
A reasonably educated person trying to make sense of it all, and a little tormented as a result. Thinking aloud, mostly. These opinions rarely reflect the ideas of any of my employers.
Sunday, September 28, 2014
Family crap: It can end with us or we can start our own

Tupperware's "Big sell" is now just a festering insult

iView: Like a kid wearing his daddy's tool belt.
But one thing is missing - the revenue model. This all works fine when you're getting paid for by the taxpayer. I'm certainly getting my money's worth. But as far as adapting the free to air model to mobile devices iView does not advance the cause much.
Currently iView is all paid for by "inside money" - like when your young son wants to save for a computer and asks if he can do some jobs for you to make money. It's all coming out of your pocket. Not the same as when your daughter gets a job in a pasta shop, or older son gets a job collecting glasses in a pub. At some point you have to grow up and earn some outside money.
I don't want the ABC to go commercial, but let's not kids ourselves. iView is like the ABC wearing its daddy's toolbelt and pretending it's a carpenter.
Recently a caller said this on a call into the Sydney "Mornings" program last week:
Caller Steve: I’m – my birthday’s today. I’ve been listening to the ABC for nearly 50 years and I worked for the ABC in the ‘70s. So I think what today’s all about is a re-focus. You know, Quentin Dempster’s been on your program a while ago. Quentin Dempster’s on nearly $300,000 a year and he produces one program a week. Is that a fair reflection of spending money well? I don’t think so.
I listen to Radio National in the morning, the Breakfast with Fran Kelly. She’s got a listening audience of what? One or two per cent across the nation and she’s got nine producers working on the substance of the story. And I just think that things need to be re-focused in the ABC and they’d be accountable for the dollars that you spend.
I love my ABC. And it's great value. But as good as it is, it it's currently not subject to the same pressures as the other media outlets. I'll be interested to see how the players in the commercial media will go in their efforts to commercialise digital content. For them it's survival, not just an interesting diversion.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Friday, September 26, 2014
Urgh. Highly motivated business breakfasts.
I'm coming to one at the request of a close associate. These business breakfasts always make me feel slightly squeamish, especially the "self employed networking" types.
A cliche on so many levels, and I gave this stuff away about 15 years ago.
And pulling into the carpark doesn't make me feel any better, as I see people ejecting from their cars and striding across the road with their folder in their hand.
Well, here goes....
UPDATE
it wasn't so bad. A bunch of people just like me "scratching around in the dirt, trying to earn a buck". The religious fervour still unnerves me though.
Monday, September 22, 2014
A reverberation of Mum, nice.
Our Mum died, suddenly but not unexpectedly, two months ago. Much of the two months has been really crappy. Last night my sister and myself went to Mum's place with our younger kids and my wife to just get a feel for the place and where we go from here.
My brother sister and myself have had our trips out there but it's time to start clearing, and we wanted to introduce our extended family easily.
An upside is that Mia wanted to take a bedspread, and today we have a little reverberation of Mum, which is nice.
Sunday, September 21, 2014
The opposite of love is not hate

Strangely the opposite of love is the same thing as the opposite of hate.
The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.
This is the lead thought in a dark quote by Elie Wiesel. The darkness of his thoughts relates to what he saw during the Holocaust and I can get what he's saying.
But indifference can be harnessed in positive ways. I've believed for decades that "the best revenge is to live well". So, rather than continue to swallow the poison of hatred, one may choose to say "whatever - none of my business". For me that involved letting go of the idea of justice in the world, accepting that good things do happen for bad people and that my own job is to make my own world as nice as I can.
And when fate beckons us to to the dark world of hate, reject the invitation. I like the way James Reyne sees it:
- "I care not now or then, what a pain in the ass it is to run into you again"
- "When it was raining movie stars I still got Rin Tin Tin"
- "Maybe then you'll realise you're just tired, tired of yourself. In the beginning was the end - what a pain in the ass it is to run into you again"
Thursday, September 18, 2014
A moment for what's important
Friday, September 12, 2014
Lecture Whiteboard, Advanced Wine Marketing
Saturday, September 6, 2014
Marketing win: If you aren't paying for the product you are _part of_ the product
After a bit of a process, Jonah got to jump for the ball, and then got a photo printed.
Cool.
Then on the way home, Sylv got an email with this link which has the photo plus a whole bunch of advertising. Fair deal.
But the true brilliance is that when I looked at Facebook this morning, the link was there. It already had one like. It will get a few shares. Jonah was one of twenty kids in the fifteen minutes we were there at 8.30pm on the first day. So the face of the kid may change, but the ad itself might get a good reach.
Very clever. It goes someway to a comment (reportedly) made by Mark Zuckerberg - "if you're not paying for the product, you are the product". Well, in this case "part of" the product.
And equally as important. Advertising is about exchange of value - a company gets advertising results by providing something of value to us. In the commercial media model a consumer would get "free content" in exchange for "eyeballs on an ad". This model has the consumer getting a cool, personalized pic in exchange for being a "node" of advertising for Toyota. Clever and fair, I think.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Wednesday, September 3, 2014
"Dear God, let representative democracy do its job"
But not before he barrels through our government like a human wrecking ball, causing an amazing amount of damage that will take a long time to emerge from.
I simply pray that the system of representative democracy does its thing. As a man, Clive Palmer has limited influence. He's the member for Fairfax. As a guy who controls a handful of senate votes he has some power.
But Australia voted three people into the senate: Jacqui Lambie, Glen Lazarus and Dio Wang. Somehow Palmer has co-opted Ricky Muir to the cause. These are all individuals and they will certainly be one timers (although for eight years). I hope that at some point they will drop away from him and serve Australia.
I'm not saying I agree with much of what - say - Jacqui Lambie is or does.
But on thing I know. You can only do the bidding of a deranged psychopath for just so long before it becomes an existential pain that you have to end. When the Palmer United Party folds, Australia will be better off.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad