Aide-Memoire

It is fascinating to note on this International Women’s Day that one of our major newspapers has an article titled “Gender pay gap shows no sign of abating”

The gender pay gap can cost women up to $1 million over a lifetime

* Women earn 17pc less than men
* Pay inequality worth $1m over lifetime
* Women have more self-managed super

WORKING mothers and daughters can expect to be $1 million worse off during their lifetime, compared with fathers, as pay inequality and financial bias keep their incomes and assets low.

By Karina Barrymore
March 08, 2010 6:34AM

What does this tell us?

It tells us that even on International Women’s Day and even in Australia, the right of women to a fair go and equal treatment still has a long way to go.

It tells us that women’s higher participation in education still does to not pay off equally with men’s participation in education.

It tells us that women still need to strive together to achieve parity with men in many areas of life.

The recent Febusave campaign by ANZ also highlighted the need for women to take control of their financial destiny. Better finances are an important component of choice and freedom for women.

But these are all first world problems.

There are terrible and sad situations with women in many developing parts of the world. In those places women suffer physically and mentally due to oppression, violence and war.

On this IWD think about how we might help those women too. There’s microfinance ideas like Kiva or Unifem.

Why not reach and help a woman in developing world this IWD?

At the recent Sydney Knowledge Cafe I managed to catch up with a few buddies & ask them why they were there. Here’s Katie Chatfield explaining why she attended.

The video was taken with the new Flip Mino HD (an extremely nifty gadget).

The format of this event was created by David Gurteen & there is more information here.

The idea of #followfriday is a nice one – share the names of people worth following on Twitter. However, it’s turned into a bit of a spam fest on Twitter.

I thought it would be nice to share about some of the real life people I follow and a bit about them:

@ceibner – she’s one of my geek heroines, who knows stuff & is fun as well

@fridley – slightly snarky but well informed (especially re Japan) & a nice guy

@frombecca – is the queen of foodie-ness and is teaching me about being a locavore

@franksting – his tweets are of no morally redeeming value but he makes me laugh (& he tweets a lot about football)

@rbuerckner – if you want to get to know the twitter crowd in Canberra start here, this kind hearted tweep knows them all

Goodness me, how quickly time passes. It is Blog Action Day on 15 October 2009.

This year it is about Climate Change.

Blog Action Day is an annual event that unites the world’s bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day on their own blogs with the aim of sparking discussion around an issue of global importance. Blog Action Day 2009 will be the largest-ever social change event on the web. One day. One issue. Thousands of voices.

Through the very kind offices of @ApostrophePong (& his trusty assistant @Stilgherrian) we have a great video record of the recent event.  A really big thank-you again to everyone for getting involved.

A number of organisations have stepped up to offer prizes for Cupcake Camp Sydney. I wanted to take the opportunity to thank them for their generosity, and also to show the prizes that our cupcake makers could win.

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The Plantronics has provided one of their Discovery 925 Bluetooth earpiece.

It is a nifty designer headset for both men and women.

“Delivering exceptional audio performance, complemented by bold lines and distinctive finishes, the Plantronics Discovery 925 Bluetooth earpiece embodies technical craftsmanship previously unseen in the mobile accessories category.”

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Plantronics has also provided on of their GameCom 367 Closed-Ear Gaming Headsets.

This headset “delivers an immersive audio experience with

50mm stereo speakers and earpods that redistribute pressure for maximum comfort.

The headset features a noise-canceling mic boom which allows you to

Adjust audio levels using in-line volume

and mic-mute controls.”

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Altec Lansing have provided one of their Muzx 126 SnugFit noise-isolating earphones.

These are iPhone, MP3 and iPod compatible.

“Sound quality is excellent thanks to the use of wood and other materials to help sound resonate and gold plated plug for superior sound transfer.

The earphones also feature fashion detailing.”

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Everyone who makes or buys and brings cupcakes to share is in the running to win one of these prizes. Again, a big thank-you to the donors.

My current obsession with cupcakes and supporting the RSPCA results from two things that came together recently.

Last year I was intrigued to hear about the various cupcake camps that were being held around the world. It seemed like a nice thing to do – getting people together for a social occasion and trying to build a bit of community spirit.

I miss the kind of community gathering we used to have when I was a child. People would prepare food at home, with each family bringing a plate of food & everyone would share. We  would all gather, usually in the church hall or grounds – the adults talking & sharing news or stories, while the kids ran around burning off energy.

Also, I really like animals and supporting organisations that help animals. Then, when the RSPCA’s cupcake based campaign came out, it seemed like an opportunity to combine (a) support for a charity that helps animals in need with (b) a real life community building event.

Thus Cupcake Camp Sydney seemed like a very good idea indeed.

What’s not to like? Cupcakes, socialising, and helping animals – it is full of win on many levels.

I really hope people will come along to participate in Cupcake Camp Sydney on Friday 28 August at the offices of CBS Interactive.  We need cupcake makers as well as cupcake consumers – all are welcome.

You can register for free here.

[caption id="attachment_5955" align="alignright" width="300" caption="a @firstdogonmoon original cartoon"][/caption]Normally on Caturday this post is an amusing LOLcat.

