by cameron | Mar 17, 2007 | environment, Melbourne, Podcast, Uncategorized
The last good boss I had at Microsoft, Christophe DuMonet, left there just before I did (causing me all sorts of political problems but, in retrospect, I’m glad he did) and spent a few years as General Manager of a software division of Sydney-based software company Unique Software. He’s now taken a new position as Managing Director of the Australian office of French software company Esker, “the world’s leading document process automation solutions provider”. Hopefully this means he now has the budget to do engage a good podcast consultant. 🙂
I’m trying to think of what I learned from my time working for CD. He’s certainly a snappy dresser. And he’s this mad triathlete. Neither of those rubbed off on me. He tried to convince me I should play the political game at Microsoft, but I never really could get my ego out of the way. I’d rather say what I think and get condemned for it than pander to morons. It’s a low self-esteem issue I guess. People with healthier self-esteems are prepared to play the game to get what they want. I struggle.
We certainly had some good times though. I remember when we discovered we had some leftover marketing budget which needed to be spent before the end of the financial year and I came up with the idea of getting our top CIO clients and taking them out to the Flower Drum, one of the world’s best Chinese restaurants, for a monthly confab. That was a big hit. I figured we’d get more value out of letting our top customers eat and drink well and chat to each other about the Microsoft-related projects they were doing than trying to SELL them. They sold each other. Halfway into the third bottle of merlot, they would be inviting each other over to their offices to check out the cool stuff they were building using our tools.
Then there was the time we took one of our best customers, let’s call him Tony, and we hired a stretch limo and spent the day driving around Melbourne’s wine district, visiting wineries, eating, drinking, and sharing war stories. Great bonding stuff. How else do you get 8 hours with a CIO? Tony ended up one of our most loyal and valuable clients and a good friend.
But they were all my ideas. What did Christophe do? He backed me up. He gave me support to get the job done. Isn’t that the most important role of a good manager? Creating an environment where their people can do what they need to do without the rest of the company getting in their way?
His final act as my manager was to fight to get approval for me to spend a couple of weeks in New York at Cornell University’s supercomputing lab. At the time I had this vision for Microsoft in Australia to work with Universities to build out massively-parallel supercomputers using Windows Server 64-bit running on blades. We had training budget to spend and I said I wanted to go to Cornell to find out how they were doing it. Our boss didn’t want it to happen (mainly because he hated my guts) but CD made it happen. And although I left Microsoft not long afterwards and never had the chance to realize the vision, the trip to Cornell was a great experience and I’m sure I will use what I learned there at some stage in the future. And it wouldn’t have happened without Christophe’s support.
So for that Christophe – thanks mate. And congrats on the new job.
by cameron | Feb 7, 2007 | Australian politics, climate change, energy, energy debate, environment, Podcast
John Howard *still* doesn’t want to do anything about climate change. The Cartoon Network pays $2 million in fines in the cheapest ad buy this year. And I review some of the recent comments on the blog. All that and not much more on tonight’s show.
If you enjoyed this podcast, make sure you don’t miss future episodes by subscribing to our feed.
The G’Day World Theme Song is “Save Me†by The Napoleon Blown Aparts.
by cameron | Jan 15, 2007 | Australian politics, climate change, energy debate, environment, Podcast
The word of the day is “Enterdrainment“: Any passive form of entertainment that is so incredibly mind numbing that it sucks the intelligence from the listener or viewer; ultimately over time reducing (or limiting) them to a simplistic proto-human mental state, incapable of cognition or rational thought.
Kind of like this show. 🙂
To give you a break from my attacks on religion, my guest tonight is Mark Pop who is a Sydney-based expert in solar energy and climate change. We talk about the economic and political challenges to solar energy as well as discuss the truthiness of climate change.
