I’m moving to Sydney
By Steve Hopkins | February 24, 2010
About a month ago, I was faced with a decision. Move up to Sydney and work full time on an amazing opportunity with Ai-Media to end disability, or stay in Melbourne and try to find something else. It’s nice to be able to say that when Tony Abrahams offered me the gig in Sydney, it didn’t take long to say ‘Most definitely. Count me in!’
I’m going to work with Ai-Media in the role of Ecosystems Coordinator. This is essentially a continuance of the work I’ve been doing with Ai-Media over the past year. We’re working on providing access to classroom education for deaf children in Australia, as well as considering other innovations that can provide access and inclusion to disabled people all over the world.It’s an exciting time, in an exciting company that I’m very proud to be involved in. My role will, as before, focused on building the ecosystem (both internally and externally) to help make this happen. I’m relishing the challenge that it brings, and look forward to chatting more with you about what we’re trying to achieve in the future.
At this stage, I’ll be moving to Sydney next week (March 1st) and am still searching for somewhere to live. Should you know anyone with a room for rent who you think I would get along with, please drop me a line at steve@thesquigglyline.com or comment below. A short term stint, even on a couch, is probably my preferred option as I look to get settled in.I’m looking forward to meeting the growing and vibrant Sydney start-up and jelly communities and can’t wait to meet many of the people I’ve been following from afar for these past few years. I plan on commuting back down to Melbourne often to keep in touch with many of the exciting projects and people that are doing their best work here currently. I’ll still be involved in Trampoline Melbourne, which we will have more information on shortly.
Thanks to Tony and the crew at Ai-Media for the opportunity to change the world and to my friends and family for their continued support in taking on such a big opportunity and life change. It’s something I look forward to sharing with all of you as it continues to develop. You can follow along with access issues by following @accessinclusion on twitter.
Topics: Career Progression | 10 Comments »
Annotate the Game
By Steve Hopkins | January 3, 2010
I was having breakfast with good friend Amir Nissen this morning and we got to talking about how to learn, learn well and learn quickly.
Fast learning is not a particularly new concept - Tynan recently got a tutor to speed him through learning Japanese whilst Tim Ferris took to learning his language through martial arts. Both are great ideas and hacks to aquire a skill quickly. But Amir has a different way to hack quickly to a point of mastering a skill.
Amir used to play competitive chess (funnily enough, against a great school friend of mine, Igor Loza) and got quite good. He explains that when you begin learning how to play chess, the instructors would make you annotate the game, jotting down all of the moves you made during the contest. When the game was over, the instructors would sit down and walk through the game with him, blow-by-blow, questioning his strategy and ideas at each stage. This quickly developed Amir’s chess skills because it began highlighting where he was making common mistakes often, as well as making him more aware of the patterns that, when presented to him in a game, would cause him problems. This enabled him to eliminate these patterns earlier in games of chess, which left him playing to his strengths more often. As a result, he became very good, very quickly.
The key is to spot patterns in your actions as they emerge AND build an understanding of how you react to those patterns as they take shape. Annotating the game is just one way to do this, but a very powerful one at that. I look forward to giving it more of a go.
Topics: Uncategorized | 10 Comments »
Crowds are turning into riots and we’re not ready
By Steve Hopkins | December 22, 2009
“First they ignore you, then the ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win” - Mahatma Ghandi
Ross posted earlier today about how there is now a crowd in every photo, and I commented that we were seeing more and more crowds gathering at government and leadership conventions, such as the recent UN Copenhagen Climate Change Conference. It brought to mind the above Ghandi quote, which essentially provides the tried and true formula for achieve social change in our current paradigm. It was interesting to note that at Copenhagen, people protested, and the police used pepper spray and baton chargers as their response.
Before the event started, I hired the film ‘Battle in Seattle” because I had glanced over it often in the video store, and I wondered whether we would see riots in Copenhagen and wanted to think about that. You can see the trailer below. And I watched it. And I was stunned.
The film follows the days of 6 different people during the WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999, from all sides of the event (citizens, activists, police, mayor and government) and weaves real life footage in with the drama. It was a powerful film, which I’ve taken much from. I first heard about the ‘Battle in Seattle’ a couple of years ago when chatting to good friend Col Duthie about activism in the modern age. He pointed me to probably the most powerful piece writing I have ever read, this diary entry from Paul Hawken - N30: What skeleton woman told the WTO in Seattle. It’s a chilling account of what Hawken (who is a well regarded author and activist himself) saw that day.
But why is this happening more and more? If you look at any global government gathering over the past few years, people have been crowding and rioting (peacefully, in most cases, I might add).
