One and done

7 November 2011

I was in Sydney over the last week finalsing the ending of my project with BDO and Robert Skeffington. It has been a truly learning opportunity and I thanked Robert for all the help and support her had given me over the last few months.

Unbeknown to me, it was also the time of the Melbourne Cup and it was great to see how the city comes to a standstill over a horse race. We had a few tables at the local pub booked out for the event and from around 1pm everyone ended up watching the pub. There were quite a few keen punters wondering if Americain (the favourite) could make it two in a row. While Americain didnt end up winning, one of the people from work did put in $10 for a trifecta and ended up getting a whopping $7995 for it! A very happy Melbourne Cup to him!!

It was an enjoyable afternoon and it was a great way to complete my project in Sydney.

With the APN crew watching the races, Sydney 2011

I will now be focussed solely on the APN Online part of the project and keep working on that till my leave at the end of November.

Juggling act continues

26 October 2011

The juggling of two projects continues as we head to the end of the year. The work for the BDO team under Robert Skeffington marches on and I am making contributions as best as i can, helping the team.

The other project for Online has taken an interesting turn where i have been challenged to come up with a new solution (the previous solution wasn't acceptable to the CEO) to solve the problem without throwing any more money at it. I have thought of a few ways and will be interesting to work that through.

I am also going on leave at the end of November so i am looking forward to having that time off.

The rugby world cup just finished here in NZ and we are the proud champions. I was fortunate to share this tournament with my dad and we ended up going to all the All Black games, then watched them beat the Argentinians in the Quarter finals, the Aussies in the Semi and then the French in the final.
An amazing opportunity to be a part of history!!

Well done All Blacks!! So proud!

Been a while

5 October 2011

It has been a while since i last penned er typed my thoughts on here.
Two main reasons for that really: Workload and laziness.

I have been working on two projects for the last few months. Spending my time between the Business Development Office in Sydney (reporting into Robert Skeffington) and the other half, working in APN Online (reporting into Spencer Bailey)

These two projects are quite different from each other and i am not at liberty to discuss in detail about either of them so no more info on that front.
Safe to say that they are both very challenging in their own rights and deadline driven which is proving to be a handful.

On the social front, New Zealand is going crazy with the Rugby World Cup and it really is very festive here. The crunch time is upon us with the quarterfiinals slated for this weekend.

Dan Carter is now out of the tournament with a groin injury and the whole nation has suddenly been brought back down to earth to consider the unthinkable, "what if we DONT win the cup?"

I must banish these thoughts as quickly as i have had them!

Best of luck to all the other nations still in the running, may the best team win! *coughAllBlackscough*

What is this Corporate Strategy all about?

24 August 2011

So I have now started work with Robert Skeffington and it has been quite challenging. I feel that i'm being asked to look at facts and issues in a whole new light.
Robert has a favourite "SO WHAT?" rule which is a really good gauge of whether a fact or an issue is relevant or not. This one rule alone has really made me reconsider a lot of facts and its usefulness for our business.

As part of this corporate strategy piece, also in the team are Brooke Krumbeck and Tash Meinertzhagen who are both Sydney based. I am learning how to work efficiently in a virtual team environment with me being the only one based in Auckland and so it is not without its challenges. We start the day with a quick email outlining what we are working on for the day. Then I log into skype and keep in touch with Brooke through IM and depending on what's going on, Robert usually checks in with a Video call.

The issues I am dealing with are both macro and micro (to a certain extent) and my understanding of the business so far does hold me in good stead as there are a lot of insights that can be gained when one has working knowledge of the department or good relationships with key people in those areas.

On a seperate topic, the new fast track group has also started after their week long induction with Danielle and Gabe posted to NZ Magazines and NZ Herald respectively. Sid too has just started his new project with NZ Media and is also in the building. We're taking over this place...!!

ps. the Rugby World Cup is now just a little over a fortnight away and i can't wait. Go the ALL BLACKS!

Overlap - comes with the territory

27 July 2011

Apologies for not penning er typing my thoughts down earlier but the last fortnight has been quite manic.

While my project for Jeremy (APN Online NZ) continues, I have also been in talks with Robert Skeffington (APN Director of Strategy) and David McGrath (APN Director of Content) about my next project.

