All posts tagged Web

  • Australian Penthouse story: ‘The High Road: Silk Road, an online marketplace like no other’, February 2012

    A story for the January 2012 edition of Australian Penthouse, reproduced below in its entirety. Click the main image for a closer look (which will open a PDF in a new window), or read the article text underneath. You can click any of the below images and screenshots for a larger version, too..

    The High Road
    by Andrew McMillen

    Silk Road is an online marketplace like no other. Totally anonymous, the website uses sophisticated encryption software and a digital currency to facilitate the worldwide sale of prohibited items, particularly illicit drugs. Australian Penthouse investigates.

    “Imagine how exciting it is when you get something in the mail; even the shittiest thing, like a free sample. But in this case, you’re getting drugs that you really want to take, and get high on. It’s a compounded experience of excitement; an exponential high.”

    A 24-year old man who lives in an inner-city suburb of Brisbane is describing what he felt upon opening his mailbox one day in 2011 and discovering a package containing one gram of cocaine. It was addressed to a person who does not exist. He does not know the source of the substance beyond its country of origin. This was not the first time he had purchased drugs online; his first order was for one gram of MDMA powder. That package was sent to a house that he knew was unoccupied; it took around nine days to arrive from Canada. He checked the vacant mailbox daily. “I’m still waiting for some undies off of eBay from Hong Kong,” he says. “[The MDMA] arrived way quicker than that.”

    Why the alternate address in the first instance? “Because having something illicit sent in the mail seems fairly thick,” he replies. “It seems so simple; too good to be true. I wanted to put some form of buffer between myself and the order I made, as a ‘test run’.

    “One day it was in there and it hadn’t been intercepted. I didn’t get immediately arrested when I took it out of the mailbox. Since I didn’t use my real name, it didn’t seem possible to get traced back to me. It still hasn’t been.”

    These orders were made using a website called Silk Road. It can only be accessed after installing anonymity-enabling software called Tor. All purchases are made using Bitcoin, a currency which only exists online and whose public transaction history can be untraceable if handled correctly.

    My interviewee randomly discovered online mentions of Silk Road in May 2011, and pursued the intriguing concept all the way through to installing Tor and trading Australian dollars for Bitcoin; a process he calls “semi-prohibitive” owing to the persistence and tech-knowledge required to check all the boxes before users can place an order. In four transactions, my interviewee has ordered three grams of MDMA and three grams of cocaine at a cost of “close to AUD$700”.

    So what motivated him to take a chance on buying illicit substances online from a complete stranger?

    “I’m interested in taking drugs casually, but I hate the process,” he says. “I don’t know any dealers. Even if I want to get weed, I don’t know anyone, so it always becomes this drawn out process of finding someone who knows someone who knows someone. It’s a real pain in the arse. Whereas this way, it’s so direct and private. I didn’t leave my room, and then nine days later there was something in the mailbox that was for me. It’s discreet and exciting. Imagine the fun of shopping on eBay, but then you can also get high.”

    Visiting Silk Road for the first time, I feel a little like Alice falling down the rabbit hole. After downloading the correct Tor software bundle, I connected within five minutes. A warning appears at the bottom of the registration screen: “Be advised: This website is experimental. We do not guarantee your anonymity, protection from law enforcement in your jurisdiction, or protection from other users of this service. You and you alone are responsible for the risks associated with entering and using this website.” The site does not request any information from its users beyond a username and password; not even an email address. And then, you’re in.

    The site’s bright, clean design displays images of nine items for sale; among them, ‘red joker’ ecstasy pills, one-ounce of the ‘purple kush’ cannabis strain, a $50 Australian banknote and syringes. When I first visit the site in late August 2011, one bitcoin is worth USD$11.15; a fortnight later, the exchange rate has dropped to USD$6.18 per bitcoin.

    The nine ‘featured’ items change upon each page refresh. A column on the left categorises the goods for sale: ‘drugs’ is split into sub-categories like ‘dissociatives’ (11 items for sale), ‘psychedelics’ (123 items), ‘stimulants’ (65) and the most popular category, ‘cannabis’ (237). Other categories include ‘digital goods’, ‘money’, ‘XXX’, ‘weaponry’ and ‘forgeries’.

    At first, it’s a little overwhelming. What Silk Road [SR] offers is the online equivalent of strolling down a dim-lit alley filled with surly guys wearing heavy trenchcoats, except that you can contemplate purchasing their goods while lounging in your underwear, without fear of being stabbed.

    Each page on the site generally takes a few seconds to load, regardless of the user’s connection speed, due to an overcrowded Tor network. A page called ‘how does it work?’ describes the site as “an anonymous marketplace where you can buy and sell without revealing who you are. We protect your identity through every step of the process, from connecting to this site, to purchasing your items, to finally receiving them”. Lengthy guides for both buyers and sellers are freely available. The latter guide states that “every precaution must be taken to maintain the secrecy of the contents of your client’s package. Creatively disguise it such that a postal inspector might ignore it if it was searched or accidentally came open.”

    It concludes with a ‘final note’: “Regardless of your motivations, you are a revolutionary. Your actions are bringing satisfaction to those that have been oppressed for far too long. Take pride in what you do and stand tall.”

    There’s an active and boisterous SR forum community, which is hosted off-site and requires an additional registration; this process requests an email address, but a note states that it doesn’t have to be a legit address.

    After poking around the site and smirking at some of the items for sale – condoms, an e-book of Neil Strauss’ pick-up artist classic The Game, military training manuals – I decide to engage with a few sellers by requesting interviews using the site’s private messaging system.

    Within 10 minutes, three sellers respond enthusiastically to my request; one says, “I’ll even give you a media discount if you order.” The website’s administrator, who goes by the username Silk Road, also responds. “Sorry, we aren’t doing interviews at the moment,” he says. “Good luck.”

    Of the 27 SR sellers I approach during a two-week period on the site, seven respond thoughtfully and at length to my questions. They are mostly based in the US and Canada, though one is Australian. All seven request that I don’t mention their usernames. A few prefer to conduct the interview using PGP text encryption, which adds another element of spookiness to the situation. Most of the sellers found their way to Silk Road after the site was covered online by Wired and Gawker in June 2011.

    When I ask what they like about Silk Road, I’m met with a range of responses. “Being able to provide a safe and anonymous way for someone to purchase something that they choose to put into their body,” says one seller. “It’s nice how it turns drug dealing into an office job, with less risk and more stable demand while interacting openly with customers,” replies another. This focus on administrative duties is echoed by another seller, who says it’s “nice to have everything so organized and centralized, it really cuts down on the time spent per order which is a huge plus when you’ve got a mountain of them to work through.”

    One source remarked aloud, ‘this is the future’, upon finding the site. “The free market has provided for one of the oldest needs in human history,” they elaborate. “[SR] removes the elements of danger that exist in in-person black market arrangements, and offered anonymity for all parties involved.”

    I ask what sellers don’t like about the service. One tells me, “while the majority of users are honest and trustworthy, you always have to keep your guard up. There are plenty of scammers here on SR.” Another is frustrated by the long wait between making a sale and receiving the bitcoins in their account. “It can take a while for people to finalize transactions, so the money gets stuck in escrow until the customer remembers to finalize, or it auto-finalizes after like 20 or so days.”

    One seller is concerned about the silo-like nature of the site: “Having everything organized – vendor statistics easily accessible, reliance on a single server, etc – all makes any vendor, or even SR itself, a juicier target for LE [law enforcement].” An Australian seller replies, “I don’t like being out in the open. Even though I feel rather anonymous within SR, I could always make a simple mistake with my packaging or use of encryption that would give me away.”

    A few of my respondents reveal that they have sold drugs in the real world. One dubs the online process “much easier” than face-to-face sales. “SR buyers have no info about me whatsoever. Whereas with a face-to-face transaction, a buyer might know my name, what I look like, the car that I drive, or the city that I live in. So if they get caught, LE goes up the food chain. Here on SR, there’s nowhere for LE to go.”

    Another seller says SR is preferable because it “takes potential violence right out of the equation, and mitigates theft; you can’t exactly take someone to court for robbing you during a black-market trade, which is why there is so much violence. I prefer SR to offline, any day of the week.” One seller candidly replies, that SR is “better and cleaner. Customers are more educated and nice, and it leaves you more spare time to study, play with the kids, and clean the house. It’s telecommuting at its finest.”

    None of the seven sellers I interviewed would detail how they package the illicit substances sent through the international postal system. A couple mentioned that it’s an unwritten law among SR sellers to not disclose such methods, though I learn by reading the forums that vacuum sealing is common. The young man from Brisbane who received MDMA and cocaine in the mail didn’t want to discuss the appearance of the packages he received, either.

    All this illegal activity must be a rush, even if the process does become somewhat normalised due to the volume of orders that some sellers process. I have one final question. What does it feel like to sell illicit drugs over the internet to complete strangers?

    One replies, “honestly, it can be quite nerve racking. I have no idea if I just sent some illegal items to LE. That’s why it’s so important for a good vendor to use all precautionary tactics to keep important info away from them. Leaving no DNA or fingerprints, and sending from an area where you don’t live. It’s not unusual for a vendor to be wearing hairnets and multiple layers of gloves while packaging the material. If there is even a one-percent chance of some identifying marks on or inside that package, it will be thrown out.”

    Another says, “It’s awesome. Most of the users on Silk Road are good people, and it’s always been a pleasure providing them goods that their corrupt governments have denied them. By simply living our lives and doing what we want to do, we break the government’s iron fist. It’s pretty satisfying.”

    “It feels great,” agrees another. “I get to make a positive contribution in the lives of people who otherwise wouldn’t have access to drugs, such as old folks, and people in remote locations.” The seller shares some feedback received by a buyer that they found “really touching”. The feedback reads, “I don’t want to sound all sentimental and crap but in all honesty, my friends and I have become closer and happier with ourselves and each other, thanks to you and your stuff. It’s really been a bonding experience for everyone. We aren’t really the partying type and instead like to chill and talk for hours. Thanks to you, we have shared some amazing experiences.”

    The seller tells me that “getting feedback like that makes those nights spent sweating over a hot vacuum sealer seem worthwhile!”

    For more on Silk Road, visit its Wikipedia page.

  • A conversation with Ryan Holiday: blogger, former marketing director of American Apparel, soon-to-be author; October 2011

    Ryan Holiday is one of the most influential people in my life.

    His blog, RyanHoliday.net, is one of the most valuable online resources I know of. This is a statement that I know will make him blush, because Ryan is a modest guy. I know this because when I first approached him for an interview in January 2010, he deflected my questions – which were extremely detailed, potentially to the point of exhibiting stalker-like behaviour. He wrote that when he felt he deserved an interview, he’d give it to me; he also said that mine was “the most in depth, investigative email I’ve ever gotten”.

    At 24, Ryan [pictured right] is a year older than me. I’ve viewed his blog as a kind of counsel since I first became aware of his work. His thinking and writing has, in turn, shaped my thinking and writing. It is fair to say that I wouldn’t be on the path I am now if I hadn’t been closely studying another young male on the other side of the world, fearlessly kicking down doors in search and pursuit of his goals. For a couple of years, Ryan’s ambition, persistence and confidence all directly influenced my day-to-day thoughts and actions. Which is another statement that will make Ryan blush, because it’s a pretty fucking weird thing to type, let alone think.

    Ryan first attracted my attention by attracting the attention of someone who I was closely studying at the time: Tucker Max, the American blogger-turned-author who is best known for his 2006 book I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell and the 2009 film adaptation of the same name.

    Ryan wrote a review of Tucker’s website – which, at the time, was a collection of stories about Max’s drinking and sexual exploits – for his college newspaper, and sent the link to the author. Soon after, Max posted the review on his message board, which was a fairly popular corner of the web; it was deleted a couple of years ago. I immediately became interested in figuring out who Holiday was.

    That review led Tucker to hire Ryan as an intern at his company, Rudius Media (now defunct). It led Ryan to work with the acclaimed author Robert Greene as a research assistant on the strategy book The 50th Law, co-written with rapper 50 Cent and released in 2009. And it led Ryan to be hired by the clothing manufacturer American Apparel, where he worked as Director of Marketing for a couple of years. He still works as an advisor to American Apparel, but moved from Los Angeles to New Orleans in mid 2011 to work on a book project of his own.

    Since January 2007, Ryan has consistently used his blog as a platform for discussions about writing, running, online PR, media, philosophy, and stoicism, among other topics. I’ve consumed every word that he has written since his first post, ‘The Business Of Running‘. I often re-read his posts multiple times, which is something I rarely do online. That first post remains a valid starting point for understanding Ryan’s way of thinking and writing. I’ll quote the opening paragraph below.

    “I run 5 miles every night. It’s where I go to digest my day, hash out the multitude of information that’s been poured into me in the last wild six months or so, and to try and condense it down to some sort of cohesive strategy to live my life by.” – Ryan Holiday, January 31 2007

    When I visited the United States for the first time with my girlfriend Rachael in September 2010, I asked to meet up with Ryan in Los Angeles. We met at a burger joint on Melrose Avenue and talked for an hour or so. It was a huge thrill for me to meet a guy who’s been something of an internet hero to me for nearly five years. Rachael didn’t really understand why it was so important to me at the time.

    Neither did I, really, now that I think about it. All I knew then, and know now, is that Ryan Holiday is one of the most influential people in my life. It’s an honour for me to publish the below email interview.

    Andrew: When you wrote that review of Tucker’s website, what was the intended outcome?

