Equitable industry-based funding in government budgets has always been a contentious issue. Close to the top of the industry winners are always mining, agriculture, and manufacturing. And much of the budget funding that goes to support these industries is significant investments in ports, rail and harbour-facilities to enable the import and export of primary and secondary industry ouputs. These facilities are infrastructure beacons that can be irrevocably linked to their industry. They provide an unmistakeable sense of importance, significance and tactile and tangible measurements: job creation, physical exports, investment attraction, and international gateways.

First a few facts. 80% of Australian SMEs do not have an ICT strategy and most buy their technology from the retail channel on an ad-hoc basis.

Taking 1-man operations out of the equation, Australia has about 700,000 small business operators.In fact, the vast majority of  Australian companies are SMEs.  As such, much work is done in Australia by governments in support of the small business operator. On the flip-side however, 81% of the ICT market by spend is accounted for by the top 13,000 companies. It seems that the strategic thinking stops there as well. This policy initiative asks what kind of a powerful return would strategic ICT planning support at the SME level provide to the Australian economy? 

There is currently much economic research done on the use and application of ICT for productivity gains yet there is little support for educating the SME market in ways to plan, incorporate and purchase ICT within the particular requirements of their own business. Even the annual reports and studies to members from peak bodies such as the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) which represents over 350,000 companies, largely ignore the blueprint for ICT. Neither the AIIA nor ACS, nor CA nor CPA are national industry association members of ACCI whereas most other industries are represented. Instead, the value of ICT is communicated to SMEs through a steady national conference or training agenda from unrelated and removed generic training companies. But there are only so many seminars that a person working 80+ hours a week wants to, or can attend. And clearly even less time to implement solid solutions. Ultimately an ICT planning skill would prove infinitely more valuable. 

• How should collaboration strategies be different today than 2-years ago? 
• What is officially in and out of the collaboration stack in 2009 and what are the hand-offs to CRM, ERP and other corporate platforms?
• Outside of advertising, where are the examples of monetization, or other value creation measures from collaborative human networks?
• How will IBM address OpenID and other SSO and identity management mechanisms in the collaboration suite/platform
• What are the mobility and SME options for Enterprise and SMEs in Australia and Asia Pacific?
  

These are just some of the questions I’ve set out to answer in Orlando this week at IBMs annual Lotusphere conference. In 2009 it has attracted over 7,000 attendees making it the single largest collaboration conference on the planet. To put that in context that’s about 1,000 more than are expected in Spain this year for the Linux User Group conference. With all the yellow and black swarming around Walt Disney World it is akin to being in the jostle at the turnstiles of a Richmond home game in finals week.

Such is the zealousness of a Lotus and Domino devotee that I’m sure there will be people attending Lotusphere this week that won’t even realise there is a presidential inauguration on Tuesday (Wednesday Australian time). So I might have to watch what I say this week or just remove my picture from the blog until Thursday. I am looking forward to the fervour of a big American conference. They are quite unlike anything we see in Australia. How many Australian ICT events are opened by Dan Ackroyd?

In February 2005 I stood on the shores of the Persian Gulf and threw a proverbial message in a bottle towards the Iranian shore. Three years and two months later it washed up on a reach of the Potomac River in Sterling, Virginia. In the ensuing days I made a new business associate and rekindled an old friendship.