Aide-Memoire

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There is a difference between merely engaging in positive thinking and undertaking positive action. On its own thinking is merely an interior act, and only when connected to positive actions does it create new realities.

Look at issues like slavery, women’s rights, democracy. Changes in each of these were fueled by anger channeled towards action that led to change. I like to call this productive anger. It’s not about rage, rather it’s about what some might call ‘righteous anger’.

Productive anger that generates positive action has led to great changes in world.

I suppose it’s what you do with the positive thoughts that matters more than merely thinking them. One of my old school mottos was:

In deed not word
1 John 3:18

And a famous slogan of the Suffragette movement was:

“‘Deeds, not words’, was to be our permanent motto,”
Pankhurst

This lolcat is for my buddy @zuzu who’s been known to indulge in elevenses

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Just travelled back from Melbourne and sat next to an extremely spry gentleman of 71 years who spent the entire trip reading on his Kindle.

He told me how much he loved this new way of reading. That it can hold 1500 books and he only recharges it infrequently, less than once a month.

As a frequent traveller he enjoys the convenience of his great collection of books in a compact package and at a reasonable price per book. And he’s found that it’s good to read both indoors and outdoors.

I felt quite old-fashioned with a thick book on my lap next to this new-fangled gadget.

As this elderly gentleman said:

“the book industry is in real trouble, it’s not like we’ll stop reading but this will kill the book industry as we know it”

Thus we see again a change in the nature of our media of production is revolutionising existing industries.

We have already seen the changes sweep the music industry. Shifting us from physical objects that we bought and took home to virtual objects that we store on our mobile phones.

Now we are about to see the same kind of revolution sweep through our books.

Even this elderly gentlemen can see this. It will be interesting to see what futile rearguard actions the book industry puts up in resistance to this tide of change.

RatherGood

Sound finances give women true freedom of choice, it is the key to giving women options in life.

When @fibendall approached me about supporting the ANZ Bank’s Febusave campaign I was interested because I have first hand experience of the challenges raised by poor money management skills.

I met with the ANZ people and asked why they wanted to run this campaign.  Our conversations revealed how secret and underground women’s financial lives remain. We share openly about relationships and other personal stuff but finances remain a taboo subject. I saw that there was a genuine desire to raise awareness about these issues and to use social channels to reach women. It was clear that if ANZ gets more women customers that is a good byproduct of the campaign. But it was also clear that this was not a direct aim of the campaign. And it was on that basis that I agreed to support it.

I met with Fi & the ANZ team and we talked about the kind of issues I would like to write about.  My focus is on sharing some financial lessons learned over the years. Some of the other bloggers were interested in focusing on different aspects of women and money.  It’s been really helpful to talk with the amazing group of women who are also supporting this campaign. The open sharing of real life experiences by these women is resonating with many people.

This campaign interested me because, while ANZ has clearly identified women as a target customer segment and they have a commercial interest in more women becoming customers, they have also been running their Be Money Confident site for several years. The Febusave campaign combines the social good of breaking a taboo about women talking about and taking action on their finances with the Bank’s goal of raising awareness in a key customer segment.

Febusave is a tool in raising awareness of the importance of good financial health for women. One of the reasons I support this initiative is that it sits under the be money confident banner.

Women face different financial issues to men.  Men are already well served by financial information and spaces to share information. Some key facts about women’s ability to store up financial resources remain:

• Women have not yet achieved pay equity with men & thus their baseline earning rate is lower over the course of their working lives.
• Women often have gaps in their key earning years due to time out for childcare, either not working or working part-time, and thus they do not amass sufficient superannuation for old age.
• Women often undertake elder care responsibilities in their later career, again impacting on full-time workloads and ability to add to their superannuation stores.
• Almost 50% of marriages fail and in 2006 87% of single parent families are headed  women & the ability of these women to participate in full time work is limited.

My pledge for Febusave is to catch public transport & save the money from not using my car. What are you going to do? Why not go sign up now?

We do not often share stories about our personal finances (except perhaps to boast of some great success?) but here are some hard won lessons I have learned.

My parents were not great savers, subsisting from pay to pay in the way that many workers do. Thus I did not learn much about saving as a child.

By the time I was 21 both parents and all grandparents had passed away and I had lost contact with the few remaining older aunts and uncles. Both of my parents died intestate leaving me to sort out the disposition of their few assets for the benefit of my younger siblings. I was left to look after the family finances, leaving university and geting a job to help support the family.

Settling my parents few debts, arranging for the sale of their house and investing the proceeds for the maintenance of my youngest siblings was done by the Public Trustee.

All went well as I repeated my parent’s habit of living from pay to pay. Then a bank offered me a credit card which I accepted. It was like all my Christmases had come at once and I shopped happily, buying all the clothing and accessories I’d always loved.