I am in an enviable position where there are a lot of opportunities available to get involved in different projects and after much discussion it was decided that I would try and juggle my responsibilites with Robert's Corporate Strategy team  while I'm wrapping things up at Online.

I am very excited about being a part of this team as it will give me an insight of how Corporate Strategy is created in a methodical fashion rather than the usual gut feel that appears in most businesses.

I have also decided to continue my Master's study by picking up a paper for the semester. This means that I cannot be based in Sydney for the duration of this semester of study.

On the other front, the new fast track group start their induction from Aug 1 before they move into different areas of the business.

Last week I got a chance to watch my very first Ice Hockey game live when Canada took on the USA in an exhibtion match at Auckland's Vector Arena. It was an exciting night with a sold out of crowd of over 10,000; 90% of which were Canadian supporters (yours truly included)

Canada went on the offence early, taking a 2-0 lead before the americans hit back hard and looked in charge at 3-2. Canadians scored in the dying moments of full time and the game had to be decided on sudden death which saw Canada win it!

Dad and I supporting Canada at the sold out Vector Arena, Auckland

New Team announced

11 July 2011

The new batch of recruits to the Fast Track program have all been made offers and they have now all accepted. So congratulations to :

- Gabe Atkinson (NZ)
- Danielle Dunn (NZ)
- James Fogelberg (NZ)
- Andrew Cohen (Aus)
- Georgia Knox (Aus)
- Ian Lenehan (Aus-Internal)
- Joe Cook (Aus -Internal)

They will all be in Sydney on 1st August, ready to go! Cant wait to meet up and congratulate them in person.

Well done to all of you.

Assessment... check. Review....check.

27 June 2011

The last fortnight saw the Auckland assessment centre come together. Having been part of two previous assessment centres in Sydney the week before, i thought that this one would now be pretty simple but it wasn't.

It was a long day for the participants who dug deep and gave it their best shot and for the examiners as well as every one had to follow a very tight time schedule to ensure that things would go according to plan. The day started at around 7.30 and finished around 7pm where we got a chance to head over and have dinner with Tracy Martin, Andree McSweeney, Siddharth Rallapalli.

It was a good way to end the night and while Sid and my involvement with the Fast Track Group intake for 2011 ended here, Tracy and Andree have a lot more work having to go through the assessments and picking the candidates to make the offer to in the near future. For those who made the cut, Congratulations and I hope you accept the offer.

While that assessment was going on, my own assessment for Jeremy was on its way to be completed too. I got all the final pieces of the puzzle together and managed to put it all down on paper too. Fiona Bunn (HR Administrator) was very kind enough to bind it all for me in a neat little book. I say little, but the pagecount ended at 70!

As part of the next steps in my involvement with APN Online, Jeremy has teed up a phone conference with David McGrath (Head of Content) and Kate Bedoe (Product Director) later on today to see how we can maximise my involvement and feed into the bigger projects that they are currently involved in.

Very excited. Can't wait!

Back in Action

14 June 2011

I'm back after spending last week in Australia.

My first stop was in Brisbane where I got an opportunity to spend time with the Australian Regional Media Online team particularly with Heidi Costello (Online Day Editor) and Steve Zeppa (Group News Editor) and got a really good insight on how they operate and the way that content is loaded for the 27 websites that fall under their department.

I also got a chance to talk to Belinda Reilly (Managing Editor - APN Online Aus) and share some insights on the project that I am working on at the moment with regards to content loading and management. We also agreed to share information and I look forward to completing my report and send her a copy (with Jeremy's permission, of course!)

From there, I moved on to Sydney where I had booked a few meetings with people to introduce myself and get to know them a little bit better.
First on my agenda was David McGrath (Head of Content). I had done some work for David and we had exchanged emails and a few phone calls so i took this opportunity of meeting with him in person. It was a great meeting and hopefully, i will get a chance to work on a project with him in the near future.
Then I also got a chance to meet with Katrina Stone (in charge of Corporate affairs). We had a pretty candid chat about my experience thus far and shared my thoughts on what a person on the coal face probably thinks but doesn't have the avenue to tell the decision makers. She is a wonderful person and was very encouraging in the interaction. She has asked me to elaborate on some ideas and I will get back to her on those.

With these meetings done, it was time to get ready for the assessment centres for the Fast Track recruitment program.

There were 2 assessments in total in Sydney and included both internal and external candidates. They were all from a wide variety of backgrounds from practising lawyers to teachers to sub editors and ranging from Brisbane to Perth to Tasmania!

