ICT WA 2007

The conference on Friday 12 October at Technology Park Function Centre was a great success with excellent speakers complemented by worthwhile networking between the diverse, individual participants - much as a reflection of the diversity of the IT industry in WA. The formal opening by the Chair of ICTICC, Valerie Maxville was followed by the opening address by The Hon Francis M Logan MLA, The Minister for Resources, Industry and Enterprise.

In addition to Fran, we were joined by Dr Judy Edwards MLA, Member for Maylands, in a great demonstration of support from the government. I was privileged to be able to speak with Judy about several issues and was gratified to find that she was happy to talk to me about ICT and wider industry issues and has a solid understanding of the subject matter.

The keynote speakers were Vince Troth, GM of Optus in Western Australia who deferred to Dean Smith, GM of Government Affairs to elaborate on the OPEL Joint Venture under Broadband Connect; and Dr Nick Archibald, Executive Vice-Chairman and CEO of Geoinformatics Exploration, who spoke about the ICT challenges in mineral exploration.

The Chair, Valerie Maxville, first spoke of the whole ICT Week which sought to emphasis the ICT WA brand. The week kicked off with the eWaste Collection event 'bring out your dead' computers and other ICT equipment, that doubled expectations in an initiative on environmental commitment. The Women in ICT and Engineering luncheon that was playfully and meaningfully entitled, 'Lack of Women or an Excess of Men? Strategies for Cultural Change,' was a sell-out event, where Jaye Radisich, MLA spoke about similar challenges she has faced in the political arena.

The WA DIG 24-hour gaming event and expo held at the Perth Convention Exhibition Centre showed a range of diverse careers in ICT apart from programming. The ICT WA Portal is under development and will offer information on careers, education and career prospects. Valerie welcomed input into development of the portal, intended to sell ICT WA. She also raised the issue of career and training and strategies for combatting the skills shortage; combined approach of industry, government, education and community organisations.

Francis Logan told an anecdote from the time he was studying economics at Sydney Uni and spoke with Laurie Carmichael, famed union militant of the Amalgamated Engineering Union (AEU). He was a visionary, into model railway collecting, roses and classical music (we promise not to tell anyone), who was ahead of his time in foreseeing the use of computers for organisation and communication.

Fran (as he is known by all and sundry) welcomed the Hon Dr Judy Edwards, Member for Maylands, then spoke about the inquiry, ICT Industry Development Strategy and the earlier Enabling Future Prosperity (2004 by Clive Brown), where his government had implemented 34 of 42 recommendations by March 2006 at $60M cost. This included the creation of ICT ICC (convener of this conference), a great initiative, allowing the ICT industry in WA to speak as 'one group with one collective voice.'

The launch of Project Connect on 27 Sept 2006 supported by the WA Branch of ICN (Chamber of Commerce and Industry), to identify opportunities in government and industry and advising registered companies of those opportunities (www.ictwa.com.au). The WA ICT Capability Directory, currently with 153 companies registered, promotes the WA ICT industry. The ACS Foundation scholarships for under-privileged groups are a point of pride, supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, financially disadvantaged, regional and academically gifted. AIIA development of business skills for entrepreneurs programme; iVEC funding including the APAC conference (this week); 4 Oct Open Source Symposium.

The establishment of Interzone, the third-largest gaming and digital content developer in the USA, in WA. The SKA (Square Kilometre Array) will need massive computing power. The Statewide Broadband Network to link all of government. Tech Park (where this conference is hosted) is a critical part of growing ICT industry in WA. 'Beyond the Boom' - ICT, Marine, Biofuels and Renewables, Biotech expect infrastructure investment of $22B over the coming years. Australian Marine Complex (AMC) - $300M. WA Institute of Medical Research (Prof. Fiona Stanley).

AMC - modular shipbuilding, oil and gas, process facilities, crainage, dry dock to 13,000t ships. Plan to assume control of Department of Agriculture land ~20ha - expect master plan around xmas or early next year - to transform facilities, town centre, shops, apartments. To make Tech Park a dynamic place to work, live, entertain and to be entertained, to showcase WA ICT - the state's largest cluster.

Document Format Wars

Microsoft has proposed to fast track its Open Office XML (OOXML) definition for documents produced in Office 2007 as an ECMA and ISO standard. Their intention is to capture the XML schema that defines the structure of Office 2007 documents including backward-compatible binary components that provide support for documents produced by earlier versions of the office product. These binary component definitions are specific to Microsoft products and are not capable of being produced with or without the OOXML definition.

The Open Document Format (ODF) for Office Applications (OpenDocument) is supported and promulgated by the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) and is enthusiastically supported by a growing band of followers. The reason for the strong following and broad-based support is that ODF is a well-designed and open definition that can be implemented by any party without the need for any additional information apart from that in other open definitions and international standards, like Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG).

OOXML, on the other hand, replicates the equivalent behaviour of numerous open format definitions and existing international standards. Among many others individuals, I submitted technical objections to my national standards body (Standards Australia) of the proposed standard on the basis that OOXML is a long and overly complicated definition of a document format that can only be implemented in full by Microsoft.

To: michael standards.au
cc: daniel systec
Subject: DRAFT INTERNATIONAL STANDARD ISO/IEC 29500, Information technology ?
Office Open XML file formats.

Dear Michael,

I humbly submit a few comments about the proposed DRAFT INTERNATIONAL STANDARD ISO/IEC 29500, Information technology ? Office Open XML file formats.

Please contact me if I can be of any further assistance.

Regards,
Daniel
--
Daniel M. Berinson BE PhD MIEAust MIEEE AFAIM GAICD
Managing Director, Systems and Software Architect
Systec Engineering Pty Ltd and Systec IT
daniel@systec.com.au
040 888 0278 (m)

Template for comments and observations

Date: Due to Standards Australia by COB 21 Aug 2007

Document: DRAFT INTERNATIONAL STANDARD ISO/IEC 29500 Information technology — Office Open XML file formats

1	2	(3)	4	5	(6)	(7)
MB1	Clause No./ Subclause No./ Annex (e.g. 3.1)	Paragraph/ Figure/Table/Note (e.g. Table 1)	Type of com-ment2	Comment (justification for change)	Proposed change	Observations on each comment submitted

