G’DAY WORLD #273 – Geoffrey McDonald Bowll, Ad Man

by | Aug 3, 2007 | Melbourne, Podcast

Geoffrey Bowll is the MD of Melbourne-based ad agency Starship. I chatted with him yesterday about the demise of TV, the rise of the creative class and the fragmentation of media. It was great to find someone in the Aussie advertising industry who is excited about social networking, Second Life and Twitter.

Speaking of which…

Become part of the G’Day World conversation.

I’ve created a couple of groups inside Second Life. You can now add yourself to the following groups:

  • Friends Of G’Day World
  • MODM
  • The Podcast Network

    • If I knew how to link directly to those groups from here, I would. But I don’t. So for now you just need to search for them in-world. Or you can add “Cameron Switchblade” to your friends and check out the groups I belong to.

    If you’re a member of Facebook, you can ADD ME AS A FRIEND and then ADD YOURSELF TO THE G’DAY WORLD GROUP.

    Add me to your Twitter account.

    Do me a solid and digg the show.

    Get the TPN version of Particls.

    Don’t forget to make use of my new comments line – +613 9016 9699.

    You can now buy transcripts of this podcast from Pods In Print.

    If you enjoyed this podcast, make sure you don’t miss future episodes by subscribing to our feed and leave us a voice comment!

    The G’Day World Theme Song is “Save Me” by The Napoleon Blown Aparts.


    AddThis Social Bookmark Button

    Cam’s World 31 July 2007

    by | Jul 31, 2007 | Melbourne, Uncategorized

    I’m amused this morning that Duncan wrote up my “Telstra Bans Facebook” in TechCrunch and the rash of comments accusing him of being a Facebook shill. I often tell corporate-types when they ask about why blogging is important that I may only have a few hundred regular readers of my blog but a handful of them are people with real reach – like Duncan. Google “telstra facebook” and see what happens.

    Meanwhile, some people like Allen Stern still miss the point. This isn’t about Facebook. This is about businesses feeling the need to block the use of online services because they feel their employees will waste time on them and not get the job done. I know of at least one Melbourne government agency that still blocks instant messenger! Even their online team can’t use it!

    Any employee who has enough functioning brain cells to use a PC and the net should have enough to work autonomously towards a set out pre-agreed results. When companies block access to internet services, rather than change their corporate culture, all they are doing is shoring up their command and control environments. This is bad – for profits, for shareholders, for employee satisfaction, for everyone.

    I’m going to be talking more about this (and Telstra’s brief banning of Facebook) in my Marketing magazine article.

    ******

    Prepping for my Vernor Vinge interview this afternoon by re-reading his classic novella “True Names” which he wrote in 1981 predicting the internet YEARS before Gibson or Stephenson. If you haven’t read it, you should. Here’s a sneak peak but buy yourself a hard copy as well, it’s an incredible piece of work.

    ******

    I chatted with a representative from Telstra’s media department today about the Facebook issue. She said that it was a “technical problem” that prevented employees from accessing Facebook last Friday and that the error was resolved later in the day. When I asked for details about the problem, she couldn’t provide any. I asked if it was true that Telstra employees are not allowed to have Instant Messenger at work and she also said she couldn’t confirm that. When I asked what Telstra’s official position is on making Facebook and other internet services available to their employees, she said they don’t ban access to anything but all employees have to abide by their guidelines which means they can only use them as a “business tool” and as part of their job function.

    Do you believe the official story?

    ******

    Cam’s World 30 July, 2007

    by | Jul 30, 2007 | environment, Gloria Jeans, Hillsong, Melbourne, Uncategorized

    Shoe-lovin’ Telstran CathyE has created a Twitter profile purely for announcing Melbourne tech events. Very handy. Don’t forget MODM this Thursday night! We’ve got our biggest registrations to date and a new venue.

    ******

    I’m writing an article on Enterprise 2.0 and Web 2.0 for MARKETING magazine. If anyone has any good examples of how Aussie companies are using Web2.0 in a respectable fashion, let me know so I can include them.

    ******

    Speaking of Enterprise 2.0, I had lunch today with Tony Clement, one of the guys behind AEGEON, a young Melbourne-based services company focused 100% on helping corporate clients adopt Web2.0 technologies. I’ve known Tony for a few years, he was a CTO client of mine back in my MSFT days, and it’s great to see him taking the stuff we were doing back then around web services and helping other companies adopt them. Tony ran one of the first significant Microsoft.Net-based projects in Australia back in 2001/2 and had a bold vision even back then for how to use web services in an enterprise environment to innovate and engineer value. Keep an eye on Aegeon. They are the first services firm I’ve heard of in Australia that is really throwing serious effort behind Web2.0.

    ******

    I’m back on my weight-loss regimen. Listened to The Health & Fitness Show #058 – Easily Identify Low Fat + Low Sugar + High Nutritional Value Food this morning. Lots of great tips from Beti on how to tell what you are putting into your body. I was thinking we should run a competition for G’Day World listeners to see who can lose the most about of weight over the next 90 days. Get a sponsor to put up a prize. Who’s in?

    ******

    McDonald’s just don’t get blogging, do they?

    Some of you will remember the fake blog they put up in early 2005.

    Now some hired PR guy in Perth is blogging on PerthNorg under the alias “cookie2”. He’s pushing the “Name the Burger” campaign that McDonald’s is running in Australia at the moment.

