Skatepark designed by champion & architect

I’m fascinated by the way people interact with the spaces they inhabit and visit.  Everything from the way rooms are lit by the sun and by the lights around us; to the very set-ups of Macs and PCs at our desks – think about it: this is where – in our industry anyway – we spend so much time here, the influence of the objects and spaces we inhabit is enormous.

But what is greater still is the consideration and dynamic designs of the spaces people move in. And skate parks are a testament to that.

Former European skateboarding champion and architect Matthias Bauer of MBA/S Associates has designed a skatepark and youth club in Stuttgart, Germany.  The skatepark is conceived as a combination of the three parts defining modern skateboarding: Street-Plaza, Bowl-Area and king size Vert-Ramp.

Think about the ebb and flow of skater, the desire to push through space.  To challenge and defy the forces of gravity and friction.  And to make that experience second to none.

When we were putting on concerts and events – it was about transforming spaces.  A creative process I still enjoy today: music, lighting, performers and audience. But this is about creation.

Our very physical context – our momentary cosmos – is often over looked. So next time you’re in the office, in a park, moving through a gallery, house or purpose design space – take note of the way we interact with the very space around us.

This is the first category I’ve added to the blog in 12 months, and I want to go back looking at the way we interact and experience events, spaces and live process.

Twitter updates email notifcations after tweets

Twitter recently updated their email notifications to include what I consider vital information: bio, followers, pictures and how many tweets.

Not only does this overcome email fatigue – and possible missing great people to follow – it also gives you an indication of what type of people are following you and maybe even why!

I’d like to say this is thanks to ME hehe and others who supported my recent call.  Twitter, thanks for listening. We <3 you.

When we find out if we’re managers or leaders

I think we all want to be leaders or be lead, few us want to be managed.

Most of us by now will recognise that there are some very key differences between managers and leaders – and being one doesn’t necessarily nullify the other, nor does it guarantee you’re able to do both.

I think the moment we find out is much clearer to those we manage or lead: stress. It’s all about when the shit hits the fan: when we’re having an “emergency” when clients threaten to pull, when our ego is at stake: are we still checking the leadership “check-boxes” or are doing “what needs to be done” and holding everyone accountable yet no one responsible.

I think it’s at times like these when our true leaders shine, and our faux-leaders fall. When suddenly all that talk becomes nothing more than something we say, rather than something we believe.

Key Leadership Indicators

1. Your staff work (or follow) out of passion and commitment, rather than fear and reluctance
2. You are still “leading” your staff when you’re under pressure
3. You still put your people first, even when clients are willing to destroy you

I’ve used a lot of you statements. Maybe that’s my mistake. It should be collective – we’re all in this together. None greater than any other.

We are however, greater than the sum of our parts.

Some of my favourite leaders: Andy Jamieson, Scot Ennis, John Butterworth

Valentina: Her first revolution of the sun

Year Zero

Today marks the beginning of my 24th revolution around our great star. Born when the binary stars of Cancer in M44, the Beehive Cluster,  were in the sky, in a the capital city of Colombia.  The revolution past was one of the most tumultuous; the most powerful and yet the most rewarding. I’ve never grown more.

First up: massive shout out to this particular context – the digital one – massive thank you to every who supported my recent move to Weber Shandwick, to Hannah, Andy, Scoto and the rest at Switched On Media for a foundation second to absoloutely none (and for putting up with me).  The mentors in my life: Scooter, Gavin, Ian, Mark, Scott and Katie.

Going Home

As promised at FastBreak’s Are You Alone? forum today I’m also launching my Adopted From Colombia project – where I’m encouraging all children adopted from Colombia to share their stories, as well as the parents of adopted children, or the parents who have adopted-out children.

This is just the beginning, and a story, resource and piece I hope to build with many from around the world.  If you, or someone you know, would like to be involved: I invite you to share your story.

23 Revolutions Of The Sun

Twenty-three revolutions of our star
And I’m less afraid, a little less far
From the distant cloud of stellar nursery
Its brilliant colour still blinding me

Everything is always beginning
A new symphony is always  singing
As everything we know is ever ending
We are ever changing and ever bending
It is forever year zero

The little big things

Do you know someone who has a skill most people over-look or under-value? Share them. Let them know. So many things go un-acknowledged. here’s your chance.

