’Pong and I need a driver this Monday lunchtime 13 October through to the night of Tuesday 14 this Wednesday lunchtime 15 October through to the night of Thursday 16 for our “road trip” to Cowra to film a project related to One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) (pictured) which is happening nearby.

This is a paid gig, although you probably won’t make enough to retire just yet. You’ll need a driver’s license that’ll satisfy our hire car company, and we’ll cover all food and refreshments, plus overnight accommodation at the delightfully named and oh-so-luxurious Alabaster Motel.

We’ll also have mobile broadband Internet access along the way, testing out our Telstra NextG card. I’ll also be taking advantage of that to produce a special edition of Stilgherrian Live. May the gods have mercy upon our souls. And yours.

The shooting schedule is pretty relaxed, so you’ll probably have time to explore the wonders of Cowra while we’re filming at the school. This gig might well suit a photographer. But I will admit that everything’s rather… um… flexible at the moment.

If you’re interested, please email stil@stilgherrian.com or phone +61 407 623 600. If you get voicemail it just means I’m at the gym pub or the goddam battery has run out again.

[Update Sunday 12 October: The dates have just been changed. This is turning into a... fascinating project. I am not stressed at all, no Sir!]

“Certain people” have been complaining about my facial hair. I must admit, I hate the feeling of my face after two weeks without shaving. So, there’s only one thing to do. We’re making a movie.

This afternoon the normally simple act of shaving turned into a 4-hour video shoot. With two cameras. ’Pong is currently assembling the rough edit and, even I say so myself, I think it’s going to come together rather well.

We won’t rush it. We both have plenty to do this week. But rest assured, the 3.5-minute epic The Shave will be ready when it’s ready.

[Update: Indeed, you can now view the movie The Shave. Enjoy.]

I’ve written before how I’m starting a business called Skank Media, and the new Topic 9 website is the first project out of the starting gate. Certainly since the beginning of this year I’ve been spending more time writing too: 133 posts in January 2008 compared with just 16 a year before. I’ve spent more time in dialogues online too, re-establishing links with my community.

What’s the Old Thing that’s stopped?

I’ve been getting less sleep, certainly. And less exercise. But I’ve also been doing less work for my “old” business, Prussia.Net — and therein lies a problem. Prussia.Net is what generates the income.

Oops.

Yes, cashflows are down. And because I wanted to change Prussia.Net itself, that change process takes more time of its own too. Some client projects are running terribly late. I even lost a wonderful long-term client a few weeks ago because I couldn’t dedicate enough time to their change process.

Big Oops.

So for me, today’s the day I start sorting out that chronological challenge. Here’s how I’ll proceed…

Since Prussia.Net pays the bills (and there’s plenty of bills to be paid) I’ll tackle that business first and sort out the timelines for the rest of this month. Then I’ll see how much time that leaves for Topic 9 in the two weeks until the Australia 2020 Summit. Once I know that magic number of X hours, at BarCampSydney 3 this weekend I’ll talk to people and figure out how I can best spend that time doing something about the Summit. I think that’s the right strategy because presumably I should exercise my geek skills as best I can — and fellow geeks can make good suggestions.

That means I’ll definitely be at BarCampSydney on Sunday. I’ve even written an explanation over at Topic 9.

Whaddyareckon, folks?

[Note: This post was very much me "thinking aloud". I figured that if I had to explain it all to you, then I'd be forced to get it clear in my own head. That's been a valuable technique -- but do you want to see this sort of post?]

[Update 17 February 2010: The website at topic9.com.au has been killed. For the moment, I've linked to the pages at the Internet Archive.]

It’s pretty sparse to begin with, and I’m not quite sure exactly what I’ll be doing there — so suggestions are more than welcome. Some thoughts so far are:

• Gathering links to everyone else’s writing about this topic area for the Summit.
• Articles on people or ideas on how government could work in the future.
• Interviews with the delegates before they hit Canberra.
• Act as a central point of contact for whatever media coverage we can generate out of the summit, whether I go or not.

