Marshwah

Goodbye Marshwah, Hello Write-Club

2013-08-17T14:27:00.000+10:00

It's time to pull the pin on this blog.

In Evernote, written eight months ago is something that I return to every now and then, a reminder that looks like this:

What the fuck happened man?

The love is there. The content and results are not. For someone that lives and breathes this stuff I've got a pretty flimsy web-presence. I'm lucky to chalk out an entry a month.

There's a quote from an article at the end of the year that kicked my arse good. It's an article by David Wong called 6 Harsh Truths That Will Make You a Better Person. There is a tonne of choice knowledge-bombs in the piece, but there's one paragraph that was coated in rusty tacks, soaked in vinegar, and shoved up my hole in a compromising fashion. It read:

Being in the business I'm in, I know dozens of aspiring writers. They think of themselves as writers, they introduce themselves as writers at parties, they know that deep inside, they have the heart of a writer. The only thing they're missing is that minor final step, where they actually fucking write things.

Headshot

I didn't take the advice lying down, I read it and absorbed it. No really, I did. I even went as far as posting in the forum about my intention to heed the advice, you can find it here, and here's a juicy excerpt.

Great advice, some of it I'm living, and some of it I'm not.
I'm already doing pretty well. I'm a 29 y.o. working in a job I love and after this call-to-action, I'm going to overhaul my blog to impart lessons on what I've learned to a younger me.
My blog is pretty shit currently, but after reading this article I churned out 8 article ideas in under an hour and am feeling really inspired. I'm keen to read the rest of this forum thread to see how other people were inspired, but mainly I just want this to be an embedded post that I can revisit a year from now to see if I was successful.
I'm actually making a note in my calendar to revisit in a year's time to see if I was successful.
So let's see if "Lessons to _____ " takes off!

It hasn't happened. And it's a good thing I'm even writing this as that calendar reminder would have taken a good ol' bite out of nowhere too.

Why build something?

The best people do. I'm a firm believer in the fact that creating things is good for your soul. And I'm not the only one. There's at least two other people that I've read that say similar things.

One of them says it's a really good way to learn, and another says it's a good way to acquire skills for post-advertising life.

Well I like learning and I've been looking at post-advertising life of-late.

So I'm going to disappear and build something. It's not going to be called Lessons to, but it's going to be something I learn from, and it's probably going to involve a hell of a lot more writing.

Which excites me for now.

So Marshwah is retiring, and I'll come back in some other form, and until I do, here's an ancient photo of me doing gosh knows what:

I used to keep my album covers on a wall, including Groove Armada's Goodbye Country, Hello Nightclub (I always liked that title)

In the words of an old friend, my taste is so bad its good.

Ciao for now.

My 40 Day meditation challenge - what I learned, why I'll keep doing it, and why you should too

2013-08-10T11:00:00.004+10:00

As someone who has recovered from a mental illness, I know that keeping vigilant about my mental health is important.

And for the most part, I have. I've been incredibly fortunate, and have an amazing support network around me that I owe a hell of a lot too.

One thing that always nagged at me, I never quite got hold of, and knew was probably important, was meditation. Its benefits for a 'normal' person are tremendous. It rejuvenates, increases calmness and focus, and can make you feel more alive.

For someone like me, having an extra bullet in the chamber in the fight against triggers is a boon and a godsend. So just over 40 days ago, after hearing about an easy way to get into it from Zen Habits, I started meditating every morning, and almost all nights when I got home (there were a couple of tricky times when I got home too drunk).

The technique suggests committing to just two minutes a day. In the morning, and by watching your breath.

Sounds pretty simple right?
Well it's both harder and easier than you think.

Some tips

I'd tried this on other occasions and couldn't quite get the hang of it. Here's a few resources I used that I found helpful:

I got the Pro edition because I liked the app so much and wanted to support it

a habit-reminder app called Habit Streak - I'm sure there are others out there, but this is what helped me keep a bit more motivated, I cross off my 'chore' in the morning to acknowledge that I did it the day before, and it builds a chain. It becomes a bit of a morning ritual
read the book The Power of Habit - this book was amazing, explaining with intelligence on how tricky it is to form a positive habit (the 21 days thing is a myth), and how you can combat your internal resistance (environmental factors play a huge part)
a trickier book, but one I found quite enlightening, was The Power of Now (there's a lot of power here!) which was what ultimately helped me decide that meditation was something I wanted to stick to - it's a very challenging read with its somewhat flowery language - but its argument is sound: you are not the voice in your head, quit being beholden to it, and focus on the present moment - BOOM!
I even went to a couple of meditation classes via Meetup - you can simply search for them and I had no trouble finding some free ones in Sydney. It was a bit daunting going to something that I have a predisposition to thinking 'new fandangled crap' - but I'm glad I challenged myself to as it was very rewarding

There are a tonne of other resources out there and half the fun is going out and discovering what materials are out there and online. For me, I've steered clear of the religious stuff and have really enjoyed virtually everything I've read about mindfulness.

The Benefits

So does it 'work'?
Well, the short answer is it depends.

In fact, I'm pretty sure that's the wrong question to begin with. If you've done some reading on meditation and all you want is up-side and immediate gain you're in it for the wrong reasons and won't get much out of it. I think that was my problem in the past.

I'm incredibly glad I have persevered. I hinted in my blog that I've had some challenges in my career lately, and having meditation as an extra shield has really helped keep things in perspective.

My focus has increased. I'm doing things more efficiently, and the whole concept of mindfulness empowers me to take half a step back before acting, and while I'm in my relative infancy, I quite enjoy having extra pause for consideration.

I want to know more. I'm 30 years of age now, I pretty much have my interests and what I enjoy doing locked down. This new endeavour is very rich and diverse and its exciting. I had a mind-blowing moment this morning after my run. Experimenting with a body-scan meditation, I was fascinated to be able to feel the difference between my torso, my arms, and my feet - there was a lot of energy coming from my feet.

What's next?

Well now that I've accumulated 40 days of self-knowledge I'm keen to pursue more. There's some interesting courses out there and there's a lot of literature, so I'm going to keep at it.

One thing that struck me as odd when I was first exposed to meditation, was the warnings I saw for those suffering from mental health issues. I spoke to my doctor about it and the watch-outs are the religious overtones and certain group environments that are pushing a particular dogma.

I boiled it down for Mum in much plainer language: if you thought you had the power of a higher-being at one stage in your life, it's probably not a good idea to embrace the powers of higher-beings via group meditation. And that's fine.

The mind's a powerful thing, and recognising that power has been a humbling and awesome experience.

10 things things I aimed to do before 30: a report-card

2013-08-04T18:27:00.002+10:00

Almost seven years ago, I was trying to get into advertising.
It was a long road, and I blogged about the experience I had here a couple of years ago.

But now I've turned 30, its something I want to revisit.

The traineeship I applied for asked me to: List 10 things to do before you’re 30.

It was a great challenge, and better than those where do you see yourself in 5 years kind-of questions you get in job interviews. So today, I'm revisiting the list and seeing whether I got there.

1. Go to the four grand slams of tennis.
I love tennis. Growing up near Melbourne, I was fortunate enough to go to the Australian Open many times. At the time, I thought I'd be able to get to the other ones easily. This hasn't happened. It's definitely something I want to do and I think I'll add it to my new list (more on that later).

2. Go bungee jumping and sky-diving in New Zealand.
So here's the thing. I did get to go to New Zealand. I flew my Mum there a few weeks after the book launch and we really enjoyed some time in Wellington. Didn't quite make it to the extreme sports section. I'm pretty sure I still want to do these things, but unfortunately life has got in the way.

3. Have a beer in a Tasmanian pub with David Boon.
I'm not sure of the whereabouts of Boony these days. But I do know he's from Tasmania and that I need to go and have a beer with him at some stage, unfortunately, this did not happen before I was 30.

4. Make a public speech to 200 or more people.
You would think I haven't achieved much at this stage. I did set the bar high, but really? Fortunately public speaking is something I've enjoyed and excelled at since my career has taken flight. I quite enjoy it, and remember delivering a presentation on the Singapore digital landscape at the Mediabrands Digital summit, presenting a case-study to Microsoft's Digital Marketing conference, jumping up on stage at Unilever Vietnam and talking about creativity in digital (I won best speaker!), and one of my favourites was on a roadshow in Thailand and talking about our employer's capabilities to creative agency Far East DDB.

The room filled even more after this and there were people standing.

I still haven't got a boss-like photo of me wearing a black jacket and one of those headset microphones, but I'm working on it and have a lot to be proud of.

5. Purchase a dish-washer.
A rather immediate need at the time was having a dishwasher, but since then the houses I've lived in have had them for the majority. I probably should upgrade this to buying a house.

6. Take my family, including aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents, to an expensive restaurant and foot the bill myself.
While I'm not swimming in it, there have been scenarios where I've been able to do this sort of thing for friends and family and not worry about it. I'm of the opinion that when it comes to people who are special to me, I'm going to look after them. Special shout-out goes to Sentosa Island adventures and The Ritz. Oh my, I miss you sometimes Singapore.

7. Get my three best mates, and road trip it across Australia.
Ahh, the road trip. The funny thing is, I don't think I could name my three best mates. I'm luck to have some very special people in my life and I have road-tripped with all of them. A sojourn to Mildura was interesting, a drive from Sydney to Geelong with people I was getting to know bonded us forever, and a shorter drive from Traralgon to Melbourne with my little sister was one of the most enjoyable things I've ever done. I'm going to claim this one.

8. Go backpacking across Europe.
I never did the backpacker thing, but I did have the European holiday of a lifetime last year and that was a privilege.

9. Get into a position where I can read the answers to an application form such as this.
I love this answer. So cheeky yet it says a lot about my ambition. I haven't had a chance to do this yet. But have happily advised others on how they can frame their applications. For my industry, there's no such thing as over-the-top. You need to get that door open and a cover letter and resume will rarely cut it.

10. Meet the girl of my dreams!
A work-in-progress. Its well-documented that its harder to meet new people after 30, so maybe I've already met them but haven't realised yet? The other complication is that I hadn't come out at 23, and being bisexual means it could be a guy too! Oh, me.