1. Being able to communicate complex things in a simple way, without using 1000 words
2. Creating graphs that are sound, valid and communicative
3. Understanding (actual) risk & consequence
4. Articulating what you’re passionate about
5. Knowing how to make other people excited about what we’re excited about
6. Listening
7. Being able to disagree
8. Being (and remaining) objective

Will I be getting the new iPhone 4?

I’ve been asked perhaps 20 times this week alone if I’ll be getting the new iPhone (AKA iPhone 4, iPhone 4G etc) – and the answer is yes.. but here’s why.

Overall? The design is fucking amazing: I love black glass and steel. Always have.  And the retina display as a resolution is a wet dream.

1. “Retina Display” 4 times as many pixels to the space of a standard pixel
2. Design: black glass and stainless steel
3. Battery life: well, I put up with it now. So it’s better now. So I’ll have to put up with a little less.
4. 32GB: yay. Space, for my music and photos. Love it.
5. Dual Mics: something I hadn’t even thought of, makes a lot of sense.
6. New camera technology: 5MB pixel, backside illuminated sensor (nice!), zoom, tap to focus,
7. HD VIDEO!!!111 – sorry Flip cam..
8. iMovie for iPhone (holy shit.. amazing..) this makes it record, edit and share device. In HD. Includes GPS stuff as well

What I’m not so interested in.

• Gyroscope, Accelerometer - feature, but I’m not much of a games person
• LED Flash. Yuucky.
• Multi-tasking – meh
• Threading – just really about time
• iAds. God.

An introduction to Community Management

I just walked home from the first meet-up of Community Managers of Sydney.  I’m co-organising and supporting Swankie and Mandi who have kindly started the initiative.

So WTF is a community manager? What are they managing and for who? Well that’s what we were discussing. It seems that the role of a community manager is as dynamic and as varied as the communities they manage.

They need to be able to grow, evolve and adapt just as their communities do.

Overall, a community manager, and community management means different things to different facets of the business.  I think the key to strategy – business, digital – it to understand how this should all be aligned.  Beyond communications, marketing, customer service, brand – but as a business focus. How do we align all the stakeholders to deliver the best possible outcome for all? What’s the pay off?

There were so many insightful thoughts from the broadest range of backgrounds in the room. Everyone had a unique position. Everyone!

The Take Aways:

• A whole new language
• Rhythm of contact with members
• A community that complains: the community lifecycle
• The conversation
• What do you compare it with in your real life
• A reason for belonging
• That I’m not alone (Carla)
• Identifying who your community with and how to engage them
• That I’m not wrong when I tell my clients that they need to create a local channel
• Rhythm & Community Life Cycle
• Creating internal communities within the business – building hubs within the business to seve the community elsewhere in the business – the community managers role into other areas of the business.  You are empowered on behalf of the business to solve problems, giving them the skills to tell a story.
• Analogy of the maitre d’ – the community manager
• When building a community: identifying a shared purpose

Up Next:

• How do you measure change from your community management efforts
• Influencers, Advocates
• Trolls & Moderating: Guidelines
• When do you take the conversation offline
• Where does community management fit in the organisations
• Case studies

Don’t drink the Social Media Kool-Aid

So you want to ‘get into social media’, huh?

Firstly, I’ve written posts that make me think I should have opened the fucking kool-aid stand. Oh well. Sue me: I’m doing a 180. But then again, if I didn’t make as many mistakes as I had, I wouldn’t have learned a damn thing. If my coaches and mentors hadn’t said ‘wait, wait, wait, stop – wtf are you talking about?’ I wouldn’t have realised as much as I have.

This week I’ve started building and training the new digital and social media team: and what’s apparent from both agencies and clients alike, is that there’s all these rules and all this musts and it’s all.. bullshit.

So, friends, here’s the 10 things they never told you.