AU	1		ge	The document is overly long (over 6,000 pages) and complicated to be an effective specification for implementers.	Shorten the document for this standard by either: 1) partition the supporting material into several other standard proposals; or 2) amend with reference to appropriate standards.
AU	1		te	The document refers indirectly to binary implementation details that are not part of this proposed standard nor are they part of other existing or proposed standards.	Delete references to binary materials and delete references to other materials that are not part of an existing or proposed standard.
AU	2.15.1.28		te	Conflicts with ISO 10118-3 and W3C XML-ENC by defining nonstandard hashing and cryptographic algorithms (likely to be insecure).	Amend with reference to standards that specify hashing and cryptographic algorithms that are know to be secure.
AU	2.15.3.6		te	Example (one of many) of implementer being required to clone unspecified behaviour.	Specify explicitly the required behaviour; otherwise delete references to unspecified behaviour.
AU	2.18.52		te	Conflicts with ISO 639 by requiring the use of a fixed list of numeric language codes rather than the already existing set provided by ISO 639.	Amend with reference to appropriate standard.
AU	2.18.105		te	Refers to nonstandard twips.	Amend with reference to standard units.
AU	3.17.4.1		te	Conflicts with the Gregorian calendar in the calculation of dates by requiring spreadsheet implementations to incorrectly treat the year 1900 as a leap year.	Amend to conform with Gregorian calendar.
AU	4.4		te	Conflicts with W3C SMIL by defining nonstandard multimedia features.	Amend to conform with appropriate standard.
AU	5.1.10.45		te	Example (one of many) of inconsistent and poorly named XML elements.	Revise XML element names and type design (i.e. well-designed complex and simple types).
AU	5.1.12.42		te	Refers to nonstandard English Metric Units (EMU).	Amend with reference to standard units.
AU	6.2.3.17		te	Refers to Windows Metafiles or Enhanced Metafiles instead of using ISO/IEC 8632 or W3C SVG.	Amend with reference to appropriate standards; otherwise delete references to proprietary materials.
AU	6.2.3.23		te	Refers to Microsoft namespace (urn:schemas.microsoft.com:office:office).	Amend to appropriate open namespace.
AU	7.1		te	Conflicts with W3C MathML by defining nonstandard format for mathematical expressions.	Amend with reference to appropriate standard.
AU	8.6.2		te	Conflicts with W3C SVG by requiring support for VML drawing format (not a standard).	Amend with reference to appropriate standard.

1 MB = Member body (enter the ISO 3166 two-letter country code, e.g. CN for China; comments from the ISO/CS editing unit are identified by **)

2 Type of comment: ge = general te = technical ed = editorial

NOTE Columns 1, 2, 4, 5 are compulsory.

page 1 of 2

ISO electronic balloting commenting template/version 2001-10

Grokdoc has pages of contacts, objections and Microsoft's history of dirty tricks in opposing development that supports open standards to the detriment of proprietary standards. As it turned out, the fast-track proposal failed the vote so the final outcome has been deferred - however this state-of-affairs is a cop-out due to the late elevation of formerly uninterested national standards organisations from observer to participating (voting) member status. I regret to say that even Standards Australia abstained, as an unfortunate example of bureaucratic nonperformance.

Worse still is that the problem has not gone away since the fallout from the debacle is that standards work in the relevant working group has ground to a halt. The situation is an embarrassing debacle the blame for which we can lay at the feet of Microsoft and many other organisations that are either corrupt, naive or inept.

Strategic Engineering Management

It's about time I start serious planning for the course I have been privileged to be invited to lecture the Strategic Engineering Management component of a fourth year course in the Electrical, Energy and Process Engineering School at Murdoch University. The engineering course deliver a strong, cross-disciplinary foundation followed by instrumentation and control, industrial computer systems, renewable energy and electrical power specialisations.

There is a cluster of concepts and practices that form the core of strategic management as a transferable discipline and set of skills that can be applied across a wide range of enterprises. The material I wish to present and the way I present it is very much shaped by my personal experience as a contractor and consultant, practitioner and researcher, practicing, speaking and publishing in the technical side of software and systems engineering and engineering management, leadership and strategy.

I credit the Australian Institute of Management (AIM), the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) and the Company Directors Course (CDC) that I have completed to diploma level for contributing to my understanding of management, leadership and strategy (encouraged by my father); in addition to my long-standing memberships of the Institution of Engineers Australia (IEAust), Institution of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and IEEE Computer Society that have added much to my foundation technical background of my undergraduate degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, and postgraduate studies in Physics and Mechanical Engineering at the University of Western Australia.

The AICD CDC was for me a master class with some of the top executives and directors in Perth attending and just a handful of independent and small-company directors like myself. For many of the senior attendees I am quite sure that much of the material was well known and perfectly well understood by them beforehand however I like to think they gained something from the interaction with the presenters, each and expert in the subject-matter they presented during the week of full-time, intensive tutorials, case studies and discussion.

The management structure of organisations is key to understanding the role played by managers in formulating and executing strategy. The board of directors (BOD) of an organisation are tasked in Australia by the Corporations Act to act with due diligence and in good faith for the best interest of the members, usually understood to be the shareholders. The BOD will often take a different approach in startup and some high technology companies however in most mature organisations they will appoint management and delegate certain authorities to that management. Usually this is done via a managing director (MD) or chief executive officer (CEO) who is formally appointed as a staff member who also sits on the BOD as an executive director by virtue of his employment contract (as distinct from other directors who are appointed by the members-shareholders).

The key roles of the MD or CEO include the appointment of other managers and staff, the formulation and execution of strategy, the institution of processes and systems to manage the organisation and organisational risks, the negotiation, authorisation and signoff of contractual and other agreements, the preparation of reports and oversight of the day-to-day running of the organisation. At the same time, the BOD may retain certain authorities including the right to approve the appointment or dismissal of certain senior managers, for example the chief financial officer (CFO) or chief information officer (CIO) among others, the right to contribute to, vary or accept the strategy put forward by the CEO, the right to speak with senior officers of the organisation, the right to approve or deny contracts or agreements above a certain monetary limit or other conditions, the right to receive and ask questions about reports on business operations, the management and mitigation of business risks including both financial and nonfinancial risks.

Which brings us to engineering management, human resources, technology and the management of innovation which define the focal point of our discussion on strategic engineering management. In most management text books and reference guides the management of innovation and technology gets a relatively cursory treatment whereas human resources is rightly regarded as a central facet of management and leadership. Our focus here should be on the management of engineering and technology, the people aspects of innovation in regard to strategic management while acknowledging and reflecting on the close and - relationship between strategic management and project management in this sphere.

It is useful to consider intellectual property, business secrets, patents, copyright, trademarks and design registrations over processes and documents that give a business the edge, so-called core competencies that distinguish one company that excels in its fields of excellence from its relatively mediocre competitors. The knowledge portfolio of an organisation and the management of that knowledge is paramount to the mature organisation retaining its competitive advantage. Knowledge management includes metadata descriptions and the capture of process definitions and guides, best practice quality systems (ISO 9000, six-sigma, CMMI, and so on) and extends to the development of an innovative culture where the best and brightest are attracted and retained by the employer of choice who provides a culture of excellence in an exceptional workplace environment.

Patents are legally-sanctioned, restricted monopolies over the innovative process characterised by the description and statement of claims in the patent application. More to be said here, including perhaps some of my own experiences in the preparation of patent documentation for third parties and considerations for high-technology, software and other engineering companies.

Steven Covey's Eighth Habit otherwise widely and long known, if misunderstood, as encouraging entrepreneurial employees, technical advocates and potential leaders to find their voice, to speak and and be heard by the organisation. The culture shift that is required by management to encourage and stimulate such an innovative culture can be a great challenge for traditional leaders to inculcate in their colleagues and for the forward-looking leader to persist in propagating through their organisation. As W. Edwards Dening, the doyen of Japanese post-war statistical quality control, has emphasised that, "The problem is at the top; management is the problem," insofar as aspirational leadership has to come from the top while recognising that business transformation is part of everybody's job.