The scorecard: 5/10
I give myself about five out of ten. Some of them I achieved a little bit, and some I nailed spectacularly. Others are still achievable and age is just a number any way.

It's been a fun exercise and I'm glad I got some of the way to achieving my dreams. I'm going to think about it a bit, and jot down the ten things I want to do before I'm 40. It's going to be a challenging and more awe-inspiring list I assure you.

My top 5 DJs (that I haven't seen yet)

2013-07-23T19:35:00.000+10:00

I've had this in my 'Creating Things' folder on Evernote for quite some time:

Over six months, I've been meaning to write this

And I've been quite lazy on this topic.

At first, I couldn't think of five DJs that I hadn't seen. I knew I'd seen a lot of acts (particularly in Sydney) and rather arrogantly thought that at the ripe-old age of 30 that I'd ticked them all of our bucket list. But I wasn't thinking hard enough. And I just realised my big reveal is already buggered by including the names in that above screengrab. But there are other reasons for writing this article too.

For example, I delayed writing this list as it changed over the course of time. There were some late-comers that I got to see in the first half of this year, or artists I remembered seeing and then forgot about, so you could say the fluid nature of the list put me off.

But I'm not seeing that many gigs.

So after half a year of deliberation, I'm quite excited to share this list with you. Because I'm a good fellow and like Soundcloud, I'm also going to link to a favourite set from each of these artists. Well, because I'm a good fellow and the cross-pollination will see my blog traffic go through the roof.

That's in the 100s people. Seriously, even my YouTube Channel fares better than this blog

So without further ado here's my top 5 DJs that I haven't seen.

1. Adam Beyer
One of the first guys I really started to warm to beyond what I was told to listen to by the likes of Ministry of Sound Annuals and Wild CDs. The man is a genius and I regularly listen to his Drumcode radio show on my phone. Switching effortlessly between deep house, tech house, and techno, Adam really takes you for a ride and specalises in long sets.

I still haven't got a chance to see him over all this time as the amount of times he's been in AU is quite limited. There was a time he played outside of Melbourne at Kryal Castle in 2007, but I couldn't justify the trip there at that stage of my life. And I regret it to this day.

I've chosen the set below as it's one of his long ones and has a similar range to what I really enjoy. I also remember listening to it at a friend's BBQ and we all couldn't stop moving, seriously - when Alan Fitzpatrick's Skeksis is dropped you will love your shit. I'm actually jealous of you.
2. Henry Saiz
Going in another direction is this guy. Much deeper, more progressive, and an extremely talented producer. I narrowly missed him in Sydney last year as I was at Subsonic Music Festival and it clashed, and have never lived it down. Especially when a friend who wasn't at the festival said he played some of the form of his life and she attended all three gigs he played in Sydney: boat party, garden party, and after-party - respect.

The set I've chosen doesn't start off well. You might actually wonder what the hell is going on. But trust us on this one - it gets goooood. It's also a set from a boat-party on Brisbane, which I mentioned in a musical capacity, a couple of weeks ago. It would have been some boat.

3. Pan-Pot
I've always been aware of these guys, but haven't found their productions to be mind-blowing and always settled for listening to them if they're on.

Wow - what a year they are having. These guys are cane-ing it on every level. The sets have some of the highest energy for the range they have without tiring us. I seriously dig. The duo are also good at uploading their best sets on Soundcloud - so I encourage you to check out more than what I've posted here.

I've never seen them as I'm not even sure they've come to Australia? I missed them in Barcelona last year which was unfortunate and here I am still hoping I'll get a chance some day. In the interim, give this set below a go - and try not to dance.

4. Gabriel Ananda
Another newcomer to the list after flying under the radar for some time. Everyone's heard Doppelwhipper, but I wasn't convinced I was missing out until coming across his Soulful Techno series.

I'll definitely be catching him next time he's around and in town (or I'll travel). He also just released a great new track this week called Let it in and let it out. Which you should totally do while unwinding to this mellow mix within the list.

5. Joris Voorn
This guy is at the height of his powers as a DJ and producer. It's a travesty I have not seen him.

There's no excuse as I know I've been in Melbourne as the same time as him. And even at the same party (in Barcelona - we left before he started).

I chose this set because I listen to it whenever I need a pick-me-up at work. Short, sustained, and relentless.

Have you got some fave electronic music producers or DJs you haven't seen yet?
Let us know in the comments and thanks for reading!

A reminder: When sticking to your guns pays off

2013-07-21T22:07:00.001+10:00

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

-excerpt from Citizenship In A Republic, Theodore Roosevelt

I like this quote.
It gives me solace when I'm expending my energy on things I believe in.

In spite of this, I still remember virtually every negative comment that was thrown at me during the writing of, and after the delivery my book.

This is common. A very accomplished writer at the Emerging Writer's Festival I attended, someone who had written half a dozen books and for all intents and purposes was a success, said you don't remember the positive reviews. She said you can get 49 great ones and for some reason your head will still cling to that negative one.

I read a very good book over the weekend after seeing it recommended in this G+ discussion. The book was called Quitter and the recommendation was made after seeing a question around:

"I'm quitting my job to chase my dreams!"

The book had some resoundingly good advice, highlighting the importance of seeing the good in what you do, while still actively pursuing what you love and taking steps to ensure that happens. There were two things in particular I'd like to call out.

The first was on time. You don't get to your dreams by watching television. I'm calling it out because it matches the words emblazoned on the poster on the back of my door. Words I live by.

Cheers, Holstee Manifesto

The second was on dreams.

I'm paraphrasing the writer's reference from another book here, but here's what happens when you ask a group of first-grader's "how many artists are in the room?"

They will all put their hand up.
You ask the same question to a group of third-graders and a third put their hand up.
By the time they are twelve you are lucky to get one or two hands.

Group mentality and society condition us not to pursue our dreams.

Which brings us back to negative comments about my dream. It was to write a book. And that's what I've done but like I said those comments can stick sometimes. And that's unfortunate.

Then I remember the man in the arena, who does actually strive to do the deeds, who doesn't heed the words of a critic, and that's pretty inspiring. I also remember all the positive feedback I received for my book, and how I put myself out there and was able to share a story that had been hanging over my head for so long.

Another thing happened recently.

An interstate trip down near Sorrento, with some my old buddies. The book came up and I got some kind words, and I remarked on how it's an extremely humbling experience getting such feedback from your peers on something so intensely personal. The crime, I remarked, was that there's no way you can assemble all that feedback in one place for when things might be a little more gloomy.

I sat on that thought for a while.

As I hinted at yesterday, things are a bit challenging at the moment, and perhaps things seem a bit gloomier than usual.

To combat it I've been keeping busy. I updated my consultancy site, plotted an outline for an upcoming workshop, read aforementioned book, leaned on my network, and decided to address that crime I mentioned earlier.

There is a way you can assemble most of the feedback from a book in one place.

It's called hustle, and I'm a big fan. I grabbed my old phone, extracted all the SMS to my Gmail, combed through email, downloaded my Facebook, and collected every piece of feedback I could find on Being Bi-Bi and mentions of "the book".

I then assembled it all on a digital cork-board, below is the result.

Sticking to your guns pays off. And as insidious as negativity is, there's always a way to cobble together a collection of reminders of why you do what you do, and why you'll keep persevering.

Why I'm proud of my run this morning

2013-07-20T07:47:00.000+10:00

I'm proud of my run this morning.

The view when I finished

I had a bottle of wine with a friend last night, but that's not why I'm proud. I ran one of my better times, and that's some cause to be proud, but it's not what I'm getting at either.

The music I listened to was fantastic too. I had an Ida Engberg set freshly downloaded and as I ran, the music really helped me along. A rejigged house classic came on from Jon Cutler, and the famous lyrics shouted:

If you were to find this temple
Do you have the knowledge to enter the temple
Do yaaa want it
And if you had it would ya flaunt it
Well its yours

I'm in that temple-discovery period at the moment.

Normally when things are going on with my career I batten down the hatches, and go silent for a while (certainly on my blog at least). Well some hard questions are being asked at the moment and I'm not certain of all the answers to those questions.

I'm perturbed, a little unsure of myself, and finding things challenging. There are a few ways things can pan out at the moment and I'm rapidly approaching a crossroads. Some of these paths are obvious, some I'm going to have to work bloody hard for, and some are what I think to be wrong.

I'm also excited, restless, and relishing the challenge. Things are shaking up in my life and as I just ticked over at 30 years of age, it's a great opportunity to take stock of things and determine what it is I really want to do with the skills I have. And if I don't have those skills now is an excellent time to start acquiring them.

I love my sister, I was talking to her the other day about a particularly stressful life situation and she basically shouted down the phone at me something along the lines of:

You're playing it to safe, you need to get out of your comfort zone and do something that's scary

I took her advice and pulled the trigger. My stomach churned. I thought what the hell am I doing? And I giggled while I sat on my bed and grinned from ear-to-ear.

It's around then that I remembered the famous quote:

Do one thing every day that scares you

It's not hard, but it's harder than what most of us are doing now. I've been striving to do that more and more. I have my safe days, but slowly over time I think I'm getting better at pushing myself just the right amount to get where I want to be.

So here I am at my temple. I really want it. And if I get it I'm not sure if I'll flaunt it.

But when I'm running and having one of those state-of-my-life moments, when there's a million things on my mind and I instinctively wake up before dark and run over eight kilometres in under forty minutes.

Then - when I'm having one of those moments - I'm going to relish every second of it. Because shit's going down, and I chose to get out of my bed and go for a run.

That's why I'm proud of my run this morning.

---

If you haven't read it, or haven't discovered The Oatmeal yet, I highly recommend reading his comic on running, it's funny, articulate, and does a much better job of explaining why we enjoy running.

Crowdfunding a Gig - What if Daft Punk Were Playing at Your House?

2013-07-17T21:52:00.002+10:00

It was 2009.

The Inthemix forums were vibrant, and there was a rag-tag crew of Brisbane ITMers who consistently missed out on international gigs to the likes of Melbourne and Sydney. But what they lacked in numbers they made up for with passion. And by adopting a collective approach to securing talent for a dedicated few, occasionally they were able to secure DJs way beyond the city's typical capabilities.

