My Dull Phone post has been the most popular to date (i.e. it’s had more than 5 readers). This is unfortunate because I felt it was poorly researched and quite lame. I guess the lesson here is to blog on topics that have everyday appeal to large audiences if I want to increase my number of readers. In the post, I basically complained about the mobile phones on offer at the moment and how dull they are (haven’t experienced the iPhone yet).

There is a great Malaysian restaurant near the office, which does awesome Prawn Mee. They give out free Asian style noodle soup spoons like the one pictured, except they are white. I think someone should launch a phone with this form factor, its tiny and would be cool - somewhere between an ear piece and a fully fledged handset. You might not be able to include many features but that’s OK. 

It’s been a while since my last post. Need to re-focus on the blog. I’ve been busy winning soccer championships with my Sunday league side Lokomotiv Cove (affiliated with the Sydney FC A-League team) and trying to get healthy.

On the digital front, I joined the PRIA’s social media committee, which should be interesting and booked myself in to attend Online Social Networking and Business Collaboration World in early December. I joined a Social Media & Public Relations group in Facebook. 

I’ve been working on a Search Engine Optimisation project for a client (which is really interesting) and also a blogger relations program. I have digital proposals to work on this afternoon for clients. It’s all go.

I attended the PRIA NSW State Excellence award presentation last night, with some teamies! We picked up a couple of awards in health related fields. The event was OK but over-priced.

I also improved my Windows Movie Maker skills (creating a couple of vides, one for a colleague who is leaving the agency after ten years), purchased a guitar and a how to play book and booked my flights back to the UK over Christmas.

I saw Daniel Kitson at the Opera House last week in his one-man stage performance, C-90. The story focuses on a guy called Henry who works at a storage ‘facility’ for unwanted compilation audio cassettes. It’s Henry’s last day in the job after more than 20 years and he - for the first time - receives and listens to a tape that has been sent to him. The remainder of the tale focuses on Henry’s detective skills as he tries to work out who sent the tape and three or four other local personalities. It was very much like this. Very funny, touching, insightful and clever. Daniel Kitson is pictured, he also does stand up (I saw him in Newtown last year and he was brilliant).

I attended a panel discussion last night at the Sydney Museum. The theme for the ‘debate’ was: blogging is as useful as talkback radio. No one could decide if talkback radio was useful - the inference was that it wasn’t useful at all. So we were drawing comparisons against a benchmark that didn’t exist.  

Most of the panellists were a little bit disparaging about talkback radio, as am I. It rarely leads to a high brow debate, at least not while I’ve be listening. The same could be said of comment boards on mainstream media. For this very reason, Fairfax has to moderate its ‘blogs’ for fear of being found liable for the views of its readers.

The panel treated journalist blogs and independent blogs as one and the same, which isn’t helpful. The Internet provides a means by which the mainstream media can interact with their audiences who are associated by a publisher’s masthead but its the blog that places power in the hands of the individual to build a community that is brought together by a common geography, interest, experience, orientation or point of view. Journalist blogs have to be commercially viable, they have to add something to the brand, they need to attract readers.

The panel talked about the low levels of blogging in Australia - a genuine point of debate. Very few corporations blog and various reasons where put forward for this. I didn’t agree with one panel member who said that CEOs should get their flunkies to write on their behalf - I think he misses the point. 

There was a nice moment, when the panel were asked to name their favourites blogs. Chris Gilbey chose a blog and the blogger happened to be in the audience.

It was telling that Fairfax representative who spoke the most about the commercialisation of blogs couldn’t - when asked - name a blog that didn’t belong to Fairfax.  One wondered if she is active in the blogosphere at all, perhaps it doesn’t matter or maybe she just isn’t a big fan of user generated media… 

Bush slips up… with OPEC gaffe. How the flip?

Its the APEC day off for Sydneysiders (unless they live past Penrith). The sun is shining - maybe APEC isn’t the bad after all. Its not clear if the meeting has achieved much so far. I reckon the meetings should be televised or open to the public. All this fuss around APEC and I don’t think many people have a clear understanding of what’s on the agenda - apart from the environment. The US has lined up a Summit in three weeks on this topic - will much happen in Sydney? The Australian Government did a really bad job of explaining why the conference is happening in Sydney, and providing information about its objectives, or why this is a good thing for the city and country. Bush publicly endorsed Howard yesterday, not sure if that was a good move for Howard but how would you explain to Bush that his seal of approval might do more harm than good.

Gangs of police roaming the streets, fire engines cruising the CBD, choppers above the city, jet planes on the horizon. Sydney is in lockdown for APEC Australia 2007 (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation). 19 leaders from the Asia Pacific region plus George Bush and Felipe Calderon, the Mexican President are going to be in town (for reasons that I don’t understand. Yes, I know they border the Pacific but so do lots of other countries - dodgy!).

Alison Rehn covered this in today’s The Daily Telegraph:

President George W Bush will arrive tonight on the $400 million Air Force One - a mobile command centre designed to withstand a nuclear blast - with an identical Boeing 474 in tow as a back-up.

Following both aircraft is another 747 for everyone else, including 150 White House journalists, medical staff, advisers, public servants, Secret Service agents, dogs and cooks, plus two or three transport planes to carry the presidential helicopter, Marine One, and dozens of motorcade vehicles including limousines, Secret Service wagons, VIP guest vans and an ambulance.

They reckon its between 250 and 300 people in total. They’ll be closing down streets to transfer Mr. Bush and the other leaders from place to place. Apparently, Bush has technology which can disable mobile phone coverage within 300 metres of where he is at. Presumably the cameras still work if you want to take a picture.

The city is on high security alert and people advised not to enter the CBD without identification. The New South Wales government is spending $300million to host the conference, which covers the 3 metre high fences that are in place across the city, to prevent protesters.

I’ve heard that they are closing and securing an area on Bondi beach for the wives.

It remains to be seen if this is actually going to affect yours truly other than this Friday, which is a day off. It makes me wonder if any terrorist is really interested in killing George Bush when everything he has done has played into their hands. Funny to think, that many sane Western people can’t wait to get rid of him.

I’ve been interned under Australia’s new terror laws if things go quiet.