1. Businesses do this for the bottom line, not holding hands
2. You don’t have to respond to everything that is said: just set expectation with your community
3. Data is critical, knowledge is success – know the difference
4. The biggest social networks don’t always have the best return: Facebook isn’t always the answer
5. Social media as a stand alone strategy, rarely does all that well (you need wider digital and other media support): try SEO, PPC
6. Understanding your or your clients sales funnel is critical to strategy (and selling it internally)
7. Social Media is bigger than marketing, PR and customer service – hence why it’s hard to pick a leader
8. Online communities can take years to build meaningful relationships: is your agency to prepared to hang in there? Is your client?
9. Social media campaigns can exist.  Set your expectations: if you want to run a 3 month social media campaign, just set the expectations (in the word of Scott Drummond: the party’s here for 2 months, after that, you can go home)
10. Social media experts exist: they’re just people who know a little more than the next person, in a given situation – I have no idea why it became “insightful”, or cool more to the point, to denounce social media professionals.

Another 11

These people work in this day to day.  Not just for show, or for a sense of belonging. Puts some food on the table. And these people have also been kind enough to answer the same question. Most of their answers will form new blog posts for me:

1. Gavin Heaton, (my hero) Social Media Director, SAP: how to deal with the “social” when it becomes “personal”
2. Jess Nichols: You need to find a balance between not sharing anything & oversharing everything. So many people go to extremes & can do more harm than good
3. Mandi Bateson, Digital Planning Director, Daemon Digital: How defensive people get when you take the conversation from a company level down to people – on both sides of the fence.  eg. managing internal or client astroturfers who are proud of their work and pounce on negative feedback b/c they take it personally
4. Alex Asigno, Head of SEO, Switched On Media: the importance of listening
5. Karalee Evans, Social Media Manager, Amnesia : In my humble opinion, the number 1 untaught lesson: how little ROI is understood in Social Media.  The misconceptions of Social Media as intangible needs to be addressed.
6. Lucie Snape, Digital Strategist, Ogilvy: the importance of managing your personal brand
7. Marek Wolski, Digital Marketer: Patience. Its a long term commitment that builds relationships. It takes time to create, implement & optimise your crm in social contexts.
8. Tiphereth Gloria, Social Media Manager, GPYR Sydney: how much people want brands to have a human face i.e. admit mistakes, be real, apologise, move on
9. Heather Snodgrass, Strategy Director, We Are Social: it depends how good your teacher is!
10. Nicola Swankie, Account Director, McCann: just how labour intensive it is
11. Kimberley Lee, PR Communications, ParkYoung: although online connection is great, don’t forget about the power of offline connections too.

The Future of Digital Media – July 1

This year, AIMIA are hosting AIMIA Connect – a full day conference showcasing the latest thinking from Australia’s digital leaders.  Backing up their thoughts will be the most recent AIMIA Award winners – real case studies from the people who have bled for the campaigns.

A day featuring commentary and analysis by the people who carry out the work. I highly encourage anyone in the digital media space – especially agencies – to attend.

The early bird discount ends this week – hope to see you there! Be sure to register today.

Science, Technology should just be about this

Everything else seems trivial.

Pranav Mistry: The thrilling potential of SixthSense technology

Through innovation in technology we can be more connected to our physical world, we can be more connected.  Rather than being machines, sitting in front of other machines.

Swankins passed this video on. And it really blew me away.  Forget about tablets, iPads, surfaces for a while – and think about all this.  It’s already miles ahead of what we’re considering new releases.

To imagine this technology is incredible. To build it is genious.

How to be a better lifestyle brand

I think it’s a fair assumption that many brands, their products and and services, and their stake holders – want to be a lifestyle brand.  We’ve seen phones, cameras and other technologies move out of the tech space and into the ‘lifestyle’ space.

But at what cost?

Well, maybe little to them – providing a new context in which their brand/product/service creates a day-to-day routine with their user.  Phones are probably the best example of this. But there’s a really important lesson to be learnt:

If you’re a lifestyle brand, you have a lifestyle responsibility.

And that’s a really big responsibility. Your responsibility for being a part of my LIFE.

What this means is if you’re going to be an integral part of someone’s life: don’t mess it up.  If you’re product has built in obseletion, if it is not customer centric, if it’s just a crappy product – then you’re going to let your customer down, over and over again.

Think about the rage you get when your computer, phone, watch, GPS, batteries, USB, PDA, internet, 3G, WiFi, memory card, hard drive, TV, Pay-TV, Online Video, Website, Mobile App, Twitter, Faceboo, ISP,

FAILS

THINK ABOUT THE PART OF YOU THAT WANTS TO BREAK YOUR NEW IPHONE INTO TINY LITTLES PIECES AND SMASH THOSE SHARDS OF GLASS INTO THE FACE OF WHATEVER IS COMING BETWEEN YOU AND TWITTER!!!111

Take a breath. Okay, 3G came back on.

