Tag: work

APC Asia Conference – Day 3

That’s it – the conference is over – wow – an amazing time meeting lots of new people, putting faces to those I’ve chatted with online and catching up with people I already knew from previous meetings. We managed to get through so much but there is still wwwaaayyyy more that could be done. Is there ever enough time? :)

A big thing for me has been getting a better indication of what APC and its members are doing. A potential item is getting more involved with ICANN / IGF – early days but the initial steps have been taken. Very interesting – almost fascinating!

Flint from AID/Watch came over at the end of the day to say HI and have a couple of beers. He’s a client of ours (we host their site and developed it for them) so it was great to catch up.

After that it was off to dinner with Karen and Patcha – we wound up Sussex Thai on (surprise surprise :) Sussex St. Excellent food although their “spice ratings” are a little low. They rated a Pad Gai Kaprow as 3/4 spicy (which is correct if it’s done over in Thailand) but it was only mildly spicy, even with the bits of chillies in the food. Oh well – it was still great.

Now I’m once again sitting with the others from The Foyer Club, on the floor outside the conference room using the wireless link for access. Gotta love it :)

APC Asia Conference – Day 2

It’s the end of the day and I’m in my room where it’s cool and comfortable. I may not have Internet access from here but it’s better than sitting on the floor in the lobby where it’s warmer and harsher on the bum :).

In case you’re wondering, I’m writing this in a text editor and will paste it into a blog entry tomorrow morning when I’m back in wireless range :)

Today has been busy but very productive and I’m happy with how things have turned out. I was concerned that without Andrew (my APC.au co-director) here at the conference, I would let the team down. So far, it seems that I’ve been able to do OK, which is very encouraging.

We reviewed APC’s strategic priorities and discussed the work we’re doing in our member organisations, looking to see what aligned with those priorities and whether there was work being done that they didn’t reflect. It would appear that a number of us are now working in the “Intellectual Property” world, not just pure ICTs, so perhaps APC’s strategic priorities should be expanded accordingly.

The team I was working with (Bobby from IPD and Shahzad from BytesForAll) also thought that APC should make Gender Equality, Sustainable Development and Innovation strategic prioritiesi instead of “cross category” mentionable items. It was generally agreed by all that we needed a good, working definition of “Sustainable Development” and “Innovation” (no surprises there :)

I spoke with KarenB about helping APC in the project management / analysis areas as that’s what I do these days. She introduced me to their new PM space and we’ll be discuss what’s going on in more detail in the near future. Could be fun.

After the day’s work, I headed over to the James Squire brewrey/pub in Darling Harbour to meet up with Simon Rumble then headed back after a few beers. I wound up running into some of the APC crew who were getting ready for dinner so I had a drink with them then headed back to the hotel with the take-away I’d picked up.

As usual, a few of us hung out in the foyer surfing and talking but, eventually, the hard floor got to me and I came back here. Tomorrow (Tuesday) is the last day and then I go back on Wednesday. Somehow I have to try to keep the momentum going when I’m back – I think now that I can totally appreciate Andrew’s comments to this effect after past conferences :)

APC Asia Regional Conference

It’s gone 11pm and I’m in Sydney for the APC Asia Regional Conference. This is a gathering of representatives from the Asia/Pacific APC member organisations and some of the APC staff. We’re here to give member reports, review the APC strategic plan (a 4 year plan that we’re half way through) and start preparing for the next plan.

I arrived in Sydney yesterday arvo and came to the hotel we’re staying at (above the Great Southern Hotel), meeting up with some of the team, a few of whom I’d met at previous sessions in Korea and Melbourne. I got to work setting up the wireless router I’d brought with me, getting it patched into the hotel’s network and accessing its gateway (not as easy as it should have been due to security on their end). There was much rejoicing among the team when I got it working and they could use their laptops to get onto the ‘net at last :)

Instead of heading out to dinner with the other APC crew, I headed into Newtown to a pub to meet up with friends, staying and drinking for a while before walking back to the hotel. Great fun and I’m really pleased we all managed to catch up again.

Today has been the first of the three meeting days – we went through the introductions, expectations and member reports. At the end, we had a quick session mapping out relations between the various member organisations and APC initiatives then an overview of the strategic work we’ll be doing tomorrow.

Once the day was over, we headed to the pub and then walked into Newtown for a good Italian dinner. Given the food we’d eaten, a few of us decided to walk back as well (and introduced Bobby to Ginger Beer :)

Bit of Winter Work

I’ve been wondering how I’ll manage to pay the bills during Winter when we’re not doing as many balloon flights. Well, totally out of the blue I wind up working with Destra Media doing some project management on a few sites they’re developing. I got a call asking if I could help out – hell yes :)

I’ve been there about three weeks now and it’s a lot of fun, even when the pressure’s on. We’ll see how it goes as it’s consulting work so they could decide to end it at any time. Meanwhile, on we go and I’m able to pay my bills, clear some debt and get through winter with a smile :)

Some Fast, Some Slow

Amazing how two days so close together can be so radically different. Two days ago, things appear to be cruising along for me but Andrew’s laptop frags itself, the c2o server gets a crazy failure and crashes and a tram breaks down, causing massive inconvenience. At the end of the day I’m wondering where that cruisy feeling went.

Then yesterday I’m racing around taking Nykolai to stay with friends, picking up a new laptop for Bill and getting it ready to go (installed, configured, setup for him and handed over), sorting out computer issues at Crumpler and getting Andrew’s laptop working again (without loss of data).

Wound up handing over Andrew’s laptop in a carpark near where we both work and on the way to a focus group meeting I was part of.

Two days ago, cruisy but things going wrong. Yesterday, flat out hectic but successful. Who knows what fun today will bring :)

I must be crazy!

I’ve stepped back to part time at the AWU – still doing geek work with them but now mostly afternoons. This gives me more time to get my shit together and do some consulting here and there. I’m also working more with the balloons in the morning (as will eventually be documented over in the Fly me Friendly section of this site – one day :)

Of course, it means a bit of a drop in income but it’s good for my headspace…