My week Monday 2 to Sunday 8 September 2013 was, as predicted, another busy one — with some transformational changes along the way.
The early spring weather has continued. On Wednesday one of the cab drivers in the Upper Blue Mountains and I noted how dry everything seemed. It doesn’t bode well for summer. But the bright, sunny days have certainly helped my mood, so there’s that.
Spring is supposedly a time of new beginnings, and I do feel as if I’m starting so many things after that rather annoying winter gloom.
There’s biggish things, like Corrupted Nerds, and more of that shortly. There’s little things, like the calendar. In between, there’s stuff like my Tokyo trip triggering a little media project, something I’ve been intending to do for ages. And the rather big change of a new government has triggered the resumption of daily blogging, again something I’ve been intending to do for ages.
Articles
- Spam canned? Not if you’re in a political party like Clive, Crikey, 5 September 2013.
- Even the right Coalition internet safety policy is wrong, ZDNet Australia, 6 September 2013.
Plus I wrote an article for Technology Spectator, to be published later this month.
Podcasts
None, though I did more background work on Corrupted Nerds, and things will appear in the coming few days.
Yes, I know I wrote exactly the same thing last week, but it’s true. This week I recorded three interviews that will be the basis of three episodes, and I’ve all but finished the documentation for the crowdfunding process that I intend to kick off this week.
Media Appearances
- On Monday, mUmBRELLA ran a story entitled Tech commentator barred from Microsoft tech conference after hostile tweets at previous event about me being banned from TechEd.
- On Tuesday, Delimiter ran a story too, Microsoft bans Stilgherrian from TechEd.
- Also on Tuesday, the Australian Associated Press (AAP) interviewed me about the ban, and the wire story they issued was run by Fairfax news outlets on Wednesday as Microsoft bans blogger Stilgherrian from TechEd conference. (As an aside, I continue to be fascinated by how I’m referred to as a journalist in some contexts and a blogger in others, seemingly regardless of whether what they’re describing is my journalism or my blogging.)
- Also on Wednesday, the ban got a mention at Scoop in New Zealand.
- On Thursday, in the only non-ban media appearance, my photo of a Nokia Lumia 925 smartphone was used to illustrate a story at Spanish-language website Enter.co.
Corporate Largesse
- On Tuesday I attended the Trans-Tasman Business Circle lunch at Ernst & Young as guest of the Westpac Group. Their chief information officer Clive Whincup was presenting his vision and strategy for banking technology.
- On Thursday I went to the launch of AVG Technologies AU’s 2014 product line at Ocean Room Restaurant, Circular Quay. They paid, of course.
The Week Ahead
It’s a relatively busy one, with stories to write for Technology Spectator, ZDNet Australia and CSO Online. Plus I’ll be launching the crowdfunding campaigns for Corrupted Nerds and the Tokyo project, and I want to finish a podcast episode. But that can be done in whatever order I like over the next four days.
On Friday I’ll be coming to Sydney for a 1000 meeting in North Sydney, plus whatever else I add into the day.
The weekend is currently unplanned, but of my flight to Tokyo on Monday 16 September is an early one, then I’ll probably head down to Sydney on Sunday afternoon.
[Photo: Sydney Opera House, photographed from the Overseas Passenger Terminal, Circular Quay, on 5 September 2013.]
“As an aside, I continue to be fascinated by how I’m referred to as a journalist in some contexts and a blogger in others, seemingly regardless of whether what they’re describing is my journalism or my blogging”
Well, your original title for the article “Microsoft has banned me from covering TechEd” was “Microsoft bans journalist from TechEd”. It can be seen in the SEO friendly URL.
Seems you’ve been toying with the differentiation yourself, and now prefer the safety of blogger given the tirade nature of things!
@Rick Nestle: If I remember correctly, I tried a number of different headlines for that post before settling on the one it now bears. I did have “journalism” in the mix fairly early because journalism is what I was commissioned to do for TechEd.
But I decided, in the end, not to specify the job role, but to focus on the person, since that’s how the ban was expressed.
I prefer — at least when I stop to self-edit — not to talk about “journalists” and “bloggers”, because journalism and blogging are two different activities, and the same person can do one or the other, or both. I prefer to talk about people, or “writers” if we must label people with what they do, and then talk about their acts of journalism or blogging.
I’ve written and spoken rather a lot about this issue over recent years, but I think the most concise version of my thoughts was in Senate to re-open Bloggers versus Journalists.