Think Tank: Dean Gould, Griffith University

GRIFFITH University director of Marketing and Communications Dean Gould believes the city needs to reconsider measuring success by the number of new high-rises.

Dean Gould at Griffith University. PHOTO: Glenn Hampson

Dean Gould is a former journalist and editor with the Gold Coast Bulletin and also has worked for other news organisations in Australia, New York and Ireland.
He is on the State Committee of White Ribbon, a member of the Australian Institute of Management and a former board member of Gold Coast Tourism.

He once drove 8000km around Europe in a Morris Minor 1000 with his partner, Carmel.

What do you love about the Gold Coast?

I love the people. They’re a little bit different.

I’ve lived in many different places and everywhere I’ve lived people have said `Oh, we’re a little bit different’. Mostly they are not, most places are the same, but the Gold Coast is different.

I love our chequered history. Some of the decisions that have been made culturally and physically about this city in the past would be pretty outlandish today, but they add to a fabric of achievement and a fabric of interest and interesting people to the city.

I find it a really interesting place to live.

What do you think could be done better on the Gold Coast?

I think service, our levels of service, across the city. I’d love to see us devote more time and energy to getting those right, because it’s such a simple thing to get right.

We are all just trying to get through the day and we all need to help each other. So it’s just a matter of attention and caring about the inquiry and following through.

Dean Gould says service in all areas could be done better on the Gold Coast. Photo: Generic

Whether it be hospitality, at a medical centre, university or media organisation, I think our levels of service are something that are not world-class yet across the city.

There are certainly pockets that are, but across the city I’d like to see our service improve.

In your travels, what have you seen being done elsewhere you think could work well here?

I would really enjoy pop-up restaurants on the beach. I look back on some of the more exotic places I’ve been and I’ve had some of the most wondrous meals served out of little four-metre huts, booths or kitchens in the most idyllic of settings.

You’d have to choose the locations. You couldn’t just do it anywhere on the beach, but our beaches at dusk in summer, would be such idyllic places to sit and have a meal.

We’ve seen the popularity of pop-up restaurants at places such as Night Quarter at Helensvale, and the success of Taste of the Gold Coast. So the concept works. People love it.

I’ve seen it in India, in lots of parts of Asia and I think it could work really well.

If money, time, laws and approvals were no issue, what is one big project you’d undertake tomorrow?

The health and knowledge precinct. There is a lot going on there but I think, recognising what a unique opportunity it presents, we need to bring together all three levels of government, private enterprise, and the community.

Not often in a city’s history are hectares and hectares of land available in the middle of an urban area, surrounded by infrastructure and services.

The sooner we acknowledge that the knowledge economy is going to be the future for Queensland and the future for the Gold Coast the sooner the city could be the knowledge-economy capital.

Artist impression of the Gold Coast Health and Knowledge precinct masterplan. Photo: State Government

There could be more urgency around making sure it is planned properly and that there is a strategy behind it; maybe a consortium that has authority over it, like the Southbank precinct. I think that could really drive it forward.

The health and knowledge precinct is already here, between the hospitals and the university and other things that are popping up, but what happens over the next three years is going to be critical.

You need three tiers of government and, to this point, they have co-ordinated pretty well but the rubber has to hit the road in a few places yet.

Artist impression of the Gold Coast Health and Knowledge precinct masterplan. Photo: State Government

You’d love to see additive manufacturers, 3D printers and that sort of thing — the Kogans and the Spotifys — the sorts of things that really represent the future of the digital economy.

I’d love to see those sort of companies engaged.

What conversations should Gold Coast movers and shakers be having?

We need to start talking overtly around the digital economy.

As a city, as a business community, we still measure ourselves by how many high-rises are built or how many chain stores relocate here.

Those things are all important, but they are 20th Century measures. The 21st Century measures are much harder to see.

The digital economy is something very real and it’s global.

You might not see the wealth in the number of floors in a building. Rather you see the wealth through the global tentacles that the digital economy can create.

Dean Gould at Griffith University. Picture: Glenn Hampson

We have an engineering graduate who developed some drone technology and he is now working with a global company to undertake surveillance on wildlife in Africa. That’s an example of the sort of stuff that goes on.

It’s the sort of thing that represents the digital economy. It has no boundaries. It’s the creative application of technology.

I’d like to see the business community, the property developers, the civic leaders start talking about the digital economy with the same energy and belief with which they talk about commercial developments and shopping centres.