    Ryan: I’m not sure if I ever told anyone this, but I’d noticed that Tucker tended to link to or write about any press he got (at least back then) and so I thought, “I’m a writer for a college newspaper, why don’t I try it”? It didn’t really go much further than thinking about it at that time. Then a couple weeks later I had the opening line of that piece floating around in my head: “If Hunter S Thompson had read this site, he probably wouldn’t have killed himself.” I figured I had something and eventually sat down and wrote it.

    So the intended outcome was that I’d send it to him and he’d link to it (I reposted the article on my blog) and that would be it. But the reaction totally blew my mind. Within about 20 minutes he’d responded and… I went back to my Gmail and found it:

    From: Tucker Max

    [November 28th, 2005]

    “Jesus Christ. Dude, that is fantastic. Seriously, I am awed by your grasp of me and my material. I am going to post this as THE example of a great review of me and my work.”

    It’s funny to me now because that reaction has become a pretty routine occurrence for me since then. I obviously thought I wrote a pretty good article but I was still reluctant to send it off. Is he going to like it? Did I go overboard? What are the chances of it getting a response? Turns out I had nailed the target and didn’t quite understand the extent. That seems to happen a lot to me. You’d think I’d anticipate it by now, but still other peoples’ reaction (positively, anyway) tends to catch me by surprise.

    What did that response change for you? Was that one of those ‘Fight Club moments‘ I remember you writing about years ago?

    I think it was the opposite of one of those moments. I think of a Fight Club Moment as something that breaks you down and demolishes the pretense and bullshit entitlement you have in your life. This wasn’t that. It instilled a lot of confidence in me. It was like, “ok, I am better than I knew. That’s awesome, maybe I can build on this.”

    What happened next between you and Tucker?

    I think after he had the publisher send me a copy of his book to review, which I did, and after it was published I asked for his thoughts on the writing. He went over it on the phone with me about ways I could improve my voice and tone.

    I stayed in touch—I think in my post about advice a couple weeks ago I called this ‘staying on the radar’, and that’s basically what I did. I would pop in and ask questions, for advice, send links etc. Any excuse I could think of to keep that connection alive. Only an idiot would waste that chance.

    A year or so later I was in New York, where he was living and I told him I wasn’t looking for a job, or a salary or a handout but I had some thoughts on ways I could contribute to his company, Rudius Media. After the meeting, he offered me an internship, which 6-8 months later become a job. But it was all a very fluid thing, like I was saying.

    [Andrew’s note: that post he mentionedAdvice to a Young Man Hoping to Go Somewhere (Or Get Something From Someone Successful)is an absolute must-read.]

    To me, the act of writing the review and showing Tucker is a pretty solid example of figuring out what you want, and pursuing it accordingly. Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t that lead to him offering you a job, you quitting college and moving to LA, and then working for American Apparel?

    Haha, I mean you pretty much figured out exactly what I was doing or trying to do with the last question, probably with a better sense of clarity than I really had at the time. But yeah, it was the door that ultimately led to the opening of all the other doors. I have him to thank for all of it. When I see a path to an opportunity–like a lane in basketball–I sort of put my head down and the next thing I know I’m through it and it took me somewhere I didn’t totally anticipate.

    With the Tucker thing, I knew I wanted to one day be a writer like the kind of writers he was working with at the time – I’d known this since I first saw his sites in high school – so I did that article, and then I was working for him, and then I was working for the people he was working with, and then the people they were working with, and so on. I don’t think any of them every solicited me for a job either so much; it was just that I was around all the time, doing stuff and offering to do stuff, and then it eventually became official.

    How did you come across Robert Greene’s work? Was it Tucker who first showed you?

    Yeah, I’d heard of the books obviously but I think Tucker recommended The 48 Laws of Power so I read it. I marked up my copy so much and had a million questions to ask Tucker.* Then the first time I met him, Tucker walked me to a bookstore and bought me The 33 Strategies of War and said, “if you’re going to work for me, you’ll need to have read this.” I think that’s how I found out I got the job. All I took from that exchange was: “I better read this book on the plane ride home and know it backwards and forwards.”

    * Ryan’s sidenote: that copy of The 48 Laws is priceless to me. Someone stole it out of my office at American Apparel. I was fucking distraught. It makes no sense because Dov [Charney, AA chairman and CEO] has a million copies laying around. Why would they want my marked-up personal copy?

    How did the opportunity to work for Greene arise?

    The three of us – Tucker, Robert, and I – had lunch in L.A. a few years ago and it kind of arose from that meeting. Although it almost didn’t, because I was so nervous I accidentally messed up when I gave Robert my phone number.

    I have a suspicion that working on The 50th Law might have inspired a sense of validation, given your regular documentation on your life via the blog, and your personal reading and research via your Delicious account. Am I right, or way off?

    I mean, it was very cool to have the privilege to be allowed to peek inside of project like that. But I don’t think validating is the right work. What it was was educational, from top to bottom. Researching for someone–particularly someone like Robert–is crazy because you get pointed in all these directions that you’d never have gone by yourself, given a very firm objective to gather from that direction, and a tight deadline with which to do so. When you read or research for yourself, it is kind of this wandering, directionless thing. For the book, it was like getting a crash course in a million different subjects. I was interested in all of them so I would mark down the stuff I would want to go back and look at later.

    So it’s funny, when I see the book, it reminds me of loose ends I still need to tie up for myself and am interested in looking into.

    Your stoicism guest blog for Tim Ferriss in April 2009 attracted a lot of attention. What did you get out of it? What did you learn from the experience?

    More than anything, it helped me clarify my thoughts. Tim is awesome and he’s got a very impressive commitment to expanding the scope of blog all the time. He starting writing about productivity and got all these people hooked and the next thing you know he’s totally revolutionized how they think about health and science. I was lucky that he gave me the microphone for one of those digressions.

    I got quite a few new readers out of it and he also was gracious enough to give me two more chances to write about similar topics. [The Experimental Life: An Introduction to Michel de Montaigne‘, October 2010; ‘Looking to the Dietary Gods: Eating Well According to the Ancients‘, July 2011]

    What you learn in a setting like that is how to tailor your message to different mediums. When I write for my site, I can be as self-indulgent as I want. When you write for someone else or on a bigger platform, you have to be much clearer and you have to catch them right from the beginning. They’re not YOUR readers, so you have to meet them where they are if you’d like to bother listening to your message. At the same time, it taught me that I don’t want to have to perform like that all the time which kind of freed me up to not have to chase acquiring that audience for myself. If didn’t learn that, I’d be spend all my time working to build something that at the end of the day, would make me miserable to have.

    Could you tell me about your working space?

    When I was in LA, I had a big office with 5-10 employees at any given time at the American Apparel factory. I had an office at my house at well.

    Now, in New Orleans, I sort of went in the completely opposite direction. I’m in a studio apartment so I don’t work much there. I like working and reading and writing out of the library at Tulane or, I belong to an old school athletic club in the French Quarter that has like a library/parlor work space that I use.

    On Mondays, I try to do all my administrative stuff—conference calls with employees, meetings, paperwork and then during the rest of the week I respond to AA emails in the morning and again at night. The middle of the day is mine. I try to write, go to the gym (run, box or swim), and read—in that order.

    I still have the same quote, the one from Marcus [Aurelius], above my desk:

    “When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own – not of the same blood or birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me.”

    The other quote above my desk is from Seneca:

    “Some lack the fickleness to live as they wish and just live as they have begun.”

    In November 2007 , you wrote that “you have to be happy with you”. I understand it’s a work in progress, but are you happy with you in October 2011, nearly four years later?

    Happier for sure. It’s not so much that it’s a work in progress as it is a process. I forget who said it, but someone smarter than me said that “happiness ensues, it cannot be pursued”. And I think it was Aristotle who said that happiness was the result of excellence.

    Either way, I take that to mean that you’re happy when you are doing whatever it is that you’re doing, well. So: are you doing well at your career? Is your relationship the best it can be? Are you handling adversity or a difficult experience with excellence? Are you behaving honorably? Etc etc.

    These are all opportunities to excel in the moment and cumulatively these moments create a sense of happiness. I’m fucking 24, there’s no way I’m doing well all the time at everything but I do feel I am getting better and more consistent.

    I want to close on a cliched question, which I hope you’ll humour me on. What advice would you give to yourself five years ago, when all you really knew about yourself was that you ‘wanted to one day be a writer like the kind of writers Tucker was working with at the time’?

    Fucking breathe. It’s not as precarious as you think it is. There’s no need to be anxious. See, it’s really easy when you’re that young and you don’t have a safety net to think you have to cling to everything for dear life, everything is a crisis, everything is mission critical, nothing else can be the priority.

    When you’re in that space, it’s really hard to have the patience and compassion or even empathy for the other people in your life because you’re fucking fight or flight all the time. In reality, it’s not as dramatic as all that. Taking a more relaxed and accepting approach might mean losing a couple opportunities here and there but down the road, you end up turning down plenty of those anyway, so what does it matter if a couple never arrive?

    If I told myself this and really listened, I feel like I’d have been happier along the way and be able to be prouder of how I behaved and the decisions I made.

    ++

    For more on Ryan Holiday, visit his blog. Hopefully he’ll soon post some news about the publication and release of his first book.

    [Edited on November 18: the first news of Ryan Holiday’s book has been announced.]

  • Cumulative Advantage and Social Currency

    A straightforward online exchange: Matt Granfield tweeted a link at @waycooljnr, the Twitter account I run with Nick Crocker for music and marketing links. It was an interesting link worth sharing, so I thanked Matt via Twitter and left a comment on David Gillespie‘s blog post.

    Simple, right? And, at first glance, pretty nerdy, especially when I describe what took all of 30 seconds. But it got me thinking about what is, in my mind, the real value of social networking: shortening the distance between people.

    Good thing there's no dice on the cover. Yeah, an NNT in-joke. Boom.For the last couple months, I’ve been reading a book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb called The Black Swan. I’m not going to feign complete comprehension, as frankly, it’s the most challenging thing I’ve read since Robert Greene‘s 48 Laws Of Power, which took me over a year to absorb.

    Among many taxing topics, Taleb discusses the ‘Matthew effect‘, otherwise known as cumulative advantage. It’s the concept whereby it’s easier for the rich to become richer, and for the famous to get more famous:

    This theory can easily apply to companies, businessmen, actors, writers, and anyone else who benefits from past success. If you get published in The New Yorker because of the color of your letterhead or attracted the attention of the editor, who was daydreaming of daisies, the resultant reward can follow you for life. [p. 218]

    The earlier Twitter exchange allowed me to bridge the gap between that concept and social networking. Put simply: the more you interact with someone online before you meet them, the greater the chances that you’ll get what you want for them, be it friendship, mentorship, or a job.

    Let’s run with the third option. Picture two undergraduate job candidates. One spends his days at university and his nights on the couch watching television. The other spends his days at uni and his nights online, reading blogs, participating in relevant industry conversations via social media, and identifying local influencers within the industry he hopes to begin a career.

    An ideal employer advertises a junior role. Until they shake hands at the interview, Dude #1 is nothing more than a resumé and a cover letter to the employer. But Dude #2 has been sharing valuable links and commenting on the company’s blog, so he strikes an easily rapport with the employer based on their mutual interests and knowledge. Their social currency.

    Which one’s going to get the job? [An aside: I’m as surprised as you that I autopiloted into a university-based thought exercise, given my past admonishment of its worth.]

    Okay, the scenario’s not applicable to every industry. A chemistry undergraduate would find it less pertinent than a web designer. But hell, everything’s online these days. It kinda blows my mind that so many people still don’t get this.

    They're definitely not signing any more electro acts, though.I’ve been online for like 10 years, and I’m only just beginning to consciously pay attention to this stuff. Cumulative advantage dictates that the more time you spend online building meaningful relationships and contributing to the internet, the easier it’ll be to get what you want.

    At the top, I wrote that it was kinda nerdy to describe a Twitter interaction. But when you’re using these tools to establish yourself as an influencer within the industry you’re passionate about, well, who the fuck cares if it’s nerdy? You’re winning.

    One of Australia’s top indie record labels today advertised a job via Twitter. You wouldn’t hear about that while watching television, would you?

    Three quotes occurred as I wrote this. The last one’s the most important.

    Ryan Holiday, December 3 2007:

    [If I was starting all over again today]l I’d become a personal RSS reader for one or two of the big bloggers. “You’ll like this article.” “Do you read this blog? He hits a lot of the same themes that you do.” “I’m hearing rumors that ____ is going to acquire ______, just wanted to give you a heads up.” And I would tailor the results for that person based on what I know they like. I would kill myself doing it. Every day, 5-10 articles. And then I would start to integrate commentary or questions. Become the guy that they get their information from, the person that keeps them connected to the pulse. Maybe one week I’d take a break and send nothing, just to highlight the difference. The ultimate end game being that they would start to send you out to find things for them: “What can you tell me about ________” Yes, you’re a research bitch but in the end, you come away with something that even the person you’re serving doesn’t–not just a vast reserve of knowledge but the ability to find out where it is coming from.

    Ryan Holiday, June 11 2008:

    One day you’ll probably want something from the internet – you’ll have a book to promote, a business that needs customers, someone you need to meet, an ebay auction you’re trying to sell, a job you’re after. It’ll be too late then. You have to start before. And there’s only one way to do that.