HBR Spotlight, March 2007, Leading Clever People by Rob Goffee (london.edu) and Gareth Jones (london.edu) points out that clever people want to work without artificial impediments being put in the way of their way. Their perception of management is shaped by the efficacy with which they can acquire the resources they need to get the job done without undue process constraints or other rules getting in their way. While their focus is on getting the work done in their technical areas of expertise it is paramount that management listens to the concerns and learns from the though leaders in their organisations. Whether by instituting formal or informal forums, ensuring they are informed of various nontechnical issues of relevance, invited to key meetings, and so on, it is important to get input and buy-in from them.

There are a raft of other issues that may be peripherally considered part of strategic management or rightly outside the direct scope but certainly within the consideration of general management. Doubtless there is significant overlap between general, operational, strategic, project and change management. Change management - people, process, technology - applicable to all scales of business, enterprises, industries. The organisational objectives set out in the charter or constitution; default constitution or statement of specific objectives, esp. nonprofit organisation, clubs and associations that may have specific and often narrowly-focused objects.

Risk management is complementary to strategic and project management; whereby reputational risk may be considered at the top of the list of risks to be managed; including mandatory compliance with relevant legislation and regulation - exp. Companies Act, Trade Practices Act (TPA), Occupation Health and Safety (OH&S); ASIC and state consumer affairs, business registration and licensing; ASX Governance Principles for list public companies.

The culture of an organisation permeates every layer of management, divisional and work groups - safety culture in utilities and miners; corporate values and organisational culture from directors and executive, throughout all tiers, from the top-down. Risk management; processes, systems; education, monitoring and sanctions; business, financial and reputational risks; corporate social responsibility (CSR) and triple bottom line. Governance - corporate, financial and IT; annual agenda, audit plan for finance, IT and systems. Strategy assessment: integrity model (CASFA), horizons model.

Financial considerations: NPV and payback period, risk-free interest rate, cost of deferral 6 delays, opportunity cost and organisation potential.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EABOK

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porter%27s_cluster relevance to local tech parks, Aust Marine Complex, gaming/iVec and Uni courses. More to be said on this matter.

Case Studies:

• new and existing businesses - like business and marketting plan but not the same (subset or overlap?)
• new city; new winery; new product; new process; new plant
• infrastructure work (eg. Subiaco and East Perth redevelopment authorities; LandCorp); public/private partnerships (PPP) and risk sharing; new or shared mining infrustructure
• controversy over Fortesque access to BHP rail infrastructure
• issues and planning; energy-efficient bauxite/alumina, nickel and low/high grade iron processing (haematite/magnetite)
• ore crushing, fines, magnet separation, pelletising; copper and lead processing
• coal gassification, carbon sequestration, alternative energy, wind (leader), solar, geothermal
• nuclear, environment impact, policy risk, uranium mining and processing policies; government regulation, Environmental Protection Authority (EPA)
• Woodside Pluto on Burrup, Aboriginal art destruction and relocation
• Japanese LNG gas prices, Chinese contract, spot versus long-term contract; price of energy
• trading carbon credits, carbon caps and cost of capital, relocation of plant to lower regulated countries
• climate-change greenhouse warming science, IPCC and hockey stick controversy; CO2 capture
• SCADA/PLC upgrades; OPC and open-source == proprietary, sole source and multivendor; platform security and robustness
• evolving relationship of control systems and IT (eg. Western Power, Water Corp)
• BHP Billiton value proposition for mooted merger with Rio Tinto
• Western Power proposed Eneabba to Moonyoonooka 330 kV transmission line

Software Engineering For Plant Control

The IICA (Institute of Instrumentation, Control and Automation) hosted the IT4PC symposium on IT for Plant Control last Wednesday and I was privileged to be invited, speaking first up about Software Engineering for Plant Control.

Thomas Fox from WA Water Corporation spoke about SCADA System Management after me. Following a break for morning tea Greg Belcher from Honeywell Australia spoke about Securing your Control Systems in a Windows World; followed by Bob Erickson of Matrikon Australia talking about Practical OPC Applications for your plant. After lunch, Vincent Tsang of Dimension Data gave in introductory talk called Networking 101 and Jeff Alexander gave a general talk about Microsoft's Perspective for your Critical System. We had a stimulating Panel Discussion and afternoon tea before the symposium closed.

Having never before given a talk on this subject matter to this kind of audience I worked quite hard beforehand with the conference organisers to hone my presentation so that it would be of interest to the target audience. To my delight I received some great feedback about the relevance of the systematic approach taken in software and systems engineering to the practice of control systems engineering, the design and implementation of plant controls. My original background is in electronic engineering, control systems and communications so I felt an immediate affinity with my audience and was already familiar with the problem domain.

This talk allowed me to explore more deeply some of the processes that contribute to quality outcomes in systems design in the context of plant control and how some of the usual work practices can be improved. My approach resonated with at least a portion of the audience because I received immediate feedback in direct questions and afterwards in discussion including potentially several invitations to consult with attending organisations. One question pointedly asked about security issues and I confessed to skirting issues related to HMI(*), SCADA(*), security and DR(*) in deference to other speakers who, as it turned out, covered relevant aspects of these topics very competently.

The scale of the Water Corporation's network across the state of Western Australia is breathtaking; over 200 towns serviced, several major and many secondary water and waste water treatment plants. The plan to extend the current SCADA network to the entire service area and all plant is an enormously complex exercise. Of the budgetted capital spend to average $1B per annum over the next 20 years some $40M+ per annum will be spent on control and IT systems. The innovative control centres being built to supervise the network and work with major SCADA suppliers ABB and Serck on these upgrades is impressive, as reported by Thomas Fox. I will avoid going into details about security except to pass comment that Water Corp is a world leader and as a result was invited to represent Australia at the Idaho conference organised by the US Department of Homeland Security. The talk by Greg Belcher about Honeywell's integrated security and plant control systems offered quite a few insights into the complexity of the planning process and the richness of the integrated solution provided by vendors such as Honeywell.

The talk about OPC(*), was interesting insofar as a standard is emerging to replace the mutiplicity of FieldBus-type communications protocols that are prevalent in current plant deployment of DCS(*) and PLC(*) systems. There are several problems with OPC: 1) It is based on OLE(*), that is based on COM(*) and DCOM(*); 2) Complex set of open connectivity standards that are slowly emerging from the shadow of Microsoft; 3) uses many ports, like DCOM; 4) security issues; 5) performance issues; 6) not comprehensive; 7) not unified standard but it is getting there with OPC Unified Architecture. The networking talk and the evangelical presentation from Microsoft may have filled in a few gaps in knowledge for the less-IT aware members of the audience, primarily of control systems engineers and others involved in plant control.

