37signals posted an excellent summary of Five marketing/business lessons from Harry Houdini: focus on the killer bit; judo big problems into small ones; beat copycats by innovating; give ’em a story; free samples build buzz. Worth a read.
Citizenship Test debate continues
Debate on the Citizenship Test continues. I’ve just written a lengthy response to comments which appeared overnight — follow the link and scroll down. And if you’re following this blog in an RSS reader, you might also want to subscribe to the comments feed.
Slagged off nationally: I’ve made it!
Monday’s piece on the Citizenship Test generated some intriguing comments in Crikey yesterday and here too — but this one takes the biscuit.
Adrian Ridgway writes: Stilgherrian must be an idiot — my eight year son old got thirteen of the sample questions right — without referencing the booklet! My guess Stilgherrian must have gone to Grammar or one of those other special schools where the only skills necessary are football and socialising with the right sort of people — he’s probably a lawyer or stockbroker these days. Or maybe an immigration broker. Latte-set liberals (small l) need to pull their heads in — being invited to become an Australian citizen is a privilege — not a right, just as Stilgherrian probably exercises the right to invite who he chooses to a party in his into his home, we as a society should be allowed to exercise the right to determine who, and under what circumstances, immigrants are allowed to enter Australia. The point of the test is not to put up a barrier to anybody, but to enshrine in law as part of the process Immigrants understand they are joining an established society, not establishing colonies. (Many apologies to Aboriginal Australia — we knew not what we did at the time).
Just how many ways can one paragraph be wrong? And I’m not talking about the typos…
I love it!
“Let’s just write that down…”
Human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson reckons Australia needs a Bill of Rights. I reckon he’s right about rights. And that’s because the central issue reminds me of when we were running The Core magazine…
The Core‘s sole source of income was advertising, and most of it came from nightclubs. Nightclub managers are [coughs] the most honourable and [chokes] reliable [gargles] businessmen and women who can be found. Their integ… [coughs] [chokes] … sorry, I seem to have something caught in my throat.
They’d brag about how their new club night would be the biggest, brightest thing ever. “It’ll be huge,” they’d say. They’d want to book a heap of advertising — on credit, of course — and wanted discount.
“Sure,” I’d say, showing them our rate card and the discounts on offer.
“We’ll book a full page for 8 weeks then, for that 25% discount,” or whatever it was.
“Sure,” I’d say again. “Just sign here.”
And then they’d freeze.
Powers of Ten
If you’ve never seen the short film Powers of Ten, now is the time. OK, it’s from 1977, so our understanding of things at either end of the spectrum has changed. But it’s narrated by Morgan Freeman — and it’s way cool. As is The Simpsons version.
US newspapers pull “offensive” cartoon
Newspapers across the US have pulled this Opus cartoon by Berkeley Breathed, afraid of offending people. Yet as I read it, the only people it’s making fun of are people like character Lola Granola — people who jump onto bandwagons because it’s “fashionable” instead of holding genuine beliefs.
Dan Gillmor says it’s a case of puritan prudishness and political cowardice. Salon have written an editorial. Thanks to BoingBoing for the pointer.
Now watch this cartoon spread across the blogosphere faster than you can say “Danish pastry”.