Now. If you’re an agency or a brand. Or someone trying to support someone’s lifestyle. Think about the lifestyle responsibility you owe them by doing so.

SMCYD: Using LinkedIn To Build Brands

I just finished moderating tonight’s discussion for Social Media Club Sydney (SMCSYD) at the Oxford Arts Factory.  The conversation I had was with Cliff Rosenburg, MD of LinkedIn AU/NZ, and Michael Field – a sole practitioner in the marketing strategy space, as a case study.  I’m sure there’ll be some further content generated from the event (speakers presentations etc.) but there were some really interesting insights for me.  I’m doing a bit of a brain dump, but I’ll break it up into key areas. Oh, and have we connected on LinkedIn?

Different benefits for:

• Agencies (and their clients – brands)
• Brands
• Sole Practitioners
• Recruiters

Key outake: it’s about knowing your business objectives, and devising a strategy where the return on investment is positive

Some ideas I had (when I was summing up for all the groups – bar sole practitioners, which both speakers covered).

• Agencies: paid ads and paid polls seem to be the best form of engagement and return
• Brands: finding new employees
• Sole Practitioners: building relationships online*
• Recruiter: access to 65 million users across the world for $500 a month

*- Although Michael Fields outlined all his leads were now inbound – I feel that the time and effort he puts in was understated.  If he charges at say $400 an hour (totally a mock figure here, no quoting etc) then the time he puts into his LinkedIn group, Next Director, would have a cost.

Time is precious, and should be valued as such.

Bigger Opportunity for Agencies

I rushed my closing remarks on stage, but my main point was this: when people – clients, brands, other agencies, potential employees, management, anyone – interacts with a business, it’s the people who are involved (their skill sets, aptitude, personality, passion) that really seals the deal.

Brands and agencies have an opportunity to use LinkedIn to help promote their own staff as subject matter experts, who are passionate about their jobs and really want the best outcome for clients and partners alike.

If this challenge is too big for you then there may be a problem in the culture or attitude – what I’ve said is nothing new, LinkedIn just provided a new platform to provide, yes, you guessed it

• expertise
• passion
• value

to potential customers and partners and delivering your real, bottom line business outcomes.

Nike’s new video ad: Write The Future

Interesting to note that this video is “unlisted” – which means it’s not available via Google Search or YouTube search.  You must know the URL of navigate through the hard links. Being unlisted would definitely have an implication on the amount of views traffic.

For a video of this brand and this calibre, 97,000+ views isn’t a great deal, and maybe it’ll explode shortly – but still interesting to note. (May 21, 2010)

So what do we like about it? It’s a brilliant piece of story-telling.  But my new colleague, Rose Kelly, at Weber Shandwick, really opened my eyes to the power of the video:

I don’t like football but I loved this ad as it humanised the players and the pressures they are under. If they fail they disappoint millions and if they score, they become Gods. Imagine living under that pressure. The execution was incredible not to mention the level of detail and multiple stories taking place. I may watch a World Cup match now.

Isn’t this what marketing, social media, digital communications should be about?

Creating an emotional connection, leading to a clear outcome.

Spread it

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Where to start learning social media

As forementioned: the Age of Conversation 3: It’s Time To Get Busy! is out now – in hardcover, softcover and for kindle.

I’m asked a similar question at least once a week about: where do I start learning social media or what are the best blogs to read about social media – well, here’s a great place.

With 171 authors to guide you through their own experience – this goes beyond a simple introduction into social media.  Age of Conversation 3 will provide with you some of the best insights from some people far smarter than I.

But yes, you should probably read my part around “Measuring with Context” a guide to meauring digital and social media.

Just look at these two happy customers: Gavin & Katie.

“I love doing…Don’t be afraid to fail.”

This is a must read articles for those into fashion, design, photography and creativity. Just read it – too many insights to summarise up here.