This culminated with a thread for some 100 dedicated fans at a private party in Brisbane at the start of 2010. The group pooled their funds, and were able to get trance DJ Richard Durand fresh from his set to a crowd of 30,000 punters at a Sensation party in Melbourne to play on a rooftop.

The event was something special, with the man himself stating:

“I came here not knowing what to expect. I was told I was playing to a party of 100 people and I thought what the f#ck. This 100 people is way better than 30,000. Love you.”

Photo credit: inthemix.com.au

What the posse up in Brisbane had managed to do was crowdfund a gig. This was before sites like Kickstarter, Indiegogo, or the Australian site Pozible even existed.

In my mind, the tactics they employed for drumming up support for such an event played to the things that made the dance music community great, a collective that were there for the music.

A lot has happened since then.

Inthemix has exploded in popularity. The US has started to realise that dance music is something awesome. And the forums and once vibrant Inthemix community has died.

But I still remember that gig from afar, and remember being jealous that the likes of such an event couldn't happen in Sydney or Melbourne.

But maybe I'm wrong?

The site Pozible has just started a competition to crowdfund a live music event. And at the back of my mind is the fact that there's some potential here.

What's stopping you from crowdfunding a Daft Punk concert?

Probably all those dollar bills yo

Would 1 million Australians pay a small amount to see them? Probably not. But I know that a community as engaged as the dance music scene would find a way to fund such a venture. Just like they did in Brisbane.

I'm kicking around the idea I've getting involved with this competition and flexing some Crowdfund Coach muscle. I'm meeting with some friends next week and thinking of illustrating just how powerful the crowdfunding concept can go.

Are you with me?
Get in touch with your thoughts or comment below.

I'm Going to Learn a Language

2013-06-24T23:03:00.002+10:00

So I have a new project

For those of you who have followed our ramblings for a while, it will come to no surprise that I go through spurts of creativity. Some of these spurts of creativity have tangible outcomes, like a self-published book for example. Other projects start to lift off the ground, and I tire of them quite quickly, as written in my last entry for the The Crowdfund Coach.

I've been big on self-development and mentioned wanting to learn a language at the start of the year. I was deliberately vague about what kind of language as I didn't want to restrict myself.

After acquiring some DJ gear from my good friend Jimmy (he sold it to help fund his overseas adventure). I've been learning how to mix. Seven recorded mixes later, I realise I have a shitload to learn and am relishing the challenge.

My gear
And my Soundcloud can be found here:

Things are going to start off messy

As much as I enjoy DJing (and consider it a language). I think it's a bit of a cop-out to simply stop there. So indulge us in another tangent. I've been considering study again. I've been really encouraged by what's available on Open Universities Australia but don't want to commit to study if I don't have the discipline. Even with FEE-HELP it's an expensive enterprise and I want to be sure that I'm doing it for the right reasons. Courses that interest me include Masters degrees in IT, Design, and even going for an MBA, but I need to be sure that I can go all the way.

So I ended up writing a list of things that have been interesting me lately, this included:

design
API hacking
emerging technology
data visualisation
social
learning more about mobile

What this buzzy-like terminology told me, is that I need to learn more about coding.

It's not easy, mate

That is some of the appeal. If I can't dedicate myself to this for six months, what hope do I have for completing a Masters degree in two or three years time? So I started gathering information under a new project tab, and storing it in my Evernote.

I uncovered a number of resources and am assembling it all while trying to avoid information overload. The literature I've started reading includes: Codecademy, HackDesign, Project Euler, a teach-yourself-guide from Lifehacker, and a more structured 'night course' from the same name.

I've also downloaded two programming languages: Python and Processing. The former is mean to be pretty fast and good for getting you familiar with the right kinds of logic, the latter is a good language for designers and is open source. Also, my very limited understanding from what I've read thus far tells me that it doesn't really matter which languages you learn first - it's more the theory and concepts.

My first task

Was a course on Codecademy on Web Fundamentals and got me familiar with the very basics of HTML. Feeling inspired, I decided to write this entry in HTML. This should get me used to the effort involved and what I can and can't do.

So it begins :)

Downloading and Self-Righteously Posing

2013-06-04T21:16:00.002+10:00

There's been a few things going on in my life lately, and I'm going to simply list them. To make it slightly more interesting I'm going to give each a snappy-ish headline, and bullet points. Because everybody loves a good bullet point.

Not much of a start-up

My interest in TheCrowdfundCoach has waned since announcing it in this blog entry. My only excuse? Life got in the way. And hustling to get a side-project up-to-something you're happy with is a lot harder when it does. I really liked the idea, and even had a chance to discuss it with a crowdfunding site founder last week, but I think it's a shade removed from my skill-set and interests.

On a whim, I brainstormed my passions and came up with something, now it's time to cross it off the list and try again

I did learn a bit about setting up a website on my own and the effort it takes, how to get traffic, and avoiding getting swept up by the process before you invest too much money (say, in logo design) and many more things. I now have another project I'm working on and intend to spend a bit more time with it, I'm going to re-use the URL and redesign my site accordingly (and maybe hold off on logo design until it's necessary ;)

TED talks don't completely suck

I really enjoyed this one on 30 not being the new 20. I stumbled upon it while watching random YouTubes and cast my prejudices aside based exclusively on the snappy title and the fact my 30th birthday is rapidly approaching. I was glad I watched it. And if you're a 20-something going through some sort of drama at the moment, I recommend you do too.

I also enjoyed this one that I watched directly after on lie-spotting - the advice was practical and the examples used were very telling. On the back of the strength of this talk I went ahead and fed my Kindle addiction, and purchased her book.

There are a shitload of books on my to-read list

I've added to this list more than I've subtracted from it. Which is problematic because if I had to graph my purchases versus actual reading, it might look like this.

It's been a while since I've been a digital media account-coordinator that produces graphical gold it would seem

But, I still revel in how important it is. The more I consume the smarter I feel, and I just need to hustle and take that habit back.

I booked a trip to New York

I haven't checked my list in a while, but I'm pretty sure that was on there and I booked it. So yeah. That's happening. Next to Europe - it's been a lifelong dream to hit that city and hit it I shall. I'm booked for two weeks in September and will be tapping into my contacts while I'm over there - you've been warned!
As mentioned back in my list, I'll be scoping the place out. I really want to get over there and won't be satisfied until I've checked it out and sated my curiosity. I've got a feeling I'm kidding myself.

Miscellaneous musings

I'm getting pretty damn good at running. I ran a half-marathon in Sydney recently that was under 99 minutes. That's damn fast I think.

Is it the shoes?

Growing a beard has been an interesting life-lesson. I grew it as I have new fitness goals, but the change in look has made me re-evaluate things in all sorts of life spill-over. It's quite the compliment magnet!

That's it for this entry, I've been honest enough. Here's one last picture of us rocking a hoodie and beard AT THE SAME TIME.

That's right reverse mirror text, they will

Rock out.

Building something new: TheCrowdfundCoach

2013-05-05T16:07:00.000+10:00

This seems as good a way to go about it as any

As you might have picked up from my occasional blog entry, I'm big on downloading my thoughts, voicing my plans, and then slowly edging towards them.

Last year I wanted to see Europe, publish my book, and lose 20 kgs. This year I've set new goals and am progressing towards them at a slow and deliberate pace. In a bid to achieve these goals I've been reading, chatting and researching ways in which I can get there.

A few things I've learned over the past couple of months as I've been in info-gathering-mode:

There's a lot of information out there
It's a lot to take in and it is hard to filter out the stuff you don't need
The fastest way to learn is to do

So I've been doing where I can. I attended the Sydney LeanStartupMachine weekend a few weeks ago on a hunch and a desire to explore an idea I was thrashing out. That weekend I pitched my idea unsuccessfully, worked with a guy that successfully pitched his, and the proceeded to try and execute that idea within the weekend and failed pretty good.

In the end the idea didn't matter, nor did mine, but it was a pretty good taster for what I need to do and continue doing: fail, learn, repeat.

So with that newfound appreciation of failing, I decided to go ahead and build the idea I unsuccessfully pitched at the event: TheCrowdfundCoach.com.

Why?
Last year working on and releasing my memoir was a huge lesson in what you can and can't do in launching an idea. It also had me super-excited about what doors were opened via a platform that excited me like crowdfunding. I wanted to combine the two - by launching another idea and playing in a space that I'm interested in.

What's are you offering?
Currently I'm offering consultancy hours on how to successfully run a crowdfunding campaign.

What's in it for me?
Ever had an idea that required money? I'm helping you get there with what I learned, an appraisal of your idea, and some honest tips on how you can improve that idea.

What's in it for you?
I'm looking to learn as much as I can about what it takes to build something, make it work, and get people to pay for it. In building TheCrowdfundCoach, I expect to learn how to do it, in amongst a lot of failures, mistakes and inefficiencies that can only be picked up by doing it.

---

So I "soft-launched" a couple of weeks ago. This was hacking together a site via Weebly, crowdsourcing some basic design of a logo and writing some words. There's a shit-tonne of stuff I have to do to get this going and I have a shit-tonne of ideas about how I can grow my customer-base from a big fat zero.

But we've all got to start somewhere. And the important thing is I'm doing it.

My Top 10 Places to Eat in Sydney (Inner City)

2013-04-10T18:06:00.002+10:00

Something occurred to me today.
As big as I am on food, I've never really imparted information that conveys as such on this blog.

I was putting together some recommendations for some colleagues today and thought I should probably chuck this here as well. Most of this list is quite affordable and it works even better when you go as a large group (minus Almond Bar).

Bon appetit!

Enjoying a brekkie bloody mary

Darley Street Bistro

http://www.darleystreetbistro.com/Newtown/index.php/contact

King St, Newtown (near St Peters Station)

Contemporary Australian with a broad range of food to sample within most price ranges. Predominantly pub fare and contemporary Australian, my favourite with the lamb with mash and haloumi. Consistently good, and is so good at what they do that a chain of them has started.

Gumshara

https://plus.google.com/u/0/113820307811253329146/about

Haymarket, in Dixon Court

A little gem nestled within Dixon Court, the service station doesn’t look like much. This is the best ramen noodle you can find in Sydney. They use bone marrow for the broth authentic-Japanese style and you really need to prepare yourself if you’re going to heat the whole soup. My favourite is the pork tonkatsu with a chilli bomb.

