Journalling

Why would anyone in their right mind consider personal life journalling?

That’s what I used to think, but once you look at the data it is good for the way your brain processes memories and it is good for mental health and a lot more so finally starting.

Today was an odd day, T is on leave from work at the moment for ten days so she can make a start on her MBA. We were spending a lot of time together and it was not always pleasant. Too much time perhaps.

But I realise now it was the pressure of visas, having one of the worst passports in the world in terms of freedom, health, colleagues, fixing up the house, losing a dearly loved pet and a few other things that were actually the issues.

The last week while she has been on holidays have been wonderful, we are literally back to the start of our relationship again – four plus years ago – in terms of enjoying each other’s company. Even simple daily tasks like washing the clothes and getting petrol in the bikes is enjoyable.

It has reminded me how much I love her and what an odd but very good fit we are together despite different cultures, languages, backgrounds, experiences, professions we have so much in common that is evident every day since we first saw each other – nearly five years ago – while we were in other relationships.

As the sun was setting I went for a walk on the beach, often T joins me (not enough I say) but today she was studying so I would be solo. We had a late lunch together first and watched a new show then I headed down to the local beach for a sunset walk, but no sunset tonight, it was very quiet and dark, the clouds were rolling in and most people and even the soi dogs had headed to the restaurants to escape the incoming rain.

Some poor people obviously had a romantic dinner on the sand planned with bamboo structures and white billowing silk like material in front of the nicer hotels but they were rained out, at least temporarily.

I went for a swim despite the risk of lightning and really felt grateful for the warmth, salty taste, light warm breeze and plonking heavy rain drops. My eyesight is failing as I get older and the eye glasses are getting thicker but these things seemed perfect.

It made me think of other things apart from journalling that I know I need to do more and one of them is appreciating what we have rather than hoping for something different. This is called ‘avoiding the second arrow’ as Buddha used to say and I think it is one of his wisest observations. Life can be crap but we can make the decision to focus on that we have and what we control and enjoy what little we do like and decide not to pine for other things.

Missing the kids a lot lately it has been so long.

Just made us both a nice mug of tea each and remembered another thing I was going to try and do, fit a few more natural products and whole foods into our diet so asked her if she would like local wild flower honey in her Dilmah. We both enjoyed it and got to use two little hand made timber paddle spoons instead of teaspoons so we can scoop the last drop of honey from the bottom of these big old mugs.

Big old mugs, just like me really, I turned 58 last week and T turned 34 just a little earlier. People still say I look like I am 35-45 which is nice but absolute bull and from time to time I have felt like a 25 year old just not every day of the week. We both took a weird health test recently with a digital scale and sensors that estimate your metabolic age, supposedly I am 43 and T is 30 so 25%+ and 10%+ improvement respectively not too shabby. The machine doesn’t measure the extensive bags under my eyes or the recent headaches and suspected skin cancers but hey this bollocks does make you feel better.

Maybe it is all in the mind.

Comparing Myanmar and Australia

By Pete Cooper – November 2020

Some simple rankings so you can get the difference between these two fascinating countries and also the global divide our world faces from someone that knows them both fairly well.

Myanmar and Australia are vastly different countries but actually have a lot in common eg. British and American influence and huge involvement with massive complex neighbours and trading partners like China, India and populous SE Asia.

While this is much more about the rate of change and up and coming nations vs maturing legacy nations, Australia does serve as a useful example of the developed world and Myanmar as a meaningful example of the developing world.

There are many metrics from many different sources so please note these are intended as a guide not precise measures.

Overall Geo Political Context

Myanmar is a developing nation with around 55m people in a large land mass historically focused on agriculture and resources now rapidly leapfrogging or even double leapfrogging developed countries with technology. Myanmar (previously known as Burma) is an emerging democracy which is in the process of putting over 50 years of military rule behind it. More recently leaders been accused of genocide and today it has dozens of armed ethic organisations mainly on border areas. Myanmar shares large borders with China, Bangladesh, India, Thailand, Laos and on the ocean with Andaman Sea ( access to Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore) and Bay of Bengal (India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh). Myanmar is considered part of South East Asia. Myanmar is a major recipient of foreign aid for health, peace and development.

