used to it. Most of the time that worked well, too, but I suppose sticking to the speed limits does have some safety benefits.

• Housing infrastructure is a different story, however. In short, most houses are built very poorly – there is no insulation to speak of and hence houses are freezing cold in the winter; +15C as winter daytime high may not be too bad, but +15C as an indoors temperature and freezing floors as a bonus is just not right. This is a real shame since there a) is know-how to build properly, it just isn’t utilized and b) it’d be supremely easy to design passive houses given the climate. At least solar hot water heating is common and distributed solar PV generation becoming common as well.

• What houses lack in insulation, they make up for in architecture. Melbourne has some awesome architecture and I also love many of the floor plans with open kitchens and living areas.

• Some businesses, like Australia post, could use a lesson or two in logistics. Packages are always delivered home, which is a good thing because the place you pick them up from when you’re not home to receive them is a logistical nightmare. Let’s just say it’s a minor miracle we have not lost packages in either direction (yet) and that mail usually travels at reasonable speeds.

• There are many more services with home delivery than in Finland; from the numerous regular & organic food delivery companies to niche services like mobile knife sharpening services, it seems you can get pretty much any service home-delivered.

• Child care is, at least where we live, a disaster. Not only is the average quality of child care lower than in Finland, the costs are exorbitant ($100/child/day is the norm) and to top it off, waiting lists for a year or more are also normal.

People & culture

• While there is a sense of risk-aversion compared to Finland (and definitely the USA), failure does not have the stigma it still has in Finland. Much has been done in Finland in recent years to try to emphasize that failure is an inevitable part of innovation and a learning opportunity, but there is a deep-seated negative image of failure in Finland. Australia is not as failure-glorifying as the USA where failure is completely acceptable across the board, but it’s somewhere in between – and this is a recurring theme; in many, many instances Australia places somehow between Finland and the United States.

• People in Australia are very friendly and positive. This is true both superficially through positive small-talk (that I much prefer to the Finnish ways), but also on a deeper level. Having said that, however, it is probably slightly more difficult to establish deep friendships here than it is in Finland, where once you get through the veneer of brutal indifference and impoliteness, the transition into what could be called mateship here is perhaps easier. Establishing friendships with immigrants is probably easier than “native” (even non-aboriginal) Australians. This is of course a complex topic so such generalizations are somewhat dangerous.

• There is racism, but not even close to such an extent as the still sadly common xenophobia in Finland. In Finland, lots of the negative sentiment has to do with the socioeconomic and cultural background of many immigrants to Finland – substantially bigger proportion of the immigrants are refugees than here – but also because immigration is a new thing there. With 30% of Australians having been born abroad, it has been necessary to weed out outright racism or the society couldn’t function. For the most part I believe this has been successful.

• In many respects the Australian society is a more old-fashioned one than in Finland. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. It’s good, for example in the sense that people are polite and helpful; good manners are still appreciated and doors are opened for strangers. It’s also bad, for example in the sense that much of the society is structured along the same models and it’s mostly expected that women with children are at most working part time.

• Children are welcome everywhere, and they are treated with respect and friendliness – in Finland you often get the feeling that kids are somehow treated as annoyances and are often personae non gratae in places like better restaurants. Here they’re warmly welcomed and catered for.

• Grassroots environmental awareness is far more visible here than in Finland. This has been “helped” by Australia already suffering from impacts of climate change and being in general a country of climate extremes (in drought/floods etc), hence things like water conservation policies etc have had more time to be established. This environmental awareness is a bit of a paradox, considering Australia is one of the worst greenhouse gas emitters – but people still genuinely care about the environment and live close to the nature.

• The Economist report on Australian people has many good points; for example, I completely agree with these:
  

  Relative absence of conspicuous consumption (and, it has to be said, a certain lack of style in everyday dress); the evident democracy of the beach and the park; the practice of passenger and driver sitting side by side in taxis; the general amiability of discourse; the pervasiveness of a café society based, for the most part, on small enterprises producing their own excellent coffee (Australia, inventor of the “flat white”, has all but seen off Starbucks, which closed 61 out of its 85 Australian cafés three years ago, having found that anything it could do the Aussies were already doing better).

