I have to say, I was impressed, this was the first time I had encountered a Filipino style prescription mask. Full marks for originality, construction and application; this mask worked a treat for a fraction of the cost of commercial prescription lens mask.

Dive guides out in the provinces of the Philippines aren’t paid a great deal; what they forgo in salary is repaid by having a great job with good employment conditions, a low stress environment and an excellent lifestyle. The mask worked great, I have to say, he wore it well.

The Master of Business Administration (MBA) has been taught for barely over a century; Harvard University launched the program and enrolled an inaugural class of 37 candidates in 1908. Initially targeting professionals in non-business related fields, the MBA has now developed into a more mainstream qualification.

Firstly gaining acceptance in the United States before becoming established Europe, the MBA became the preeminent qualification for upper management. Asia and Australia progressively adapted the management program with the University of Melbourne awarding the first Australian MBA in 1965.

It has been argued too many poor quality and over-confident MBA graduates with little actual workplace experience are foisted onto unsuspecting workplaces. As national and international accrediting bodies determine course content somewhat blunting such claims, this may be a little overstated. A professional such as a doctor, engineer, architect or lawyer generally tends to be entrepreneurial in nature building or purchasing a practice, business or engaging in a partnership.

The advanced degree followed on from the notions of scientific management that were prevalent at the time undergoing revisions from time to time whilst retaining an analytical nature. Well known management practitioner and McGill University management lecturer, Henry Mitzberg described the MBA as a 1908 program utilising a 1950s strategy, an interesting reference to both the origins and overhaul of MBA curriculum.

Interestingly, MBA curriculum is accredited by United States, European and Australian professional bodies maintaining a consistency in program delivery and graduate outcomes. Mintzberg maintains the MBA is a business course and not a management course describing management as a practice and not a science – fair enough.

When running a business, the professional requires knowledge of accounting, finance, marketing, strategy, economics, quantitative analysis, leadership, ethics and decision making. Thus, the MBA tended to be technical in nature and is well suited to such professionals trained in technical knowledge and skills.

One could argue the relatively recent European model of Master in Management (MiM) better addresses the soft skills of management whilst the MBA retains the analytical structure required by consultants and technical practitioners. Generally, MBA programs are centred on an essentially standard curriculum and structured around eight to ten core units with specialist units aligned to specialisation majors.

Typically, the majority of MBA courses run twelve to sixteen units that may be considered a generalised MBA. From there candidates may specialise in areas such as finance, human resource management, operations management, logistics, marketing, economics, information technology or educational leadership – to name just a few.

Usually, the program culminates with initial coursework in business strategy with a dissertation or capstone project as the final examination. The de facto course two years full-time study with a number of worldwide institution running accelerated one year, part-time, online and executive courses. Top tier universities dominate international MBA ratings with the all-important student networks and alumni giving these programs the edge. It has been said, employers don’t hire the graduate, they purchase the prestige of the institution, they are probably right.

Where is social media taking us? We have seen some huge advances in social media uptake and usage in recent years, will the growth continue unabated? Who uses Friendster or MySpace now? They pretty much kicked off the social media explosion but have been left behind. Despite the size and reach of Google Inc, will Google+ survive?

Surely news coverage is the obvious answer, maybe we need to ask less about what social media platforms are going to be around and what news services and news papers will be around in 25 years? I’m pretty sure AAP and Reuters will still be around, will they be selling news to The Times, The Australian, The Jakarta Post, The Straights Times, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Washington Post or The New York Times in 25 years time?

Or despite their current size and span, will traditional newsprint become the equivalent of Kodak or Blockbuster Video? We saw from the Arab spring how quickly young protesters could get organised, this was the democratic uprising that quickly spread, what are the implications of social media for the future? Whilst we expect new platforms to burst on the scene, the established social media companies are expected to consolidate and buy out rivals, that is what I expect to happen.

Did Tony Abbott actually front (the political shirt-front) and discuss the issues of Russian involvement with Ukrainian separatists of the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines MH17 over Ukraine?

Yes he did – Vladimir Putin was told in no uncertain terms to assist with and not hinder the UN investigation into the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines MH17. He was told to pay compensation to families citing American repatriations to Iranian families of the Iranian Air 655 passenger jet shot down by the US Navy in 1988.

It has been well documented in management circles the difference between leading and managing relates to transactional and transformational principles. Leadership occurs at all levels of an organisation, unfortunately all too often an ineffective manager stifles the work of a subordinate with the worker needing to manage their manager to get the job done efficiently.

This bottom-up approach to leadership is in direct contrast to the top-down approach employed at most organisations, yet it is proving to be more effective in many circumstances. The role of the manager is for you to perform your job efficiently, their role is to allocate resources you require to succeed, to make decisions based on metrics and to secure support to perform the task.

