Tag: zdnet

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Weekly Wrap 191: Loving the bomb and Bitcoin, with trees

Eucalypt Bark 4: click to embiggenMy week of Monday 27 January to Sunday 2 February 2014 was, as I’d suspected it would be, the clear beginning of the start of the working year.

OK, the week hasn’t quite finished yet. It’s still relatively early on Sunday. But the day will be spent pottering around various work-related things, so I feel confident about that opening paragraph.

It’s pretty much an Australian tradition that the media silly season ends on Australia Day — although I did see someone suggest that in Sydney the summer holiday season runs from the Queen’s Birthday long weekend in early October through to the Mardi Gras parade at the cusp of February-March. We are a proud nation.

Articles

Media Appearances

  • On Tuesday I spoke about Bitcoin, in the light of the arrests of a Bitcoin evangelist and a currency trader on money laundering charges, on ABC Radio’s The World Today.

Corporate Largesse

None. I’m clearly doing this wrong.

The Week Ahead

I’ll be in the Blue Mountains until Friday, in all likelihood. It’s the first week of a new month, so I daresay I’ll be keeping a low profile because none of those bastard clients have paid their invoices yet.

My writing slate includes two columns for ZDNet Australia, one for Corrupted Nerds — that’s one of the two pieces I still owe my Pozible supporters — and probably one for CSO Online.

I’m also doing the research and scripting for a panel discussion I’m moderating the week after — that’s due to be announced on Monday.

[Photo: Eucalypt Bark , photographed on 27 January 2014 at Bunjaree Cottages near Wentworth Falls in the Blue Mountains.]

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Kicking off a better year for my media work, probably

I’m claiming that January presented clear signs that I’m reversing the decline of revenue that I’d been suffering, thanks to depression and arsehattery — something that I’ve become very aware of in recent months.

If you don’t like these personal reflections that I write from time to time, then stop reading now. Read this instead.

I started this planning process at the end of 2012, because I’d noticed that until then I hadn’t actually been planning my media work, let alone taking the next step of having some kind of strategy.

I’d just plodded along doing much the same thing every week. If an income stream died, I did no real work to replace it. When new work was offered, I generally took it on unless the idea was clearly daft.

You can see what happened in my newly-updated “media objects” chart, which counts how many things I did for each masthead, regardless of complexity or income.

Chart of media objects produced by Stilgherrian since 2011

Continue reading “Kicking off a better year for my media work, probably”

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Weekly Wrap 190: Wattle you know, some productivity!

Australia Day in the eucalypt forest: click to embiggenMy week of Monday 20 to Sunday 26 January 2014 saw the return of something approaching productivity, as well as a stabilisation of the chaos. Excellent.

I’ve also started to get a clearer idea of where I want to take my media work in 2014, but more about that another time.

Articles

Media Appearances

Corporate Largesse

  • On Tuesday one of the police sergeants at Katoomba gave me two packets of blue jelly beans. This is not a euphemism. They were part of the community outreach they were doing at the Katoomba Village shops. They were yummy.

There was nothing more substantial, surprisingly. But the coming week has some, and I’m looking forward to it.

The Week Ahead

I’ve finally caught up with these posts, so it’s now worth writing about my plans again. I wonder how long this will last?

As I write this on a holiday Monday afternoon, I’m still in the Blue Mountains. However I plan to be in Sydney overnight on Tuesday and Thursday, in both cases because there’s a good chance that certain business-social events in the evening could run a bit late. Or a bit messy. Or both. I’ll be in Sydney Tuesday through to Friday.

As always, the plan could change at short notice, so either pay attention to my Twitter stream or look at the calendar.

Tuesday will primarily be about mapping out the next few weeks — something that needs re-doing after the unproductive weeks disrupted my previous version of the plan. I won’t jinx it now by proposing when I do what, however. Let’s just watch it unfold.

[Update 28 January 2014, 1055 AEDT: Deleted references to being in Sydney on Tuesday. Plans changed.]

[Update 29 January 2014, 1610 AEDT: Changed references to when I’d be in Sydney again. Because plans changed again.]

[Photo: Australia Day in the eucalypt forest, being a lovely rendition of a wattle of some description on a quiet, drizzly day. Now bad for a photo taken on a bashed-up smartphone.]

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Weekly Wrap 188: Long views to launch another long year

My week of Monday 6 to Sunday 12 January 2014 saw the start of some productivity for 2014, but for various reasons was relatively slow — and as usual when I’m posting late, it’s “just the facts”.

Articles

  • 2014, the year that infosec gets political, CSO Online, 6 January 2014. This was actually written at the very end of November 2013 for a print publication handed out through December, which is why it’s missing some of the most recent Snowden revelations.
  • Australian retailers recruiting generals for yesterday’s war, ZDNet Australia, 10 January 2014. I don’t often write about retail, but the decisions by both Myer and David Jones to search for new CEOs without specifically looking for online clue struck me as a particularly daft strategy.

Media Appearances

None.

Corporate Largesse

None. It’ll be another week or two before the hospitality starts flowing again.

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Weekly Wrap 185: A post-productivity period, primarily

Poster for iloveshopping24hrs.com: click to embiggenHere’s the key stuff that happened in my week of Monday 16 to Sunday 22 December 2013. Like last week, it wasn’t nearly as productive as I wanted it to be.

Articles

Media Appearances

None.

Corporate Largesse

None. I’m guessing that all the corporate types had stopped worrying about the clients and started worrying about their own end-of-year parties.

The Week Ahead

Well Monday has already happened, and it wasn’t very productive. Tuesday is just beginning, and it’s full of errands in and around the Sydney CBD. It’s also Christmas Eve, so once those errands are done I’ll be turning down the productivity dial even further for the rest of the week.

I may write a couple things over the remainder of the week, or I may not. It’ll all depend upon how I feel at the time.

[Photo: Poster for iloveshopping24hrs.com, photographed at Yok Yor Thai Food Factory, 19 December 2013.]

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Weekly Wrap 183: Predictions, food and wine

Here’s the key stuff that happened in my week of Monday 2 to Sunday 8 December 2013.

As I mentioned last time, I’ll do some sort of more detailed post explaining the state of the world — or at least my little bit of it — once I’ve caught up on these posts.

Articles

Media Appearances

None.

Corporate Largesse

  • On Tuesday I went to Verizon’s lunchtime briefing on their predicted trends for 2014 at Rockpool Bar and Grill in Sydney. There was food and wine.
  • On Wednesday I went to Symantec’s end-of-year media lunch at Gowings Bar and Grill at Sydney’s QT Hotel. There was food and wine.
  • On Wednesday afternoon I continued on to McAfee in the Park, held in the Rose Garden at Sydney’s Royal Botanic Gardens. There was food and wine. Are you detecting a pattern here? There was also a lion.
  • On Thursday I went to Websense’s lunchtime briefing on their security predictions for 2014 at Wolfies, Circular Quay. There was food and wine.