    Tait Ischia, April 17 2009:

    You have to prove to business owners that you are good and that you’ll make them money. And of course the best way to prove it is by doing stuff. Blogs are the easiest way to do stuff. It’s basically like maintaining a Facebook but isn’t a complete time-wasting exercise in vanity. If all the kids these days spent the same amount of time writing blogs that they did on Facebook, then [the advertising] industry would be a hell of a lot more competitive.

  • A Conversation With Ben Corman, Rudius Media Creative Director

    I don't understand the significance, either.Ben Corman is the Creative Director of Rudius Media. They’re an American web publishing company founded by Tucker Max, who wrote a book called I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell which is being released as a movie in September 2009 (production blog here).

    I’ve followed Tucker Max since around 2004. Initially, because I was the typical teenage male attracted to his hedonistic story-telling; lately, because Rudius is an interesting case study as a (mostly) public web media company, given that their staff is largely comprised of writers. Corman is averse to publishing photographs of himself – he was adamant that the graffiti pictured right should be used to depict him – but he took the time to respond at length to my questions about Rudius Media, his role and their future.

    How did the opportunity to sign on with Rudius come about?

    I sort of fell into it. A couple of months after I joined the messageboard, Donika [Miller, Rudius Editor] and Luke [Heidelberger, Rudius Director of IT] started the Submitted Stories board and, being that I wasn’t doing much with my time, I started writing short stories to get posted there. I’d always (sort of) written, but it was hard to sustain any enthusiasm for it without having anyone to read my stuff. That board was great because for the first time my work was getting put in front of an audience who didn’t give a shit about me and would give me honest feedback.

    Donika noticed me and offered to help edit my stuff, which was a huge ego boost. It was really nice to have someone say, “hey, this is good and I believe in it.”

    I’m not sure what happened after that. I kept writing and about a week before I was supposed to see Tucker speak at UCLA he messaged me about my writing. We went out for drinks after the speech and talked about the company and what he was trying to put together; I told him that I’d love to come on board. I assume that Donika put my name out there as someone with a little bit of writing talent. and it was just luck that we happened to be in the city at the same time.

    How does your current role differ from what was described to you at that time?

    You assume that I had a role described to me. The night I got myself hired, I’m not sure Tucker ever said what I was going to do. He said something like “I’ll give you something easy to do, just to see how you do at it and to see if you’re a good fit. If you do well, then I’ll give you more work. If you blow it, no harm, but it means you’re not a good fit, and we’ll go our separate ways.”

    The first thing I did was some transcription work for Robert Greene’s site. Then after that I started editing a few of the projects that we had going at the time. I was just happy to be a part of the company; we never really had things like job descriptions or roles.

    How do you describe the company and your role when you meet new people?

    Rudius Media. Also pictured: Russell Crowe's silhouetteI sort of evade the question when I meet new people. For most people, what they do to pay the bills and what they’re really passionate about are two separate things. I like to get right at what they’re passionate about, because that’s always more interesting than the sort of small talk that surrounds “so what do you do?”.

    Usually, when the question comes up, I say I work for a start-up media company and I’m the creative director of the literary side. That’s enough of a mouthful that most people nod without knowing what that really means.

    Don’t get me wrong. I’ll talk all day about writing, but only because I find that sort of thing really engaging. And there are parts of my job that I really like discussing, like how the internet has changed content distribution, or what it takes to make a living as an artist. But those topics are usually divorced from the discussion of what I do professionally. Most people have some sort of creative outlet, whether it’s DJing or coding or climbing or writing or photography. It’s easy to have a wide-ranging discussion about those interests without it having to be bogged down with talk about the day job.

    Do you find that people tend to have difficulty accepting what appears to be a relatively unclassifiable, ‘new media’ company? Do you find yourself oversimplifying your role to fit into what people are able to understand?

    I think most people don’t know how the movies they watch or the books they read are made, and consequently they don’t really understand the difference between Rudius and a more traditional media company. Which is fine; I don’t expect people to know the ins and outs of either industry, and I certainly didn’t understand the nuances of this business before I worked in it. When I talk about what I do or what Rudius does, they don’t realize that we’re different from the other players out there. Conceptually, their understanding that we’re different stems from us being a start-up and that we’re still trying to establish ourselves in these spaces.

    When I talk about what I do and the many hats I wear, it’s in the context of a start-up. People understand that my job can change pretty much on a daily basis, depending on what Rudius needs at the moment. So I don’t ever really have to simplify what my job is. I do whatever needs to be done.

    People are more interested in the fact that we’re a start-up and that I work from home, than what I actually do day-to-day. In some ways I live the dream. I don’t have to worry about making it into an office. I don’t have hours to keep. I travel a lot. As long as the work gets done, everyone is happy. I think a lot of people would prefer the system we have over the traditional eight hour work day.

    When you first met Tucker, did he buy you a copy of [Robert Greene’s] 33 Strategies Of War like he did for Ryan Holiday? [a fellow Rudius writer, pictured below right]

    Ryan Holiday at an American Apparel press conference. Photo by flickr user 'Steve Rhodes'Nope. But Tucker has this amazing library that I’ve borrowed more of my fair share of books from. For a while I was reading like a book a week out of it. And he has this habit of ordering books twice, so I’ve been able to get a number of free books that way.

    When I first met Tucker, I knew he was a Robert Greene fan, so I lied and said that I’d read all his books and was a huge fan myself. Things probably would have turned out the same, I’d have still gotten the job, if I’d been honest but I was reaching that night because I really wanted to work with Tucker. And once that lie was on the table, I had to go back and read Robert Greene. I was too poor to buy the actual books, so I blew off studying for my finals and spent the next week in the UCLA bookstore reading Robert Greene’s work.

    In “I’m With The Band“, you wrote: “And if you already think I’m an asshole this is where you should probably stop reading.” Can you explain that line? Why the pre-emptive self-defense?

    I was trying to say that I realize how ridiculous it is to complain about a positive. I’m aware that what’s coming is going to be good for all of us. If the movie [I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell] does well, we’ll be in a great place. We’ll have resources, we’ll be able to work the artists we want to work with, and we’ll have our pick of projects.

    A lot of people are going to look at what’s coming and think I’m crazy to miss the days when we were run out of a living room. And they’re probably right. I assume that things only get better from here on out and that I’ll have more opportunities going forward. Which is why I feel like an asshole writing that I’ll miss it. But Rudius has been such a big part of my life over the last few years that I can’t help but feel something now that we’re about to undergo this huge change.

    In September 2008, you took a hands-on approach to updating the Rudius Media homepage with new content almost-daily. What was the strategy behind this decision? Has it succeeded, or is it too early to tell?

    As we’ve grown and added sites and as some authors have fallen off from writing, we’ve not done a very good job showcasing who is writing and where the newest and best content is. The change was supposed to (in some small way) address that shortcoming, and give readers an easy way to stay on top of what’s happening in the Rudius universe. In looking around at Rudius Media, it was a pretty big oversight that a new media company wouldn’t have a portal for it’s own content.

    It was also the first part of a larger strategy to redesign the sites. I had hoped that we’d be able to get that redesign done this year, but because of the budget, it looks like that’s going to have to wait until 2010. I want to make Rudius Media more of a community instead of each site having it’s own little fiefdom. So we’re looking at features such as single login that will allow a reader to comment on any of the sites as well as log into the messageboard, dynamically updating blog rolls that show which sites have been updated and where the latest content is and the ability for our readers to interact with each other through profiles and other such web magic.

    It’s really too early to tell if all of this will be a success or not as the changes to the Rudius Media site are just the small first step. There should be a lot of cool stuff happening next year.

    How do you deal with procrastination? Have your work habits improved of late?

    I used to just throw myself at the day with this sort of checklist mentality. So if I wanted to update the blog, I’d just sit there first thing in the morning and sort of command myself “ok, now write.” Or if it was midnight but I had some editing to do, I’d sit down and try to edit. As a result, I’d just be super unmotivated to actually do the task in front of me. so I’d waste time on the messageboard or on my RSS reader.

    I’ve found that I’m better at certain tasks depending on the time of day. So mornings I can deal with the tech side and keeping the servers alive, usually over breakfast. Afternoons I usually spend on the content side; editing, looking at author applications, reading my RSS reader. And I’m better at writing post-8pm. So now I just block my day off into three-hour blocks and I just stay with whatever task I’m on for those three hours.

    It has the advantage of not feeling like I’m going to spend my whole day on one task and since I know, “okay, I’ve got three hours to get this done.”

    I also tracked myself for a week to see where I was wasting time. I realized that keeping my email open all the time was a huge problem, because every new email was an interruption to what I was doing. Now I only check it once an hour or so, whenever the natural breaks in whatever I’m working on come.

    The bigger problem though was my RSS reader. It’s easy to lose a whole day just sort of mindlessly reading articles and tagging them in del.icio.us. Now, if I find myself doing that, I make a conscious effort to close it and get back to whatever I should be working on.

    How do you define your business relationship with Tucker [pictured below left]? Do you consider him a mentor?

    Tucker Max. Six foot nothing.He’s my boss and the owner of Rudius Media.

    He’s not a mentor in the sense that he’s looking over my shoulder and giving me advice or direction but he’s always been there as a resource. And as I’ve tried to learn everything I can about this business, it’s been invaluable having him there to bounce questions off of. A lot of what I’ve been trying to learn, he pioneered with TuckerMax.com, and so when I’m not sure exactly what the next step is, I can go ask him, “What do I need to do here?”

    I’ve noticed that most people who comment on your blog entries tend to write something like “oh yeah I can totally relate, this is just like what happened to me”, before they go on to describe a similiar experience they had. I notice this happens a lot on Ryan’s blog, too. Maybe it’s a wider blog phenomenon, but it seems really concentrated on the Rudius sites. Does this kind of reaction to your writing bother you?

    Not really. I’m usually so happy that people are reading and commenting that unless someone is obviously trolling, I’m happy that they’ve taken the time to hang out at my site. It’s not like I know my readers; they have no obligation to me to keep coming back and reading what I have to say. But they do, and that’s incredibly rewarding. That they then want to share their experiences is pretty cool.

    There’s all these articles out there about narcissism, and about how blogging and Twitter and everything else is just an extension about how narcissistic we’ve gotten as a society. I’m sure there are elements of that out there, but for the most part, I think people blog and Twitter and share on flickr and goodreads and del.icio.us and messageboards because they’re looking for a connection with other people. I don’t see it as narcissism, but as us really trying to connect by saying “here’s what I’m about”, and seeing if that resonates with other people.

    Yeah, the downside is that there are a lot of people blogging about their cats, but you know what? If that person has twelve readers, I bet there’s a cool little vibe happening where they all get to just geek out about their love of cats. It’s easy to shit all over that, but most people aren’t trying to do this for a living; they just want to find other people who share their hobbies and passions.

    So if my writing connects with someone where they want to share their experiences back, I’m not sure how that could bother me.

    Since I began reading your site a couple of years ago, I found it frustrating how little you discussed the day-to-day working for Rudius Media. It’s great that you’ve recently started to write more about that side of your life.

    I tend to write about what’s going on in my life and what I find interesting at the moment. With the movie tour coming up and with the movie site about to go live, Rudius has definitely been on my mind. But it hasn’t been a conscious decision to write more about my work, or what happens day-to-day. When I sit down to write, there’s no real decision like “I have to go in this direction.” I just write about whatever happens to be on my mind at the moment.

    If you like the day-to-day Rudius stuff, there will be a lot more of it coming up. I’ll be on the movie tour, and I plan to write every day, sort of what I did with the Panama trip. So look for that.

    What are your goals with the non-fiction element of BenCorman.com? [site banner pictured below right – dude in suit isn’t Ben]

    Fake Ben Corman standing in a fake suit among a fake building wreckage.I wish I had goals for the site. A few months ago, when I was having trouble writing post-Panama, I sat down and spent a few weeks mapping out my next novel. I’ve got a notebook full out outlines and character profiles and everything else that goes into a really big project. And for a few weeks I sort of nibbled around the edges, filling in parts of the outline or writing scenes, but not doing any of the heavy lifting.

    Then I had a pretty rough weekend and wrote about it in the entry about my grandmother dying (“January 22nd, 1917 – July 3rd, 2009“), and ever since then, the words have sort of tumbled out and on to the page. So I put the novel away for a bit, and I’m just going to ride this for as long as it’s fun and it’s working for me.

    I go through these periods where writing comes really easily and I have a lot to say; that’s when I really just love doing it. But as to where it’s headed or what the plan is, it’s pretty undefined. Just: do this, and see if people respond to it.

    It’s actually a dumb plan. I should be working on the novel non-stop so that it’s ready when we’re a big bad player in Hollywood.

    What do you hope others get out of your writing on the site?

    I hope people are entertained. Growing up, I read a lot. Even now, there’s nothing I like more than just killing half a day getting lost in a really good book. I don’t think my own writing is that strong yet, where people will just get lost in it for hours, but I hope that they sort of lose themselves in what I have to say – for a few minutes, at least.

    Finally, how do you feel about being interviewed?

    It’s harder than it looks in the movies. Like anything else, there’s this pressure to be engaging, to be funny, to be honest, all while still maintaining that fiction that I’m cool enough to be interviewed.

    I really hate reading interviews with people that I respect that are boring, because it feels like they’re not trying. That’s probably selfish of me, to want more than they’re willing to give. But now, being on the other side of the table … it feels like you’ve given me the chance to say something, and you’ve opened your audience to me. I want to respect that.

