Digital technology empowers and it destroys. As the legacy silos entrench themselves and become more polar in their approach the silos start to crumble. It happens in business and more of that later. As is incredibly visible right now, it happens in politics. Sometimes those silos are not really about the leader or the policy [...]
I recently got into an extensive FaceBook conversation/debate with someone that was somewhat ridiculous, but we all do stupid things from time to time. This debate was about CO2 emissions and the role of man. The person on the other side of the debate is a big fan of Lord Monckton, the media shill who [...]
How important in the development of ideas into commercial reality is talent? And how important is persistence, determination and hard work? They used to say: “1% inspiration and 99% determination”. The thing is that there are a lot of steps along the way to launching a business, launching a product, or launching a company. At [...]
Last week I was in Japan for the Nanotech conference. It was very interesting…. I made some new friends and I think that there will be a couple of very interesting business opportunities that come out of it. But that is incidental to what is important in Japan. What is important is trust, friendship, respect, [...]
Its the end of the semester here and my teaching gig is coming to a close. Its been very interesting and a lot of fun and its also been a learning experience. 115 students in the course, and 22 in the tutorial that I teach, and then 7 in the other course that I teach… [...]
There is a massive paradox in how digital technology changes media. It is not just the business models that are under threat – too much ink is wasted on that proposition. What is less discussed is the impact that “digital” has on the consumers. Sure it makes a lot of things free or near free. [...]
This has to go down as one of the most amazing elections in Australian history. In it neither of the alternative Prime Ministers have said anything remotely bold – until today. Julia Gillard said that she would stop following the script and be herself. Does that mean that she might say something exciting or memorable? [...]
I have been asked to run the History 2.0 course for third year students at University of Wollongong this Spring. I think it is going to be fun – certainly for me anyway. And hopefully will be interesting and engaging for the students too! I started a blog for the course to capture some of [...]
The EFF has a pretty useful reference page in place for anyone who wants to get a quick update on some of the most vexation questions about IP – particularly with respect to media. (Tip of the hat to John Pin for pointing it out). The reality is that we are moving into a really [...]
Amazing isn't it. We are a week in to a new Prime Minister. We are perhaps only days away from a Federal Election being announced. The probability is that there will be a deal done with the miners over the super profits tax before an election is announced… Why else would you announce an election, [...]