We are a fragile species, who are more and more - people are now gathering at every event. The G5 has become the G8, the G10, G15, G20 and is now the G77! We are seeing more and more government and world leaders coming together to solve problems. This is also seeing more and more people coming together to inform the leaders of what they want. Look for the photos at any leadership forum in the future and see the crowds. Listen for the news reports of riots. Obama used the groundswell to great affect. People are already hitting the streets in large numbers to let leaders know what they think. As a species we are finding more and more harmony in participation, inclusion, involvement and consensus.
Unfortunately, our government and leadership systems are not so adequately built. Police (and Government) have little room to move when trying to control mob-crowds. They have one option, which is to sit back and watch. Or, they can launch tear gas into the throng and baton charge. In Seattle, Martial Law was imposed on the second day - essentially turning the city (a First World nation, law abiding city) into a war zone. Below, you can see some photos from the Big Picture Blog from the G20 Summit held in London, 2009.
We need to work to a place where we are more interdependent on each other, rather than forcing consensus decisions to be made. It’s important we come together to discuss the outcomes required, and group inclusion and cohesion is a crucial fundamental of this - but lets not pretend that we can all agree on all the outcomes required, all of the time.This will continue to happen. I’m sure I myself will be a part of more protests in the future. But lets be aware that this is happening more and more and that it’s continuously proving not provide all the answers and solutions. Let’s get together, but trust that interdependently we will make it happen.
Topics: social entrepreneurship, climate change, Leadership | 1 Comment »
Trampoline videos now online
By Steve Hopkins | December 18, 2009
It’s with great pleasure that I’m able to write this blog post today and point everyone to the new Trampoline Vimeo Channel, on Vimeo. The last Trampoline was run in late October and many of the talks shared on the day still resonate with me now. Talks like Dan Donahoo speaking about Edge Theory, Peter Spence speaking about Intergenerational Learningand, one of my favourite sessions from the day, Matt Cashmore discussing the possibility of the first 1000 year old human having just been born.
Matthew Cashmore from Trampoline Melbourne on Vimeo.
We will be adding more video, from both Trampoline 1 and Trampoline 2, over the coming months. A big thanks to everyone that brought cameras to the events, and to Chris and James at Visionary Canary for helping us make this happen. Also, a massive thanks to Nathan at Inspire9 for hosting the videos on his server pre-vimeo.
Topics: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
The end of disability?
By Steve Hopkins | November 30, 2009
Last week was a busy week as far as politics goes in Australia. I’m not going to go into detail about the problems the Liberal Party and Malcolm Turnbull have faced this past week, but I do want to comment on what the resultant media storm has done a good job of hiding. It has hidden what may be the beginning of one of the largest social policy reform decisions to be made in the last decade here in Australia. I’m talking about the announcement that Kevin Rudd made in his speech last week at the National Disability Awards in Canberra. He has announced that the Labour government will engage the Productivity Commission to carry out an inquiry into the potential of a National Long Term Care and Support scheme by 2011.
Essentially, he has asked that a review take place into how people with a disability in Australia are provided access and inclusion to life. Imagine a Medicare-type service focused on providing funding for services for people who are disabled.
In the current system, there are a number of overlaps and gaps in the funding system, which essentially promises that many people who are suffering from a disability are shut out from funding and support. Even in simple terms, someone who has become disabled through an environmental accident (say, you have fallen from your roof) is currently not covered in the same way that someone who has been born into a disability is, or that perhaps someone who has been in a traffic accident is.
This has created the very real situation in which some people who are suffering the same disability are faced with great variances in the access they are provided to society. The person who has fallen from their roof and now can’t walk, is supported less than someone who has lost that ability through a traffic accident.As many of you will know, I’ve been doing some work with the Ai-Media crew up in Sydney these last few months, around the implementation of live captioning services into classroom education in Australia. (For those who haven’t yet seen the video by Tony and Alex discussing the project, do so here.)
I know for me personally, working in that environment, my eyes have been opened to just how much we shut people out without knowing…in my first team meeting I sat next to Alex (who is deaf) and had to move to the other side of the table because a) he was not able to read my lips when I was next to him and b) because I was talking too fast and without my hands. Wow - and that’s just a ’simple’ team meeting.Can you imagine what it would be like if you couldn’t see your computer screen? Or if you couldn’t hear your phone ring (or, for that matter, the person on the other end of the line). Or what if you couldn’t walk and needed help getting from a to b? These are just such simple abilities that we take for granted every day. Imagine how secluded and ostracized you would feel were you not able to simply do that.