    So much of this blogging shit is just a shell game: it’s creating content because the template is to update (x) times a week on Y subject, and link bait sites A, B and C. In my own writing, I’m trying to get past that. I’m trying to create the kind of stuff I’d want to read, and not just create content because I need to hit that content template.

    So I’d feel really shitty if I just mailed it in with two line answers. But it’s fun too. And I can only hope that this interview turns out to be entertaining, or that someone gets something out of this.

    Ben Corman updates the RudiusMedia.com homepage most days, and writes mostly non-fiction at BenCorman.com. He’s joined Tucker Max’s movie tour in the lead-up to its September 2009 US release, which Tucker has blogged about extensively here. Contact Ben via his site or Twitter.

  • A Conversation With Jess, Sydney Digital Strategy Director and SomethingChanged.com.au blogger

    *facepalm*It just so happens that Jess is Digital Strategy Director at a mysterious Sydney advertising agency. She won’t say which, and she also won’t let me publish her surname. Or at leaIt’s not because she’s scared or nothin’, but on the internets, Jess is best known as the curator of a rather excellent blog called Something Changed, about which I wrote lovingly for FourThousand:

    “Something Changed acts as Jess’ digital scrapbook, where she posts about new media, advertising, online campaigning, representations of the self, kids today, words, writing and books, funny things on the internets, politics, art, ideas, music, work, food, and sydney. The result is an aggregate of content that you’ll probably find either funny or fascinating if you’re a twenty-something who spends a lot of time online – and since you’re reading this, it’s not an unfair assumption to make.”

    Jess, why did you start Something Changed? Was there an influential person or moment that encouraged its creation?

    I started Something Changed almost two years ago because I was fascinated by people’s behaviour on the internet and I wanted to document my discoveries. It was partly so I could archive and remember facts, figures and links more efficiently, and partly to have something to show for the immense amount of reading and research I do! I discovered Tumblr through Gawker’s exhaustive coverage of Jakob Lodwick and Julia Allison‘s relationship which largely played out on the Tumblr platform. Tumblr was perfect for me because I like to present raw data that interests me as I find it, rather than crafting long posts.

    Where do you find the majority of the articles that you link?

    On Tumblr you can post stuff you create, post stuff that you find online, or use their reblog feature (which is sort of an automatic “retweet” feature) to post other’s content with a link crediting them. About 75 per cent of what I blog is from the second category. I find it by either investigating a topic that interests my by searching and following links, setting up RSS feeds to my favourite blogs and websites, and by following people who I respect and who will post things I find interesting.

    Does your exhaustive online presence ever spill into your professional life? Do your workmates know of the blog?

    In fact the internet IS my job, lucky me! I work for an ad agency where I am the digital strategy director. Since I work on campaigns and strategy it’s considered part of my work. My workmates and bosses definitely know of the blog, I bang on about it exhaustively. In fact my boss promised to buy me a cake when I passed a big milestone in the amount of readers I had, but I passed it ages ago and he is still yet to come through. Two of them have started Tumblrs themselves. We all love the internet at work.

    Why the anonymity?

    Well I’m not really sure now! I was doing some big work for clients around which there is some sensitivity, and I didn’t want any posts to be taken out of context and my personal views being ascribed to the client. I think in the next few months I’ll probably get with the times and put up my full name. I’ve noticed all my peers in my industry do.

    Do you often give thought to how you portray yourself online and the legacy you’re building, or do you just throw it all out there?

    RING RING, BANANAPHONE!

    Something Changed started as mainly a vehicle for professional development and research and largely it still is. I barely ever talk about myself (apart from “I saw this, I read this, I ate this, I visited this”) or my feelings. So at worst it will be a record of what interested me at different stages of my life, which is fine. Thank god I have never posted a poem or ruminations on my relationships.

    What do you think Something Changed adds to the web?

    Lots of people in marketing and advertising view the internet from very very far away with a telescope. The world does not need another “how to be a powerblogger” blog or post on “how to measure social media ROI”. I like to think I see the raw internet – the amazing stuff people create, the intense stuff people say about their lives and feelings, the fascinating ways they represent themselves online. Then I try and distill that onto my blog. It’s like a little field study from an anthropologist completely embedded in the culture they observe. Having said that, I don’t recommend people see my blog as anything special – instead they should set up their own!

    As you said, you barely ever talk about yourself. But you also barely ever talk about why you find something interesting, or worthwhile posting.

    You’re right. I tend to like information that I view as primary sources – people who produce things from scratch, whether it’s blog posts about their lives of feelings, collating things that inspire them, producing amazing things likes videos or songs. Or academic analysis- people who take rigorous, well-informed approach to analyzing the internet and its sociology.

    I don’t have time for anything in between, that whole raft of “people who don’t really understand the internet talking in vague general terms about the internet.”

    I have things I definitely won’t post, like anything about swine flu, anything about that Best Job in the World tourism campaign, or tips to become a Twitter poweruser.

    Do many of your non-ad agency friends follow the blog? How do you describe the blog to a real-life friend?

    None of my friends that I’ve known forever are in the ad industry. They all read it, sporadically. When I refer to my blog I adopt a stupid mocking tone and say “my blawg.” If they ask about it I give a knowing smile and say, “I’m so famous on the internet you guys.” If a waiter takes ages to take our drink orders I’m like, “this would never happen to me on the internet.”

    You and I both spend a lot of time online. I’ve gotten to the point where I’ve develop a kind of bias in the way that I access information online. I start to overstate the way that I operate and assume that others follow similar methods; if they don’t, I become either amused or frustrated, depending on my mood. But that’s a curious aside. When did you become a heavy internet user, and how did your skills develop to the point that they’re at now? (Because let’s face it, good internets is a skill.)

    I know exactly what you mean. Good internet is definitely a skill. I am totally self taught, I didn’t even have email until 2000 or 2001. In 2003, someone at uni said, “email me a draft of your paper” and I said, “oh it’s pretty long for an email,” and then attachments were explained to me. I couldn’t use a digital camera until 2004. I couldn’t pirate music! It all sounds a bit embarrassing now.

    It was in 2005 then that I started using the internet heavily because I joined some forums. Before that, I had always thought of the “web” quite disparagingly, “who are these people? Read a book, or go outside.” Now it’s completely a part of my daily routine. It’s really changed my life – how I think, what inspires me, how I work, the people I’ve met.

    It’s helped that I can do it all day everyday at my work. Spending ten hours a day on something is a good way to get quite good at something. In every role I’ve had in my career, to do a good job I need insight into what people think and feel, a creative spark to generate ideas, and a plan to my implement strategy. So the internet is crucial to every single element, and my employers have always let me have free reign to work that way.

    Do you keep a private journal?

    No! I’m too self-conscious. If I want to remember how I felt about something, I do a keyword search in my Gmail and cringe at old emails I wrote my friends.

    How did you become digital strategy director at your agency? Was ‘good internets’ part of the job description?

    I met the CEO of my agency when I consulted on online strategy on a big national campaign he was working on. A few months later my position was created for me when I said I was ready for a new job – so there was actually no job description! I’m so lucky now that I get to do what I love with the cleverest team and the best clients.

    Neighbours: Fucking TerribleThe career path to Digital Strategy Director was not an obvious one. I was a journalist, then moved to Melbourne and could not immediately get a journalism job so I got a job doing the overseas publicity for Neighbours [pictured right *snigger*]. I only got the job because at the interview I told the producer, “You know it’s not too late to make Izzie’s baby Jack’s,” or something. Since I was spending my days trying to get freelance writing work I had had plenty of time to watch Neighbours fortunately.

    Of course part of my job was to look after the BBC’s Neighbours website. It was my first taste of a really intense online fan community. They had a forum and everything. I learnt so much from that job. That an official website will never be as fascinating as a fan website unless you let go of the PR reigns (why would you want to read about an actors’ theatre aspirations on our site when you could go to an unofficial site to read about their love life?). That fans create the best material, that fans really get upset if you make changes without consulting them. It was a crash course in Internet.

    Then I got to do my dream job being the Online Director doing national political campaigning, where I learnt about building movements – uniting people around taking action online and offline to achieve social change. Then I consulted on another big campaign, then I got this job. I always think of that thing people say, “the jobs the youth of today will be doing when they grow up haven’t even been invented yet.” At our Careers Centre at school they basically said girls could be Lawyers, Accountants, Gallery Curators or PRs.

    I’m assuming that you went to university. Tell me about your time there.

    I did! I went to uni to study English thinking I would have a career doing some kind of writing. In first year I became interested in social justice issues and for the first time paid attention to politics and current affairs. Before then I was strictly a reading, writing, art galleries, theatre type of person. So uni was fun, I did the student politics/share house/shop at Salvos/“feed yourself on $5 a day” thing until my last year. Then I got a full time newspaper journalism cadetship, and had to do my Honours year full time at the same time.

    Was that a difficult year? Did you ever question what you were doing?

    It was difficult. Fortunately it was things I loved doing – researching and writing. I’m also one of those people who needs to be busy to get things done. I like approaching big tasks (daily deadline of journalism combined with a yearly deadline of handing in a thesis) and strategically breaking them down in an efficient way. Having said that, I am never studying again. And whenever my friends say “I’m thinking of going back to uni,” I always say “NO! YOU FORGET HOW HARD IT IS!”

    How did you land the cadetship? Was it shit or awesome?

    I can't think of an alt-text for this one. It's a pretty sweet photo though, don't you think?

    I decided suddenly I wanted to be a journalist so I got a two week cadetship at a newspaper. I was lucky they gave it to me because I think now they only take people studying Proper Journalism at uni – a bit short sighted in my opinion, but I think it’s because the universities provide insurance. I got a story in the paper almost every day, including a huge feature on mobile phone use that was published in the Features liftout on the Saturday. The story is completely lame and I am so glad it’s not accessible by Google.

    After my two weeks the Chief of Staff said they were hiring a cadet, and would I like to apply? I said “yes”. I interviewed and didn’t get it – someone else did. But a few weeks later they phoned and said I could be a cadet anyway. So that’s how I got the job, and now the other cadet is one of my best friends. The cadetship was amazing. Every day as a general news reporter is different and being a journalist is like having a license to walk up to anyone and ask them anything you want.

    Do you read newspapers? Could you imagine being a full-time news reporter?

    I only read newspapers on the weekends: the Australian, the Sydney Morning Herald, Sunday Sun Herald and Sunday Telegraph. I get rid of all the Drive, Careers, Business and rubbishy sections. Then read the news, then the Lifestyle, then glossy lifestyle supplements. It’s a habit. Print will never die while people have weekend brunch routines to uphold.

    I can’t imagine being a full-time news reporter. I would love the thrill of finding a big story but miss the calming routine of planning and strategising in advance. I get a nice mix of thrillingly busy versus long term planning in my current work, so I wouldn’t go back.

    Lots of people view their time at university as instrumental in their personal development. What did you learn about yourself during that time?

    I learnt the same thing at uni that has proved true in the workplace. Studying and work (doing your actual job as per your job description) teaches you nothing. You have to do it and do it well. But everything fun, amazing, professionally exciting or leading to personal growth has always been thanks to things I do on the side. Whether that’s groups I joined at uni, friends I made on the internet, ideas and projects I’ve suggested at work, or new career opportunities I’ve conjured up. When I think about what my life would be like without my blog that I randomly started a few years ago… I just can’t imagine it!

    Something Changed is my favourite Australian blog. You’d best subscribe via email or RSS. Unsurpisingly, Jess is also quite lively on Twitter. Thanks for the interview, Jess!

  • ‘RiP: A Remix Manifesto’ Brisbane Screening and Music Industry Panel Discussion

    RiP: A Remix Manifesto posterI went to a screening of ‘RiP: A Remix Manifesto‘ last night, along with around sixty others. The audience included local promoters, distributors, musicians, writers and university students. Via nfb.ca:

    In RiP: A Remix Manifesto, Web activist and filmmaker Brett Gaylor explores issues of copyright in the information age, mashing up the media landscape of the 20th century and shattering the wall between users and producers.i

    The film’s central protagonist is Girl Talk, a mash-up musician topping the charts with his sample-based songs. But is Girl Talk a paragon of people power or the Pied Piper of piracy? Creative Commons founder, Lawrence Lessig, Brazil’s Minister of Culture Gilberto Gil and pop culture critic Cory Doctorow are also along for the ride.

    A participatory media experiment, from day one, Brett shares his raw footage at opensourcecinema.org, for anyone to remix. This movie-as-mash-up method allows these remixes to become an integral part of the film. With RiP: A remix manifesto, Gaylor and Girl Talk sound an urgent alarm and draw the lines of battle.

    Which side of the ideas war are you on?

    The screening was organised by Phil Tripp, who started The Australasian Music Directory, as well as themusic.com.au and IMMEDIA!. In addition to the film screening, Tripp organised a panel comprised of five Brisbane music authorities to discuss the film, and some of the wider issues that the modern music industry is facing.

    I transcribed the majority of this panel discussion – approximately an hour’s worth – because I want to share their thoughts and opinions with those who weren’t there.

    Some of their comments are valid. Some are misguided. Some are ridiculously outdated. I’m not going to point out which is which, though. That’s up to you.

    Note that this post is quite long – around 8,000 words.  It gets into some very specific topics. I have occasionally edited their words for clarity, and omitted a couple of uninteresting bits. But you should read it to gauge the five speakers’ beliefs about what is happening to the music industry. To save you scrolling up and down, I will repeat each speaker’s title each time they are quoted,  so that you can contrast their opinions against their commercial beliefs.

