Also this week, Australia gets a new masthead for quality journalism, and everyone goes all wet and judgemental. Something something football on the internet. And I finish all the things that I meant to do on New Year’s Eve but didn’t.

Despite being recorded more than five weeks after the previous episode, this is really just a continuation. More or less. Shut up I’m telling this story don’t question me.

Look, I’m going to be writing some more words for a bit, so feel free to scroll down or click through or whatever and just play the podcast, OK?

Apart from the dogs (which I cover in a little too much detail), Nick Hodge explains why New Year’s Eve in Sydney is so dreadful (five weeks after the event I know shut up), I look briefly at The Global Mail (while most of what I wanted to say has already been said on Radio 2SER, I do add some extra points here), and I become concerned about apples being compared with oranges. So to speak.

Simon (pictured) even tells us The Truth about Facebook! Whoever the fuck Simon is.

En passant I mention La Camera Italian Restaurant in South Yarra and The Tennis Shop.

And the football thing? Oh, I’ve got an opinion piece in the Sydney Morning Herald today.

You can listen to the podcast below. But if you want all of the episodes, now and in the future, subscribe to the podcast feed, or even subscribe automatically in iTunes.

If you’d like to comment on this episode, please add your comment below, or Skype to stilgherrian or phone Sydney +61 2 8011 3733. Not that anyone ever does.

[Credits: Audio grabs from 10 O'Clock Live, EON's The Spice Must Flow, Stilgherrian Live episode 53, The Larry Sanders Show, ambient sound from Bunjaree Cottages, 40 Years of PM. The little beep sound is by junggle via Freesound.org, used under a Creative Commons Attribution license. The 9pm Edict theme by mansardian, Edict fanfare by neonaeon, all from The Freesound Project. Photograph of Stilgherrian taken 29 March 2009 by misswired, used by permission.]

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets — leaving out most of the embarrassing bits.

Podcasts

• Patch Monday episode 109, “Early Jobs: innovative, underground, illegal”. Yes, a Steve Jobs episode, but covering the early days and AppleTalk and the Apple LaserWriter and things. My guests were Mark Pesce and Nick Hodge.

Articles

• Aussie “family” social network fails security basics, CSO, 11 October 2011. Family HQ was launched as a private social network for family use, with privacy as its focus. So it’s a shame they didn’t get someone to test that.
• Turnbull’s NBN twilight zone — give the man a cigar (Cuban of course), Crikey, 11 October 2011.
• From idiot box to idiot internet, Technology Spectator, 13 October 2011. Thanks to ubiquitous internet and 3G phone networks we no longer sit up in our chairs and “go online”, which means the social TV phenomenon is here to stay.
• Android, the simmering security shemozzle, CSO, 14 October 2011.

Media Appearances

None. Which is a nice change after last week.

Corporate Largesse

• On Thursday evening, I attended the launch of Kaspersky Endpoint Security 8.0 at The American Club, Sydney. Kaspersky Lab paid for the food and alcohol. Too much alcohol. So it’s a good thing they also paid for a hotel room.

Elsewhere

Most of my day-to-day observations are on my high-volume Twitter stream, and random photos and other observations turn up on my Posterous stream. The photos also appear on Flickr, where I eventually add geolocation data and tags.

[Photo: Misty Morning at Bunjaree Cottages, which I think should be self-explanatory by now.]

Podcasts

• Patch Monday episode 85, “Geek culture takes over the world”. Triggered by Pia Waugh’s tweet noting that some folks enthuse about social media and online communications without understanding their geek-culture roots, I have a yarn with geeks Nick Hodge and Silvia Pfeiffer.

Articles

• Facebook regulation, for ABC Drum Opinion, the new branding for ABC Unleashed. The piece points out the risk to freedom of expression as we move our conversations from public spaces to privately-owned ones, triggered by Facebook’s most recent silliness, deleting a photo of two men kissing.
• Apple’s answer to Android: confidence … and shiny big numbers, for Crikey, following Apple announcing yet more record earnings for a March quarter but with little in the way of facts about their strategy.

Media Appearances

• On Tuesday I was interviewed for Panorama on SYN Radio in Melbourne about Facebook regulation. While the do post some items as podcasts, they haven’t done so yet, so I’ve posted the audio on this website.
• I would’ve also been on ABC News 24′s discussion show The Drum, had I not been in Katoomba for the day and unable to make it to Sydney in time. Geography is not quite dead yet.