Some of the most interesting discussion of the day centred around issues and breaking down barriers between plant control engineers and IT practitioners. While the high-level objectives of the organisation may be common to both groups their own distinct subgoals often seem to lead a lack of cohesion and alignment in achieving those shared objectives. The willingness of members of both groups to cooperate and to communicate efectively is sometimes uncertain however with management support the reality is that engineers can crossover from one discipline to the other. As with any change process it is possible to make progress but only if senior management buys in and is supportive; often plant control lacks a seat or even a voice at the executive table.

(*) Glossary of Terms:
COM = Common Object Model; Microsoft's component model based on DCS-RPC
DCOM = Distributed COM; Microsoft's distributed component model based on DCS-RPC
DCS = Distributed Control System; for networking PLCs
DCS-RPC = Distributed Computer Systems-Remote Procedure Call (not to be confused with control DCS)
DR = Disaster Recovery; practices for recovering from system failures
HMI = Human Machine Interface; the front end for SCADA and DCS.
OLE = Object Linking and Embedding; Microsoft's document embedding model
PID = Proportional-Integral-Differential loop controller
PLC = Programmable Logic Controller; often includes PID regulator
SCADA = Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition; step up in abstraction from DCS.

Board or Committee?

Today I was asked when does a committee become a board? I answered that usually when an unincorporated body, perhaps a partnership or a club, decides to become a company or an incorporated nonprofit organisation then the committee is now a board of directors. No matter what they are called, directors, commissioners, trustees - however a trustee relationship is another thing again with even more onerous obligations - the group of people who manage or appoint the management to an organisation that is formed under the state Associations Incorporation Act or federal Corporations Act are its directors.

It is always a good idea for a prospective director to do proper due diligence on the organisation, its other directors and management. The new appointee should expect a letter of appointment setting out their duties, responsibilities and obligations as well as rights as a director and member of the board, in addition to undertaking an adequate form of induction as to how to carry out their new function as a board member. Remember that the organisation has systems and process, delegations to the general manager or a chief executive, retained board rights, perhaps subcommittees and be bound by relevant laws in addition to those relevant for all boards. The acts concerning occupation health and safety, the Trade Practices Act and the Corporations Act are relevant to directors in virtually any sphere. How about directors of nonprofit organisations?

There is in fact very little difference insofar as directors are bound to act in good faith and with due diligence, for a proper purpose and in the interests of the members, without personal gain from inside information and while avoiding real, and declaring perceived, conflicts of interest. That seems a lot of responsibilities; how about rights? Directors have the right to view minutes of board meetings for which they were directors, whether present or not; and each director is entitled to seek independent legal advice. The scale and access to such rights should usually be clearly set out in the letter of appointment. Directors usually cannot be dismissed except by a general meeting; they can of course resign. What about when the directors are acting in a volunteer capacity as appointees of other member organisations?

As before, nothing really changes. Directors are bound to act in the best interest of all members and not just the organisations that appointed them to the board. Usually the only directors that can be dismissed other than by an AGM are executive directors who are usually dismissed from the board when they contract if employment is terminated. For appointees from member organisations the appointment and replacement of directors should be clearly spelled out. What if an individual director chooses to act in the best interests of the organisation that appointed him instead of in the best interests of all of the member organisations?

The entity that appointed the person as director can be taken to be a shadow director that is directing the organisation of which it is a member. The director can personally be liable to civil sanctions for not acting in good faith for all the members. The appointed director and the shadow director, being the organisation that appointed him, may be liable for obligations entered into by the organisation for which they are acting as directors. For example, if the organisation becomes insolvent at a time when it can no longer reasonably meet its debt obligations because one or other of the members withdrew guarantees to meet those debts then the shadow directors can find themselves obligated if their actions, seeking to benefit the organisation that appointed them rather than the members as a whole, brought about this situation.

The question of who is the party to take the action against the directors is generally answered as the company itself being the proper plaintiff. The sands continue to drift towards more traditional civil action as if a tort against the responsible directors for failing in their duty of care, essentially being negligent as opposed to being diligent, rather than the gnashing of teeth needed to direct the company to take, in practice to fund, action against its own directors.

Software Engineering Course Design

The media and other commentators are finally coming to grips with the fact that secondary science and mathematics education in Australian middle schools is failing to adequately prepare students for senior high school let alone university. Teachers and curriculum designers have watched dumbfounded as the system they participate in has continued to decline in quality under the combined pressures from adventurous educational administrators influenced by progressive reformers without much respect for the history of science and mathematics, the community they claim to serve, and little common sense.

An article in The Australian points out that middle school education in Queensland is pre-Newtonian insofar as middle school science is taught almost in an almost purely descriptive fashion absent the analytical approach founded by Newton, lacking the modern scientific approach of Bacon. Let alone Einstein's physics of the twentieth century with the generalisation of Maxwell's work unifying electromagnetism to the invariance of electromechanics in inertial and non-inertial frames. Advances in chemistry since Mendeleev codified the periodic table of the elements, the development of quantum mechanics being the foundational theory for chemistry and influencing every area of modern science.

From an engineering perspective many of the most important developments in control and communication systems, mathematics, information theory and computing occurred in the pre and post first and second world war periods. Developments in Bertrand Russell's codification of mathematics and Godel's counter theory on incompleteness, Shannon's information theory, the practical developments in mechanics and radio theory as a result of military advances in radar, ballistics, coding and code-breaking, Turing's work on computability and von Neumann giving us the essentials of our modern computer architectures.

The accreditation of university degrees is predicated on meeting a number of requirements including adequate coverage and rigour in course content. The measure in software engineering accreditation, the metric against which the technical content of such degrees are assessed is comparison against standardised bodies of knowledge, for instance, the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge (SWEBOK) - assessed against the SWEBOK Guide. Many professional areas of practice are assessed against standardised knowledge including accounting, law, medicine and we may even consider aviation pilot training and building trades like plumbing, carpentry and electrical trades.

The distinguishing feature for university degrees in science and engineering is the necessary emphasis on the foundational bases in mathematics and the sciences. The tension between these foundations and the practical knowledge bases is not replicated in any of the other fields. Competent engineering practitioners need to be educated in mathematics and relevant sciences in addition to being well versed in the necessary methods and practices associated with the body of knowledge for the profession.

Each area of engineering practice has its own knowledge base, customs and traditions. Clearly mechanical, civil and electrical engineering are significantly different in usual practice even if we recognise that each shares foundations in maths and physics, statics, dynamics, mechanics, thermodynamics, and so on. For instance, civil and structural engineers are interested in loadings on structures with some interest in mechanical elements that are of greater interest to mechanical engineers who utilise electrical instrumentation and power systems that may be of primary concern to electrical engineers - all related but distinct fields.

There is a close relationship between software and systems engineering. Both are involved with complexity of requirements, analytical rigour as far as is necessary, significant design and associated documentation. When one speaks of external interfaces as a facet of requirements alongside user interface, functional and nonfunctional requirements software and systems become interchangeable. Most nontrivial systems employ software components and most nontrivial software systems interact with non-software components. Where does one discipline begin and the other one end?

Ethics and IT Governance

The concept of IT governance is foreign to most software developers and IT practitioners. The situation has to be altered because officers inside IT and IS departments have the same governance and compliance obligations as their brethren, the corporate and administrative officers.

