The Baselworld Watch and Jewellery Show is the premium watch exhibition held in Basel Switzerland where the latest horological designs and upgrades to existing designs are on display. The new Omega Diver 300 will be available in boutiques in August 2018 – so I guess I won’t be seeing one in the flesh for a while.

For the 25th anniversary of the Seamaster Diver 300, Omega has updated their entry-level diver model, this is also the 70th anniversary of the Seamaster range so an upgrade was always on the cards. Sized slightly larger than previous Diver 300s with the 41 mm case, a larger 42 mm case houses a the METAS certified master chronometer co-axial Calibre 8800 automatic movement updating the 2500D movement.

The standard blue three hand timepiece reference 212.30.41.20.03.001 or black reference 212.30.41.20.01.003 has been expanded with a grey dial added but I can’t say I like the look of the grey dial. I would stick with the blue dial, as this is a Seamaster, the blue of the ocean is the likely choice, I do know there are black versions, that is to my tastes, but on this occasion, it doesn’t suit a Seamaster.

What I loved about the previous model is the dark blue lacquered dial on the 212.30.41.20.03.001 reference or jet black 212.30.41.20.01.003 reference, my choice is the blue. I don’t like the new laser etched wave dial, but that’s just me, I never liked the wave dial on earlier models either although they were pretty popular among watch enthusiasts.

I will admit I do like the laser etched wave dial on the black version, that is good. The Omega logo on the previous model really pops as it a separate piece, the new version appears to be painted on the dial and lacks the depth of older models. The Calibre 8800 is a great improvement, many argue the METAS certification is really an Omega internal certification and they have just renamed a series of tests but that’s not entirely true. The METAS labs are open to any manufacturer wishing to gain extra certification.

One expects the brands within the Swatch Group to be the main certification volume, I can’t really see competitors increasing costs by undertaking extra tests unless a solid marketing gain might be gained. Plenty of people like the new model, I am certainly impressed by the mechanical specifications but can’t get into the wave dial or the clunky helium escape valve. Despite my initial apprehension, I think the 2018 model will be popular with Omega customers.

Social media opens up the world, we have so many new people to communicate with but we all know the downside, the internet is the domain of trolls and wankers, Facebook is not the worst – that is Twitter.

What I really like about social media platforms such as Facebook is the ease that you are able to block these faceless trolls, bullies and imbeciles. When these people reply to your comments with these stupid flashing messages, angry faces or just dribble and/or a tirade you are able to put them out of your mind immediately never to bother you again.

What really makes me laugh is they never seen to post their own pic on their page, it is always a pic of a famous person, an absurd portrait of a deceased person, cartoon character or a sporting team logo. These gutless and faceless trolls might get under the skin of some people, once I am able to block their stupid comments, I am glad I never have to give then another thought.

I constantly ask myself employed as an advanced skills lecturer at a major training organisation, whom do we actually serve? I sincerely believe our focus must benefit our students and the organisations employing them as apprenticeships and traineeships are funded by business enterprises. A simple analysis, yet this is rarely the case with decisions mostly favouring individuals in the training organisations.

Then, secondly our actions predominately benefit the organisation with students, employers and the industry employing enterprises and individuals sadly lagging. Public organisations also employ apprentices and trainees, we must never forget where we receive our funding from and to whom our loyalties ultimately align.

During my business studies we explored strategic management and value adding activities. I really focused on core competence and the resource based view of the firm. As a state government employee, we receive funding at both a state and federal level and we as both an organisation and individuals must take our responsibilities seriously and make decisions based on the best interests of those we serve.

After all, we receive tax payer funds so our mission must be to realistically employ public funds in an efficient and responsible manner and to not purely serve ourselves. We have a duty to not only current taxpayers, but past and future taxpayers to increase productivity leading to advantageous outcomes for the state.

In many respects I still haven’t made the jump from the private sector to the public sector despite my twelve years of employment in the government. The culture is just so different because there is no culture to perform at a productive level. I am now surrounded by a bunch of people, many who have never worked in private enterprise believing they are businessmen and businesswomen, but maintain a public sector mentality of poor productivity and a failure to take responsibility.

We have a whole contingent of professional meeting attendees who fail to achieve any measurable outcomes from these meetings whatsoever. I call these government meetings; these are meetings with no agenda, no minutes, no implementation plan and no outcomes. We don’t even know who attended these meetings, what was discussed and most of the time they can’t even recall the date.