Jeremy J Somers aka @itsartdammit is one of those people who secrete creativity, drive and passion. I say secrete because he’s also incredibly down to earth and totally humlble – and that’s worth something these days.  And he’s got a big lesson we can all learn:

Creating. Everyday i try my best to create something. This is one thing I LOVE about the digital world, it makes it so easy to create and show your stuff to the world. I guess it can be summarized into DOING. I love doing. 98% of the world loves talking, and its so rare that anyone actually does anything.

I’m probably going to miss a few things but basically Jeremy does heaps (which is why I ask the first question ;)

• illustrator
• photographer
• web designer/developer
• photo blogger (see below)
• iPod/iPhone designer (gotta check out their media coverage too)

And if that wasn’t enough. He just launched his own fucking swimwear label called We Are Handsome – with a media reel longer than your arm.  Basically, in the words of 50 cent: this shit’s going ballistic.

From the moment I met Jeremy I’ve been super excited watching everything he’s been pulling off.  I genuinely think he’s exceptionally talented and I can’t wait to see where his passions take him.  And it’ll take him far.

1.  What’s your story?

I don’t like this question. it’s not targeted enough! I have many parts to my story, some involve weapons and most involve ice cream.

2.  What do you love doing?

Creating. Everyday i try my best to create something. This is one thing I LOVE about the digital world, it makes it so easy to create and show your stuff to the world. I guess it can be summarized into DOING. I love doing. 98% of the world loves talking, and its so rare that anyone actually does anything.

3.  What’s keeps you busy?

I work around about 16 hours a day pretty much 7 days a week. Even though I call it work, I don’t think of it as work though, i do exactly what i love doing every day. My days are split between my studio – where swimsuits/t-shirts/iPod covers/websites etc etc come to life, and time spent at my ‘day job’ creating digital ‘stuff’ for big name clients.

4.  Fashionistas: do they need to work there arses off in markets?

There’s no set way to do anything. I spent years at the markets with y t-shirt label with varying successes but with the swimwear we haven’t done any markets and have distribution pretty much all over the world.

5.  Fashion: is it about timing or creativity?

I really think great fashion is timeless, well as cliched as that sounds, good designs, great pieces of clothing never go out of style. Success within trends, however, is more about timing mixed with great design & creativity. For something to work perfectly, everything has to come together just right, and much more often than not it doesn’t.

6.  Biggest lesson you’ve learned doing what you’re doing?

Work ethic. generally those people who work for themselves and are even mildly successful have a great work ethic. They do what needs to be done. My view is you should have this work ethic no matter if you work for yourself or for someone else. It can only serve you well in the end.

7.  Plans for ’10?

Still trying to sort this one out! everything has happened so fast this year that i haven’t had time to think about what i want to do, and we’re almost halfway through the year!! I’ll be pushing We Are Handsome as much as i can, doing more client work and have a few other lil projects in the pipeline!

8.  One piece of advice for anyone trying to achieve what you have?

Don’t be afraid to fail. Those who DO rather than TALK will always be more fulfilled and successful.

the blesses & curses of attention deficit disorder

Creativity is born in so many ways.  And that’s the way I like to think of it: born.  Ideas have gestation periods – constantly varied gestation periods at that – some instinct thoughts, some long processes.

This is one of the most raw and inspiring presentations I’ve seen – and I have the privilege of knowing Mal personally. Intelligent and insightful – especially over a beer – Mal’s a man with exceptional experience in technology, digital and creativity & design (both virtual and real world).

Innovation, creativity – destruction & creation.

Weddings, Communities

I’m consistently fascinated by the other online communities out of the main stream news -and one of the most engaging, and lively I had come across was in the wedding industry.  A clear passion point for men and women a like, it’s a natural draw card for conversation, recommendations and purchasing.

Weddings are about people and passion: what better fuel is there? Couple this with photographs, experience and event planning – it’s story telling at it’s best (before, during and after).  Polka Dot Bride was one such community that caught my attention and I was lucky enough to catch up with Ms. Polka herself.

What’s remarkable about the site is that it’s so much about the people behind these weddings that are photographed with some very clear outcomes for customers and audience, sponsors, publishers and suppliers.

I think the biggest one I’ve learnt is to never underestimate the power of community.

1. What’s the business you’re in?

Writing online about all things wedding- I publish online wedding blog (or publication) Polka Dot Bride.

