The Vision Splendid

Oh the vision! “Agro business and agriculture is the nation’s future prosperity requiring substantial foreign investment in Australia”, so say Deloittes. Filled with academic authority and the usual mantra of credentials, our friends the economists have done it again – told us something which every person with an ounce (sorry gram) of common sense, already knew.

For the past eight years this humble marketer has been visioning agriculture as our next great resource. I was not alone. Commercial organisations were jumping on the band wagon with me and the supermarkets got it many years ago.

It didn’t take a university degree in economics or a genius like John Maynard Keynes to work it out, logic should have prevailed. So why do we depend on the words of number crunchers who haven’t been really good at predicting anything anyway, before we start listening?

One trait which appears to flow through the economic rationalist and into the treasury is that of short sightedness. Never has advertising punctuated it better, “Should have gone to Spec Savers” and its all due to the mighty political system whose length of service, hence length of strategem, thus length of planning, rests at three and four years depending on the State or Federal election processes.

While the polies restrict their thinking so too do the economists, after all which self respecting politician wants to extend their thinking beyond their term – they may not be there to enjoy the fruits of their brilliance.

Meanwhile the more creative amongst us – you know the guys and gals who use their imagination to tell it like it is, are dismissed as shallow, hollow intellects who dream dreams that never can be and ask, “Why not?”

I mention this because I am convinced business is the poorer for listening to the nonsense of politicians and economists who risk nothing and are only around after the battle has been fought to count the dead. Small business has been fooled into believing that one party or another will help them, despite the fact that their lip service over the years would have made Max Factor a fortune.

The message is simple, stop this predisposition with accountants, economists and politicians and get someone on board with long term vision, imagination and a creative mind who challenges the norms, breaks the moulds, engineers the broken and wants to WIN.

As a visionary I have been told by many, of my child like dreamings. In those times I am reminded of the words of Aldous Huxley, English writer and author of ‘Brave New World’ when he said, “Children are remarkable for their intelligence and ardor, for their curiosity, their intolerance of shams, the clarity and ruthlessness of their vision.”

Come on down to the nursery Mr./Mrs. Small Business Person and find your vision in the sandbox, far away from St. Georges Terrace and Canberra.