One of my Sydney favourites in action

Wagaya

http://www.wagaya.com.au/

Haymarket
Excellent place for group-bookings (book well in advance), if you don’t mind eating a bit later they’ll stick you in a private room without extra charge. This is a touch-screen menu ordering system, and I’m not joking when I say that the food comes instantaneously for most dishes. Not traditional Japanese fare (avoid the pizzas) but for sheer variety alone this is a fantastic place.

Chilli Cha Cha

http://www.chillichacha.com.au/
CBD/Surry Hills

Move on to the next item in the list if you don’t like spicy food. This is authentic Thai (unlike King St, Newtown). Most dishes will obliterate your taste buds if you’re not prepared. If you do like spicy food - this is one of the best in Sydney. I personally really enjoy the larb moo, but it’s hard to order something that’s not great. There is a chilli scale on the menu, which should be adequate for most foodies (they do spicier on request though).

Yok Yor Thai Food Factory

http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/70/1605024/restaurant/Sydney/Yok-Yor-Haymarket

CBD/Surry Hills

Authentic Thai fare without the spiciness of the above. Really great variety of food (I like the fermented fish) and is BYO and open late. This is often a place I go to after a night on the drink and encourage you to do the same. Also has Thai banana desserts which you won’t find much elsewhere.

Almond

http://www.almondbar.com.au/

Liverpool St, Darlinghurst

Really enjoyable Middle Eastern fare that’s mid-price range. I like to go as a couple and grab a mixed platter that’s very reasonably priced for what you get. Strong range of options and the tabouleh is very fresh. My favourite tip? Skip dessert and head around the corner for gelato at the heaving Messina Darlinghust.

Holy Basil

http://www.holybasil.com.au/

CBD, inside the Shark Hotel

This is not a restaurant that you’ll find just by stumbling in (the Shark Hotel is a dive). But nestled at the back of this hotel is a restaurant with Laotian cuisine. I’ve never been to Laos, but my friends vouch for it’s authenticity and I find it similar to Thai. You can’t go past the Quail and flattened pork for entrees and every main is a winner. They will ask how spicy you want the dishes (you’ve got to push them for it if you want really spicy) and they are very attentive at refilling your glass of water (you’ll need it for the spicier dishes).

Sea Bay Restaurant

https://plus.google.com/117339001687477954364/about

CBD

Just near the Civic Hotel is a restaurant that’s great for groups and excellent Chinese cuisine. The place is BYO, affordable, and has just enough variety to warrant returning. We regularly order the pancakes, dumplings (pork and pumpkin), and some greens. The pièce de résistance however is the pepper pork. So deliciously evil that you’ll have your crew fighting over the last piece (and ordering another dish).

Encasa

http://www.encasarestaurant.com.au/

CBD

This is probably as close as you’re going to get to affordable tapas in Sydney. Bookings are essential as it’s usually pretty busy. Chorizo is a mandatory order, and I really can’t go past the woodfired blue cheese pizza - so good. Caters for larger groups when warned in advance, staff are pretty friendly, and if you feel like making a night of it I recommend getting the extra special Sangria.

O Bal Tan

http://www.obaltansydney.com.au/php/main.php

CBD
A place that always seems to be busy, yet always finds room for our group without a booking. Three-levels of Korean BBQ goodness. Safest bets are to get one of the combination platters and wash it down with a Hite. As a larger group we like to extend the experience with a beer tower. Great drunken noshing. I love this place after Friday night drinks.

Something's in the Air

2013-04-07T16:54:00.001+10:00

I've just got back from a huge week in Las Vegas. Much was learned, much was lost, and I was constantly told not to use the city as a barometer for the rest of the country. Thank goodness - because it was the first time in a long time that I felt overwhelmed in a foreign country.

I still managed to look good., you'll be pleased to know

Prior to departing I read and re-read a blog entry from my friend and mentor, Marie. The entry was called 'For those of you out there and it can be read here. It's a great tale about Marie and how she has succeeded on breaking out of the grind and striking out on her own to do things on her own terms.

I really enjoyed the piece and it set some thoughts in motion regarding my own projects.

With that in mind I did some more reading and came across another piece that I had bookmarked but never got around to absorbing. Chris Guillebeau's A Brief Guide to World Domination - what a piece of work. With the ever-growing proliferation of information available to us, it's even more relevant to us today than it was when it was written.

Chris presides over the notion of non-conformity, and it really resonated with me and my desire to go out and do some epic shit.

A snippet from my expanding list of notes on my 'Virus Project' - a huge idea I want realised one day

The bread-crumb trail continued. I've been reading a lot about notification addiction lately and after being inspired by these two pieces of writing I literally searched for: how to increase your focus. The first result came and I discovered a short article on exactly what I wanted.

The article (and the subsequent book I purchased) are written by Leo Babauta and it was a perfect next-step for me to get a move on. I'm guilty of having too many balls in the air and the book does a great job of stripping down what I need to do in bite-size chunks to increase my efficiency. It's amazing how distracting the Internet, your phone, and others can be.

So I feel like something's in the air.

At the start of the year I listed some things I want to achieve and a quarter in, some are looking easier to achieve than others. Fortunately, I'm beginning to see what tasks I want to prioritise and can morph into something I can be proud of.

In the interim, I'm going to keep focusing, chipping away, and getting in shape.

I've got this.

Gotta keep it going, keep it going full steam

2013-03-26T11:35:00.001+11:00

After I moved to Sydney, one of my friends flew up from Melbourne to visit, and we hung out for the weekend in what was a very exciting time of my life.

Commencing a new career, the thrill of relocation, making new friends... it was a great time to be alive, and I told this friend that I didn't really see how things could get better. This friend had a few years on me and asserted that I was wrong. Now that he had hit his 30s, he was loving life even more, and that the year just gone was the most exciting.

Given that being really happy and being told you're in for more isn't really a bad thing to have on the horizon. This friend was absolutely right, and next time we catch up I owe him a drink and some commiseration over his ability to predict the future.

Another milestone came about this weekend, for someone very close to me - my little sister's 21st.

She's an amazing individual, and I really enjoyed seeing her celebrate the milestone with friends and family. I'm still glowing, and as I make my way back to Sydney via plane, I can only look back and smile on what was a magical weekend.

I'm going to remember that weekend for some time.

Looking ahead, there's no reason why the good times can't continue. Next week, I travel to Las Vegas for our company's sales conference. It's going to be my first-time in the US and I'm genuinely curious about a place that I feel like I already know thanks to pop culture. The conference itself is on a mind-boggling scale, and I'm unsure whether an opportunity like this will ever come about again.

Closer to home, or rather replacing my home, is a new one-bedroom I've moved into in Newtown. Location-wise it's perfect and central to both friends and work. I'm really enjoying having a space I can settle into and while I returned to Australia apprehensive about my move back to the homeland, I can safely say that everything seems to be clicking into place.

At the start of the year, I listed a number of challenges that I wanted to achieve and I'm making progress in a slow and assured way. Of most interest to me at the moment is my acquisition of some new DJ equipment - I'd mentioned I want to learn a new language and in a way this is ticking that box. I've got a brand new, increased appreciation of electronic music in ways I didn't think possible, and this new challenge is really enjoyable. You can listen to my latest mixes here - the blending is horrible, but it is a good indicator for what tunes I've been rocking and appreciating.

This year has seen some great sailing, and I'm very fortunate for all the experiences I'm having. Which reminds me of a line from Beastie Boy's Intergalactic, "keep on rapping coz that's my dream". And it is.

Edit (26/03/2013): thanks anonymous for the correction.

Books I'm reading and why reading is f***ing important

2013-01-14T21:01:00.000+11:00

Last time, I wrote about a book that changed my life.

It was like a catalyst for spurring on a lot of action: some behind the scenes, a fragment of it you see on this page, and the rest you'll see in the future.

I've only just started getting back into reading, and to be honest I'm glad I didn't leave it any longer. What I've missed in the last decade is an absolute explosion of interesting books to read both for fun and personal development (the two aren't mutually exclusive).

So I've got my Kindle and have been purchasing books faster than I can read them. Nick Hornby wrote:

“All the books we own, both read and unread, are the fullest expression of self we have at our disposal. ... But with each passing year, and with each whimsical purchase, our libraries become more and more able to articulate who we are, whether we read the books or not.” (source)

Which is all well and good pre-digital. But I can't share that library with anyone, even if they visit my shit-arsed tiny flat, so I've decided to share what I've read, I'm reading and what I intend to read. And maybe that defines me, like Nick Hornby said.

I've read

I'm Feeling Lucky: The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59

Before I joined my current employer, a colleague at the time suggested reading this book and I never got around to it. After a while of working there, I was keen to know what my colleague meant. So I gave it a read and it was refreshing to hear a different perspective about the company.

The Start-up of You
Reid Hoffman, Ben Casnocha

LinkedIn is a company I've admired for the way they've gone about establishing themselves. They've carved out a niche and changed the dynamic with which people can get employed (including me). A senior colleague recommended reading this one and so I did. Co-written by the founder of LinkedIn and his friend, the book gives you a methodical approach to improving the most important startup you're involved in: yourself. I took a lot from this book and can't recommend it enough to people looking to develop both professionally and personally.

The Antidote: Happiness for people who can't stand positive thinking
Oliver Burkeman

I wrote about this last time, needless to say it's pretty awesome (considering I dedicated a blog entry to it).

I'm reading

Outthink the Competition: How a New Generation of Strategists Sees Options Others Ignore
Kaihan Krippendorff

I had the pleasure of seeing this guy speak. Work had a business function with some spare tickets and I jumped at the chance. Kalhan was a passionate speaker, and I particularly liked his methodical research of best-practice (and failing) businesses. The book is packed with this kind of information and I'm getting a lot out of it, I particularly like the references to the 36 strategies of ancient Chinese warfare.

A Game of Thrones: The Story Continues: The complete 5 books (A Song of Ice and Fire)
George R. R. Martin

I guess this counts as five books. I'm currently plowing through Book Two. It was a bit laborious getting through the first one thanks to seeing the first season of the TV show (which is excellent), but now that I'm on to new stuff (I abstained from watching any more until I got through the books) I'm really enjoying it again. This will take me a while.

