April 29th, 2009 by mhjones

Way back in 2007 I had this idea for a business podcast. A technology podcast that brought together the best minds in the technology business to uncover a few pearls of wisdom for CIOs and technology leaders. I called it “The Scoop.”

Former publisher of The Australian Financial Review’s MIS Magazine, Matt Rigney, backed the idea and helped sell it to editorial and management at Fairfax Business Media. And FBM has backed me ever since.

Fast forward to April 2009 and  I received a huge thumbs up from my tech journalism and media colleagues when The Scoop received a Lizzie Award for Best Audio Program.  Obviously I’m stoked by the win, particularly given that The Scoop returns next week after a long summer hiatus. I’ll write more about that soon.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tagged: MISaustralia.com, Podcasting, The Australian Financial Review, The Scoop
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May 30th, 2008 by mhjones

When US tech entrepreneur Jason Calacanis flew into Sydney for CeBIT this month, I joined the queue of Aussie journalists who wanted to meet the man who sold a blogging company to AOL for US$25 million (yes, we’d ALL like to do that…).

Here’s the result of our chat – part 1 and part 2 – on the new-look, big-screen tv.afr.com that my colleague at Fairfax Business Media, Marc Tewksbury, has been working on for months (btw, nice work Marc!). You can also watch it over at misaustralia.com.

Tagged: MISaustralia.com, Social media, Tech news, The Australian Financial Review, Weblogs
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April 4th, 2008 by mhjones

It’s hard to believe, but 12 months ago today was my last day at The Australian Financial Review where I was IT Editor. It was a career-defining role and one that I’d had my eye on for a decade prior.

You may remember that the main reason I left the AFR was because I had enrolled in theological college. Anyone who has studied and maintained a full-time job will tell you that it’s a tough road to do both simultaneously – so I opted for the easier road to preserve sanity and I’m studying part-time. One year later I’m still ploughing through two subjects each semester, and still loving it.

Meanwhile, today is the one year anniversary of my editorial and professional speaking business, Filtered Media. Thanks to the AFR and MIS Magazine, I’ve been able to puruse my interest in new media. I’ve started The Scoop podcast, helped develop and launch misaustralia.com, record video interviews for the MISaustralia Leadership Series, and a few other projects including some freelance journalism.

Beyond the AFR, I’ve written for a few magazines, been a speaker and panel facilitator at various industry conferences, and ventured into the world of corporate speaking, talking to companies about future trends in media, the Internet and online marketing.

On the personal front, my family moved house, and made a life-changing trip to Uganda and Dubai.

Time flies, as they say, but it’s all good. And if you’re one of the many people who’ve supported me in various ways, thanks!

Tagged: Personal, The Australian Financial Review
Comments: 1 Comment »

March 18th, 2008 by mhjones

My colleagues at the AFR were on hand when Eric Schmidt dropped into Sydney today for a quick visit – watch the video here. There were a bunch of minor announcements which the SMH reported here. And you can read new AFR IT Editor Ben Woodhead’s report on misaustralia.com.

My favourite quote: “The brand is in very good shape, and it’s wonderful, especially given the company is run by engineers.”

Another observation: I think Google stole a leaf from Apple’s “how to surprise the media and spark lots of coverage” PR book this time. We media types were issued with an invitation to come to a Google press event today.The only clue that it was a potentially significant event (at least from a special guest perspective) was the location – they’d rented space at the Sydney Opera House.

Tagged: The Australian Financial Review
Comments: 1 Comment »

March 3rd, 2008 by mhjones

Updated below

Y’know, it’s not everyday that you get to interview someone like woz. I mean, he’s a geek’s geek. A deadset legend in developer ranks. He basically invented the PC, for crying out loud. And for me, he was the guy who designed the Apple IIe, the very first computer I ever used. Kinda bizzare, that.

So anyway, 30+ years after he and Steve Jobs co-founded Apple Computer, I find myself interviewing him in the corner of a funky cafe in Sydney’s Shangri La hotel during the Broadband and Beyond conference. A video interview for afr.com and misaustralia.com, that is, recorded by my multimedia partner in crime, Fairfax Business Media’s multimedia producer Marc Tewksbury. Expect to see it online later this week. I also recorded the audio on my Zoom H4 for potential podcast material, and knocked out an old skool print yarn for Tuesday’s AFR – so go buy a copy!

