In a last minute change up, Rod won’t be able to make it to Queenstown to present at the Web on the Piste conference. I’ve been asked to take his slot. Sometimes you just have to take one for the team.
Please let me know if you’ll be going.
And in case you’re like me wondering what piste means, thanks as always to Wikipedia.
There’s another Webstock Mini coming up on June 19th (my birthday!). The line up looks as great as always: a RoR workshop by the legendary Koz, a tour of Second Life, the low down on Firefox 3, followed by a panel “debate”. I happen to be one of the invited panelists for that debate.
The topic of the debate is “Web 2.0 is all fizz and no substance”. I’m not exactly sure what there is to debate. It seems like a pointless folly to me. I’m hoping we’ll have a bit of fun with it.
In the spirit of web 2.0 and user participation, I urge you to contribute to the wiki I’ve created for the occasion. I’m really counting on some user contributions. Please don’t let me down.
This afternoon I met with my fellow debatrs Brenda Leeuwenberg and Che Tibby to plot our triumph, over lunch at Ka Pai (my new favorite lunch venue – I’ve eaten there 3 days in a row – finally yummy, affordable salads in Wellington!).
Maybe we could all do a Meetup prior to Webstock? No flashmobs please.
I made my parents ballistic with the music I listened to and bashed out on my drumkit as a teenager. They often wondered aloud, with a snicker, whether I’d be listening to the same crap when I’m 40. I sometimes wondered the same thing.
I’m not quite 40 yet, but I am one of those old geezers that is ecstatic to hear that The Police have reunited and are hitting the road for the first time in nearly 25 years. I have to admit that I am fairly surprised that I still love The Police, as much as ever. Stewart Copeland is still by far my favorite drummer of all time.
I pretty much gave up on a reunion ever happening. I assumed it was for the best, considering their solo careers have produced some truly wretched and embarrassing music. However, seeing them play the Grammy’s and then reading this gave me a lot of hope…
The trio played a short set of material this morning, including “Message in a Bottle,” a medley of “Voices Inside My Head” and “When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What’s Still Around,” and “Can’t Stand Losing You,” which featured band members yelling out upcoming chord changes to one another. They also played their breakthrough hit, “Roxanne,” which they performed to open the Grammys last night.
Sting said the tour would be a stripped-down affair, with no backing vocalists or horn sections. “It’s going to be three guys on stage–that’s all,” he said. The setlist will consist entirely of material from the Police–none from Sting’s solo career, he later added.
They seem to be going back to their roots, playing the raw music live and improvised. To me they were never a rock band. They were a funk, punk, reggae, and jazz trio with pop hooks and catchy, clever lyrics. They were a white version of James Brown, Bob Marley, and Miles Davis. They were true musicians who knew how to play their asses off.
I was mostly interested in the bootlegs. My brother and I would hunt for bootlegs in the Village at places like Bleaker Bob’s and Second Coming. I amassed a great collection of records, cassettes, and even videos, that cost an absolute fortune. But it was worth it. Every performance was different. You could hear the music evolve with each tour – the jam in the middle of a track from one tour would evolve into a new song several albums later.
It’s taken a while, but now most of those bootlegs that I had are available as BitTorrents or even on YouTube. Plus, many others I had never heard or seen before.
It’s interesting to see the band vanish in the 80′s and reappear in the era of the world wide web. They announced their tour online, setting up an online fan club. I’m a pretty die hard Police fan, but there’s no fucking way I’m going to pay $100 to get “exclusive” video and advance ticket sales – tickets that will themselves cost $200+. Nevertheless, I’m sure there are plenty of people coughing that up – it’s a smart, if not shamelessly greedy, strategy. If they were really smart, they would sell copies of their shows online. That I might actually buy.
Here are some choice clips from YouTube:
Our holiday up north was perfect. In addition to all the other fun things we did, we also managed to squeeze in some fishing, sailing and snorkeling in the Bay of Islands. It truly is paradise up that way (except this week).
On the drive back, Hadley and the kids dropped me off at Kiwi Foo Camp in the delightful town of Warkworth. It was a bit of a shock going straight from holiday to the non-stop uber geek fest shop talk marathon.
Highlights for me were:
Oh yeah…being able to show Xero was thrilling and scary. Fortunately, the response was awesome! Foo represents a very tough crowd. Seeing their excitement over Xero makes me really proud. I wish more people showed their projects. I happen to know quite a few people who have some very interesting developments in the works that didn’t get shared. Foo Camp seems like a great place to get extremely valuable feedback.
When Foo ended I caught a ride in Rod’s Maserati down to Auckland to join up with the family. They were staying at the Quest Ponsonby, which I highly recommend – great accomodations in an ideal location. We even ate real Northern California quality burritos at Taqueria (I’m wiping saliva off the keyboard as I write). It was actually quite strange being in Auckland, almost like being in another country. It caused me to question the much bandied slogan “nothing beats Wellington on a nice day”.
