Perfect weather.
Will blog about X Media later this week.
Some interesting facts.
Some interesting people.
Sand mining to stop on Stradbroke Island after more than 30 years - here's what the mine looks like, a scar on the natural environment.
Queensland used to boast about this mine. We studied sand mining and development in school when I was at Wellington Pt State School - as a good thing.
We studied Colonial history by tracing the convict escapees Pamphlete, Finnigan and Parsons.
I remember the maps of all the islands we had to name.
I used to look out across the bay from our back steps at the moon path leading to Straddie and desperately want to walk across.
We used to get up at 5am when the King tides came in the new year to swim in crystal waters around "the pole" - it had tyres around it.
There was also the "four poles" - where our next door neighbours would store a dingy to clean I suppose.
We'd fish from the dingy with the neighbour's grandkids.
We'd lay crab pots.
I'd come home from school and beachcomb or dig clay up to make ashtrays for my dad - that was before smoking became a social crime.
The result of this is an abiding love of the bay we must protect.
Just because we can, does it mean we should? This was a philosophical question raised at the X/Media/Lab conference last week at the Sydney Opera House.
Just because you can record your sexual prowess on a website – the number of times you get it up, the times of the day or night when you’re at your sexual peak etc – should you?
Writer/journalist Anand Giridharadas tickled everyone's fancy with a little afternoon delight - there's a website called bedposted.com .
This became the running joke for every speaker who followed.
The ABC was there, The Edge from the State Library of Queensland was there, a party from QUT’s Creative Industries was there too.
X/Media/Lab has become a major event for anyone interested in digital media.
The stellar line-up at last week’s event at the Sydney Opera House included Robert Tercek, a renaissance man of the entertainment industry; Ralph Simon, founder of the modern mobile entertainment industry (inventor of the ringtone); Fanshake founder Dana Al Salem, who built the Yahoo! Europe team when she was 18 or so years old; and Amin Zoufonoun, Google’s director of corporate development.
Most of them, like China’s Haidong Pan who built a Chinese Wikipedia, stuck to the theme of how do you build an innovative global Media idea into reality.
Google's Amin Zoufonoun quoted World Bank figures to prove his point that the digital economy should indeed warrant closer inspection by investors and governments: for every 10 percent increase in broadband speed there's a corresponding 1.3 percent economic growth. NOTE: no private investors were present at the conference. Well, there was one angel from New Zealand but he didn't raise his hand.
The overall message delivered by most speakers was that digital is a new ballgame but it’s the same game. Digital businesses need to solve a real-world problem, or tell a compelling story, and do what they do well to be successful.
Ralph Simon, who flew in from South Africa where he worked on the World Cup, identified the key common ingredients of great innovations: originality; a network of believers who spread word by mouth; adequate seed funding; international connections and a cast-iron belief & persistence. These ingredients apply across the board – not just to digital innovation.
Dana Al Salem identified two tribes. She supported her argument that the more things change the more they really stay the same by comparing today’s GenY and the hippies of 40 years ago.
Hippies championed free love and so does GenY who are known as the Hook-Up Generation. Hurricane Katrina now//Hurricane Camille then. Glastonbury now // Woodstock then. Virgin Galactic space travel now // Copncorde’s first supersonic flight then. Vietnam War // Iraq War … BP spill // California spill in ‘69. The big difference between the Baby Boomers and GenY? GenY’s overstimulated so they’re difficult to excite, they love change, they are a tagged species. Hippy freedom didn’t include an acceptance of loss of privacy and a love of exclusivity.
While most speakers talked about how to make money one speaker spoke about the need to create a philosophy to govern digital ethics and life. Anand Giridharadas, the tech columnist for the International Herald Tribune, has been writing a book living in a small, isolated Indian village. And he too came to the realization that the digital era has not really changed the workings of social networking. The technology’s changed, the platform has changed but it’s still a village where everyone can hear everything that goes down through paper (or grass) walls.
He calls it ambient sociability. He says it’s something old wrapped in something new. Giridharadas says the internet is not a rootless, new phenomenon without precedent, it’s all the bickering, praising, coming and going that makes up life in a traditional village. But he suggests that there are more challenging areas than marketing and economics that the digitally enabled society has to solve. There’s a question of civility, universality and transparency. Issues such as how much anonymity is too much? Should people be held accountable for their online actions with the introduction of a persistent digital identity?
What happens to honesty and personal integrity when people, being conscious of the image they project online, start to edit themselves to make their personal brand more palatable? Does that kind of self marketing turn people into liars?
He ended on this note:
“We need to figure out the shape of the life we wish to lead and ask how all these magnificent, dangerous ones and zeroes can be put to the task.”
“How do we evolve a digital philosophy? What would it look like?” Just because we can, does it mean we should?
When does a puppy know whether its bum is over the pee mat before it drops its doo-doo or takes a piss? When it has good judgement? When you holler louder? When you throw it into the winter night? When you break it's neck?
