Tag: blue mountains

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On Monday evening you can listen to me in Katoomba

This coming Monday 4 June, I’m leading a discussion entitled Surviving and thriving as a freelancer in a globalised market for Publish! Blue Mountains, “a non-profit association of the region’s top creative and publishing professionals”.

The event is subtitled “How to avoid being outsourced to the lowest bidder (or worse still, a robot!)”

Radical changes will hit a freelancer’s world over the next two years or so as we move to a globalised marketplace. Firstly there is the rapid rise of internet-enabled outsourcing through sites like Freelancer.com, allowing projects to be advertised globally and often awarded to the lowest bidder who may be in a country where $10 is a decent day’s wage.

Secondly, increasingly sophisticated and intelligent automated systems are now taking over many tasks that historically required human creative input. Just in the writing field alone, we already have US college sports coverage written completely by computer.

Where will this technology (and the marketplace driving it) take us? And what can we creatives do to ensure we’re not replaced by cut-price doppelgangers and robo-scribes?

The discussion will be held at Clarendon Guesthouse, 68 Lurline St, Katoomba from 5.30 to 7.00pm. My guest speaker slot and the open discussion runs from from 5.45 to 6.30pm, with drinks and networking to follow. It’s free, but you should RSVP to connect@publishbluemountains.com.au. The bar will be open.

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At night, quiet bushland not so quiet

It’s a relatively warm night at the end of spring here at the Bunjaree Cottages in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney. Quiet? Tell that to the critters down by the dam!

Here’s a brief sound snippet recorded a few minutes ago. I’ll post something longer in due course, because I think it’s worth recording the ambient sound.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 0:55 — 1.1MB)

Can anyone identify any of the creatures here?

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Accommodation: Blue Mountains then San Francisco

My accommodation for the next couple of weeks at least is sorted. Finally. The Blue Mountains then San Francisco. However a temporary home for Apollo (pictured) has yet to be finalised.

The plan I outlined a week ago seems to be coming together even better than expected.

I bump out of the house in Enmore, Sydney, on Thursday 3 February 2011. I’ll then spend a couple of days in a hotel so I can tidy up loose ends in Sydney before spending a week at Wentworth Falls in the Blue Mountains — because it turns out that an industry colleague and his wife bought the Bunjaree Cottages there and need someone to do a spot of caretaking and webby work.

And after that I’m off to San Francisco for the RSA Conference.

I don’t know exactly what I’m doing after that, but at least I’ll have time to think about it.

Apollo, meanwhile, needs to be stashed somewhere. I’ve got a couple of local options already, but if you feel the urge to have an attention-demanding cat for a few weeks do let me know.

[Photo: Apollo, photographed in 2004.]