This week is Manweek - brought to my attention by Servant of Chaos last week at Coffee Mornings. It’s about men talking about their feelings. Not easy – as I am finding now, since I’ve been thinking about this post since last Friday.
I’m going to be brief (it’s a way of me getting out of this easily – but the thought that is in my head is that I am very good at relationships in general (business and personal) however I don’t think I am good at communicating my feelings to those I care about most – particularly to my immediate family. I am going to talk about my father now – a man who reminds me of the good qualities shown by Walt Kowalski – Clint Eastwood’s character in the movie Gran Torino I have the utmost respect for my father – he works hard at everything he does, is a good man but is easily misunderstood. Sometimes I think we misunderstand each other – and that I believe is due in part to the difficulty in communicating our feelings.
With this in mind, I am going to try to be a better communicator of my feelings. Meanwhile, I am going to say this: dad, I love you – you’re a great inspiration to me, and I look forward to sharing many years ahead of happy family times, and great memories.
Phew! This post was extremely difficult to write, but at the same time, it makes me feel good to write it. For those men reading this, and who may also feel that they cannot communicate well with a loved one, perhaps try writing something down – a letter, an email, a blog post.
Finally got back to Social Media Coffee this morning – the atmosphere and crowd was as energising as I remember it back in December last year. I was greeted by one of the chaps offering tastings of their new Timana Colombian Coffee – delicious – prepared via plunger, it was very smooth, not at all bitter to taste. I’ll be back.
I was pleased to be able to catch up with the charming and adorable Beth Etling from startup The Insight Exchange. Unlike any tradtional events company to date, Beth has joined forces with futurist, entrepreneur, keynote speaker, strategy advisor, and bestselling author Ross Dawson and I look forward to attending their first luncheon event next week – The Power of Influence. Contact me (leave a comment) if you’d like discounted tickets to this event.
Another highlight was introducing the team from the award-winning artisan baker Brasserie Bread to coffee mornings. I recently met Brasserie Bread’s CEO and Director David James and online comunity manager Mei Tan – these guys are really interested in educating and engaging with their valued customers and embracing social media as a way to do so. Just this week they have started a new blog, and joined Twitter. They have had a Facebook page for some time now – it’s really encouraging to see traditional “bricks and mortar” businesses like Brasserie Bread be open to embracing these new forms of communication.
I really can’t fault the service at Single Origin Roasters too – there must have been 60 people there this morning and they were hand-delivering our coffee and breakfast orders in impressive time. Well done guys.
I look forward to making more regular appearances and getting to know people at this event – every Friday from 8am.
G’day folks, I feel compelled to blog about this morning’s incredible experience: Social Media Coffee, held at Single Origin Roasters cafe at 64 Reservoir St, Surry Hills.
This event, which had the atmosphere of the “unconferences” like BarCamp and WordCamp – is a good excuse for a get together for some very bright minds operating in all things online communities, digital and social media. I thank my Twitter pal Neerav Bhatt for introducing me to this event. A quick Twitter Search later, and I was locked in.
Two hours later, and after pretty much constant chatting meant I managed to meet some inspirational people, such as:
What I love about unstructured events such as this one is the directions conversations can take and topics covered. The above group was just a small snapshot of the people there today – in fact there were more than 100 people there, plus a fantastic band playing. The cafe itself and in particular Gav and Nick (the cafe’s friendly proprietors), was a sublime experience, and will be posted about in The Food Zeitgeist soon.
Update: 15th January 2009, via Ben Cooper on Twitter I stumbled upon this great video, by Scott Drummond, which captures well the experience that is Single Origin Roasters:
I recently presented to my local school on online communities and the implications for our children. This was prompted by my desire to share some of my own experiences with social networks with other parents who may be curious yet somewhat inexperienced in this area. Particularly with our children having greater access and in many cases greater abilities than our own in navigating through and communicating with others on these networks.
Today I’m very excited to be attending my first BarCamp I’m not quite sure what to expect, but I see there’s 160 people registered for the event in Sydney so I’m looking forward to it.
I’ve put together a few points I’ll be discussing at the event, embedded as Google Docs Presentation here:
Update: 27th November 2008.
Reflections on BarCamp Sydney 4
Its been a couple of weeks now since I attended BarCamp in Sydney. Well it was a fantastic day, for so many reasons. Firstly, as Steve Herzberg highlighted at his fantastic presentation over at Craig Bailey’sSBTUG last night, you get out of your comfort zone at a conference like BarCamp (or “unconference” as I have learnt it is actually called – because everyone contributes not just a selected group of speakers – fantastic idea!)
