City of Villages

In the 1990’s we were the ‘smart’ country.

Then in the 2000’s it was the ‘knowledge’ nation.

Now we’re the ‘innovation’ nation

The truth is that since the 90’s high tech exports shrank and shrank, down to just over 1% of our exports.

That’s not too smart.

Google’s taken care of knowledge.

And just about the only thing innovative about Australia is the government marketing that attempts to create the impression that the opposite is true.

It reminds me of the City of Sydney signs plastered with the logo ‘City of Villages’.

Clearly untrue, no one seems particularly perturbed that this unachievable aspirational goal is promoted as a reality.

The only conclusion that I can draw is that Australians are so used to fabrications that don’t matter that the fabrications simply don’t matter.

Which begs the question, why does anyone bother with them at all?

The answer is that all this people in the marketing sector that are efficiently beavering away at that which should not be done at all aren’t particularly smart or innovative.

Hence they must just look to, say, Germany for their next nation-building branding exercise.

It probably takes them 5 minutes on Google to come up with their next decade long theme.

At least they got the knowledge bit right.