Writing: Blog

<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 editorial calendars</li><li>Content strategy and marketing are best friends as the discipline helps attract seo and web traffic, this in turn reduces demand on customer support and partnerships. good for engagement.</li><li>Assess what content you already have. If it&#39;s not content it may be existing skills or assets.</li><li>Writing for your site can be empowering for team members</li><li>Don&rsquo;t be afraid of ghost and hired writers.</li><li>Decide what will you talk about and don&#39;t just talk to and about yourself. Identify what others don&#39;t do or do badly.</li><li>ebooks of collections of posts are a great marketing idea.</li><li>What to write about - questions that need answering, searches on your site. What conversations are people having elsewhere? If you get stuck, write an outline first.</li><li>Keep your content as short as possible, focus, end with engagement, what do users/readers want?</li></ul>

He must works nights as I rarely see him, we've never spent a night together, just watching TV or anything like that, but he must have a set in his room, and a penchant for cheesy old horror films, because sometimes in the middle of the night I hear odd muffled shrieks and yells coming from his room.

Here's a quote/analogy I've been using for a while to overarchingly describe a strategy for engaging on social media that I've found helpful and descriptive.

I've sometimes been critical of drinking control ads in the past, generally wondering how effective they really are, but I really liked this one I found in a London toilet.

After two weeks with staying with family, we were pretty desperate to get to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwich">Norwich</a> and hang out with friends and kick back for a few days. Hence our enthusiasm on the journey there, punctuated by the discovery of a ridiculously cheap pub whilst transferring in Peterborough, that turned from a relaxing drink to a last minute mad dash to catch a train.

The <a href="https://www.skegnesspier.co.uk/windfarm.html" target="_blank">Skegness Wind farm</a> as you can see from the photos, they've located a wind farm in the sea, a great way to reduce NIMBYism.

It's amazing what you can find in the country with a little digging...

I kept noticing these silver scratch panels on some receipts in china and assumed they were just some form of official symbol but it turns out there actually a cunning behavioural change policy on behalf of the Chinese government.

China is one crazy country. Even before we left Australia, <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CD0QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.airchina.com%2F&rct=j&q=air%20china&ei=Em8tTsH-H4fOhAfM2bmqCw&usg=AFQjCNGNWJqlHZ88hV2xYX6QjMI1QzFf1Q&cad=rja" target="_blank">air china</a> gave us a taste of the break neck speed 'efficiency' some of the Chinese like to operate on.

Take a listen (or read) to a light hearted and 'cheesy' romantic (and slightly explicit) short story I recently wrote about Doug, who bored in his office cubicle, fantasies about Julie...

Coffee is a very personal business.

According to a list I read some years ago, I regularly use several words in my lexicon that are considered 'old fashioned'. As that list was published nearly ten years ago and I'm still using most of those words, my language must be increasingly old fashioned.

I find this small collection of images documenting London's derelict underbelly appealing for two reasons. I know the author from his days as an Indie label 'boss' and the fact that he turned to a successful sideline in snapping pictures of abandoned buildings is fascinating. Secondly a lot of the subjects within the book are familiar to me, sometimes in the same state as within the book and sometimes in their previous non-dilapidated state.

<a href=https://www.slowguides.com.au>www.slowguides.com.au</a>

I&#39;ve been intending to write this for months, but never quite got around to it, a theme that will run through this article? I was also quite proud of the piece and was hoping I might be able to get it published, but alas, no joy in that area and as I say above, it&#39;s content is long overdue.

Umberto Eco is often a difficult read, he has a tendency to take a really good (semi-fictional) plot and wrap in a lot of intellectual posturing that can become annoying and fundamentally far too distracting to continue reading. I am well aware of his vices and whilst I frequently have no idea what he is talking about I still really enjoying reading his books and would even list him as one of my favourite authors. The Island of the Day before is perhaps one of Umberto Eco's easiest reads with a fairly simple plot by his standards and enough beautifully written descriptions and prose to cope with a relatively small amount of intellectual discussion. The story tells of a young noble in the 17th century who gets abandoned on a mysterious ship in an unknown location and his (and the western world's) coming to grips with discovering new worlds, sciences and cultures whilst attempting to cling on to the familiar, mystical and old world. A wonderful read with a lead character that you will love, despise, support and become frustrated with throughout the book.

Whilst I do not believe in God by any means and would certainly describe myself as an Atheist, my biggest issue with 'The God Delusion' is what Richard Dawkins would describe as his 'Devout Atheism'. The fervour and passion he writes with is almost on a par with that of a religion devotees and thus at times is equally as awkward to digest. Perhaps it could also be due to a conditioning of our modern world he describes, in that we feel awkward discussing religious topics in public, in case we offend someone around us, even when reading the book I found myself occasionally hiding the title in front of possible 'religious types' in case I offended them. The book is generally easy to read and full of intriguing, interesting and thought provoking topics and nuggets of information only occasionally wandering into intellectual territory that may be lost on some readers.

The Byzantine Empire was a long forgot segment of Mediterranean History that seems to be undergoing something of a rediscovery recently. I'm unsure why it's history seemed to slip down the back of the rhetorical sofa as it's certainly a most tumultuous and colourful history full of victory, disaster, insane characters, powerful characters and the usual battles, religious turmoil and tales that accompany any medieval history. This is a summarised version of John Julius Norwich's three volume Byzantine history and he does a remarkable job of covering a thousand years of history in a clear, concise and engaging manner, never dull, never losing momentum and with a pace almost worthy of fiction as you look forward to reading further to see what happens next.

