society | Paul Wallbank - Communications Professional

The ideas revolution: How to set up a blog

It’s never been easier to tell the world about your ideas, passion or business

It’s been a big month for ideas in Sydney with the Sydney Writers Festival, TEDx, Vivid Sydney, AMP Amplify and XMedia Lab along with many other events intended to stimulate thought and action.

One of the things that’s great with the Internet is we’re able to get our ideas out to the world very easily without spending much money. If you have a great idea, for a business, community group or just an interest there’s nothing stopping you letting the planet know about you and your dreams.

During the Sydney Writers Festival we saw debates between food bloggers and the print critics, particularly notable was Food blogger Rebecca Varidel and her Inside Cuisine website.

Earlier in May, Louise Hewson launched her 52 Suburbs book and exhibition which was born out of her website chronicling her discoveries around the suburbs of Sydney.

The biggest challenge is setting up a website so you can be found on the net, today’s tools make it very easy to set up a site. Here’s a few you can use.

Facebook

If you already have a Facebook account, it’s very easy to set up a page covering your topic or idea.

While it’s simple to create a Facebook Page, be aware there are risks as the company has some quirky policies and not everybody has a Facebook account or is comfortable with it.

Blogger

This is the best basic starting tool which also has the attraction of being free.

Blogger’s simple layout which you can change by dragging and dropping the various parts of the website works well and you can add features such as subscription services, advertising, e-commerce and other features by turning on various “gadgets”.

52 Suburbs and Grab Your Fork are two good examples of Blogger based sites. In Louise’s case she registered the 52 Suburbs domain name – the bit behind the “www” or “@” in an email – which costs around $20 a year.

WordPress

The big daddy of Internet publishing is the WordPress tool. This free software drives most websites and is becoming the software of choice. Rebecca at Inside Cuisine and this website are using WordPress along with thousandds of businesses.

One WordPress’ great attractions is it features thousands of ready to use “widgets” and templates that makes it extremely easy to add features and customise your website.

WordPress offers a free service that gives you the basics of the platform. To get the most from WordPress you need to host the site with a web hosting provider and this can get more expensive and complex.

Other tools

There are hundreds of other platforms you can use to get your ideas out to the world. Worpress, Blogger and Facebook are just three of the most popular and easy to use. It’s worth exploring with what you find works well for your idea or business.

Growing your site

As your site grows, you’ll need to manage content, track visitors and promote it through the various social media and traditional methods. We have some free resources from NSW Microbusiness Month that can help you manage and grow your online presence.

More information

In July we’ll launching eBu$iness: 7 Steps to Get Your Small Business Online… and Making Money Now! Which will cover all the steps of getting your business online, promoting it and tracking your success. Pre-release orders are available now.

We also have some free workshops for business wanting to get online sponsored by the NSW Government, contact us for more details.

If you subscribe to our newsletter we also make available various free offers along with keeping readers up to date with smart new ideas.

There’s nothing to stop you getting your ideas online. If you want to do something interesting, or even change the world, the tools are now here for you to do it.

A tale of two conferences

How two very different events put their ideas across

Two conferences about ideas took place in Sydney last Saturday, TEDx Sydney and Social Innovation BarCamp. While both involved exploring concepts and thoughts they could not have been more different.

One was about exclusivity and elitism while the other was about a genuine exchange of ideas. Both the events tell us much about the new and old models of communication and learning.

Welcome sign to SIBSyd — The entrance to SIBSyd. Exit through the gift shop?

At the Paddington College Of Fine Arts, Social Innovation Bar Camp – SIBSyd – was open to anyone with an idea or who just wanted to show up a throw some thoughts around. Across town at the Everleigh Carriageworks, the TEDx Sydney offshoot of the prestigious US TED event featured high profile speakers before an invitation only audience.

Welcome sign to TEDx Sydney — Welcome to TEDx Sydney. May I see your invitation, sir?

Most TED events are exclusive and restricted you have to be qualified to attend, let alone speak and this showed in the way the audience were ushered into the auditorium and then asked to turn off their mobile phones unless they wanted to sit in the back two rows.

