Leadership: According to Peter Williams

Peter Williams is recognized as one of Australia's leading thinkers in the area of innovation, technology commercialization and all things online.

Last night I heard him speaking at the RMIT Prize Giving Ceremony here in Melbourne.  He talked about leadership and according to Peter these are his three points when looking at a leader:

She/He will  -

   1.    Give you something to believe in

   2.    Be someone to believe in

   3.    Be someone who believes in you

He then went on to tell the graduates that they need to be keen to keep giving back to their profession and stated boldly to:-

 "Keep Putting In and Giving Back and you will have a good life.

The Power of Memories

This morning I was walking under the Flinders street Rail Station Tunnel on my way into the City.  It is usually crowded with thousands of people going hither and yon on their way to work, to meet people, to make life changing decisions and sometimes just because it is the shortest route for them to get to the other side of the station.   I am not a fan of the tunnel and often use an alternative route above ground where I can actually see the Yarra River and the sky.  However this morning I was using it and because I was a little bit later there were not too many people but there was a banjo player with his banjo case collecting a few coins for picking out a few notes.  I admire greatly people who are brave enough to put their talents on public display like this but there are times when their skills on the instrument are not matched by their bravery.  This morning I walked past and was content to simply look at it as a part of the colourful life of Melbourne’s city centre.

It’s a long tunnel and he was positioned in about the middle and I was about to climb the stairs when the notes seemed to strike a chord with me and I recognised the melody as the folk song that was used in Riverdance, that was made famous by Michael Flately and his Irish dance troupe a few years ago.  All of a sudden I was flooded with memories of playing in the K&N Brass Band and playing this as one of our major pieces in our concerts.  It was a difficult piece to play with strange time signature and set in unfamiliar keys, but it was just so exciting to play and I just loved playing it and being part of such a great group of musicians.  I then thought of the time that we went to see the floor show in Birmingham where it was onstage in glorious colour and I was again thrilled with the colour and enthusiasm of the whole show but just loved it more when the theme from Riverdance evolved using the traditional Irish instruments; very exciting.  Living in the UK it was easy to visit family in Amsterdam and being a market person frequented quite a few.  If we were there on a Saturday morning we always went to do some shopping at the local market in Jordaan.  We did it few times and we saw a group called 'Uzory' on a regular basis.  They were a group of muso’s from Eastern Europe who regularly did concerts in European Capital Cities and in between professional gigs did the markets as buskers.  The first time I saw them was in winter and they were all rugged up with heavy coats and hoods with just a few fingers bared to play their instruments; another time it was the middle of summer and so they were dressed in very summary clothes.  They played traditional music on traditional instruments but it was so exciting and on more than one occasion I lost the family who had moved on to do the shopping. One time I could hear them as we approached and they were playing the theme from Riverdance and as soon as I recognised it I just had to get over and listen close up.  It was amazing and although they did not recognise it as Riverdance, I gave them 10 Euro’s to repeat it and I just loved it all over again.

It all happened for me in a heartbeat and so I just had to go back and drop a few coins on the banjo bag of the guy who was picking his way through the melody; note by struggling note.  


The SBS TV channel has a by-line that says ‘Six Billion Stories and counting ....’  This is one of mine and I am looking for the next one.