by cameron | Sep 21, 2006 | Melbourne, Uncategorized
I’m in the planning stages for a series of interviews for G’Day World which will contain in-depth interviews with Melbourne’s leading business people. I want to know what makes them tick, how they got started, about their biggest successes, biggest mistakes, and lifetime ambitions.
First cab off the rank will be Geoff Lord. I’ve got an interview scheduled with him for next week. Geoff has been in the news lately due to his large stake in Melbourne Victory, the first soccer club in Australian domestic football history to sign-up 10,000 members. He is also currently Chairman of UXC Limited, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Belgravia Group, Chairman Terrain Australia Limited, Australian Litigation Fund and Terrain Capital Limited, and a Director of the following companies: MaxiTRANS Limited, Triako Resources Limited, Ausmelt Limited, Auto Group Limited, Institute of Drug Technology Limited, Adelhill Limited and Kids Campus. I’ve heard a lot about Geoff over the last couple of years from a friend who worked for him for a while and he sounds like a very interesting bloke, a true entrepreneur.
Then I’m going to work my way through the A list of Who’s Who in Melbourne. Should be fun. Wish me luck.
by cameron | Sep 21, 2006 | Uncategorized
Mary Jane Watson… sorry, I mean MARY JO FOLEY… has announced she is no longer writing for Microsoft Watch and is now going to be writing a blog about Microsoft as her own business.
I’m interested in this for a few reasons.
- I had the opportunity to meet MJ last year at a flashy party in NYC and she was lovely. She even pretended to know who I was. I had been reading her stuff for many years and even though I suspected she was just doing a Clinton on me, it had the right effect – my ego was inflated.
- For a while now when I’m discussing the future of the media business with newspaper folks, they harp on and on and on and on and on and on and on (get the idea) about "why the world needs journalists". I am usually quick to agree (unless I’m just trying to annoy them, which can also be a lot of fun) but then I ask "but do those journalists need YOU?". We’ve started to see journalists break out on their own and I hope this is a trend which will continue. As I said on G’Day World last week – if Chris Masters, Australia’s #1 investigative journalist, wanted to go out on his own, I’m sure he could find enough corporate sponsorship to pay his annual salary and legal/travel expenses. He has his own brand. What does he need a publisher for these days? Dan Gillmor did it. Om Malik has done it. Now MJ is doing it.
- I’m wondering what MJ’s model is. She’s blogging, not under her own brand, but under ZDnet’s. I don’t get that model. I’ve asked her on her new blog how it works and I’ll try to get her on the show for an in-depth discussion.
by cameron | Sep 20, 2006 | Podcast
Check out our new sponsors Wardy IT and Direct TV!
Rich and Cam are back and we’ve decided it’s: NO MORE MISTER NICE GUY!!
Outro track: James Brown, “Gut Buster”
If you want to put money into the TPN paypal account, like many of our listeners already do, you can do it by setting up a deposit to thepodcastnetwork@gmail.com.
The G’Day World Theme Song: “Save Me†by The Napoleon Blown Aparts, America’s baddest rock n’ roll band!
by cameron | Sep 19, 2006 | Podcast, Uncategorized
WWT, host of one of TPN’s top rating podcasts, The Cranky Middle Manager Show, has been interviewed in depth by John C Havens on About.com’s podcasting page. It’s a terrific and revealing interview, even though he manages to take an in advertent dig at me for putting out longer shows! He has a lot of tips for podcasters who want to succeed over the long haul, something he can talk with credibility about, as WW has been going for over a year and has seen his audience slowly grow to a serious size. I like this quote from him:
I know why I do it. I’m building the brand, what Tom Peters calls Brand You and it seems to be working. My new e-book (shameless plug) , is the first thing I’ve put out attempting to make money at podcasting to see if the brand has legs. People seem to be responding. I may someday be able to build a real business out of this.
I was saying to Dave Gray (host of our Global Geek podcast) this morning on Skype that most start-up businesses take five years to get to a point where they are sustainable. Why should a podcast be any different? Sure – there are businesses that skyrocket overnight. But they are always the rare few. Most, the vast majority, of businesses grow over time, building a steady, loyal customer base. I’ve always had the same vision for podcasting and The Podcast Network. Too many people are fly-by-nighters. It they aren’t world famous and P. Diddy rich in a month, they suck their thumb and stomp their feet. I don’t tolerate that behaviour from my five years olds and I think it’s pathetic in an adult.