That you may retain your self-respect, it is better to displease the people by doing what you know is right, than to temporarily please them by doing what you know is wrong.
- William JH Boetcker

I was looking for a hook to start this article when the above quote showed up in and it tickled my ethical bone. Boetcker phrased the sentiment in terms of self respect that I understand to include intellectual and professional integrity, being the ethical responsibility to carry out our roles in an effective fashion and by definition to operate within our areas of knowledge and ability.

Company directors and executives in Australia know this responsibility well from the Corporations Act that imbues them with the obligation to act in good faith, without conflict of interest, with due diligence and for a proper purpose. The due diligence condition has been repeated tested and in practice is similar to negligence. As an issue of compliance, it is arguable that officers of a company must be sufficiently well informed and to have processes in place, training and sanctions to enact such policies. The usual business outcomes and operations give meaning to proper purpose. Conflict of interest resonates with our common sense. What does in good faith mean? To whom does this obligation fall?

Good faith is difficult to ascertain but may include behaving in the fashion that a reasonable person would have in factually similar circumstances, nominally an objective test. In another article I explore in a feather-weight fashion the ethical obligations of forming an opinion and acting in an ethical fashion - in this article I wish to address the same issue a little more seriously and with particular attention to IT governance and the obligations of officers and practitioners in an area that is often a technical minefield. As a result, it is even more important that the technical practitioners in IT and IS make every attempt to properly inform their superiors in their organisations so that the decision makers can make properly informed decisions.

In areas of general management, marketing and human resources it is far more likely that the responsible executives are reasonably versed in the applicable knowledge space so the obligation for their staff to keep them informed, while it exists, nevertheless exerts less pressure. However in IT and IS it is incumbent on the technical practitioners to make their knowledge available in an appropriately summarised form to the responsible officers because those executives cannot access the information they need without this kind of assistance.

The responsibility to put into place the processes to support such a system of communication and reporting is, of course, the responsibility of the directors and officers, the executives that managed the enterprise. Departmental general managers cannot shirk their obligation to remain accountable for their departments performance and their responsibility to put in place compliance systems to support these functions.

Certainly these are well understood in finance and accounting, where the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) may oversee internal and external audit programmes that report to the Risk, Audit and Compliance committees of the Board of Directors. The equivalent functions for the IT and IS departments have similar outcomes but the internal audit function will be the semantically equivalent series of reviews that are held of documents, designs, code and test as part of the software development life cycle.

The conclusion we must reach is that document reviews, peer reviews of designs and code are an obligatory part of the governance and compliance obligations that need to be met by organisations that depends on these functions. Part of assessing and managing financial, reputation and business risk is clearly within the sphere of IT and IS and should be deemed to the relevant department. The software development processes of design and code reviews, document reviews and testing and a natural part of the risk and compliance culture of enterprises where the relevant officers and their subordinates need to be educated of this fact.

The Chief Information Officer (CIO) has this obligation and the people who report to him are required to provide sufficient information for him to adequately perform this function. To do so is to act in an ethical fashion and to retain ones self respect.

UWA reviewing course structures

The University of Western Australia is undertaking a comprehensive review of course structures across all teaching areas. The Vice-Chancellor encourages graduates to get involved in the Course Structures Review process and give them the benefit of our insights.

Professor Alan Robson
Vice-Chancellor
The University of Western Australia

Dear Prof. Robson,

I entered UWA in 1987, graduated from with a BE in Electronic Engineering and finally completed my PhD - with some challenges due to my cross-disciplinary approach - in Physics and Mechanical Engineering. In addition to Engineers Australia and IEEE, I am an associate fellow of the AIM and a graduate of the AICD Company Directors Course.

My professional work focus has shifted from electronic and systems engineering, where I primarily worked in defence, underwater acoustics and controls, to software engineering and enterprise IT (see http://systecit.com) - much of my work is in strategy, process and change management. Recently I was invited to join the Engineering Advisory Committee (EIAC) of Murdoch University; I am leading the charge to bring the Australian Software Engineering Conference to Perth for the first time in 2008, sitting on the EA ITEE Panel and the board of ICTICC.

I do not intend to address the entire course structure review instead focussing on science, mathematics and engineering:

• The wide diversity and fragmentation of courses is a problem in understanding for prospective entrants, prospective employers of graduates and contributes directly to declining course quality.
• Recommendation: Reduce the number of engineering disciplines and reintroduce common first and first/second years for all degrees.
• Recommendation: Teach subjects in their primary department or faculty of knowledge instead of the degree course. For example, reverse the shift of mathematics, physics and business courses into engineering and instead ensure they are taught, as quality and general courses, by experts in mathematics, physics and business - not by engineering specialists.
• Secondary recommendation: Adopt a common, undergraduate degree structure like Melbourne University and other world-class universities abroad - substantially the same as the Bologna Process or Melbourne Model with variation to account for local traditions.
• Issue of combined degrees missing essential elements of either or both of the component degrees, including the cohort experience of law, medicine and engineering students; fundamental, advanced and specialise units from first and final or honours years.
• Recommendation: Reshape dual degrees to be primary degrees plus secondary major or minor to ensure the primary study is at the same or higher standard than the standard degree. (Note that I believe dual degrees are great marketting for universities and graduates alike but have little value otherwise.)
• Recommendation to either: 1) Mandate core science and mathematics units across all science and engineering curricula; or 2) Create a stream that allows core and advanced science units (eg. physics, chemistry) to be taken by science and engineering majors.
• Research, postgraduate studies orientation should be an option for all advanced students who show the right aptitude and abilities. The previous recommendation on core science and mathematics units will enable this potential to be reached. (It is embarrassing to meet graduates, even more so postgraduates, who lack foundational knowledge and problem solving abilities in their notional fields of expertise or profession.)
• The creation of professional PhDs or doctorates is fraught with problems of perception and equivalence vis-a-via research and problem solving versus advanced professional standing. "Dr" versus "Mr" for prestige or public perception - some medical specialists revert to the latter. (The administration of PhDs is of personal interest since I struggled in the political rather than technical environment for my degree; others simply drop out.)

The declining intake into university computer science, engineering - especially systems and software engineering - and the quality of the graduates is of national concern. The structure and content of relevant university degrees, entry requirements and pathways into courses are important factors that have to be considered.

If I can be of further assistance please do not hesitate to contact me.

Regards,
Daniel
--
Daniel M. Berinson BE PhD MIEAust MIEEE AFAIM GAICD
Managing Director, Systems and Software Architect
Systec Engineering Pty Ltd and Systec IT

daniel at systec.com.au
040 888 0278 (m)

GO3

The opening address for GO3 by Francis Logan, MLA - Minister for Energy, Resource, Industry and Enterprise - set the upbeat and positive tone for the day by announcing $1B in funding over a decade to bring fast, fibre broadband to every home in Western Australia. On top of half million dollars in support provided by the government for Interzone Games to set up a studio in Perth, Western Australia. Interzone Entertainment COO, Robert Spencer noted that Interzone are hiring - seeking recruits to staff the 300-strong complement for their Perth studio. I only attended the first day of the three day conference and expo and give my heartiest congratulations to the organisers, presenters, attendees, government and other supporters for putting on such a great event and also for their wonderful job in promoting Perth as a site for Interzone and others in the games industry.