I dutifully paid off the minimum balance every month and all remained well. But then I lost my job, laid off due to a downturn, and was only able to find lower paid work. No longer able to afford to pay both my rent and the credit card bill I was in trouble.

How did I get out of this problem?

1. Borrowed money from friends to pay the rent.
2. Made a payment agreement with the credit card provider (it took me years to pay that debt off).
3. Setup a budget and followed it religiously.
4. Ran my life on cash only for the next five years.
5. Built up a savings buffer so I did not have to borrow money from friends again.

What did I learn from all of this?

Everybody needs a will – those you leave behind have a hard enough time of it without dealing with intestacy. In Australia the Public Trustee in each State can help you with this (for NSW click here).

Having a household budget is important – knowing your expenses and income & keeping them in balance  reduces stress.

A savings buffer brings peace of mind – a few dollars in the bank for an emergency makes all the difference during stressful times. I found an an automatic savings plan that takes the money right from my pay directly to the bank works best for me.

Parents need to share good financial habits with their children – you will not always be around to help them and it is better for them to learn good financial habits from childhood.

Some more useful information is at Febusave.

Getting women to think about their finances, to plan and save more is important. The better control we have over our finances the more choices we have in life.

Why not click the badge below and join us for Febusave?

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Women share amazing amounts of information with each other – about relationships, family, sex, fashion, friends – often in quite intimate detail.

But one of our remaining taboo areas is money. I can hardly recall any conversations with girlfriends about money and its management.

Recently I was horrified to discover that:

51% of women would last less than three months on their current savings if they lost their job and still had to pay their usual bills

Source: Be Money Confident

The ANZ Bank has launched a new campaign called Febusave via their Be Money Confident site to help women to build a saving habit.

They’ve asked several female bloggers to support the Febusave campaign. And we were all happy to support a good cause like this.

The truth is that money is not what’s important. The important thing is the freedom of choice that money provides. Building up good saving and investing habits gives women choices in life. And it allows us to model good behaviours for the next generation.

I’ve pledged to give up driving to work for Febusave & to bank the savings. What are you going to do?

Why not register now for Febusave?

Crowdsourcing is very trendy these days and is touted as the answer to many of the ills of poor design and the need to reduce costs. In these cash strapped days any way to make innovation better-cheaper-faster is extremely desirable.

But crowdsourcing is just one of the many tools we have at our disposal, and each tool is suited to particular kinds of applications. To simply adopt an idea like this without considering its suitability to the problem domain or to the desired results can be risky.

To assist with critical thinking about crowdsourcing I have collected a few alternative viewpoints & list five reasons why it might not always be the best approach to adopt. Please note I do not agree with everything in the articles linked below – they are meant as a thought starter & to provide different perspectives on crowdsourcing (i.e. if you’ve got any issues with the articles please contact the author directly).

• Innovation: The sinister powers of crowdsourcing
• G20 summit: How the bandwagon wrecked the wisdom of market crowds
• The trouble with Twitter
• The Myth of Crowdsourcing
• Forrester’s Social Technographics report

Since no single tool is the answer in all cases, here are a few times when crowdsourcing might not be the right solution:

1. When the crowd does not have sufficient understanding or knowledge

For crowdsourcing to work you need to find the right crowd.  If the technical or scientific knowledge required is rare then crowdsourcing might not be helpful unless you can find a crowd of people with the requisite foundational knowledge.

2. Where the problem is diffuse and complex

Crowdsourcing lends itself to solving clearly focused problems where there is little ambiguity or nuance – a great recent example of this was the DARPA balloon challenge.

For diffuse and complex problems it might be necessary to chunk up the challenge (if that is possible). And for problems that require painstaking layering of knowledge and information with long term focus it might not be commercially viable.

A good example of this is the discovery of longitude via crowdsourcing in the 18th century. It worked in the long run, but it took a really long time and was funded by the government. However, it might be argued that this kind of discovery would be much quicker today with computer power.

3. When you want to keep your plans secret

Clearly secrecy requires that only a few people know the secret. Thus crowdsourcing something that is meant to be a secret is probably a bad idea (unless you are executing a cunning hide in plain sight sort of plan).

4. Your problem needs to be compelling enough for contributors to care

Experience of Wikipedia indicates that people will contribute to things that are interesting to them. Thus if nobody cares about solving your problem then crowdsourcing might not be the answer.

To get an idea of how crowdsourcing works on an everyday basis there is a good discussion of how Wikipedia contributions happen by Henry Blodget in: Who The Hell Writes Wikipedia, Anyway?.