Australia is a developed nation half the size of Myanmar in terms of population with 25m people but around 40-50 times in GDP per capita. Australia is even larger in landmass than Myanmar, Australia is also a continent. It is surrounded by New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia. Nearby are Singapore and Borneo. Australia is considered the centre of Oceania. Australia is a major contributor to foreign aid although this has declined in recent years and Myanmar remains a major destination for Australian Aid.

Population and Land Mass (https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/population-by-country/)

Myanmar 55m is ranked overall as 26th largest country by population, ahead of Kenya and South Korea. Australia with 25m (less half of Myanmar) is 55th globally ahead of Niger, Taiwan and Sri Lanka.

GDP per capita is around 40-50 times higher in Australia and this is also reflected in government spending on services like health, defence, infrastructure and education.

Australia is the 6th largest landmass country on the planet with 7.7m square kms compared to Myanmar at around 1/10th the size with 0.7m square kms which is still very large in relative terms being ranked 38th globally.

Australia’s is relatively remote and larger than all it’s neighbours generally in landmass and economy. Australia is 5x larger in landmass but 1/10th the population (50x less dense) compared to her nearest large neighbour Indonesia (main language Bahasa) just to the North.

Myanmar’s neighbours are generally all larger in population and economy. Myanmar’s largest neighbour China with 1.4 billion people is also just to the North. China is around 25x their population and the main languages are Mandarin and Cantonese and it is 14x larger than Myanmar. Myanmar also has India and Bangladesh to the West and Thailand to the East which are are all high population countries.

Health (https://www.who.int/healthinfo/paper30.pdf)

Myanmar is ranked overall 190th in the world in Health system efficiency, spending around 3.5% of government income. Australia ranks consistently in the top 5-10 for quality and overall health efficiency ranked at 32nd and spending around 18% of government income. The Australian Government and large private sector spends roughly 200x what Myanmar spends in total on Health and around $4,000 per person per annum compared to Myanmar at around $10.

Myanmar started testing for the current pandemic much later than Australia as you would expect due to funding however overall on a per capita basis the numbers are currently very similar on a per capita/per million basis although trends indicate Myanmar is arguably also earlier in the curve due to the connectedness of the economy and overall health resources so it may fare significantly worse although some observers argue there many be regional resistance due to long term interconnectedness with the rest of Asia – this is yet to be proven.

Danger / Peace

Myanmar is ranked the 39th most dangerous country in the world or in reverse terms is the 127th most peaceful compared to Australia which is 13th most peaceful country in the world.

Myanmar has approx. 600% higher homicide rate than Australia while the suicide rate is reversed with Australia 50% to 250% higher varying by year. These statistics are very difficult as Myanmar recording keeping and legal system means data may be incomplete.

Life expectancy (mainly due to health care and diet but also safety) is 12-15 years higher in Australia.

Business & Innovation (https://countryeconomy.com/countries/compare/burma/australia)

Myanmar is one of the worst in the world in terms of places to do business but improving with rapid digitalisation but currently at 171st globally while Australia is consistently in the top 20 but trending down in the longer term.

Australia is ranked 20th for innovation while Myanmar is 130th or lower.

Yangon Tech startups facebook group has over 1,500 members and similar topic groups in adjacent industries are a similar size. Sydney startups is around 21,000 members and growing faster and is around 3x older.

Australia is consistently in the top 10 countries in terms of GDP per capita.

Myanmar has drastically lower retail banking participation rate by individual citizens than Australia (around 1/5th or 1/10th depending on approach). Myanmar has recently see an explosion of digital wallets like KBZPay (with around 10% market penetration in two years) and Wave Money and others. Myanmar is effectively skipping credit cards and potentially also debit cards like Visa/Mastercard and going direct to mobile phone based digital app payments primarily with QR code and P2P transfers using mobile phone numbers. In this regard Myanmar is looking to the future like China whereas Australia looks more like America or Europe.

Immigration & Diversity

Australia is 30% immigrant stock (7m+ people) and rising rapidly. Major language is English. Mandarin, Cantonese, Italian, Greek, Vietnamese and Arabic are also spoken and diversity is very high with successive waves of immigration ‘flight to safety’ from all over the world typically after periods of war.