Now imagine that you have such a disability and can’t get any support to help you gain inclusion to a society that often forgets you. I encourage you to read the report Shut Out: The Experience of People and their Families in Australia for more insight into some of the difficulties currently faced by those with a disability.
It’s why I support Kevin Rudd’s initiative, why I hope that the productivity commission comes back with a strong recommendation to set up a National Disability Insurance Scheme, and why I ‘ll be continuing to update you about such progress on this blog as it happens.
Topics: social entrepreneurship, Leadership | 5 Comments »
Co-Preneur on Tuesday mornings
By Steve Hopkins | November 17, 2009
What are you doing on Tuesday mornings, between 9am and 12pm? Are you in Richmond around that time? Fancy doing some Co-Preneuring?I’ve recently been working on starting a business, called Indy Socks. You can see some Mission Reports that we’re posted on Ross’s site talking all about the concept. I won’t go into detail here (for the moment). I’m pretty excited about launching this little business and can’t wait to be ‘live.’
Indy Socks Mission Status from Ross Hill on Vimeo.
However, one of the things I have struggled with is how to find the consistent time required to make progress on the business. I’m pretty bad at scheduling in ‘work time’ when it’s my own to schedule and I had small epiphany recently. I realised that, in my calendar, the things which are prioritized most are meetings with people. (duh). But why is this the case? Shouldn’t I be more committed to blocking out time to myself to just get stuff done? Easier said than done!
So, to counter this I’m going to borrow from some of the ideas that circulate in the programming/IT world. Particularly, the concept of pair-programming. I think there are a heap of organisation/productive tools programmers use today which we will see as standards in the business world in a few years time. Agile Development, Test Driven Development, MVCand REST methodologies.
But for the moment, I’m going to see if pairing up with someone, between the hours of 9am and 12pm every Tuesday at Inspire9 will help me get more traction towards getting the business launched. I’m going to call this Co-Preneuring. It’s not about finding a business partner, or sharing equity or any of the other messy things that come with sharing a business with someone. I’m asking that, if you have a few spare hours and would like to sit together and work towards launching a business, then swing by and we can crank it out together. Of course, I’d only be to happy to repay the favor and sit with you whilst you ‘got it done’ in the afternoons or at other times.
You don’t need any special skills, just the ability to ride shotgun and work together getting whatever needs to happen, done.So, if you’re keen to come along and co-preneur with me, then leave a comment below about the date you can come along and i’ll see you there!
—-Update - I’ve made available a Co-Preneur Calender which should make booking times easier. If you’re interested in co-preneuring then lock it in on a Tuesday! I’ll try to maintain it so when I can’t make it on Tuesday mornings I block that time out so no one books in———
Topics: Prototyping, Innovation, Uncategorized | 24 Comments »
Peer producing a Trampoline presentation
By Steve Hopkins | October 18, 2009
Trampoline is next week, and that’s very exciting for a whole host of reasons. Last Trampoline, I presented in a session in the afternoon on Biomimicry, but didn’t give it the justice the topic probably deserved. This time, I’m very excited to be working on a presentation with Xavier Shay which stemmed from the email discussion that went around the google group a couple of months ago about money, currency and the financial system.
So, we’re presenting on that topic. At the moment, that’s about as much as we know. But we’ve decided to do a Fred Wilsonand open up our presentation topic so you can feed in your ideas about the topic.
To contribute to the presentation, simply head to the wiki that’s been set up and edit as you like. There isn’t anything there yet (I’ve only just set it up) - all the more reason to contribute your thoughts! A huge thanks in advance for any contributions you do make. 
Topics: Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
How to make a successful phone call
By Dan Ednie | October 4, 2009
This is a guest post from Dan Ednie, 22, who is a young Melbourne entrepreneur studying linguistics at the University of Melbourne. In 2008 he founded Global Heart Tours, a bilingual tour service that connects Australian Language learners with international students and generally travellers. He writes and consults primarily about second language acquisition and cross-cultural communication, but is able to consult for any linguistic problems. Email him at dan.ednie@gmail.com.
Dial number >> phone rings>> receiver answers
A: Yes
B: (1 second pause) Hi Steve, I mean, Good afternoon Mr. Jobs. My name is Dan and I’m calling with a stellar proposit….
A: *Beep, beep, beep, beep*
We all know that the opening few sentences of any phone conversation are crucial. A stammer, a false start (“My name, My name is Dan Ednie umm”), a stunned silence, are all things which do happen, and can be hard to recover from. Phone manner is an art, and for anyone at any level of business it’s an enormous asset. In the above example, Dan is thrown off by Steve Jobs opening, he was expecting something like ‘Hello’, or ‘Steve here’ or ‘Steve Jobs’.
