Over the past eight weeks, I have been working with a small cross-functional team to deliver the new TAFE SA website. I’m pleased to say that it is now live at https://www.tafesa.edu.au. Due to a variety of circumstances, the project team found itself with about ten weeks to deliver a brand new site, complete with…
Author: Clayton Wehner
Common Dog and the Lobster
As a third year Army officer cadet at the Australian Defence Force Academy, I spent the blisteringly hot months of February and March 1994 at one of the Army’s most recognised field training hellholes: Singleton in New South Wales. Whilst the Air Force cadets jetted between air conditioned Officers’ Messes during their Single Service Training,…
An Industry Analysis of the Australian Print Bookselling Industry
The following is an assignment that I wrote for the Strategic Management unit in my MBA. We were required to produce an industry analysis incorporating strategic management frameworks and tools, such as Porter’s Five Forces and PEST analysis. I’m publishing it here because it might be of interest to booksellers or other strategic management students….
Social Media Policy template
Every organisation should have a Social Media Policy. Does yours? If not, we’ve got a great Social Media Policy Template that you can use. PDF VERSION: MS WORD VERSION Whilst social media has proven to be a very effective marketing and communications tool, it is a ‘double edged sword’ and presents some unique challenges for…
It’s not me, it’s you: build websites for your customers
I’ve helped build websites for various organisations, including some very large, monolithic organisations. There’s one thing that sticks out as the most important thing that you must not do if you hope to have a successful website. It’s a thing that many senior executives don’t quite understand. And here it is. You must not build a website…
Gigcity Adelaide Needs a City-Based Technology Precinct
So I wrote this article in October 2016 and guess what? It came true! The State Government is to be applauded for its newly-announced plan for Adelaide to become Australia’s first ‘Gigcity’. Adelaide is the first international city to join the growing US Ignite Smart Gigabit Communities Program, creating new opportunities for innovative businesses to…
This is the article that got me fired at an organisation
The Folly of ‘Flex’ Time Instituting a formal employee ‘flex time’ program in a white-collar organisation is folly. The public service hasn’t worked this out yet. A ‘flex time’ program allows staff members to accumulate ‘credits’ for time worked over and above their standard working hours, enabling them to take that time off in lieu…
The learning spaces of the future
The humble classroom looks destined to be confined to the annals of history. I attended a meeting the other day to discuss what campus ‘learning spaces’ will look like in 25 years’ time. That’s a long time horizon and it’s extremely difficult to predict with any degree of certainty how the classroom of 2041 will function. But…
7 Quick Tips that Help Me Write Better
My university thesis supervisor once admonished me for using a ‘split infinitive’. I nodded my head, feigned surprise that I would make such a glaring error, and told him that I would fix it up. Later, I looked up ‘split infinitive’ in the dictionary because I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about….
The Conversation Around Library Funding Cuts Needs to Focus on ‘Effectiveness’, not ‘Efficiency’
Library Funding Cuts Recently the State Government announced that funding will be reduced for the State Library of South Australia in the coming three years. Media reports suggest that the Library has been charged with finding $6 million in savings, which equates to the loss of 20 of its 115 full-time employees. (note that these…
12 Things that Weirded Me Out in the United States
Earlier this year I spent a fortnight in the United States, visiting Indianapolis, New York, San Francisco and Salt Lake City. I hadn’t been to the US for over ten years. Here are the twelve things that ‘weirded me out’ in the US. 1. They have those old school buses from the movies. You know…
A Quick Read While You Ride? Free Magazines on the Tram Initiative
The Free Magazines on the Tram Initiative Recently I helped Public Libraries of South Australia and the Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure with an initiative to provide a selection of free electronic magazines to commuters on Adelaide’s metropolitan tram service. The initiative was launched on 10 August 2016 with this press release from the…
100+ Useful Online Tools for Small Business
Last Friday, I delivered a two-hour presentation to a group of small business owners at the Unley Library, entitled ‘An A-Z of Over 100 Online Tools for Small Business’. Quite simply, the presentation consisted of a quick overview of over one hundred useful online tools that I use in the daily course of my work….
The most unusual South Australian place names
Ever been to Prominent Nob? Perhaps Break Wind Reserve? What about Mount Buggery? Maybe Bumcooler Flat No. 1? A newly-released map reveals some of Australia’s most peculiar place names – and they’re all fair dinkum, dinky-di place names – not made-up names! The Strumpshaw, Tincleton and Giggleswick Marvellous Map of Actual Australian Place Names is a…
Five local government areas in 5km
Adelaide has got to be the only city in the world where you can drive 5km and pass through five different local government areas. Heck, when I walk my dog, I pass through three council areas and am subject to three different by-laws in relation to dog walking! In Walkerville, it’s OK to have the dog off…
Cadet slang from the Australian Defence Force Academy
In 1987, a booklet of cadet slang entitled ‘LEGOLINGO‘ was released. Compiled by Bill Cowham, the booklet ‘put down on paper the peculiar slang used by cadets at the Australian Defence Force Academy’ (ADFA) in its first two years of operation from 1986-87. In 1993, my old English lecturer Bruce Moore published a book entitled A…
Two wide-eyed Aussies visit Linkedin in San Francisco
Recently I spent two weeks in the United States attending a conference and I had the opportunity to visit two of the world’s biggest internet companies in San Francisco, Google and Linkedin. Like many tech enthusiasts, I have a bit of a fascination with Silicon Valley and the global internet behemoths that originated there. So…
Empathise, ideate, intervene
I have been studying systems thinking in my MBA class this semester and one of our recent sessions dealt with the relationship between adaptive leadership (a topic that forms the basis for an earlier unit in the MBA) and systems thinking. Quite clearly they are interrelated (the originator of adaptive leadership, Ronald Heifetz, is a…
Relinquish control for better leadership
The traditional conception of leadership has the leader as the ‘hero’, standing boldly at the front of those who wish to be led, and possessing common traits of intelligence, drive, vision and integrity. Modern leadership theories see leadership as a more subtle activity, built less on authority and control, and more on self-awareness, emotional intelligence,…
Survival Training
‘You have just survived a crash landing of your aircraft in the jungle’, bellowed the Warrant Officer. It was 3am in the morning, bitterly cold and pitch black. I was one of about 150 officer cadets from the Australian Defence Force Academy, standing on a narrow dirt road in the middle of a thick forest, somewhere…