It was a very enjoyable experience albeit a difficult one as there was a lot of things that needed to be done precisely and each of us had to play a part in it.

In two days time, the third and final one will be held in Auckland and should give Rob and Tracey with enough firepower to get Fast Track 2 underway for this year.

To all the assessment centre participants thus far, best of luck. The hard part is now done.. time to sit back and wait for the results.

As I write this up, the country is reeling from another aftershcock in the Cantebury region and this was measured at 6 on the richter scale. More damages have followed and some people are looking at rebuilding their houses and property for the third time! Keep the faith Christchurch. Our thoughts and prayers go out to you.

Assessment draws near...

30 May 2011

This is true on two counts. Firstly, one of my project deliverables was to provide an assessement of the current state of APN Online's content loading procedure. This was to encompass all masteheads that fell under the APN Online banner including, nz herald, nz magazines and nz regional media websites.

As part of this, i have been spending a lot of time talking to the people who are involved in the states of both content creation and loading and gettting an understanding from them about what is working and what isnt.

While all this has been going on, the Fast Track recruitment has been going on as well.

So, I will be heading into Australia next week to tee up with the Australian Regional Group News Editor and if possible, drop over to Brisbane to see how they do things there before I head over to Sydney to prepare for the Fast Track Assessment centres which are scheduled for the week of the 6th (june).

To all participants, who have made it thus far... Congratulations and best of luck. The assessment centre will be one hell of a day..it will challenge you, it will push you and by the end of it you will be physically and mentally drained. It wont be easy.. but hey, if it was, it wouldn't be worth it :)

It's elementary my dear.....

19 May 2011

My investigation has continued on for this week as well where I have now had a chance to sit down with key people involved in the loading of the content as well as key people in the creation of content.

One of the people I got a chance to sit down with was Shayne Currie (Deputy Editor of the NZ Herald) and pick his brains on how stories are created and why certain stories make it and others dont; which stories are front page news and which aren't; and also what the relationship between nzherald.co.nz and the NZ Herald print product is.

It was very heartening to find out that ALL reporters are expected to file their report with online to make sure we capture the breaking news as quickly as we can.

I was also invited to the afternoon news brief where the chief reporters meet with Shayne along with a representative from Online (Nik Dirga -NZ Herald Production Editor) and Newspaper Sales & Marketing and they go through the stories that are being worked on to prepare for the next day's newspaper including what should make the front page and headline. A very interesting meeting where I felt like I was from the future since I knew what the front page of the paper would look like next day. A bit far fetched i know but it was fun!

So the reason why I am doing all this is to be able to deliver certain things to Jeremy Rees as part of the project.

The Project deliverables include:



• An assessment of the current systems and processes; including step by step guide on how to load content in each area (herald, regionals and magazines)


• Noted strengths and weaknesses of the above


• Recommendations for ‘quick wins’ that come out of the assessment


The NZ Budget is being announced today and it is going to be streamed from a box set up on my desk so I am currently operating out of half a desk and right in the middle of it. Exciting times, if you're into the budget or wondering about how live streaming works!!

Online and ready to go

11 May 2011

My project revolves around reviewing current content management tools and processes and providing a fresh perspective on what is being done well and what could be done better.

So, before I can give any recommendations, I need to understand what the system currently is and how it works. And for this reason, i have spent all of this week, meeting with people who are part of the Online content management team in Auckland.  These individuals are part of different teams where they are responsible for what goes up on the websites for the different mastheads for APN NZ (namely, nzherald.co.nz, all regional websites, NZ women's weekly and NZ listener).

It was a good learning process where i got the chance to sit down with both the online editors to see what they do on a day to day basis as well understand why a certain story which shows up on the front page is there. You would be surprised at the thought that goes into this instead of updating stories as they flow in.

The remainder of this week will also be quite similar where i will continue this journey to firstly understand why things are being done the way they are and then, how exactly do the people who do this, do it?

If that hasn't confused you enough, please feel free to come back in about a week's time where I should have some more clarity!

On a separate note, the Fast Track positions are now shut for 2011 intake and the recruiting company is now vetting these applications as they go through a series of steps before they are shortlisted down to the final assessment centre in June.

Best of luck to everyone who applied.