The morning sessions had Keita Lida, Director of Content Management, APAC, giving an interesting an involving talk about Nvidias hardware GPU developments in the context of games history - he is a notable games historian - and future developments, followed by Tetsuya Mizuguchi, founder of Q Entertainment Inc, recognised as one of the top New Media Producers and Innovators by the Producers Guild of America. On the technology front, Keita Lida made a persuasive argument for the strengths of the ongoing and growing PC game market due to the continuing technology upgrades available to PCs that are deferred until the next hardware cycle in consoles like the Xbox360 and PS3. I am somewhat unconvinced by his conclusion that PC game titles are as good or superior to console games because such an argument mostly negates the reason for the tight platform integration and advanced features in consoles, including multiple cores and specialised functionality. Albeit part of his role to evangelise the energing Nvidia SLI technology that enables scaleable graphics, physics and AI performance by employing multiple graphics cards.

The talk by Tetsuya Mizuguchi was a timely followup to the Metamorphosis of Melbourne event run a short time ago by Form as part of the Creative Capital series. I was enthused about his entertaining the relationships between different modes and media in the creation of his game play, an epiphany that led to his current thought-leader role in the genre due to his sophisticated approach to multimode games, following earlier successes for SEGA like Rally Championship and the wonderfully immersive Manx TT Superbike game that physically involves the game player. It was particularly interesting to hear the relationship between the vivid colour of Kandinsky's art work, painted to Jazz and other music, the colourful and pleasurable immersion of techno rave parties and the gloriously retro Senorama as motivating elements for his fabulously fun dance game Space Channel 5 through Rez, who flies through space rhythmically destroying targets with arresting gameplay, and Lumines an addictive, hip and stylistic musical puzzler, that both combine the elements of colour, music and vibration in a visual, auditory and stimulatory feast. In terms of innovation and creativity, Tetsuya Mizuguchi's talk called Inspiration led Creativity was an inspirational case study to a rapt audience.

After lunch, John De Margheriti, CEO BigWorld and John Passfield, Pandemic Studios gave interesting talks on, respectively, the Future direction of MMOGs and Destroying all humans around the world, alluding to their refreshingly retro-alien, kill-humans, fun-take on 1950's USA and its translation into a (apparently surprisingly) successful title in Japan. The BigWorld Technology solution provides a mature middleware platform for developers of Massively Multiplayer Online Games that is fast becoming the industry standard. John De Margheriti gave some interesting advice on industry directions by citing some of the trends and market differences evident between, for instance, Western markets compared to China and India. China is a gigantic, largly online market that favours server session management for first-person, shooter-type games, having less emphasis on the quest-oriented MMOGs that dominate the USA and Europe, while India has an enormous base of lowered-powered machines that are largely used to play the computer equivalent of the national obsession leading to a 20 million strong installed base of the computer game of Cricket.

John Passfield's talk about translating Destroy All Humans! or DAH into a Japanese release. DAH is a wonderfully subversive game based on an Alien named Crypto who kills humans with his amazing array of weaponry - in particular the anal probe that causes human heads to explode so Crypto can collect the DNA remnants of his race from the human brain stem that is emitted in a gooey mess of cerebral material and fluids. The Japanese market required this to be changed to a life gem being provided for the player rather than brain parts after the same, screaming, running escape after being anally probed. The 1950s references to McCarthyism among others do not translate well across cultural lines and were changed to largely equivalent Japanese pop cultural references, for example, Godzilla, along with a full language translation, while retaining the essential features of the game unchanged. The issues with translation, a huge task involving 6000 lines of text and large amounts of character speech, are of syntax, semantics and contextual meaning - reminding me of the issues surrounding translations of word play in Douglas Hofstadter's GEB.

I got to hear Harvey Smith, studio creative director at Midway Studios-Austin, talk entitled The Imago Effect: Avatar Psychology before I had to leave. The issues of character projection from the player to the avatar, the development and meaning of the sense of self during immersive gameplay, and cultural issues affecting game and character design, point of view (i.e. first person, moving camera; text choice menus), well-defined versus undefined characterisation - formed the theme of his talk. The talk covered a broad spectrum of ideas that range from the historical development of such features as hair, mouth, noise and eye on Mr Potato, in early and current computer games in almost identical fashion. An intriguing example he used was a line to a Russian private named Vasili in Call of Duty who was told he should throw a potato down range instead of an expensive grenade, as part of scenic and character development.

I was fortunate to have the opportunity to chat with Masaya Matsuura and John Passfield about project and software engineering management issues in games development. Also to engage Tetsuya Mizuguchi briefly in coversation after lunch when I had spoken with an architect about the similar confluence of creative sources that stimulate our own work in architectural and software design. There was a large contingent of students, recent graduates and game-industry hopefuls in attendance - giving hope for building the mass and scale needed to supported a proper games, serious games (eg. simulation and training) and supercomputing industries that tend to pop up together in clusters as witnessed in Brisbane and Melbourne that are already so very successful in this space. Another contact I must followup is an Asian training organisation about opportunities for collaboration between universites and companies that seek to train or employ game developers and designers, or to outsource studio work.

Metamorphosis of Melbourne

Perth is at a crossroads for making decisions for its future. The Creative Capital initiative run by Lynda Dorrington and the Form team, heartily acknowledged, has had speakers in this series including Al Gore on climate change, Charles Landry on the city, Opher Yom-Tov on the innovative approach taken by IDEO - this event has Jeff Kennett talking about Melbourne and how Perth can be transformed into an attractive, sustainable and livable city. Thanks credited to Department of Industry and Resources, Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Rio Tinto WA Future Fund.

Jeff Kennett started off by saying rather modestly that his period in government ended many years ago and is largely irrelevant in the modern world. Upon election inherited a basket case with $32B in state debt the approach taken was from fundamentals - self confidence, preparation and courage to execute. Leadership and management are often underrated but were needed to lift a dispirited, run down community. The most important things are confidence, who and where we are, to be upbeat and look after our health. Pursuing money does not equate or equal quality of life.

Jeff noted that he spent a long time in opposition - not necessarily a prerequisite for good government but it couldn't be avoided - his lively and humorous bringing more laughter to the audience. In politics you have to surround yourself with good people from the private and public sectors because it is easy to lose touch with reality outside of parliament. He noted it is important to move quickly after election and in his case they made the decision to move on all fronts at once - economy, education, health, planning, building. Decisions can be misunderstood by many to provide rewards very quickly:

• Reduced number of departments from thirty down to eight.
• Removed senior public servants after first cabinet meeting - before lunch then more after lunch.
• Reduced the number of public servants by thirty thousand.
• Give hope by working on the little things, not just the big things: Major events program including the Grand Prix - borrowed from Adelaide - to signify the state is on the way back - things are happening.
  