I certainly need to spice up the design a bit. I’ve kept the Tarski theme as used on this website and Skank Media for consistency, but it needs a tad more differentiation. soon, my precious ones, soon…

Any other ideas?

[Update 17 February 2010: The website at topic9.com.au has been killed. For the moment, I've linked to the pages at the Internet Archive.]

I think I’ve figured out how to explain my business plans for 2008. I’ve written about this previously, but while running errands today I had a brainflash. How does this sound…?

In my new About Stilgherrian page, I wrote:

I’m particularly interested in how new social networking and communication technologies are changing the way we work, play, socialise and organise our societies. Yes, I’m a geek… But I’m not that interested in technology itself. I’m more interested in the social questions.

What does it all mean for your life? Your family? Your business? Your community? For the law and politics? How will it change the very core of what it means to be human?

Well, my brainflash is about how this translates into what the two businesses actually do.

Here’s a first draft.

• Skank Media is about using this stuff. Tool-making geeks already use the tools to talk about the tools. (Hi! You know who you are!) Big corporations have whole departments to deal with it — or at least they should. But small businesses simply don’t know where to start, and most small-business owners are too busy to start from scratch. So Skank Media has two, maybe three roles:

  1. Acting as a production house to produce and run social media and “new media” [ugh!] operations for its clients.
  2. Producing and running its own projects for fun and profit.
  3. Providing an umbrella through which I discuss these things in the media. (Sounds uncomfortable.)
• Prussia.Net is about providing the tools. Currently Prussia.Net is about maintaining clients’ computers and data networks. The plan is to get them thinking about their information and how they communicate it, internally and externally. We look at how they can improve this using the new tools, and then help them make the transition — as well as keeping everything running.

Some Prussia.Net clients may not want to come for the ride. Perhaps they’re not comfortable with change, or don’t see the value of this stuff. Perhaps, like so many small businesses, they’re just incapable of thinking ahead — they just react to whichever crisis is in front of them today.

That’s cool.

There’s plenty of fix-my-computer people out there.

So whaddya reckon?

Starting today I’ll focus more of my time on “media stuff” rather than “IT stuff”. I’ll include Internet-related media in the mix, but I’ll phase out the time I spend farting around with other people’s computers. I’m interested in computers and the Internet as tools to achieve my own goals, not fixing other people’s tools. I hope to get all the hands-on IT stuff off my plate by the end of September.

This “media stuff” includes quite a few projects, some of which have been slowly incubating for years. There’s 3 book concepts (one of which would also make a good TV series), a set of 6 short films, a piece of music and a couple of things which will take the form of blogs. These will start being developed under the (probable) name Skank Media — more of that one day very soon.

I must admit, I’ve been longing to return to my media roots for ages. It feels good to see a coherent plan emerging to achieve just that.

So what happens to the existing business?

I still want to work with small businesses and their information systems — but by helping them make better use of emerging Internet technologies. And doing that within a planned framework — not just responding to failures or ad hoc requests. We may still provide IT support services, or that might be outsourced, but it certainly won’t be me worrying about misbehaving printers or crawling under desks fixing cables.

My friend and colleague Zern Liew developed a 3-point to-do list which is a delightful example of simplicity:

1. Don’t take on any new clients of the wrong sort. Knowing that you can say “Sorry, I don’t do that any more” is immensely empowering.
2. Work out how to transition the existing clients. That’s what I’m working on today, and I hope to have contacted every existing Prussia.Net client by the end of business tomorrow.
3. Start the new business. Well, there’s a lot under that one point. And there’s actually two businesses to think about: Skank Media and whatever Prussia.Net evolves into. But it puts the focus onto the future, not the past.

I feel really good about this. My target mix for the rest of this month is 20 hours per week billable time on IT and Internet work for existing clients, 10 hours on redeveloping Prussia.Net and 10 hours on Skank Media. Plus the usual extra 10 or 15 or 20 hours on making everything else work. I’ll report back on Friday evening.