Tag: depression

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Weekly Wrap 252: Rain, debates, squid and thinking

Forest, rain and train: click to embiggenMy week of Monday 30 March to Sunday 5 April 2015 was and action-packed week of extremes. Kinda.

Well, I made it up as I went along. I was in both Sydney and the Blue Mountains. The weather was variable. Does that count as extreme? How about standing right next to David Marr while he was paying attention to other people and I felt ignored and sulky?

Coming soon to a games store near you, Extreme David Marr.

Articles

Podcasts

5at5

Four editions of 5at5 this week, on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. You should subscribe, you know. If you subscribe, Jesus will love you. Promise.

Media Appearances

Corporate Largesse

None.

The Week Ahead

On Monday, despite it being a public holiday, I’ll be producing the bulk of an episode of The 9pm Edict. On Tuesday, I’ll be doing some errands and shopping in Leura and Katoomba in the morning. In the afternoon, I’ll be planning out some writing for April. And in the evening, I’ll publish the completed podcast.

On Wednesday, I’ll be updating my regular lecture for journalism students at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS).

On Thursday, I’ll be making the long commute to Sydney to deliver that lecture at UTS at 0900. Then at 1030 I’m going to the Australian launch of VMware’s vCloudAir. And then I’ll be writing for ZDNet Australia probably.

Friday through Sunday are currently unplanned. It will include, however, the turning of the UTS lecture into a podcast, some writing for someone else, and a variety of revenue-generating activities.

Caveat

The squid is none of your business.

[Photo: Forest, rain and train, being the view from a Blue Mountains line train as it travelled between Katoomba and Leura on a rainy day Friday 3 April 2015.]

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It’s time to turn around the Revenue Ship, and fast

I knew the first three months of 2015 had been bad for business — or at least my little patch of business — but I hadn’t realised it was this bad. Turns out it was my second-worst quarter in more than four years! Drastic action and ruthless decisions are required.

Yes, this is another of my occasional thinking-aloud reflections on my personal circumstances. If you don’t like this sort of thing, then stop reading now. Read this instead.

Still with me? Lovely.

Yesterday I updated my “media objects” chart, which counts how many things I’ve created for each media outlet, regardless of relative complexity or what income was generated. It serves as a handy proxy for revenue — because certain revenue figures are confidential.

Media objects produced monthly, 2011-2015: click to embiggen

It’s a depressing image. At best, Q1 of 2015 was no worse than Q1 of the previous year, but overall it’s still a picture of decline. Literally depressing, in fact, because I’ve left in a couple of health-related markers that I was using to analyse something else.

Back at the end of 2012, I’d tried to inject a little more strategy into the way I ran the business side of making media. This and other charts were some of the tools I created, last updated in February 2014. It’s fair to say that I haven’t really developed any kind of strategy out of the information in those charts, and this new chart illustrates the results from doing that nothing. Go me.

This chart doesn’t reflect certain positives, however. There’s now crowdsourced funding for The 9pm Edict podcast. I also do some minor work for the University of Technology Sydney, and I consult on some other media projects too. There’s also fragmentary revenue from the legacy clients of my IT business.

But I do need to raise my income levels back to something more like they were a few years ago. The next step is to do something about it. And that has been the nature of my ponderings across this Easter long weekend.

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Weekly Wrap 247: Attacked by car, leech, and diarrhoea

Attack of the Killer Leech: click to embiggenMy week of Monday 23 February to Sunday 1 March 2015 began with fatigue and ended with drama, and then more fatigue.

The fatigue was inevitable, given that last weekend saw the production of two podcasts, as well as the first day of Tech Leaders Forum, which continued into Monday.

What I wasn’t expecting was being run down by a car on Thursday night. I wasn’t hurt, really, but nevertheless it was annoying — and I’ll tell you about that in The 9pm Edict. I wasn’t expecting to be attacked by a leech on Friday. And I wasn’t expecting Saturday to be wiped out by a gut problem. Sigh.

But enough of that…

Articles

Podcasts

None. The will be an episode The 9pm Edict on Tuesday 3 March, once I’ve gotten a feature written for ZDNet Australia.

5at5

There were three editions of 5at5 this week, on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. You might want to subscribe so you receive them all as they’re released.

Media Appearances

Corporate Largesse

  • On Monday, we wrapped up this year’s Tech Leaders Forum at the Fairmont Resort in the Blue Mountains. Apart from one night’s accommodation and plenty of food and drink, some vendors gave out various bits and pieces. Bitdefender gave me a branded TSA-approved travel lock and a Gecko dashboard pad thingy. Emerson Network Power, a novelty branded USB stick with their PR material. LogRhythm, a branded pen. Oakton, a USB stick with their PR material. From Simplivity, a branded pen.

The Week Ahead

Here’s the plan. Monday, a feature for ZDNet Australia. Tuesday, an episode of The 9pm Edict. Wednesday, probably a day trip to Sydney — and if it happens, it might include a bit of television. Thursday, a column for ZDNet Australia. Friday, updating that ebook, finally, and getting it to people.

The weekend isn’t locked in yet, but one option is heading down to Albion Park, where a Boeing 747 will land at the tiny Albion Park Airport, before it becomes a permanent museum piece at the Historical Aircraft Restoration Society (HARS). Or I might not. It depends on many factors.

Updated 16 March 2015: Added the largesse from Simplivity, which I just found.

[Photo: Attack of the Killer Leech, the one which I had to remove from my foot, photographed on 27 February 2015.]