If success was measured exclusively on how well you do your job, there would be no requirement to manage your boss, this unfortunately is rarely the case. This requires you to identify their prime motivations, support their success by understanding their weaknesses and reacting accordingly and finally bring them solutions – not problems.

The manager works for the worker, not the other way around – the manager is a direct cost to the business whereas the worker is a productive resource. With a greater level of training and development the classic roles of management of planning, organising, leading and controlling are known – understood and practiced by workers. There is an old adage, you don’t leave jobs, you leave managers – this rings true again.

Do people know the difference between a figurative and literal statement? Figurative is described as departing from a literal use of words and metaphorical where literal could be described as taking words in their usual or most basic sense without metaphor or exaggeration. Is Abbott going going to physically shirtfront Putin? No, of course not, absolutely not in a literal sense. Lets look in a figurative sense, will Abbott hit up Putin behind closed doors in private discussions? He should and he must, however, he should not have stated that in such a public arena.

Abbott was stupid to make such a public and aggressive statement, yes, he needs to have a frank and open discussion with Putin; a leader of a powerful country who is carefully stage-managed as an outdoor macho man. By using such blatant and aggressive terminology, Abbott has backed himself into a diplomatic corner. As Putin’s image is at stake from such colourful language, there won’t be much to be gained here and there is plenty to lose – not a great diplomatic move.

“I’m a female Foreign Minister, yeah, get over it.” That was quite a response from Julie Bishop; keeping the theatrics to a minimum when answering press questions. She is pretty direct at times, she was a good operator though.

I like her attitude, it appears she is all about getting on with the job and not pandering to special interest groups or playing the victim with responses like “Don’t call me a feminist, it is not in my lexicom.”

She is doing an excellent job representing the country and is certainly taken seriously in international diplomacy circles. Bishop is not the first woman to enter politics or hold a high political position such as Prime Minister or Governor General, she does however not want to make gender an issue.

The government led by Gough Whitlam was a failure – there is no other way to describe it, to spin it, to believe it. Yet, the myth perpetrated by the Labor movement was that he was a great man leading a great government is laughable at best and just plain dangerous at worst.

The left intelligentsia clearly blame Rupert Murdoch, the apparent secret leader of the CIA that conspired against the highly competent Whitlam government – well, nothing could be further from the truth. Gough Whitlam made Labor electable after 23 years in the political wilderness, after 3 years of government, he then made them unelectable again until Bob Hawke came along almost a decade later.

He promised the world and then failed to deliver, just the manner of his dismissal added to his mythology. The real kick to the nards of any true believer of socialism was the highly competent Hawke government campaigned on policy that was directly opposite to Whitlam – ouch. Since WWII, Labor government failures (with the notable exception of the Hawke government) were Chifley, Whitlam, Keating, Rudd, Gillard and Rudd again.

A disturbing trend appearing on Facebook is post and newsfeed censorship. For some time now, Facebook has been deciding which posts appear on newsfeeds by screening posts and linked comments. They have rightly received widespread condemnation for manipulating the individual newsfeeds in a pathetic attempt to modify moods of its users.

Now posts including bullying, racism, inciting violence, religious persecution, sexual harassment and other abuse should not be tolerated. In such a case, moderation of posts is not only warranted, it should also be encouraged, there is however a limit. There needs to be a clear code of conduct that users have the choice of accepting or declining to access the network, criticism of the US government should not encroach on personal liberties. Are Facebook denying people the right to protest?

People have the right to criticise government agencies that are not serving the public interest, my criticism of the American agency, the TSA, that is the Transportation Safety Authority was immediately removed from my Facebook feed as soon as it was posted. One would suppose Facebook has software that scans for key words such as TSA automatically removing such posts as it was removed almost immediately.

This is akin to censorship on the internet, that is pretty much considered taboo. Consumers are considered competent enough to be able to discern between reliable information and propaganda. Me, I’m not so sure, although the tenants of free speech must stand contrary to my personal beliefs of good taste and decorum. Personal freedom must be upheld at all costs.

The G20 summit will be hosted in Australia in November; concerns of stalled world economic growth will dominate the agenda. Australian treasurer Joe Hockey will put forward an infrastructure investment platform with public and private sector funding.

It is somewhat convenient for PM Abbott and Treasurer Hockey to outline their global ambitions mirroring domestic political aims. The Abbott government’s message to G20 counterparts is to follow the Australian lead. That is privatisation of inefficient state assets, investing the proceeds of asset sales in new public works infrastructure with public/private partnerships managing risk with commercial operators sharing the risk/return of the project.

I can’t say I have ever been much of a fan of Joe Hockey, so far, he has done a lousy job of selling his first budget even though the majority of bills have eventually passed through the senate. Chomping on cigars created an image problem for the government and ultimately, his first budget should have been tougher, second year budget a little less tough and his third budget an election year budget – let’s see how this plays out.