Gary Dean
It's Time for Indonesia to Act
Last week, a coalition of European tech companies held a press conference in Berlin and announced a new office suite called Euro-Office. Documents, spreadsheets, presentations -- standard productivity software. Except this wasn't a product launch. It...
Looking Back After 25 Years
In July 2001, I wrote an essay on doing business in Indonesia. It was commissioned by the East Asia Analytical Unit of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, as part of a book entitled Indonesia: Facing the Challenge. At the time, In...
An open letter to my friends and clients in Indonesia.
The global economy has taken a blow, with volatility in exchange rates and commodity prices and mass unemployment. National monetary authorities have adjusted their predictions for economic growth in 2020-2021, with negative growth expected in 2020 a...
Reflections 14 years after the Asian Tsunami
In 2004 and 2005, in addition to running my consultancy firm, I also moonlighted – quite literally – as a copy editor at The Jakarta Post. This meant my work day averaged 16 hours at that time. I totally didn’t need this additional workload, but it w...
a way of trading that will soon disappear
A walk through the Beringharjo traditional market on Jalan Malioboro in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, using a chest height POV camera....
This is a video of a circumcision celebration for my son Rama Dean, which took place on 19 December 2014 at Graha Okusi, Jakarta, Indonesia....
From the West, Northward to the East
I was born and raised in Perth, Western Australia, in the pre-Sputnik era, and brought up in a mono-cultural English/British suburban environment. I am a Gemini and a Rooster. My MBTI is INFJ, my blood type B-, and I’m an Aspie. Here’s a snapshot of ...
Indonesian Land Law is quite different to the laws that apply in most Western or developed countries. Foreigners wishing to use or purchase land for whatever purpose need to be aware of these differences and not assume that legal conventions that app...
From a Western Perspective
NOTE: This article has been completely updated. See Doing Business in Indonesia 2026. > This is a modified version of a report commissioned by the East Asia Analytical Unit of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in July 2000, as pa...
An email exchange with Dennis De Tray, Indonesia country director, World Bank 1997-1999
> The views contained within this article are entirely my own and do not necessarily reflect past or present opinions or policies of any other person or organisation. Culture really matters when doing business, especially in Indonesia. An understandi...
A manufactured war
> "Tragically again, of the approximately 20 Christians who were killed [by Muslims] in the village of Benteng Karang, 15 of them were them were burnt alive. One of them was Mrs Rina Serpiela, a six-month pregnant woman who was killed by having her b...
Brian Toohey's article, "Time to rout the Jakarta Lobby", was published in The West Australian on 27 September 1999, just four weeks after the East Timorese autonomy plebiscite. During this period East Timor was in the process of being laid waste by ...
A conflict of values
The sun began to set upon Indonesia's corporatist 'New Order' state starting in the early 1990's. Speculation about the presidential succession was rife, mainly due to President Soeharto's increasing age and frailty, and such speculation was especial...
in comparison to South Korea and Taiwan
The rapid pace of economic development in East Asia over the past few decades has awed the world. This is particularly so for the so-called Newly Industrialising Countries (NICs) which include South Korea and Taiwan, together with the city-states of ...
My house in Yogyakarta in 1998.
my merc 8-} oh, there's the merc again the back of my house in yogyakarta my laundry and water tanks and well wife. wife. again. there she is again. my tiger-proof house the road into my house. nother boring picture of my house, showing tiger-proof s...
The role of culture in Indonesian politics
The incantations and vocabulary of the new era are rapidly taking hold in Indonesia since the fall of Suharto and his New Order regime. KKN, reformasi and transparansi have replaced UUD'45, Pancasila and pembangunan as catchphrases of the emerging or...
Reformasi and the Fall of Soeharto
> The period March to May 1998 was an interesting time in Indonesian history. This journal reflects some of the things that happened in my life over this period. Some of it is perhaps rather too personal, but that was the nature of my encounter with ...