Sid is also now in Auckland and has started work with The Radio Network and will be here for the next three months. I look forward to showing him around my city and a healthy dose of kiwi hospitality :)

A new desk and a new audience.

5 May 2011
Before I give you all an update on my new project, I would like to touch briefly on my experience yesterday with The Radio Network where I go an opportunity to present to a group of people who were interested in the Fast Track Program. I gave a presentation that was structured by Sid Rallapalli and then added to by Tracy Martin. I modified the content to suit my style of presentation and then invited discussion from the group on what they could expect from the program while trying to be as clear as I could about their queries.
This went on for about an hour and 15 mins and the feedback that I got was that everyone in that room felt quite comfortable with the next steps in the process and what to expect from the program itself.

Mission Accomplished!


And now on to my new project. Something that I have now become very familiar with is introducing myself to people. For the next 3 – 6 months I will be based at APN Online (NZ) and working with Jeremy Rees on some content management recommendations. I cant disclose much more as I still need to get to the nitty-gritty of it myself.


The deadline for applying for the fast track intake is fast approaching for internal candidates. I am looking forward to seeing who makes it to the assessment centres in Auckland and Sydney!

One more over...

29 April 2011

Wrapped up the ARN  Project on the 21st of April and headed back to Auckland the morning after. The plan was to give my parents a surprise as they had no idea I was coming over. Worked out wonderfully in the end and was a good way to come back home.

There is still work to be done in ARN as my project wasnt completed but with the limitations that I had with time etc, we got it to the best shape that we could and I am quite confident that Chris (who will start his new role with ARN from monday 2nd May) will have no issues in completing this quickly after the meeting we had as part of the handover process.

So the question is what's next in line for me as part of this program.


The plan is to go see Jeremy Rees at APN Online and get myself a project in that area. More on that in the coming days.

There is also recruitment ongoing for the new batch of Fast Track peeps happening as we speak so definitely looking forward to seeing who will join us for 2011.

10 working days left

7 April 2011

The countdown has begun with 10 working days left before I sign off from ARN in Sydney.

There are still a lot of things on my to-do list that needs to be completed before I can sign off though.

The marketing project is still ongoing and while i refer to it as the 'marketing project', it is in essence 4 different projects in one.

The main components are:

1. Stationery - Going through and changing everything that has an ARN or a MIX FM logo on it. Went through an entire network audit and it came back with 284 items that had logos on it!
There were 13 different kinds of letterheads alone!!

So the plan was to collate and combine wherever possible to achieve consistency, cost effectiveness and a strong brand presence.

End result:
284 logo/branded items down to 98

Envelopes : From 29, down to 3
Letterheads: From 13, down to 1
Complimentary slips: From 13, down to 1
Presentation folders: From 10, down to 5

Now that this was done, we searched for and found the best costs associated with printing the entire suite of stationery again. We have made some very considerable savings on that front.

Current stage: Waiting to confirm the designs to send to the printers to print.

2. Merchandising - In terms of merchandising, it is quite astounding to find out that there hasn't really ever been a formal spending process dedicated to Merchandising for the various stations. It has been quite adhoc and as and when required for a special promo. With me taking over, it gave the promotional managers across the various states to give us feedback about what they would want to give out and have in terms of merchandising.
What was amazing to see was how grateful were even with small things such as caps which were not available previously. Really gave me a personal high knowing that I had made a difference !!

So, we compiled a list of most common merchandising items and then got all the promo managers across the network to give us their feedback on what would be a 'must have' and what would be a 'nice to have'.

This we shortlisted to 10 items and worked out the quantities that would be required.,

Current stage: Waiting to confirm the total quantities per item and confirm designs for the merchandising
3. Outdoor Broadcasting Branding - From time to time, all radio stations go through and broadcast from an outdoor venue like the recent one that Mix 106.5 FM did for the house giveaway. Here, have a look here
For this purpose, there needs to be quite a few different things that are required to host a successful broadcast (and we are not talking about the electrical/music items). The items in question here are branding items. Common examples are Marquees, corflutes, outdoor banners, etc.

So, the question that we had was "what makes a successful outdoor branding?" I didn't know and neither did Jodie so we asked the people who made this possible. Once again we headed back to the Promo managers in the various states and asked them to give us lists of each item that would be a must-have if there was to be a successful outdoor broadcast in terms of brand presence.

