I've been following the 2020 Summit from afar and I've been generally impressed by the depth and breadth of the topics. It's this type of policy debate which will allow Australia to survive in the 21st century. I'm a little concerned that the depth of the debate for the technology industry seems a bit shallow (ie. the usual broadband and education noise). Australia is well positioned to become the technical hub of the Asian time zone if we, as a nation, play our cards right. I'm sure that over the next few days more info from the Summit sessions will be reported and hopefully there will be some good proposals for the tech sector.

Rudd is proving ever the successful technocrat. He seems keen to undertake a transformation of Australian society and he might just be the person to achieve it. However it is unclear to me exactly what transformation it will be. Sure - the obvious stuff is apparent: Republic, Indigenous Reconciliation, Environmental Sustainability etc. There seems to be a tremendous energy in Australia right now: it appears that this is our time to truly define our nation (unlike previous attempts when occurred under the protective wing of our colonial mistress).

Update: Initial Summit Report is available [PDF]

See his latest post. CRM is more than just software. It's a business philosophy where software is simply an automation component. A company can practice great CRM without computers (eg. index cards, diaries, wall calendars, customer files). However great CRM software makes all of this much easier and efficient. Great software enables you to do so many things that with paper 'you just wouldn't have bothered to do'.

I'm not a huge Cringely fan (although I really liked his TV stuff). I did enjoy his recent article: The Truth About IT Consultants. The checklist for then lies spoken by consultants (at the bottom of article) is awesome. Fortunately I interact with the 'Type A' consultant (as Cringely calls them) more than the others. However I've experience my fair share of the B's and C's.