You’ve probably heard stories about people who "heard the call of God" and quit their jobs to begin study at a theological college or seminary. They’ve got a good job, family, and The Mortgage. Well, guess what? I’ve quit my job and started study at Tabor College, in the Sydney suburb of Miranda. No, I’m not kidding!

First, some basics: It’s a Bachelor of Ministry, a University level degree, and I’m studying part-time. At that rate I’m guessing it could take five years to complete. My last day as IT Editor at The Australian Financial Review and Managing Editor of MIS Magazine will be Wednesday 4 April, just before Easter (how symbolic, as one of my colleagues observed. heh.). However, I will also continue to work in the technology media in a freelance and consulting capacity (stay tuned for news…). In short, I’m passionate about pursuing theological study and IT media.

Of course, that’s nothing new to people who know me because I’ve been a Christian since I was 17. But news like this is not something that tends to stay quiet. In fact, I’ve had two calls from the media this afternoon (The Australian and Computer Daily News) asking me about my story and rumours of my impending departure. I appreciated the interest. But given they are both daily publications that publish tomorrow, I couldn’t resist the urge to scoop them. I am still a journalist after all…

So what makes someone do something like this? The short answer might sound curiously mystical, but excuse me while I breach normal social protocol and keep talking about faith in a public forum - I’m doing what I believe God is calling me to do. Happy to elaborate in person, but when you get The Call, and you’re passionate about what you believe, it’s not too hard to follow through. In fact, I’m really excited about the future and what lies ahead. I honestly can’t think of anything else I’d rather be doing with my life. If that wasn’t the case, I wouldn’t be making this sort of decision!

And the response from friends and colleagues has been really encouraging. Virtually without exception, my colleagues were all really positive about the news. It’s been really interesting to listen to the different reactions. Some asked if I was a Catholic (no), was I going to be a Priest (no, but possibly a Pastor in the future), and what brand of Christianity was the college (multi-denominational: teachers from Pentecostal, Anglican, Baptist and Church of Christ backgrounds, to name a few). What did I think about Hillsong? (great church, but I go to a different one). One journalist also asked me if the rumour was true that I had accepted a position at a church to become a pastor (no… not yet anyway..).

Now that this is all public, it’s possible I could find myself lumped into one or more stereotypical buckets. That’s fine, it happens. The only thing I can do is hope people will judge me by my (sometimes imperfect) actions, and I’ll continue to do the same.

Oh, and in case you’re worried, I’m not about to turn Filtered into a pulpit! I’ll resume my regular musings soon enough. Although I must confess, the idea of starting a separate faith-oriented blog has crossed my mind more than a few times…

First, a confession. I found myself watching "So you think you can dance" the other night. I usually have a 2 second attention span when it comes to talent/reality shows of any description. My only (lame) excuse is that my wife and sister were watching the show with the sort of passion you expect from fans of this TV genre.

Anyway, the moment I happened to walk past and tune in was when the blonde legged host was telling us about how the show had become a global phenomenon. They showed clips from the show as it was broadcast in nations like Turkey, Israel, the US, UK and so on. Yes, people can dance badly regardless of their background…

Then it hit me — television has co-opted the social networking trend on a massive scale. Think about how many people a show like this can impact in each country - you’ve got thousands of people who all try out to get on the show. Each person has lots of friends and family they bring along for the ride, telling them to watch the show on a certain date etc. Then you’ve got all the people who attend the actual filming, and the wider population who just can’t get enough of reality TV where non-TV professionals are the stars.

That sounds a lot like broadcast TV’s take on social networking to me. Throw in SMS voting and various web-related feedback mechanisms and it’s an interactive, ongoing live event. Sure, American Idol and others have already been down this track. But it’s another reminder that traditional media are not afraid to steal good ideas from the web and turning them into lots of cash. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but as much as it pains me to say this, it seems to work.

Kudos to the folks at australianwiki.com.au for compiling this list of Aussie startups.

I wonder how many of these companies will continue to call Australia home? Companies like Omnidrive and Bluepulse have already relocated to Silicon Valley, and I suspect many more harbour similar ambitions.

Meanwhile, you’ve just gotta love the fact that Australia can give birth to a site called "Fullasagoog". Your average Yank will have no clue what that means.

(link via Frank, thanks mate)

Steve Gillmor has the uncanny ability to proclaim a technology is dead, long before it’s actually dead in the sense of not being used. But if it’s going to be dead soon, it’s dead now, goes the argument. I had fun being a fly on the wall at InfoWorld when he really upset IBM by proclaiming Notes is Dead.

His next big meme last year was "links are dead." And so it was memories of these stories that came flooding back when reading this piece lamenting the fact that the 2000 Bloggers project has killed the value of links forever. I guess Steve would argue they were already dead, so what’s your point?

I’ve been thinking about this from another angle. I made my way over to Ad:Tech Sydney this morning to see MySpace’s Shawn Gold and participate in a panel discussion on blogging. (Just as an aside, I got the official figures and there were 600 people in the room for the keynote — that’s big for Sydney. Australia’s online community is going NUTS I tell you).

Shawn’s take on the whole social networking thing is that people want their 15 minutes of fame (just like all the people on 2000 Bloggers who dream of being a so-called A-List personality, it would seem). Except with social networking, "everyone is famous for 15 people". Of course, most people are already famous for at least 15 people in the offline world, it’s just now we have another way of creating fame online.

So can you blame people for jumping on the 2000 Bloggers bandwagon? No, people want fame. Should we have seen it coming? No, but who sees any of these things coming (apart from Steve)? So are links really dead now? The evidence is mounting, it would seem.

So the question is what comes next? Maybe we should start Blog Survivor and vote the A-list people off the proverbial digital island and start all over again. Anyone got a better idea?

Oh, and while you ponder that bit of inspiration, Vicorp has posted this promo-video from Ad:Tech which includes a Shawn Gold quote (and some shopping centre-style music I’m afraid). And here’s Ross Dawson’s post on the subjects covered during our blogging panel this afternoon. (Ok, that’s the last link for the day, since they are supposed to be dead.

Update: Darren Rowse has a great overview of Ad:Tech day one here, and Andrew Pascoe’s linked to a few bloggers at the show.