Myanmar is 0.14% (0.074m people) and falling steadily although it is much more connected and has a long history of exchange over centuries with neighbours on all sides.

Australia has approx. 300% higher inbound arrivals for tourism, study, business etc compared to Myanmar.

Australia is a mostly Christian nation that is relatively new with European settlement only two centuries ago on this island continent nation but with an ancient indigenous culture probably many tens of thousands of years and is gradually becoming more diverse and secular. Myanmar is a mainly Theravada Buddhist nation and has ancient connections to Nepal and Sri Lanka in this regard and a long complex history of interaction with many highly diverse neighbouring cultures by land and sea.

City vs. Country

Australia’s largest city is Sydney with around 5m people similar to Yangon the largest in Myanmar, while both are growing Australia is generally Urbanising while Myanmar is de-urbanising overall. Please note city boundary definitions vary.

Australia’s second largest city Melbourne to the South is slightly smaller, slightly younger and arguably slightly more cultural. Myanmar’s second largest city Mandalay to the North is arguably older, has more history and is also slightly smaller.

Both Sydney-Melbourne and Yangon-Mandalay are 1.5 hours flying time and both capital cities are located between these two largest cities in both nations Myanmar and Australia.

Canberra and Nay Pyi Daw are the respective capitals of Australia and Myanmar and are both new cities purpose built for the purpose of being an independent capital.

Energy and Environment

Australia produces approx. 12 times more electricity, 30 times more oil/gas and 20 times more CO2 per capita than Myanmar. Both countries export significant amounts especially to China.

The vast majority 99%+ of Australian homes and business have electricity and resilient power with off grid rare but gaining steadily. Housing is carefully regulated as are energy standards so figures are considered very reliable. Around 30% of Myanmar homes are electrified possibly much less are there are a large number of informal housing developments in some areas and business regulation has remained often informal in the SME sector particularly.

Both nations recently made major commitments to renewable energy especially solar and hydro electric with consideration being given to nuclear power.

More great resources –

https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Australia/Burma

https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/profiles/Burma

https://countryeconomy.com/countries/compare/burma/australia

https://www.mylifeelsewhere.com/country-size-comparison/burma/australia

All Levels Of Government Are Failing Tech Startups in Australia

It is time.

THE START SOCIETY

It Is Time for a National Summit About this Tech Startup Ecosystem Opportunity.

Our industry is in flames, lets fix it in 2015.

We have had a few positive wins in the tech startup ecosystem in recent weeks and actually pretty consistently in the last 3-5 years but lets get back to basics for a moment.

The latest data says we are failing REALLY fast in global terms and need to work together. The rest of the world is moving much faster and we are being destroyed because of our own inaction.

Tech Startup unicorns are now worth more than Australia’s big banks. The big 5 (Commbank, Westpac, ANZ, NAB, Macquarie) are worth around $425 billion (and took decades or centuries to get there) while the tech unicorns (privately held companies worth $1b or more each are now approaching $500 billion (and most of them did it in the…

View original post 1,269 more words

Funny Aussie US Translation for Americans and Australians

Here in sydney we are uniquely connected to most major cultures in the world as a result of years of overcoming geographic  isolation and also managing our immigration in a fairly haphazard manner.

What could be perceived as a structural disadvantage or government policy failure has actually ended up being fairly good to the extent that we now have an awesomely connected and multi-cultural society.

Arguably the best connected axis is the UK since we drew our first settlers (after the original indigenous Australians of course) followed by strong links with Asia (for example the gold rushes over a century ago) and also North America. This is before we consider the specific cultures of Europe (particularly Mediterranean countries) and the old French Empire and of course specific strong corridors of trade and immigration like South East Asia.

So we are fortunate to have as a result around 150 languages widely spoken here on the East Coast of Australia. At the same time 61% of the people on the internet are in our timezone (and 68% on the West Coast) both of these numbers are arguably the highest of any country/continent in our categories of development, education, economic strength, quality of life and force of law.

It is fun to highlight a little of our simple differences since we have to work with so many different cultures.