Made to Stick
Chip Heath, Dan Heath

My last business trip to Tokyo was an inspirational, reinvigorating experience. Another senior colleague recommended reading this book and I insta-purchased on his word. It's early days but I'm loving the style and it's full of practical information on conveying ideas.

I intend to read

Assassin's Apprentice (The Farseer Trilogy, Book 1)
Robin Hobb

I grabbed this one after a drunken conversation with an acquaintance who said it's the best fantasy series he's ever read. The dude works at a library so I grabbed it on his word.

I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream
Harlan Ellison

Many years ago I read a PC Powerplay review of a point-and-click adventure game of the same name. The twist of phrase and story really stuck with me, resulting in an anguished high-school blog entry, and a desire to read the short story one day, I've finally got a copy.

Great Expectations
Charles Dickens

A literary classic that comes highly recommended and is free in the Kindle Store. I grabbed it knowing I've always wanted to read it.

The Name Of The Wind: The Kingkiller Chonicle: Book 1 (Kingkiller Chonicles)
Patrick Rothfuss

Another fantasy that came highly recommended, but as you can see that doesn't automatically get it read when there's a bulging list.

Cloud Atlas
David Mitchell

There's a movie coming soon and the mind-bogglingly ambitious narrative-style sounds like my cup of tea. I just need to make the time.

Life Of Pi
Yann Martel

I loved the trailer for this movie, and felt obliged to read it before going to see it.

The Making Habits, Breaking Habits: Why We Do Things, Why We Don't, and How to Make Any Change Stick
Jeremy Dean

I read a blog entry on making New Year's Resolutions stick and decided I liked it so much that the book being proffered should be purchased. And that I did.

Me and Her: A Memoir Of Madness
Karen Tyrrell

This lady offered some advice on publishing my own book over at the site PlanBig. I purchased her book to show my gratitude!

APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur-How to Publish a Book
Guy Kawasaki, Shawn Welch

The author has been a mainstay in my Google+ feed. I really enjoyed his free ebook "What the Plus?" and the content in this one would have come in handy while I was publishing my book. I want to get around to reading this to see where I've missed a trick.

----

An ambitious list isn't it? But when I see it I remember Nick Hornby's quote and realise it's not the end-of-the-world if I fail to read them all. But I do want to.

I want to because reading is fucking important. It makes you more articulate, improves your personal development, keeps you sharp, and a myriad of other things (like the ability to use the word myriad).

I'm striving to make myself better and I can't impart this on you enough. A new project is being formulated and these pieces of information make up some lessons that I think are important. Another thing I'd like to show you is a piece of software called Evernote, but that's the title of my next entry: Why you should get Evernote.

A Book That Changed My Life

2013-01-08T21:00:00.000+11:00

Otherwise known as: my review of The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking.

I heard about this book from a source that provides the occasional nugget of wisdom, Twitter.

The tweet in its original glory

Maybe I was susceptible at the time (it was November last year) but I clicked the link and it was one of the first (of many) books I purchased on my Kindle. I should also point out that another friend was interested in reading it that I didn't know about at the time, but he has good taste so it's worth mentioning.

So you could argue, that it was the tweet that lead to the book that changed my life.

But hold up, you might have heard me spout this claptrap before. Over a year ago, I referenced a book I read called "It's not how good you are, it's how good you want to be".

I didn't really mention the content of the book other than it was inspiring and admired the serendipity in which I came about to discover it.

Make no mistake.
I was fucking right.

A little over a year of reading that book I got to:

Well another book came along and it was this.

The book had me laughing, smiling knowingly, and nodding. Applying techniques from schools of thought such as Stoicism, Buddhism, the writing of Eckhart Tolle, and even the Mexican Festival of Death; Oliver Burkeman sows together a compelling argument for making the most of what you have.

The book is wonderfully articulate and is by a better writer than me.
So I'm calling it like I did over a year ago this book was life-changing and for the better.

How come I'm crapping on about books? Because I was told to.

I remember reading article from VICE a while ago, called the guide to Adulthood.

It had this awesome quote:

If you consider yourself a “full-grown adult” and have not read (like, completed, cover to cover) a book of any sort in the past three months, you are probably someone we never want to be friends with. TV and movies are great and all, and it’s good to keep up with carefully curated show selections, but if you look forward to making it home in time to catch The Big Bang Theory or whatever, you’re probably hopeless and should be sure to only befriend similarly boring people so you don’t turd up conversations. Non-fiction, medical journals, fiction, whatever, just read a fucking book already.

Words to live by.

This set a slow motion chain-reaction of events to spew forth:

Announce on my OKCupid profile that I was "I want to get a Kindle, but am not sure of how much I would use it."
Bought a Kindle
Read several books some months later
Realised how stupid I've been all these years

I've since read about five books which is more than I did last year, and thus spurs on the title of my next blog entry: Books I'm reading and why it's f***ing important.

Pissing Excellence and Backing Up Again for Next Year

2012-12-21T11:05:00.000+11:00

The best way you can get back at your enemies is by pissing excellence.

-me, Being Bi-Bi: a memoir on mental health and sexuality, November 2012

It's one of the last sentences in the book, and it works on so many levels. The best way you can get back at your adversaries is by being better. That might be an opponent, a demon, a troll, and probably a lot of other things as well. I won't dwell on them though, because I'm showering them with excellence.

This year, I wrote a book. I mentioned it when this blog started (in its current incarnation) and I finally got there. I got to deliver a heart-felt speech in front of my nearest and dearest at the launch party, and the feeling of seeing my book in print, and on Amazon are some of the proudest moments I've ever experienced.

Me delivering aforementioned speech (right) and hugging my beautiful sister afterwards (left)

I also set out to lose 20kg. I got there too. I learned a lot about myself along the way, including that there's better metrics for getting healthy, but after failed starts I was finally able to shove it to my detractors.

Sticking it back (forgive the toenails, I get in-growns very easy and prefer my feet to be ugly)

I ran a half-marathon. With a time that speaks for itself. That's sweating excellence.

When I'm partying or otherwise having a really good time, I sometimes take stock of the situation and think to myself - how can I have or do more of this?

This year was phenomenal. But how can I be even better? Okay I'll do more of that.

It's a principle to live by, and reminds me of what a poster on the Inthemix forums once said (paraphrasing):
If you're doing something and it's annoying people, do more of it.

Just replace "annoying" with "pissing excellence".
There you go!

So I've created a list of goals I want next year, and that I'll deliver upon:

Produce another major piece of creative workI have another idea for a project that I'm going to dedicate a future blog post to, but the current idea is to take on a medium different to a book: YouTube. I want to chart the path to one million cumulative views, and document the progress across digital platforms. One million views in a year. Let's see.
Travel to New York
This city has been itching at me forever, I need to scope it out as a potential place to live, and make my mind up on it. I won't know for sure until I see it.
Run a marathon
A colleague told me that there's not such thing as an easy one. I've been loving running and I'm going to take this on.
Take up meditation
I really enjoy this concept and after doing an introductory course I want to make this a regular habit.
Kickbox regularly
A friend and I agreed to take this up in the New Year, I've done bits and bobs in the past and want to make this a habit.
Yoga regularly
I'm fortunate enough to get free yoga at work, I'm going to enjoy this and develop it into a habit too.
Save $X a month
I'm shit at saving, it's time to fix that.
Pay off CC debt
I'm a grown man now and want this iced too.
Join a sporting competition
With my newfound fitness, I'd love to have one last stab at Aussie Rules or to resume tennis. It's a bit hard with my affinity for travel, but committing to, and accomplishing a season's worth of sport while I still can would be fucking unreal.
Kick arse professionally
This year I was nominated for the B&T 30 Under 30, it was nice to be recognised, but I want to do something even more kick arse this year. I don't really talk about my day-to-day on here, but I would like to achieve a similar milestone or better in 2013.
Learn to code, a language, or improve my overall design abilities
I know this one is vague, but improving my language, whether that be digital, verbal, or creatively is something I would like to do in 2013 and will be pursuing this one aggressively.

Ambitious? I'm actually thinking it's not enough. But we've got to start somewhere, and having this list in front of me will go some way. Is it right to plan this far ahead? Is it natural? Do I know what will change between now and six months from now? Are persistent fear-based questions a weak writing device?

Only time will tell.
I've got this.

5 tips on building an audience (what I sort of know)

2012-11-20T20:10:00.002+11:00

My number one source of traffic is a Gabriel & Dresden retweet.

Yes, I did favourite this Tweet for future reference

I've looked at the numbers, and I'm not taking the piss here. A disgruntled tweet from myself got picked up, retweeted, and is the cause of the biggest spike in my not-so-humble blog yet.

It was all downhill from there

The retweet linked to an article I wrote stating how hard it was for me to let go of my love for a duo I used to adore. It's essentially a negative piece, yet they (or whoever controls their account) had the humour to retweet my statement, resulting in a large spike the likes of which this blog has never seen before.

I chose to open with this example for an article on 5 tips on building on an audience as a somewhat comic indicator of the fact I still don't really know what I'm doing.

Looking at the graph above you can see a cumulative growth in page-views. So I guess you could say I sort of know what I'm doing. But there's a metric shit-tonne of stuff I don't know (and for that matter, don't care to know sometimes).

But given that I haven't updated in a month or so, I'm going to bestow upon you my 5 tips on building on an audience.

1. Cross-promote

What my Facebook friends have to put up with at irregular intervals

The fact of the matter is that for most people, blog traffic is not going to come from having a "polarising point of view" or a "USP". It's going to come from charity clicks you get from Facebook, Twitter, and one or two from the others if you're lucky.

I quit Facebook a while ago. For a craven, attention-seeking digital whore like me, this was somewhat akin to dropping my smartphone in the toilet. This was a mistake. Subsequently trying to blog to my friends was an unpleasant, dirty, and ultimately unfulfilling experience. And that's not just because the phone didn't work.

It's a quick-win, so just chuck it out there and enjoy the flak you'll get from your friends for pimping yo'self.

2. The rules change

Two comments back in 2001? That was practically half-the-Internet then

I started this shit a long time ago. And as evident from this blog post, I still don't know very much about building an audience. But what I do know is that the rules change in the online landscape, and a lack of readiness to adapt to these shifting conditions can see your e-cred plummet like mine.