2. When did it begin?

January 2007

3. How big is your community?

We average about 2500-3500 unique visitors a day from all over the world. Australia, USA and New Zealand are our lead markets!

4. What have been the biggest challenges in developing your community?

Australia has had a much smaller base to jump from than the US wedding blog industry (mainly due to population). It’s been challenging not being able to participate in the same opportunities they have due to distance or simply being in another country. The uptake by print media and Australian wedding vendors has also been slower. Having said that, this has been a challenge I have loved overcoming as it also allowed me to carve my own niche and do things in an Australian way. It’s also pushed me to really work hard at sourcing content- it never fell into my lap; as for a long time I simply didn’t exist with vendors and PRs (although my statistics said otherwise!).

5. How does the community drive your business?

My focus as I have developed the business has always been “inspiring weddings” Our readers demand high quality content and Australian wedding content. The pure social aspect of the blog- commenting, emailing, questioning has all lead me to mould the business model to what they’re demanding, needing and requesting. We seem to have fallen into this wonderful place where brides literally pour their hearts out and talk to me in ten paragraph long emails during the planning of their weddings, something I treasure but also learn a lot from. My brides love to talk and tell me what they need! We also balance that with many vendors now reading and interacting with us.

6. How would you describe your community in 5 words?

Passionate, inspiring, intelligent, creative, innovative.

7. Best community-based story since launching the community?

My Brides Seeking posts always blow me away- we get so many email requests every day of wedding dresses or fabrics or where to get this or find that venue. So I group them into one post which everyone answers. The response we get is huge and allows a place for brides and vendors to connect with each other.

When a newlywed emails their wedding photos in saying they were inspired to do things different, to pick a fun coloured dress, add a special touch, do what they wanted because of Polka Dot Bride just helps me get up every day.

8. If there’s one lesson you’ve learned and would like to share?

Blogging is full to the brim of lessons! I think the biggest one I’ve learnt is to never underestimate the power of community. I don’t limit that to engaged couples that read the blog, but in the connections I’ve made with vendors, other bloggers (wedding or not) and generally the wider community. Connections have such an amazing power.

9. What will be big for you or the industry in 2011?

More of the traditional wedding media is moving online (I saw a lot of this in early 2010) and wedding websites in Australia are becoming more content driven with better design- there’s more flourishes, more thought put into aesthetics.

I think the wedding blogs in Australia will push forward; more will start up and really carve a niche for themselves.

As for Polka Dot Bride? We have great plans for really pushing out more unique and creative content. We’re also focusing on getting Ms Polka Dot’s Directory right- our readers have told us what they want in a directory and we’re going to make it happen!

Scott-Bradley Pearce: technology/video strategist, awesome cook

My long time friend, mentor and life-saver, Scott-Bradley Pearce – or Scooter to the rest of us – has just launched A Cook in Chef’s Clothing – a site built to inspire and equip anyone interested in food and cooking. Scot tells a great story, and I’ve lifted something from his about section that sums his passion for cooking and inspiring others to cook.

After several years of being encouraged to publish my thoughts, my cooking styles, recipes and tips by friends I have finally decided to launch this site. I hope you enjoy some of the things I write about but more importantly I hope that I inspire you to shop locally and seasonally for your own health and well being.

Scott’s insights into media, consumers and his challenge to us all to ask questions will leave you wanting seconds.

1. Has your new blog allowed you to develop your passion for cooking further?

Not as such. The passion for cooking exists regardless, the blog is the result of too many friends telling me they want to cook what I cook. After a year or so of posting what I cook each night to Facebook (I reckon I started that trend haha) I had so many people asking for recipes and so forth. Then over the past 2 years I have become incredibly active in the championing of local produce so this is a way for me to start to vent a lot of those thoughts and lead by example.

2. Do you think it’s easier for people to be more interested in food and better cooking because of online?

I think that television gets the award here. TV chefs and channels devoted to food have sparked our appetites, both for great food and knowledge. I hope that what comes next is the same degree of interest about where food comes from. I think that has started with the local produce movements and a push toward heritage food types, the stuff we ate as kids, not the mass grown and artificially ripened stuff where an apple looks like one but tastes only vaguely like one.

