Why is collaboration important? Because 1 + 1 can equal 3, or even 11, when organisations collaborate and share.

Early in my career, I worked in organisations, where it was evident that nobody “at the top” was really thinking about the long-term future.

At the time, I thought this unusual, but as I engaged with other organisations including government, I realised that it was in fact the norm and only a small number of organisations gave serious thought to their futures, and they were the outliers.

Why should they? There is no real demand in our societies for the long term. It is too hard.

And nobody else is doing it, so why should we?

We have a tendency in our society to act like sheep much of the time, going along with the collective thought stream. “Knowing what everybody knows.”

Gathering knowledge and insights from the common “watering holes’ in society – social media, TV, press, radio and internet. Not always recognising the editorial nature of the “news” and who might be influencing the editing, including rogue state “bad actors” like Russia, China, Iran and North Korea and increasingly AI.

We mostly leave it to the commentators, influencers and newsreaders to inform us. We have little time to do anything else.

Each of us puts the “news” through a “reality check” built from experience, which allows most of the obvious propaganda to be filtered out, but that is as far as it goes.

Most of us are time poor and focused solely on immediate concerns - which is understandable. “Gotta pay the rent”.

This leaves little time for consideration of the impacts of digital disruption, AI, robotisation, computerisation and automation on business, jobs, the nation and us.

Or little time for the bigger picture implications of "interconnection" in a digital revolution that increases the number of connected individuals every single day.

And the digital revolution drives connection across multiple dimensions regardless of whether we notice or not.

We default to “that’s not what I am paid for”, or "it’s not my core business", “not my KPIs” and it ends up being nobody's business.

For a small business this is understandable - BUT - for government at any level...this perspective is unforgivable.

The revolution is happening TO government not FOR government.

It is much the same for corporates. Straightjacketed by what they do every day, there is little time or budget allocated for new options or issues. We default to, “It’s not my core concern” “Not in my KPIs”.

Some corporate and government departments make optimistic noises about “culture change” and “innovation”, but that is only ever as far as it goes.

Surely it is incumbent on larger public and private organisations to consider the future wisely?

But no. Consideration is given only to the next six months, the next election, next ministerial statement, the next board meeting or next quarter bottom line.

It is the downside of democracy – short termism. Nobody is given permission to plan or think for the long-term future.

“What is our collective vision on using the tools of the digital revolution to transform society?”

We don’t have a vision. Nobody knows.

There is enormous inertia and persistent pressure from everywhere to "maintain the same".

That is what happens in revolutions. Incumbency fights back.

We are not comfortable with change. It is not something we enjoy (not most of us). But right now, like it or not, change is being thrust upon us from all directions by a remorseless revolution.

With any new disruptive technology able to change the game completely and permanently. Robotics. AI. Cyberattack. War. Fake news.

“Maintaining the same” doesn’t only happen in government. It happens in corporate. It happens in academia.

Silos. Budgets. Control. Permission. Time.

All these are traditional constraints that the revolution ignores. For the digital revolution keeps connecting, integrating and collaborating anyway.

Our thinking has to follow. And in fact, our thinking has to get ahead of the game. We have to see the waves coming, and use them to advantage, surf with confidence and not be buffeted by the waves of disruptive change.

“Opportunity” blindness is now the biggest problem we have. It dwarfs all other problems and issues spawned by the digital revolution.

We are stuck in small thinking. Ignoring the bigger, connected opportunity.

And that is responsible for all the “wicked problems” we face. Homelessness. Lack of economic complexity. Growing inequality. Climate inaction. Defence inflexibility. And so on.

We need to use the “power” of the digital revolution for our benefit, not “be used” for the benefit of other countries, multinationals, criminals, “jungle” economies and markets.

We should be using technology to improve every aspect of our lives, and leveraging the brainpower of Australian individuals, businesses, universities and corporates to deal with the outstanding issues left by previous governments, and get on with creating a more complex, economic platform to ensure out future.

Selling “dirt, meat and wheat” to the world isn’t enough.

Australia is rated 93rd in the world for economic complexity. Which means fewer high value jobs and high value industries, fewer opportunities for our high value students, high value exports and fewer options for investment and growth.

Addressing this issue will take the collective efforts of all of us to fix.

But it can be done. Collaboratively.

The National Reconstruction Fund (NRF) focuses on a selected and targeted group of productive industries in the following priority areas - renewables and low emissions technologies, medical science, transport, agriculture, forestry and fisheries, resources, defence capability and enabling capabilities. 

Connecting productive ecosystems of all kinds is the key to rebuilding Australian economic complexity – innovation, defence and security, climate action, energy, food & agribusiness, advanced manufacturing, ICT, AI & quantum computing, health, transport, mining services, education and so on.

The myREGION.au platform was developed to connect regions, industry sectors, academia and government into a national collaborative framework.

The platform has a national capability to share events, publish content into the library and enable sharing between individuals in groups organised into connected industry ecosystems. Encouraging the cross pollination and sharing of ideas.

The platform is national, regional and sectoral. Connected and interconnected.

And the platform is aligned with the priority areas of the NRF plus other ecosystems as well.

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” Albert Einstein.

In Australia, we need to foster collaboration and cross-pollination between regions, sectors, government, universities, high schools and technology companies.

The myREGION.au platform is structured to do precisely that.

Ask for a TEAMS tour and see for yourself.

Sign up (free) and look around.

Join a group. Join multiple groups.

Regions, sectors, government, universities and technology companies are all included in a platform designed to support innovation, sharing of ideas, collaboration, networking and information exchange.

Cross-pollination and collaboration can reduce the cost and time spent in creating ideas, can generate startups, new products, services, exports and jobs.

Even move us up the ladder of economic complexity from 93st towards 1st.

Collaboration can diminish risk, build resilience and create high value jobs for the future.

It’s time to explore what might happen when collaboration and shared value changes the equation. From 1 + 1 = 2.

To 1 + 1 = 3. Or even 11.

Together…in collaboration, with vision and purpose, we can do anything.