• The language, I must admit, I find occasionally annoying. Not so much the everyday spoken language – which is a mix of British and American English, spiced with heaps of local shorthand expressions and terminology – but written language, as it seems all media outlets spend 75% of their journalistic efforts to coming up with a supposedly funny wordplay-title for their articles. The more puns the better, it seems. Well I’ve got news for the MSM: 99% of it is not funny.

• [added later on Feb 7th, 2012]: jealousy and destructive envy are big issues in Finland; if someone appears to enjoy (particularly financial) success, the natural instinct of a typical Finn seems to be one of finding ways to damage this success – whereas the USA is the polar opposite of this; despite the recent 99%-vs-1% movement, success there is mostly seen as a positive & inspirational thing and something to strive for yourself, too. Australia is closer to the US in this; though there is a phenomenon called tall poppy syndrome in Australia, it’s much less prevalent than related trends in Finland.

• [added later on Feb 7th, 2012]: vandalism is less of a problem in Australia than in Finland. Helsinki is in perpetual fight against ugly graffiti tags on bus shelters, trains, buses etc. Pretty flower installations during the summer are also popular vandalism targets. I have seen very little of that here; there is clearly a better respect of the commons in Australia.

Other things

• The weather, one of the contributing reasons why we ended up moving here to begin with, is great. It is also, however, extremely variable – not quite “four seasons in one day” as the locals like to say, but I grant them two seasons. Differences of 20C degrees in daytime highs within just a couple of days are not unheard of. There are also more extreme weather events – rains are usually shorter and heavier than in Finland, hot periods are really hot, high UV radiation is really high (UV index of up to 12 vs the high of 6 Finland reaches in summer) etc. Still, summer by Finnish standards lasts maybe 9 months of the year, and there’s beach weather to be found from at least 6 of the warmer months. The Economist aptly pointed out in the special report on Australia last year that the weather is “benign and beautiful much of the time, but often by turns scorching, soaking, dehydrating, burning, blowing, parching, cyclonic, cancer-causing and generally destructive.”

• Good availability of a wide range of organic food is one of the best things in Australia. You can find pretty much everything as an organic version and the price premiums are lower than they are in Finland. Food supply seasonality is also much more visible here – fruits are absolutely delicious when they are in season, and many are simply unavailable when they are out of season. Over 95% of the fruit and veggies sold here are domestic. In Finland, where much of the fresh fruit & veggies are imported for much of the year, everything tends to be available year round – but also tends to have a pretty bland taste for much of the year.

• The nature is simply awesome and there’s a lot of variety from deserts to beaches to rainforests to rivers, from flatlands to mountains (well, closer to real mountains than the hills in Finland anyway) and numerous exotic animals.

• [added on Feb 13th, 2012]: closeness to nature is somewhat paradoxical; on one hand, it can take a 30min drive or more to reach a real forest from the city whereas in Finland one can find a forest from pretty much anywhere. On the other hand, however, nature comes closer to you than in Finland – be it in the form of possums, variety of spiders, cicadas or even snakes, it feels as if you’re more thoroughly part of nature here, even in the cities. It’s hard to explain, but may also have something to do with the fact that nature is pretty dead half the year in Finland. In both Finland and Australia, however, people have an affinity to nature and a need to go out and enjoy it – be it at a kesämökki in Finland or bushwalking & camping here.

• Unfortunately there is also a ubiquitous lack of quality that is apparent in many things; from houses that are built in the cheapest possible way to clothes and workmanship (and to child care, as mentioned), the median level of quality in pretty much everything is lower than that in Europe. That’s not to say good quality cannot be found – it can – but unless you go look for it, the average experience is worse.

• There’s lots of variety between the cities; I haven’t visited all the big ones yet, but it seems fairly accurate to compare Melbourne to Boston and Sydney to New York (and Canberra to, oh I don’t know, maybe Columbus Ohio or perhaps Washington DC? ) – the atmosphere and vibe of the cities differs markedly, which is probably a good thing, giving everyone a choice of where they fit best.