    Download links for the audio files are at the bottom of this post. Enjoy.

    [Tripp gives an introductory speech before the film starts.]

    Phil Tripp – Managing Partner, IMMEDIA! [pictured right]:

    Phil TrippThe future of music, the way we look at it, is about going overseas. But not giving up your home country. You hear my American accent; I’ve been here 28 years, and I always love to come home to Sydney. And for the set of trips that I’m doing this month, I found a film at South By South West (SXSW) – which is an event in Austin, Texas that I rep for this region – to show throughout Australia. We decided to show it, not because I’m a benevolent person wanting to educate you, but because I want to give you an idea of where the future of music is going, from one point of view.

    Now, this film is propaganda. It is a film that has been made with a purpose in mind, and a message. And the message is, that when I was a kid, my teacher told me, along with the rest of the class, that “tonight, we want you to go home to your parents and we want you to cut out little pictures, and things from magazines, and bring them in tomorrow, and we’re gonna take out the paste pots, and we’re gonna glue them all down on paper, and we’re gonna put them out on the wall outside, and we’re gonna make what’s called a collage”.

    Little did she know that that was a violation of copyright. Taking other people’s images and mixing them into a ‘mash-up’ of visuals. Back then it didn’t matter. Now, you people have tools that go far beyond scissors and paste pots. You have the tools to take music and turn it into a whole new form of art. And that’s great. Except I’m a commercial bastard. I have intellectual property – the Music Directory, and our site themusic.com.au – and if anybody wants to take my intellectual property, which is basically a phone book, and put it on their website because they’re believe it’s free because it’s on the internet, they will get a hot testy letter from me, with the legal advice that I may take their house, or whatever property they have.

    So I’m not exactly the kind of guy who believes that people should take intellectual property and steal it, and use it, and make money from it. The cool thing about this film is that it talks about somebody who has done just that, but he’s done it as art. But there came a point at which it crossed over into commerce. When I found out about this film at SXSW, I thought this would be a great introduction to the conference we’re doing in August…

    [Tripp describes his conference.]

    Phil Tripp – Managing Partner, IMMEDIA!:

    I think this is the most exciting time for you people to be in the music business, because although the recording industry has gone to shit, the music business is actually doing pretty well. Especially for the live side of music, or new revenue streams though mobile phone companies, or through internet sites, and also through the future of what will evolve.

    Anyway, I hope you enjoy the film tonight. I hope it makes you think. I hope you realise that there is the commerce of music, and there is the art of music. And the two don’t necessarily mix. Unless you’re going to make money and also share the money you make with the people that actually created it originally.

    [The film plays. Tripp then introduces the panel speakers.]

    Paul Paoliello – CEO, Mercury Mobility
    Rick Chazan – Manager, The Boat People
    Lars Brandle – Australasian Editor, Billboard Magazine
    Steve Bell – Editor, Time Off

    [The panel discussion begins.]

    [Tripp describes local initiatives to help Australian artists export their work nationally and overseas.]

    Phil Tripp – Managing Partner, IMMEDIA!:

    […]There’s another group called Sounds Australia, which this year helped Australian artists so that they were able to afford to attend SXSW and The Great Escape [Andrew’s note: Sounds Australia also appears to be run by Tripp.]. And there’s AusTrade, the Australian Trade Commission, which has been one of the greatest evangelists for Australian music from our Government in a long time. The Australia Council [For The Arts] has just this year got on board, after supporting the works of dead composers for many years, and forms of music called ‘opera’, ‘classical’ and ‘symphonic’.

    This year, it’s cool to be contemporary. They have put considerable money behind the need to take Australian artists to the world. Because, let’s face it, kids: you’re not gonna ‘make it’ here. You’re not gonna make enough money in this country, at this point, to actually have a living. So you need to have an export strategy.

    [The panellists discuss their thoughts and opinions on the film. I didn’t transcribe this bit.]

    Phil Tripp – Managing Partner, IMMEDIA!:

    Rick, I want you to tell us – because you have a relatively successful band here, out of Brisbane – have you made any money from mobile music? And if so, how?

    Rick Chazan – Manager, The Boat People [pictured right]:

    rick_chazanAs far as music mobile for The Boat People is concerned, it’s been an area which we really haven’t pursued. It’s one of those things that’s on the radar; everybody’s saying that this is the way in which it’s going to take over, and that everyone is going to be consuming music through their mobile phone. We’re well aware of that, but my understanding is that it’s very much a media that’s beginning, and as Paul described, it’s going to be dominated by what’s in the charts. Our music is distributed through Shock, and so Shock is working with different distributors who will likely make our music available on mobile platforms. But our mobile music income at this stage is negligible. And I’m not sure whether it will become relevant for us.

    Phil Tripp – Managing Partner, IMMEDIA!:

    Okay, what about iTunes?

    Rick Chazan – Manager, The Boat People:

    We work as an independent band with IODA, who is an aggregator for digital music. So our music is distributed by them internationally. In Australia, it’s through Shock. In terms of digital sales, our experience is that 80-90% of our digital sales are through iTunes. We’re on Napster and Rhapsody and all the different sites that exist, but iTunes is where the vast majority of sales come through. Digital is fantastic: it means that you’re very mobile, very agile, and it means that the band can be everywhere at once in the world very quickly. But it’s really the same game as it always was: “how do you sell records?” “How you sell digital?” And you need to be able to promote [the product]. Our sales internationally have happened through traditional means; namely, radio. In the US, we’ve had a good run with radio – we’re currently on about 20 stations, so we’ve had a lot of support – and when that happened, our digital sales on iTunes spiked considerably, and they’ve been growing since.

    Phil Tripp – Managing Partner, IMMEDIA!:

    What about YouTube?

    Rick Chazan – Manager, The Boat People:

    This is an area which is very close to my heart, because I think there’s such a great opportunity for bands to have an incredible reach by doing something very inexpensively. The Boat People tried to do something smart, and it didn’t quite work (laughs) We created a film clip for Awkward Orchid Orchard, where within the clip, there are clues for 54 band names, from The Beatles, to The Shins, to The Boat People. So we thought this’d be a fun game for any music nerd, and they’d share it with their friends. And it worked to some degree – we’ve had 20,000 hits, whereas our previous clip had about 5,000 – so it’s kind of worked.

    But there’s a Brisbane band called Blame Ringo, who’re pretty unknown. The band had an idea to shoot a film clip, where they got a friend to go to Abbey Road and shoot at the pedestrian crossing, to capture how people mimic The Beatles album cover. They cut a few pieces out of that and created a clip from their three hours of footage, and it put it up on YouTube using a few Beatles keywords, and in a few weeks they got, I think, around half a million hits. They had an interview on Weekend Sunrise, and they got a call from a US national TV show. This is a band that had absolutely nothing going on! This is staggering. YouTube is a fascinating tool, which if people are creative and thinking, they can use to give themselves a real ‘leg up’.

    Lars Brandle – Australasian Editor, Billboard Magazine [pictured right]:

    lars_brandleThat’s just making me think; going back to the movie, there was that comment about how the future of music will be less creative, because of the locks that are being put on copyright. But here’s this band, Blame Ringo, who have just shown us that if you’ve got a good idea, and if you can follow it through, and make it happen on a world stage. The technology’s in your hands. You don’t have to grab someone else’s inspiration, and rework that; if you’ve got an idea in your head, then you’ve got the tools to make it happen. So I don’t agree with that comment, that ‘the future will be less creative’. I think that’s wrong.

    Phil Tripp – Managing Partner, IMMEDIA!:

    Rick, how has your band been ripped off digitally? Have you got any stories of how you’ve discovered some copyright infringement?

    Rick Chazan – Manager, The Boat People:

    No, but we’re looking forward to when it happens (laughs) Nothing’s really happened like that for us, at this stage. I don’t think we’re quite famous enough to be ripped off at this particular point.

    Phil Tripp – Managing Partner, IMMEDIA!:

    You don’t have to be famous to be ripped off. You know what happened to me? Our music directory is online, and some people will subscribe to it and then they’ll pull down all the information. And we’ll find it, because we have little bots that search. We get people all the time who take our information and put it up on their website, like they’re creating a new music directory and giving it away for free. Man, I have had so much fun with them. There is a publisher named Deke Miskin who has a big house on the harbour. And Deke had some stupid intern take my information and put it in another magazine. We found it on the newsstand; I called him and said “Deke, guess what? It’s settlement time. Violation of copyright. You are now on notice. Do you want to go to court? Would you like me to shame you in the Sunday papers?” And rather than do that, Deke, being the man of honour that he was, paid me a whole bunch of money to shut the eff up. And then he withdrew the title from circulation. It was one of those little “how to get into the music business” mini-magazines, for suckers, for $6.95.

    Now, you’re in the magazine business, Steve. You’re in the new age of finding out that the print medium is being shot to shit, while the internet has everything for free. However, I must say that I do a lot of work with Street Press Australia; they’re one of our conference sponsors. What I find interesting is when Leigh Treweek [of Street Press Australia] spoke for this event in Perth and Melbourne, he talked about the whole idea of branding, and how his publications and street press in general is not going away anytime soon. He also gave some very interesting stories of how bands become brands. How do you see the internet affecting you, as a street press publication, and what are some of the more innovative ways that musicians can use your medium to push themselves ahead?

    Steve Bell – Editor, Time Off [pictured right]:

    Steve BellWell, there’s no doubt that the dissemination of information is definitely changing. We’d be fools to not realise that. We haven’t rushed into a web presence. I mean, we’ve got websites and stuff, but they’re just sort of token for the moment. We’re trying to work out the best model for going forward, and what it’s going to entail. We’ve spoken to a lot of people, we’ve actually hooked up some meetings with Craig Treweek, Leigh’s brother, this week in Sydney with some friends of mine who’ve got some really interesting ideas on the future of the web. It’s moving so fast; it’s very difficult to really work out. There’s no black or white.

    So we are very aware of it, but we’re sort of playing it by ear, because there’s no certainty as to the future. But we do realise that all the interviews Time Off has done are a resource. And by just letting them go each week, and not accumulating them into some kind of archive, we are, down the track, burning ourselves. We should be putting this together and using it as the resource that it is. At the moment we’re not; it’s just going into the paper each week, and becoming landfill, or whatever happens to it. We are addressing it, but it’s still in the infancy stages, I guess you’d say! (laughs)

    In terms of bands using us, probably the first thing that comes to mind is Savage Garden meeting through our classifieds, so there’s still that old sort of model. Don’t blame us for that! But the street press is just a different form of exposure. It’s one of many that you use. I can’t think of any real examples.

    Phil Tripp – Managing Partner, IMMEDIA!:

    What about brands using street press to push themselves forward to another level, like Chupa-Chups, for example, going onto MySpace? What sort of brands have done anything innovative with you in the last year that you can think of, and use as an example?

    Steve Bell – Editor, Time Off:

    Because it didn’t work very well, I can’t think of the company, but there was a media company that put a DVD on the front of an issue, who paid quite a bit of money to.. you know, often there’s things like that. Companies will use us as a way of disseminating their product, or samples, just because of our distribution channels. But that’s not really using our brand as such, it’s more using our pickup at various locations. Do you have anything in mind? I’m struggling to think of anything.

    [Tripp describes one of his magazines, Urban Animal, to the audience.]

    Phil Tripp – Managing Partner, IMMEDIA!:

    Lars, where do you see the future of the music industry here in Australia, and overseas?

    Lars Brandle – Australasian Editor, Billboard Magazine:

    Well, it’s the million dollar question, isn’t it? As a kind of segue to what you were just saying about the pet industry, and how “you can’t download dog food”; the one really, really strong point of the music industry in the last couple of years has been the live business. The reason why the live business is so hot is because people love to see bands, and you can’t steal a live performance. Unless you dig a hole under the fence at a concert, you can’t actually rip it off. So live performance has been booming. It’s absolutely been soaring in recent years. The future of the record industry, now, we are seeing the major record labels trying their hand at getting into the live business, because they realise, “hey, we’re kind of screwed here”. Revenues in the last ten years have dropped a lot, so to safeguard their future, the big labels are looking at investing in companies involved in live music. Or going out alone.

    In a way it’s desperate, because the record companies don’t have expertise in the live music business. There’s a lot of ‘shyster’-ing that goes on in the live business, and the record labels don’t really know this. They don’t know that sector of business so well. We’re going to see a lot of jostling in that space over the next couple of years.

    Sony Music are the first of the four Australian majors that have declared their attention to have a go; they’ve created a touring division. They’re co-promoting Simon & Garfunkel. Huge tour; there’ll be a lot of money on the table. If tickets don’t sell out for this, I’m sure that Sony Music will lose a lot of money. They will get their fingers burned, because it’s a tough business and they’re playing with some real sharks. Those Simon & Garfunkel world tour dates have only been announced in Australia so far, so the world will be watching here first.

    To date, the tickets haven’t sold out. We’re in tough economic times. No-one really knows if they want to see Simon & Garfunkel, either, or whether they can still ‘cut it’. It’s really interesting. From a journalist’s point of view, I’m interested to see how this goes, because for me, that is the obvious route that record companies will take – entering the live business – because live is hot.

    Digital.. everyone’s been talking about digital for ten years. Of course, we saw how the RIAA clamped down stupidly on Americans, in particular, but the international recording industry have done the same thing in issuing lawsuits against downloaders. It was a bone-headed thing to do, but they were desperate to get a handle on control of the dissemination of music. Now, the record labels are so far behind the game, they have to catch up. They’re also getting into bed with technology firms, and they have to. They have to get wise to the digital environment, because that certainly is the way forward.