There is also a well known report by Forrester about Social Technographics that segments the participation of people within social networks. It shows that only a small proportion of people create or share content, a few active creators or editors, with the bulk of people lurking or not participating at all.

5. Crowdsourcing for complex problems requires dedicated resources

To undertake the kind of knowledge work required to solve complex problems contributors need uninterrupted time in the zone.

This is exemplified in some of the large open source software projects where companies pay people to work full time on open source projects for commercial advantage:

Many of the leaders of key projects (like Guido van Rossum, the inventor of Python, who works at Google (nasdaq: GOOG – news – people )) are paid by their employers to continue to lead their projects. Is there an open source community? Of course there is. But on the most prominent projects, the members of the community have jobs and are paid to work on open source because the software is so beneficial to their employers, even though it is not owned by them. True, there are hybrid models, and the smaller the project, the more likely it is unfunded. But when it becomes a big deal, open source becomes commercial.

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Each year, instead of making new year resolutions, I pick a theme for the year. That way when I get sidetracked (as often happens) I can simply return to the theme. Also with a theme there are often many different things I can do to support it.

For 2009 my theme was simplicity and frugal living. The results here were pretty good on the whole. A big reduction in my carbon footprint; using public transport wherever possible; and living local as much as possible.

The idea for my 2010 theme came to me while traveling home via train from a lovely dinner with @mpesce – the words reinvention and reinvigoration popped into my head.

It seems to me that this is something that needs to happen on both a personal and societal level. We need to re-imagine the way we work, we need to reclaim healthful approaches to living, we need to find sustainable ways to exist.

The next step is to consider which areas of my life will be the starting point for reinvention and reinvigoration.

A while back I got an invitation to join a new social network 434U & was amazed at the barriers to entry & the onerous rules for participation. It’s a new invitation only social network – I do wish them luck. But for me it makes me go “meh”.

Let’s just have a quick squiz at some of the rules:

• Must have a headshot, but it can only be a headshot of you – if you have other people in your picture they message you to crop them out: e.g. “social says: you need to change your photo asap A SOLO HEAD SHOT NO SUNGLASSES PLEASE” or “social says: hey mate it needs to be a solo photo sorry mate you can crop that one with child in it thanks”
• “In order to have an active account on 434u you must have at least 4 active members in your crew. Active members are members who have 4 active crew members under them. Once your 4 crew members have recruited 4 active members your account will automatically become active.” – I can barely manage my own online activity let alone consider moderate my buddies too!
• “Members can invite 6 friends only to join. A member is then responsible for the moderation of those members who form their crew.”
• You have to log in every 14 days
• “By empowering members to moderate, market and promote the site, 434U can then afford to share revenue from the site among its members 70/30.”

It seems to me that some people just don’t understand the concept of barriers to entry. With complex rules like that a social network would need to offer me some compelling value. Not sure what value this one offers?

Also they seem to misunderstand how many people use their avatars and how an avatar can also become almost a part of our personality. I feel quite odd when changing avatars. So making it just a photo of me is not an attractive proposition at all.

Suspect it will need to clarify the cost-benefit equation a lot more before they catch my interest.

UPDATE 1 Jan 2010: Just to prove that everyone is different here’s an alternative perspective on this new social network 434U

For me 2009 goes down as the year other people discovered Twitter. It went from a small and fairly intimate place to hangout to a busy bustling intersection of information, commerce and conversations.

It felt almost like moving from a small town to a big and somewhat impersonal city.

Some of the events of 2009 in which Twitter played a big part for me included:

#media140
#futuresummit
#cccsyd
#poltech
#toto
#usnowsydney
and the various BarCamps in Sydney & Canberra.

The growth of community in real life that was enabled by Twitter continues to amaze me – STUB, Silicon Beach, the various Sydney Coffee Mornings (e.g. NSCM), & SHTBOX in Sydney and countless informal meetups.  A big thank-you to all the kind and lovely people that I met on Twitter and at the various meetups – wishing you all a wonderful 2010.

Twitter also played a different part in reporting the news.  No longer did I rely upon news agencies for breaking news. Instead people on Twitter broke the news and it was left to the traditional news agencies to verify and follow up on the stories.

It was also interesting to look back on my Twitter year by means of a Wordle:

This year has been one of great personal challenges for me and my family. To have made it to the end of the year with all of us still on deck is a good feeling.

2009 brought home to me how truly important continued good health is, and how lucky we are in Australia with our health system.

The year saw many plans in train at the start of the year, with most of them deferred due to the aforementioned personal challenges. So it feels like I did not really achieve much that I’d hoped.

But putting all of that aside, it was a year that revealed the kindness of friends and power of online networks to create and build real relationships. Real life friends who supported me this year have made all the difference.