• Australia has somehow – whether it is a reality or an illusion, I cannot tell yet – managed to brand its countryside as a “cool”, desirable place. Life in the Finnish countryside never really appealed to me that much, but for some reason moving to rural areas has become an appealing possibility here. Not to the in-the-middle-of-nowhere outback, mind you, but outside the major population centers. Maybe it’s the plethora of organic farms (some of which we’ve visited) or the good quality of the meat and produce, maybe partly thanks to the Royal Melbourne Show or the picturesque scenery when driving there or just a desire to raise kids somewhere peaceful and quiet, who knows.

Finally, I have become much more interested in the theory and practice of raising TCKs, the so-called Third Culture Kids. Plenty of those, and ATCKs (Adult Third-Culture Kids), here. I have somehow always thought of myself as one, but have not paid too much attention to it – now that it appears we are raising TCKs, the topic is back on my mind. It’s a tough and complex topic that I will return to in another post.

Last year, as in most previous years, I read a lot – I could probably be categorized as an information junkie, though I prefer to call it a mostly harmless side effect of my ambition of being a specialist of everything Anyhow, in the process, I also learned a lot. Which is great, I love learning. However, in the constant quest for new information, new research, new data, new this and that, individuals, companies, industries and even societies often lose track of what’s more important – application of the knowledge acquired. And I fear that is precisely what happened with me, too. As Bill Mollison pointed out:

Perhaps we should do nothing else for the next century but apply our knowledge. We already know how to build, maintain and inhabit sustainable systems, but in everyday life of people this is hardly apparent.

That may be a bit extreme, but there’s a very good point therein. At one end of the spectrum, we know how to make fuel-efficient cars, but we don’t. We know how to generate electricity sustainably, but by and large we don’t. We know how to farm truly sustainably, in a way that is healthy for the soil, humans and animals alike, but do anything but that. We know we shouldn’t be burning all those fossil fuels and using up all those resources quite at the speed we are, but we do. At the other end of the spectrum, we know we shouldn’t eat that chocolate or whatever, but we do. We know we should exercise, but we don’t. There is no shortage of such paradoxes, at all levels large and small, and failing to apply what we know might very well be the ultimate curse of humankind.

Which is why I’m planning on dialing down the reading in 2012 – not stop, never going to stop, but reduce. I have also pledged not to buy any more books until I have finished my current reading list (that currently consists of this, this, this, this, this, this and this).

The plan is to begin shifting the balance from reading to reflection and producing rather than consuming text, and also subsequently action. I plan on spending more time thinking, reflecting on and synthesizing what I’ve learned and how it could be applied, spend some more time on writing what I think, and also doing what I think is sensible and needs to be done, hopefully reporting on that and also spending some more time with my other precious hobbies and life in general. I have came to realize that anything I read and learn – anything anyone reads or learns – doesn’t really have any impact whatsoever unless I do something. It’s good to remember this point, formulated here by John Michael Greer in his great book The Wealth of Nature: Economics as if Survival Mattered (a book that I need to cover in another post):

It deserves to be remembered that a small step that actually happens will do more good than a grandiose plan that never gets off the drawing board, a fate suffered by nearly all of the last half century’s worth of grandiose plans for sustainability. Starting from personal choices and local possibilities, rather than abstract and global considerations, makes it a good deal more likely that whatever evolves out of the process might actually work. Tackling the crisis of industrial society from the top down has been tried over and over again by activists for decades now with no noticeable results. Maybe it’s time to try something else.

All this means the contents of this blog will, again, shift as well. Shift how? Maybe it’ll be towards something more opinionated. Shorter, more frequent posts, perhaps. Maybe I’ll have more photos again. Maybe recipes again. What I will try to do less of is pure reviews, that practically dominated my blog in 2011 – of the books that read and review, I’ll endeavor to add more insight and reflection to the review. More meat around the bones, even if the books themselves are already meaty. More personal.

Finally, maybe this shift will also elicit more comments from my readers – not that it’s a raison d’être for any blog’s existence but I don’t in fact know if anyone ever reads this blog anymore It continues getting plenty of hits – averaging around 1,500 page views per day – but something like 99,9% of them are probably spam, the vast majority of which is thankfully effectively captured and dealt with.

