Bali holidays

It is well documented that Bali is not the destination it used to be, this can be evaluated a number of ways. Bali is no longer the cheap holiday location it once was - true. In many ways, Bali has improved, it is now longer the open sewer it once was according to some. As a Bali holiday gets more expensive, what are the choices? Just take it or seek alternate sites elsewhere?

So where will replace Bali as the cheap destination for international tourists if the droves decide to desert the resort island? Another Indonesian location maybe? East Malaysia, Peninsula Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia or the Philippines? What about Brunei or Myanmar?

I guessing East Malaysia, the longstanding reputation of Tourism Malaysia, the competitive management of dive destinations is a positive, a significant downside is the issues facing Malaysian Airlines. Are the regional budget airlines suitably equipped to handle passenger traffic? For me, that is the main question to be asked.

Master in Management employment prospects from 2014

The Master in Management (MiM) employment report for 2014 doesn't make great reading from an Australasian perspective. Just 1% of London Business School MiM graduates from 2014 headed to Australasia; Asia offered better prospects to graduates indicating the carnage of the Australian job's market hasn't yet bottomed with plenty of downside ahead.

One could argue the United States job's market is poor too; however, capacity is filled by MBA graduates from the multitude of US business schools. This would appear to be less so in Australia with London Business School graduates likely to be well received south of the equator. 

Why I will never own another dive business

The dive business is a low margin, capital intensive lifestyle industry. Whilst the experiences in life can be great, the social costs however can be enormous.

I chose to work in the recreational dive industry after completing a four year technical apprenticeship and working ten years in my technical area. I was due for a break after working on average eighty seven hours per week - the recreational dive industry suited my personal goals at the time.

I went travelling and gained employment as a divemaster, dive instructor and dive centre manager. When I returned home, I maintained employment in the dive industry. The pay wasn't great, the hours long but I was enjoying life again and I could afford to live a life of poverty. So who actually makes money out of the diving industry?

The certification agencies are rolling in money, they sell training materials, dive centre licencing, instructor trainer (course director) training courses, instructor evaluations, insurance, dive centre support materials, promotional materials There is even discussion of private equity firms buying into the larger certification agencies.

The dive equipment manufacturers are making huge profits, they support wholesalers, technical representatives, sales staff, logistical staff and a layer of management. I know this from personal experience, honesty and integrity don't rate highly in their vocabulary.

The dive equipment manufacturers and wholesalers strongly dictate terms to the retailers,with pricing policy, product lines, availability of inventory and refusal of service. Price fixing, cartels and non-competitive practices are outlawed yet dive equipment manufacturers engage in such illegal activity.

Dive centres can be profitable, they are however build on a foundation of low paid workers, internships, that is, paying money to work for free so you can graduate to the minimum wage and part time retail workers. The required capital investment requires an elaborate compressor system, hire equipment, learning materials, safety equipment and the requirement to meet ever increasing regulations.

Most fail, but if you get the formula right, you can buy yourself a great job in retail with some excellent benefits. You just try not to look too hard for a return on equity and a return on investment. I should have stuck with investing in engineering where the return on investment is much greater. 

The dive certification agencies dictate the terms that the dive centre operates, now, you would expect the retail outlets to hold the upper hand in negotiations with the agencies vying for their business, this is unfortunately far from the truth. Dive resorts fare even worse, minimal equipment sales, reduced dive courses with the major income being certified dives.

Google Drive

Annoyed with having to pay a yearly subscription to Microsoft, I have decided to forgo MS Office and seek alternative software for my computer. So I decided to start using Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, Drawings and My Maps as my software of choice on home computers.

All in all, this is a pretty simple suite of office products and while you need an internet connection to use the product, I hope the future is an online download and a program for use on any computer. My preference is the ability to access my working documents from any computer terminal without having to plug in drives and USB connections.

Increase in MBA hires?

I was hoping 2015 is going to look up after a very tight 2014. Whilst a 3% increase is an increase and not a decrease, the MBA employment market is tight. Newspapers and websites are not yet reporting increases in job ads, hopefully over the worst of it is over by December. Yet I am feeling 2016 won't be much better in terms of employment as the market is now saturated by retrenched workers.

The GMAC is the Graduate Management Admissions Council, an American based organisation that developed the entrance examination used by many post graduate business schools. In 1953 the GMAT was formed with offices opening in London in 2007, India in 2009 and Hong Kong 2010 - one guesses job market information is US based as I just don't see this currently reflected in the current Australian job market.

Why bother with the PADI Deep Diver course?