Corporate Largesse

None.

Elsewhere

Most of my day-to-day observations are on my high-volume Twitter stream, and random photos and other observations turn up on my Posterous stream. The photos also appear on Flickr, where I eventually add geolocation data and tags.

What a week! If you were following my Twitter stream this evening, you’d already know that one of the cats, Artemis, is gravely ill tonight. She is in hospital. My cashflows are thoroughly depleted. And I am severely stressed. But I am also astounded by people’s generosity of spirit.

In writing all this, I run the risk of alienating those who want to see a supposed-professional’s website full of serious things like my media work and serious commentary, or at least mildly amusing satire, not that supposedly lowest-of-low, “cat blogging”. My good friend Nick Hodge has already written this week about professional versus personal social media projections and the risks of letting them intermingle.

But you know what? Fuck all that!

If I am to be an honest human — and I would like to think I strive to be one — then what I write about should be what is on my mind. And this is what dominates my mind today. If you don’t like it, well, stop reading now and pop back another time. Maybe next week.

And if you think less of me for writing about the personal issues that happen to be dominating my life, well, fuck you too.

So, to Artemis…

Yesterday we thought she had food poisoning of some sort, and figured she’d recover today after spending the night flaked out on the bed. But her appetite did not return, and late this afternoon she took a turn for the worst. No energy, unable to stand on her own feet, weak pulse.

I got her to our local vet just as they were closing, but she was too ill to stay overnight unattended, so we took her to the Sydney After-hours Veterinary Emergency Service at the University of Sydney’s Veterinary Teaching Hospital.

Initial treatment with fluids restored some of Artemis’ strength. She’s sitting up again.

The initial consultation revealed symptoms of small kidneys and possibly infected bladder, which could mean anything from kidney disease of some sort to a urinary tract infection. Comprehensive urine and blood tests will be required. Some bleeding was also revealed in her mouth, with unusual tissue growth. This can be indicative of mouth cancer, although someone on Twitter did say something about kidney problems causing mouth ulcers. However the vet flagged the likelihood of cancer. A biopsy will be needed, but at the moment Artemis isn’t strong enough for the anaesthetic needed for that.

Now all this couldn’t have come at a worse time.

As I wrote the other day, I’m already in the difficult position of having to find a new home when I’m skint. One of my tasks over the next few days is to figure out how to get sufficient cash in while we’re in the slow-income post-holiday period to enable househunting and moving before 3 February.

This evening, however, I emptied my bank account and my wallet into as much as I could muster to cover the required 50% deposit for the estimated treatment costs.

That wasn’t enough for the full recommended option that included all the analyses for this first night. It was enough for the consultation and hospital cover, fluids, initial essential treatment and some methodone. That’s $640, of which I’ve paid half. So Artemis is alive, and my task now is to figure out the next steps — including paying the rest of that, deciding the course of action from here, and then paying for that.

As far as I understand the options from here, Artemis will need at least a few days in hospital, plus those tests to properly diagnose her condition, including the potential cancer. I imagine all that won’t be less than an additional $1000. If it is cancer, and operable, then that’s a jaw section to be removed. I don’t see that being under another $1000, given that when her tail was crushed in an accident in 2007 and had to be removed that cost around $1000, and the jaw sounds more complicated.

So there’s my challenge for tomorrow. Pay for the initial treatment and investigations. Then, once they’re done, figure out how to cover the rest of the problems once they’re revealed or, face the other potential decision, consider whether it’s all too hard, too much of a burden on everyone including the Furry One herself, and go for The Long Green Sleep.

I must be honest here and say that I am overwhelmed.

People might imagine that because I have a reasonably high profile and have travelled overseas twice last year that I have a respectable income. I do not. The media work I do pays very little. The geek-for hire work I do is relatively low in volume. The overseas trips were paid for by others — Microsoft and Salesforce.com, to name names.

And my total volume of work, and hence income, is patchy because over the years I’ve had an on-again off-again battle with depression — something I don’t make a big deal of because, well, it’s as boring as all fuck. But several nastier-than-usual bouts over the past few years, each representing stretches of some weeks without any real income, have left me with zero cash reserves and no credit cards. Like most people with even less income than me, I pay as I go and pray there’ll be no unexpected glitches.

Like having to move house.

Or sick pets.

As it approaches midnight on this Wednesday night, I am not depressed. But I do have a very large question mark sitting in front of me.