    We’re not there yet. Digital music in Australia accounts for, I think, about fifteen percent of album sales, so it’s really ‘small beer’. Those headlines you read about “CDs are finished, it’s all about digital” – that’s not right. We’re still looking at 85% of record sales in Australia comprising CDs; although it’ll ebb away in time, we don’t know when. In a nutshell – and I’ve rambled on – the future is certainly going to be a strong live business. We don’t know if it’s peaked yet, and I suppose that it hasn’t. And digital will be the way forward, but it’s not here yet. But the record labels have a lot to learn.

    Phil Tripp – Managing Partner, IMMEDIA!:

    Two comments. Gregg Donovan, who is the manager of Airbourne, Josh Pyke, Grinspoon and a few other bands, talked at our seminar in Sydney about how he had been approached by major multinational record companies who wanted to do ‘360 deals‘ with some of his artists. For those of you who don’t know what that is, a 360 deal is where a record company wants to act as the manager, the touring promoter, the agent, the merchandiser, the publisher; essentially, everything.

    And Gregg went to them and say, “okay, I’ll tell you what”, to this American record company. “Let me see your t-shirts. Where are your t-shirts? You manufacture t-shirts? You’re a merchandising company? Take me to your t-shirt factory.” And of course, they couldn’t, so he said “no deal there”. And then he asked, “you have management? You have a management company within the label?” And they replied, “oh, no, but we’re getting it…” Gregg said, “no”. What happened here was Sony, aside from setting up a touring division, they also bought half of that doofus from Australian Idol, Paul Caplice [Andrew’s note: I can’t find this name online. Maybe I can’t spell it.] and David Champion, who I call “tweedle-dumb” and “tweedle-dumber”. They bought into this, and they found out that it’s a very expensive job that you have ahead of you, if you have incompetence running the management side of a record company. It’s actually very funny to watch from the outside.

    And I’ll make one more comment on what you said, Lars. Yes, digital is only fifteen, maybe twenty percent of revenue in our industry, but every download sale is a sale without physical product. Most albums print out a thousand for every hundred they sell. And it takes about ten or twelve failures for one success. So although physical product is selling more, it’s also destroying more. It’s being given away, it’s been put into landfill et cetera, because you can only buy it in a record store eight hours a day. With digital, you can buy it 24/7. Steve, tell us, where do you think it’s going?

    Steve Bell – Editor, Time Off:

    I guess it ties in with what you were saying about 360 deals. For the last ten or so years, most bands have changed the way they’ve approached revenue streams. I used to run TSP, the t-shirt printers, [who are] one of the biggest merch companies in Australia. We used to represent big overseas touring bands – Green Day, Foo Fighters, Chili Peppers, Nine Inch Nails, Tool, what have you. The amount of money that we’d make out of any given show out at Boondall (Brisbane’s Entertainment Centre), and I’d see the figures for the whole Australian tours, while knowing the costs of this stuff, it was quite remarkable. There was a fad of punk kids wanting to buy those fuzzy wristbands, which were selling for around $15 at shows, and I think if you make them in bulk they cost around 8 cents per unit.

    So bands who are focussing on touring, and merchandising, and the different revenues that come with that are changing their approach to recorded music. Instead of being a cash cow itself, it’s become a way of drawing attention to the band and their different revenue streams. I mean, they still want to make money from it, of course. But I think the one certainty is that there’s always going to be a market for music. People still want to create, and there’s obviously all of us here tonight as music fans. It’s just going to be a matter of how it’s disseminated, and how it’s received. I think it’s exciting, really, that all these new models are out there, and bands are discovering that they don’t need to spend so much money to make great music. I still interview a lot of bands, though, and more often than not, they’re not spending five months in a studio, they’re doing the bulk of it at home. Costs are going down, and there’s going to be a lot of changes down the track, but I think it’s a really exciting time. Music’s going to flourish, despite what the nay-sayers say.

    Rick Chazan – Manager, The Boat People:

    The future of music.. I don’t know, of course. But as a manager trying to help artists to flourish and survive in their careers, it’s quite true that the recording income from CD and digital sales are one or two income streams, but there’s maybe 15 or 20 income streams that flow from the recording. So how you look at it commercially is an interesting question. There is no need to despair in that sense: it’s always been tough, it’s still tough and it will be tough to make a sustainable career as an artist, but the fact that there’s a decrease in recording income shouldn’t be such a big problem.

    One of the opportunities which is here now is, because of the internet, and MySpace, and Facebook et cetera, is the ability to create communities around your band. And this suits some bands better than others, but I think it’s worth thinking about. A great example is a Brisbane band called The Red Paintings, who I’m sure you all know. One of the strong things about the band, outside of the music, is that Trash, the band leader, has a very defined, strong philosophy of what the entire act is about. And I think that’s very interesting. He understands it so well that when he talks to you, you’ll get it when speaking with him for two minutes. I spoke to him briefly on a telephone call and he explained to me that, with his live shows, the philosophy is that it’s about being able to express yourself creatively and freely, without hurting anybody. So that’s the essence behind his whole live show. When you go to a Red Paintings show, you’re allowed to paint, and have a lot of fun, and do things that you’re not allowed to do normally, but you can do it at a Red Paintings show.

    Now, with that, he’s actually developed a community of people that subscribe to more than just the music. They subscribe to this philosophy that he’s espousing. I don’t know if you know this, but for his last record, he put out to his fans that if they put in $40, they’d get their name on the CD. So a thousand people theoretically put in $40, and he raised $40,000 to fund his own CD independently through that. [Andrew’s note: individuum‘s Academy Of Dreams sponsored $25,000 of the $40,000 total]. I think that’s just something to think about: you [the musician] have the ability to create a community.

    The other thing that’s interesting is that the notion of status in our society is changing a lot. Status symbols used to be – I read this is a Sunday Mail article, so I don’t know how great of a reference it is – it used to be that if you had a gold Rolex watch, or a great house, that was a status that people would care about, that you’d show off to your friends. Now I think what’s happening is that status is more about the experiences that you have, and the ones that you can talk about. So if you went on a spaceship to the moon to have a party with U2, that would be something that would impress your friends, if you see what I mean.

    I think that what’s happening with festivals, why they’re succeeding so much, is that it’s not just about the music, it’s because you’ve got to tell your mates that you went to Big Day Out, or you went to Splendour [In The Grass]. It’s like a badge of honour. I think the other thing to keep thinking about is how you can create something that gives people that sense of good feeling that they experience.

    Phil Tripp – Managing Partner, IMMEDIA!:

    Please don’t tell me that you think the future is frickin’ Twitter. Paul, where do you see the future of music going?

    Paul Paoliello – CEO, Mercury Mobility [pictured right]:

    Paul PaolielloObviously, the barrier to entry to the music industry these days is a lot lower due to technology. Anybody can get into the business, but the bottom line is still around creativity. You cut through in this industry via your creativity. If you have something special musically, it’s going to cut through, but also in terms of reaching your fans; these days, it is about getting creative around building those communities, as the other guys have been saying. So the approach to this business, or career that you take, or this art form that you’ve embraced around music – it is more of a business, and you have to embrace it. Because it is so complex.

    The exciting thing is that you can take a more ‘do it yourself’ approach with music. There are many tools out there that enable you to create music, and to connect with a fanbase. And to monetise your music, whether it is, as Rick said, coming up with an interesting concept to get your fans to help you fund an album, build an album, sell a download, build a mobile community, or whether you want to get your music on iTunes. There is no barrier to entry to getting a sales channel for your music, these days, but it really does come down to being a lot more savvy around the music industry, and how to build a career around it. And as you go, to build up as much leverage as you can around your intellectual property – your music and all the things associated around it – and obviously, the multiple revenue streams that you are driving from your music. Whether it’s your recordings, or your t-shirts, your whatever; the more leverage you have, I guess that becomes the enabler for your future relationships with the broader industry. And that’s when the major record companies come along, and they start knocking on your door, and you’re in a stronger position to decide whether you want to work with them or not.

    These days, they [major labels] are really the bank that you need to make a big hit bigger, or a big business bigger. As the guys were saying, the major record companies are trying to keep themselves afloat, so they are trying to grab hold of what everybody’s calling the 360 elements of the industry. But they don’t necessarily have the skill set, or they, like everybody else, try to get fewer people to do more work, with less skills. So it becomes a lot tougher. But if you are driving those revenue streams, and if you are in a lead position, then you are in a much stronger position to determine whether that relationship works for you, on a 360 basis. Or whether it is only 270, or 90, or 10 [degrees].

    And I guess, having left the music industry in its tradition form and gone into mobile, my feeling was that getting into digital, I needed to build my skill set around this ‘brave new world’ that digital and mobile is becoming. In the last couple of years, as Lars was saying, it really is the tip of the iceberg. As Lars was saying, it hasn’t matured in any way, shape or form. Digital is very much driven by iTunes. Mobile is very much driven by the iPhone. And with the new application landscape, it is driving what mobile is essentially going to become. And that’s the exciting part. That access to music on-the-go, and having a device that is going to be all things to you.

    Phil Tripp – Managing Partner, IMMEDIA!:

    Okay, I’ve got to tell you that the future of music will have a lot to do with mobile handset manufacturers. I’d like to share my vision on the future of music with you, from an old fart who’s been around in the industry for 38 years. 38 years ago, when I got out of the drug trade – I mean when I got out of the fine stone trade – I was living in a small place in Atlanta, Georgia, on 14th Street, which was about one block away from Piedmont Park. One Sunday, when I woke up at about one o’clock in the afternoon, I heard this great music. I heard a guitar playing like I’d never heard, and two drummers. I walked down to the park, and there they were, in the gazebo: The Allman Brothers Band.

    They were playing every Sunday, live, free, and they were building a music community, at that time. That was almost forty years ago, and they’d been going for two years prior to that. When I was in the States last at SXSW, they did a run of the Beacon Theater in New York. They do it every year, maybe ten shows, over a two week period. And they sell out instantly, because they’ve maintained that community over many years. People believe in them, people who know their brand, wear their t-shirt, buy every single live album they ever do; they buy anything. There’s even a magazine devoted to them, called Hittin’ The Note.

    The future of music is this. I’ve experienced it and I love it. I buy music, I don’t download stuff for free. I don’t want worms, and all that other stuff [Andrew’s note: he is referring to viruses]. I want either FLAC lossless, or I want 256k downloads. And I’m not going to be getting that from all of my iTunes purchases. I don’t purchase here. I don’t mind saying it: I don’t buy Australian music. Most Australian music is for you people, the younger people. The last Australian band I bought was The Greencards. I have four of their albums. Most of you wouldn’t think of them as Australian music, you’d call it ‘bluegrass’.

    Truth of the matter is, I buy about $5,000 of music each year, and it’s not just iTunes. I would love for you to go home tonight and go to a place called Munck Music [munckmusic.com]. It’s based in the US, and created by a producer and an engineer who believe that if they recorded bands and offered their live music for sale to their fanbase, they could make a lot of money. Especially if like, Little Feat, they have a hundred concerts out there. Bruce Hornsby has about 50; the entire New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival has a couple of a hundred shows by artists up there. The Grateful Dead, and others [do too], including The Allman Brothers Band.

    I’ve purchased probably 20 Allman Brothers concerts, 20 Little Feat concerts, 10 Bruce Hornsby concerts, and you can get them one of three ways. CD: $14 (USD) for a concert, usually three hours’ worth. Secondly: as a 256k download. You can sample the music, you can view the setlist, so you can see and hear what you’re going to get. You can also get it as in the FLAC lossless file format, which means that it’s not ‘2 per cent milk’, like MP3s are; it’s more like ‘full-cream milk’. It takes a long time to load, and you better have a big account for it, and a large storage device. However, these bands have made a fortune from selling their own music to their own fanbase. And they also go on cruise ships, and take their fans around to Jamaica, or up and down the Mexican coast, or through the Caribbean, doing nothing but cruise ship shows, full of fans.

    The other place you’ve got to go is called Moogis [moogis.com]. It was started by The Allman Brothers’ drummer, Butch Trucks, who had an idea that when technology and downloads could meet the need for video and audio to be compressed reasonably, and give high quality, then that would be the time for a band to be able to sell a subscription to their six months of concerts, for users to pay $100 to see that show as much as they want. With backstage footage, various camera angles, and the full concert, in high definition, and with high quality audio. So Butch and the band started selling that, and I don’t know how much they’ve sold, but it’s worked for them. They’ve done extremely well.

    But to me, and you, the future of music is being able to create a brand with your band. Create an audience, and keep them as a community. Don’t ever lose that community you have ‘back home’, just because you want to go overseas and make it rich. The day you lose that is when you lose your career. [The future is] Selling your music directly to your community in any form you can, and especially if you’ve got a great song, selling it to them in ten different ways. Extended ways, mixed ways, whatever.

    The future of music is going to be about you knowing the business of music, too. Because without the business and the understanding of copyright, commerce, and a lot of other issues, you’re not going to be able to succeed. So I suggest that you line my pockets by coming to my conference, in August, because my future of music is dependent on you, too.

    The future of music of music for you [the audience] is this: get a job. Work with people who inspire you, and pay you fairly. And can give you the opportunity to do things. Don’t necessarily work for free, but ask lots of questions, take lots of notes. Watch, observe, and above all, be honest.

