Jane Figgis
The journey that has brought me to Re-vision would have been difficult for anyone to predict. Mine has been a meandering path but in retrospect the journey has some logic, at least it seems so to me.
The thread that holds the path together - the logic of moving from being an inorganic chemist to school coordinator then to radio broadcaster and on to consultant and now Revision - is what I describe as 'not waiting to be asked' or, as a colleague put it, 'building bridges while crossing them'. Let me explain.
I started out with a PhD in inorganic chemistry from
Georgetown University in Washington D.C. but never became a
practising research chemist. I am of the generation of women who
stayed at home, if we could afford to, when the children were
young. I did get involved with a group who thought it of value to
set up an alternative high school in Fremantle. That was an
excellent lesson in 'not waiting to be asked'. Establishing
the Community School was in no one's duty statement nor a
funded 'project'; nonetheless, a fascinating school came
into being.
Wanting to use the science, however, niggled at me and I decided journalism might be the vehicle for doing that. I studied some journalism units and volunteered at the university radio station but what really opened the door to my career at the ABC was that I had read a book (about early computer 'nerds') and, simply to clarify my own thinking, had written a mini essay about it.
It happened at just that moment I had a call from Radio National asking if I could fill behind someone going on leave for a few months. I mentioned, only in passing chat, the interesting book and my 'review'. "Why don't you record it for our program Science Bookshop?" Six months later it was my program! I presented and produced it for another six years until I started a new program The Education Report on Radio National. The point is, no one asked me to write that review.
Choosing to leave a job that I loved, that was such a privilege, is difficult to explain. It happens to many of us: we've done something we find thoroughly satisfying but you just know it is time to move on. I had also learned over the years that when I feel apprehensive about doing something new, that is exactly the signal to do it. Being a little bit scared seems to work for me.
So I left. We founded AAAJ. The consulting work has been interesting; it has given us insight into many organisations and allowed us to work with many excellent people. But the attraction of spending much more of our time on this intriguing development of our times - how to take advantage of our extended life spans - has proved irresistible.
No one asked us to invent Re-vision but here we are. And I am embarked on the next steps along the path. It will be interesting to look back a few years from now to discover where it has led.