However I am overwhelmed by people’s generosity, and generosity of spirit.

Friends have offered to sort out what happens tomorrow morning. We still have to work out the details, but at least tomorrow is OK.

What has astounded me, though, is the generosity of strangers. On the left-hand side of my website there’s a PayPal donation button. People have used it occasionally over the years. However in the past three days there’s been five donations totalling over $200 — all but one from complete strangers. People I barely know have been offering help on Twitter this evening — logistics, cold hard cash, or both. The other day, when I first mentioned my accommodation problem, people offered to help cover the bond on new premises until the old one is refunded, as well as other kinds of support.

I am surprised, pleased, feeling supported but nevertheless overwhelmed. And today has been the first day in the last few weeks that I’ve been able to focus well enough.

Tonight several people suggested that I set up a microfinance donation thingo to cover Artemis’ treatment. That is an option, and I’ll consider it properly in the morning, because I am certainly in no position to pay back loans of the magnitude required.

But all that is enough for now. The facts of the matter have tumbled out. I am exhausted. I’ll get a phone call between 6.30 and 7.30am tomorrow with further news. And right now Apollo, the other cat, is demanding attention. Loudly.

Thank you everyone, truly thank you, for your support tonight.

[Photo: Artemis with her prey, a noisy miner bird, from 23 May 2005.]

To everyone who came to my birthday party yesterday, or who sent messages, thank you very much.

Apart from a series of disjointed memories and unexplained bruises, there is also photographic evidence that it was a fun time. There’s this portrait of me by Kate Carruthers, for instance [embiggen]. This crowd scene by Nick Hodge, with Ben Grubb lurking on the left. And a whole series of photos by misswired including one of The Hive Bar’s proprietor Nick hard at work on the Endless Stream of Mojitos™.

If there are any other photos, please let me know.

Special thanks to Nick Hodge for reminding us of this special moment in Australian television, and for providing the little glittery things that imprinted a purple mark on my forehead.

Extra special thanks to Streamer and Balloon Blondie who, by simply existing, ensured that I wouldn’t be the biggest embarrassment of the day.

Do not adjust your set. Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

Even though I’m one of Australia’s most prolific Twitter users, and even though it seems like I’ve spent half the week defending it from half-arsed criticism, I’m also well aware of its limitations. Like tonight.

Earlier this evening I attended the Government 2.0 Taskforce‘s Road Show in Sydney. At one point, I tweeted:

Nicholas Gruen seriously says that the government should have created community good like Google, Facebook and Twitter. #gov2au

That was soon picked up by people who weren’t in the room, who hadn’t heard the context. Hours later we’re still seeing tweets like this one:

@skaye: “The Govt should have invented twitter, flickr…” LIKE WTF?? #gov2au *shudder* (via @NickHodge) They struggle with discounts on utes!

Notice how the content mutated as the message was passed on? “Created” becomes “invented”, Flickr is added to the mix, and the “community good” qualifier has vanished.

Here’s what really happened…

The conversation was about the kinds of online services government should be building versus what comes out of the private sector. The example was FixMyStreet.com, a community-based service which allows UK citizens to report and discuss local problems like graffiti, illegal dumping, broken paving and faulty street lighting.

An audience member said she was uncomfortable with this service being outside government. “These are core services for which governments collect rates and taxes,” she said.

Nicholas Gruen, the Chair of the Taskforce, agreed. This was the business of government, but they’re not actually doing it.

“It think it was the government’s job to build Google, Facebook, Twitter. I’m quite serious about that,” said Gruen. “It’s the government which is funded to build community good public goods for the community.”

There ensued a healthy debate about the boundaries of public and private enterprise, with Gruen concluding, “We certainly have to be enthusiastic about the government doing their job better, but we also have to ask why the private sector seems to be better at innovation.”

Note the nuance. It’s the government’s job to build the community’s services — just like it’s their job to build roads, sewers and street lighting. But they didn’t, because they’re behind the pace.

Gruen never suggested anything akin to the nationalisation of Twitter. I’m sure he’d agree that the government wouldn’t have the faintest idea how to go about running it. But that’s how the Twitterverse interpreted his comment.

Twitter is about short, punchy messages. Only the short, punchy conference soundbites get tweeted. Out of context. And only the funny, wild or ridiculous ones get retweeted, drifting even further out of context as people re-edit them to allow room for their own editorialising.

Using Twitter as an in-conference back channel is one thing. But trying to “tweet a conference” to an external audience is, in my opinion, futile.