The teams have been so co-operative and helpful which has been a bonus because without them I would be more lost than I currently am!

Once we had the list down pat, the hunt for the suppliers began and that included going through very many suppliers. I even tapped into my contacts at GSP from my previous project and they are going to create the corflutes for us at a very special rate!!

Current stage: Waiting to confirm the main supplier for the bulk of the items and drawing up an invoice for the same.

4. Signage - As with any new logos, there has to be changes on all items that have the old logos on them. This extends to buildings and structures as well and is probably the hardest of the lot to complete.
We have radio stations across Australia and each of these have ARN and MIX logos in varying ways. Unlike a letterhead or a business card this is not as straightforward as getting the printers to print a new batch.
As I found out the hard way, each of the items outside and inside the building have been commissioned individually!!

To change each of these would take atleast 3 weeks after the quote has come in.

Current stage: Finalising the quote on all the items that have logos on them that need to be changed.


End results required:
1. Stationery - New suite of stationery printed and handed to various admin managers across the network
2. Merchandising - All items delivered to various promo managers across the market.
3. Outdoor Broadcasting Branding - All items delivered to various promo managers across the market.
4. Signage - All new signage in all buildings and across the offices throughout the network.
As you can see, there is still a lot of work to be done and its only 10 working days to go. No pressure, hey!

Pressure is one thing you expect constantly with this role and then you learn very quickly how to deal with it too.

Crunch time at ARN

31 March 2011

There have been two projects that I have been working on at ARN.

First one is the marketing one, that I have talked about earlier, in which I am assisting Jodie Koning (National Marketing Director) but more on that later.

The second one that I have been involved in was with providing a solution to aid Internal Communications, here at ARN.

As part of the communications projects which I christened , 'Project Listen' (as you do) I was asked to move away from the usual suspects when it comes to internal communications; namely the mass email, the newsletter, the webpage or the intranet and asked to come up with something new and with the times.

After speaking to Tracy Martin and doing some research, the only thing that fit the bill was social media. In layman's terms, imagine facebook for work.

Now just to make it clear, this is not THE facebook that we tend to check every day (some more so than others!) so this is not about creating a page on facebook but acquiring a software that helps create a facebook environment at work.

There are quite a few businesses operating in this area but two that fit what we were after were Yammer and Yackstar.

Yammer is the US big brother of all business social networking that is run at many Fortune 500 companies. I investigated this and when i was satisfied that this would be something that ARN would benefit from then I got a web-meet set up with members of the Leadership Team to have a look at the software.

After the meeting the common consensus was that this was a good software but there was a general hesitancy of getting this into the organisation due to various reasons depending on which area you headed.

Overall, most of the comments seem to be coming with people wearing their black hats.

I enquired the cost and it was quite expensive at $50 USD per user per month. So for a workforce of 500, one would be looking at spending $360,000 USD annually. I knew straight away this would not go through based on cost alone.

The second option was Yackstar. This is an australian clone of Yammer and for a fraction of the cost, does virtually the same thing. Yackstar quoted us at at $5 AUD per user per month. So for a workforce of 500, one would be looking at spending $30,000 AUD annually.
Cost would not be a problem.

While we were going through working out the details of Yackstar, the ARN intranet which was hosted on Sharepoint 2003 crashed and virtually all data on it was lost.

Now there was a project to install Sharepoint 2010 before this happened and this event kinda pushed it even further. Add building renovations on top of that and people across the business are already swamped with what things that needed to happen 'yesterday'.

The solution: I wrote down a project scoping plan which highlighted all the research that was done for this project and the steps involved in case this gets picked up by someone else in the future.

Logo launched

8 March 2011

The logo was launched on friday 4th march to all staff in a rather unique way.
Rather than the usual way of sending an email or a speech from the CEO, the logo was launched with a video. We got funny duo Ant & Becks from Sydney's Mix 106.5 to come up with a concept to unveil the logo to all staff and they did not disappoint.
I was watching staff reaction when they got the video and everyone thought it was funny and original.
A great result!

While I try and get permission to upload the video here, i will leave you with the new logo. I think its a great change from the 'old' ARN

Into week 3,,,,

23 Feb 2011

I was going to write about what I am upto here at ARN and instead I cant help but think about watching the horror unfold in Christchurch.

