The story behind this cookbook is sad but heartwarming all at once. As Heather explains:

Saturday 7th February 2009, now known as Black Saturday, saw the state of Victoria devastated by uncontrollable bushfires. Many towns were wiped from the map, thousands of buildings were lost and 173 people perished.

The devastation of Marysville was almost total.

The township needed something that was theirs and theirs alone. So I created the “Cookbook for Marysville”. Almost 300 copies were printed and given to the residents of Marysville with a message of hope and of thanks to emergency personnel.

Many people wanted to buy the book. I commissioned a second print run and the book is now for sale at $30.00.

$10 from each and every book, will be returned back to the town through various community ventures. I shall publish updates on sales and where the money is going, along with recipes from the book, at the Marysville Cookbook blog.

This book is 165 pages, including 28 pages of photos of the old Marysville taken by residents both past and present.

This recipe is an ideal dessert for a BBQ:

Baked Oranges

Serves 6

6 Oranges
60g of Butter
3 Tbspn of Brown Sugar
Grated Rind of 1 Orange
1 Tbspn Orange Liqueur (Optional)
¼ Cup of Orange Juice

Cut the outside skin and all the pith from the oranges and cut so the base will sit flat. Cut the oranges across into slices. Carefully put the whole oranges into individual foil squares which are large enough to enclose them. Mash the butter with the brown sugar and orange rind. Dot the top of the each orange with this. Fold the packets up but don’t seal the top yet. Mix the orange juice with liqueur and divide between the packets. Pinch to seal. Bake at normal heat over an indirect fire in a kettle barbeque for

15-20 minutes or in a moderate oven (180’C) for 15 minutes. Open carefully so as not to spill any juices.

Why not order a copy now at www.marysvillecookbook.com and help this community to rebuild?

There are longstanding conventions that enable us to sort out who owns property in the real world and some of the traditional principles of property rights include:

1. control of the use of the property
2. the right to any benefit from the property
3. a right to transfer or sell the property
4. a right to exclude others from the property.

[Source: Wikipedia]

But as we move further into the digital revolution then issues of ownership regarding digital assets and virtual goods comes to the fore.

However, some of the traditions of the web – such as openness – seem to be at odds with this notion of ownership. Also legal definitions might not be keeping up with the developments of these new digital and virtual goods. For example, what are the rules around a virtual good that I give away? What jurisdiction does it live in? How does title to the virtual good transfer?

These are all the questions facing the modern music industry with the shift to digital music. Locking down access does not seem to be working. Perhaps it is time to think about this from a fresh angle?

Other related issues are copyright and defamation. The old rules often seem very clunky and difficult to apply in this new digital world.

Some interesting questions for us to sort out. It will be interesting to see how this unfolds.

I will be on a panel discussing Transparency in Business – Risky or Essential?.

The debate will be moderated by Headshift’s Anne Bartlett-Bragg and Robin Hamman and the panel members are Nicholas Gruen (Gov2.0 TaskForce Chair); Sherre Delys (ABC Radio National), and me.

This topic has really got me thinking about transparency in business. It’s very much in vogue these days, with many people arguing for radical transparency. And I’ve been re-engaging with Popper’s The Open Society and Its Enemies at the same time.

An open society seems to me to be a necessary precursor to transparency; but there are so many barriers to openness and transparency. But then there is the question of who benefits from transparency – how do the different stakeholder groups benefit or suffer from transparency? These are all questions about power relationships and the nature of hierarchical relations.

So much to think about. But the question that keeps coming back to me is “transparency – so what?”

There was a great line up on the panel with visiting US lawyer and social media specialist Adrian Dayton (Social Media for Lawyers), Sam North (Ogilvy PR), Damian Damjanovski (BMF), and Renai LeMay (Delimiter), all wrangled expertly by the moderator Bronwen Clune (Strategeist).

It was a very thought provoking session with the panel and audience discussion. And the big takeway for me is that social media and its practitioners need to accept that we live within a particular social and legal context.

No matter how much we ‘social media’ types decry how poorly the law is setup to deal with what we do everyday, that is the situation we must deal with. The law moves much more slowly than changes in technology, and, upon consideration, maybe that’s not such a bad thing?

