it.gen.nz

Last weekend I was lucky enough to be able to go to the Foo Camp, a technology camp in Warkworth. I talked about it today on Radio New Zealand National – read on for my speaking notes. (more…)

I’m just off to Warkworth for the second ever Kiwi Foo camp. 150 clever people in one place, all weekend, no agenda. Last year we had some musicians, journos and politicians as well. Things got done, and it was a blast. This year, Kim Hill is broadcasting her Saturday morning progamme on Radio New Zealand National from the camp. I’ll talk about it on Kathryn Ryan’s programme next Thursday.

I’m looking forward to it!

The late, great Billy T James shows us how to buy a used car…

Today on Radio New Zealand National I talked about the links between technology and culture.

Many people see technology as some kind of boring but necessary thing that someone else looks after, and if the truth be told rather look down on those who look after it. As I argue here that view is just plain wrong…
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Having just returned from Summer break with my family, I thought I’d list the top ten wonderful New Zealand experiences we’d had. But I couldn’t whittle it down to ten so there are a few more in the list. What a fantastic country we live in!
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…will be resumed as soon as possible or so it used to say on the telly in the UK whenever the TV station broke down. And normal service on this blog will be resumed in a few weeks once I have taken some time out with my family exploring some of this wonderful land we live in.

So, sporadic posting only for a few weeks. If you’re in New Zealand go out and enjoy yourself! Have a great break, drive safely, and above all make time to just relax.

New Zealand spam, even, and I’m not talking about the pressed ham. A few years ago a man in Christchurch was outed by investigative journalist Juha Saarinen for sending vast quantities of the stuff – he boasted of 100 million messages per day – mainly with solicitations to buy things that were supposed to enlarge your penis. If you even had one. That person got extremely grumpy when he received many angry phone calls about his business, complaining that his children were taking calls from strangers angry about unsolicited and inappropriate messages. The irony was apparently lost on him. When challenged, he said that he was doing nothing illegal.

Anyway, after the publicity that person (I would normally use the word “gentleman”, but somehow it doesn’t fit) said that he would stop spamming. Fair enough. But this week the newly-formed anti-spam division of the Department of Internal Affairs has swooped on on an alleged spammer, again in Christchurch, after an expose by the BBC and some fine work by a Danish journalist. The product is again male bodily extension. And this time, all the computers at an address – 22, not bad for a home – have been seized with a view to prosecution under the Unsolicited Commercial Messages Act of 2007.

That’s right, the Spam Act has been used in anger. If this person was indeed spamming he deserves the full penalties of the act, there’s no argument about that. But let’s, for a moment, think about the cynics of this act back when it was a bill – it didn’t get unanimous support in Parliament, after all. Where would New Zealand now be if it hadn’t passed? Left explaining to the BBC’s audience that this vile activity, illegal just about everywhere else, was acceptable in New Zealand? That we think it’s alright for New Zealanders to write to the world’s boys and girls offering to supersize their genitals? 100 million times a day?

Well done every MP who voted for it.

Last week I spent a couple of days in Australia, and as part of it I was driven from Canberra to Sydney by the amazing Pia Waugh. In the car were not one, but two OLPCs.

The One Laptop Per Child is intended to be a cheap but functional laptop suitable for children in developing countries. It’s a very nice little machine, and I was really impressed.

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Today on Radio New Zealand National I talked about blogging – how to get started, and if you’d even want to!

Read on for some advice, and as always some links at the end.
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This phrase is the epigraph to EM Forster’s 1910 novel Howard’s End, and it encapsulates both the emptiness of English society he was writing about and the capability the Internet gives us today. Yesterday I spoke at a meeting of IABC Wellington, which is a place where people who communicate for a living come together. The subject was social media – that’s wikis, blogs and so forth, and should communicators look at communicating through them? The answer I gave, as you might guess, was a resounding “yes”.

The Internet is the ultimate communications tool – using the term “communications” in its widest sense – and anyone who communicates for a living needs to be following it as it evolves. And evolve it is: social media on the Internet will drive as much of change in the way we communicate with each other as the introduction of the Internet did, and as the printing press and broadcast media did in their day. It’s good to see many communications professional getting this.

Another speaker at the event was Todd Hattori, the global chair of the IABC. He is a master communicator – as you might imagine – and I am in awe at his skills. As well as the “whether” and “how to” of social media, Todd spoke about ethics in communications. And I think he is right to – there is a stereotype of misleading PR spin, which is sadly justified on a few occasions, and Todd and the IABC are seeking to make such behaviour unacceptable. Good on them.