Resolutions are always good to start a new year with: Committing to Gamification sounds like a good one. The goal is to maximize enjoyment and engagement through capturing the interest of learners and inspiring them to continue learning. Then it occurs one element you need is narrative and at least one other is immediate feedback. Then it occurs what we are being conditioned, or thought we are being conditioned by our leaders, corporate and political. Other evidence of this is the narrative we increasingly hear is playing down the unpleasant rather than getting to the point – an example of spinmeisters at work deploying euphemism(s) expecting we let the words wash over us without scrutinising the underlying reality.

So now our good intention is turning out to be a communication strategy and not so much a goal to inspire – We are openly massaging our message to our stakeholders to transition our moving forward. But what if, if the intention was only pro-business and pro-market? By this we mean to benefit the rent-seekers only.

It then occurs that while we have good intention in our resolution, others might not share our values that climate change is real and urgent. That merely adapting for ‘climate variability’ is a loser view. It would seem, according to Dr Neil James: Workers, corporate and politicians alike are digging in for a long fight between the ideology of each for 2015. Reported is you just have ask around and you read and hear; “Minister’s who can’t or won’t compromise, Union’s lack the strength to force their issues, and a workforce wondering what is going on here? “

Co2land org does guess it is about the game after all, and we are still in hope for a happy new year. As was said in Monty Python’s Life of Brian – always look on the bright side of life.

Also introduced are the further extensions of language to confuse and obfuscate, and from Dr Neil James, executive director of the Plain English Foundation and the author of Writing at Work was said:

“In Australia, the nation’s finances dominated the political “narrative”. The Treasurer divided the nation between “lifters” and “leaners”. The finance minister huffed that our public broadcasters were merely being subjected to an “efficiency dividend”. The government later admitted that, yes, this meant their funding was being cut after all.

Then Amanda Vanstone weighed in as a member of the National Commission of Audit with what must be the mixed metaphor of the year: Let’s fix our roof while the sun is shining because we’re on a course to hit the rocks and we have to fix it.

In the era of the mobile device, we are subjected to more information in more places at more times than ever before. It has never been more important to deconstruct this kind of doublespeak and uncouple the corporate spin. 2014 provided plenty of examples of what to watch for in the year ahead.”

Then there are the ‘we are here to help you’ matters – Like the National Disability (NDIS) scheme where parents of young children are being helped. But there is a catch; your special school can now bill you for the government contribution equivalents and other fees that leave them out of pocket in a way not done before.

Then there are those innovation help schemes. One example from a LinkedIn group member involves the ‘improved’ Commercialization Australia Scheme, called ‘Accelerating Commercialisation Australia’.

Under the heading: Accelerating Commercialisation Australia – up close and personal, Mark Dunn wrote – “Having read all the paperwork, FAQs and consumer guides, I lodged an application with Accelerating Commercialisation, and found out what they are really targeting.

Basically, this is product development funds. You have to have your prototype product or service, and are seeking assistance to convert it into something that a customer wants, e.g. making samples to distribute, or working with customers to determine detailed specifications, or working to develop markets.

The rules say the grant scheme is potentially good for $1 million, for 1:1 matching funds, but to quote their advisor, ‘there is not actually very much money’ in the fund.”

Being we cannot help ourselves we set about looking at common reference tools and found:

Accelerating = Slow down (dictionary form antonym)

Commercialisation = making it easy for companies to engage and successfully exploit

Australia = a sing-along medley of mountains, deserts, reefs, forests, beaches and …

I guess with a sense of humour you could say come a waltzing Matildas with me!

But do we need it, to suffer anymore in 2015 with the ‘necessity’ of euphemism, obfuscation and metaphors aided by corporate and political spin?

Then we read something that is food for thought in showing we are all full of it, and that ideology has little to do with success. It starts with the headline: Government running costs to reach record high as disability expenses mount, by Markus Mannheim, 3 January 2015: The Goulburn Post – “Former public service commissioner Andrew Podger, now a public policy professor at the Australian National University, said the expenses were a better indicator of efficiency than the size of the workforce because they included costs racked up by private contractors as well as public servants.

There have been a lot of experiments in efficiency over the years – outsourcing was one, another is shared services to try to take advantage of economies of scale …” he said.

“We had a period of decentralising government bodies and now we appear to be moving back to centralising a lot of work back into departments.

But you can’t say one method is more efficient or cheaper than another: it should be decided on a case-by-case basis for each program.

Real running costs grew rapidly under the Howard government. Labor, meanwhile, managed to restrain its operating expenses despite its massive spending projects to counter the global financial crisis.

Last month, as part of the Coalition’s “smaller and more rational government” agenda, Senator Cormann detailed plans to abolish or amalgamate about 250 government bodies, though most were small committees.

He also released a paper outlining the Coalition’s philosophy on the role of the public sector.

As a principle, government bodies should not be given preference as service delivery agents, where others are more capable of providing the same service …the minister wrote.”

We must finish with tying all this back to our advocating for a sustainable world, and the headline:

Heat is on Abbott government over climate change as world turns, 3 January 2015. “This could be the year of extinction for the climate-change denier” writes Peter Hannam. He goes on to say about the stance of the NSW Coalition Government: “When the Baird government unveiled the first high-resolution mapping of how global warming is expected to shift the climate for NSW, Victoria and the ACT by 2070, officials were quizzed why they weren’t using “climate variability”, a term favoured by federal Coalition counterparts, to describe the outlook.

This is the NSW government, we believe in climate change!” came the immediate response at the last month’s media briefing”.

Co2land org now asks is Gamification to be accessed in a similar way to narcissism. Classified as good and bad! We say we are good!