The speakers at TED were slick, rehearsed and had their presentations timed exactly to the minute – as you’d expect at an event where the content is carefully chosen – while at SIBSyd any of the audience could choose to speak.

Even with a speaker everybody at a SIBSyd is able to participate, with all the audience of giving their views. In the reforming education session I sat in on a quiet lady at the back of the room told her experiences of working with villagers in Chiapas, Mexico.

It’s unlikely that lady would get an invite to TEDx, let alone have the opportunity to tell her story and that illustrates the fundamental difference between the two conferences.

One is the formal, traditional one-to-many lecture from an expert imparting wisdom on an audience awed by the speaker’s knowledge while the other sees the speaker – who may be an expert – drawing out the collective wisdom of the room.

TEDx Sydney stage setup — TEDx stage ready for action

The “unconference” structure of meetings like SIBSyd probably does a better job of developing new ideas as the traditional conference TED is based upon that assumes the expert on the stage already has the answers.

Of the two types of conferences, it’s probably safe to say the collaborative “unconference” model works better in driving innovative solutions to problems. To work effectively though it needs the participants to be motivated by common issues.

The traditional TED style conferences do a better job of getting big ideas across to a broader audience and that’s probably one of the reasons why the event’s videos have been such an Internet success.

Some of the differences reminded me of British writer Paul Carr’s comments about the South By South West Conference in 2009 when he said “I really hope that next year one or two of those early adopters will organise – and I mean that in the loosest sense – a user-generated unofficial fringe conference to sit alongside the main event.” In many ways SIBSyd was the fringe festival to TEDx’s “establishment” status.

SIB Syd session in progress — SIB Syd session underway

Both have their role and probably the most worrying thing at the two events was the lack of Australia’s corporate and political leadership, with the exception of Penny Sharpe, MLC who appeared to be the sole member of Parliament attending TEDx, there was little representation from either group.

In a time of massive climate, technology and economic change that is challenging the assumptions and business models of previous generations, it’s a shame our business and political leaders aren’t engaging and listening to those outside their narrow circles.

But ideas are one thing and action is another. As journalist and enfant terrible Stilgherrian said during the day, “completely over events about ‘ideas’. We have plenty of ideas. What we need is a bit of effort put into execution.”

Hopefully out of both events we’ll see some of the ideas discussed turned into action

Is there a need for digital literacy?

Are we teaching the wrong computer skills?

In preparing for tonight’s ABC Nightlife segment I was re-reading the Australian government’s National Digital Economy Strategy when I twigged what was bugging me in the first few pages; the talk of “digital literacy“.

As part of the plan, the Federal government intends to setup “digital hubs” in the each of the 40 communities that will first benefit from the NBN, these will “assist local residents to better understand how they can benefit from the NBN and to improve their digital literacy skills”.

The whole concept of digital literacy is worrying; it assumes there is something unique about using technology and that the concepts to use web services and devices are arcane and difficult to grasp.

Such a belief might have been true in the days of the command line interface where obscure commands and strange keystroke combinations controlled how you used a computer, but in the age of the touchscreen and intuitive systems the majority of people, regardless of age, can pick up the basic concepts with a few minute’s instructions.

A bigger issue is genuine literacy and numerical skills. Without these, we’re not able to understand or properly evaluate the data that is being presented to us.

Even more important are critical skills, the volume of information on the net demands we have the ability to filter fact from opinion and truth from misinformation if we don’t possess these talents we’re condemned to being unable to filter the gems from the dross that masquerades as fact on the net.

Clifford Stoll said “data is not information, information is not knowledge, knowledge is not understanding, understanding is not wisdom”. Without basic literacy we’re unable to process the data we see on the net, without the critical skills we cannot understand that information.

That’s the real challenge the connected society presents, how do we develop and nurture the critical skills that lets us identify the scammer, the knave and the ill-informed – all of whom thrive in an environment that gives their views equal weight with the wise, honest and knowledgeable.

Probably the best thing we can do for our children, and ourselves, is to work on developing those skills.

The entrepreneur’s biological clock

At what age do you stop being an entrepreneur?

In backpacker circles, when you turn thirty people ask “what’s wrong this guy? What you can get away with in your twenties, you can’t get away once you’ve passed the big “three-oh”. It’s not dissimilar to the “biological clock” many women in their thirties confront as they perceive their days of easily having children are coming to an end.