Although this lengthy post was all about whining about lack of real content, this post will ironically wrap up here, having no real content Consider it as a heads-up for changes ahead, and as a mental reminder for myself to start making the Transition (capitalization and pun intended).

One of the first things to note is that the book is NOT about unanimity, which many people confuse the term consensus with. The CODM-model for decision making seeks to make decision making an inclusive, collaborative process that aims for as big a consensus as possible, but it does not necessarily mean the decision is made unanimously. In fact, an entire chapter at the end is dedicated to going through the pros and cons of unanimous decision making; turns out there are many downsides to requiring absolute unanimity, and even many groups whose primary mode of decision making is unanimity, benefit from a less restrictive fall-back mode of e.g. supermajority or majority (which are probably the most suitable default models for most groups). The CODM model can be successfully used across the whole spectrum of decision-making rules, even when the actual decisions are made with the person-in-charge (i.e. by the boss) model. However, when resorting to the person-in-charge model, it’s crucial that the process and views emerging from it are respected by the authority figure – otherwise further engagements with the group will be undermined.

What is a group-based decision-making model good for anyway? Well, we all probably know all too well that if a decision or a line of action is simply thrust upon us, there is often little if any positive commitment to help execute the decision if our voices haven´t been heard at all. What’s more, few significant things can be accomplished by individuals, so this benefit from an engaged group decision-making is a very important one:

The shared ownership of a group decision can foster considerable commitment to the successful implementation of group-generated proposals. A “B grade” decision executed well because of a strong sense of shared ownership may have far better results than an “A grade” decision poorly implemented because of lackluster support.

That is a very important point; the overall long-term health of a group is typically much more important than any decision the group makes; hence it’s very important for the group members to feel included and respected in the decision-making process, even if they don’t always get everything everyone wants (which nearly never happens). So what is the CODM model? It’s a seven-step process that consists of:

1. Framing the Topic
2. Open Discussion
3. Identifying Underlying Concerns
4. Collaborative Proposal Development
5. Choosing a Direction
6. Synthesizing a Final Proposal
7. Closure

Each of the above steps consists of several sub-steps; the book goes in quite a bit of detail, down the providing very useful language guidance for facilitators in how to approach each of the steps and prepare and guide the group through them, as well as how to defuse situations that could lead to arguments and how to return the group to productive working mode. The work also ties in well with techniques such as Focused Conversation Method and Nonviolent Communication (NVC) developed by Marshal Rosenburg. Working in an environment where stakeholders are numerous and distributed widely, I noted that the book covers stakeholder engagement rather briefly and almost passingly mentions options for things like interviewing stakeholders – so that part of the process will probably need more emphasis in certain environments than is given to it in the book.

As I haven’t actually tried the CODM facilitation model in practice yet, I cannot comment on the efficacy of the model; it does, however, appear to be an extremely useful model and something that will certainly come in handy. It’s also a flexible model in that many of the steps can be skipped for certain types of decisions and some shortcuts (such as referring a decision to a committee) are provided for some steps that can be used where appropriate. It provides very useful frameworks as well as practical guidance that cannot help but make group decision-making more effective, if implemented properly. An unfortunate fact that I have noticed in many corporate environments is that often companies are unwilling to develop or use facilitation resources sufficiently; all too often dysfunctional group behavior is allowed to continue without even trying to bring some structure, such as CODM, into the decision making process. So the book is not only a highly useful guide from a practical point of view, but it also highlights the importance of skilled facilitators in many situations.

January was the height of summer here, and our first-ever vegetables were beginning to bear some fruit. The tomato plant was a success, but unfortunately some unknown animals (most likely possums) thought so, too, and ate a bunch of them. This year we are better prepared with nets.

Summer inevitably brings with it some critters, and it must be said that despite Finland having lots of forests etc, nature comes closer to you in Australia, even in the cities. Many people are not particularly fond of spiders, such as these pretty big huntsman spiders captured here on our fence in February. You may not learn to love them, but you do learn to live with them – and, as far as spiders go, the furry huntsmen are sort of beautiful, aren’t they?