3. Do you read other cooking blogs? why/whynot – How has it impacted your cooking?

Absolutely. I read books a lot more though I must say. I have the core set of books including the Silver Spoon, Stephanie Alexanders Cooks Companion and a few Maggie Beer bibles, but I love specialist books, regions, especially italian influenced. But the web is a dynamite source oif information. put the word authentic or local in your search, an example is authentic Moroccan chicken tagine, suddenly you have so many to choose from, not only that but you can read about the history. Plus i love to theme a dinner so going after traditional accompaniments as well.

4. Do you think chefs have had a greater exposure to customers/restaurants because of the internet?

I actually think that it is more difficult today for a chef and restaurants in general. The consumers level of knowledge has grown, both food and wine, and the consumer is increasingly more picky about the food they eat. By the same token there has been an explosion of smaller kitchens popping up that specialise in a few things and they are fantastic. It has never been better.

5. Is cooking more, less or of same important for new generations?

Look, when I was young there wasn’t a lot to choose from. Herbs were all dried in little bottles and tasted vaguely as they should and no one really bought too many. However the fruit and vegetables were fantastic and we grew a lot of our own stuff. Today we are in a consumption based world where people toss out mobile phones every six months and expect oranges to be on the shelves all year but this comes at a price. I think, at least I hope, that the current push back to seasonal and local produce coupled with the amount of media around cooking will drive younger people back to how things were when I was growing up. What I would hate to see is a world where my 10 year old nephew thinks that spaghetti sauce comes out of a jar!

6. Best tip for cooking for 2010?

Am I allowed to have three tips? I will.

The first is to build your kitchen arsenal each month. Once a month go to a warehouse cooking supply company like Victorias Basement in Sydney, there is something like this in every city, and buy something new. A decent quality fry pan will last you 20 years, slow buy yourself a full set of high quality saucepans. Build your tool kit. And start this month.

The second tip is take note of the seasons. Fruit and vegetables are cheapest in season not to mention freshest in season. Research your recipes starting from a key seasonal ingredient and work out from there. You will save money and it will taste better.

The third is find a farmers market and try buying fresh local seasonal produce. But be careful. Many of them have stalls filled with typical market grocers who just buy the same stuff the big chains buy at market. Ask them where the stuff comes from, did they grow it, if they didn’t walk on and find someone who does. Trust me when I tell you this, the first time you buy a lemon, covered in funny marks because its grown naturally on a tree and you taste it, you will not go back to the gas ripened lemons ion the big chains ever again. In the same vein find your local butcher or grocer, ask their name and get to know them.

Forth, and most importantly, ASK QUESTIONS! This can be a rhetorical question, if its not orange season and you see oranges in the supermarket how can this be, how long have they been in storage and why not buy a different fruit thats cheaper and in season. Ask the butcher where the meat comes from, how is it treated? But be sensible. Garlic isn’t available all year, but in Australia our climate allows us to grow most things all year. But before you buy strawberries in winter from california why not look for something else locally produced instead.

Moving On

Yesterday it was officially announced that I’ll be leaving Switched on Media and joining Weber-Shandwick as their Digital Strategist.

It was honestly one of the hardest career decisions I’ve made.  My experience with Switched On Media has been second to none.  It in no way reflects the work, people or business behind Switched On Media: in fact, the people have been some of the best.

With the inspiring leadership and exceptional business acumen from Andy Jamieson and Scot Ennis, we together built a business function that serviced over 25 brands in Social Media over an 18 month period. It was – and remains – profitable, delivering real business outcomes for our clients.

The role and mission was both the most challenging and rewarding I’ve ever had, and with the support of the brilliant and very talented Hannah Law, was a role I looked forward to, each and every day.  Switched On Media is a business that has seen phenomenal growth and I’m very proud to say that I was privileged enough to work along side them and help build the social media service.

Switched On Media have pioneered, understood and developed the Social Media and Search space (including it’s integration) better than most, and I’m sure that with the leadership of Andy, Scot and Hannah – they’ll continue to do so.  It’s rare such as complex mix of entrepreneurship, creativity, technical knowledge and communication can come together like this.

Big shoutout to everyone who has and continues to work there: Andy, Scot, Ian, Jeremy, Alex, Wai, Phil, Kevin, Hannah, Rattan, Hadrian, Samantha, Eva.