Well. I think it's like any kind of awareness - it comes with good education and experience.
I'm toilet training a puppy - she's sensitive and smart and learns fast but sometimes she misses.
She tries though - no point in kicking her around because it will only damage her.
Some puppies may not be so lucky.
Today, as I cleaned up the mess. I thought of all the things I didn't know when I started work that meant I probably messed up :*|
I once walked away from a day's picking strawberries without asking for pay. My dad took me back to get paid.
I once left a job where we weren't allowed to take holidays. When I asked I for leave the boss told me: "I've always thought we could more than friends." - So I left. And then I took my ski holiday.
And looking back I think that I made a right mess by barking at nothing sometimes and cowering at nothing sometimes and being totally tactless a lot of the time.
The trouble is that your intentions of trying to do the right thing aren't counted - all that counts is your bad judgement. I think the problem is always knowing when to bark and when not to? Biting... that's another thing altogether, isn't it? Yikes!
But when you're a puppy entering the big old world of employment your future depends greatly on who is training you and directing you - to a large extent. I think a dog needs to be street smart, if not clever.
A lot of old dogs need training to navigate the brave new world being implemented by the fast movers of the digital society. It's just like an eight-week old puppy who's seeing rain for the first time, tasting chicken for the first time, smelling the smells of a new home for the first time, looking for a pat on the head: it's exciting, it's scary and you may not even have the confidence to whimper let alone bark.
Unfortunately, like the crapping process, the digital process requires training. I often wish I was a teenager these days. I know I'd be in this space but the big difference is that people would be helping me own it instead of ... well ... I think Gen Y's get to growl and bark a lot more than Gen Xers and Baby Boomers who had to sit and follow instructions and wait for a pat on the head. ( .. .. .. .. .. ha,ha,ha, panting for a pat, ha ha ha.. .. .. ..) Experienced oldies are mostly sitting in their cubicles waiting to be retrained or just live in the hope of making retirement with their mortgage paid off - you can't hear tectonic plates move until there's an eruption. Sounds barking mad to me.
In the same way that marketing books don't fill the creative well to draw on when you need to create content (to postulate an idea you need to find an idea and then you need to prove it). Technical prowess is a process, like peeing. All it takes is a little training. Go on, I know I've insulted you so go on - disagree!
Don't you think that it's weird that institutions which are supposed to be staid and conservative, like libraries and museums, are moving and shaking in the digital communication space?
Look at The Edge at the Queensland State Library - but it too is aimed at young people as if older people are somehow exempt from the future?
Social and economic landscapes are transforming the workplace. Training is crucial to transform workers, employees, cogs, fodder - whatever you like to call your staff. I think this is an important issue if you're really concerned about the future of your industry. We talk about super taxes on mining companies to boost superannuation contributions - no good if you're obsolete.
You know what's far, far worse than a peeing puppy?
Snarling mongrels peeing all over the place to mark their territory. OH!
"We will remake our future so it is as beautiful as our past, but to take this path we need to prepare ourselves, discipline ourselves and believe in ourselves. If we have to start again, working in the sand, with dedicated teachers, then so be it."
The former Australian of the Year (1992) was the first Aboriginal to become a school principal.
I didn't know that until I Googled him. I knew he founded the band Yothu Yindi.
Love this song which was co-written with Paul Kelly: Treaty (1992 Best Song of the Year ARIA)
These guys are basically cultural superheroes in Australia - or were once. They even got a treaty promise from then Prime Minister Bob Hawke.
Of course, it didn't happen. The Australian Constitution is a fearful creature which assures the Constitutional Monarchy, Massive Government and well, I suppose they did manage to change it to recognize the Aboriginal people as citizens in 1967.
Yothu Yindi's song was a powerful political statement that resonated in the hearts and minds of many Australians - perhaps a band of "illegal asylum seekers" or "queue jumpers" (Joke! I see them as refugees if they have a legit claim to asylum) should put out a hit song, hey? I'm sure Channel Ten's Australian Idol could feature them in their upcoming season - or even Seven's new talent X Factor.
Culture actually makes culture - it's organic. Politicians they react to culture and if people feel fear it's easy to fear monger than to allay fears - isn't that how WWII started?
It's amazing the impact poets have on a society - if there's no poetry in a person there's probably one hell of a lot of arrogance and ignorance.
There's a lot of poetry in Galarrwuy Yunupingu - and he learned his ABC's drawing the alphabet with a stick in the sand!
On the weekend, he wrote a column in the Weekend Australian about education which contains some really good power points.
Pity the newspaper didn't put it up online so I could link to it.
I'll just quote a few lines.
He starts:
"The first time I heard the word "school" I was about seven, living with my extended family on the Gove Peninsula in the Northern Territory under the strict eye of my father. I spoke no English and knew no white people."
He goes on to explain how he only went to school out of respect for his father who decided that it was as necessary to learn the white man's language and culture as it was to maintain his traditional heritage and language.
