Look at this face.
Man, when that cat gets out of that pool, someone is going to be in a world of pain 
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History records that I wrote my first post here on 05 April 2007.
My world was a different place then - more certain, more settled, more known. Since then I’ve had a lot of ups and downs, met a lot of good people, shared a lot of myself online, written hundreds of posts on my own blogs and those of others. I’ve moved from unconscious incompetence (not knowing what I didn’t know about blogging) to conscious incompetence (knowing that I need to know more).
All up, it has been fun, and I would blog it all (well most of it) again.
Thanks for reading.
This is my friend Nathanael Boehm discussing the Meraki wireless sharing hardware system at Wireless Australia yesterday (2 April 2008). Nathanael is a social entrepreneur who wants to bring free wireless internet access to all Australians - and there are a lot of people who are interested in helping him.
More information at Free Canberra Wireless.
Blogged with the Flock Browser
Tags: Meraki, Free Canberra Wireless, Free Australia Wireless
In Meatball Sundae, Seth Godin writes about dining critic Joanne Kates:
One of my dearest friends is Joanne Kates, the restaurant critic for The Globe and Mail, the most important newspaper in Toronto. Joanne carries a credit card with someone else’s name on it (I promised I wouldn’t say who). Despite her precautions, her picture is posted in the kitchen of dozens of top restaurants. Why? Because once a restaurant knows that Joanne is wearing a wig and sitting in the dining room, the staff can influence the review.
Once a server knows it’s her, he can make sure the service is perfect, the food is hot, and the check is calculated properly. Once he knows it’s her, he can guarantee that the staff will do their best.
Seth goes on to explain what is wrong with this strategy under the rules of New Marketing:
You’ve already guessed the problem with this strategy. The problem is Zagats (and Chowhound.com, and a thousand other restaurant blogs). There isn’t just one Joanne Kates in Toronto anymore. Now there are thousands.
You can no longer be on the lookout for Joanne. Now you have to be on the lookout for everyone.
Joanne is everywhere - there are thousands of people walking the earth with PageRank 4 or better blogs at their fingertips, ready to heap praise (or crap) on every remarkable experience.
I’ve done this a dozen times - rewarded a truly wonderful experience with praise, and been critical of a bad experience. Within an hour yesterday, Donna and I had two remarkably contrasting experiences:
- A good chat with the guy that owns Plonk around boutique Ciders (he is knowledgeable and genuinely interested in customer experiences) - and we’re happy to recommend his shop to friends (and we know several people who are happy to do the same). We bought a mixed half-dozen Montieth’s beers, a Trappistes Rochefort No 10 ‘heavy’ for after-dinner enjoyment, and we plan to return.
- A disinterested and contradictory set of serving staff at the Belgian Beer Cafe in Kingston. Their all-day menu shows that the Moules Moutarde (mussels in mustard) have bacon with them - when no bacon appeared in our Moules, we asked the waitress if we had the right dish, and she checked with the kitchen who told her that there was no bacon in this dish. What we had tasted good, but it wasn’t what we ordered - and we would never have noticed at all if we hadn’t had to wait so long for it to turn up. We didn’t make a fuss, but we won’t be going back, and we won’t be recommending it to friends.
Can you see the difference between the two experiences? Both were remarkable - in one, the service provider cared and the beer seemed to taste better for it - in the other, there was a notable lack of care, and it cheapened the experience for us. No big deal either way, but we both have blogs, and both of us are happy to talk about it.
If you run a business, read Meatball Sundae. If you take nothing else away from it but this then it is time and money well invested - that there are thousands of Joannes out there just waiting for you to do something truly great for them (or screw them around). Either way, they will talk about it.
Greg Knauss discusses Richard Dawkins’ views on two opposing worldviews or magisteriums - that of science and that of religion. Basically, Dawkins holds that nothing lies outside the realm of science - that the nature of Deity and faith can be discussed scientifically.
Dawkins mentions a third Magisterium - that of the Stupid. Knauss claims it as his own:
Just because something is stupid, doesn’t mean that it can’t make lots and lots of money. Just as scientists claim dominion over their magisteria, and theologians claim dominion over theirs, a huge and empty space is left for the stupid questions. Who claims dominion over them?
Starting now, I do. I declare myself the world’s primary expert in questions so stupid that they lack any sort of meaning other than reasonably correct grammar.
I hereby also demand co-equal attention with the other magisteria. If there’s a debate to be had about evolution and both science and religion are represented, then so should stupid questions, in the person of me. If government money is to be divided between science and religious (“faith-based�) functions, then meaningless twaddle should get a share of the loot. And any news story from a supposedly objective source must now include the perspective of the ridiculously idiotic to be considered impartial. I’m available for quotes and press-shoots by request.