The question for entrepreneurs and linguists is, why has this been such a big factor, and how can we fix it?
Linguists have been writing in the last ten years, frequently: on phone exchanges; address terms (what we call each other by); and the causes of dis-fluency markers (ums, errs, mispronunciations). Honourable a study as it is, very little of the research has been made available and I hope to give some kind of an insight into what academic linguists make of this aspect of business communication.In 1979, American conversation analyst, Schegloff, concluded that the majority of American telephone openings have a direct identification and recognition. The four variations of these were:
1. a summons-answer sequence (e.g. the phone rings and the callee answers ‘Dave speaking’);
2. an identification and/or recognition sequence (e.g. ‘Dave!’/‘Hey Sarah’);
3. a greeting sequence (e.g. ‘Hi’/‘Hi’);
4. a ‘how are you’ sequence (e.g. ‘How are you?’/‘Alright, yourself?’)
These are all quite acceptable responses, and if we are trying to create a new relationship, set up an interview, or respond to their advertisement, we will deal with these openings with ease.Are these openings universal, can they cross national boundaries? With something as variable as how to answer the phone, we might expect to vary a lot. Especially if we keep in mind that in some cultures its normal for people to actually wait for the caller to start, has this ever happened to anyone else? Hopper, Hymes and Chaika have found that these vary significantly across cultures, especially between different languages. Fortunately between English speakers the difference is not too great, there are some similarities between Americans and Australians, as both tend to answer the phone with ‘Hello’ in private calls, while business callees tend to provide explicit self-identification, often the name of the business. O’Loughlin’s (1989) reported a higher frequency of self-identification (67%) in business calls than private calls (34%). What is incredible is that 33% of business calls don’t self identify, and thus we see the abnormal ‘yes’, ‘hello’ or something else unexpected as quite a significant player.
But what about the traditional G’day, is that still happening, or in this age of iSnack Web 2.0’s have we lost our Paul Hogan heritage. O’Loughlin’s study found that the informal ‘G’day’ was used but twice by male callers and not once by a callee.
So, what went wrong for Dan in the Steve Jobs phone call? As an Australian Dan was used to either a ‘Hello’, Hello, this is Steve Jobs’ or a direct confirmation ‘Steve Jobs’. Receiving nothing but a terse ‘Yes’, the dialogue sequence is totally thrown off and the rest is history, Dan doesn’t even get to the pitch because he’s already proven himself as unprofessional, and unorganised. What we need to be aware of is that individuals will vary a lot in their opening sequences, and that when we are speaking to a non-Australia, then we need to plan for the unexpected, and have to composure to say what we have scripted or intended to say. When we contact individuals in a business context, they may be answering the call as though it were a private one, and their circles of friends may have effected a completely unexpected summons-response sequence.
Topics: Guest Post, Communication | 1 Comment »
Update from beyond the Squiggly Lines: What projects am I working on currently?
By Steve Hopkins | September 29, 2009
There has been a lot of news recently. A lot has been happening in this little world of ours - one night a few weeks ago I awoke to a great email from Ross Hill that made me aware that overnight Zach Klein had been hired by Boxee, Jeffery from Threadless was joining Digg and that Google had aquired ReCaptcha. That’s just in one night. Certainly, it was cause for a pause and consideration about what had been happening in my own ‘Valley.’ So, inspired by the posts above and also Fred Wilson’s totally authentic announcement about Union Square funding Foursquare I thought I would provide an update of where I’m at and what that means.
The Australian Davos Connection
I’ve been working at the Australian Davos Connection (ADC) now for the past 6 months or so, coming on board in an exciting move as their Community Manager. Certainly, the past 6 months have been a great roller coaster to ride between Future Summit (@futuresummit for the tweeps out there) and the recent Australian Leadership Retreat we held on Hayman Island. If you’re interested, check out our (still nascent) Future Summit Blog and Twitter account - as well as some of the Livestream footage from the ALR.
(Photo by @jjprojects)
I’m quite excited about further developing the ADC presence on the web, in the hope of connecting with more of the amazing people (such as yourselves) out there agitating for a better world. Stay tuned, as soon we will be opening the nomination process for our Australian Leadership Awards, which provide successful applicants free entry to Future Summit each year and inclusion in our small Awardees Community, which includes invitations to smaller lunch events and discussions. I encourage you to apply.
