Stilgherrian » podcampperth07

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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Distinctly personal reflections on 2007

Stilgherrian — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 10:32:59 +0000

As the sun sets on 2007 — literally, as I took the photo just before I sat down to write — it’s time to reflect on an astounding year. The Snarky Platypus will join ’Pong and me later, and (perhaps) help us put together some predictions for 2008.

This was a watershed year for me, for my household and business, and for Australia. Many of the changes happened late in the year, so we haven’t noticed the effects yet. But as 2008 unfolds I think we’ll look back and see that, yes, 2007 marked a change of direction.

Personally, my understanding of how I fit into my world (and yours) became much clearer.

Almost a year ago I reflected upon the nature of my village, and then like so many I was moved by the ceremonies on the Sydney Harbour Bridge’s 75th birthday. That started a psychological journey which culminated in my trip to Thailand. That triggered many thoughts. They’re still rattling around; more will emerge. Meanwhile Facebook started re-connecting me with many old friends.

But the two most intense personal changes were meetings: one business, one social.

At a strategic planning session mid-year, Zern Liew helped me develop The Plan for returning to doing more media work. That’s languished for various reasons, but I did write stories for Crikey and put passion into some of the articles here. The business name Skank Media is registered and ready to unroll in 2008.

The social meeting was that dinner with Joe Wilson and Nick Hodge from Microsoft. The redoubtable Laurel Papworth was there — that’s her in the photo, with Rupert Murdoch keeping a watchful eye — and I met the witty Ajay Ranipeta, and Lachlan and Lisa who created Webjam. All good. But the highlight for me was meeting Mark Pesce.

I’ve wanted to meet Mark for ages. No, I’m not some starry-eyed fan-boy, but I did grok some of the stuff he wrote way back and figured he’d be an interesting bloke. He is.

Mark has lived in Sydney for 4 years now. We have many acquaintances in common, yet we only met this month. Even he said:

I’m amazed that we haven’t met before this. Have you been out of the country or something? For the last FOUR YEARS??? It’s. Just. Weird.

Mark is 100% right: it is weird. Then it hit me. I haven’t been out of the country for 4 years. But I have been living under a rock.

Instead of using my skills and knowledge in media and the Internet, I’ve been a mechanic — fixing other people’s tools through my little IT business. And I’ve been frustrated the whole time.

That dinner was an important trigger. It reminded me who my peers are in this “industry” and what sort of level I should be playing at. Roll on 2008!

Actually, there was a third major meeting. PodCamp in Perth and my presentation there. This reminded me, once more, that presentation and “explaining things” is a personal forte. Thank you, Crispin.

I also put on a bit of weight. We’ll deal with that later.

Looking more widely, yes, Kevin Rudd is now Prime Minister.

The Golden Age of the Iced Vovo has not yet emerged, and today there was news of severe fuckwittedness regarding Internet filtering. But on the whole I’m happy that John Howard’s Reign of (the War on) Terror has ended. I’m hoping this translates into some intelligent leadership from Chairman Rudd.

I haven’t said much about ’Pong, but he’s everywhere through this blog. Phom rak khun krub! And the Snarky Platypus has made so much possible too, in his own, um, endurable fashion. I tend not to blog about all that because, well, it’s personal personal stuff. Thank you.

I’ll stop the thank-yous there, or I’ll end up sounding like John Cleese’s BAFTA acceptance speech.

And now, gin and tonic! See you next year.

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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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Yielding to Temptation

Stilgherrian — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 04:32:22 +0000

Spotted at Perth’s Belgian Beer Cafe on Sunday afternoon, some excellent philosophy from Oscar Wilde.

The crappy pimple-cam photo is made moderately acceptable by converting it to black and white.

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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.