    What we want to do now, because you’ve been such a great audience, we want to answer any question you’ve got about the music business, or anything else you’ve got.

    Paul Paoliello – CEO, Mercury Mobility:

    Phil, just one thing. Google ‘Trent Reznor‘, because there was a case study that was done earlier this year at Midem, the music conference at Cannes that they have each year. They studied Reznor, who basically decided to revive his career, and looked at the whole digital model, and did a combination of offering his albums for free, offering limited editions, box sets, digital versions, hiding USB sticks at concerts, special versions hidden in storage drains as a treasure hunt based off his website. It’s a really interesting case study who is interested in trying to enable their fans, and keep their fanbase loyal, and building around that model.

    Phil Tripp – Managing Partner, IMMEDIA!:

    Music should always be about discovery. Questions, please.

    [Audience Q&A section commences. It comprises four questions and is fifteen minutes in duration.]

    Question 1: Just on Trent Reznor – if you look up a Digg interview with him, he talks about his entire business model, and it’s fascinating. My question is regards to copyright law: what do you think the future is going to be? How are copyright owners going to enforce their copyright? Will it go more toward the Creative Commons?

    Phil Tripp – Managing Partner, IMMEDIA!:

    They can take my copyright pen out of my dead hand, clutching it to the very bitter end. I’m gonna fight for copyright. Look, I have intellectual property. It’s boring, but it’s very lucrative, and my intellectual property has nothing to do with songs. I think copyright will continue to evolve, but unfortunately it will evolve very slowly, and far behind the ability for people to steal. Just like they haven’t figured out a way to stop people shoplifting yet, have they. Paul?

    Paul Paoliello – CEO, Mercury Mobility:

    Yeah, I was just going to say the same thing. The minute you open that door, the floodgates open, so they’ll never be able to move with the times. Country by country, it’s going to be different. That’s where a lot of the ISPs are getting frustrated, the Yahoos and Googles of the world, because they’re saying “well, cross-border, we’re trying to do this as a global thing, to try and clear copyright across borders, but we just can’t do it”. It’s still remaining territorial. Some territories are going to be more open to change than others. Here in Australia, they’ve been trying to change the law the for a while, and the cogs are still turning.

    Lars Brandle – Australasian Editor, Billboard Magazine:

    I’ll jump in here. I think that Creative Commons is a wonderful opt-in solution for people who want to allow anyone to use copyright. When the music industry initially shut down Napster, we saw Lars Ulrich speaking on the movie earlier. He made himself an enemy to a lot of people worldwide who wanted to use Napster to disseminate their music. So that a kid in Atlanta could be heard by someone in Peru. There are now platforms which allow you to do that, but I think that Creative Commons underwrites that, and enables people to create that copyright.

    But coming right back, absolutely, I don’t think copyright rules will change any quicker than snail’s pace, but anyone who has a vision and wants to create, should have the right to patent it and receive royalties, at least while they’re walking on this planet.

    Question 2: Do any of you have any concept – because I know it’s variable – just roughly what artists are getting percentage-wise for music downloads? Is there some ballpark figure to get ideas?

    Rick Chazan – Manager, The Boat People:

    If you sell music on iTunes, they’ll take their cut, which is 30%. And then the distributor will take their cut – typically between 20-25%. And then the artist gets the rest, so in the case of an iTunes sale, the artist will receive 70 or 80 cents per song. Which is actually quite good, because there’s nothing physical that’s being created, and you’re getting this invisible sale. The latest statistics show that only 5% of music online is bought, and the other 95% is ‘taken’.

    Lars Brandle – Australasian Editor, Billboard Magazine:

    We also have to look around at other ways of generating alternative revenue streams. There’s a fascinating case going on at the moment with YouTube, the user-generated content platform, and some of the major record labels who’ve nixed any of their content that’s available on YouTube. Warner Music‘s one of them. So we’re looking at transactions on iTunes as one way to make money, but in the years ahead, if your music is being used on these user-generated content platforms, you ought to – in theory – earn a cut of advertising revenue on that platform. This space is changing; there is money to be collected out there, but it gets very confusing, and very complex.

    Paul Paoliello – CEO, Mercury Mobility:

    Just on that, Gavin from Sony BMG often quotes a Justin Timberlake cases. When they brought out his last album, they found about 120 revenue streams for that album, at last count. So from a ringtone to a full track download, to a YouTube revenue stream, to an online radio stream, to a CD sale, and so forth, there was 120 different revenue streams, for that one release. And that was a couple of years ago, so these days, it’s probably even greater.

    Phil Tripp – Managing Partner, IMMEDIA!:

    The other side of the equation is – to answer your question more directly – it depends on how smart or stupid you’re going to be in assigning your music to someone to sell it. We use the term ‘aggregator’; these are people who take your music and place it on a variety of different sale sites. Some of them take a very small amount, such as Tunecore, who charge a flat fee to put the music up; they don’t take a percentage. Whereas others charge large fees and take large percentages, and don’t necessarily always report to you. There’s CDBaby, for example, which has been around for a while, and IODA, and Amphead.. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend the Australian alternative. The Orchard.. I’m ambivalent [toward them]. But the thing is, there’s a lot of people waiting to rip you off, just like there was with the compilation scams of many years ago. “Get yourself on a CD that we send around to all the A&R people, for a fee.” Be very aware that if people are trying to charge you a fee to put your music up on iTunes or wherever, you should very carefully check into them. Fortunately, it’s a lot easier these days to find out.

    Question 3: Something the film didn’t really didn’t cover is the role of the ISPs. I know from conversations that I’ve had with people from APRA, and that sort of thing, that they are trying to negotiate with ISPs to come up with a solution to this. What are your thoughts on the role of the ISPs in Australia?

    Lars Brandle – Australasian Editor, Billboard Magazine:

    We understanding of the argument is that ISPs are the ones who are getting the benefit of all the music being there – people going there [online], and getting free music – and of course the ISPs are getting their subscription. And the value of that subscription is incredibly valuable, given that you can get a whole lot of free music by going online. One solution that’s being offered up is that the ISPs are forced, in some ways, through some legislative creation, to track all of the downloads, including the free ones, and somehow compensate the artists. Similarly to the way APRA does, through the form of either radio or live [performance royalty fees]. This is just one of the possible solutions that are there; whether it will go down that way, is questionable.

    Phil Tripp – Managing Partner, IMMEDIA!:

    APRA is a great organisation that has done an incredible amount for the music industry, from bringing court cases and seeking judgements from tribunals, and increasing the amount of money that is paid to the composers, the songwriters, and their publishers. It’s a shame that the PPCA [Phonographic Performance Company of Australia] and ARIA [Australian Recording Industry Association] haven’t had the vision, the forethought, or the ability to do much more than ‘sweet FA’. As a result, fortunately, composers, songwriters and their publishers get paid. Artists often do not. And one of the interesting points that’s raised about this is that with all that money that was awarded to the record industry on the Kazaa case, the $54 million: artists didn’t see that money, and they won’t ever. One more question.

    Question 4: Okay, just before when you were talking about the royalties, about how artists generally get nothing, and where they’re making their money is through live performance.. why should we really care that we’re downloading their music for free, and giving it to other people? I would not know half of the artists that I know through free downloads, if it wasn’t available to me for free, because I wouldn’t be able to afford to go out to the stores and buy it.

    So in essence, when I’m giving all my free downloads to my friends, and the ‘word of mouth’ thing is working, and we’re all going out to the live performance when they come to town, and there’s more requests for them to play because we’ve had that whole word of mouth.. why should we really care if we’re really giving our money back to our artists anyway? Aren’t we kind of bypassing giving our money to the corporations and the record labels, by not buying their CDs?

    Phil Tripp – Managing Partner, IMMEDIA!:

    I heard it best said that “you may consider yourself to be an auto-enthusiast, because you like fast cars. But when you decide to steal that car, you are a thief.” And it’s not necessarily going to enrich General Motors, Porsche, or whatever, that you decided to steal that car. Now, what you just said made a lot of sense. A lot of people who download music do buy it. They do discover it that way. However, I really don’t believe that people like you are gonna be that generous when it comes to actually paying for things.

    Now, the same people who download music [for free] are the same people who try to get into clubs for free – get on the ‘free list’ – and stand outside the fence at Splendour In The Grass. The same sort of people who want to wear a phony t-shirt of a band, because it costs a lot less than the real thing. I do take your point that you are trying to discover music, and hopefully it [Andrew’s note: money, presumably] will reach the band. But I’ve been in this business a long time. I don’t see anybody out there who does ‘sonic shoplifting’ that really thinks altruistically about ‘the brothers’ in the bands.

    Rick Chazan – Manager, The Boat People:

    I agree, and I’ll add to that. What you’re saying is that it’s actually not bad for the bands, because by allowing it to be free, you’re actually discovering the bands and therefore, you can love them and maybe go and see a live show, et cetera. And so you’re saying therefore, it’s okay. But it’s got to be the artist’s choice that it happens that way. You’re still taking something which they’ve created and paid for, and put time and work into, like anybody doing anything. And for example, you might discover that music on MySpace, which the artist chooses to allow to be free; [to be] streamed, not to be stolen of off. You can learn about the artist through five or six songs; I know in The Boat People’s case, we’ve got five or six songs up there from the last two albums, so there’s a bit of a mix to get to know the band. You could listen to it all day long, and get to know the band, and want to go and see them live. And if you loved them enough, you’d actually have to have that CD.

    As an independent band, we’re losing that opportunity, and I don’t see it [inaudible]. I’d hate to come across as a moralist, but I have a problem that what’s being lost in the whole conversation is that it’s now being said that, because it’s easy to do, and everybody’s doing it, it’s ‘okay’. So it’s like, nobody’s saying to a young person, “look, this person actually toiled, they put their work into it, their effort into it, therefore they actually have value in it, and therefore to enjoy that, you need to actually trade for it”.

    Now it’s being said that because it’s so easy and because it’s so bloody hard to do anything about it, it’s ‘okay’. So, to me it’s not all about criminalisation, because I think that’s a waste of time, to sue some individual teenager for downloading a song. But it’s more about conscience. It’s more about, you know, when they asked the people in the movie, “who downloads music for free?” and all of their hands went up, and then they asked, “who thinks they stole the music?”, or did something wrong, and it was only one out of a hundred.

    See, I know about this a lot better than anyone, because when I was a teenager I used to record tapes. I used to do that, because I really wanted the music [from the radio], and I didn’t have enough money to get it. But I knew that it was wrong, and I did feel a little bit like my conscience was saying “this is not quite right”. I feel that we’re eventually going to the lose the consciousness of taking something from another person, and that’s the part that disturbs me.

    Phil Tripp – Managing Partner, IMMEDIA!:

    Great, that was perfect. I have one other thing to say. It’s kind of like: if you think you can get somebody drunk enough at a bar that they’ll screw you because they have no more control over themselves, that’s about the same way that I equate the moral ability to download music. Because you think you’re going to give somebody else a good time. That was a good one, wasn’t it? (laughs)

    [Audience Q&A session ends.]

    Download Phil Tripp’s introductory speech
    Download the panel discussion (I transcribed from 26th minute until the 67th minute)
    Download the Q&A session

    The film will screen in Brisbane at UQ‘s Schonell Theatre from June 4, 2009.

  • On Productivity And Procrastination

    If you spend a lot of time on Twitter each day, you start to feel a sense of vicarious productivity.

    Discussing links, chatting with several people at once, managing followers: none of it really matters, and yet it’s easy to lose sight of this when you’re immersed in it. 

    You think you’re achieving things by commenting on and distributing content produced by others. But unless you’re being paid to manage your Twitter account, you’re really just engaged in a highly interactive distraction.

    We’re only going to become more familiar with the presence of constant distractions. I have not a goddamn shred of research to back up this suggestion, so bear with me.

    Regular internet users readily switch between dozens of social applications, interfaces and conversations every hour: email, instant messaging, Twitter, Facebook, et al.

    Compare this constant multi-tasking to what our parents were familiar with: that is, concentrating on the task at hand – using the skills that you’ve chosen to build your career upon – before dealing with what’s ahead.

    I might suck at explaining it, but the skills that a savvy internet user possesses are radically different from the previous generation. And I’m not one to give much thought to generational difference, but unless I’m much mistaken, we’re learning to think in a totally different way.

    I’m aware that I’m extrapolating my own experience onto a wider demographic.

    But I’ve found that instead of regularly focussing on one single task, my attention is divided across several mediums. It’s rare that I can concentrate on one task from start to finish.

    Logically, this means that the quality of my creative output – be it a university assignment, a paid article, or an email to my family – is reduced, as I’m thin-slicing my thought contributions across hours or days.

    That’s the rational explanation: reduced concentration on a singular pursuit results in a diminished outcome.  But I’m not certain.

    I’m still adjusting to this relatively new method of online productivity. But I’ve no doubt that individuals who can successfully navigate a web of procrastination pitfalls will end up miles ahead of their peers.

    It’s like Tait Ischia said in my interview: “If all the kids these days spent the same amount of time writing blogs that they did on Facebook, then [the advertising] industry would be a hell of a lot more competitive.

    He’s talking specifically about writing, sure. Because he’s a writer. But apply his concept to your ideal pursuit: breakdancing, animation, video production; I don’t know, interior fucking design.

    The reality is that if you don’t work at your passion, you don’t get any closer to realising it. It continues to sit out of reach. That passionate carrot that you just can’t be fucked working toward. It’s the difference between putting the majority of your energy into becoming a widely-read writer and just telling everyone you meet that you want to be a widely-read writer.