Ai-Media and Ai-Skills
Whilst I was at Future Summit, I met Tony Abrahams - CEO and founder of Ai-Media and a great guy doing an amazing job leading the march for access and inclusion in Australia. We got chatting at Future Summit about all the possibilities around inclusion for deaf children in Australia and what that looks like in the classroom environment. Low and behold, a few months later Tony had fully unearthed what his crew at Ai-Media had been concocting these past three years and I couldn’t help but jump on board and help them continue to build the platform for what promises to be a truly paradigm changing innovation in the provision of education access for deaf children in Australia. Ai-Media have developed a system which now allows children in class access to real time, captioned text from their teachers. It’s essentially the same as having subtitles on your TV, only on a laptop in a classroom. It’s an exciting project and I’m proud to be involved. You can see Tony and Alex, the founders of Ai-Media, talk you through the project below.
The role at Ai-Media is involved in helping to build the market platform to allow this service to blossom across the country. I’m sure I’ll be talking to many of you and seeking your advice (yet again) in time to come, but for now appreciate that the technology and people are hear now to make this happen. These surely are exciting times.
Of course, some thank-you’s
There have been a few notable people who have helped me progress and make stuff happen in these new roles which I would like to thank at this current juncture. Ross Hill helps me everyday with his insights, thoughts and friendship and certainly has provided me perspective on the number of activities above.
Pete Williams (@rexster) was the one that helped with the strategy that became the Future Summit twitter/online presence back in May. His help and thought-leadership made moving into ADC a dream and provided me with clear direction at a time when it was at a premium.
Donal, the man (Myth. Legend.) behind Nodecity, has helped ADC no ends in doing his thing and providing connectivity services and access to the internet at both Future Summit and ALR. Without him, we simply wouldn’t have achieved what we did and he deserves the credit for that. The man knows his stuff better than most I’ve met and just nails it time and again.
Col and Derek from Ergo Consulting for their constant support and understanding which I constantly appreciate.
Finally Nathan, for throwing open his digs at Inspire9 and allowing me to take a desk at different times most weeks.
Finally, in fear of making this sound more like an Oscars speech than it already does, thanks to everyone who spins around this community and makes all of these interesting things that take place possible. It’s impossible to mention everyone, so I won’t - but those involved know just what I mean when I talk about the magic that currently floats about Melbourne like a dust cloud in Sydney. Let’s keep moving, keep progressing and making the good stuff happen.
Topics: Career Progression, Brand Me | 1 Comment »
Changing direction when it’s the hardest thing
By Steve Hopkins | September 9, 2009
Today in Samoa, for the first time in about 30 years, a country changed the side of the road they drive on. From the Associated Press article:
“As the 6 a.m. deadline approached, Police Minister Toleafoa Faafisi went on national radio to tell drivers everywhere to stop their vehicles. Minutes later, Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi broadcast the formal instructions for drivers to switch sides.”
(AP Photo/Cherelle Jackson)
I was fascinated to hear this over the Australian radio earlier today.
By the sounds of it, everything went according to planand there were no serious injuries or road deaths (yet). It sounds like it would have been a very interesting day to have lived in Samoa. The part I love most is that moment when everyone was instructed to stop there cars, before waiting to hear from the Prime Minister that it was ok to turn around and keep on driving!
But the thing I love about this little instance of change that took place in the world today, is what it represents in terms of innovation and business.How many times, when you’re at work or in your own start-up, have you thought “it’s easier to leave it the way it is than to change it.” I know I come to this conclusion almost everyday in the various projects I work on. As much as we hear the rhetoric about making small change and leading change initiatives within organisations through “Continuous Improvement” the truth is that all change in an organisation takes time to happen. Sometimes, it’s easier to leave some things as they are than to push and rock the boat too much. If the boat is ever going to sail anywhere, it’s best to not take on too much water worrying about what the chef is cooking.
The Samoans though, had hit this point. The reason they changed the side of the road they drive on is so it’s cheaper for them to source cars from their neighbouring countries New Zealand and Australia. It currently costs them more to import cars from the US or Europe, with the left hand drive, than from Australia or New Zealand.
Now, the Prime Minister of Samoa could have wrung his hands together, twiddled his thumbs and proclaimed that it was all to hard to change. Sure, people would need to pay more for their cars - but the truth is, changing the side of the road people drive on is a huge national change. It would be expensive for government to change road signs. There will likely be a number of lives lost as citizens forget the new rules and crash. There will be trouble making slow changes to the fleets of cars on the country’s roads. But, it’s a great example of a country standing up and saying “we’re not doing this as well as we could” and making the required change to make it better.
Sometimes it’s much easier to maintain the momentum of doing things wrong, than to grind to a halt to do things right. Let the Samoans teach us a lesson and consider what you are letting slip today which might not be so right and think about making it better.
Topics: Leadership, Innovation | No Comments »