Having said that, it was nice to come home to such an easy going city on such a beautiful day.
The What’s UP 2007 event was good fun. I met some really nice, well clued-up people. Here are the slides from my predictions (use the < > keys to navigate). The day after UP, I headed out on our family summer holiday.
As I write, I’m in the exquisite Northland region of NZ (in Oakura Bay to be precise). It’s been ideal in every way. Swimming, kayaking, bbq-ing, reading and sleeping. It’s warm here day and night, and there’s no wind. It’s really been making us question why people (us included) live in Wellington.
At the holiday house I perused the book shelf and noticed The Google Story. I tend to have a strong aversion to business books. However, I’ve really been enjoying it. It’s a good piece of storytelling. The thing that’s sticking out for me is how Larry and Sergey have always had the tenacity to do things their way, along with the perseverance to execute first and foremost. Ultimately, it’s really about having the conviction to relentlessly pursue what you believe is best and have fun doing it.
At the UP event, I noted that several of my predicted future platforms could easily be generated out of NZ. Foo Camp is coming up this weekend and I’m really hoping to see strong evidence of that same type of tenacity, conviction, guts, plus the ambition to build something big and important and useful from this beautiful country, something that the world needs and NZ can deliver. Peter Jackson did that for the film industry. Who will do it for ICT?
I’ve been challenged to put up or shut up in the future predicting department. Next Wednesday (24 Jan 2007) you can witness me doing my best Nostradamus imitation in front of a live audience at the next Unlimited Potential event: What’s UP in 2007?
Will I amaze and astound all those present? Or will I be a bitter embarrassment to all those who know me? You can be the judge, but only if you go.
Fortunately, the future does not depend entirely upon me. There will be a group of wiser, better informed internet rockstars to help me look even more foolish.
If you don’t come to see us clowns, you should at least come for the free pizza and beer.
When: Wednesday 24th January 2006, at 5:30 for a 6:00 start.
Where: Creative HQ, at 25 Marion Street, Wellington.
Hope to see you there. Got any good tips for me? Please.
Last week I went to the Webstock mini event. It was a great evening, catching up with old friends, meeting new friends, and being inspired by some excellent presentations.
Natasha Hall gave a fun presentation on her work at Trade Me. Her preso focused on high volume sellers. As a confessed fan girl of Kelly Goto, she followed the “deep hanging out” approach and turned up some key insights on user behavior. A lot of the issues she discovered revolved around people being unaware of existing features of the site. After making some seemingly minor changes, such as re-positioning a link on a page, suddenly usage rates for these features picked up (export to excel, print address labels, etc). I wish there was more detail on the outcome: how much did usage pick up? how did that effect turnover? I’m assuming that Trade Me goes through the effort not just to show a few customers some love, but really to optimise and increase transactions. I wanted to know more about that side of the equation.
Russell Brown followed, sharing his experiences at Foo Camp and some deep hanging out he did in the Bay Area. It was nice hearing Russell’s perspective on being immersed in the Bay Area digital bubble. As an ex-pat from San Francisco, I sometimes miss being surrounded by so many inspiring people doing amazing work. It’s great to see so much of that energy being ignited in NZ and Wellington in particular. The Webstock events are just another example of the great things happening here in NZ. I’m thrilled that Russell and Nat are putting on a Kiwi Foo Camp.
Nat Torkington finished the evening, sharing his insights into Web 2.0. I feel like I’m pretty clued up on Web 2.0. Yet, Nat threaded the streams together really nicely, weaving it all together in a coherent and insightful overview. He also provided some stats that I hadn’t come across. For instance, Ebay earns 60% of its revenues through their API. Wow!
Kudos to the Webstock team for another great event. Unfortunately, they announced there won’t be another big Webstock event until 2008. Fortunately, they’re likely to put on some more of these mini events in 2007. I’m all for the mini events. It’s great to see what locals are up to.
They also mentioned that they’re considering putting on a Webstock awards event. That could be good, but I’m a bit dubious about awards. At least, it will shine a better light on quality web design and dev than things like the deeply flawed BeST awards, or the TUANZ awards which are slightly better.
I’ve always thought that the Forthemasses folks should organise a conference. I really can’t understand why they haven’t.
I am really looking forward to the upcoming Design Camp next May. I’ve been to two and really enjoyed them. They always have several really inspiring presentations from a diverse range of experts, heaps of smart and fun people, and great parties. Being around the students is also refreshing and inspiring. The student presentations are often some of the best. I highly recommend it.
Maybe I’ll see you there. Please let me know if you’re going to either Kiwi Foo Camp or Design Camp.
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