Blog

I&rsquo;ve been attending the <a href="https://www.meetup.com/Melbourne-KMLF/events/142133462/" target="_blank">Knowledge Management Melbourne</a> sessions without still being entirely clear what a Knowledge manager actually is, but I find the topics they present interesting and relevant, so&hellip; Tonight&rsquo;s topic was a paratactical session on facilitation techniques, which is something I undertake occasionally so was interested in hearing some ideas and suggestions. These were both te...

This was a great <a href="https://productanonymous.com/" target="_blank">Product Anonymous</a> session with <a href="https://au.linkedin.com/pub/jason-cormier/15/131/744" target="_blank">Jason Corimor</a> of <a href="https://www.mashery.com/" target="_blank">Mashery</a> that covered the business and commercialisation of using APIs, I intend to expand on a few of these topics in the future, so will touch upon them here. Jason likens discussing APIs with businesses to discussing websites a decades...

I have the fantastic opportunity to represent two of my favourite non-tech talks from last year, I&#39;m back at Laneway Learning to present my &quot;<a href="/cosmic-horror-hp-lovecraft">Cosmic Horror &amp; HP Lovecraft talk</a>&quot; on March 5th, you can <a href="https://melbourne.lanewaylearning.com/classes/cosmic-horror-and-hp-lovecraft/?utm_content=buffer21da4&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=twitter.com&amp;utm_campaign=buffer" target="_blank">book in at the Laneway Learning website</a>._...

<p class="p1"><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">A strange session tonight as we had a last minute cancellation, this coupled with the typical business session audience, i.e. High RSVP, high no-show, meant it was a quiet and quick evening.<p class="p1"><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">Andrew Skinner confessed to not being a confident public speaker, however this didn&#39;t detract from his high quality, high content presentation. The presentation covered getting client / internal team buy in...

This was a strange event for a couple of reasons, firstly it didn't run very smoothly with lots of minor technical issues and delays that made the event run very long and late, with the main event not really starting until 8pm after a 6:30 start. Secondly the pitches (I saw, see later) were generally a little unsure and not in the traditional pitch style, I spent a lot of time thinking 'and...?', it was never very clear why the pitchers were pitching, what did they want to win for, what did the...

This was a great session with a myriad of conflicting opinions and points of few, that always sparks a good debate :)</div>&nbsp;</div>First up a great set of introductory resources for startup founders from Scott Handsaker, with a lot of new initiatives arriving in Melbourne. His slides will be available on the <a href="https://www.meetup.com/Lean-Startup-Melbourne/events/160212272/" target="_blank">event&#39;s meetup page</a>.</div>&nbsp;</div>Secondly was a very constructive talk on outsourci...

When did you last use the references feature in Microsoft Word? Or truly needed any more than about a quarter of the filters in Photoshop? When talking about feature bloat in applications, our minds often slip to thinking about Microsoft or Adobe software and the statistic that most users only utilise about 20% of their feature sets.

<p class="p1"><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">Over the weekend I saw <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1798709/" target="_blank">Her</a>&nbsp;and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2007360/" target="_blank">Computer chess</a>, very different films about technology that were delivered in very different ways, but there were several similar threads running in them that got me thinking, these similarities were&hellip;<p class="p1"><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">They ended up not being...

<span style="line-height: 1.538em;">For many, 2013 has been an intense and not always good year, but personally it&#39;s been pretty good and I&#39;m looking forward to building upon the foundations from this year into 2014. Here&#39;s some reflections and highlights for you all to enjoy/endure. <strong>Travels</strong><br />I spent a lot of time travelling this year, to conferences and Holidays, this included three DrupalCons in Sydney, <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/chrischinchilla/...

I've been learning to drive (again) recently, with an aim to finally actually take my driving test, I'm also a keen (legal) cyclist… None of this has any real bearing on me deciding to attend tonight's event, that was more to do with my fascination in knowing about and understanding the various data sets that are available from our government agencies.  There was a slightly strange feeling in the air that is always present when those from ‘old school’ government agencies or business present in...

Joomla! Day Melbourne 2013 polo shirt, very nice but a little large for me.

Pretty cool logo :)

I love this towel, but being white it gets dirty very quickly, so not really sure what to do with it...

I've been sitting on the post for a while, a series of (comical) screen shots on what different people want from a website during it's design process. You may recognise some...   ...

November has been a great month for meet-ups, perhaps everyone wrapping up for the year is making organisers up the ante. **Google glass / Wearables** This is the first time i've really seen a Google Glass in the flesh and they do look a bit odd and distracting. The developer world is now growing and open. It provides a chronological view and you have to talk or touch to do things, so not as intrusive? It still looks a little unresponsive and i'd love to know what it doesn't look like projected...

With&hellip;&nbsp;Cory Doctorow, Melbourne Writers Festival Director Lisa Dempster and Peter Williams of the Deloitte Centre for the Edge. A main presentation, followed by a panel discussion, which I haven&#39;t really covered here and got interesting just as it was ending. <strong>Cory Doctorow&#39;s three laws</strong><ul><li>If there&#39;s a law that takes away your right to do things with something you&#39;ve bought it&#39;s not in your interests. But generally not in the interests of pub...

It seems as the year draws to an end, we&#39;re having some of the best talks! Damn Christmas&hellip; <strong>Web for TV, Sam Buckley</strong><br />Smart TV&#39;s don&#39;t do anything well. 33% of Australians have one only 5% browse the web on them, but a high amount for app type functionality.<br />Distance between viewer and device is an issue? Also interfaces are unattractive, lack of know how, not enough content, slow speed.<br />There&#39;s a lack of UX on TV(!) and the Internet is stil...