A similar phenomenon exists in the business world, both for employees and business owners, that there are age limits on what someone can easily do. Like the backpackers, it’s more a perception than a reality.

Once upon a time you were past it at fifty years old. Through the 1980s, 90s and the early part of this century that “past it” age contracted, along with the deskilling of the workforce, to 45, then 40 then 35.

In the eyes of many in the corporate world today should you not have an established corporate career path by your mid-thirties then you are well “past it” and destined for a middling career and income.

With entrepreneurs a similar quandary exists, once over forty there’s a feeling that the aspiring business owner should just stick to buying the local doughnut or lawn mowing franchise. Startup land is no country for old men.

The underlying cause of this view is the belief every successful business founder is rich beyond their dreams by thirty – Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg come to mind – that’s clearly silly given most businesses never come close to the successes of Microsoft or Facebook but it’s a persistent one nevertheless.

When the entrepreneur turns thirty, things begin to get tricky; sleeping on a friends sofa, working eighteen hour days and living on instant noodles isn’t an option when you have kids, partners and mortgages. At the same time, family, friends and potential employers start to ask “if this guy’s so good, how come he isn’t a millionaire?”

To make things more difficult, risk adverse peers start bragging about how their safe, well paid job is allowing them to buy second homes or go on holidays most business owners can’t contemplate.

Probably the hardest thing though is that the doors of the corporate world start slamming shut; for a 40 year old entrepreneur who has been running their own businesses for 15 years, it’s difficult to get a job in the business world and any position available won’t recognise the skills developed in running your own enterprise.

Similarly, the warning to anyone with a decent corporate career who chooses to leave their safe office job to run their own business is usually “how can you risk throwing all of this away?”

Risk is the difference between the ages; once you’re over 40 with there being little prospect of a plan B involving returning to a nice corporate position, then the cost of failure is a lot higher.

In some ways this can be better; an individual staring down the prospect of a long, poverty stricken retirement has a very good incentive to get their business right and doesn’t have time to waste on speculative or “me-too” projects.

The idea there’s an age limit to launching new, innovative businesses and products is silly, but it’s a persistent one nevertheless. The great thing though with being your own boss is you don’t have to pay attention to other people’s dumb ideas and this one is a dumb as it gets.

Misunderstanding risk

Have we lost the capacity to judge physical and financial danger?

During the recent snowstorms that affected Europe and North America, the summer floods that struck Australia were almost unnoticed except for those living in the inundated areas.

The authorities wisely advised people, particularly tourists on their summer holidays, to avoid the affected areas.

A friend of mine decided to ignore those warnings and take his family on a drive through those backroads despite multiple flood warnings and evacuations. In disregarding the risks, he’s not alone in Western society.

Living the risk-free life

In the Western world we believe we’ve engineered risk out of our society, that we can make investments without risk, that we can build houses in fire, flood or earthquake prone areas without risk, that we plan a holiday without the risk of snowstorms, volcanoes or accidents disrupting our trips.

As a society we believe the government will bail us because we’re good people and life, and fate, is always kind to good people.

When things do wrong, our mobile phones will work, our emergency services will come promptly and the government will quickly shelter and support us until the insurance company comes good on the damage.

Though it’s not just natural calamities where we believe this. It’s evident with people who quit their cubicles to find new enlightenment and riches as entrepreneurs.

Most of them misunderstand the risk-reward ratio that for every wildly successful new business founder, there are dozens who blow their money chasing the dream and hundreds of us that would have been better off working for a salary.

Finance markets and risk

The subprime crisis is another good example; millions were lulled into buying property on the promise that real estate values never fell and that their no cash down, defray your payments for years deal was bullet proof. These folk did not understand, or were equipped to understand, that real estate prices could fall.

During the subprime boom, the lenders thought they’d engineered out risk – Collateral Debt Obligations, default swaps and securitisation meant risk was a thing of the past – and they were proved wrong.

