Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: #NetHui: it's all about you, in reply to Bart Janssen,
My conference experience is that what is said in the sessions is mostly irrelevant, the value is bumping into people who are interested in the same things that you are interested in and then getting drunk with them. That leads to collaborations that create worthwhile things.
This may have earned you one of my Special Golden Foil Tickets to Foo Camp :-)
Although I think you'd find that unconference-y sessions have quite a flavour of the bumping into people and getting things happening vibe. That said, I think sessions can be useful -- Lessig certainly got everyone buzzing for the day, and the contact between ministers and the crowd was robust during their sessions.
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Hard News: #NetHui: it's all about you, in reply to Danielle,
Can we still be friends if I say that all these “WE ARE THE FUTURE!” conferences and associated networking and whatnot make me die a little inside? I’m sure it all serves some wonderful purpose for which I will be very grateful in future years, but… ack. Not my thing. (Preceding paragraph brought to you by Doubting Tiso Industries, Inc.)
There were some "Knowledge Wave" moments at NetHui, but the extremely modest cost of entry did ensure it wasn't some dreadful business seminar. There were down-home folks there -- I shared my session with Brent Simpson from Waiheke FM, who I liked a lot -- and they got to share time and space with the likes of the Privacy Commissioner and Cate Brett from the Law Commission and members of Parliament. That had practical benefits beyond mere visioning.
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Hard News: #NetHui: it's all about you, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
People should be aware that Marshal products, unlike some other filters, are under the control of the deploying organisation. Whilst there are defaults, you can set trigger words and weightings, whitelist sites and warn rather than block.
Yup. We went through a period when there were a lot of Mail Marshal installations, and you could see them go out with all filters on -- inevitably bouncing the daily emails on the mailing list -- and gradually ease up as people contacted their IS departments and asked them not to be so silly.
Peter Darlington has a good story of a sensible Marshal installation at Tasman District Council. Treating staff like grown-ups, basically.
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INCOMING AWESOMENESS …
Professor Lessig has just tweeted that being credited with The Public Address Copyright Thread of Doom is “the greatest reward someone like I could receive."
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Hard News: #NetHui: it's all about you, in reply to Lilith __,
22% of PA readers describe themselves as “Professional or Senior Government Official”, vs 23.84% at Pundit. A couple of per cent of us are beneficiaries, so yeah, some privilege there. (71.2% of y’all are “not in paid employment”, which seems to be exclusive of beneficiaries
Right, because obviously beneficiaries are in paid employment. Does not-in-paid-employment include self-employed people?
Whoops – typing error there – the “not in paid employment” figure is 17.2%, not 71.2%.
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Hard News: #NetHui: it's all about you, in reply to bmk,
You never feel guilty about the cost to the country’s production you cause?:)
Only occasionally.
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Hard News: #NetHui: it's all about you, in reply to ScottY,
I can’t believe some people talk about Joyce as a future National Party leader. He was arrogant and contemptuous of the audience.
Wasn't he just. And, as I wrote, English was quite the opposite. Finlayson gave the impression he wasn't taking the audience very seriously.
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Hard News: #NetHui: it's all about you, in reply to recordari,
I do notice that some topics (notably the more political ones) get only a small number of women commenting.
For some reason I was thinking about the demographics of the various threads on here over the weekend. Maybe after seeing Russell’s tweets and so-forth. FWIW, I avoid the political threads here now. Once bitten, twice shy perhaps. Like that Doberman when I was doing door to door Market Research for Heylen.
Which is why I don’t like to think of us a “political blog”. That implies a certain kind of conversation amongst a certain kind of people. There are other ways of exploring ideas than via partisan party political bickering.
As the election nears, political topics will undoubtedly heat up, but hopefully in a way that also produces light.
FWIW, in February the Nielsen panel had us at 53.49% male readers and 46.51% female – Kiwiblog actually had a slightly higher proportion of women, and The Standard a sightly lower one – but I think the proportion of women actively contributing here is notable for a blog that covers politics.
Overall, Nielsen’s demographic panel of 44,000-odd New Zealand internet users is 58.6% female, which is interesting in itself. The highest proportion amongst the Scoop Media cartel sites was Kimberly Crossman (79.85% female) and The Big Idea (70%).
Other interesting data points: PA’s 60 years+ readership is 14.78% (versus 17.64% for Kiwiblog and 15.9% at The Standard), but Nielsen couldn’t find a single under-18 year-old PA reader in its panel.
22% of PA readers describe themselves as “Professional or Senior Government Official”, vs 23.84% at Pundit. A couple of per cent of us are beneficiaries, so yeah, some privilege there. (17.2% of y’all are “not in paid employment”, which seems to be exclusive of beneficiaries.)
PA (19.62%) and The Big Idea (21.44%) have the highest proportion amongst the Scoop sites of people who work in companies with 1-4 employees.
10% of PA readers live in Canterbury, versus 37% in Auckland and 32.8% in Wellington. Only 4% of PA readers identify as Maori – the average across the Scoop sites is a couple of points higher, as is the figure for the Nielsen panel as a whole.
PA had a higher proportion of people who read the site at work (35.48%) than any other Scoop site, and the highest proportion of broadband users (97%). PA is also tops for people who have uploaded a review of a product or service in the past four weeks. 43.28% had participated in an online auction, highest amongst the Scoop sites.
Two thirds of you used the internet to research entertainment and 90% to research news and current affairs. Topic of least research interest: automobiles (lowest amongst the Scoop sites). By comparison, nearly half of the creatives at the Big Idea had used the internet to look for jobs in the past four weeks.
92% of PA readers had read a newspaper online, fractionally ahead of Pundit, but well ahead of Kiwiblog (86.4%). PA readers were the biggest online music listeners, at 58.84%, just ahead of the kids at Kimberly Crossman. YAY! WIN!
You’re also by miles the biggest viewers of internet video, at 71.77% in the past four weeks. Ditto for having “downloaded, streamed, or watched a TV show or movie” (41.13%) and just behind The Standard for listening to internet radio, at 37.1%. Also highest for using RSS feeds at 37.37%, and using an online directory, at 54%.
20% of PA readers spend more than 30 hours a week on the internet.
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Hard News: #NetHui: it's all about you, in reply to Megan Wegan,
And its kind of proof of how highly I regard this place that I just openly said that. Because I am pretty sure I just sold out the feminist blogosphere. Ah well, most of them already hate me.
As you know, I think the use of words as bullying instruments is an unfortunate and destructive feature of parts of the feminist blogosphere. Also, it drives me nuts.
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Hard News: #NetHui: it's all about you, in reply to Megan Wegan,
Very important concepts, rendered mostly useless by people using them to shut out debate.
Indeed.