Blog / Europe

I’m not going out on a limb by saying that the European crisis will impact growth for years, if not decades, to come. People are not spending, and banks are not lending. No surprise then that so much focus is being placed on innovation. Since the 2007 financial crisis smart government policy has shifted to replicating the Silicon Valley idea, creating hubs for young entrepreneurs and technology-focussed innovators to come, create and share with the world. Ireland is no different, and is doing it very well. I recently came across a top 30 of the most innovative countries in the world, and Ireland was at number 5!

Ireland has some great advantages that will allow it to follow through with its idea to become the island of innovation, particularly in the web space. Just look at the...

In case you didn’t know, Alan Joyce is the CEO of Qantas, Australia’s national airline. Last Saturday he took the unprecedented action of grounding the entire Qantas fleet. It left passengers, the Australian Government, Qantas workers and the unions completely stunned. It was a case of “What did he just say? Did I hear that correctly? Is he insane?” A mere 8 minutes from the announcement, at around 5pm Saturday, every plane was stopped on the tarmac. Every single plane. Even those that had boarded were told to “get off, you won’t be flying today.”

Why take such drastic action you may ask? Qantas had already sustained months of industrial action that has been causing flight cancellations and passenger inconvenience not to mention a 68m loss of revenue. The unions had told him...