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My world was dominated by Telstra last week. Apart from my writing and a radio spot about the government’s plans to split the telco, I also spoke on ABC Radio National’s Future Tense on Thursday about the sudden closure of their nowwearetalking blog.
I’d already written about that shutdown here and over at Crikey. However the Radio National conversation was in the more general context of how social media is affecting corporate transparency.
You can listen to the program (at least for now) and read the full transcript over at the ABC’s website. The other guests were Shel Holtz, co-author of Tactical Transparency; Mark Hannah, a New York-based communications consultant; Mike Hickinbotham, Telstra’s Social Media Senior Advisor; and ABC economic correspondent Stephen Long. well worth checking out.
Here’s the full text of my section.
I’ve read so much about the Telstra break-up this week, and written and spoken about it so much, that my brain’s still fizzing. But here’s one thing: I predicted this more than a year ago!
On 2 January 2008 I wrote, as part of my Predictions for 2008:
Telstra will be forced to separate its wholesale and retail businesses. Meanwhile the Sol Trujillo-led management team will continue to play nasty with the government, causing them to be increasingly sidelined — especially over the Rudd government’s new broadband rollout.
OK, I got the timing wrong. But it does seem that I was reading the signs correctly.
Looking back at those predictions, I’m saddened to see that former defence minister Brendan Nelson hasn’t been investigated for his role in that deal to buy $6 billion worth of Super Hornet fighter aircraft — even if someone has since pointed me to their potential use in an electronic warfare role — but has instead been made ambassador to the EC, NATO, Belgium and Luxembourg, and special representative to the World Health Organisation.
Not quite the outcome I was after, unless some Eurospook’s going to give the good Dr Nelson a thorough probing in Brussels.
If that happens, I don’t want pictures.
So, I’m updating my 2008 predictions score to 56.25%, which is now a pass instead of a fail. That’s fair, right?
[Photo: Former Telstra CEO Sol Trujillo, courtesy Wikipedia. I'm so thoroughly confused by the implications of the licensing on that image and a recent Creative Commons report on how people define "non-commercial" that I'll just say this post is licensed by whatever Creative Commons license it needs to be to shut everyone up. FFS write in Plain English, people!]
I was on Sydney radio 2SER’s media program The Fourth Estate yesterday morning talking about the break-up of Telstra. You can grab the podcast for about the next four weeks. It’s the program dated 17 September, and I’m the first item in the half-hour program.
Gosh, I haven’t posted much detailed work here lately, eh? That’s because I’ve been flat out on many things, including more writing for Crikey than usual. I’ll try to catch up tonight with an overview of the Telstra break-up stories from the last few days.
Australia’s biggest telco closed down their corporate blog nowwearetalking without warning yesterday — and deleted all the content. While I can understand they want to put the often-controversial forum behind them, I think the move was a mistake.
I’ve already written about this for Crikey, Telstra consigns nowwearetalking to the memory hole. It seems odd to kill NWAT just as it was changing for the better – even more so given there’s no replacement. There’s comments from Stephen Collins and Fake Stephen Conroy, as well as Telstra’s official spokesperson Craig Middleton. It’s free to read. Off you go.
But I’d also like to publish the full interviews I did for that story. So here they are.
Stilgherrian’s links for 11 August 2009 through 14 August 2009, gathered with care and lightly dusted with sugar:
People have been asking whether I’m excited about my trip to Africa. To be perfectly honest, I’m not.
Or at least not yet.
Project TOTO is still too abstract. There’s no firm dates, there’s no clear itinerary and, from a project management point of view, no clearly defined goals. Not because the project isn’t happening or doesn’t have support or isn’t being planned properly, but simply because that detailed conversation with ActionAid Australia about priorities has yet to take place.
That conversation is scheduled for this coming Friday 12 June.
Meanwhile, I’ve had many, many things on my mind. Most of them are completely unrelated to Project TOTO. But all of them have conspired to make the last three weeks extremely stressful indeed.
That’s one reason why my last video diary was back on 21 May. That’s a screenshot at the top of this post. I’m looking tired, eh? And I’ve been even more stressed since.
It’s time to catch up. So, even though this is the Queen’s Birthday holiday, here’s a rambling update. With some pictures.
“The greatest challenge to implementing social media within any organisation is the willingness for that organisation to accept the cultural change that will ultimately occur. And occur dramatically and at a rapid pace. Social media holds a mirror up to an organization from the external customers/clients/constituents that shows an authentic, and sometimes unexpected, face.” — Nick Hodge
“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…
Follow my travels to Tanzania for Project TOTO. Support ActionAid Australia by making a donation.
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