crowdfunding – Page 10

08 October 201511 October 2015

Weekly Wrap 278: Reducing the pain, increasing the pace

My week of Monday 28 September to Sunday 4 October 2015 was another pain-ridden ocean of chaos, but nevertheless there were a few solid achievements.

I launched Send Stilgherrian to Ruxcon 2015, a Pozible crowdfunding campaign with an obvious aim. As I write this, it’s already reached 29% of its initial target, which is promising.

On the health front, the broken tooth was repaired again. As for my shoulder, the X-rays and ultrasound imagery taken last week showed no permanent damage or signs of specific problems. It’s “just” strained muscles and tendons, and all that’s needed is rest. It does seem to be getting better, albeit very slowly.

Articles

US-China agreement is cyberpeace for our time, in public anyway, ZDNet Australia, 30 September 2015.

Podcasts

I got most of an episode of The 9pm Edict recorded, but was too tired to complete it on Sunday night. Stand by.

Media Appearances

On Wednesday, I spoke about Facebook hoaxes on ABC 105.7 Darwin, but I didn’t record it.
Also on Wednesday, I spoke about Bitcoin and tractor square dancing on ABC 774 Melbourne and stations around Victoria, but I didn’t record that either.
On Thursday, I spoke about my crowdfunding efforts on ABC Radio National’s Media Report.

5at5

There were no editions of 5at5 at all, and that’s terrible. Why not subscribe so you’ll get all the future ones?

Geekery

Having migrated the final batch of a long-standing client’s websites to new virtualised infrastructure, I finally shut down my remaining hard-iron Linux server, a leased machine somewhere in a rack in San Francisco. Typing halt for the last time also ended my business relationship with ServePath, which later became GoGrid, and which was recently acquired by and absorbed into Datapipe. I’ll miss the excellent support their engineers have provided over the years.

Meanwhile, I’ve picked up a quick little job: building what is in essence a paywall for the website of the literary magazine Meanjin, so they can start selling digital subscriptions.

Corporate Largesse

None.

The Week Ahead

Once more, most of this week is over. It’s already the end of Thursday! But there’s still plenty of things to do…

On Friday, it’s the long train commute to Sydney for a lunchtime briefing on smart cities and the Internet of Things with Alcatel-Lucent’s expert on such things, Marc Jadoul. I’ll knock off some errands while I’m down there, and certain SEKRIT planning on the train.

On the weekend — note that I’m not predicting a specific day for each item — I’ll finish that episode of The 9pm Edict, finish the video of my UTS lecture, do some audio equipment tests, and do the preparatory work for Meanjin.

Further Ahead

The week beginning Monday 12 October will be a hectic one. Monday is the calm before the storm, when I’ll collect my thoughts and prepare myself.

On Tuesday, I fly to Melbourne, sneaking in a quick work session at Meanjin in the afternoon, before a reception kicks off the Australian Information Security Association (AISA) National Conference. I’m covering that for ZDNet, as well as recording material for my own Corrupted Nerds podcast. My thanks got to security vendor Tanium for covering my costs.

On Friday, I’ll be writing for ZDNet before flying back to Sydney. Some time on the weekend, I’ll produce another episode of The 9pm Edict.

The week starting… no, I’ll tell you about that next time.

[Photo: Waratah in bloom at Bunjaree Cottages, photographed on 8 October 2015. This waratah flower is slightly past its peak, but the intensity of its colour still manages to dominate the camera’s sensors.]

04 October 2015

Talking crowdfunding journalism on ABC’s Media Report

ABC logo If you’ve been following me for a while, you’ll know that I’ve used crowdfunding, as we must call it these days, to help finance my personal media projects. This has once more come to the attention of ABC Radio National’s Media Report — probably because I emailed them.

Here’s how the website introduces the item Crowdfunding journalism, an interview with me which was first broadcast on Thursday evening.

Stilgherrian, a freelance journalist and commentator on internet issues, has crowdfunded his own podcast.

The 9pm Edict is made with the help of donations from what amounts to his fan base.

Richard Aedy asked him about the sustainability of fan-funded journalism.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 9:27 — 4.4MB)

I’m amused to see The 9pm Edict referred to as “journalism”, but perhaps Aedy is also thinking back to my first crowdfunding project, when I used the Pozible campaign Stilgherrian > Breakpoint+Ruxcon to fund journalism. That was two years ago, and that scored a Media Report story too.

But since then two Pozible campaigns, The 9 O’Clock Resurrection of April 2014 and The 9pm Urgent Hardware Refresh just two months ago, have been about The 9pm Edict. The first raised just over $1000 to kick off the return of the Edict, and as I wrote recently, that’s now settled down to generating a base revenue of around $700 per month. The second raised more than $7200 to replace a dying computer and upgrade my audio recording equipment.

I always enjoy being interviewed by Aedy, because he has such a broad view of the media landscape in Australia, indeed worldwide, and he’s such a gentleman. They’re always thoughtful questions, and I find myself revisiting some of my own thoughts about what I do.

This post cannot end without reminding you that I have a fourth Pozible campaign running right now, Send Stilgherrian to Ruxcon 2015. You have until 2230 AEDT on 15 October to make a contribution.

[Photo: Recording The 9pm Edict’s Public House Forum using equipment financed through crowdfunding. Photo by James Turner.]

01 October 201516 October 2015

Launching “Send Stilgherrian to Ruxcon 2015”

I’m re-launching Corrupted Nerds, my podcast about “information, power, security and all the cybers in a global internet revolution that’s changing… everything.”