Here is a great primer on language differences. It is fairly informative and also pretty funny.

I am going to share this with our international offices at Freelancer.com and try and find equivalent videos for the AU-UK, AU-EU, AU-CN and AU-SEA corridors that are also fun and informative. Feel free to add them in the comments if you know any.

It is a great primer for anyone doing international business especially tech startups, students or anyone planning to travel.

Tumblr Overtakes Instagram As Fastest-Growing Social Platform, Snapchat Is The Fastest-Growing App

Leverage

Aspire to achieve leverage not merely efficiency or effectiveness.

My first recollection of the concept of leverage was from my physics teacher, Ben in high school talking about Archimedes and the lever.

Archimedes was one of the founding fathers of science and Ben was a role model and wonderfully inspiring educator but neither extended the concept of leverage to entrepreneurship, personal time management or life in general.

A more recent recollection was Ash Fontana one of the early guys at Angel List talking at my conference series SydStart.

For those of you who don’t know Angel list (angel.co) they have used a small team to build a global business innovating in tech startup business funding via the establishment of a global industry database of teams, companies, investors and their syndicates.

Angel List is leveraging a small team to truly disrupt globally the manner in which existing venture investments are made into tech startups and will probably go a lot further.

Ash was not the first to make the point that being efficient or effective are very different things.

You can be very efficient and lean and not waste time but be concentrating on the wrong things.

You can also concentrate on the right things generally but not have impact or effectiveness.

The trick is to concentrate on the things that give you maximum leverage in the areas you want to have impact.

Confusingly, sometimes the highest leverage activity you can undertake is to not do anything directly, e.g. if you have to make a big decision do what it takes to get that right, sometimes it is as simple as clearing your head with a walk and a good night of sleep in order to make the best quality decision.

Other times, the most leveraged activity is not to do a task but to teach someone else to do it, even better to train the trainer who will train lots of people if that is what is required.

The obvious old school management principle of delegation is a good form of leverage, but is there an ever better one? Yes of course there are many.

One example is a good corporate and community culture such as shared goals and values so that individual tasks don’t need to be delegated.

Another example is crowd sourcing where online platforms allow many people to bid on work (such as building a website) competitively or contribute to the project or task (such as fund raising) collectively.

An even more powerful example if creating a movement. One person asking for a change is a lot less powerful than Ghandi or Martin Luther king leading a generation towards collective beneficial change.

Other long term approaches are principles based such as pointing out big ideas or big opportunities. From the need for corporate transparency to putting a man on the moon.

Other ideas are less clear cut such as not using email, it is nor typically a leveraged activity because it is one to one and not collaborative and other methods are faster because you can talk faster than type.

Perhaps having a distributed team is not leveraged because time zones and distance impose communication constraints on methods that in turn impact effectiveness and efficiency

Bill Gates On The Limits of Capitalism

‘The market does not drive the scientists, the communicators, the thinkers, the government to do the right things. And only by paying attention to these things, and having brilliant people who care and draw other people in, can we make as much progress as we need to make.’ – quote from Bill Gates

With thanks to Business Insider Australia.

Pete Cooper’s ESS Review Submission

Pete Cooper’s ESS Review Submission

My personal submission to the government ESS Review based on the various initiatives, accelerators, educators etc… I am involved in across the Australian and regional tech and tech enabled startup ecosystem.

There are 33 recommendations across 7 categories to make Australia more effective!

Feedback and comments are very welcome.

Innovation trumps timeliness: the best ever list of belated gift ideas

Ideas for xmas and more importantly ideas for startups for any aspiring consumer centric tech entrepreneurs looking for inspiration.

Yippee The Leap Motion Arrived

Giddy up, so keen to play with this. Some unboxing photos for the geek freaks out there. Motion sensor based computing here we come. Will be interesting to compare with the kinect.

The box itself is tiny and matches the imac and iphone neatly. I wouldn’t be surprised to see them roll the numerous chips inside up into one ASIC (application specific integrated circuit) and the give it away or licence it for embedding in devices so it is even more seamless and make the money from the app ecosystem. Some samples below with the robot hand app that had excellent finger joint and wrist roll recognition.