We have had discussions where I have been told we agreed on this, my question usually is, “was I there?” Needless to say, the minutes of the meeting are never distributed to any team members because there isn’t any. Ironically, registered training organisations offer a unit of competency in BSBADM502B Manage Meetings, this is a unit in the business administration curriculum designed to equip graduates with the skills to effectively manage meetings.

It goes without saying if I have to call a meeting, an agenda is published and minutes recorded but I do this on a personal level as per my private sector training. The implementation plan is recorded and during subsequent follow-up meetings, the implementation plan is reviewed and updated as required.

As part of our professional development requirements, all team members should undertake this unit of competency, there should be no recognition of prior learning with all candidates required to undertake the full learning and assessment package. Then the cost of unproductive meetings and the cost to the organisation might eventually be negated.

You would actually think that with all these meetings attended that they would become pretty good at this; but unfortunately this is the government – think again. Across the organisation, I would hate to actually calculate the cost of these unproductive meetings, as I believe that more than 80% of meeting time is wasted based on my observations.

Gone are the days where a scuba diver would strap the largest stainless steel knife to their lower leg before heading off into the water. It was a terrible location, if you got entangled then it was actually difficult to access and would frequently snag. I’m glad I relocated my dive knife early in my diving career.

These days dive knives have become smaller, sharper and manufactured from more exotic materials like titanium. So many options are now available to mount a knife to either your jacket, harness or low pressure inflator hose. The adaptor for the low pressure inflator is my choice of mounting point but it is not without its problems yet I consider it the best option. I do change regulators often and prefer my knife mounted on my jacket. Previously I had just used cable ties to secure the knife using the leg strap slots directly to the inflator hose attached to the BCD although these days I find it easier to just use the mount that accompanies the knife.

Diving in shops in South East Asia, it is now being reported to me that potential divers are walking in through the door with fake certification cards – I could hardly believe this story.

My first question is why? Why would you risk your life just to get out of taking an entry-level diver course? These days you pay your fee and then do the academic section online before heading into confined water to learn the skills required to become a safe diver and then reproducing those skills in an open water environment.

These days with online checks, all you do is give your name and date of birth and diver certification can be cross referenced. From what I am told, the fake certification cards are poor quality, the logo and are a give away and no diver number exists. That will no doubt change in the future as counterfeiting quality improves but unless they are able to hack dive certification agency records then an online cross reference will find them out.

I have been asked what is considered seriously wealthy by a number of people and the magical number bandied around is seven and a half million dollars. But where did this number actually come from?

A millionaire was once considered wealthy but with the effects of inflation, being a millionaire in Australia isn’t such a big deal anymore – still a nice figure though. The term millionaire has a certain ring to it, that’s for sure but is it really that affluent? The average homeowner in Australia is pretty much halfway there, add superannuation entitlements and if dual income households are involved then both incomes feed into the assets.

But this is working families, rarely do they get to handle such large transactions. The real money is small business owners, business executives and the CEOs that rake in unbelievable sums relative to their output. Research indicates many small business owners have all their capital invested in their business and hold insufficient funds in the personal superannuation funds for a comfortable retirement.

So where did the figure $7.5 million come from? I’m not sure, during some research I found a definition of sorts where men and women were surveyed with men nominating $5.3 million whilst women nominate $4.8 million. At time of research, the average Australian salary is $81,947 giving roughly 64 times average annual earnings to reach that figure; that’s out of reach for most people.

Whilst not an Australian definition, the US based Fidelity Investments surveyed more than 1000 millionaires in the United States to determine their definition of wealthy. Their definition of a millionaire differs to the conventional definition as they only consider $1 million in investable assets that don’t include the primary residence or retirement accounts.

I find this definition extraordinary as why wouldn’t you include a retirement account? After all, it is your money. I believe their definition may come from seeking funds to invest but even then, a mortgage may be taken out against a primary residence to invest. In Australia, the option of a self managed superannuation fund is an excellent vehicle (even with the recent government meddling) to build a decent retirement income.

If you control the assets in the SMSF then you are the investment manager and if you are one paying in the contributions then the beneficiary is you. I believe they want you to spend like a millionaire so they are able to generate earnings from your savings. They want you to go all Hollywood and spend like a movie star instead of acting like the conservative millionaire next door who is relatively anonymous.