You probably won’t believe me, but I didn’t feel “star struck” as such. Yes, he’s an amazing guy. But I guess a better way to describe it is that I had great fun – one of those “I get to do this as a job?” moments, where everything just seems to click. I had questions, and guess what, he had great controversial answers.

But that said, I did succumb to the temptation that faces people in such situations – get stuff signed.

As it happens, I use an old PowerBook G4 perched on my knee to display my interview questions. Thanks to some marvellous foresight on the part of yours truly, I brought a permanent marker with me. Here’s the result… (and I wonder what the 5 yr old machine is worth now?..

Woz also gave me a signed *metal* business card, which I’ll do him the respect of not showing here since it contains his home address and mobile number…

But one of the AFR’s snappers, Peter Braig, was on hand to capture the moment for the paper… and (below) caught Woz signing a card for a very clearly chuffed Mr Tewksbury while I fumbled for a business card of my own.

Say cheese… Marc, Woz, Mark…

Finally, thanks to Jeff Bird, Rachel Slattery and Telstra’s Martin Barr for making it happen.

UPDATE:

The video has gone live on afr.com and misaustralia.com

You can find it on AFR.com down the bottom right hand corner of the home page (here’s a screenshot for reference, and the image links to the video on MISaustralia):

And finally, if you missed the story in Tuesday’s AFR, the online version is here.

Tagged: Apple, MISaustralia.com, The Australian Financial Review
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October 31st, 2007 by mhjones

Vint Cerf, Father of the Internet and Google Chief Internet Evangelist, is my guest on The Scoop this week. Honestly, Vint is one of the true gentlemen of the IT industry.

We met when he came down to Sydney earlier this year and Google Australia took yours truly and a number of select customers out to dinner. And we caught up later over Skype. Unfortunately, my experience with Skype wasn’t exactly positive. There are plenty of podcasters out there who swear by Skype (Cameron is the obvious example, what’s your secret mate?), and more power to them, but if it means undergoing the sort of duress I experienced with post-production it will be a long time before I use Skype for podcasting again.

Anyway, back to Vint. I’ve met plenty of big name IT execs over the years, but few are as down to earth and switched on as Google’s star recruit. He has just stepped down as chairman of ICANN, so it was time to finally get this interview polished off and published. Enjoy.

Tagged: Podcasting, The Australian Financial Review
Comments: 1 Comment »

August 12th, 2007 by mhjones

It nearly didn’t happen. I was booked on a flight from Sydney to Canberra at 6am to attend the first day of the AFR’s GovTech conference in July. And in hindsight it would have been far less stressful if I flew down the night before. Instead of telling it to wake me up at 4am Thursday morning, I inadvertantly ticked 4am on Friday morning. It turns out it is possible to outsmart your smartphone. Lesson One: don’t set your alarm when you go to bed at 1am on the same day you have to get up… late nights affect your judgement.

So you can imagine how I felt when I sat bolt upright in bed at 6.35am, a full 35 minutes after my flight took off without me.

Skip forward to when I turned up at Sydney’s domestic terminal at 7.30am, still trying to regain composure. Here’s where I’ve got to tip my hat to Qantas. The woman at the ticketing counter graciously put me on the next flight at 8.10am and didn’t charge me for another ticket. By some small miracle I made it to the Hyatt Hotel in Canberra at 9.20am, just in time to hear the final 5 minutes of Philip Ruddock’s keynote. It was also 10 minutes before video interview was scheduled.

Our film crew had already set up the camera gear and lights (I was told), so after a quick handshake I walked with Ruddock across the corridor and we got stuck straight into the interview. It was all done and dusted in 10 minutes, and after he’d gone I just sat there and stared at the ceiling for a moment. It was the second video interview I’d recorded with the AFR, and the first time I’d met Ruddock. And it nearly didn’t happen!

The rest of a day was something of a blurr, but fun. We interviewed Special Minister of State Gary Nairn, Federal Government CIO Ann Steward, and other federal and state CIOs. Edited versions of these interviews are progressively making their way to the site here.