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Weekly Wrap 242: Insomnia revelations, and more

Section of data collected during a sleep studyMy week of Monday 19 to Sunday 25 January 2015 continued the unproductive period, as my intestinal troubles went through their final stages, and then after that I really couldn’t be bothered putting in the effort.

Given that the early part of January was so exhausting, Monday through Wednesday ended up being mental health days. This lack of productivity will now haunt me for the next two months. Such is life.

On Thursday I discovered something interesting: that the cause of my endless insomnia is actually severe sleep apnoea. It’s probably also responsible for a large chunk of my depression. A sleep study showed that I was experiencing a disturbance to my respiratory functions every 90 seconds through the night, roughly, and doing rather a lot of loud snoring. So that’s something to take on board. There’ll be more to come on this soon, because I’ll be starting a treatment program next week soon.

Articles

None. But I did start work on a feature for ZDNet Australia that’ll appear next week.

5at5

There was only one edition of 5at5 this week, on Friday. You might want to subscribe so you receive them all in the future. Subscribe. Just subscribe.

Media Appearances

None.

Corporate Largesse

None. But the PR industry will be returning to its usual levels of largesse in the coming week, I suspect.

The Week Ahead

The main theme will be returning my productivity levels to some semblance of normality, and wrapping up all the things that need to be completed this month. This week also sees me based back at Bunjaree Cottages in Wentworth Falls, after my sojourn in Lilyfield since late December.

It’s Australia Day on Monday, but despite the public holiday I’ll be working on the ZDNet feature. That work continues into Tuesday. On Wednesday I’ll file that feature, and then head into Sydney for a lunchtime media briefing by Check Point Software, Dimension Data and L.E.K Consulting, followed by an appointment with a sleep physician to start the treatment program.

On Thursday, I’ll be writing my usual column for ZDNet Australia, and on Friday and/or Saturday I’ll be producing an episode of The 9pm Edict podcast, finally.

The weekend is unplanned, mostly, but I’m hoping it’ll be a quiet one.

Update 27 January 2015: Updated to reflect the cancellation of Wednesday’s trip to Sydney.

[Photo: A section of the data produced during the sleep study, showing disruptions to airflow and snoring. Yes, I was the patient.]

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Weekly Wrap 227: No snow, no productivity

Waratah in the snow: click to embiggenI am not impressed with my week of Monday 6 to Sunday 12 October 2014. While I did produce a podcast, and also caught up with a friend and visited a part of Sydney that I hadn’t previously explored, it was still less productive that I’d hoped.

There are reasons. I’ll tell you about them another time. Soon.

For completely unrelated reasons, I’ve decided to run an old photo, not a new one. Exactly two years and one day ago, it was snowing at Wentworth Falls. One year and a week ago, the place was under threat from bushfires. Welcome to Australia. It’s a stupid place.

Podcasts

  • “The 9pm Mental Health Awareness Week”, being The 9pm Edict episode 30, 7 October 2014. It’s not actually about mental health or, indeed, awareness.

Articles

Media Appearances

None.

Corporate Largesse

None.

The Week Ahead

There’s only one firm fixture in my week so far.

On Wednesday I’ll be in Sydney to host Data Retention: the European experience, a conversation with Privacy International’s legal director Carly Nyst. The event is being presented by Electronic Frontiers Australia in conjunction with the Australian Privacy Foundation and Privacy International. Book here.

Other than that, I have a column or two to write for ZDNet Australia, and I’ll be producing an episode of The 9pm Edict podcast, but the exact order of play is yet to be determined. Like you care.

[Photo: Waratah in the snow, photographed at Bunjaree Cottages two years ago on 12 October 2012.]

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Weekly Wrap 226: Warm weather, but little productivity

Crossing the Harbour: click to embiggenThese Weekly Wrap posts have fallen into disrepair, haven’t they. Well, they’re back in operation again now. Whether the missing weeks’ posts will ever appear is as yet unknown.

My week of Monday 29 September to Sunday 5 October wasn’t as productive as it could have been. That’s down to a mix of pain and depression, but I won’t belabour the point.

Nevertheless, I did enjoy the warm spring weather.

Articles

I wrote my usual column for ZDNet Australia, but it won’t be appearing until Tuesday.

Media Appearances

  • On Tuesday I spoke about the new social network Ello on ABC Gold Coast.
  • I was one of the panellists on ABC Radio National’s Download This Show this week. We spoke about Ello and Australia’s new national security laws.
  • On Thursday I was interviewed for a student project at the University of Sydney about virtual communities, hacking and hacktivism, amongst other things. I’ll post a link to that when it appears in a few weeks.
  • On Friday I recorded some audio for a SEKRIT project.

Corporate Largesse

None.

The Week Ahead

This will be the final week of my sojourn at Hurstville in Sydney’s southern suburbs. I’ve been housesitting a friend’s apartment while she was on holidays overseas. I’m going to miss the place.

Monday is officially a public holiday in New South Wales, but I’ll be starting work on an episode of The 9pm Edict podcast.

On Tuesday I’ll be planning a couple of feature stories for ZDNet Australia, planning some changes for my other little technology business, resurrecting the 5at5 daily newsletter thing, and finishing off the podcast.

The rest of the week isn’t planned out in any kind of detail yet, but there’s be a ZDNet Australia column to write, and I’ll be returning to Wentworth Falls on Friday.

[Photo: Crossing the Harbour, a not-very-scenic view from the Sydney Harbour Bridge, as seen from the lower deck of a train on 3 October 2014.]