Another of our conference speakers is in the press today: George Megalogenis, The Australian's self-declared 'resident nit-picker', and one of our Dream Panel members (the final session on Thursday 1 October).George is known for his canny use of research findings and published stats to challenge the status quo.
In today's edition of his Meganomics blog, he weighs in on the federal stimulus debate - to tweak or not to tweak? A mildly academic question, perhaps, given that only $17.7bn of the $66.7bn can realistically be altered (http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/meganomics).
One of George's other claims to fame is having successfully got under PM Rudd's skin a few months ago about his much-celebrated 'bloke act'. Quoting from his June 11 post:
KEVIN, mate, hate to break this to you but this bloke bender you are on at the moment is not a good look.
The more you try to sound like a regular fella, the more you invite the punters to laugh at you.
... And while I’ve got your attention, mate, stop trying to have an opinion on everything. You can’t be a know-it-all and a bloke at the same time.
A bloke knows when to say: “Dunno; don’t care.” Equally, a man in your position should be able to say: “Sorry, I don’t have time to watch Gordon Ramsay - can’t you see I’m running the bloody country?”
Looking forward to see what George has to say about the future of the research industry...
2 comments:
A lot of researchers tell me that in today's world our unique skill is not in data collection but in what we do with the data, how we interpret it, how we have impact with it. George is a great example of looking at the same data as we all have access to and finding an alternative perspective. Digging a bit deeper and unearthing some gold. And writing so beautifully too. Lessons for us all.
Did I really write "just $17.7bn"? Since when is $17.7bn "just" anything? That's... like... you could buy my house and car 47,000 times with that.
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