I started OpenDiary ten years ago as a stream of consciousness download of my thoughts, feelings and poor future, present, and ex-girlfriend. Ten years later I still treat it as a stream of consciousness download of my thoughts, feelings, and as an active deterrent for future boyfriends and girlfriends.

The lesson I have consistently failed to learn is that you need to adapt to the changing landscape, and as online matures, refine your voice in a way that's authentic and still resonates with your audience.

A readiness to adapt quickly can have huge implications for building your audience. Robert Scoble's G+ adoption has lead to minor-celebrity status in tech-circles, and Guy Kawasaki enjoys a cult-following for his efforts on the same platform.

I'm not saying always change what you do for the latest trends, but at least be aware of them instead of doggedly sticking to the same formula. Although that works sometimes too.

3. Read up

Did I mention I have a book coming out?

If you're reading up to this point you must have some, vague interest in the topic, and I'm here to tell you I'm no authority. What I can tell you is that there's a shipload of content out there where you can read up on things like building an audience, and here's my quick-and-dirty take on the good, the bland, and the ugly.

The Good

The Oatmeal just released a comic on what it's like to be a writer. If you're one of the few people that hasn't shared this, then I urge you to stop reading this entry and read his article instead. It's much more entertaining and an example of what you should be doing (instead of what I do).
Mark Pollard is a digital strategist in New York that I only know via following various digital tweets from industry folk, the article I've linked isn't specifically geared towards building an audience (it's more stuff), but his articulate life lessons and approach are things that I enjoy.

The Bland

I have no doubt of it's efficacy, and it's a great resource, but ProBlogger fits within this category for me. It does a great job at blogging about blogging, but just typing that caves my head in and I think it's best to think of this sort of advice as the supplement rather than the main course.
For a while there I read a similar guy called GoinsWriter - he has some solid advice on writing and some simple tips. In the end I stopped tuning in because it seemed like pretty basic stuff.

The Ugly

People in glass stones should not throw houses, but JeffBullas approach is fucking ugly. It's methodic, process-driven link bait. Try and read some advice for nuggets of wisdom longer than half an hour and you'll end up stabbing yourself. There's no denying he is good at driving traffic, but this entry is about building an audience. And I think there's a difference.

4. Make the content interesting

Don't do what I continually do if you're interested in building an audience. Focus on interesting things. This may sound counter-intuitive, but the most interesting things are usually far-removed from your day-to-day.

It might sound paradoxical not writing about what you know, but humour me for a second.

Take someone you meet on a plane. It's a relatively unique experience where you can share as much, or as little as you wish. Now, if I meet someone that's on the plane that's into the internet, electronic dance music, and has a new gadget in front of them - we are going to get along like a house on fire.

Is what we discuss worthy of sharing with someone I incidentally meet later (say, someone who visits this blog?)

What if I sit next to an elderly hat professor who does most of the talking and regales me with stories about the war, how she met her husband of 50 years, and how she is a leading world-authority on hats worn in the last 200 years.

Correct me if I'm wrong (I only sort of know what I'm doing), but I felt 10x more comfortable sharing the information about the hat professor I met than the guy that's similar to me. It was interesting to share, rather than interesting to me.

This is a good rule-of-thumb. You can have that one. And if you don't get it here's a fucking list of content ideas for your next entry. But think of the hat professors out there first please.

5. Get your hands dirty

A somewhat impromptu shot of my hands

Above is an on-the-spot shot of me showing my hands. They are relatively clean. This wouldn't have happened if I didn't "get them dirty".

By that I mean, I knew uploading a picture of my hands is better than no pictures in the blog at all, and then I knew how to do that extremely quickly with Cameroid and Blogger's upload feature.

If I didn't get them dirty in the first place I would have never known these things. It's called experience and it's something you need just before you get it. If you accumulate enough of these things you'll need it less and less as time goes on.

Go out there and fucking do it.

When I went to the Emerging Writer's Festival, I asked the question in the Crowdfunding workshop: how do you know when to flick the switch?

Just like a break-up, there's never going to be a perfect time to do it. So just do it. You can do all the preparation, reading and research and you like - but there's no substitute for doing.

I've made a metric shit-tonne (I love that term) of mistakes jumping around in the digital space but ultimately I know a lot more from doing shit than holding back and wondering what the consequences would be.

Playing in the digital space is a wonderful thing, and you only learn that by doing.

...Then when you claim to lay some semblance of knowledge to what you're doing, Gabriel & Dresden will come along and blow all your supposed "approaches" out of the water. Sort of.

I'll book some time to write this

2012-10-28T13:08:00.001+11:00

I just cued up Jaytech Music Podcast Feb '08. For the ridiculously astute or bored, it opens with the same tune I play in my epic running YouTube. I'll have to get the name of the track one day. As it's one of the few sets I've bothered to download onto my work computer, it gets a lot of action. But why am I ambling around with text such as this? When I can start a much sexier paragraph.

Last week, I effectively raised $3,000+ to publish my book. That's right folks. After botched starts, and some missed deadlines, the book is getting published in 2012.

While I'm a bit lean on entries this year, it's been fun tracing back the journey. I hit the ground with an objective in returning to Sydney, and had booked a trip to the Emerging Writer's Festival the second weekend I was back. The experience was invaluable. Meeting like-minded people, hearing the same sorts of questions, and getting a sense of what others were doing and how it applied to me.

If you're one of the six people reading this and thinking of going - I urge you to next time it rolls out. It can be expensive to get there if you're not based in Melbourne, but in my opinion it was worth every cent.

You could chart the journey a bit further. I commented on the rise-and-rise of crowdfunding and how my book will get published. Pointing to the sites Pozible and Blurb, I pointed out that in combining the two I could cut out publishers altogether and do my own thing. I think it's around here that I mentioned something about putting what I know into practice, and decided to run with it.

But there were distractions. One day, I'd love to be doing my own thing and making an impact on my own terms. I expressed as much to a friend-of-a-friend who runs her own business. It was the wake-up call I needed, what the hell have I been doing with my book for all this time? It was time to apply the blowtorch.

And apply the blowtorch I did. Not everything came off. I had some ambitious ideas that may never see the light of day. One of my favourites was taking over the banner space of Inthemix Lifestyle forum with a banner and a call-to-action to buy my book. I smirk as I type and appreciate the irony.

But a lot of things did, and more importantly, people like yourself came through. I mean you, the reader. I put myself out there and started broadcasting my potential story to the world, and a lot of people placed faith in me and financed it.

I can only hope you enjoy the tale as much as I've enjoyed writing it. Even that time I was coming back from a train in Kiama and had written 3,000 words and at the exact time the battery decided to fuck out as I typed "n(o)" to the Microsoft Word save prompt. Yes, even then.

I deliberately used the term "broadcast" when talking about my potential story though, it's what drives me. The more I talk about dealing with the issues I've faced the more it can normalise it for others. I've got a very deliberate strategy in my approach and it's starting to come to fruition.

I spoke to an old boss about the potential implications of broadcasting this story. There's foreseeable outcomes and ones that will be harder to predict. I don't claim to have all the answers when it comes to running with this, but whatever's driving me shows no signs of stopping, slowing, or anything but accelerating.

You don't go to crazy and back without returning with some crazy ideas of your own.
Let's see where we end up?

Putting your money where my mouth is

2012-09-01T12:20:00.001+10:00

I think I'm averaging an update every two weeks or so on this blog lately. And every time I look back on two weeks ago, I shake my head and reflect on what a fortnight it's been. This fortnight has probably been even bigger than usual in terms of personal milestones for me.

On Sunday, I flicked the switch on self-publishing the book. As I had mentioned in an earlier entry, my intention was to crowdfund the publication costs of the book via a site called Pozible, and then use those funds to self-publish on a site called Blurb.

I love that both these sites exist today, and that with some verve and a bit of a digital flair I can finally make a dream happen.

Which brings me to why I gave this entry this particular title. In my day job, I'm paid to come up with digital strategies and ideas that will work for very large advertisers. There's a backlog of experience, knowledge and things learned along my short career that I can apply, and the fluid nature of digital means I have to be ready to adapt and learn new technologies that I can integrate into potential solutions.

I am good at what I do. I work for a fantastic company, and am very appreciative of the opportunities that present themselves as a consequence of my employment. Over time, I've encouraged, coerced, and dragged large advertisers into the digital space with a fair degree of success.

But hold up, if I know so much about digital, how come I can't seem to get my shit together with this blog? How come the traffic it does is a pittance? And why can't I write compelling enough content to make people want to read?

These are hard questions to answer, and all I could say is that I write in my blog more for me, than an audience (although having an audience is nice).

Let's apply a critical filter to these questions I've posed. If I know so much about digital that I get paid to come up with strategies for large advertisers... why I aren't applying that knowledge to me and what I want to do?

Well the penny dropped a month or so ago. I think I mentioned feeling inspired, wanting to apply myself to something, and realising I had all the tools and capabilities to do what I wanted already. Get the fucking book done, I thought. And with my new found realisation - there were really no more excuses.

I had dropped the ball. And if it wasn't apparent when I was languishing, it was definitely apparent when I picked the ball back up. I announced my reinvigorated fervour to my friends on email, explaining my intention and how I'm working to a deadline. The question that bounced back could have cut me to shreds if it wasn't so true: "Is this the book you've been working on for ages?" Ouch.

So I have been putting my money where my mouth is, and in turn yours. I'll come back to how that works.

I am very, very impressed with this number

I've been busy. I've sought advice from my mentor, visited a life coach, had a photo shoot done, and filmed a pitch video. I've sourced more diligent feedback from the book and have a new deadline that I'm working to.

It's all been built around a singular destination - http://pozible.com/beingbibi - a site that is simultaneously drawing attention, capturing pre-orders, and raising funds for my book Being Bi-Bi: a memoir on mental health and sexuality.

One of the trickier things was pricing the book, as it depends on volumes I publish, and demand. There were a lot of variables at play, and wanted to be sure I wasn't put too far out of pocket, but at the same time didn't profit from the experience as that didn't feel right.

Enter an organisation called Soften the Fck Up. A group whose objective is to drop the male bravado when it comes to talking about not feeling okay, and bring down the rate of suicide - its the leading cause of death for adult males under 44 in Australia.