For example, Damian Damjanovski argued: “A lot of people out there use it as a personal communications method. There are lots of people with no more than 70 followers . When did we get to the point that this is suddenly publishing and should be treated as such?”

The fact is ordinary people are doing something that was once privileged – publishing. We are publishing content in many places now in the same ways that publishers (who have lawyers vetting much of their content) have for years.

Now that everywoman and everyman is a publisher we need to understand the rights and obligations that come with publication. We are no longer having a chat about something over dinner or at the pub with a bunch of mates. We are posting content (pretty much) for perpetuity and complaining when there are legal ramifications associated with that act.

It all made me think that perhaps a good topic for another Digital Citizens session would be about the legal issues associated with the act of publication on the web? Since, while Adrian Dayton was great, it would have been handy to have Australian lawyer on the panel.

A brief write-up of the event is also available on mUmBRELLA

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.

It was a fascinating discussion – so many interesting ideas to consider:

What happens when our real and virtual worlds collide? And how will we live in this hyper-connected world? In part three of our “Future of” series, The Scoop is joined by Mark Pesce, futurist and ABC New Inventors judge; Kate Carruthers, a business and technology strategist; and Ross Dawson, futurist, author, speaker and chairman of Advanced Human Technologies.

You can check out the podcast here

“I won’t ever pay for normal news content ever again full stop. If i wanted to subscribe to something niche likes financial markets pieces etc, then potentially yes, but even then i would discerning. I think he needs to get with the program. Old empire = dead. “

Clearly a sample of one in this instance, but it’s not the first time I’ve heard this sentiment. Wonder how this is all going to work out for Rupert?

This project is amazing in the way that it brings together so many of the threads of film, gaming, web and social computing. Lots of the ideas that people have discussed, such as the shifting consumption patterns for new media, are realised in this project.

Mordy Koots uses a different approach to telling a story. There are 10 x 3 minute action packed episodes delivered via web and mobile in partnership with NineMSN. It stars the very funny & endearing Shane Jacobsen (of Kenny fame) and is directed by Clayton Jacobsen.

This has not been launched yet, but Jim kindly gave me permission to use the clip. Check it out.

I suspect that this is a glimpse into the future of entertainment led by some Aussie ingenuity and the constraints of making feature films in smaller markets.

“Climate change affects us all and it threatens more than the environment. It threatens to cause famine, flooding, war, and millions of refugees.

Given the urgency of the issue of climate change and the upcoming international climate negotiations in Copenhagen this December, we think the blogosphere has the unique opportunity to mobilize millions of people around expressing support for finding a sustainable solution to the climate crisis.”

http://www.blogactionday.org/

As a somewhat sceptical individual I’m not bought into the idea of global warming nor of a coming ice age.  But as a rational thinker it seems prudent to be a good steward of the place where we live & which sustains us.

While I do not want us all to return to hunter-gatherer times and eschew modern conveniences, it does seem like a good time to direct our substantial collective intelligence towards find better ways of doing things.

In Australia we are already seeing the effects of climate change.  The recent devastating bushfires in Victoria appear to be a mere harbinger of what is to come.  We can expect to inhabit a much dryer and more fire-prone environment in some parts of the country.  While in other parts of the country we are seeing increasingly bad storms and cyclones.

To me this seems like a very big problem.  But all very big problems seem daunting unless they are chunked up.  This is a great case to apply the old maxim

Think global! Act local!

Here are some simple things some friends & I have done:

• tweet about Blog Action Day 2009 on Twitter – use the hashtag #BAD09
• leave the car at home whenever public transport is viable
• carpool with friends when going out
• plant a vegetable garden
• try to eat locally produced food & support initiatives like Live Local #livelocal
• lobby my local member of parliament to support action on climate change
• write a blog post about Blog Action Day 2009
• talk to people about Blog Action Day 2009
• start debates with the people at work about climate change
• start a neighbourhood project & blog about sustainable living like my friend Inderjeet & his Healthier Neighbourhoods – A Community Project to Reduce Carbon Footprint
• sign the petition asking President Obama to act on climate change