LagrangePoint - Brad Howarth

Smart Company - Skype: Why everyone’s talking

Few journalists anywhere in the world could share the same affinity for the small business sector that my former BRW colleague Amanda Gome posseses. So it wasn't so surprising that when she left BRW last year, she and her colleague Jacqui Walker created their own online magazine dedicated to this topic, Smart Company. A couple of months back Jacqui asked me to write my first article for the publication - a beginner's guide to Skype. You can click through to the site here, but you'll have to pay to access all of the article.

My podcast on IPTV for HotHouse

Some weeks back I wandered into a studio in Crows Nest to chat to HotHouse CEO Simon van Wyk about all things IPTV. It's been a topic of interest for me for well over two years, in terms of the potential it has to shake up both traditional broadcasting models and advertising formats. You can have a listen to the discussion from this link on the HotHouse blog.

The Domain returns to Melbourne

Anyone in Melbourne looking for an informative and entertaining night out on May 16 might want to come along to the first Domain evening for th year, to be held at Port 1010, the black and white at Digital harbour at 1010 Latrobe Street in the Docklands. The event will be hosted by Debra Harding and Sally Mills, and I'll be taking on Mike Walsh's usual role as the on-the-couch interviewer, and in this instance will be interviewing Dominic Carosa, the CEO of digital media business Destra. The event kicks off at 6.00pm and is free to enter, but you will need to RSVP. It should be a great chance to rub shoulders with members of Melbourne's entrepreneurial technology and digital media communities.

Australian Anthill Issue 21 out now

The latest edition of Australian Anthill magazine has just hit the streets, featuring stories ranging from the death of the public company and the hands of private equity, the rise of the green revolution, and a focus on the Innovation Festival. And of course there's my regular column, which can also read here: Download aa21_column.pdf

B&T - Once bitten, twice as keen

I've known Tony Faure on and off for the better part of 12 years. The current CEO at ninemsn was once the ad sales manager on a magazine called Computer Week, which I briefly worked for in the mid 1990s. Since then he has gone on to establish and run Yahoo! in Australia, set up his own start-up online video distributor, and then returned to corporate life through his role at ninemsn. Hence it was great to get the Chance to sit down with him and talk about his life for B&T. Unfortunately the article is not up on their website, but you can check out the un-subbed version here: Download tony_faure_draft.rtf

An unexpected honour

I received at unexpected honour on Friday night at the 5th Annual MediaConnect IT Journalism Awards, where I picked up the award for Best Technology Industry journalist. It was especially rewarding to win against such a strong group of contenders, including former AFR Information editor Mark Jones (who has recently left full time employment and joined the ranks of freelancers), Emma Connors, Lilia Guan and Nadia Cameron. As I said on the night, I've got to give thanks to many of the publications that I write for, for giving me the freedom to the chase stories that I think are relevant to the development of the industry. Many of those publications were winners on the night, including MIS, which won Technology Title of the year and Best Business Technology Title, The Australian, which won for News Title of the year, ZDNet pick up the Best Technology Media Website, and The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age newspaper's technology section Next, which was highly commended in the Best Business Technology Title category. Great to see the SMH's online journalist Asher Moses win for Best Article of the year, and The Australian's Michael Sainsbury win Best News Journalist of the year, while Munir Kotardia took out Best Technology columnist. MIS's Julian Bajkowski won the gold award for Technology Journalist of the year, while BuilderAU's Chris Duckett was highly commended for Best New Technology Journalist. Congratulations to all the winners, (and apologies to those not mentioned here), and thanks also to Phil Sim, his team, and the sponsors that made the night possible.

MIS - Cool down: A convenient tech truth

My interest in the environmental issues surrounding enterprise computing found another outlet this week in MIS Magazine, with my story on CIO attitudes to climate change making the cover of the May edition. It was an incredibly difficult task to find any organisation that had a distinctive plan around reducing the carbon emissions relating to their IT - but something that I suspect will be spoken of much more openly as companies grasp both the impact of their IT (particularly in terms of power consumption) and what can cheaply and easily be done to reduce it. You can check that story out here.

Unfortunately, this week was also the one where news broke that despite government assurances otherwise, Australia would surpass its targets under the Kyoto Protocol by the end of this decade. You can read about that story here.

Bloggers are people too

Received confirmation of the above statement last night at my first Sydney Webloggers Meetup. Organised by The Bargain Queen, Sara Goldstein, it was a great chance to chat to other folk who have the passion and commitment to put their thoughts into electronic print and publish them them to world. The next Sydney event is scheduled for May 24. For more info on the group, click here.

A dinosaur speaks

Apologies to Nicholas Davie for the title of this post, but as head of Publicis Australia, Davie commands one of the largest old-school full-service marketing agencies in the country. In the past year he has also done an excellent job of leading it into the interactive digital realm, as demonstrated by them picking up two gongs at the recent IAB Awards. Nicholas was the speaker at the most recent Fourth Estate Domain event in Sydney, and you can check out the podcast of his interview with Michael Walsh here.

AIMIA to host virtual world business seminar

Anyone out there who is curious about the business opportunities of virtual worlds may want to get along to an event being held by AIMIA NSW on May 15 at the Shelbourne Hotel in Sydney. Gary Hayes and Nick Mueller will be discussing business activity in virtual worlds - particularly Second Life. Gary is best known as the chap who designed the virtual environments for both the ABC and Telstra BigPond. For more information on the night, click here. Gary is also giving a keynote presentation at CeBIT Australia on Tuesday.