As can be read in Being Bi-Bi, it's an issue close to my heart, and any extra funds I raise from publishing the book will be going to this group.

Results have been very promising, and within the last week, we've managed to raise over $1,300 to help the book along and help this organisation. And that's something this writer can be proud about.

You've Got This

2012-08-13T09:37:00.000+10:00

I got this.

I've been bandying it around a lot lately. And it's fun to say. This was my attitude going into the City2Surf, a 14km race from Sydney's CBD to its coast. I'd never run that far before without stopping. What sort of brazen confidence was this? I'd say a few things helped inform it along the way.

Listening to People

Oddly enough, when people tell you things, they generally have your best interests at heart, and this was the case when I announced the bet to lose 20kgs.One particular member called me out on my use of the words "I hope". They said:

Don't "hope" for it, fucking work for it. You're an intelligent person Marshy, so don't let stupid food choices win. This time, make it a permanent lifestyle change so that there's no 4th try. Don't prove it to ITM, prove it to yourself.

EVERYDAY: eat clean food, train hard, sleep, and repeat.

It can be done.

The words resonated, as they should. The member calling me out achieved this transformation. Abosolutely awe-inpspiring.

Training

You just fucking do it. There's no excuses. You make time. I've spent years looking for shortcuts, accelerating programs and burning out too fast, applying new theories to do anything but train. I get angry at old me just thinking about my old excuses. You find what works for you and you run with it. It's not meant to be easy, but it's not meant to make you hate yourself either. Once you start, they say 21 days is how long it takes to be formed. I don't know about that, but the thought of not running seems like a really, really stupid idea now. As does not logging what I eat, which is next.

Look at what goes in your mouth

I hate diets. I really do. The concept of doing something radically different to your normal habits in some sort of sustainable manner does not make sense. They work for some people, but not for me. For my situation, I didn't need a diet, I needed a transformation. My habits were already terrible and I needed to make myself accountable to myself and learn along the way. The only way that seems to work for me is by tracking everything that goes in my mouth. And that's what I do.

Yep, I'm commenting on my own achievements

I don't envisage me doing this forever, but until I know enough to know when I can spoil myself and when I can't, I'm going to keep on loggin'.

And you do this every day. Every fucking day.
Then days like the City2Surf come up, and you get to wear a medal.

Look at me, I got a medal

I'm not there yet. And I don't think I ever will be, because I'll just keep shifting those goal posts.

You've got this.
.

Being Bi-Bi: A call-to-arms

2012-08-02T23:11:00.004+10:00

A lot changes in two weeks.

I blogged about new intentions then. I wanted to reframe my endeavours, but I think even then, I was still a little lost.

That changed last Thursday on the 26th July this year.
I'd been exploring options, looking at where I could apply myself outside work, and the answer was staring me in the face.

The meeting was by chance, I'd mentioned on Facebook that I was looking at an MBA and whether people had any experiences with this kind of degree. A friend-of-a-friend shared a few thoughts, and I decided I should pick their brains over coffee.

So the night came along, the coffee turned into an after-work soda water, and I put it on the table.

I said I want to do something entrepreneurial. I said I've got business ideas that I want to execute on. I said I want to make a difference.

They probed, did I really? What's driving me? Don't I have a book I'm trying to publish?

Things snowballed. There was a twinkle in their eye that suggested I could do this. What was holding me back? I threw up a list of pathetic excuses. All of which were shot down. It's the time for action. This is the business I've been looking at.

We brainstormed.
And to be honest, since then the ideas have not stopped flowing.

I have registered Being Bi-Bi - the site with which I will promote my book. I started talking about it with people. I got in touch with a photographer friend for visuals. I started writing out a plan for finishing the book, building out the site, and for marketing the shit out of it.

There'll be more to it than this page when I'm done with this

This will work. I've effectively been a digital marketer for four years and it's time to practice what I preach. I'm throwing everything at this. There will be no kitchen sink left.

And I'll be blogging about the experience (naturally).

Check out this site I have for planning and sourcing help, I'm currently after a mentor/coach but there will be lots of other things.

And what do I hope to achieve? Any money from the proceeds will go to Soften The Fck Up - an organisation I believe in, and if you don't you should watch this video and try not to be moved.

It's coming. And no stone will be left unturned.

The Rise and Rise of Crowdfunding (and How My Book Will be Published)

2012-07-17T22:24:00.000+10:00

A while ago I visited the Emerging Writer's Festival in Melbourne. I blogged about my experience here and took copious notes about the experience here. I revisited my notes about the festival the other day after a friend said they saw me on television, and sure enough there I was:

Asking the tough questions, with Marshwah (Source: ABC)

But that wasn't the only experience that piqued my interest, in fact, there was a session even more critical to the book than addressing Tough Topics. And this was to do with something I hadn't heard before, it was to do with crowdfunding.

What is crowdfunding? I hear you ask. At its essence, it's sourcing funds for a project from the public. But more importantly, it's democratising projects that deserve to be realised.

There are sites out there such as Kickstarter and IndieGoGo, that are international. But at the Festival I heard about an Australian site, Pozible that's doing really, really well and going toe-to-toe with these big names.

Rather than just support large-scale commercial projects, the site is doing its bit to support those in the arts as well. At the conference I heard about Kate Toon, and how she raised funds for her book of poems. The story was inspiring, and I jotted down an idea, but I'll come back to that.

Some of the other projects that Pozible's helped that have caught my attention include:

Patient 0 - an IRL zombie first-person shooter concept that is going to get off the ground and be realised.
reallybigroadtrip - lady that works in the digital arts who wanted to travel around Australia in a bus and spread digital culture - she was halfway with 40 hours to go and then romped it in - she even received a tweet from Hugh Jackman supporting the cause!
Soften The F*** Up - a campaign that's now 80% there and that I contributed to, looking to help prevent suicide in young males.

Pretty inspirational stuff right?

What's my idea then?

Well, it's no secret that I want to see my book published. How about crowd-funding production of the book? I'd get manuscript appraisal, an editor, and anyone contributing would receive a book... what's that? How would I publish the book? With Blurb of course.

Blurb is another site I heard about at the Festival, essentially it lets you self-publish for a nominal fee and no minimum on the amount of books published.

I'm still wrapping my head around the finer details and logistics of the thing, but rather than rely on gatekeepers, agents, and publishers, I can empower myself and get this thing done. That's what I love about the crowd-funding concept, it really is helping realise dreams.

You don't think it's possible? I dipped my toes in the water on that forum I frequent and mentioned I'm looking to get into crowd-funding, the thread transformed into a proposition that if I could lose 20kg in six months, $800 would go to the book fund. I am well on the way to achieving that.

You call down the thunder, now reap the whirlwhind.

Next steps are to develop the Pozible proposal and send it live, if you've got any tips let us know in the comments.

Life, Writing, Travel, Digital (+Business)

2012-07-16T22:52:00.001+10:00

Almost five months ago to the day, I mentioned in my blog that I was looking at repositioning the blog to have a bit more relevance within certain segments. These segments would be related to what I enjoy writing about, and divided up by tags to denote subject topics and make certain areas of my writing more digestible.

So I've divided it up into five segments: life, writing, travel, digital, and business.
I've taken the liberty of trawling through all of my old posts and re-tagging them appropriately.

Here's what each segment is about for the past, present and future.

Life - without a doubt, and without shame, my favourite topic to write about is myself. I've been writing since 2001 and oddly enough, most of it has been about me (and probably in the early years, my poor ex-girlfriend). I love to share, and at times overshare, and this propensity to has seen me adopt a policy whereby I don't name or include other people. It's not you, it's me.

While I love to think that most people would love to read what I e-spew via keyboard, I think it's safe to say that anything with this tag will be written for love (of myself).

Writing - almost an extension of myself yet not, my eagerness to get my book published has seen many an entry written conveying my progress (or lack thereof). Needless to say it's a subject close to my heart and will continue to be, and I'll be documenting it's progress here.

Travel - so anyone following this for a length of time would have realised that I've become a full-blown travel wanker. I love it so much. I hasten to extol the virtues of travel to passers by on the street and happily show off my ink-splattered passport pages to complete strangers. Maybe it's not quite this bad. But it will be within these electronic pages. You've been warned.

Digital - for the foreseeable future in my career, I will eat, shit, live, and breathe digital. I do it for work and I do it for play. It's more entertaining than television for me and I fail to see television getting more innovative at anywhere near the same rate. This excites me immensely. Have you seen this? Or do you follow this? This be the shit that interests me the most and I intend to blog about it a bit more under this label.

Business - what's this one doing here? Well, I've recently started laying the foundations for a side-project with a partner in relation to starting our own venture. I really want to document the experience from a broad perspective and share information and findings of my own. There are a tonne of resources out there and I'll cover off some of the ones that have helped me in these infant stages in a future entry.

I'll make some changes to the layout of the blog (hopefully faster than this tagging initiative) and these little blogging adventures will continue rolling along.

The Most Epic Trip Ever

2012-06-26T21:09:00.003+10:00

I probably didn't build up the holiday enough on this blog, sure I mentioned it as it was about to happen, but to say it was going to be the greatest holiday ever in the history of history probably could have done with a bit more build-up.

Of course, it's easy with hindsight to say that I could have sold the fact that it was going to be ridiculously epic, but believe me, every man and his cat knew I was going on this holiday and that I went in with an agenda for it to be the best thing that's ever happened to me.

It delivered.

It fucking delivered.
It fucking delivered and had extra cheese.

But I didn't experience it in the way I envisaged. I envisaged this ongoing, perpetual high that only improved as time progressed and was more akin to travel I'd done in places like Asia.

The fact was, I'd only done Asia, and the fact was, I'd done it predominantly solo.

This trip was different: it was longer, not in Asia, and was in a group. Boy, did I learn the latter was a game-changer very quickly. But we'll come back to that, I think we'll commence with something that sets itself up... let's start with the bet.

I even make this look like an effort, that will change, soon

The bet was an undertaking whereby I wanted to move 20kg in six months, I started it just prior to going on holiday. Do not doubt for a second that I'm serious about this endeavour, but also don't doubt for a second that I'm not going to let it obscure my holiday in Europe for the first time. Actually, come to think of it, starting off with the bet is a shit way to get this story started. Sure, it needs to be acknowledged, but we need to kick this shit off with a motherfucking rainbow...

