Stilgherrian » podcamp

My geek story

Stilgherrian — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 21:12:09 +0000

Microsoft “professional geek” Nick Hodge captured me on video muttering about punch cards as part of his Geek Stories series. This actually happened in November last year, but I just found the note amongst my draft posts.

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PodCamp Perth 2007: Social Media and the Federal Election

Stilgherrian — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 01:24:05 +0000

Here’s a video of my presentation from PodCamp Perth 2007.

Thanks to Stewart Greenhill for the video work. As Stephen says:

I’ve put them on Viddler because it supports long videos and has some nifty tagging and commenting features. Feel free to be social: if you see something fun or interesting just click on the green “+” button and add a comment. That way, if people don’t have time to watch the whole thing at least we can check out the highlights. If you see the word “PROGRESSIVE” in the bottom left, click on it to switch to STREAMING mode. You can skip to any point in the movie by clicking in the seek bar, or on a comment point.

Alas, the very end is missing thanks to a flat camera battery. Mind you, Stephen wasn’t the only one to “experience technical difficulties”.

[Update 15 January 2007: I believe I have a complete audio recording of the session. If there's enough interest I'll combine it with my slides and this video, and/or generate a transcript.]

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Wrapping up in Perth

Stilgherrian — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 00:15:00 +0000

As I pack to return to Sydney, here’s a quick thank-you to everyone I met in Perth over the weekend — especially the organisers of PodCamp and everyone who had comments on my presentation. I’ll name names later, and post some more reflective thoughts as well as links to all the books and essays I mentioned over beers. I’m sure 5 hours on an aircraft will give me plenty of thinking time. Meanwhile, feel free to add me on Facebook.

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PodCamp Perth 2007: first comments

Stilgherrian — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 04:07:00 +0000

Beer. Yes, it needs to be said. Beer. More precisely, beer and geeks. Many of both. This is my clearest memory of yesterday’s PodCamp in Perth. Other memories may return shortly, once coffee and udon work their magic. Many brain cells will not. I bid them a fond farewell.

Nick Hodge has posted a much better lead photo for PodCamp Perth, showing Cameron Reilly’s passionate opening keynote, replete with a vast image of Che Guevara. It helped me feel more comfortable using an image of Joseph Goebbels in my own session.

I’ll explain the Goebbels reference when I post a version of my presentation. I’d prefer to post something of lasting value, not a raw dump, so it might take a couple of days. Plus I want to continue the dialogue I started about social media and the federal election.

I’m also writing a piece for Crikey tomorrow, and I’ll post a version here too.

I won’t bother listing the sessions. Nick and others have already written their initial impressions, including Cameron Reilly and Simone van Hattem and Michael Minutillo… I’ll complete all the linkage later too.

But for now, a rest and a read before catching up with people at the Belgian Beer Cafe. Yes, beer. Again.

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Politicians and Social Media: a catalogue of cluelessness

Stilgherrian — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 02:03:37 +0000

I’ll be in Perth on 27–28 October for PodCamp, the New Media Community UnConference, where I’m presenting a session on Social Media and the Federal Election.

While my first visit to Perth will be fun enough, I’m also enjoying researching my presentation. Australian politicians really don’t have a clue about this stuff.

Starting at the top of the food chain, John Howard’s MySpace profile is a disaster. The screenshot (right) records how it looked this morning — with a a broken rectangle obscuring part of the photo and adverts for the Labor party. Click for the full-size version.

MySpace is the world’s largest and best-known social media operation. Yet this profile doesn’t have anything to offer apart from a recycled media release. No blog entries. Not even any personal information beyond Howard’s age — reminding MySpace’s relatively youthful audience that he’s “old”.

How could John Howard’s personal profile not even mention cricket? If a profile contains even less information than we already know, why would we bother reading it? Why would we bother coming back?

At the other end of the spectrum — in more ways than one! — is Australian Democrats Senator Andrew Bartlett.

He’s been blogging at The Bartlett Diaries since August 2004, and his fresh, personal style provides an engaging look behind the scenes in Canberra.

Senator Bartlett’s MySpace profile is a real profile.

OK, it still looks crap. That’s MySpace for you. But we learn that he listens to Joy Division and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. He likes movies like Brazil and Team America: World Police. He’s adding blog entries, some of which are from only a few days ago. He’s making a real connection with people and, most importantly, giving them a reason to come back.

John Howard has 9 MySpace friends — one of whom is “Tom”, everybody’s default friend. Senator Bartlett has 718.

Unfortunately, most Australian politicians use social media like John Howard, not Andrew Bartlett.

I’ll be adding further thoughts over the next week as I prepare for PodCamp. But meanwhile, some questions for you:

What do you think of politicians’ attempts to use social media like MySpace, Facebook, blogs, YouTube and podcasts?
Does it matter to you if politicians reveal more of their personal world? Does it help or hinder their political goals?
Have you seen any efforts by politicians which are either particularly good or particularly bad?
Does any of this affect your vote? No, really.