Another great example of that was the diverse group of people who’ve banded together for Northside Coffee Mornings – where online relationships have merged into offline ones and a supportive network has started to evolve.

The sheer number of kindhearted people who cared for & supported me, who helped me when I was down, fed me, nurtured me, worried with me, and rejoiced when the news was good is truly humbling.

Another thing that amazed me was how many people want to make make the world a better place. And how many of those people are willing to take action in that cause.

I was lucky enough to be involved in various conferences, unconferences and seminars, meeting a large number of fascinating people.

A big thank-you to all those people who were kind and inclusive, sharing ideas and working together. Special thanks to everyone who helped out with Cupcake Camp Sydney – it was great fun and we helped out the RSPCA.

Each year, instead of making new year resolutions, I pick a theme for the year. That way when I get sidetracked (as often happens) I can simply return to the theme. Also with a theme there are often many different things I can do to support it.

For 2009 my theme was simplicity and frugal living. The results here were pretty good on the whole. A big reduction in my carbon footprint; using public transport wherever possible; and living local as much as possible.

I’m still thinking about my theme for 2010, more on that later.

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… and even if not celebrating Christmas I wish everyone peace & goodwill

Here’s a meerkat getting its head stuck in a Christmas cracker as it tries to reach a treat of worms and locusts at London Zoo (brought to my attention by the kind offices of @Neerav & @hollingsworth)

[Source: Telegraph.co.uk via AFP / GETTY]

2009 ranks as both the year that social media went mainstream and as the year that we saw a seismic shift in the comfortable world of traditional media.

Some evidence of the former is the fact that Dell made $6.5 million in direct sales via Twitter. Further evidence is the rise of the social media job, with titles like Emerging Media Manager, Senior Digital Strategist or Social Media Community Manager.

Many businesses as well as individuals now see it as normal to have a Twitter account, Facebook page, YouTube channel, a website and/or a blog.

It is also the year that MySpace lost out to Facebook – by focusing on eyeballs and advertising rather than ease of user interaction it marginalised itself.

Facebook went from strength to strength by year end picking up 700,000 new users per day; ending the year as the de facto social network for both geeks and non-geeks. Key to the growth and success of these social platforms among the mainstream population is ease of use, ease of connection with others, and ease of sharing. It is much easier for something to go viral when it is easy for ordinary people to share it.

Facebook is a clear winner on each of these criteria, while Twitter has had a slower adoption as the how-to is not as evident to the new user. However, Twitter is winning the day as the home of buzz and breaking news.

Another example of the mainstreaming of social media is the way it is now an integral part of traditional media such as newspapers, radio and television. Most newspaper sites now enable readers to share content on various social networking sites and to comment on the site.

Many television and radio stations supplement their regular content with additional content such as video, podcast and forums. The BBC has asked its viewers to provide video and image content, while other newspaper sites actively solicit reader photographs or videos for use on their sites.

To the chagrin of the traditional media power brokers much of the innovation in social media is coming from the public broadcasters – for example the BBC in the UK and the ABC in Australia.

Each of these has embraced podcasts, time shift video and active involvement on Twitter and other social networks. This has led to some lively debates between traditional media owners like the powerful Murdoch family and the public broadcasters (see Murdoch attack on ‘dominant’ BBC).

And it, in turn, has drawn spirited responses from the public broadcasters, for example: Mark Scott of the ABC in Australia in The Fall of Rome: Media after Empire One thing is clear from the events of 2009, the landscape and revenue models for traditional media have shifted and the industry is faced with threats to its very survival.

There have been many and varied responses to the shift in the traditional media landscape. Rupert Murdoch deciding to take his News Corporation content out of Google or put it behind a paywall; myriad local newspapers in the US closing down; and ordinary people not caring much at all as they continue to obtain good quality information from various online sources. One thing is certain; there has been a huge shift in purchasing patterns for traditional media. Newspaper sales are down as are free to air television audiences with associated reductions in advertising revenue for proprietors.

There have been some interesting responses to this shift in the traditional media landscape; including the Media140 series of conferences (please note I was live blogging the Sydney event). This is the brainchild of Ande Gregson and his grand plan is to have conferences around the world in 140 days.

Media140 is focused on bringing together practitioners from journalism, politics, advertising; new media and entertainment to consider how the real-time web is changing the way we communicate, socialise and do business. New business models will evolve to take advantage of the social media and real-time web. Their evolution will be driven by the conversations and business ventures that occur during this time of shift in the media industry.

In 2009 the familiar media world we knew from the past century shifted. The age of real-time, social, computer driven news and communications is upon us. It is powered by web 2.0 platforms and funded by emerging business models. Old empires are trembling and new ones are being born. We are in for an interesting time in 2010 as all of these trends continue and we get a glimpse of the winners and losers in this shift.