Here be a motherfucking rainbow

Rainbows are great, and I'd liken it to my trip with a clever analogy, but I can't be fucked right now and we'll probably park that for now until I drop it like a bomb at the end of this tale and you realise you forgot about it and I'm all like hey, I be a clever writer.

The shot of the rainbow was taken just before my trip to Europe, I'd moved back to Sydney from Singapore and was in this bizarre twilight zone where I was settling back in Australia but not. I checked out a few places to live, acquainted myself with some of my best friends, and basically hinted at the fact that my life was going to get ten times more awesome than theirs in the coming month. If you're one of those friends reading this currently and wondering if I actually delivered on this promise, then suck shit - it was actually 20 times more awesome than you could possibly envisaged, except a friend I won't mention, he left me this heartfelt message on Facebook the day I left:

Oi. Have a fucking incredible trip cunt. Awesome seeing you the other night, and good having you back in the country for good this time. I missed you while you were in Singapore. Stay safe, but also smash the fuck out of it on your holiday.

I love my friends.

But where were we? Oh yeah I was about to commence my holiday. I jumped on the plane, hit up my tablet and finally got why Breaking Bad is considered good television, and chatted to an old grandmother from Scotland. Oh wait I blogged about that. And eventually I hit.

First stop : London

If you're a new reader to this blog, you won't know this, unless you know me in the flesh, then you will definitely know this. I plan to be in one of three cities in the next 18 months: London, New York, or San Francisco.

I cannot stop crapping on about my plans and I'm now getting categorical eye-rolls from my friends whenever I mention them, rest assured though you non-sympathetic bottom-dredgers, I will deliver on my plan.

But I digress, the point I was trying to make was that London wasn't high-up on the expectations list. I have friends there and all, but if I'm eventually going to move there anyway what's the point in getting excited about it?

Boy did I get proved wrong. In world record speed (I daresay even faster than my first foray into Chiang Mai), I was crapping on about the textures of the city, appreciating its public transport system, and reveling in the fact there were people in the pubs, all the goddamn time!

I fell in love. I finally understood why half of Australia goes there. I even soaked up some of the sights.

Normally I caption each photo, but I think you get the general theme here

The people blew me away. All of my Australian acquaintances welcomed me with open arms. They asked questions such as 'when are you moving here?', 'you alright?' and 'can you father my children'?*

I spent six days there, working in the Google London office for three of them. The work made it a bit of an intermission, but oh my, what an intermission it was. I love London, and it's really thrown a spanner in the works for San Fran's and New York's hopes, but it was just the beginning, and each trip needs a middle, a hearty middle nestled within Spain.

Second stop : Barcelona

Oh my, what a fantastic nose you have

The first real thing we remember about getting there, was being told to watch my bags as I was a target. It wasn't a warm welcome. But that element of danger boded well for the adventurous occasions that ensued.

By jove, I have never, and probably will never, party as hard as I did in Barcelona.

Going there for Sonar Festival was incidental, it was the parties off the festival that made the trip so worth it. Riddle me this:

This was just warming up, that's right, the sun was shining and the tunes were belting

Picture this. Three of your best friends, a pumping dancefloor, trollied off your nut, listening to an up-and-coming DJ/Producer, and then John Paul Young's Love is in the Air comes on. Can you picture the magic that went down at that particular moment? Can you imagine 500 sweaty people singing in unison to one of the cheesiest Australian songs ever in the history of the world being played 25 years later on the other side of the earth? And then hearing tune of the European Summer being dropped immediately thereafter?

It's pretty hard to articulate, but man, you wish you were there.

That was near the beginning. And it was a party we weren't even originally going to attend. And there were at least 20 similar parties going on that week. And... hey, I don't even want to sell it to you, more room for me to boogie next year.

Other things happened, including seeing Derrick Carter in a club, Richie Hawtin at a street festival, and then going to the best party in the universe.

Derrick is the black blob to the left, I'm the blob in the middle

Panorama of the best party of the year, Minus @ The Boo Beach Club, Barcelona... what a GREAT DAY

Barcelona absolutely rocked my socks, I partied like I'd never partied before, and enjoyed the shit out the tapas culture as well.

How could you not enjoy the shit out of this?

But whereas Deadmau5 is content to fax the next destination, I was going for gold, I was headed to...

Third stop : Berlin

There is not a single person in my friendship circle that doesn't think Berlin is where it's at. And now I get why. It totally owns, where London had the element of surprise, and Barcelona had the element of party-ness (I just made that word up), Berlin had completeness. It was the entire package, and I even took in the sights this time, more so than the other cities.

I believe this square is composed of rich mahogany, and the archway was once a resting port for breaching whales, yes, I'm quite sure I'm right

I checked out the Holocaust museum, wow, after a week of partying in Barcelona that was a lot to handle. I'm glad I went, but you could feel how overwhelming the tragedy was less-than-a-lifetime ago. But you know me, I like to keep things light, and I kept it gangster by saying bo selecta...

The Marshful Dodger

I took the most photos in Berlin. And I'm not even a photographer. We had a great mixture of company, schnitzels, broken weather, and just a dash of partying. And while I'm throwing around a lot of "of the years" here's another one. I went to the concert of the year (for me). I got to see New Order, a band I've long idolised post-high-school, and who helped me through some really crap times. My friend had arranged tickets to see them on Thursday night in Berlin and they did not disappoint.

I should have stolen this poster as a souvenir

While I consider myself articulate, describing what went down at that concert from an emotional perspective is difficult. I had built them up in my head so much that I doubt they would ever transcend the lofty heights in which I had placed them, but even taking that into consideration they still blew me away. Hearing Crystal live was always going to be underwhelming. It's a very slickly produced track, but as I cried and cheered and absorbed it definitely brought a sense of closure to what has been an integral part of my story.

New Order playing Regret in Berlin

Hearing Regret - a song with a huge history between me and one of my mates was special, and then when Bizarre Love Triangle came on I peaked, and there was many a joyous hug. I'm kind of disappointed I didn't lose my voice, but I gave it a good nudge.

With all this happening, a normal person would be content to let the holiday peter out, and call it stumps. But, ladies and gentlemen, we be entering the bonus round...

Bonus round : Amsterdam

Initially, I was of the opinion that including another city in this sojourn was over-ambitious, and should best be put at back of mind, but after chatting with friends and experiencing group-holiday-politics for the first time, I booked a last-minute trip to Amsterdam for the night to go to Defqon.1 - a hardstyle (and other genres) festival that was not for the faint of heart.

After everything that had happened leading up to this, I was wondering if I had bitten off more than I could chew. After all - who wants to push their luck when they're clearly #winning already?

Well, what an epic show. The only artist I knew on the line-up was Scot Project - not only did he deliver - but the dozens of unknowns that I also encountered delivered as well. The vibe was amazing. My approach was to embrace the experience and take it for what it was, a bit of long-distance fun with one of my closest friends.

It was the right approach.

Juxtapose the trip there:

Boring town

With the most amazing visual experience I've ever encountered:

This be the mind-blowing shit

It wasn't all apples

Now all I've done is spout positivity, despite hinting at the fact that the trip didn't enjoy ideal group dynamics at the start of this entry.

There was some lowlights, they included:

Losing my debit card to an ATM and being without cash for five days
Quickly realising that group-travel isn't harmonious and utopian
Spending unnecessary amounts of money on things I didn't need
Realising that Defqon was a very, very expensive cab ride away from our hotel
Fighting with one of my best friends over complete crap

But do you know what? It was the motherfucking best holiday I've ever had. And then some. I'm actually welling up now as I type this at an Irish bar in Singapore and realising that it's over.

This is where I throwback to the rainbow.

Be ready for me to drop an epic conclusion

A rainbow is a colourful journey between two points. The beginning is filled with expectation, and the ending is a wonderful reflection. But to get that magical reflection you need rain, for without rain the rainbow doesn't exist at all. I'm thankful it rained, because without it I would not have this fantastic thing that just happened to reflect upon.

And for that, I thank all who were involved.

You could have said love was in the air. And with that I leave you with the most magical moment that happened on this trip. Naturally in Berlin, naturally with some of my best pals:

*Names will not be named.

Revelling in Geekery

2012-06-19T00:41:00.001+10:00

"The best thing about being an adult, is you can do what you want, when you want".

Words from my former stepfather. I used to hate it when he'd tell us that as kids, and thought there was no way I would ever embrace this kind of attitude when I finally became an adult.

Yet 20 years later, here I am opening with this very quote.

Mid high-school I struggled. I was a target for bullies and my fondness for computer games and miniature war figurines didn't exactly endear me to the cool kids. Now I'm in a regional role at one of the best companies in the world and getting paid to embrace my love of all things outright geek.

That's right baby, we're getting our geek on.

Now I'm not saying I didn't enjoy my childhood, I had a fucking great time. But now I can do what I want, when I want, and no longer worry that Nick Evans is going to shove me into a locker and break my arm again, or that Ben Joske is going to kick away my basketball. Douche bags... look at me now!

That's right bitches, the face of success

But I stray from the point, which is to revel in geekery unashamedly. Sure I'm a nerd, but I make it look fucking cool.

Some of my favourite geek moments:

Wake up, reach for my tablet, which is connected to my eee PC, and play techno on YouTube on the computer that has the speakers connected. It's pretty boss.
Being ingenious with existing technologies. I remember altering my Sega Lock-On's by taping plastic over the barrel, and drilling holes in the centre for more emphasis on accuracy rather than the wide-range they originally shot at.

Yeah baby, they were the duck's pyjamas

MacGuyver-ing that shit. When I couldn't charge my Asus eeePad I visited some forums and discovered that you could fix the charger by putting it in a freezer. Not having one on me in an airport in Chiang Mai, I drank my iced tea and deposited the charger battery in some ice. The result was gleefully exclaimed in this G+ post.

There are of course, many more glorious moments such as this. My point being that where once upon a time I'd try and mask these incidents so as not to look like a geek - are now moments I happily celebrate and revel in. I may have even just broadcasted them on the Internet. It's cool being an adult. You can do what you want when you want.