[Credit: Cartoon Twitter-bird courtesy of Hugh MacLeod. Like all of Hugh's cartoons published online, it's free to use.]

So far it seems to work OK. I like the idea that I can preview the actual blog post’s final appearance online offline — which means that fussy ‘ol me can keep the appearance consistent. The trick will come when I try adding pictures. But for now, let’s press "Publish" and see what happens…

Yes, there will be an episode of Stilgherrian Live tonight, in some way, shape or form, so it’s time to start nominating someone or something for “Cnut of the Week”.

We’re looking for people, organisations or other entities who are futilely trying to hold back the tide of change. It has to be something in the news in the last week, and you have to explain yourself. Nominees have to be not merely doing bad things, but failing to notice or adapt to the change around them.

Everyone who nominates and leaves a valid email address goes into the draw for a free t-shirt of their choice from our friends at King Cnut Ethical Clothing.

Nominations for “Cnut of the Week” are open until 8.30pm Sydney time, and you must nominate at the website for it to count. And also, when we draw the t-shirt winner, you must be watching the program and email us the code word within 3 minutes of your name being announced, otherwise we’ll pick someone else.

(Of course, neither they nor us are as lame and unethical as to share your email address with anyone else. I for one have site policies about this sort of thing, and so do they.)

At 8.30pm you would normally be watching Nick Hodge‘s program @NickHodge , but tonight @Yin_Yin will provide a music program instead. “Alternative and electro paradise”, he says. Stilgherrian Live starts at 9.30pm.

Who do you nominate, and why?

“I’d add that that face is almost always unexpected.” — Mark Pesce (in private conversation)

Clearly I’m not going to get anything else written until I respond to The Gnome Situation. I’ve been reading the comments and mulling possible responses for days. It’s getting in the way of actual, productive work. So here we go.

No. I will not be removing Gnaomi from my desk.

Discussing an issue as important as rape through the proxy of an anthropomorphised piece of clay seems, to me, a poor tactic. Nor will I compromise the actual or perceived independence of my media output, no matter how worthy the cause.

There’ll probably be people at ActionAid who won’t like or understand that outcome, so here’s the long explanation…

Certainly appalling sexual crimes are committed against women. Certainly such crimes include, at their core, the psychology of men viewing those women as mere objects for their gratification, or to smash to assert their power. Having been close to people who’ve experienced sexual abuse, some of it violent, I have a little understanding of the damage it causes.

A little.

I’m sure that ActionAid deals with people who’ve suffered even more horrific violations. I cannot imagine what those people have gone through, and still go through, and actually I do not wish to be able to imagine it.

Now there’s a conversation we can and should have about the way women are portrayed in our society.

Why do we have continuing allegations of sexual assault against footballers who are meant to be role models? That’s deeply problematic not because the sex happened in a group, but the power relationships and consent — or the lack thereof.

Why has almost all of the analysis of that debacle, like Annabel Crabb’s, been about how the men’s sexuality is framed, but not why young women become attracted to ignorant thugs? Not that that’s an excuse for those men’s behaviour, of course, but it is another layer to the complexity of the situation.

Why do early-evening TV game shows have a male host to lead the conversation, with women reduced to being decorative stands for the cases of cash — all dressed identically to further reduce their humanity?

Why does a nation like the United States go into paroxysms because a woman’s breast was exposed at a football match, and yet doesn’t bat an eyelid over nightly fictional slaughter on TV? Or over the actual, non-fictional slaughter by gunfire of 82 citizens every single day, many being suicides?

Why would a woman’s wardrobe malfunction hardly raise an eyebrow in France?

Why do trade shows like CeBIT still have booth babes who know nothing about the product? Why did NEWS.com.au describe Netregistry’s nurses as wearing “flashy outfits” when they were actually completely “covered up”? Why did I, for that matter, describe them as “naughty nurses” in the first place, referencing a popular cultural meme in a comment which probably triggered that whole discussion?

All these are important questions.

Complex questions.

Quite frankly, the equation “naked breasts = degradation and exploitation” is a dangerous over-simplification.

And it’s just plain wrong.

The logical gap has already been pointed out by vealmince. Yes, terrible things are done to women. But that connects back to this clay garden gnome how, exactly?

Why, as my friend and colleague Kate Carruthers asks, are naked breasts automatically “bad”, exactly?