Major projects that will have impact in 50-100 years time: The Docklands project - run down, derelict buildings to thriving will take another 20 years to complete - turning Melbourne around from looking inwards to looking out to the sea. Require from the Planning Minister that every project needs to be decided within two weeks - use power of private sector.

Cultural program: Old city architecture updated with younger city architecture in last 20 years; owners had been allowed to run down buildings; $1B capital program for museums, convention centre, library, glass dome, Federation Square - even as borrowed $1B to shrink workforce. Architectural competition for each project - all approved - trust the experts.

Better control of taxi system which was run down, dirty, poor English, lack of knowledge of major events, pink uniforms, no smoking, no eating, higher education - pink got people talking - yellow is international colour for taxis. Government generally - everything is possible - good times around you, confident to deliver positive impact. Most radical series of reforms of any government in Australia:

• New government members and parliamentary colleagues.
• Try to explain, don't give in.
• Otherwise will not be able to complete reform program.

Dramatic turnaround in 3-4 years. Property tax $100 per household to signify that we are all in this together; all junk bond status; two years later the tax came out - measure of success. Five fingers of leadership:

1. Clearly understand good - not left/right but common sense.
2. Strategy to achieve goals.
3. People to help deliver strategy.
4. Consistency of policy - commercial life, politics and own home - public pressure grew in first two years - cannot succumb.
5. Reward - demostrate to community, actually delivering results - tax off, building and cultural centre.

One example of change - bring about change very quickly. Give Perth a greater sense of purpose and activity. Comes here for work and football and thinks of Perth as missing community - what other reasons for coming to Perth? Does perth have a heart? A heart beat? I am sure it does but it is hard to find. Open, pristine, almost constipated - not being critical - don't have a vibrance of Melbourne or Sydney, or even Adelaide. Give the city of Perth a greater reason for being. There doesn't seem to be a champion for Perth - Perth City Council, State Government - need a champion and for Perth to be good at something, a point of difference. Too much interference and bureaucracy - great deal of cost and frustration. Access to river.

How many of you from Melbourne? Most of you (laughter). Geelong - Deakin moved to other side of lake - water, boardwalk of actibity, cafes and restaurants. Use water - Convention Centre is ugliest thing I've seen in years - drawing more laughter. Active sports program - major events program - architecture - form of art - sculptures. Freeway - art - gateway to Melbourne - cheese sticks. Wonderful cultural city, huge range of eateries and sporting events. Points of difference in area of education - good at gas, open pit - difference to schools over east. Colin put up water pipeline - I've been on National Water Plan since 1996. Exciting - bring country and city together - enthusiasm, will eventually happen. My mother died and could not cancel magazine subscription due to privacy act - squeezing us all together - she just can't do it (laughter). Expensive - I don't know the final cost, I don't think Clin knows either (laughter) - $3B will seem cheap in 10 years.

I don't want to say too much about Sydney but it's a backwater after 10 years of labour government. Cannot wait to do common sense thing - Perth either changes or stays the same and gets old quickly. Go to Melbourne - Grand Prix, sport, eat, drink - visit your children. Questions.

Reorganise local government from 109 Perth metro councils and 150 in state - councillors with no skills and no training? Changed in a flash - no flashing over here (laughter) - from 211 councils - sacked them all, administrators three or so - down to 72 - new government only changed on boundary so must have been pretty good. Gough Whitlam, Neville Wran were the greatest reformers. Recognise that rural coucils cover large areas but City council is too small - should include Burswood [no comment on split into Perth, Vincent and Cambridge; current Belmont and Victoria Park boundary issues]. Increasing Commonwealth Goverment infleuence and taxation - states have lots of money to cover their mistakes. In 50 years, three tiers of government might be slightly different.

Rural - health, education, cultural centres - close a school is bigger issue to small community - country feels it more. Major events program helps city more, rural feels left out - strong capital, strong state. Farmer from small town outside Mildura asked for Grand Prix - no support, no race track. Do something different? Budgetted for $6M surplus - election promises would have spent some of $1B surplus (informal from Treasury) in priority areas that needed it.

Jeff does not regrest outcome of election - would have been nice to have one more term to lock in reform. Proud to have served in office - left state with high confidence. Teach children about change - one door closes, another opens. Chairman of Beyond Blue - older people don't handle changes well and become terribly depressed when leave jobs or sacked. Work for Beyond Blue more important that anything he did in politics. Challenging and provocative talk - bottle of wine, something we do as well or better than Victoria. I like you positive thinking, Ian!

The focus on this talk and the wonderfully insightful writings of Charles Landry in The West Australian is on the physical and psychological geography of Perth city. My personal interest extends beyond these concepts and, by extension, the cultural and social life of the city - as important as they are - to the technologically creative and innovative.

It is without surprise that I read the ANZ is uninterested in divesting itself of the 34% stake it holds in E*Trade - the foundation of its online stockbroking facilities - to IWL. I suspect many would be surprised that IWL, based in Melbourne, is the owner of Sanford Securities and JDV, formerly part of Hartley Poynton, that provide the NAB and Westpac online stockbroking sites. Both of these companies were founded in Perth and, along with companies like ERG, Austal Ships, CCK Treasury, Asgard - part of the fifth pillar St Georges Bank, formerly Sealcorp and still based in Perth - are a few high profile outcomes of the terrific innovative spirit in the West.

The continued development of Bentley Technology Park, the Australian Marine Complex in Henderson and similar initiatives are essential for Perth to finally achieve the numbers of participants and scale of development required for the formation of industry clusters that are locally absent. It would be a great shame, and an enormous leap backwards, for Perth to focus its higher education on mining and related technologies - as has been suggested by some misinformed groups - since mathematics, physics, engineering and computing are fundamental to all of these endeavours and provide necessary and essential support for those industries. My fondest hope is for the primary, secondary, post-secondary and tertiary sectors to collectively pick up their socks and to concentrate on being among the best on the world in mathematics and science studies and research. The Australian Marine Complex, companies like Austal Ships and Nautronix, partnering with General Dynamics and purchased by L3 respectively, are remarkable local entities that together with Tenix, Raytheon, Thales and others should be the foundation of a world-class cluster centered on the Australian Marine Complex and other complex industries in the Kwinana area - like Gladstone, Queensland; Wollongong and Newcastle in NSW.

The sciences and the arts are largely indistinguishable to insiders who practice across accepted discipline boundaries and offend the norms accepted by outsiders. The intrinsic beauty of mathematics is much like the ethereal and haunting notes of a Bach cantata that reached to the heavens, each level of abstraction, each voice of the canon, building higher and higher in an ascending crescendo of voices. The design of engineering and computing systems, process control and instumentation are likewise deeply layered and complex arrangements composed by the practitioners in the respective fields. It would be shame to turn further inward at this juncture when the proper path is to embrace and extend or strengths across mining and resources, controls and instrumentation, defence, marine and other systems.