When the NZ Herald website slowed down, I had to go to skynews website to get my news. The raw video they had on there was just unbelievable. Buildings smashed, cars crushed and with it the loss of life and limbs.

All I could do was stare at the computer screen in disbelief.
I have a couple of friends in Chch, i got hold of one of them and she said she was fine except for the fact that roads around them had literally opened up which meant they couldnt use their cars. Atleast she was safe.

Another mate of mine, is unaccounted for. I pray he is found alive :|

Anyone reading this blog... i see facebook and twitter filled with thoughts and prayers for Christchurch residents.

Thoughts and prayers are well and good.. but they do not put food on the table or mend broken houses. DONATE!

Lots of places available to do that. Every dollar helps.

Day 1 ... ARN

8 Feb 2011

Yesterday was my first day at the Australian Radio Network (Sydney).

I arrived at ARN on Day 1 and met with Bluebell Rae (Executive Assistant to CEO and CFO) who had very efficiently planned out my day which was spent meeting with the National Leadership Team at ARN and getting an understanding of what their role was in the business.

Recently, ARN has gone through a restructure which has resulted in a national approach for the company as opposed to regionalised decision makers.

As big a step as that was, it was only step 1 of the changes that are about to happen here. Not only in the way business is handled but the physical premises itself is getting a facelift and renovations are happening everywhere in the building. This has resulted in a lot of people/teams having to move desks/offices and finding places to sit to continue work.

I walked into this environment yesterday and can feel the buzz on the floor… Very excited about being part of this change.

Working with NZ Mags was an opportunity to be a part of a different kind of change and this will help me not only learn more about Radio and marketing but also how change is applied to different parts of a business.

I will be involved in a series of mini projects starting with assisting Jodie Koning (National Marketing Director) with the branding application of all of ARN’s stations and the company itself. Geraint Davies (National Operations Director) has got each station on each site around the country to send through in soft and hard copy, anything and everything that has a logo on it.

This has now resulted in a big basket of samples from across the country and an itemised list of the same via soft copy.

My job in week 1 is to make some head and tail of all of this and provide recommendation on how we can be consistent and cost effective with our branding and print runs.

Time to start sorting!

Block 2 completed

28/01/2011



Last day today at GSP and today will be spent putting the finishing touches on everything and saying goodbyes.

I am quite happy with what we have achieved during the three months here but at the same time, I will miss the place and its people. They are a warm bunch of hardworking people who took me in as one of their own and I was made to feel comfortable from day one. Special thanks to Peter Piccione (for all the travel and general advice, a sound sounding board for all my wacky ideas!), Jennifer Jefferys (provider of solutions when i had any problem) and Stephen Rudgley (lunch buddy and going out of his way to drop me home, time and time again!)

Flying home today for a week of rest and then heading back to Sydney to start work with Australian Radio Network (ARN) after that.

I went to meet with Jodie Koning (National Marketing Director, Australian Radio Network) yesterday and she briefed me in on the specifics of my next block.


This has been an amazing learning experience. This block gave me an insight on the outdoor/pos print industry, marketing and organisational behaviour.

I look forward to see what ARN throws at me next!

Frantic pace on its way

12/01/2011

First post for 2011. Writing err typing 2011 feels weird. But then i suppose every new year feels weird as time seems to be flying past. As a group we are almost at the 1 yr mark for this program and looking back it has been interesting. I have been fortunate enough to be involved in a huge project (in NZ Mags) and now with GSP, it is again a totally unique learning experience.

Over the Christmas break, Tracy had managed to get me in touch with Ciaran Davis (CEO, Australian Radio Network) and he was kind enough to offer me some challenging projects which will form my next block.

Before I start thinking about that, there is a lot of work at hand here at GSP.

There are still a lot of things that need to be ticked off and time is running out. One of the biggest major is finishing the website for GSP which I was putting together. Everything is running and completed except for the contact form on the website. This is the part where an interested customer fills in their details, presses submit and the information comes through to an email address here at GSP.

Tried to get some help from the IT team but have been told that there is a freeze and nothing will be done before 17th Jan. Guess, we will have to wait and see what happens after the 17th.

The weather is quite bad here in Sydney with constant rain and changing seasons but nothing as bad as what we are seeing in Queensland.

My thoughts and wishes are with those devastated by the raging floods in Queensland. Its hard to fathom that so much destruction can happen so quickly and without warning.