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I am almost uncontrollably pissed off today. I heard about this: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/03/10/2512341.htm
Apparently this happened over a year ago, but we are only hearing about it now.
I want to see the Directors, Management and direct workers held reponsible for killing a man who’s crime seemed to be that he was aboriginal.
I am not happy.
hpfm BLOG gets mashed. well a bit of mash mashup on the way… a mashup can be any way of presenting information in a concise way. It could be from multiple sources or one source presented in multiple ways. we’ve added some google tech news on the sidebar and some open source news articles as well so that you can get a lot of info in the one page and save your finger clicking RSI. hpfmBlogs has just updated to wordpress 2.7, for those who know wordpress will understand how good that is! hpfm is also the sponsor of free blogs using wordpress on pagesforevertry it out for yourself
Keeping you up to date with mashups, APIs and the Web as platform.
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Australian digital rights organizations are applauding the high turnout in a country-wide demonstration against…
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GetUp.org.au is a new independent political movement to build a progressive Australia. GetUp! brings together like-minded people who want to bring participation back into our democracy.
Today saw the current federal government cave into Australia’s filthiest companies and consigned the Barrier Reed, Kakadu and probably the Murray Darling System to history.
Given the chance to show that we truly understand how important the condidtion of the worlds atmosphere is, our representatives bubkled at the knees and gave i because it seems too hard.
They even decided to reward the most digusting forms of environmental vanadlism with an extra $4billion AUD. This is equivalent to giving Rothmans money to fight lung cancer!!!
I thought the Rudd government was serious about this, but it seems oiling squeaky wheels is more effective if you want to stay in power.
This effort gets 3/10 simply because they announced a target - paltry and pathetic as that may be.
I guess its still slightly better than the other lot.
But either our kids, kids lose, severely.
I guess we become the titleholders of ‘most selfish lifeform ever’
I thought I’d take the opportunity of my first post to quickly outline and wholeheartedly endorse our employee health scheme.
Barry has personal experience of the problems caused and exacerbated by computer terminal use, and decided to bring in an expert to advise us on our desk ergonomics, posture etc. Before we knew it we had all signed up for a weekly one hour training session at the nearest park. I was envisioning some stretches and some hippy ‘how-to-sit’ lessons, but what we ended up with was pretty much a personal training session like you’d find at a gym, but with emphasis on exercises and stretches relevant to our jobs. And the best bit is that it’s actually quite fun (even after a couple of months).
The good points:
The bad points:
So as you can see it’s 100% good news, there’s absolutely no down-side at all!
I was looking at the Rocky Mountains Institute web page directed to transport, which follows watching The Daily Show last night in which I heard for the first time someone saying that the smart way ahead is to plan for the termination of our dependence on fossil fuels. The RMI is planning for the end of oil, Australia I would propose needs to plan to eliminate coal mining by 2050 as well.
Why kill the goose that laid the golden egg? Because someone is going to work out how to produce power without pollution. That person, company, group or country will have a mortgage on the future. The market economist must admit that with the climate situation as it is, there is definitely demand there.
In the Daily Show interview the ‘bubble’ nature of economics was discussed. That is we had the first wave of internet players, this created a hyper infalted bubble that crashed and cost a lot of people lots of money. When the dust cleared we had this amazing resource called the World Wide Web which is now core to most of world trade.
We can look at Coal in the same way. We currently have a hyperinflated buble of coal generated power networks. Once this bubble bursts, there will be huge costs and business failures etc, BUT we will be left with highly valuable power networks that the new generators can leverage.
But how do we get there?
2 ways:
Of course we cant see thus happening for a while because of the outrageious lobbying power that these organisations have.
Coal Miners, Oil companies etc may well employ a lot of people, but the damage they are doing to us is now measurable and must be acknowledged.
Protecting these dinosaurs serves noone, we must see them off the premises for our own good, regardless of how good they make us feel.
As Juanita heard a few weeks back, I have finally changed my ring tone!
For that past few years, I’ve spent most of my time trying to attract senior and executive leaders to the need for simple, strategic and long term thinking about the lifecycle of their organisations. The advances in information management technologies, well ordered information exchange and systems of identifying, locating and storing everything that organisation provides an opportunity of accelerating value over the long term.
