Trust and influence

I received an email from a PR consultant at a high profile agency in Sydney today. He was offering me access to a report that was commissioned by the agency on the topic of trust. I’m quite flattered! In keeping with the theme, I’ll have to disclose a bit more information about myself before accepting the offer.

Timely letter to the editor

I loved this letter to the editor in today’s Australian Financial Review (I would link to the AFR website but the content is only available to subscribers).

The letter was submitted by David Beattie of Mont Albert, Victoria:

A great little club

As a small investor, I’d like to wish all the Australian finance insiders – the fund managers, executives, merchant bankers and lawyers – a great year. Although I could never aspire to your earnings, it’s great that my investment funds let me assist your wealth by voting for ever rising executive pay and allowing more and more bonuses and payments to high-priced bankers and lawyers. That fact that you guys are all friends – and therefore know how to reward each other with my money – makes it even better.

Surely, the sub-prime mortgage crisis and the subsequent credit exposure for the banks is a result of the cosy relationships that exist in the finance sector – a small community of wealthy people lining their pockets at the expense of the common man.

Unlike Enron, this fraudulent activity is endemic to an entire industry, which makes it hard to point the finger and provides Government with no option but to bail the banks out with our money!

Just heard that the Australian stock exchange lost $30bn today amid fears about a US recession.

Error message what?

For the last two weeks, I haven’t been able to buy anything in the Apple iTunes Store. Every attempt generated an error message number 5002. No further explanation of what I needed to do in order to resolve this issue within the error message and complete gobbledygook within the Apple Support pages. Its been a very frustrating experience and problem and one that has effected many people based on the number of entries on various message boards. Eventually, I found that by changing my password I could solve the problem. It seems odd that Apple iTunes is still issuing error notes in code language – the error message should tell the user exactly what they need to do or refer them to a page, which explains what steps they should take. It seems odd that Apple hasn’t got to this stage yet especially when you consider that iTunes is updated every five minutes. 

Hong Kong Return Leg

I am writing from Hong Kong. Half way back to Sydney. I got upgraded to Premium Economy – what a result! I gave the check-in girl a Nigella Lawson cookbook because my baggage was over the 27kg allowance but had no idea until I got to my seat. Had a great trip back to Europe, including 4 days in Andalucia, Spain. It was great to see the family and spend time with friends. Back to Summer in Sydney and work!

Reading a book called the House of Bush and the House of Saud. It is making me angry… 

Hong Kong

I am writing from Hong Kong as I wait for my flight back to London. Going home to see the family for Christmas and looking forward to it. Feeling very festive, having spent four nights in HK where Christmas caroles have been piped into every public space that I visited, where Hotel staff opened and closed every conversation with ‘Seasons Greetings’ and where I have seen Christmas displays that would rival anything in London. I also visited Macau on this trip, which took the Christmas theme a step further again. We flew by helicopter from Hong Kong. I am now waiting at Gate 36 with free wifi courtesy of PCCW. Hong Kong is a great place but I was struck by its thirst for energy – lights everywhere, everything automated, air conditioning set to ‘frosty’, busy busy business everywhere.

The last few weeks have been hectic at work, spent a lot of time on work or personal social dos when not in the office. So no time to blog. Will hopefully find some more over the holidays but there’s no guarantee. I never got around to blog about the Social Networking and Business Collaboration event that I attended in Sydney.

Seasons Greetings  – one of my New Year’s resolutions will be to become a serious blogger.

A pragmatic future

I am not a religious person but it’s good to see religious leaders use their position to raise important issues that affect us all. The Archbishop of Canterbury came out and said what most people already think about the Americans and their imperialist agenda. He has also provided his view on what the Americans (and the West, in general) need to do to regain the moral high ground and I agree with him.

It amazes me that in these apparently transparent times with almost immediate access to information and breaking news our leaders can carelessly throw their weight around while wrapping the whole exercise up as some sort of freedom march.

With Blair, Howard out and Bush on his way out, perhaps we can look forward to a period of pragmatism over dogmatism… I’m convinced that it doesn’t have to be this difficult.

New look and feel

I didn’t mean to but I just spent three hours messing around with templates and CSS. I am happy with the final outcome, its a big improvement on the basic WordPress template. It was an equal mix of luck and judgement – at one stage everything was on top of everything else.

Right…I am supposed to be doing chores. My neighbour hung up my washing for me, which was nice of her. Now going to Bondi to do some shopping and to drop off a couple of Sufjan Stevens CDs to my mate Alex.

A fine example of collaboration…

Australia tends to follow the rest of the world and this is the case with social media. The adoption of social media by corporates in Australia is nascent. The country is in market maker mode - a time when influencers should come together to help develop and educate, which makes it hard for me to understand the thinking behind the scheduling of two relevant events in Sydney.

ACE’s Online Social Networking and Business Collaboration and IIR’s Enterprise 2.0 will take place in Sydney on the same dates 3, 4, 5 December.

Now that’s a fine example of collaboration….this country!  

I’v already opted to go for the ACE event (I am a bit worred that they felt the need to use the word ‘Online’ in the title of this event, by the way) but the Enterprise 2.0 line-up looks really good.

A twat…

…is someone that uses their horn excessively after midnight in a residential area, such as Kings Cross in Sydney…

The bleeding obvious

Can someone tell me why when I log into Yahoo.com, I get a little pop up asking me if I know about the .com.au site. This happens every time I log-in. The degree to which this annoys me is disproportionate to its size and significance, but annoy me it does. Similarly, calling a bank or a taxi booking service and being forced to listen to the following message; did you know that you can bank/book taxis online at www.whatever.com?. Its fine to remind me once but not every 2 minutes – that’s just plan annoying. Yes, of course I know but would I be calling you if that was a more convenient option for me?