    Cookie2 writes: “Burger naming legend Ken Thomas, renowned for his creativity in naming the Cheeseburger, Double Cheeseburger, McChicken and the Hot Apple Pie, has retired from the senior ranks of McDonald’s Australia, giving the company the opportunity to throw the job open to the Australian public.”

    Unfortunately, Cookie2 (aka John Cooke a PR consultant working for McDonald’s Australia) has just broken Rule #1 of Corporate Blogging – Be Honest.

    “Ken Thomas” is (perhaps obviously) a fictional character    , created by advertising agency Leo Burnett.

    So why can’t McDonald’s just tell the truth? Why not just start a campaign about naming a burger? Why do they have to make up some bullshit story? I don’t get the rationale. Do you? Can someone explain it to me?

    ******

    Watching this amazing “Russian Scam” video (aka “How To Take Someone’s Wallet Just By Asking Them”) by Derren Brown. Amazing.

    [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIIz2FAgwcw]

    After you’ve watched that, watch this guy’s attempt at explaining it using NLP.

    ******

    Just been watching Tanya Levin, author of a soon-to-be-released book about the very scary Hillsong Church, on Denton’s Enough Rope. My old mate Phil McCreddan has an article about Hillsong, which includes an interview with Tanya, on his Signposts blog. Interestingly, publisher Allen & Unwin were going to publish her book (“People In Glass Houses”) but pulled out of it, apparently because of a perceived risk of defamation. The book was picked up by Black Inc which is owned by Morrie Schwartz, who also published Monthly magazine. This is the church that has links to Gloria Jeans (see my earlier posts on that here and here and why I don’t drink Gloria Jeans anymore), has received a bunch of government grants, and where the founder’s father, who held senior positions in the church, but was forced to resign in 2000 following exposure of his homosexual paedophile activities whilst ministering in New Zealand some thirty years earlier.

    I’m looking forward to reading her book.

    Cam’s World 27 July, 2007

    by | Jul 27, 2007 | Melbourne, Podcast, Uncategorized

    The word on Twitter is that the fine folks at Telstra have banned Facebook on the corporate network. This would be a retarded move for ANY company, let alone a company that is trying to position itself as a company that “gets” online. It reminds me of a question someone asked me at the recent Microsoft ReMix event in Melbourne. We (that is, the panel) have been talking about Twitter, Facebook, etc, and a guy asked “I’m the owner of a business, how do I stop my people from wasting their time on these sites instead of doing their work?” I explained that any half-intelligent employer in the 21st century should be measuring their employees by their OUTPUT, not by what time they punch the clock or what they are doing each minute of the day. Microsoft, to it’s credit, understood this years ago. Most enlightened managers (not that there are many left at Microsoft in Australia now that Frank has left the premises) didn’t care what time you turned up to the office, when you left, or what you did during the day. What they cared about was one thing and one thing only – did you get the outcome accomplished? If you did – great. Here’s your bonus. If you didn’t – then you’re in trouble. Isn’t that the way every employer should be? If you ban Facebook, do you also ban books? Magazines? Telephones? Talking to the person beside you about everything unrelated to work? That isn’t even taking into account what a useful took Facebook can be for getting your job done (depending on what your job is of course).
    Anyway, this is just another example of how Telstra don’t really get what’s happening online.

    UPDATE: According to Rich in the comments of this post, Telstra turned Facebook back on this afternoon? Anyone know the story?

    ******

    Started reading “Affluenza” by Australian authors Clive Hamilton and Richard Denniss today. I’ve been meaning to get to this book for years. The book poses the question: “if the economy has been doing so well, why are we not becoming happier?”

    ******
    From the “I told ya so but you wouldn’t frakking listen” file:

    “TV viewing audiences have fallen by almost 6 per cent in the past five years, with a dramatic 17 per cent drop for 16-39-year-olds, according to TV ratings group OzTAM.” (source: The Age)

    And, according to Fortune:

    “Newspapers are dying.”

    ******

    I took my DOPOD 838PRO into the THREE store for repairs 7 weeks ago. At the time, they told me it would take a month. I rang four weeks later, they said it was going to take another three weeks. I rang today. They said it was initially with one repair center, Teleplan, for a month then it was shipped to another repair center, Phonetec, a week ago. The Phonetec people haven’t looked at it yet and can’t give them a date when it will be fixed.

    This is frakking unbelievable. I’m now on the phone to Three customer support, letting them know I want my entire contract canceled.

    Okay, well that was disappointing. I spoke with four people at Three customer support. When they couldn’t provide me with any idea as to when my phone would be fixed, I gave them a choice: give me a new phone or cancel my account. The guy in the Three cancellations department I spoke to offered me a new phone, but only the Dopod 595, an inferior model to my 838Pro. So I asked him to cancel my services. Sure, he said, but it’ll cost you $900! Bullshit, I said. That’s the hardware fee and I don’t HAVE the hardware. YOU’VE got the hardware. He said it also includes a $300 “cancellation” fee. But I don’t have the goddamn phone?!! He didn’t give a shit. So I told him I’ll find another way to make my complaint heard and get a resolution.

    Anyone know anyone senior at Three?

    Don’t make me angry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.

    ******

    Dave Wallace (from TPN’s Extraordinary Everyday People show) has made a TPN T-shirt in Second Life! Very cool, I hope he has it in my size!

    TPN T-shirt in Second Life

    He did!

    Cam in Second Life

    Second Life is so trippy. I can’t believe I just said to Dave “I bought a new body last night but I can’t figure out how to put it on.” Sounds like something straight out of Gibson.