So why is that a strategic view of the activities of the business, intolerance of empire building and good governance falls of deaf ears?
Why?
From time to time, I hope to return to this theme. I suspect it is to do with a shift in value from the means of production to the means of manipulation.
5 votes from Juanita
1. Learn Linux.
2. Carefully scrutinise any vendors wishing to place chocolates for sale in the office.
I still remember that ill-fated day like it was yesterday. Actually, it was a couple of weeks ago.
Above the constant gurgle of salivating stomachs, Travis and I heard the shrill ring of the reception bell. Pale, weak, and undernourished, we dragged our feeble bodies to the office entrance to meet our smiling visitor. I remember her teeth twinkling a blinding sparkle like a dental whitening commercial. She may have also had a halo above her head; but that fact I would need to verify with Travis.
Our attention was quickly diverted to the box in her hands. I’m sure everyone has seen a charity honesty box before - for a trivial amount placed into the top, you take a sweet or chocolate, and the profits go to the displayed charity. This box looked much the same, and I quickly noticed the familiar white MS (Multiple Sclerosis) logo printed on all sides. I was later to notice another logo next to it - admittedly just as large, but unfamiliar, and in a colour scheme that blended into the background a little. The box was filled with dangerously tempting snack size chocolates. I momentarily stumbled as my groaning stomach saluted this mysterious bearer of the solution to every females problems. Delicious chocolate.
Would we like to place this box in our office for staff and visitors to purchase snacks from? Why not… in fact I believe I responded “well, it’s going to a good cause.”
Naive as it may have been, the moment I recognised the well pronounced charity logo coupled with the honesty box system that I know to be used by charities; the idea was cemented into my head that this was a charity operation. Eager to get back to work 
I didn’t give it any more thought and sat down feeling slightly elevated about the fact that we were helping the world just that little bit more. And that, as the lady had reasoned with me, I would normally buy snacks during the day anyway - now I have some smaller, cheaper, more convenient options.
I guess Phil has either been swindled more times than I, or he is just less prone to painting strangers in a rose coloured hippie light full of love and flowers and puppies - because the first thing he noticed was the other logo on the box; the logo of the company profiting from the sale of these snacks and donating (as Phil found after investigating) only a PORTION of their sales to MS. In fact on one side of the box it said “thank you for your support of [company name].” Within an hour Phil had emailed the company to find out exactly what piece of the pie the charity actually gets, and he received a response that the percentage could not be disclosed. He was however given a dollar figure of how much they donated last year, which means little without knowing precisely how much their total profit was.
Barry and Phil must have calibrated their bull**** filters that day (or more realistically - here’s further proof that I need to upgrade my own) because as soon as Barry next strolled in (well its actually more of an excited bounce) he was on the box like a hawk and asked the same questions that Phil had earlier.
What I didn’t expect, was the fact that 2 weeks later, it is still a emotional topic, inspiring colourfully worded discussion vehemently disapproving of the business model of the snack company. To quote Barry, it is “parasitic”.
All jokes aside, I do agree. While it is a great thing that this company is giving to charity, the box and honesty system seem to be cleverly designed; to masquerade it as a wholly charitable operation. The logo of the profiting company could be mistaken for being the manufacturer of the boxes; nowhere does it clearly state who gets what. And of course, with a charity logo all over the box; people are far more likely to heed the printed request “Your honesty is appreciated.” A truly commercial snack business would have a lot of trouble requesting such honesty.
Just to clarify - we are actually all well fed here. In fact, our office is akin to the cartoon depictions of heaven - entirely edible. The walls are made from candy, chocolate, and other goodies. My phone is made from strawberry donuts (speaking of phones, have you heard of the next big thing - VIBOKO?) We resist urges to munch into the office though, as then we wouldn’t have a place from which to deliver fantastic solutions to our much loved customers
Travis (on phone): “What’s wrong with your phone? It sounds like a squirrel eating a nut.”
“Once the mind has been stretched by a new idea, it will never again return to its original size.”
- Oliver Wendell Holmes
Well after only 5 years, I have the company blog running. I have only recently decided that we can start to tell out companies story and see what we can do to grow our networks.
It is quite late here so, I will head off to bed now, but I am looking forward to making my notes here.
Back soon…
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