So I guess you'll just have to wait

My Nan died recently so for obvious reasons I've been thinking about Death a fair bit. Death in the family has never been something that has emotionally bothered me a great deal, probably due to me having a small family, my Mum dying at a young age and being brought up to celebrate life, not spen time mourning things that cannot be changed. The things that do bother me about death is the vulture like swooping of various parties after the event and the sudden deconstruction of someone's life. I feel very awkward discussing estates, possessions, value and legalities, to me it feels disrespectful. One of my earliest memories of this is after the funeral of my Mum's Dad when all the family descended on his house to divvy up the possessions with gleams in their eyes. I know all these things have to be discussed and sorted out, but everyone seems to so keen to bring the issue up whilst assuring you they're very sorry about what happened, much like in the antiques roadshow when you know all everyone is waiting to find out from the experts is an items 'insurance value'.

'Slow' is an increasingly popular worldwide movement encouraging us to all, well, slow down. To take time out from our increasingly (and frequently self inflicted) hectic lives to appreciate what is around us, to take time to notice little things that were previously unnoticed, investigate places un-investigated, try new experiences and treat the world in a different, more relaxed and inquisitive manner.

Let down the wall, try not to use a piano, you'll amaze yourself.

_A poem written completely in predictive text_

Applecore<br>Broken Door<br>Commercial crap<br>Cat flap<br>High crime<br>Sign of the times<br>Night clubs<br>Seedy pubs<br>Rubbish bin<br>Collecting tin<br>Bus stop<br>Bent cop<br>Run down school<br>Drunken fool<br>Paedophile<br>Give us a smile<br>Traffic jam<br>Bang bang<br>Road work<br>Office jerk<br>Broken homes<br>Millennium dome<br>Drug dealer<br>Office cleaner<br>Broken bottle<br>Full throttle<br>Boarded up shops<br>Office blocks<br>Social life<br>Beaten up wife<br>Dodgy bloke<br>Being broke<br>Sick on the ground<br>Too much sound<br>Political shit<br>Hypocrite<br><br>City life, don't you just love it<br>

This book took me a very long time to read, months in fact, the topic is a weighty one, not hard to understand or absorb, just one that can only be digested in short sittings. It deals with the long running conflict between Rome and Jerusalem, dating back to the latter years of BC and effectively (through recurring anti Semitism) running until now. However this book deals with events primarily up to 4th Century AD and the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West, including the fascinating reign of Constantine who took the Roman Empire from abusing Christians, to spreading their word and simultaneously alienating even more in the Jewish world.A fascinating read, but not for the faint hearted or those expecting to learn more on the subject any time soon.

The Zombie State's tagline is 'Melbourne finds itself in the grip of the vengeful dead. Who will stand and fight?. Not wanting to give too much away, this is somewhat misleading and doesn't quite allude to what the play is really 'about'. For student theatre this is a big budget production, a high quality nightmare corridor with two plastic booths stage front form the set for most of the production, with many door ways providing ample opportunity for the cast to appear from in a disconcerting way.Technically the production is ambitious. When action is taking place in either of the booths the sound quality takes on a shrill, claustrophobic character. Some scenes also happen backstage with video cameras streaming footage onto two large screens at the front of the stage, an interesting and novel method that causes a few (apparent) technical problems with microphones malfunctioning causing sections of dialogue to be inaudible.

Living within the European focussed world view that many of us have had instilled into us from an early age it is often hard to forget that there are and were highly developed civilisations besides the Europeans, and the Europeans weren't necessarily always the first to achieve or discover things. In 1421 Gavin Menzies sets out a believable hypothesis that the first nation to 'discover' and 'chart' the rest of the world outside of their own locality was the Chinese and not those who we're led to believe such as Columbus and Magellan. He also sets out many pieces of evidence to show that China had a tremendous level of contact and influence on many nations around the world including the Aboriginals, Maori, Native Americans, African nations and more. The final strand of his hypothesis goes on to show that the European explorers were actually in possession of Chinese maps before they set out into the 'unknown'. Perhaps the most fascinating elements of the book is realising how advanced the Chinese were, long before the rest of the world, in terms of technology, trade and attitude (there are no cases of Chinese slaughtering native races for no reason) and the shear scale of their operations, showing that the Chinese wielding massive power and potential is nothing new. The fact that China has only recently come out of the self imposed insularity it commenced in 1421 (thus drawing to a close it's exploration and trading empires) makes this a very current and apt book. Gavin Menzies style is extremely enthusiastic, he is clearly passionate about his subject, he repeats himself a lot and his somewhat amateurish writing style sometimes grates, some waffling aside though, this is a truly fascinating read that makes you question a lot of what we believe and hold true in European society.

Perhaps the closest reference point to Douglas Coupland for those of you unfamiliar with his work is Kurt Vonnegut, a reference point that I'm sure Douglas Coupland hears frequently. If you're unfamiliar with either's work then I guess the best description would be, 'different' or maybe 'hyper real', characters sort of shamble through in a state of confusion that no one else suffers from with odd occurrences happening to them that no one else considers odd. JPod is a book about and aimed at Geeks, there are a lot of references in the text to computers, Geek culture and attitudes that may be lost on those unfamiliar with them, whilst this wont detract from the plot, Jokes will certainly be missed. JPod also makes a habit of inserting lots of random pages into the book, some relevant, some a complete waste of tree, for example over 60 pages filled with numbers involved in games that the characters play with each other whilst at work, a nice character building device, but a waste of paper. A funny and easy read (this took me a week and I don't have a lot of time to read in my life) full of accurate and amusing observations, but one that will be lost on many people.

- City life, don't you just love it

I'm dancing on the edge of normality, waggling my arse at the people inside and loving every minute.