First up, I find it strange how different sectors describe the same things with different names and have the same problems. It&#39;s simultaneously refreshing and depressing that small and large organisations have exactly the same problems with their projects. <strong>Small or large, what is the fundamental problem?</strong><br />&nbsp; <em>Here&#39;s my bullet point thoughts on the breakfast</em><ul><li>Vendor management = project management etc</li><li>Deliver more that you promise, not th...

A great session tonight with two case studies from local Drupal shops... **ACCA and content hubs from Monkii** <a href="https://www.monkii.com.au" target="_blank">Monkii</a> work strongly with UX personas, building profiles of potential users before embarking on web projects, with the relaunch of the <a href="https://www.accaonline.org.au/" target="_blank">ACCA</a> site, content hubs were built to suit explorers and first timers to sites, they have a rough idea of what they are looking for, but on...

<p class="p1"><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">A few weeks ago I quit my job, I&rsquo;d been there for two years but it was no longer right for me anymore.<p class="p1"><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">I&rsquo;m not one to rest on my laurels, so what&rsquo;s next? After a process of figuring out who I am and what I want to do, quite a lot is on the horizon, allow me to introduce you to some of the potentials&hellip;<p class="p1"><span style="line-height: 1.538em;"><strong>Wrapping up my in...

Jonathan Teo (originally from Sydney) from General Catalyst Partners, a leading VC firm in Silicon Valley. Jonathan has personally led early-stage investments in 3 of the hottest companies of recent years including Twitter, Instagram and SnapChat, so a body of great knowledge. <span style="line-height: 1.538em;">He went from tech work to growth strategy for tech companies, he commented that venture capital success is often just from good connections, which is interesting and does it say that...

<p class="p1">I feel slightly cheeky writing much about the event as I didn&rsquo;t really end up doing very much and felt somewhat humbled and embarrassed by the other attendees.<p class="p1">Anyway, to start at the beginning.<p class="p1">HealthHack 2013 was a weekend hackfest solving problems that medical researchers face. HealthHack brought together medical researchers, bioinformaticians, software developers, data analysts, data visualisers and designers. Together, they created new software...

<p class="p1"><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">As part of RMIT&rsquo;s sessions in Open Access week I toddled down to &ldquo;Publishing the Open Access Way: The Change in Business Thinking Towards Open Access&rdquo; and a slightly small crowd&hellip; I&rsquo;m a little behind with blog posts, so this will again, be a little bit of a collection of items with some opinions and thoughts.<p class="p1"><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">The speakers and talks were<p class="p1"><b style="line-heig...

I am excited to be the track chair for site building at DrupalSouth in Wellington next year and it&#39;s time to get your session proposals in! Site building is the glue that pieces together a Drupal site and everyone has their favourite tools, tips and techniques for achieving requirements. I am also considering sessions around tools and techniques for content editors in this track and am up for hearing some wild ideas from new voices, so don&#39;t be afraid to submit a session idea no matte...

An ever growing miscellaneous list of travel tips and thoughts that occur to me. These are about travel itself, not my actual travels.<ul><li>After flying international, getting low cost flights for remainder of the journey isn&#39;t worth it.</li><li><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">Don&#39;t always go for the cheapest option for transfers etc, often not worth it the long run.</li><li><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">British airports suck and so do most of the associated services, they...

<p class="p1">I am travelling on a three stage international flight today, it has a few hours stopover in each transit location, but that&#39;s little enough time that on upset can throw the whole flight out of whack.<p class="p1">I woke up this morning to see Google Now telling me that my first flight from Melbourne to Sydney had been delayed (I love big data and personally don&#39;t rely mind what services now about me, as long as I am aware) by two hours, which would mean I would miss my seco...

<p align="left">The speaker line ups and topics keep getting better for the Melbourne geek nights and tonight is no expection.<p align="left"><strong>Ophelie Lechat from Flippa talking about &quot;Tackling the scary content marketing beast&quot;</strong><br />I&#39;ve been doing some of this myself recently, so it was interesting to hear some more in depth on te topic from a commercial perpective, here&rsquo;s what I got out of the session:<ul><li>Content isn&rsquo;t just a blog</li><li>Have edi...

There was a slightly strange feeling to this meet up, in some ways it felt a little insular (I guess those who are actively involved with BitCoin are a small and intriguing community), but it could also just be because it was for once a crowd of folks I didn't recognise. There was an underlying feeling of "Everything old is bad" and "Everything new is good", which isn't always completely true or as black and white as that. I find Bitcoin interesting technically and as a concept, if you think ab...

There seem to be more events not running free catering, is this due to a lack of sponsors or a change to methodology? A thought to ponder on… This was what Dave called an "unplugged event" that contained some home truths from teams and businesses, so with respect for Dave, I will leave them out. I like his rawness. What follows is basically a list of tips I collected throughout the presentation:<ul><li>How to convince a business to go agile without implying it just means cheaper and faster. </...

<b>Drupal 8 won't kill your kittens - Lee Rowland</b><br />There have been a lot of discussions around changes in the Drupal core team and that many old names are leaving for a variety of reasons, however there have been many new people coming on board and any community should be able to move on from it's originators. I'm currently going through the same process myself right now with Green Renters and it can be a difficult but worthwhile process. This was a  great oversight of what is new in D8...