And to kick things off, today I launched a crowdfunding campaign to take the podcast to Ruxcon 2015, one of Australia’s key information security conferences, which is being held in Melbourne on 24–25 October 2015.

[Update 16 October 2015: The campaign closed last night, and was successfully funded. Thank you.]

There’s plenty of information on the Pozible campaign page. I should mention, though, that the initial $2000 target just gets me to Melbourne and puts a roof over my head. We need to go beyond that to fund some production.

If there’s something you think should be explained better, or if you have a suggestion, please let me know.

Bonus link: Today, ABC Radio National’s Media Report broadcast an interview with me about my crowdfunding work, Crowdfunding journalism.

23 September 201523 September 2015

Random notes on crowdfunding The 9pm Edict podcast

Later this morning I’m being interviewed by Richard Aedy for next week’s episode of ABC Radio National’s Media Report about the success of my recent crowdfunding campaign, The 9pm Urgent Hardware Refresh. So I thought I’d put together some notes to clarify my thoughts.

The interview will be a follow-up to the one Aedy did in October 2013, Crowd funding an Australian freelancer – a case study, following the success of my first Pozible campaign.

First, let me say thank-you to the dozens and dozens of people who’ve been funding The 9pm Edict podcast since it was resurrected with an earlier Pozible crowdfunding campaign about 18 months ago. As this chart shows, continuing subscriptions are now running at around $700 per month.

Chart: The 9pm Edict Monthly Production Pool

Continue reading “Random notes on crowdfunding The 9pm Edict podcast”

27 August 201525 January 2019

Announcing “The 9pm Edict’s Public House Forum”

Australian Arms Hotel, Penrith: click to embiggen

Would you like to witness the recording of a very special episode of The 9pm Edict podcast? Yes? Then organise yourself to be at the Public House Forum on Saturday 12 September.

As part of my recent Pozible crowdfunding campaign, The 9pm Urgent Hardware Refresh, I’m recording a forum in a public house — yes, a pub — where a panel of punters will discuss the questions posed by the MEDIA FREEDOM ENLIGHTENED ONES.

09 August 2015

Weekly Wrap 270: Generosity and some deep rabbit holes

My week of Monday 3 to Sunday 9 August 2015 was remarkable, because I had so many votes of confidence, as it were. I’m pretty chuffed.

The most remarkable of all was that I raised more than $7200 in a crowdfunding campaign to replace and upgrade my core work tools. I won’t go into the details here, because you can check the project updates. But as I explained last week, having a working computer has really helped my mood. Knowing that I’ll soon have the kit to do certain kinds of projects is even more mood-improving.

Also, at the ADMA Global Forum, I met Professor Stephen Pulman, head of computational linguistics at some university called… Oxbloor or Oxfart or something like that. When I showed interest in his session on the sentiment analysis of textual data, including tweets, I was invited to his masterclass the next day. I’m kinda chuffed that I could dive deep into this stuff after so many years.

There’s a few other things too, but that can wait. On with the show…

Articles

It’s like Uber but for racism: how prejudice crept into the ‘sharing economy’, Crikey, 6 August 2015.
If you fear the cloud, you’re behind the times, ZDNet Australia, 7 August 2015.

Podcasts

None. But it’s looking like there’ll be three episodes of The 9pm Edict over the next five weeks. I’m also thinking of resurrecting Corrupted Nerds.

Media Appearances

On Monday morning, I spoke about the Wentworth Falls bushfire on ABC 702 Sydney.
On Tuesday evening, I spoke about various technology issues on ABC Local Radio across NSW, but there’s no recording. That’s a shame. It was a good segment.

5at5

There were editions of 5at5 on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Why not subscribe so you’ll get all the future ones?

Corporate Largesse

On Tuesday and Wednesday, I covered the ADMA Global Forum, so there was plenty of food and drink to be had at Sydney’s Hilton Hotel.
On Wednesday evening, I went to Text100’s (in)famous Xmas in August event at the Bavarian Bier Cafe in Sydney. Bang & Olufsen gave me a rather nice leather keyring, and a USB stick containing their promotional material. Amazon Kindle gave me a promo-filled USB stick too.
On Thursday, NetSuite has a lunchtime briefing at Gowings Bar & Grill at Sydney’s QT Hotel. As usual, the food and drink was stunning.

The Week Ahead

Monday will be a long, long day. I’m taking the 0706 train to Sydney. At 0900 I’m meeting someone over coffee. From 1000, I’ll be at Deloitte’s media briefing on their annual Media Consumer Survey. Then it’s a haircut, and lunch, and buying a new shirt. The afternoon is flexible, shall we say, because at 2030 I’ll be live on ABC TV’s Lateline to talk about certain cybers. I think I’ll try to have a nap in there somewhere.

Tuesday is an easier day, and I plan to sleep in. I’m finally getting an eye exam done, and then I’ve got a couple meetings before catching the train back to Wentworth Falls.

On Wednesday, I’ll be running errands and doing my shopping in Katoomba, as well as working on a few stories. On Thursday, I’ll be writing for ZDNet. And on Friday, it’s the next step of The 9pm Urgent Hardware Refresh. I’ll have the final budget and podcast content selections, so it’ll be time to lock in the shopping list, and send RFQs to my suppliers.

I think I’ll record an episode of The 9pm Edict on the weekend, but we’ll see how that goes. Next weekend is so far away…

[Photo: Newtown, with mesh fence, photographed on 4 August 2015 as my train down from the Blue Mountains sped through Newtown on its wat to Central station for its scheduled 0847 arrival.]