But today it is a serious request for people in Sydney to help to raise funds to help real animals with real problems.

Cupcake Camp Sydney is on Friday 28 August 2009 – REGISTER NOW.

It’s a simple idea: bake or buy cupcakes; bring them to cupcake camp; share them with other people & enjoy a social occasion; and donate money to the RSPCA.

There’s some great prizes for our cupcake makers – from Plantronics, Altec, Ripples Cafe – and it will be fun too!

REGISTER NOW for Cupcake Camp Sydney

[caption id="attachment_5950" align="alignright" width="300" caption="a @firstdogonmoon original cartoon"][/caption]For Cupcake Camp Sydney on Friday 28 August we need people to come along to help consume the cupcakes & to support the RSPCA.

Our goal is create a fun social occasion based around the sharing of cupcakes together with the opportunity to help out a charity that does great work for animals.

It all depends on people – come along and join us.

Follow Cupcake Camp Sydney on Twitter @cccsyd & the hashtag is #cccsyd

REGISTER NOW for Cupcake Camp Sydney

For Cupcake Camp Sydney on Friday 28 August we’ve got a distinguished panel of judges who are going to help us to award cool prizes:

• Mark Pesce
• Rebecca Varidel
• Neerav Bhatt
• Ema Hoffmann

They are going to be judging the cupcakes in three categories & there will be prizes for the creator in each category:

• best decorated cupcake
• best cupcake overall – based on presentation, taste & texture
• craziest cupcake

All cupcake bakers go into a draw to win a bottle of champagne too.

Follow Cupcake Camp Sydney on Twitter @cccsyd & the hashtag is #cccsyd

Cupcake Camp Sydney is scheduled for Friday 28 August in Sydney & the support continues to grow.

REGISTER NOW for Cupcake Camp Sydney

The very kind folks at Ripples Cafe at Sydney Wharf have donated a gift voucher for ‘a dinner for two’ (to the value of $150.00). It will be one of the prizes for our intrepid cupcake bakers.

It is all in the cause of helping to raise funds for the RSPCA. So come along, bring your cupcakes to share.

All cupcake bakers also go into the draw to win a bottle of champagne.

There’s also going to be prizes for best decorated cupcake & tastiest cupcake – more on that later.

Follow Cupcake Camp Sydney on Twitter @cccsyd & the hashtag is #cccsyd

A while back Twitter was having some real problems with stability and scalability and it dawned on me that they, like many innovators,  had not realised what kind of invention they had made.  They talked about it as a ‘microblogging‘ platform, that is, as a very short message publishing service.  This is a very web 1.0 view of what this type of platform enabled.

Instead, what Twitter (and it’s competitors) enabled was conversations.  And conversations enable community. So, without realising it,  what they had actually created was a community building platform.

One place that this is really evident is in Australia, especially in Sydney.  About four years ago I recall complaining that there was no real tech community in Sydney even though there were lots of web development and hi-tech companies in town.  At the end of 2007, coincident with the beta of Twitter, a number of people got together and decided to do something about it.  This gave rise, or new life, to various groups.

All of this could have happened using email lists and online user groups, just as it had in the past.  But I’ve found that those groups are hard to maintain momentum with if you are only meeting once a week, month or similar.  What you need to build real community is a village.

This is because villages provide ambient contact on a regular basis that reinforces relationships and creates personal knowledge of each other as members of the community.  Luckily for us Twitter came along at just the right time to provide that kind of ambient community building contact.

One of the first shoots of this community in Sydney was the formation of the  Sydney Twitter Underground Brigade (a.k.a. @STUB & the guys at Happener deserve kudos for their support of @STUB over the years). 

This was an important step in creation of a sense of community in the tech world in Sydney as it brought us together in real life on a regular basis.  And that real life contact was reinforced by ongoing conversations on Twitter. Now we know what each other look like in real life and maintain contact with each other, though geographically dispersed, via Twitter.  These days, if I walk into a web or tech conference in Sydney, there’s a lot of familiar faces.  And all this is due to the community building that Twitter has enabled.

Sure, while Twitter serves to keep us in contact regularly, the community is also supported by various blogs, wikis, Google Groups, and web pages.  But it is Twitter that we use to organise and publicise  a conference, or a picnic, or drinks at the pub (check out Silicon Beach drinks each Friday in Sydney).

Here’s some pictures from a recent family tweetup/picnic that was enabled by (a) the community built via Twitter (most of us met first on Twitter & then in real life); (b) the ability to send both broadcast and point-to-point messages via Twitter for logistics & planning; and (c) to remind me it was on – even though I had completely forgotten to diarise it.

Note re language
For some reason I don’t know, tweetups in Australia became focused around TUBs (or Twitter Underground Brigades) and most big cities have a ‘TUB’ (Perth PTUB; Melbourne MTUB; Brisbane BTUB; Canberra CTUB – if I’ve missed any please let me know).  The term ‘TUB’ has now become vernacular for tweetup around these part – hence there’s a fairly regular @girlTUB and a recent #familyTUB (see pics below).