I spent half of March working in Europe, in Brussels and Paris; over the weekend there, I think I exhausted most of Brussels’ interesting sights, from the Atomium pictured here to breweries and museums. While early March is not a particularly pleasant period to visit either city weather-wise, with spring yet to arrive, I do like Europe a lot, though Paris much more so than Brussels – even the ubiquitous crepes in Paris win the ubiquitous waffles in Brussels hands down

In April we went on a road trip, touring to Lakes Entrance, Buchan Caves, Snowy River National park (the edge of which is pictured here) and Canberra. Canberra turned out to live up to its reputation – clean, orderly, uncrowded, and somewhat boring. The kids, however, loved the wonderful science museum there, Questacon, and the War Memorial was pretty impressive as well.

Over the past couple of years, we’ve gotten to know and love the local farmer’s markets, like the closest one at Sir William Fry Reserve, a couple of kilometers from where we live – pictured here in May. The quality & selection of the produce is excellent, supporting local farmers is crucial and you can get some things you can’t easily find elsewhere; stuff like like venison, which makes for a very passable substitution for reindeer when making poronkäristys.

In June, for the first time in Melbourne, I hired a set of studio flashes for a photoshoot gig I did for a friend. Testing the equipment at home, our kids were the natural guinea-pigs and made for supremely cute subjects.

Late July we set off for Singapore for a couple of days’ stop-over on our way to Finland. Singapore is a great place to visit, particularly if you like good food or shopping – really all there is in the city are shopping malls and restaurants, or at least that what it seemed like. I wouldn’t want to live there, though – the climate is too hot & humid, people often not very nice and it’s not what you’d call a family-friendly city either. And I don’t like shopping. It was, however, good to catch up with some of the friendlier people in the city with our friends as guides.

After Singapore, we spent the entire month of August in Finland; it was the first time we went back after moving to Australia in 2009. I took some 7,000 photos during the month, many of which still need to be sifted through, selected and sorted, but the best moments were spent with family and friends; like this one, where me, my father and my son – three generations of men – are going fishing. Perfect, like many moments. Even the weather co-operated, with a sunny and warm August pampering us.

Some three days after returning from Finland, at the very beginning of September, I was off to San Francisco / the Bay Area for a business trip. What made this trip particularly great was that there are now some three good friends living in the area, and that I got to spend a weekend there which meant lots of hiking at various National, State and County parks.

By October, summer (by Finnish standards anyway, the official one starts in December) was in full swing in Melbourne, and many of the warmer evenings were spent on the beach – the kids never get tired of water and sand, and hanging around at the beach is not an entirely unpleasant way to spend time for adults, either One of the highlights was when Amanda found a bunch of live starfish from our local beach.

In November, we spent some time at the local botanical gardens; this flower is from the Royal Botanic Gardens Cranbourne that has great picnic areas and interesting tasks for kids, whereas the Melbourne version has some great water features in the summer, like water vapor fountains, artificial rain in the “rainforest” section of the children’s garden and a small artificial river for wading in.

At the end of December, we went on a vacation for a week to a destination that raised quite a few eyebrows here; we were going to Canberra. Again. Most Australians are generally perplexed why anyone ever bothers going to Canberra, let alone twice within a year – but really it’s not all that bad.

The primary reason for going back was that ever since our visit in April, our kids had been begging to go back to Questacon (the great science museum). And since a) science is a good thing to be excited about, b) one of the best sources of joy is seeing kids happy and c) it wasn’t a good time of the year to visit other destinations on our to-do list (Uluru and Cairns), off to Canberra it was. To be fair, we did include a few other places in the itinerary, too – wonderful experiences like seeing kangaroos in Tidbinbilla, good food in Canberra and quite a few good sights in Cowra (of all places!). We finally made it to a couple of cave tours at Jenolan Caves, too, which were simply awesome:

It felt like 2011 was a year when I did very little traveling in, but looking back it seems I’ve been traveling abroad or domestically in Australia for over 20% of the year, most of it on vacation, which doesn’t feel so little after all. Anyhow, it’s been mostly a great year for me personally (I’ve learned a lot) & our family, and despite the alarming emerging macro trends I’m hoping that streak will continue in 2012.