Indeed, the most frightening thing is our banks today believe they are still bullet proof and their profits and executive bonuses are risk free as governments will bail them out at the slightest hint of trouble. When the history of The Great Recession is written, and we are still in the early chapters, the guaranteeing of our “too big to fail” banks may prove to be the biggest mistake of our generation.

Because we believe there are no costs and little genuine threats to our lives, income or savings we don’t understand risks and therefore miscalculate them. If we think someone will be there to catch us, we’ll head up that flooded road, build that house in an earthquake zone or invest in that Ponzi scheme.

We have to understand there are risks and there are limits our governments and societies have in responding when things go wrong. If it’s clear we don’t understand those risks, then it’s probably best not to take them in the first place.

Endnote: My friend and his family made it back from the floods, although he ended up taking the family on four hour detour through some areas that sensible people would have avoided. Hopefully he’s learned a lesson about evaluating risks and won’t be taking his family into disaster areas again.

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The polite victory

Even when you’re right, being rude can lose an argument

I’ve discussed before how manners matter online. A bizarre exchange illustrates this and how you can lose an argument by being rude online.

The exchange started with a New York Times article on the Qantas A380 emergency in Singapore. The final paragraph in the piece claimed the airliner’s Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) didn’t work properly;

“Even the cockpit voice recorder did not work right, according to a report by Australian investigators. It failed to halt when the plane landed, and because it operated in a two-hour loop, the critical periods were recorded over.”

That nugget of information lead me to tweet out the following;

A few hours later, the following tweets appear;

On protesting I wasn’t posting “deliberate & malicious misinformation”, I’m then told I’m a liar;

From there conversation doesn’t go far and I end up blocking the guy so I can no longer see his twitter posts.

The funny thing is the gentleman is correct in saying the A380’s CVR worked properly, as the Australian Transport Safety Board states on their website;

“The cockpit voice recorder was transported to the ATSB’s technical facilities in Canberra, Australia for download and analysis. Over 2 hours of cockpit audio was recovered. However, due to the failure of the No 1 engine to shutdown in Singapore, and therefore continuing power supply to the recorder, the audio at the time of the engine failure well over 2 hours before the No 1 engine could be shut down, was overwritten. That said, elements of the available audio are expected to be of assistance to the investigation.”

QF32’s Cockpit Voice Recorder didn’t fail, it’s designed to turn off when the engines shut down and as the crew couldn’t turn one of the engines off the CVR kept going and ultimately overwrote the critical parts of the flight. Which isn’t the fault of the recorder at all.

I was wrong.

Now, had the gentleman suggested something along the lines of “Paul, you’re misinformed. CVR worked fine. Read the ATSB report” I’d have read the correct report, apologised and moved on. However this gentleman chose to be rude and aggressive.

Thankfully the worst that can happen online is a flurry of rude words followed by one or both of the people blocking the other, in the real world behaving like this – say by barrelling up to someone in a bar and calling them liar – probably isn’t going to work out as well.

Which shows how in the online world, just as in the real, offline community, manners do matter.

Choose your words before disagreeing with someone, just as being aggressive at the school hall isn’t going to work out well, it probably won’t online either.

The end of the troll

Is it time we stopped Internet anonymity?

Australian union leader Paul Howes today claimed in Sydney’s Daily Telegraph that New Media is denigrating politicians. His point being anonymous users on newspaper websites (such as the one he writes for) and online services like Twitter encourage abuse and slander which is degenerating politics and media discussion.

The rough and tumble of the Internet was raised during the Canberra Media140 conference last September where conversation turned around Liberal politician Joe Hockey’s comment that anonymous, banal tweets was causing him to lose faith in online services like Twitter.

Media140 provided more discussion about anonymity when The Australian decided to out the anonymous blogger Grogs Gamut, aka Greg Jericho. Greg wasn’t being abusive however his commentary had clearly found its way under the skin of some members of the Canberra political classes.

But does anonymity matter? We are kidding ourselves if we believe we are truly anonymous on the Internet. Few of us have the skills or diligence to fully hide our tracks from people we offend or upset.

Anonymity also discredits much of a person’s statements – as both Paul and Joe have pointed out, if you aren’t prepared to put your name to your views then there is a good argument that your opinions are really worthless.