Once upon a time, there wasn't much in the way of deep diver training, so was it worth doing a PADI deep diver course? Even back a long time ago, the answer is no, the question may well be, how far back? Maybe the 1970s, I doubt the 1980s and definitely not the 1990s and beyond.

Did you learn new equipment configurations? No.

Did you follow customised dive tables? No.

Learn decompression software maybe? No.

Did you learn to perform in-water decompression stops? No.

You don't even require extended safety stops.

Learnt gas planning such as rule of thirds, turn pressures, respiratory minute volume, surface air consumption? No.

What about physiological aspects of deep diving; topics such as hypercapnia, nitrogen narcosis, blood perfusion or gas diffusion? No.

Decompression theory and on-gassing, off-gassing, m-values and the half-time concept. Learn how to identify decompression sickness and treatment for suspected decompression sickness. No.

So you used standard scuba equipment, learnt no new procedures, stayed within no-decompression limits, learnt no advanced dive theory or the use of decompression tables and/or software - ouch.

Keeping in mind PADI treats any dive deeper than 18 metres as a deep dive, you may be left feeling that this deep diving course lacks substance. You can even use the deep dive from the advanced open water course as a credit so your four dive course has now been reduced to three dives - exactly what you need to learn deep diving.

I never saw much value in going down to the bottom, kneeling down and looking at colour changes at depth and performing a timed task that you already did on the surface.

The answer is a resounding no, better to take a course from Technical Diving International, a competing dive certification agency and their Intro to Tech course.

Coaching versus Mentoring

In a business setting, much emphasis is currently placed on mentoring and coaching, but like buzz words that get floated around, do we know the differences between coaching and mentoring?

The differences between mentoring versus coaching are subtle but distinct; firstly we should start with identifying the differences between coaching and mentoring. Coaching is primarily focused on skill acquisition whereas mentoring involves skill transfer from an experienced person to a less experienced person. Coaching is performance-based and highly focused as evidenced in professional sports from teams to individuals. 

Therefore, a coach is someone to learn with while a mentor is someone to learn from. When identifying mentoring, a mentor need not be employed in the organisation, in fact, in many cases, mentors are often external to the organisation. Typically, a mentor as as benevolent, mentors act with goodwill as opposed to coaches who are normally remunerated.

Surrounding yourself with people you trust

Whilst I agree with what Rob is saying in principle, the implication is to choose the ideal team based complementing skill-sets and then integrate personal relationships into a high performance team. However, he now runs the risk of creating a mini bureaucracy within an organisation where the team the individual personally selects turns into a best mate’s club full of yes men.

I have seen this occur all too often where dysfunctional relationships trump skills and knowledge to replace competency with nepotism. I am experiencing this exact phenomenon in my current workplace where the organisational culture has deteriorating to such a level, highly competent are seeking new employment opportunities due to this leadership vacuum.

Hard working competent people are at risk of losing their jobs while inefficiencies abound based on religious and pseudo-family values; this is an occupation, not a religious club of best friends. This plays very poorly on the organisation, how do they not see the incompetence playing out before them?

The prices and incomes accord

The prices and incomes accord was macroeconomic policy implemented by the Hawke Government beginning in 1983. The accord was designed to combat the endemic problem of that era - stagflation.

This is the crushing economic condition where the economy suffers simultaneous high unemployment and high inflation - a situation John Maynard Keynes stated was impossible to achieve. 

Hawke's policy affected prices, wages, non-wage incomes, taxation and social payments. As an incomes policy, the economic goal was to limit nominal wage increases in order to achieve a sustained decrease in inflation.

American president, Richard Nixon introduced a prices and incomes policy in the early 1970s and despite a short-term respite, stagflation however returned with a vengeance immediately after the policy was lifted.

The bitter medicine inflicted on the American economy by Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volker to purposely induce a recession finally smashed inflation in the late 1970s. A decade later, the prices and income policy framework was now Australian economic policy.

It was hypothesised that through such anti-inflation policy; employment growth would lead to an simultaneous decrease in inflation and unemployment. Stagflation was a problem Keynes economic theories had been unable to solve; signaling an end to the stagflation period of the late 1970s and early 1980s required monetarist policy intervention.

It has been implied - those who rule wages rule the country, or so it would seem.

The prices and income accord was implemented due to wage inflation varying between 30% (1975) and 18% (1981). Governments unsuccessfully attempted to solve the stagflation problem through various fiscal and monetary policies, a wages breakout was blamed for the 1981/82 recession.

The accord provided a solution to the problem via a decrease in nominal wages without the need for contractionary fiscal and monetary policies, increasing employment at a moderate inflation rate.

Nominal wage cuts led to decreases in real unit labour costs with an increasing proportion of Australian GDP heading towards business profits - away from wages. Increasing business investment, economic growth and employment, wage rises were traded off for economic and employment growth.

