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• South Australian ROOTS and BLUES
  There’s podcasts, a Facebook group, gig guides, reviews, videos… all because I just happened across a public radio station that was playing some blues today. I love serendipidity!
  (tags: blues adelaide southaustralia sa music podcast video gig)

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"As long as there’s, you know, sex and drugs, I can do without the rock and roll." So said Mick Shrimpton, legendary drummer with the seminal British rock group Spinal Tap.

It turns out that rock drummers on tour are much fitter than those overpaid poncy nancy-boys called professional footballers.

Says the Beeb:

Tests on Clem Burke, the veteran Blondie drummer, revealed that 90 minutes of drumming could raise his heart rate to 190 beats a minute.

Despite rock’s reputation for unhealthy living, Dr Marcus Smith, from Chichester University, said drummers needed "extraordinary stamina".

He found that during a performance, his [Burke] heart averaged between 140 and 150 beats a minute, peaking at 190, levels comparable to other top athletes.

However, Dr Smith said that while top footballers were expected to perform once or twice a week, drummers on tour would be doing it every night at a different venue.

There’s a joke in there somewhere…

And let us not forget that Spinal Tap did for rock music what “The Sound of Music” did for hills.

Or as someone once asked, “What’s the difference between a trampoline and a piano accordion?”

You have to take your boots off to jump on a trampoline.

Filed under: clippings, humour, miscellaneous
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Carol Kinsey Goman has written another superb article for me and I’ve popped it up on my articles website.

Entitled ‘Thriving on discontinuous change’, here’s a snippet:

IBM’s 2008 Global CEO Study finds that organizations are being bombarded by change, and many are struggling to keep up. Executives see significant change ahead, but the gap between expected change and the ability to manage it has almost tripled since the last Global Study in 2006.

The question is: How do we create the kind of organization that not only adapts quickly to current trends, but is aggressive about shaping and leading change?

There are two kinds of change — incremental and discontinuous — that are taking place simultaneously and constantly in business organizations around the world. Incremental change is the process of continuous improvement — what the Japanese refer to as "kaizen." Discontinuous change is the kind of large-scale transformation that turns organizations inside out and upside down.

If managing incremental change can be compared to encouraging a group of joggers to gradually pick up the pace, then leading discontinuous change is like getting those same joggers to leap off a cliff and build their parachutes on the way down.

You’ll find the rest of Carol’s brilliant article on change over on my articles website.

Filed under: book review, clippings, miscellaneous
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• Lazy Men Looking for Easier Ways to Do Things
  Heidi Miller on why progress is inevitable: it is the incessant search by men to imitate Homer Simpson
  (tags: heidimiller homersimpson homer technology progress lazy lifehack microblog twitter blog blogging)

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My good friend the Divine Miss M, aka Heidi Miller, recently pointed out that there is a potential hierarchy of communication skills required in social media.

Referencing an article by the big bad bald man in black Mitch Joel, Heidi agreed with Mitch’s argument that blogging as an entity will not be killed off by Twitter-like micro-blogging.

I agree, and for additional reasons to the ones that Heidi & Mitch give.

For me (here and here Heidi is spot on, albeit that the latter is from a later post), the ‘passion’ is the key to whatever vehicle you choose to use. Those of us who feel natural behind a keyboard and ‘at home’ with long-form text will continue to compose to suit the blogging format. Especially those who love including “offbeat 50s images” in their posts [ a loving tip of the Akubra to you, Miss Heidi ].

Those, like Heidi, whose preferred communication style is to talk, will continue to excel at podcasting and vidcasting.

Those, like @JJProjects, who prefer the rapid machine-gun rapport of micro-blogging will continue to Twitter and show their mastery of their weapon of choice.

The important point for us is that we use the tool that most suits us and our style.

Just as there’s no point trying to get a non-communicative CEO to start blogging, there’s no point trying to use a tool and channel that uses skills not ordinarily part of your personal repertoire.

Naturally, there is nothing wrong with stretching, growing, developing, and adopting new skills. But be honest with yourself — if you don’t have the time and the self-esteem to vidblog (bearing in mind that video blogging can take ages to get right, far longer than text blogging or audio podcasting) then don’t commit yourself to it and your audience to expect it.

As one of the signs I have hanging on the walls here at BetterComms Towers says, “You don’t know what you can’t do until you try”, but be honest with yourself about your strengths and weaknesses when you first attempt to enter this brave new communication landscape.

Once you feel comfortable with one tool/channel, then branch out and try something new. Okay? And let me know how you get on…

Filed under: blogging, ethics, micro-blogging, podcasting, tools, videoblog
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• YouTube - Ever so Light by Deep Chill
  Ever so Light by Deep Chill Produced by Chris Loft for the Radio Curly Collective internet radio from Adelaide. Original alternative music laid-back ambient chill jazz trance from radiocurly.com
  (tags: music ambient jazz chill trance radiocurly)
• The LinkedIn Common Craft Video « Marketing Nirvana
  One of Lee Lefever’s superb videos, this time for LinkedIn and showing why LinkedIn is a powerful business tool — it should be in every communicator’s armoury
  (tags: commoncraft video linkedin leelefever social media web2.0 network socialnetworking socialnetworks)

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Our very own (as in ‘lives in Adelaide, Australia’) blogging femme fatale, the fabulous Shai Coggins, has been nominated 11th most influential female blogger by the team at North x East.

The list includes luminaries from many fields and despite its white, US-centric focus the point of the list is to prove that blogging is no longer just a club for tech-friendly white males.

Hat tip to Dan York for picking this up.

Filed under: blogging, clippings
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And to prove that it’s not only the North Americans that keep we Australian’s bemused, three journalists have been injured in south-west China after a gun went off at a press conference.

The press conference was called by Chinese police to highlight the success of a gun control campaign, the ABC has reported.

It seems that the press conference was taking place in Nanchong in Sichuan province to publicise the results of a campaign by the city’s police to seize illegal weapons. Some of the reporters asked to take photos of the guns seized.

Apparently one of the police officials mishandled a homemade weapon, releasing the trigger and dropping it to the ground.

It is unclear from the report whether the gun contained bullets or shotgun pellets but sources say that one local journalist needed surgery after being hit in several areas of the body including his ankle, crotch, and chest.

Technorati : china, chinese, gun control, journalist, press conference, shotgun

Filed under: PR, clippings, humour, public speaking
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