However that argument ignores the power imbalance between the ordinary citizen who may find their career at risk by stating their views, as Greg Jericho found, and politicians and those working for political parties or allied organisations, like Joe and Paul who are protected by powerful and often tribally loyal party structures, PR machines and compliant journalists.

Probably the part that’s most disingenuous though about Paul Howes’ article is that anonymous Internet commenters are dragging politicians down. Sadly our politicians did that job themselves long before social media or web2.0 based websites came on the scene.

Today’s politicians are only reaping what they have sown themselves. Paul and Joe’s mentors – people like Graham Richardson, John Howard and Bob Carr – went out of their way to pander to and encourage the shrill, anonymous harridans of talkback radio.

Unfortunately for today’s politicians, the Internet doesn’t have the same gatekeepers in the form of friendly announcers, producers and editors to save them from the public’s genuine, unfiltered opinions.

The fact many of those anonymous comments – whether online or in more traditional media channels – may be true is another thing to consider; that people genuinely believe these politicians are doing the wrong thing. Rightly or wrongly, is that the fault of the Internet, or the fault of those politicians and their advisors who claim to have wonderful communication skills?

Internet anonymity is not perfect, and often not right, but the privilege of being able to make an anonymous statement is a fundamental part of a working democracy.

It’s not surprising our current generation of spin-doctored, on-message politicians feel threatened by a medium they struggle to understand or control, but that isn’t the fault of the anonymous online troll who could turn out to be what ultimately saves our democracy.

Learning from the past

Armistice Day reminds us of why we need to learn and adapt

Today being Remembrance Day, the anniversary of the First World War’s end, it’s fitting to not just to remember those who fell in that costly war but also learn the lessons from the mistakes that ended up wasting so many lives.

Undoubtedly the biggest tragedy of the war was the sheer cost in soldiers’ lives which was due to the commanding generals’ refusal to accept the era of the cavalryman was over as the machine gun, supported by heavy artillery and the airplane, became the main battlefield weapon.

This wilful blindness to technology is even more galling when one considers the machine gun was an invention of the US civil war fifty years earlier and had been extensively used by the European powers in conquering and subduing native populations in their colonies.

Those commanders such as Haig, Gough, Ludendorff and Kaiser Whilhelm — the “donkeys leading lions” — ignored the technological changes that had changed their industry.

Worse, they wouldn’t listen; Haig rarely visited the front or spoke to his junior officers and men and the Kaiser was forced to abdicate and live out his days in exile because he ignored the discontent in his own country.

In times of great change, we need to listen, learn and adapt. As we saw in the 1914-18 war, the costs of not doing so can be great.

The new Pantopticon

Are we entering a new age of conformity?

There’s a rule in broadcasting that any microphone should be treated as loaded. Regardless of whether you think it’s on or not, you shouldn’t say anything untoward near a microphone that you wouldn’t want to go to air.

It’s a lesson many politicians have learned, sometimes to their great embarrassment and sometimes with potentially catastrophic consequences.

Today, in an age where almost everyone has a recording device in their pocket, we all have to be careful. The travails of an Australian Rugby League player, photographed by a friend doing something obscene while drunk on an end of season party, illustrates just how pervasive this surveillance can be.

In one respect this is good, as we saw with the Qantas A380 mishap in Singapore, a connected public allows the truth to get out despite the hysterical headlines of the media and the spin obsessed control of modern governments or big business. The fact almost everyone has a camera makes officials more accountable for their actions.

But there is a darker side, this constant monitoring can also be tool for conformity. Should you decide to dissent from the corporate, government or society norm, there is now plenty of material to discredit you – be it a drunken stunt with a dog, a silly Facebook post when you were 17 or a photo of you picking your nose while waiting at a traffic light.

There’s no shortage of ‘concerned citizens’ who will photograph or record us carrying out actions they believe don’t conform with their ideas what is normal and acceptable.

Our definition of ‘normal and acceptable’ is becoming more narrowed as well, as a myriad of communications channels allows us to watch only what fits into our view of the world and the rise of social media that lets us filter out those voices we don’t like.

It’s going to be interesting to see how the connected society develops over the next few year, will we become more insular and conformist or will we use these tools to broaden our horizons?