As Joanna White (@mediamum) says, “Crap, Stil. Boobs celebrate the empowerment of women, not their degradation. Tell ‘em it’s a fertility symbol.”

As Kate points out, women in cultures such as Amazonian tribes, Australia’s own Aborigines or the patrons of Bondi Beach have their breasts exposed as part of their everyday tradition — or at least they did before interfering European busy-bodies told them it was “immoral”, somehow.

After all, it was Victorian society and its suppressed sexuality which got the ignorant natives to cover up. “Victorian prudery sometimes went so far as to deem it improper to say ‘leg’ in mixed company; instead, the preferred euphemism ‘limb’ was used,” says Wikipedia.

I reckon that simplistic equation says more about how Western societies have suppressed sexuality, made it all taboo and naughty, rather than including sexuality as one component of a healthy, properly-integrated human society.

And, as my esteemed colleague Guy Rundle pointed out in Crikey the other day in relation to the NRL scandal, the men’s bad behaviour is still somehow the women’s fault. The “naked breasts = exploitation” meme is still really that old chestnut that weak men become uncontrollable sex maniacs if they’re confronted with exposed mammaries. Cover them up, lest the women be raped! Did you see how she was dressed? She had it coming!

But back to the gnome…

That stupid gnome has been part of nearly every video I’ve done since His Benevolence Stilgherrrian’s Christmas Message, and it’s there precisely because it’s tasteless.

His Benevolence, as a character, is a self-indulgent despot. He therefore decorates his realm with symbols of his power. As with the Evil Genius of action-thriller fiction, powerfully sexy woman are always close at hand, reinforcing the villain’s own masculinity and self-control. But His Benevolence, laughably incompetent and barely coherent, is instead accompanied by a cheeky Benny Hill parody of those sexy women — and not even a real woman at that, but a mere garden gnome. It’s part of the shtick.

Gnaomi was even named after Naomi Robson, a television presenter whose screen presence, some might argue, was all about ego and style over substance. Remember the lizard? Gnaomi is Naomi in clay and glossy paint: truly an empty media vessel.

That’s why on Stilgherrian Live she takes on the face of whoever I want to ridicule that week — usually a politician or media identity, of any gender.

Actually, that’s all a bullshit justification after the fact.

What really happened is that we were shooting the Christmas Message on a tight deadline. I asked ’Pong to grab some tasteless decorations from the $2 shop, and this stupid sexist gnome was one of them. Little thought went into it, beyond “OMFG that’s so tasteless!” Perhaps that does reveal something about our attitudes to women. Who knows.

But here’s the thing. That stupid goddam gnome has starred in a dozen videos, viewed by hundreds of people. And while my audience obviously isn’t representative of the full spectrum of Australian society — no need to call in the statisticians, I do know this — I find it interesting that it’s really only the staff of ActionAid who’ve complained.

I toyed with the idea of doing a vox pop to see what women thought of the gnome, but there’s no need. When intelligent and media-savvy women like Kate Carruthers and Joanna White wonder what the issue is here, when Avril Hodge and Demi Moore call themselves @mrsnickhodge and @mrskutcher online knowing it defines them in terms of their husbands as irony, I’m reminded that we do live in a post-feminist society — and, yes, that’s a term riddled with problems.

The original feminist stereotypes are now inadequate. We acknowledge that a woman’s sexuality can be a thing of power. Ask any burlesque performer. Ask any hooker whose business model isn’t focussed on supporting a smack habit. Gawd, if you called Adelaide übermadam Stormy Summers “exploited” she’d slap you!

Now whether our society’s norms are healthy or not, whether they’re contributing to the problem of sexual violence against women or not, is a whole ‘nuther question, and one I’m happy to discuss.

In fact, some of the discussion over at the original post is wonderful, even if it’s edging towards an aggressive tone in places. Provided it stays civil, or only mock-angry, I’d love that discussion to continue. It’ll help ActionAid find the right tone for talking about these vital issues.

But the gnome stays.

This website, stilgherrian.com, is my place. My home on the web. No-one walks into my home and tells me what to do — at least not without a warrant. Or perhaps a gun. Sorry, Archie, but “Bad news Stil the gnome has to go” and “you need to remove the gnome”, expressed as they are in the imperative voice — i.e. as an order — rub me up the wrong way, even if unintentionally.

I also don’t wish to damage my personal brand as a writer.

Part of the strength of my writing is that I call it how I see it — even if that causes a bit of shock-horror sometimes. I swear. I call for people to be killed. I tell off-colour jokes. Yeah, it’s over the top. But it’s me. And because of that, people trust what I write.