Good on him! Someone needs to be able to explain the following:
- Happy Meals,
- The Spice Girls,
- people who grow obese watching sport on TV,
- the popularity of MySpace,
- Chardonnay,
- the continuing existence of mainstream advertising,
- Australian Idol, and
- Chihuahuas.
Is there anything I’ve missed?
It’s official: Amazon.com says that Aussie breakfast spread Vegemite tastes like crap!
Try this for yourself - go to Amazon and do a search on Vegemite. Look at the second search result - that’s right, it is a book called What’s Your Poo Telling You?
Australia should send a nasty letter to the UN, or invade Iran, or something…Â Obviously, some people have no taste at all
There is evidence to suggest that some firms are hiring the wrong people - they look for those that are good at interviewing but not necessarily performing.
Once upon a time there was a man named John Holmes - not the bloke with the big shlong, the other one - the dog trainer and author. He wrote a book in England in the 40s or 50s called The Family Dog. His argument against buying the lovable mongrel was this: the Labrador has been bred for lots of years to retrieve things from water, and the Greyhound to run like buggery, and the Border Collie to work sheep - in other words, they have been bred selectively for a specific purpose. The only thing that mongrels have been selected for is, well, being mongrels - it proves that one or both parents were adept at either being neglected or jumping fences. Not a good choice for the family pet.
Do we hire the same way? Do we select for those people who are good at interviewing to the detriment of those abilities that might fulfill the organisation’s promise to deliver? As a young man I was told, I kid you not, that a colleague had been promoted because “we know he can’t do the job, but he put in a corker of an interview”. I laugh about it - now.
PS: I have to add that I’ve owned several dogs through the years that have been of mixed parentage - some have been wonderful animals, some not. It doesn’t mean that I’d hire someone who couldn’t, or wouldn’t work.
Craig commented on my Big Brother Law post:
A couple of questions;
do you wonder just how deeply Coonan is connected with the issues of modern communication networks? (I know I do.)
Do you wonder why legislation like this is proposed when there is already sufficuent legislation in place to deal with these issues (if they really are issues.)
And lastly, from an IA POV what do you think about the proliferation of legislation dealing with exceptions rather than the big issues. Coulod democracy do with a knowledge manager?
I replied:
Hi Craig,
thank you for your comment.
I am fairly sure that Helen has some good people advising her - and in this instance, advising her that a little wowserism will go a long way to appeasing people that have extreme views on the place of nudity on TV. I take your point (by inference) that she probably doesn’t know a lot about the communications needs of the average Aussie.
I believe that the issue is one that has been created purely to maintain the 1950s family orientation of those people with extreme views.
It has been said that if it’s on the news, it isn’t important - because road accidents, heart failure and cancer deaths happen every single day. If it’s on the news, be sure that someone will legislate for or against it. There is more media kerfuffle at the moment around a 12 year old model than there is about the thousands of Australians who will die in terrible pain this year - there is evidence that the cancers with a high profile get more funding, and are eventually better treated.
I do not think that democracy needs a knowledge manager - I think that we all need to take it upon ourselves to think about what the real issues are (and I include myself in this, absolutely). We need to be our own IAs - filtering out infospam and soap operas (including BB) and looking behind the bread-and-circuses piffle to what is really important.
What do you think?
Cheers, Andrew
So what’s important? 12 year old models or road deaths caused by truckies who are being worked to extremes by big supermarket chains? Kevin Rudd’s night out on the town or “fashionable” cancers getting more funding than others? Paris Hilton exposing her genitals or the sad state of our health system?
For me, it is about improving the quality of life for as many people as possible - that’s social responsibility 101. Everything else is a distraction - and when we forget that it is a distraction instead of the main game, people die needlessly. We can blame whoever we want, but there is a personal responsibility that we can all take to stay informed about the real issues. I’m as guilty as anyone on this - perhaps more so, because I know enough to know that there is a difference.
Oz-IA is Australia’s Information Architecture conference.
I got to present at Oz-IA last year with my colleague and friend Stephen Hall. It was great to meet a lot of other Information Architects, Knowledge Managers and interested people from Australia and around the world.
Oz-IA is on again on 21-22 September. Eric Scheid, the coordinator, has asked participants to spread the good word with the following link:
If you would like to spread the word as well, please use this code:
<a href=”http://www.oz-ia.org/2007/” title=”Oz-IA/2007 - Sydney, September 22nd/23rd 2007″><img src=”http://www.oz-ia.org/2007/images/logo_ozia2007.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”Oz-IA/2007 - Sydney, September 22nd/23rd 2007″ width=”150″ height=”150″ /></a>Â
Apart from the warm and fuzzy feeling you will get in spreading the word, Eric is giving away a free pass to someone who promotes the conference.
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