As for the first day of 2012, I am writing this on January 1st, 2012 and it’s a scorching ~+35C outside with the UV index at 11. I’ve raked a couple of hundred liters of flowers from our driveway (this is a daily exercise this time of the year, as the 20m tree generates a near-infinite number of flowers), the kids have had their water play in the balmy morning weather, and are now enjoying some downtime. A siesta would sound attractive, as would hitting the beach – but probably won’t do that until later in the day after some of the heat dies down. Tomorrow the temperature is forecast to head beyond +40C, but luckily it’s a day off to compensate for January 1st falling on a Sunday – so it’s shaping up to be a rather relaxed start for 2012. Maybe I can even read some of the books that I meant to read on our vacation this past week, but didn’t even open

Happy 2012!

As one would expect from a book as massive as this, there are too many points to highlight. Some of what personally caught my eye, however, are:

• Timelines are given as a guidance on the design; one cannot do a good garden design in one evening, and there are useful guidance figures to give an idea as to the amount of time and effort that goes into the planning process – that, as well as practical tools to help you get there.

• In permaculture, having a single systems element perform multiple functions is important; Edible Forest Garden highlights beauty and prettiness as one of these aspects, which is not just a nice touch but a really important aspect, considering beauty is the guiding principle of most gardens out there and one cannot expect for people to just disregard that in search of useful plants.

• There is heaps of practical, hands-on advice for design and building. One of the more interesting elements was the chicken moat combined with an electrical fence as a way of keeping unwanted wild animals away from the garden while providing a chicken run and vertical room for vines etc. There are also extensive site preparation and soil improvement techniques and tree planting techniques, described in enough detail that even I could to that

• A small but important point is made about the detrimental fruit perfectionism; people buy only fruits that look “perfect”, whereas one should really be more skeptical about apparent “perfection” in fruits than natural variation and visual blemishes. I am happy to report Australians aren’t quite as bad at this than the Finns, but both nations have room for improvement here.

• The approach taken is very much that of real life, not just perfectionist theory. For example, the malleable nature of one of the permaculture founding principles – zoning – in real life is well recognized and examples given of “real-life” zoning.

• Turns out each specialty has its own vocabulary; Edible Forest Garden lays out the various vocabularies needed to discuss things like landscapes in plain language, yet in sufficient detail.

• This book delivers something the majority of permaculture literature just glosses over; quantified yield figures. It also quantifies many other things as, including nitrogen needs for specific plants etc. The yield figures are, of course, guidances, but it still helps to know that out of e.g. a single mature kiwi plant you one can expect an annual yield of 50-60kg/year.

In addition to the highly practical and valuable main parts, possibly the most useful part of this book, however, can be found at the appendices – of which there are 200 pages worth. There is an incredible amount of information in the plant species matrix; habitat & growth environment tolerances, root patterns, soil needs, plant architecture, uses & functions, drawbacks (such as thorns) and so on, for hundreds of plants!

That alone makes this book an amazing resource and an extremely useful reference. Then there are species by use-tables, by-function tables, separate sections for herbs and spice plants, tea & beverage, medicinal plants, ground covers etc. Flowering times are there, as are useful indicative life spans, animal needs of selected species etc.

Personally, this book was also a little bit (a lot really!) frustrating to read, as I do not have any land of my own currently where to implement these ideas. Looking at the USDA hardiness zones reveals an interesting fact; while the book was written with North-East USA in mind (hence the “temperate” in the title), many of the species discussed can actually survive not only here in Victoria (which is USDA Zone 9 or 10) but also in Finland, which falls under USDA hardiness zone 5, the same as Maine where the authors live. I do, however, suspect more limited sunlight in Finland during the darker months may exclude some of the more borderline species.

Overall, the two-volume Edible Forest Gardens set is a highly useful, fascinating and in-depth resource for designing a forest garden / permaculture garden. I cannot think of a more comprehensive book for those wanting to design a yard that keeps on giving. Even though I have no practical experience to speak of from implementing most of the advice here, I still feel comfortable recommending the book. And even if you, too, are not in a position to actually do anything about it right now, the books make for supremely interesting reading and contain probably the most comprehensive collection of species information in the permaculture literature today.