Costs, such as the price of labour, are subject to direct influence from agents with market power (unions); incomes policy is designed to influence such agent behaviour. The prices and incomes accord was designed not as substitute for demand demand management policies, but to compliment them.

Therefore, the prices and incomes accord could be implemented restraining wage/price spirals whilst expanding demand simultaneously achieving higher levels of employment. It is also argued the goals of income policies curb inflation to positively influence prices and employment.

Utilising the Phillips Curve as their economic tool of choice; proponents argue labour supply prices increase at a slower rate due to the slower money wage growth combined with simultaneous productivity increases - pushing the Phillips Curve to the left. According to their argument, a lower inflation rate is achieved through a lower unemployment rate.

The prices and incomes accord ultimately ended in 1996 with the election of the Howard government; under Howard, wages rose significantly, productivity rose and wages were negotiated freely.

I am a believer of individual wage negotiations; if you are professional in your conduct and you have knowledge and skills in demand, you hold a strong negotiating position, you have the opportunity to sub-contract your services operating as a small business reaping the benefits of such business structures in a deregulated environment.

Intro to Tech Diving

Once the entry-level dive course is out of the way, dive centres and resorts inevitably want to on-sell further training; it stands to reason, a dive centre or resort is in the business of selling diving. 

Instead of the standard Advanced Open Water Diver course, why not undertake the Intro to Tech instead, the average newly certified diver is likely to gain more from taking this course. 

The AOWD course is pretty weak; of the mandatory dives, the deep dive is a waste of time, the navigation dive is worthwhile and the night dive is the best of the elective dives, the other dives are just that, getting in the water and getting wet.

The Intro to Tech is not a decompression course; you can expect to learn in-depth dive planning, advanced buoyancy control, gas management techniques, situational awareness, correct trim, gear configuration and selection - a much better outcome. 

Not looking after my dive gear

How could I be so stupid? What was I thinking? I had been diving in October, the second week was in Anilao, been there plenty of times in Anilao, I know the routine well.

My normal mode of operation for Friday is two dives in the morning, wash gear, hang in the sun to dry, lunch, shower, pay bill, catch lift to jeepney pick-up point, cramped jeepney ride, bus to Manila and walk to hotel room. This takes hours to execute, but it is the cheapest way and I get to Manila with time to spare in daylight hours.

Of course, once in the hotel room, I pull my gear from my bag to air out. Ok, that is my first mistake, I forgot Friday - probably too keen for Friday night drinks. So Saturday morning, too hungover to care, Saturday afternoon - just forgot. Sunday forgot and Monday flight, not thinking of dive gear.

Ok, arrive home Monday night well after midnight and need to be up 6 am, maybe 4 hours sleep if I'm lucky. Normally I pull my gear from my bag and hang out, instead I didn't unlock, I just threw the bag in the shed.

So here we were in December, I unzipped my bag and much to my surprise, not only is everything still wet, the mould growth is impressive. A brand new regulator (second time used), brand new wetsuit and new bag all looking like 10 years old - my BCD, boots and fins hold up surprisingly well.

I was supposed to be diving in Bali with this gear - a slightly marginal proposition now. An overnight soaking in the bathtub full of detergent, a fresh water rinse out in the morning and some drying off time outside. Breathing from my reg might could have been a bit iffy, I shudder to think what the diaphragm and inner casing looks like - maybe a second soak in detergent is in order.

The inflator is jammed, but not to worry, it hasn't been working properly for over five years now - maybe closer to eight to ten years. I purchased the BCD in about 2003, done about 1000 open water dives with it and countless confined water pool sessions. Oh well, better give it a go, nobody likes a winger.

Tumblr

Tumblr is a social networking website and micro-blogging platform founded by David Karp in 2006 and was launched 2007. Tumblr is now owned by Yahoo Inc after acquiring the business for a reported $1.1 billion USD in 2013 - not bad for a 7 year old business.

I have started to utilise Tumblr for some short form blogs as well as post links to Observations in an Undemocratic World and Travel Observations as Tumblr allows users to post multimedia and other content to a short-form blog format; users also have the ability to follow blogs and comment on people's blogs.

After some research, I learned that development of Tumblr began in 2006 during a two-week gap between contracts at Karp's software consulting company - he started a billion dollar company between projects, amzing. Apparently Karp had been interested in tumble-logs for some time, I'm still not exactly sure what a tumble log is, he was waiting for an established blogging platforms to introduce their own tumble-logging platform. As none had been released, Karp and Marco Arment began development on their own tumble-logging platform and, as they say - the rest is history.