Anyway, Steve Herzberg put up a slide last night which articulates how I feel about BarCamp:
“The only way a human being can grow is to work outside their comfort zone” – said by Percy Cerrutty
Well, with BarCamp you certainly are out of your comfort zone:
- you wont know many people
- you are expected to present your own talk or at least contribute vocally
- there’s a high proportion of people of above average intelligence in attendence, people such as software developers, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists
However, if you get out of your comfort zone, get along to something like this, and participate, the rewards will flow:
- increase your knowledge
- meet new and interesting people
- increase your own personal brand
- generate news ideas which may turn into new businesses and opportunities for you
I look forward to the next BarCamp and I encourage anyone with an interest in technology and the Internet, to get along. See http://barcamp.org/ for more information.
Twitter is an incredible tool for so many reasons, it’s worthy of a separate blog post and discussion. If you don’t know what Twitter is, watch the brief video below to get a good overview (the video only skims the surface of it though):
A couple of reasons I enjoy using Twitter is it creates serendipities and builds community. Only today, we were celebrating our school’s 90-year anniversary. I noticed Malcolm Turnbull was in attendence so decided to send him a notice on Twitter (I am wondering if he is actually using it or employs a ghost writer. See for yourself by visiting his Twitter profile here.)
Here’s where the serendipitous moment occurred. Later in the day I checked my email and noticed that one of my Facebook friends (a past-teacher from the school who has relocated overseas) had “commented on my status” I realised immediately, that although this person wasn’t even on Twitter, that they had seen my status update which had automatically been sent to Facebook via the Twitter/Facebook application. This person was pleased to be reminded of the event I was attending and had said so in their comment. I was really chuffed by that moment, as it showed how something so simple as a Twitter update (sent from my phone with an investment of time of no more than a few moments) had put me back in touch with them, and caused them some happiness and fond memories.
Creating serendipities and building community – two good reasons you should be on Twitter.
I’m pretty excited to have the opportunity to see Steve Ballmer present live in Sydney next week. I feel priviledge to have had exposure to and experience with so many technology companies and Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer will no doubt thrill the audience – word is, he’s a great presenter. Of course I am a passionate user and supporter of Microsoft’s platforms and technology – from the business user’s point I have grown up on Office and Windows so feel comfortable using these tools. I am not a developer but do enjoy working with and listening to their views – and Microsoft probably more than most companies, supports their developer community and in return has amassed an army of “evangelists” who support their initiatives. Let’s face it, as blogger Craig Bailey puts it, there is the need to clarify “…the exciting, overwhelming, and sometimes bewildering array of Microsoft products”
On an amusing note, I thought I would remind readers of some of the famous moments Steve Ballmer has been captured on video – these videos have certainly done the rounds, but here are a couple for your enjoyment:
Steve Ballmer: “Developers, Developers…”
Steve Ballmer “..I love this company”
On a more serious note, I am particulalry interested to see Microsoft’s views on so-called Cloud Computing, which as Wikipedia goes on to explain is simply “..the reliance on the Internet to solve the computing needs of users” Microsoft was famously late in strategically embracing the Internet, dismissing the web browser’s importance before being brought to trial over its anti-competitive behaviour. This has all been very well documented – one suggested starting point is Wikipedia to see some of this.
As the Internet continues to grow its popularity and usage, and bandwidth increases, Microsoft is reinventing itself and positioning itself as a player in the space arguably dominated by Google. I believe Google is one of Microsoft’s major threats – Microsoft even alluded to this in their latest annual report, as reported by Brier Dudley in the Seattle Times.
It’s easy to be cynical about Microsoft, as in my opinion they are as much a marketing company as a software company – but regardless of what your opinion is, next week’s Steve Ballmer and team presentation will be highly engaging, entertaining and thought provoking.
– but the thought that is in my head is that I am very good at relationships in general (business and personal) however I don’t think I am good at communicating my feelings to those I care about most – particularly to my immediate family. I am going to talk about my father now – a man who reminds me of the good qualities shown by Walt Kowalski – Clint Eastwood’s character in the movie Gran Torino I have the utmost respect for my father – he works hard at everything he does, is a good man but is easily misunderstood. Sometimes I think we misunderstand each other – and that I believe is due in part to the difficulty in communicating our feelings.