Anyway, enough ranting… good interview WW!
by cameron | Sep 19, 2006 | Podcast, Uncategorized
Nick Randolph has taken over hosting TPN’s Microsoft Developer podcast. In his first episode, he’s talking with a bunch of experienced user group co-ordinators about the different .Net user groups across Australia and New Zealand. Welcome to TPN Nick!
by cameron | Sep 19, 2006 | singularity, Uncategorized
From the Mprize press release today:
Peter A. Thiel, co-founder and former CEO of online payments system PayPal, Founder and Managing Member of Clarium Capital Management, a San Francisco-based hedge fund, and angel investor in social networking site Facebook, has announced his pledge of $3.5 Million to support scientific research into the alleviation and eventual reversal of the debilities caused by aging, to be conducted under the auspices of the Methuselah Foundation, a charity co-founded and Chaired by Dr. Aubrey de Grey.
If you don’t know who Aubrey de Grey is, listen to my interview with him: G’Day World #42 – Dr Aubrey de Grey
Very exciting to see more entrepreneurs getting behind life extension research. If Gates and Buffett threw some of their Gigantor cash at it, it could probably get knocked over in ten or twenty years. By the way, Thiel is the same guy who co-produced THANK YOU FOR SMOKING. According to Wikipedia, he has also made early-stage investments in several companies, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Friendster, Rapleaf, and Ironport. In May 2006 he spoke at the Singularity Summit. I’ve got to get this guy on the show. How long do you think it will take me to get an intro?
by cameron | Sep 18, 2006 | Uncategorized
Dave the lifekludger can’t help himself. He *thinks* he’s been having an emotional breakdown. But what he was *really* doing was re-inventing an entire industry.
I ended up spending my days with my head switched off in Second Life (SL). And it was my answer in this period, my therapy. I needed something that didn’t take any analytical brain power and yet could occupy me enough just to relax. I found a whole new side of me, a side that had been buried under that rock I talked of for 25 years. I knew from outset that the word ‘expression’ was a key, but didn’t know what that meant. SL gave me a new way of expression and of freedom from the constraints that come with my disability and those constraints I’d built myself as a way of either escape or coping.
I predict that years from now there will an entire industry and a shelf full of books about using virtual worlds such as Second Life as a path to therapy for all kinds of emotional and psychological problems. And Dave just happened to invent the whole shebang while he thought he was having some downtime. You just can’t stop some people. Even when they think they are chilling out they are breaking new ground.Â
by cameron | Sep 16, 2006 | Melbourne, Uncategorized
Dan used to sit next to me at Microsoft Melbourne all those years ago. I remember when Dan bought this massive Creative mp3 player, I think it was 6Gb or something, was about the size of a bread plate, way back in 99 or 00. We thought it was the bomb. Cost him a week’s pay. I was extremely envious. Five years ago DanMc moved to Microsoft London and when we caught up for a quick coffee last Thursday he told me he has recently chased a skirt to Amsterdam where he tells me he will continue to put off his true dream of bringing webcams to Africa, even though he’s now 30 and looking every day of it. Apparently he’d ratherbuy a beer in a movie theatre and, Dan, remember….. it breaks down like this: it’s legal to buy it, it’s legal to own it and, if you’re the proprietor of a hash bar, it’s legal to sell it. It’s legal to carry it, which doesn’t really matter ’cause — get a load of this — if the cops stop you, it’s illegal for them to search you. Searching you is a right that the cops in Amsterdam don’t have.
Dan (left), and Richard Sockpuppet Giles (right)
Dan’s sparse blog.
by cameron | Sep 16, 2006 | Uncategorized
One of the secrets I learned a few years ago was that it’s the questions you ask yourself in times of adversity that determine your paradigm.
For example, when the shit hits the fan, my previous programmed response was to think
"Oh you idiot, how could you let this happen?"
"You shouldn’t have done x, y or z. Why didn’t you do a through d like so-and-so told you?"
 "How could this happen to me? How could he or she do that to me?"
From these questions, a domino effect happens of victim mentality. The thoughts that follow are all pity party thoughts. It’s a simple biological reaction. The neurons in the brain that are associated with fear and flight stimulate each other. One you trigger one of them, a predictable chain of event occurs.
And then suddenly, out of the blue, one day my questions changed. Since that time, when the shit hits the fan, I ask myself:
"How can I use this as an opportunity?"
"How can I benefit from this?"
"How can I profit from this new information?"
"What unpleasantness has this event rescued me from?"
And my favourite:
"What would Napoleon do?"
Again, the neurons in the brain that are associated with creativity, discipline and passion also stimulate each other. Trigger one of them and watch what happens. It’s simple biology.
by cameron | Sep 16, 2006 | Uncategorized
It isn’t how you handle success that I’m interested in. It’s how you handle adversity. Anyone can look impressive when they are rolling in the good times. But it takes true strength of character to handle the rough times. I’m interested in being around people who have what it takes. Life’s too short to spend with spineless people.