Rugby Foundations

For a few years I have been talking about getting back involved in rugby as a player or as a coach. Since I stopped playing team sports at university about 15 years ago I have been increasingly running for exercise, sometimes cycling and often exercising in the gym. A couple of years ago I got a personal trainer to get my fitness up to scratch and do some boxing at the same time. It worked for my fitness but not my playing confidence. I have not gone back to playing and when a ball hits the tip of my fingers, as it did at the park with dogs and wife in attendance, six weeks later it still has not healed properly.

When I was playing it took two or three weeks. As I discovered at Rugby Foundations on the weekend, my tackling confidence and ability in uncontested, kneeling scrums, for coaching technique you see, is maybe as good as than 13-14 year olds also in attendance. The memories of being twisted and wheeled in the scrum, unavoidable when playing hooker in seniors, even the humble, lower grades, came flooding back with a shock. And a day later, my shoulder and neck hurts, my groin strain has returned, muscles I had forgotten ache, yet I did run 6 km at the gym on Friday and am probably stronger than I have ever been.

The coaching of technique is far advanced over my earlier experience. I learned more about basic skills in a day with Brendan and Anthony, coaching and refereeing managers of Rugby WA, than in my entire playing days. When I played at high school and at university, we were neither taught how to tackle, ruck, maul or throw properly. Only slightly tongue in cheek, it may not have helped much because the techniques then used were not very good.

The emphasis on early-stage learning or skill, progressing through drills and finally to autonomous learning is familiar with anyone involved in teaching or coaching in other fields. In Karate, the fundamental punches and kicks are taught through Kihon, repetitive sequences are drilled in one and three-step attack-defence patterns and in longer patterns called Kata, leading to Kumite, where the individual exhibits autonomy in free fighting. Piaget's early stages of cognitive development, B.F. Skinner's precision learning and positive reinforcement, individual attainment, individualism and existentialism. The choice becomes our own and learning is an active process.

Each of the key areas covered in the foundation course was in turn demonstrated from a coaching and referee perspective. Repetition is a great way to learn and physical sports, practiced on the field, give a feeling of achievement even if only for the kinesthetic learning through repetition. As a foundation course leading onto accreditation in either or both of coaching and refereeing I throughly enjoyed myself. The camaraderie between former players and juniors was there even through the age and experience gap. Shared experience tends to draw like-minded people together in spite of other differences.

I experienced an epiphany of sorts insofar as I now consider refereeing as a possibility. Before the course I could not reconcile the thought of managing the game of rugby under pressure from players, coaches and spectators with my enjoyment of the game. Through his knowledge and enthusiasm, Anthony O'Shea has demonstrated otherwise and I have an inkling to referee, thankless job though it is.

Both coach and referee are filling management roles at different times for the same goal. The coach is in a preparatory, strategic and tactical position of shaping his players, team for each game, the season and for individual development of the players. The referee is either in the background or in the spotlight, continually under pressure to make decisions, often with limited information, and a responsibility to preserve the contest and continuity of the game under his direction, the integrity of the game of rugby in general, and the safety and well-being of the players involved.

It may be wonderful to be involved in any sport as a player or spectator but it is something special to give something back to other players, the community and the game they play in heaven.

ASWEC 2008 Perth Bid

Perth, Western Australia is a wonderful place to live and has so much to offer but sometimes the laid-back attitude starts to grate a little. Here, over east and abroad there is a tendency to overplay the small town card. So remote and so far from wherever the speaker thinks is somwehere important. The failures are accepted and the successes downplayed. A corollary of the tall-poppy syndrome, perhaps: We had better not stand up tall in case someone knocks off my flower petals. Bond winning the Americas Cup in 1984. The inglorious fall of WA Inc. at the end of the decade. In many ways, think of the positive economic and intellectual exuberance Austin, Texas and you won't be too far wide of the mark.

I have never abided by such talk (not for long, anyway) and negativity. Perth is the Australian and even the world leader in several areas of software and technology. Not to mention being the epicentre of the current mining boom. The economic opportunity that will guarantee prosperity for a generation. Supported by rapid growth in India and China it is assured that WA will continue to earn premium prices for iron ore and liquified natural gas, among other resources, being exported in staggering quantities by BHP, Rio Tinto, Woodside and attracting newcomers from mainland China into iron ore, much as Japan a generation ago, witness Mitsui as a major investor, in addition to recent homegrown startups like Fortesque.

Perth houses centres of excellence in oil and gas for Woodside and major shareholder Shell, is a centre for expertise in mining software with companies like Maptek, and mining simulation with Immersive Technologies. Clough Engineering is respected in engineering throughout the region along with a raft of other service companies. In this sector, software and IT pays second fiddle in a supporting role and as an economic multiplier and enabling technology for mining, oil and gas, resources, processing, logistics.

Less well known and hardly ackowledged is that for a significant while Perth housed the companies that built two (or three?) of the four major banks online web sites and provided their initial forays into internet stockbroking. JDV, formerly part of Hartley Poynton stockbrokers and now part of IWL, Sanford Securities an impressive startup, now also in the IWL stable, our largest funds manager Asgard, formerly Sealcorp and now part of the fifth banking pillar, St Georges Bank, along with homegrown technology for the Perth-based headoffice of BankWest, part of Bank of Scotland, and the brilliant CCK Treasury, the mixed treasure ERG, Perpetual Trustees and others on St Georges Terrace or Colin Street. Such a wealth of software riches from these companies puts paid to the notion that Perth is behind in respect of development. Quite the contrary, it appears that Perth is an Australian and world leader in several of these areas. If you are not convinced, do a little research of your own because I have other areas to discuss besides resources and finance.

Defence, ship building, telecommunications, physics, medicine, other science and engineering disciplines abound in Perth. As an exercise, you can read about the Nobel prize in medicine awarded to University of Western Australia researchers Barry Marshall and Robyn Warren for their work discovering Helicobacter Pylori. You can read about Austal Ships and their world leading trimaran ferries at over 100m length; partnership with General Dynamics for the USA next generation littoral combat ship. Raytheon and Thales, formerly ADI-Transfield, have offices here and among local companies L-3 Nautronix, until recently the last, remaining listed company standing from the second-board of the 1980s, privatised and then sold to defence conglomerate L-3; should lead to greater exposure to world markets for its amazing, unique and world-leading technologies in underwater communications and acoustic ranging.

The high probability of the square kilometre array, the world's largest radio telescope, and its associated supercomputing facility, being built in Western Australia. Gravitational wave observatory at Gingin, low phase noise sapphire clock (i.e. accurate over short time intervals), leading audio and acoustic technologies, control systems, electronics, airport weather stations, wireless communications at the Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute, QPSX founded by the same leaders who invented the wide-area bus and protocols used worldwide in TCP/IP and ATM networks. World-class talent, innovation and leadership in science, engineering and business.

It is time that an international IEEE conference in software engineering came to Perth. The Australian Software Engineering Conference is a joint conference of Engineers Australia and the Australian Computer Society that publishes IEEE proceedings and attracts a significant international participation as a consequence. I am passionate that ASWEC should come to Perth after spending the past twenty years in the east and I am working diligently to make this opportunity a reality. Perth and surrounds has so much to offer conference attendees in return.