Some links from the show:
Blacktown to become Australia’s first “Solar City”
Solar power plant being built in Victoria
Get the United Nation’s version of “the facts” about climate change at:
United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change
The CSIRO’s website on climate change
If you enjoyed this podcast, make sure you don’t miss future episodes by subscribing to our feed.
The G’Day World Theme Song is “Save Me†by The Napoleon Blown Aparts.
by cameron | Nov 23, 2006 | climate change, Podcast
It’s my great pleasure today to have Doug La Follette on the show. Doug is a United States academic, environmental activist, and politician. He is the current Secretary of State of Wisconsin. Known as an environmental activist before running for public office, in 1970 he was a Wisconsin organizer of the first Earth Day for Gaylord Nelson, and co-founded Wisconsin’s Environmental Decade (now known as Clean Wisconsin) with Peter Anderson.
We talk about the history of the environmental movement, how you can figure out the global warming facts from the climate change disinformation, and what you and I can do to make a difference.
To get the facts, Doug recommends these websites:
STEPHEN H. SCHNEIDER, CLIMATOLOGIST
THE HEAT IS ON
by cameron | Nov 13, 2006 | climate change, Culture Jamming, environment, Melbourne
For those of you in Melbourne town, I’ll be taking my video camera down to the Bourke Street Mall on Nov 24 to cover “Buy Nothing Day“. Why not come along and join in the merriment?
According to Wikipedia:
Buy Nothing Day is an informal day of protest against consumerism observed by social activists. It was founded by Vancouver artist Ted Dave and subsequently promoted by the Canadian Adbusters magazine. Participants refrain from purchasing anything for 24 hours in a concentrated display of consumer power. The event is intended to raise awareness of what some see as the wasteful consumption habits of First World countries.
There’s a detailed explanation of the idea from our friends across the Tasman. Here’s an excerpt:
Why don’t you want people to shop?
We are saying we want people to think about what they buy, and whether consuming ever-more actually does increase quality of life. The effects of over-consumption on the environment (such as toxic pollution and climate change) are widely known. These mean we need to reduce consumption, especially in many Western countries like New Zealand that are consuming much more than their fair share of resources. We are also concerned with the role of advertising, the effects of global trade liberalisation and inequities between the developing and developed worlds.
Events:
The Melbourne Culture Jammers will be back in the Bourke Street Mall, cutting up credit cards. Join us. 11am-2pm, Friday November 24th.
by cameron | Oct 23, 2006 | climate change, Iraq, Podcast, Uncategorized
Beti the Excel Jedi (and the host of the TPN Health and Fitness podcast) has put together a nifty pps containing the results of the TPN Oct 2006 survey so far. I’ll leave it open for another few weeks but I think the results are already showing some interesting trends.
Some interesting things that popped out at me:
- most people say that, on average, they listen to “most or all” of podcasts
- about a third pay attention to ads in podcasts, but another third ignore them
- 50% would be willing to pay >$1 a month to listen to TPN podcasts
- the breakdown between people listening on a PC versus a portable player is moving away from the PC, with 75% listening on a portable device
- nobody first heard of TPN via the mainstream media
- the vast majority say they trust the opinions of TPN hosts either “very much” or “somewhat” and 70% trust TPN hosts more than they trust mainstream media (which might shut up all the journos who love to say “you can’t trust blogs”… nah who am I kidding… )
- almost all of you relate to TPN hosts more than you relate to mainstream media hosts, yet again demonstrating the power of citizen media
- two-thirds listen to less traditional radio since discovering podcasting (I should have asked what percentage of the podcasts you listen to are traditional radio shows versus citizen media… next time)
- two-thirds find citizen media more stimulating than mainstream media
- and, overwhelmingly, you are Beatles persons who disagree with the Iraq invasion and are worried about climate change. In other words, you haven’t been fooled by the propaganda campaigns on these issues run by your Governments and the corporations that run them. I am very proud of you.
Check out the early results.
And if you haven’t completed the survey yet, you still have a chance by going here.