When I praised and (lightly) damned Telstra’s Next G network, for example, regular readers knew that’s because I really did like it, not because Telstra gave me a freebie. And it didn’t stop me being highly critical of Telstra’s broadband strategy, or of its outgoing CEO, or of their PR guy who played the man and not the ball.

I don’t want to lose that trust.

People don’t listen to Bono any more. Well, OK, that’s because Bono is a wanker. And because “strident” is a turn-off. But neither do they listen to the manicured celebrities who helicopter into disaster zones to deliver in earnest tones some carefully pre-packaged Message.

Now I did mention this in one of my video diaries, but I’ll put it here so everyone’s clear. As my original proposal said:

So that this is not, and is not perceived to be, “cash for comment”, we will need to make it clear that the main project is for me to set up ActionAid blogs. As a side effect, this provides the opportunity for me to produce my own content, over which Austcare/ActionAid has no editorial control.

I’m glad we’ve encountered the real-world impact of this issue while talking about a $3.50 garden gnome rather than, say, if I found an ActionAid worker drunk on duty. Or worse.

Now I won’t be carting a stupid lump of clay around Africa, so once I’m on the road Gnaomi will disappear from the screen. What happens after that remains to be seen. But whatever happens will happen because it was my honest, personal choice.

Project TOTO, this Grand Experiment, is truly a challenge, made more so because by definition it’s playing out in public.

ActionAid is engaging in the naked conversations of social media for the first time. There’s doubtless a sense of fear. Many of my readers and Twitter followers are influential media people — journalists, editors, TV and radio presenters, performers, academics, students. And of course ActionAid has its own stakeholders, some of whom may not be at all familiar with this new world.

But the Grand Experiment is also being followed by some of the more clueful social media practitioners and commentators. This is such a worthy cause they’ll probably offer plenty of feedback, advice and support along the way. ActionAid has a honeymoon period here. That’s going to be a wonderful conversation.

Finally, just so everyone’s clear, perhaps my posts need a disclaimer, eh?

[Disclaimer: Stilgherrian's opinions are his own, and do not necessarily represent the views of ActionAid Australia or its international affiliates -- or anyone else for that matter.]

You have less than three hours to nominate someone or something for “Cnut of the Week”. Sorry ’bout the late notice, but I’ve only just decided that I’m well enough to do Stilgherrian Live tonight.

We’re looking for people, organisations or other entities who are futilely trying to hold back the tide of change. It has to be something in the news in the last week, and you have to explain yourself. Nominees have to be not merely doing bad things, but failing to notice or adapt to the change around them.

Everyone who nominates and leaves a valid email address goes into the draw for a free t-shirt of their choice from our friends at King Cnut Ethical Clothing.

Nominations for “Cnut of the Week” are open until 8.30pm Sydney time, and you must nominate at the website for it to count. And also, when we draw the t-shirt winner, you must be watching the program and email us the code word within 5 minutes of your name being announced, otherwise we’ll pick someone else.

(Of course, neither they nor us are as lame and unethical as to share your email address with anyone else. I for one have site policies about this sort of thing, and so do they.)

At 8.30pm you should be watching Nick Hodge‘s program @NickHodge with special guest Mark Pesce before Stilgherrian Live starts at 9.30pm.

Who do you nominate, and why?

Here’s my 5-minute presentation from WebForward@CeBIT last week, on the importance of authenticity when using social media for business.

It’s recorded on a Nokia N80 phone by Mike Seyfang so it’s a bit rough, but you’ll get the content. You’ll also hear me swear a few times because, well, that’s apparently what I’m now expected to do.

One key theme is that if businesses try to micro-manage every aspect of the communication between their employees and the rest of the world — denying that there are mistakes, or that some people don’t like them — they’ll end up becoming paranoid psychotics. I hope to expand upon that in due course.

Mike also recorded the presentations from my co-panellists Hugo Ortega, Kate Carruthers and Nick Hodge, but not Laurel Papworth for some reason.

I did see a “proper” video camera on the day, so I think CeBIT will place higher-resolution video online in due course. I’ll let you know if and when that happens.

Just in case you missed the announcement because it was buried in another post, the Stilgherrian Live Eurovision Special is tonight.

I’ll be joining my special guests Nick Hodge, Snarky Platypus and maybe even the reclusive Mark Pesce from 7.15pm Sydney time.

