Overheard in a pub on King Street, Newtown earlier today: “I’m not afraid of mental institutions any more. It’s a free holiday. Free food, free cigarettes — free DRUGS!”
You are currently browsing the monthly archive for January 2008.
Yesterday I reported that traffic for The Heath Ledger Experiment had declined across the weekend. Today I can tell you that the decline has been reversed and we’re slightly up again. Across 6 days, we’ve seen a total of 6,407 unique human visitors to the jokes page.
I have no real explanation for this yet, and it may just be statistical noise. Still, my gut feeling is that we’re moving past the initial feeding-frenzy. Perhaps the early visitors are people who actively seek out a forum for this sort of thing, because that’s how they gain the attention they seek. Later, others stumble across the site once those early visitors have seeded it with content.
If you own or manage a business that handles information (and which business doesn’t?) then you must understand computers and the Internet. If you don’t, you’re incompetent. Yes, that’s right, you heard me. Incompetent.
There, I’ve said it. Now, with that out of the way, let me explain…
I don’t mean you need to know how computers work, or how to set them up, program them, maintain them or fix them when they break. You don’t need to know how to connect a computer to the Internet, build a website or any of that stuff either.
However you should know enough to make effective decisions about how they’re used in your business. You should know how the leaders in your industry are using the technology. You should be aware of developments that might affect your plans.
In short, you don’t need to know the technology itself, but you do need to know its implications for your business.
Australia’s had a Goods and Services Tax since 2000. If you waved your hand and said, “Oh, I don’t understand GST,” your shareholders would have every right to sack you for incompetence.
Sure, your accountant handles the details. But at the very least you know that the GST is 10%, and you can handle basic business operations like quoting for a customer’s work.
Well, we’ve had the Internet commercially since 1995, and computers for much longer. They’re a core part of doing business. Waving your hand and saying, “Oh, I don’t understand computers” should equally be a sacking offence.
So what do you need to understand…?
Are you proud of your culture? It depends which culture you mean, I guess. Over the weekend I’ve pondered that while we all celebrated our Australian culture, and somewhere — not that I bothered participating — gay men celebrated “gay culture”. Again.
The photo (above) is from ’Pong’s photo essay on Australia Day. Classy eh?
The rest of the pics show precisely how we celebrate the Birth of Our Great Nation at the very place where the key events of 1788 took place. It’s pathetic. It’s embarrassing.
As I Twittered to ’Pong at the time, “So many people in your Oz Day photos use the flag as clothing. Fat-arsed drunks sitting on it! Nation’s flag: show respect.”
Everyone needs to know — you need to know — that the answer to all of the world’s problems is tub waan (ตับหวาน). I learned this after wide-ranging discussions in Bangkok with ’Pong’s friends. And about six bottles of whisky. So it must be true.
Marcus Wade has opened the Film & Television Specialist Bookshop at 1/502 King Street, Newtown. Actually it opened in November but we only discovered it yesterday. Drop in, buy something, say “Hi” from us.
Should I be concerned that when you Google for “used knickers” I come up as result number 12?
Further to my last post about The Heath Ledger Experiment, it’s interesting to note that of the Top 100 search terms which brought traffic here, 27 are Heath Ledger-related. 28 if you count “drug overdose joke”.
That compares with 33 related to Corey Worthington Delaney and 2 to Steve Irwin.
Traffic related to The Heath Ledger Experiment continues to decline across the long weekend, the exact opposite of my admittedly ill-informed speculation. From a peak of 1,970 unique human visitors daily, it’s dropped to 1,227.
However that’s still well above the typical figure of around 500 unique humans daily which prevailed before this Experiment and The Madness of Corey Worthington Delaney.
ABC The Drum
Crikey
CSO Online
Delicious
Dopplr
Flickr
LinkedIn
newmatilda.com
Patch Monday
Posterous
Qik
Stilgherrian Live (Ustream)
Technology Spectator
Twitter
Viddler
Recent Comments