    In this way, nothing about productivity has changed since humans started realising that they required more than just food, shelter and sex to live a satisfying life.

    So I suppose that the internet,  in the hands of the unmotivated, might just be a platform that has the potential to be a dense distraction. It’s the marbles, the skateboard, the comic books, the pool halls of previous generations, condensed into a single interface.

    Except it’s inside, and you’re probably going to learn fewer skills when traversing the internet for extended periods. But even that statement is wrong; you’ll learn skills, but they’ll be completely different to what you’d learn in a pool hall or a skate bowl.

    Historically, the people who are motivated toward an end have achieved things. They’re remembered. They won. And those who stood in the shadow of their achievements weren’t remembered. They didn’t win.

    Simpler: the people who get things done win.

    This post is a departure from the norm, because I clearly haven’t thought this through. But I’m okay with that. Stepping outside my comfort zone of pretending that I have the answers.

    How do you spend your time online, and how do you deal with distraction? Do you think we’re learning to interact smarter?

  • A Conversation With Hannah Suarez, Creative Industries Undergraduate

    Hi Hannah! You popped up on my radar at Noise Theory around 18 months ago, and from there I’ve watched you flit between (seemingly) a zillion projects, both in Brisbane and abroad. Come, tell us: who are you, and what do you do?

    Hannah Suarez, Brisbane Creative Industries

    I’ve figured that there will be two main details about me which are more relevant to your readers:

    a) I am the student representative and event coordinator for the Queensland committee of the Australian Interactive Media Industry Association (AIMIA), and 

    b) I am the founder of Brisbane Creative Industries (BCI).

    What are some of the other initiatives you’ve been involved with locally, here in Brisbane?

    To certain extents and with varying roles/tasks:

    You seem focussed on issues that relate to graduates entering the workforce. Is this interest based on your experience as an undergraduate? 

    Yes, I am currently studying QUT’s Bachelor of Creative Industries (Media and Communication). I will probably write more items for the undergrad audience seeing as uni have started because that reflects one of the environments that I am in.

    Issues relating to the workforce are big in general and because uni is one of my environments, I tend to write about topics relating to this environment.  I am also fairly involved outside of the web; I  speak at a new media and business panel at QUT and I’m involved in organising the student showcase for AIMIA Queensland last year. I received feedback that at least a couple of students obtained work from the showcase, which is great!

    If someone wants to talk about the workforce, they are welcome to have a chat about it with me.   I am interested in young people in the interactive/digital media, creative and enreprenuerial spaces. I understand that this is really quiet broad, and I may get feedback from 10 or 10,000…

    Everything you’ve ever published online will be visible to everyone in the world for the rest of time. Scary, or awesome?

    Thinking about the massive amount of information, including personal information, that is available online, say, in 20 years is indeed a scary thought.  I have a website that I made in 1999 and it’s still online!

    Assume that you’re a fresh graduate and, for whatever reason, you’ve entirely neglected to build an online presence.  You want to impress a potential employer with your mad web skillz. How would you go about it?

    When I think of ‘online presence’ I am thinking of having a central online hub with a certain objective (ie building personal branding) in mind.  For example, having an online hub where all of your relevant projects, achievements and more are available to be checked out by the user alongside a CV or resume that can be downloaded. 

    These can be:

    • Facebook/LinkedIn/Ning/etc groups that you have created
    • Links to formal and informal groups that you are a part of
    • Your blog, or just a showcase of the relevant blog posts
    • Any other relevant output, such as online accounts, PDFs of your portfolio, multimedia pieces, newspaper clippings, podcasts etc.

    I have deliberately added my blog link to my recent CV’s because I want employers to find my blog.  After a day doing job applications last year, the blog stats would peak.  I believe that there is a connection where potential employers look up the link in your CV because they want to know more about you, what you do, etc.

    You can get stuck in the details so perhaps pair up with a student who really knows their social media tools to help out.

    But what about those juniors who’ve yet to attain a start within their industry? Since LinkedIn relies primarily on workplace connections, how do you recommend that undergrads use the service?

    I didn’t use LinkedIn a lot until I started getting involved with the groups on a proactive level (co-managing or managing a few groups, being involved in discussions, submitting news items etc) and when I started using their widgets.

    Some suggestions for LinkedIn:

    • Upload your resume/CV/portfolio samples using the Box.net Files widget
    • Use Huddle to collaborate with your employers, colleagues or other students
    • If you have a blog that you are comfortable in sharing to potential colleagues/employers/industry people, there is a WordPress widget that allows you to share posts with the tag ‘LinkedIn’
    • Anything that you want to communicate to others concerning work experience, professional interest, etc is to be on LinkedIn.
    • If you are a Twitter user, you can use the ‘Company Buzz’ widget to key in certain tags (ie momobris) and keep track of who is tweeting about that tag

    I would get messages from people about, say BCI, and it would be easy for me to look at their professional profiles and see how they are coming from with their introductory email.  

    Are you at all worried about this here global financial crisis?

    It’s about how you approach this crisis that can really help you weather the storm. 

    I am really determined to make my commitments work for me and for anyone else involved in it (internally or externally).  I am inspired by a certain individual who has said that it will work, perhaps at a smaller scale due to tighter budgets, but it will work. 

    Face it with determination, rather than with defeat.  

    Great advice. What motivates you?

    People and ideas motivate me a lot.  I think that the key thing that I aim to address each day is how do I keep myself motivated? I find that people and ideas are a great source of motivation.

    Doing work is motivating in itself, yet at the same time it can be exhausting.  It’s an interesting cycle.

    Networking. Not the one where you sit in your room and build relationships with others based on your online identity; the one where you meet people in person (gasp!), shake hands, smile, talk and listen. What’re some tips you’ve picked up on your travels?

    Chances are, the people at that event will have a similar interest to you so use that as a common ground point for conversation. 

    Use your online networks to find out who else is going to the event – ie ‘Who else is going to x event?’ on Twitter.  Event organisers use Facebook or LinkedIn to promote their events so use that to introduce yourself.  

    I once went to my first digital-oriented event in Melbourne knowing absolutely no-one and thinking that I’ll have a free drink  on the bar tab provided by one of their sponsors, sit somewhere, just be really casual for about half an hour then leave.  I ended up having great conversations with people and left after a few hours!  

    Just go to networking events and be prepared for introductions and conversations. 

    Tell me about your creative partner, Roundhouse. How did that relationship come about?

    Saul Kallio Edmonds, the partner/producer of Roundhouse, has been a BCI supporter since the beginning and it wasn’t until January this year that we met after exchanging a few emails about doing a partnership together.  We have mutual respect for each other in what we do for the creative industries – for example, at a time when I needed to obtain a creative partner for BCI due to growth, Roundhouse had just finished work for IdN magazine, amongst others.

    Saul and I also presented at Pecha Kucha night at the Brisbane Powerhouse. I’ve always felt like as if I have a connection with the PKN presenters after my ‘moment’…a bit like an alumni.  

    Roundhouse’s involvement in the creative industries in Brisbane and beyond impresses me. BCI is proud to have Roundhouse as its creative partner.

    We’ve both grown up with the internet, and we’re only just beginning to realise the possibilities of the social web. Adelaide University has switched to Google Apps, for fuck’s sake. This is the golden age of technology, and as Communication students, we’re right in the middle. Awesome, right? What’s your ideal position once you graduate with a Bachelor of Creative Industries?

    I don’t really know!  So far, I’ve been asked to be involved in a national event (or part of a national event), apply for a job as digital producer for a large media company… 

    When I am finished with 2009, I will come out with The List which is basically a list of objectives, goals, outcomes etc that I want to see achieved – from myself and from others.

    Okay, smartie pants! Care to share any of those outcomes, or are you keeping ’em all to yourself? Or to broaden the question scope a bit – which industry do you see yourself most happy in, given that you’re busy sticking your fork into as many communication/creative power outlets as possible?

    I guess this means sharing a bit, generally, of what’s in The List.  I will have to do some research and reflection on it so I am hesitant to say what’s in it…

    I guess think of it this way:

    1. Develop an overall mission/vision.  I’m going to quote Edgeware because I think it is a perfect example of one and that is ‘Make money. Have fun. Change the world.’
    2. Address the how’s and the what’s.  How are you going to make money?  How are you going to have fun? How are you going to change the world?
    3. Then comes the meat, which is The List – it can be a guide to help you make decisions on ‘the how’s’ and ‘the what’s’.  It can be a list of organisations that you want to work for.  Or a list of position titles that you want to hold.  Or a list of things that you want to experience.

    Thanks for your time, Hannah. Best wishes for your final year of uni, and beyond!

    If you’d like to know more about Hannah, it’s best to visit her website at suarez.id.au.

  • Optus: The Problem With Making Promises

    While digging around for a place to recharge my pre-paid mobile account within Optus‘ labyrinthe website, I was greeted with the below screen.

    Click the image to view the page, which is live at time of writing.

    optus_fail

    The problem with making promises online is that you have to keep them.

    Starting up a monthly email newsletter? Then make sure that it’s delivered monthly without fail. Or don’t specify a timeframe.

    Building a new online service? Deliver it on time and remove all ‘under construction’ notes once it’s live. Or don’t specify a timeframe.

    Failure to keep promises can result in a loss of trust, or  a loss of business. Good thing I wasn’t relying on that incomplete online service, huh?

    Either keep your promises, or don’t make them.

    Yeah, it’s a pain in the arse, but do it anyway. 

    In Optus’ case, ensuring the validity of their web content would be an ongoing, full-time role.

    But it’s worth it, because tiny overlooked details can be costly.

  • Big Day Out Public Relations: Is Silence The Best Response?

    A 17-year old girl died from a reported drug overdose at the Perth Big Day Out music festival earlier this month, after taking three ecstasy pills to avoid being caught by police at the gate. This was an unfortunate, but unsurprising occurrence. 

    The surprising element is how Big Day Out publicity have marginalised her behaviour by silencing their highly active online community.

    A statement published on the BDO site on 2 February 2009 reads:

    Perth drug overdose statement

    Early yesterday afternoon a 17-year-old girl was taken to hospital after a suspected drug overdose at the Perth Big Day Out. Tragically she died overnight.

    While details have yet to be confirmed, it has been reported that the teenager consumed a number of pills outside the event to avoid being detected by police sniffer dogs that were in operation, in this instance with fatal consequences. 

    Big Day Out does not condone the use of drugs at the event.  The same laws of the outside world apply inside the event. Over 3 million people have attended the Big Day Out in its 17 year history and this is the first time an incident of this nature has occurred. 

    Sniffer dogs are commonly used outside large events like the Big Day Out and are part of the police’s harm minimisation responsibility. 

    The investigation is being followed up by the Police. 

    To respect the privacy of the family, no further comments will be made.

    In contrary to that final statement, there’s also a dedication page on the BDO site, containing a message from the girl’s mother.

    While the Big Day Out brand will remain untarnished by this event – it’s arguably stronger than ever – this sad occurrence is now inextricably linked to the event’s brand in the same manner as 16-year old Jessica Michalik‘s death during the 2001 tour.

    Where Michalik’s death was the result of inadequate crowd control measures – a mistake rectified from the 2002 tour onwards – Thoms’ drug-related death requires a conversation between Big Day Out publicity and the hundreds of thousands who attend the tour across Australia and New Zealand each year.

    Critically, the online community who follow the event have been silenced: the highly active Big Day Out forum was disabled immediately after the news of Thoms’ death broke, and it remains closed almost a month later. 

    bdo_closed

    http://forum.bigdayout.com/ as of 21 February 2009

    Silence isn’t the best response here.

    In this case,  Big Day Out publicity invite criticism by refusing to allow a dialogue to occur.

    The only publicised offshoot of Thoms’ death is a Western Australian police commissioner agreeing that “amnesty bins” should be installed outside music festivals, to allow punters to deposit their drugs without fear of prosecution. And to minimise the likelihood of festival attendees overdosing in a panic before entering the venue, as in Thoms’ case.

    There’s nothing new about youth drug culture. But when an unfortunate event such as an overdose occurs, people start asking questions of the police, of the festival organisers, of each other.

    In a time of crisis or confusion, people want to connect with each other. And while an isolated festival overdose isn’t the strongest catalyst for either impulse, it’s still an occasion better met with community encouragement than marginalisation; with noise instead of silence.

    I understand that moderating public opinion becomes exponentially more difficult as a greater volume of people converge in one location. The need to consistently and accurately monitor the fine line between opinion and libel is likely at the forefront of the organisers’ swift decision to close the public forum.

    Censorship aside, an alternative forum named Small Night In has sprung up following the closure. But many questions remain unanswered:

    • Why silence an established, highly active online community following a drug-related death?
    • Why not encourage a dialogue between festival attendees and festival organisers?
    • Why not partner with an established organisation such as the Australian Drug Information Network (ADIN) and encourage participation – both online and in BDO-sponsored community forums held in capital cities – to gauge youth opinion on drug use, so as to minimise the chances of a repeat e?
    • Most importantly: why not work harder to turn a negative event into a positive by reinforcing a sense of community?

    Funnily, I was only provoked into thinking about the BDO organisers’ handling of the Thoms death after I received an email  sent to the BDO user database advertising Lily Allen’s June Australian tour.

    Promote a tour; marginalise the voices of Australian youths itching to converge and converse.

    Poor form, Big Day Out.