As for Mr Ruddock, you can see our interview here. As a special bonus it contains my first crack at borrowing from the “piece to camera” playbook of your favourite ABC/commercial TV reporter. Yes, I am a print/online journo discovering 3D. Be gentle! Oh, and Lessson Two: when fronting a camera in Canberra in July do yourself a favour and wear a warm coat. How cold is it down there for crying out loud???

Tagged: Events, Government, The Australian Financial Review
Comments: 1 Comment »

July 19th, 2007 by mhjones

If I’ve got any excuse for being so slack on the blogging front for a while, I could blame MISaustralia.com – the AFR and MIS Magazine’s new site for the CIO and IT professional community. It’s been advertised the AFR for the past few days in case you’ve missed the marketing.

It’s really satisfying to see the site up and running. I’ve spent months working with Fairfax Business Media’s online, editorial and publishing teams in a consulting capacity, and on the pure editorial front I’m also wearing the online editor’s hat for a short time. We’re in the process of hiring a full time online editor, which will be great. Actually, necessary. I’m about to resume my studies after a break between semesters, and when I’m not studying I expect my podcast and the series of video interviews I’m doing for the site will soak up a good chunk of time. And the video shoots are coming thick n fast. Tomorrow I’ll be down in Canberra talking to government types at the AFR’s Govtech.

I’ll endeavour to write more about the site, the thinking behind it, and some of the other fun stuff I’ve been doing like setting up a podcasting studio with broadcast quality gear in the near future. But for now, lemme know what you think about MISaustralia.com.

Tagged: Aussie media, The Australian Financial Review
Comments: 5 Comments »

May 30th, 2007 by mhjones

Gordon Bell doesn’t define himself as a lifeblogger, he’s an engineer. A famous engineer at that – check out his bio and MyLifeBits project. He was one of the guys who figured out computer networking and helped kick-start the Internet. That kind of famous.

I caught up with Gordon for a conversation and interview today at his apartment in downtown Sydney that features a spectacular view over the Botanic Gardens and Sydney Harbour. We’ve met once before when I wrote about him for The Australian Financial Review. This time it was for the same publishing company, but a different project that I can’t yet announce.

We spent time talking about what it means to go completely digital and eradicate paper from your life. We’ve talked about this idea for years in the IT industry, but Gordon’s been doing it for almost a decade – with the help of research colleagues at Microsoft, mind you.

We also talked about lifeblogging, a term that describes a person’s decision to use off-the-shelf consumer technologies to digitally capture as much information about their life as possible. It occurred to me that Twitter is one technology that reflects part of what Gordon is doing. The mindset of a Twitter user is such that you’re capturing a stream of consciousness and sharing it with the world. The big difference here is that Gordon isn’t sharing volumes of data with us on the web. But he and his team are working on understanding the implications of making every personal email, voice call, video, picture, and document searchable. We talked about some of the big problems inherent in the mass consumption of digital technologies in that context – how will we protect this information and make it universally accessible in years to come if/when .jpeg or .avi is replaced by a different file type?

Another cool thing we talked about was VizzVox, a startup in Sydney and the US that Gordon has personally invested in. It’s a web-based photo and video publishing and editing tool that lets you, for example, upload your images and then record a narration using the mic on your notebook. Think ye-olde slide show for the web 2.0 age. It looks impressive and I plan on checking it out further.

Meanwhile, stay tuned for the publication of our interview in a non-paper format in the near future.

Tagged: Media, New media, The Australian Financial Review
Comments: 1 Comment »

December 5th, 2006 by mhjones

After a long search, I’m excited to annouce Joshua Gliddon will start at the AFR on Monday as our Deputy IT Editor.

He is joining us from The Bulletin, where he’s covered science and technology. Many of you will also have read his blog, and might have read the Web 2.0 yarn he wrote recently. Like a few of my colleagues, I’ve known Josh for many years and  we’re all looking forward to his arrival. I was just interviewed by Phil Sim at IT Journo (subs only), so expect that story soon.

But wait, there’s more! Josh’s appointment has created an opportunity for Julian Bajkowski, previously MIS deputy editor, to focus more of his energies on chasing down scoops for the paper and writing features for MIS Magazine, and other publications produced by Fairfax Business Media.

Tagged: The Australian Financial Review
Comments: 4 Comments »