Comments on: The ABC heavies and their $100,000 European vacation

By: Adam Forrest

Adam Forrest — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

"David" and his rant are typical of a culture, which still exists inside large sections of the ABC.
I've had various associations over the last 30+ years with the ABC including working there.
Amongst many permanent staff I saw constant navel gazing and an obsessional interest in internal politics, rumor making, whingeing and petty jealousies aimed at superiors and managers.
“David”’s comments today reflect just that type of person.
Most staff just got in and did the job quietly and efficiently.
However, there were many who were indolent, difficult to motivate, handing in work of patchy quality and were personally quite relaxed about their low productivity.
It was as if they saw the ABC as their personal property, undermining decision makers and those charged with management responsibilities. In any organization there has to be a culture of acceptance that there is a captain - and regardless of merit, he/she's been appointed and their decisions respected and accepted - otherwise there is anarchy.
The ABC must be in the forefront of technical and creative/programming trends to survive in today’s media. The Ultimo facilities and iView (indeed the ABC website itself) are examples of the ABC’s technical excellence.
An organization of the size and scope of today’s ABC must expose as many of its senior decision makers to overseas trends and techniques to stay in the race with new media and the commercial competitors.
I’ve been to IBC and NAB (Las Vegas). It is wrong to compare them in favor of the Asian and Australian conferences.
IBC and NAB are many times larger than the local equivalents. One sees things there that never make it to SMPTE - which “David” fails to mention, is only conducted only every 2 years.
Cutting-edge technology, keynote speakers, meets with engineering executives plus the value of visiting, learning from and observing other world’s-best-practice media organizations in operation simply cannot be dismissed so insolently it has by “David”.

By: Andrew J Smith

Andrew J Smith — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Living offshore I would have to agree with David (seeing Austrade etc. assist with offshore “tourism” services under the guise of fact finding, marketing etc.)

Surely offshore conferences are not the sole channel for keeping up with media related technical developments?

Like other Australian industries, most employees whether management or otherwise seem to prefer (or are desperate) to travel and meet people offshore face to face versus using communications technology to deal directly with international stakeholders……e.g. Australian education industry for one.

A university employee working in international area with young family who understandably prefers not to travel but use internet, teleconferencing etc. all year round (which is more effective than solid state physical) was ordered in no uncertain terms by senior management to take up offshore travel opportunities because “this is how we prefer to do things”…..these Australians are known offshore as “upmarket middle aged backpackers” (due to the drinking)….or simply “self important pretentious w…kers” hopping round international conferences, exhibitions, receptions etc. ..trying to be important…..

For example see how many Australians attending this one http://www.eaie.org/antwerp/participants/index.asp?wat=country

plus the side trips to other countries, how much, I’d guess easily AUD1 million?

By: Ping

Ping — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

The money would still be wasted if you spent it on internal production.

May as well see what international public broadcasters are up to stop feeding the slackers in like David.

Go back to looking out the window and dreaming of the BBC