Yunupingu explains how his father was taking his lead from an ancestoral hero named Ganbulabula who made a habit of looking up and to the future.
I don't know but this sounds like a worthy kind of Australian hero to me - don't you think? I think that as we head to a national election politicians generally should keep these few things in mind as they formulate the words they speak and policies for our future.
At the recent X/Media conference I attended there was an Indian entrepreneur, a former journalist, who is busying himself with building a comics/animation studio that produces native stories about the superheroes from their ancient culture.
Gotham Chopra's Liquid Comics is collaborating with the likes of John Woo and Guy Ritchie, Nic Cage and Hugh Jackman in a fight against terrorism - yes you heard me!
He explained how as a TV journo a few weeks before 9/11 he was in Pakistan visiting an Islamic school to talk to the Imam about whether the fears of the West were justified. The school had a large poster of Osama Bin Laden on the wall. Chopra was on a plane bound out of New York when the planes struck the Twin Towers. His plane was diverted and he made his way to Ground Zero to cover the story and then help out as a volunteer.
But it was something he saw in Pakistan which made him think: Where the hell was Superman? He could've stopped this.
He had talked to a student, a boy who was wearing a Superman t-shirt, at the school. And the Imam then answered his question about whether the West need fear with another question. "Who do you think should be afraid of who?" - he was referring to cultural domination as an act of terrorism against their heritage.
And so Liquid Comics was born.
Galarrwuy Yunupingu laments, not disbanding Yothu Yindi but the disbandment of his school which deprived people in his homeland the opportunities he enjoyed to stay home and be educated in both English and Gumatj. He ends his column with these words of hope:
"My father's vision will be renewed at this year's Garma Festival which starts on August 6 at Gulkula near Nhulunbuy. The theme is "looking up to the future".
"We will remake our future so it is as beautiful as our past, but to take this path we need to prepare ourselves, discipline ourselves and believe in ourselves. If we have to start again, working in the sand, with dedicated teachers, then so be it."
I printed out these lines at the start of the 2nd quarter:
My message to you as we enter Q2 is simply this: Play to win…Don’t compromise your values, define your vision, refine your mission, architect your strategy, identify your objectives, set your goals, implement your tactics and engage in willful, purposeful action. Stay focused and do not quit until you’ve met your objectives…
People don't pay attention. Big epiphany!
We don't pay attention to people, to the road, to our health - we don't want to know, we've got to rush to get things done. Things must be done and now! How well they get done is another thing and whether they are the things which should get done is another question again.
People who want to know ask questions and seek information. They are often called troublemakers, activists, lunatics, anarchists, alternatives, dreamers, Greens!
Most of us only ask questions when we're stung by strong emotion - we don't want to think until our comfort is affected. That's why really annoying advertisements work - they elicit hatred.
People don't pay attention - we're always looking for things to distract us so we don't pay attention even MORE! Saw someone driving to work at 6.30am half asleep, one hand on the wheel, coffee in the other, phone under the ear and food in the mouth. Did this guy have his mind on the road do you think? Well, he cut in front of me and there was no one else on the road at the time. Lack of attention or disregard?
This is how the water crisis snuck up.
This is how the economic collapse of US markets and European countries snuck up.
This is how Climate Change snuck up.
It seems too late to learn to swim once you're in deep water - but that's the way we live.
Things like water rate rises, electricity rate rises, traffic snarls, hospital stuff ups make national and international problems personal - suddenly we wonder and we start complaining and blaming. But were you saving money in fat times? Are you saving now?
Some people pay attention.
They clean up when markets fall buying blue chip bargains and sell when the prices go up - arbitrage. Love that word.
Banks find ways to introduce new fees so that their profit line keeps going up - did Australian banks take a GFC hit? No.
Didn't Kevin Rudd guarantee banks - and isn't that partly why retirees who put their money in banks rather than superannuation funds are now borderline?
Who's asleep at the wheel? If Spain and Portugal crash, if there's a second wave, if we crash who do we sue? Who do we prosecute? It's not a joke.
We expect others to look after our welfare but even parents don't care - often.
Often parents put their needs before the needs of their children - sometimes it's the only way they can survive, sometimes it's selfishness.
Children grow up thinking that's the way it is for everyone - and they don't question it either.
We know that politicians, priests, banks, businesses, teachers, parents aren't saints and yet we expect them to do the right thing - deep down, don't we?
Advertising and marketing are necessary to get through to people - spin is necessary because we're NOT listening.
Or is it because of spin that we're not listening?
So I suppose then it really is about trust - not attention.
I'm Mad As Hell...and I'm not going to take this any more!
So we're releasing this low-res mp4 of an old idea.
It's about five years old and it breaks music copyright - but it's not for commercial release so I guess it's ok.
Sitting down with an editor friend and sifting through several hours of footage for this tiny, tiny trailer made me fall in love with film editing - I suddenly saw how to tell a story through film.
I've renamed the script Duke Street.