Fairfax Limited is bleeding cash, their masthead newspapers of The Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne’s counterpart The Age are mere shells of what used to be journalistic integrity – not any more. Fortunately The Australian Financial Review has not suffered the same indignity as the SMH and Age newspapers as investigative reporting is still practiced the AFR.

Whilst The Australian Financial Review is not The Wall Street Journal, the AFR is an excellent round-up of the business news of not only Australia, but Asia-Pacific in general. Naturally global business news is covered but the emphasis is on Australian business news; whilst the major Australian newspapers cover business news – the AFR knows business. Whilst I wouldn’t make any major financial decisions made on the advice on any articles, the AFR offers the reader an extensive but broad overview of the contemporary Australian business environment. It’s a pretty decent financial newspaper and I’m happy to support this newspaper.

John Glenn, American astronaut and senator was credited as the fifth person to orbit the Earth and third American in space. Glenn, a former World War II fighter pilot and jet pilot in the Korean War wore a Heuer 2915A stopwatch as mission back-up timer during his Mercury Friendship 7 spacecraft flight in February 1962.

Credited as the first Swiss timer in space, the stopwatch was worn in a specially designed strap as this stopwatch is primarily a hand held device. I was under the the impression Heuer 2915A stopwatch was on display at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington as a tribute to Glenn’s feat. However, I believe the Heuer 2915A worn by John Glenn is on display at San Diego’s Air and Space museum. This really annoyed me as I missed the opportunity to view this when I was in San Diego in 2014 although I can’t complain because I never visited the Smithsonian Institute when I was in Washington either – I will visit both on my next trip to the US.

The Mercury Friendship 7 spacecraft orbited the earth 3 times during his 4 hour and 56 minute mission with the city of Perth turning on their lights for Glenn’s overpass. Dubbed by John as the city of lights, this remote capital city certainly got into the spirit of Glenn’s achievement. I certainly have a high degree of respect for the pioneers of space, the danger these astronauts faces was real while they pushed the limits of endurance and technology.

Whilst the 2915A stopwatch was considered a back-up timer for the purposes of redundancy, one now views the then cutting edge technology with more than a little suspicion. How were they able to fly humans into space with the systems and vehicles they had? We now look back at Glenn’s back-up mission timer with a little humour, this is how they went to space back then in the Mercury program – unbelievable.

I have been told the rich were once discrete with their money, this is clearly not the case anymore. People have always held wealth and power and this will continue into the future so any thoughts of envy are wasted. The proliferation of social media fame is now projecting rich kids with no real skills into online currency.

The social media platforms of Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat and Tumblr are the tools of the socialite with obligatory selfies that are now the currency of the nouveau rich. They already have the money, now they are seeking online fame driven no doubt by the success of Paris Hilton and the Kardashians.

The disdain of people making their fortune within a generation is elitist and unfounded, the nouveau rich are no longer unrefined and uneducated – described as the great unwashed. I do have issues with the term nouveau rich as generational wealth is generally one of privilege and not hard work. My personal interaction with rich kids is somewhat limited due to my working class background.

I respect effort, ingenuity and application so I respect self-made people. With tertiary education now available for all socio-economic classes. The knowledge gap between generational wealth and nouveau rich has narrowed, in modern times, we are all educated. We can go to an art gallery to view a Renoir, Picasso, Dali or a Monet but we are unable to afford to buy one at auction. We have the ability to pay the gallery entrance fee and stand in front of this great artwork, we can take art classes at either college or university just like the rich kids.

I have to admit, I have an Instagram account with no pictures posted but I can’t say I use it that much, more to check what is going on – I’m a follower. I like to read so I am seeing articles coming up with titles such as The Rich Kids of Tehran, The Rich Kids of Instagram and The Rich Kids of Dubai; this phenomenon is increasing.

Social media is the new currency of the showy and unsophisticated; what was once seen as vulgar is now viewed de rigueur. I must admit I find it a little crass, this outward display of wealth is more than a little self-centred, it acts to cover up their personal short-comings and self worth. As I’m interested in luxury goods from a business perspective, my interest is more than passing.

The fashion and luxury goods market is based on discretionary spending and generally cyclical in nature, yet most of these people are not self made instead spending their parents money in an indiscriminate manner – pathetic really. Instead, use your time, effort and parent\’s money to assist those less fortunate than yourselves.