If you’re on Australia’s east coast, set your TV to SBS and we’ll provide the added commentary. If we can figure out some way of synchronising the video for everyone else, we’ll let you know.

Also, yes, I know that Eurovision is really already over. However the SBS telecast is delayed so Australians can enjoy the drama in prime time — so please don’t spoil it by telling us the winner.

The “normal” Stilgherrian Live will return at 9.30pm next Thursday night.

Episode 47 of Stilgherrian Live, the Cheap Edition, is now online for your viewing pleasure.

Actually it has been since shortly after the program finished on Thursday night, and you could have just gone to the channel page to watch it. I’ll sort out a better notification system when I get back from Africa.

Except you don’t know I’m going to Africa, because it’s SEKRIT.

There was another strong field this week for “Cnut of the Week”, too.

I thought Prime Minister Kevin Rudd would score more votes for the federal budget, but no. After winning last week, he only came in 4th (20%). ABC TV came in 3rd (24%) for choosing not broadcast the controversial mock anti-discrimination advertisement on The Gruen Transfer.

We had a draw for first place: Scott Swabey’s nomination of “all marketing peeps for their continued insistence on trying to find a way to control/monetise the social media movement” and Wolf’s nomination of “everyone on Twitter that [sic] kept reposting the #fixreplies even after twitter did… you all look like a bunch of whining idiots now” (28%).

Visually, “everyone on twitter” was represented by a social network diagram and, in our usual tasteful way, “all marketing peeps” by a tapeworm.

I particularly like the tapeworm, don’t you?

Meanwhile, congratulations to Wolf, who won a t-shirt from our friends at King Cnut Ethical Clothing — and a big raspberry to Gedulous who would’ve won if he were watching the program when his name was drawn from the Cocktail Shaker of Integrity but he wasn’t so we had a redraw and Wolf won instead so there nyer.

The Stilgherrian Live Eurovision Special is tonight from 7.15pm Sydney time, with special guests Nick Hodge, Snarky Platypus and probably Mark Pesce.

The regular old Stilgherrian Live will return at 9.30pm next Thursday night.

It being Thursday and not too chaotic, there shall be an episode of Stilgherrian Live tonight. That means nominations are now open for “Cnut of the Week”.

We’re looking for people, organisations or other entities who are futilely trying to hold back the tide of change. It has to be something in the news in the last week, and you have to explain yourself. Nominees have to be not merely doing bad things, but failing to notice or adapt to the change around them.

Everyone who nominates and leaves a valid email address goes into the draw for a free t-shirt of their choice from our new friends at King Cnut Ethical Clothing.

Nominations for “Cnut of the Week” are open until 8.30pm Sydney time, and you must nominate at the website for it to count. And also, when we draw the t-shirt winner, you must be watching the program and email us the secret word within 5 minutes of your name being announced, otherwise we’ll pick someone else.

Yes, it’s just like your local pub’s Friday night meat raffle. Apart from the meat. And the alcohol. And the pleasant company. And the pub.

(Of course, neither they nor us are as lame and unethical as to share your email address with anyone else. I for one have site policies about this sort of thing, and so do they.)

At 8.30pm you should be watching Nick Hodge‘s program @NickHodge before Stilgherrian Live starts at 9.30pm.

Who do you nominate, and why?

Last year I told CeBIT to FOAD after I’d been underwhelmed in 2007. They said thank you, and issued me with a discount code and a media pass. This year they’ve invited me to participate in a panel at WebForward@CeBIT. That means I can offer two random scroungers deserving readers a cheap ticket.

CeBIT is the big IT trade show thingy running 12 to 14 May, with a bunch of conference streams attached. WebForward@CeBIT is one of them.

On 14 May I’ll be joining my colleagues Laurel Papworth, Kate Carruthers, Nick Hodge, Hugo Ortega (who I don’t think I’ve met) and chairman Jye Smith to discuss how you can “Capitalise on Social Media for Business”.

Because I’m a panellist, I get two tickets to the full 2-day conference at a discounted price of $178 + GST instead of the listed $1295 + GST.

If you’d like one of these discounted tickets, make your case by 9am Sydney time on Wednesday 6 May. Explain why you’re deserving, and I’ll pick the two scams reasons I like.

If you miss out, you can still save $160 off the on-site registration price by using the promotional code stilwebca09. You’ll need to insert the code when prompted during on-line registration at www.mycebit.com.au.