The beast in the machine: Protecting your online profile

The people you meet online can affect you in the real world. We look at some ways to protect yourself online.

Every village has an idiot and there’s a particular brand of idiot who’s attracted to the perceived anonymity of the Internet.

Being big communities, online networking sites like Facebook and MySpace combine the problem of having a lot of idiots who think they can’t be held responsible for what they do in cyberspace.

Last week we saw this with the shameful behaviour on Facebook where posters defaced memorial pages to a murdered girl. That disgraceful episode shows why it’s important to take precautions against idiots online. Here’s some ideas on protecting your online profile;

Take responsibility

You are responsible for what you post so if you create a Facebook fan page, LinkedIn group or blog then you need to maintain it, particularly the comments. If the posters become unwieldy then you need to moderate them or turn off visitor comments. Remember too that you are responsible for comments you make and the messages left on your site.

Be careful with joining groups

In life you are judged by the company you keep and the same applies online. If you join a group full of idiots you’ll be identified as one of them. Worse, those fools will be attracted to people they consider to be like minded. Think twice before accepting invitations.

Choose friends wisely

It’s tempting with Internet networking sites to try and get as many friends as possible. That misses the point of these tools and it increases the likelihood idiots will become part of your circle. Only allow people you know to connect. Using Facebook for family and friends while referring business colleagues to LinkedIn is a common way of separate work and social life online.

Avoid strangers

We tell our kids not to accept lollies from strangers yet many otherwise sensible adults link up with people they don’t know. Avoid doing this unless you are absolutely sure of who they are. The famous cartoon of “on the Internet nobody knows you’re dog” is true of thieves, stalkers and all manner of knaves.

Hide your details

Don’t go overboard spilling out your personal life to strangers. The more details you give out, the easier it is for troublemakers to find you or steal your identity. Keep the musings about your cats and your children to your close friends.

Used well, Internet networking tools are a fantastic feature of the Internet which can enrich your life and the lives of those around you. however all tools can be misused so be aware of the risks of these tools and act responsibly.

Remember if things get uncomfortable you can hit the delete button and turn the computer off. It’s best to do that at the first sign of trouble.

The real digital divide

We’re often told that there’s a divide between the “digital natives”, those who grown up with computers, and the “digital immigrants”, those who’ve had to learn about computers. In reality this isn’t true, the real digital divide is about being prepared to learn and explore the possibilities being opened up every day by the Internet and computers.

The real digital divide isn’t between the young and the old; it’s between those who are prepared to explore new technologies and those who hide from change.

We’re often told that there’s a divide between the “digital natives”, those who grown up with computers, and the “digital immigrants”, those who’ve had to learn about computers.

In reality this isn’t true, the real digital divide is about being prepared to learn and explore the possibilities being opened up every day by the Internet and computers.

I was reminded of this shortly before Christmas when talking to a group of forty year old business owners who dismissed Internet tools like Twitter and LinkedIn out of hand – “a waste of time” “just for kids” and “I tried and received Chinese spam” being a few of the objections.

The contrast is the Australian Seniors Computer Clubs Association who prove you’re only as young as the computers you tinker with. These seniors, some of whom were retired well before computers became commonplace, are prepared to explore and discover possibilities that change their lives and the lives those around them.

The forty somethings all had successful businesses and they were the first to admit mobile phones, email and websites had changed the way they work. Yet nearly half of them didn’t have a website for their own business; a statistic consistent with business surveys that find almost 50% of small enterprises don’t have a website.

In many respects these businesses and their owners are reminiscent of the handloom weavers of the early 19th Century. At first technology worked in their favour and pushed wages up but as industrialisation continued they found their skills redundant and incomes falling. Eventually their trades and businesses disappeared; which is what will happen to complacent companies and industries in today’s industrial revolution.

A similar thing is happening to society and individuals. While you won’t disappear if you aren’t using the net, those who won’t will find it harder to do pay bills, communicate and simply get things done. Eventually they’ll find themselves marginalised as not being connected will make it harder for family and friends to keep in touch.

All of this is unnecessary, it’s just a matter of being prepared to try and to give something a go. The real digital divide is between those who choose to give things a go and those who don’t.