See also Intellectual Property | Research
We started working with the USA in 1997 and 1998. After a competitor brought out a Web indexing tool in April 1998, we decided not to compete. Also one of our students from USA took our Web indexing course material after 1998 and developed a competing online tutoring service for mainly US customers so we left that field too. We were too trusting and naive. We pulled back from the lucrative though risky US market due to the constant grind of competitors and copy cats that undermined our business. The Internet can give and take. USA businesses can read your online notes but also copy them. Training is a no-win situation with the USA as it is much bigger and stands to gain much more off your efforts than what you will win back through controls and efforts to resurrect a more cloistered business model. In fact, dealing with a large economy like the USA will make your enterprising efforts much more locked down. You will lose your freedoms dealing with the USA in order to stop going broke by their squandering your efforts in their favour.
In 2005, we started outsourcing to a USA company. They had unreal expectations of costs and had no management plan in place for IT or information management which cost us dearly.
Lessons learnt:
USA is an exciting place for innovation but also may overrun you so have a backup strategy or alternative income source in case they take your business idea and do not pay you. They live for results. If you do not deliver, forget your payment. They will not come to the party unless you take legal action. There is no mateship in America, just rugged individualism.
They have a can-do attitude which was born out of the Civil War - the winner was the 'firstest with the mostest'. This is valuable to copy. It gives you an edge on lazy Australian competitors. USA get up and try again and gain till they get it right rather than give up half way through if the going gets tough like in Australia. They also have a strong self-worth area so if people knock them they bounce back unlike in Australia where people are very sensitive and expect things to be the same old way and never change till it is too late.
Things have tightened up considerably since September 11, 2001. Before that travel to USA was much easier. Now there are many more checks and measures. Also since the tech wreck, many IT companies have gone bust in USA putting tons of pressure on IT companies worldwide. The US economy tends to drive hi-tech industry worldwide. If they are suffering, the world suffers. If they are going well, the world goes well.
When Australians bag USA, I say, "If it wasn't for the USA in the Battle of the Coral Sea (off Townsville) in World War II, we would be under Japanese control now". Southerners (Melbourne and Sydney people) in Australia usually ignore the vital part the USA played in rescuing our butts from destruction.
I have a US name: Dwight as in Dwight Eisenhower (president) or Dwight L. Moody (evangelist). I often get asked by Australians if I am an American so they can give me heaps of abuse. I say I was born here in New South Wales. They just keep irritating me to get back at the USA. I get sick of the parochialism of Australians who can only see the bad the US did in dominating the results from the World War II battle when General Macarthur took all the praise for the victory from Australian generals (World War II links). There was also the Battle of Brisbane that went on for 3 days in which US soliders and Australian soldiers fought each other over their high pay and taking Australian women away from the Australian men to get married.
Our family was a missionary family. The same Pilgrim Fathers spirit was in my father, who pioneered Fitzroy Crossing, WA in the 1950s ("Westralian Gems for Christ's Crown" by SP Walker). I often say America is like a whole country of missionary like people with plenty of drive and spiritual fervour which we just do not have here in Australia due to our convict background. Living in America is a very stressful experience - always striving to do more and do it better with no end in sight. Here in Australia we live within our means. Americans in Australia have unreal expectations because we are a small country and have never developed local talent or infrastructure to compete worldwide so if they come along they want things big and brash like in America but our poor little economy cannot keep up and the debt and overload resulting can be quite damaging to our people. They don't downsize to work with Australians. They want everything big like back in USA but don't realise they can't get it so often stuffup considerably and leave like with Pine Gap or any number of large US corporations who think we are big and rich like them and then realise the market soon disappears and they have to start selling to Asia to maintain their standard of living or turnover.
With the Free Trade Agreement between Australia and USA being heavily in favour of USA intellectual property control, we are at the mercy of USA. They can do what they like on our soil.
President George W. Bush is a Christian - he prays and is using godly principals to do business rather than social engineering. This puts him at odds with socialists. The Iraq war will be his ultimate make or break decision. Americans are never any good at guerilla warfare like Vietnam against the Viet Cong or Iraq against the militia and El-Quada terrorists.
USA is much more entrepreneurial. They allow for innovation. They do not bag local talent like in Australia. They give you business to grow your business rather than being aloof and waiting for you to close down - self-fulfilling prophecy.
Do not rubbish the US flag. They fought for that against England. I honour that loyalty. We have none of that here.
Americans invest in you if they see a return. They will put you on and use your talent to get their money back. In Australia, they want all the talents upfront with no risk. Hence many jobs go unfilled in Australia because they want low risk and so pay highly for a person with 10 or more years experience and may be outsource to India instead of getting someone local with 5 years experience and letting them learn on the job. They will not invest in Australia. I am able to use the American talent development model in Australia to my benefit. If I run my own business I can develop my own skill base rather than be scooped off by independent Australian companies who will not invest in me and further my career, just make a short term gain with no long term investment. Australian companies just hire me when I have spent my $10,000s on my own career so they don't have to pay for the research and development I did inhouse. It is plain as day: if I take the risk I win, if I don't take the risk I lose. However with increasing competition since 2001, I even lose when I work for myself so I have to do jobs on the side to survive. Individualism seems to be the best route for hi-tech companies to develop and grow in Australia away from the nurturing American ideals.
In Australia it is all about being commercial, not about research - very small minded - so I have to do commercial work (either my own or for someone else) then I can use that money to develop my business - a very circuitous route to develop technology but the only viable way in Australia with its limited resources and lack of trust in small businesses to achieve anything worthwhile. It is all about propping oneself up and not relying on other people who will shaft you at the first hint of things going wrong. If you stand out at all in Australia, you will be persecuted so be prepared to go it alone with many hard yards to achieve a goal.