10 October, 2009 by Benjamin Chong
Who owns this content?
I’ve just finished listening to a recent story on the ABC’s Background Briefing about who owns the news and it makes for interesting listening. At the World Media Summit, of over 400 media publishers and editors, in China yesterday, News Corporation chief, Rupert Murdoch, repeated his call for news organisations to charge for content on the Internet. He warned that news organisations and content creators must change otherwise search engines and other aggregators would eat all their lunch. He said that many Internet users believed that once they’d paid their ISP for access, they had purchased access to a content buffet. This message was echoed by the boss of the Associated Press, Tom Curley.
The Background Briefing piece interested me by pointing out that newspapers have been under threat since the 1930s with the advent of broadcast radio. Radio presenters were able to read breaking stories from the newspapers over the air before the public could purchase the papers, and this upset the publishers. Journalists, of the newspaper variety, cast aspersions on radio journalists, saying they weren’t in the same league as them. Naturally, the same occurred with the advent of television and television journalists. Over the years, the Associated Press (AP) has stood up for the commercial interests of publishers. In 1918 they won a case against the International News Service, who was found to have ‘copied’ AP’s work, claiming it as their own, and they’re likely to cite this precedent sometime soon. Today, AP is trialling a new strategy to prevent sites from copying and reusing its material. When it distributes content, it will be wrapped in a container that includes a tracking beacon that will allow central monitoring of users who view that piece of content. It’ll be fascinating to watch its progress.
If you’ve got a spare 40 minutes, I can highly recommend the episode.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Tags: abc, associated press, background briefing, internet content, news corporation, rupert murdoch, tom curley
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6 October, 2009 by Benjamin Chong
Tattoo
It’s amazing to see what love does. Last month, I celebrated with some friends who got engaged after seeing each other for only two weeks. While they had met over five years ago, they hadn’t stayed in touch, and upon re-connecting, they felt they were made for each other. After spending a lot of time together during the two weeks, they decided to get engaged quickly.
Earlier today, another friend showed me an expression of love. He’s now seen his girlfriend for two months and has been visibly (and emotionally) impacted: he talks about her; he thinks about her; all the time. As an expression of his love, he got her name tattooed onto his chest this weekend. While I’m not too keen about getting a tattoo emblazoned on my chest, I understand his sentiments.
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22 September, 2009 by Benjamin Chong
Maureen Dowd, a New York Times columnist, has written an interesting piece this week on the state of women’s happiness. While prosperity may have made men happier, and this happiness seems to increase over their lifespan, the opposite seems to take place for women. Their level of happiness peaks earlier, and gets lower as the years roll on. Could it be that our society, that places so much emphasis on appearance is the cause? Is the staggering range of choice in this heterogeneous world responsible for decision anxiety which leads to stress and unhappiness?
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15 September, 2009 by Benjamin Chong
I’ve recently been observing the communication methods of some great leaders and a common thread is their use of repetition. That’s right, a common thread is their use of repetition. (Okay, I’ll get my hand off it.)
When you think of charismatic American leaders, who comes to mind? Martin Luther King, John F Kennedy, and even William Jefferson Clinton. All of them used repetition in their speeches to get their point across. Martin Luther King’s famous “I have a dream” speech used phrases and images that King had finessed over years of public speaking. John F Kennedy Even today’s American President has made use of the “yes, we can” refrain over, and over, and over. (Stop it!) Australian politicians have also found a fondness for repetition. You knew Paul Keating was making a point when he repeated the last sentence.
Successful business leaders, too, have made use of repetition to get their point across. Jack Welch had a saying of being simple, being consistent, and hammering your message home. That’s why he produced a wallet-sized card containing all of GE’s values. Wal-Mart’s founder, Sam Walton, repeated his company’s values again and again.
Repetition doesn’t need to happen in the same sentence. It doesn’t need to happen in the same talk or speech. But, if you’re wanting to get your point across, repetition (and consistency) over time will help ensure people get what you mean.
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8 September, 2009 by Benjamin Chong
Some say it’s the curse of the modern age. Others avoid visiting friends and family so as not to experience it.
Jetting abroad
Jet lag describes the condition where your circadian rhythms are interrupted when travelling in an aircraft across time zones. Symptoms of jet lag include difficulty sleeping at a normal time, waking up in the middle of the night, and extreme drowsiness. In my years of travel, I’ve been very lucky in avoiding the severe effects of jet lag by following three simple rules.
Rule one: always adjust your watch to the destination time zone. As soon as I get on the plane, I adjust my watch to the time zone of my destination city. This means if I’m going from Sydney to Los Angeles for instance, I’ll turn my watch back seventeen hours. Likewise if I’m going to London where I’ll turn it back nine hours. By adjusting my watch to the destination time zone I start acting as if I’m the destination time zone.
Rule two: don’t eat and drink too much. When you’re onboard the plane and the attractive hostess keeps offering you food, I know it’s difficult resist the extra chocolate ice cream and cheese platter. Equally, when that glass of wine seems to have a never ending bottom, and you’ve left the cares of the world 35,000 feet below, saying “no” to the cognac or some other digestif requires real willpower. Believe me; on the occasions where I’ve over indulged, I’ve regretted it; on the occasions where I’ve been disciplined, I’ve sufferred little jet lag.
Rule three: sleep according to the destination time zone. I know this is a follow-on to my first rule and it works. If you can sleep as close as possible to normal nighttime according to the destination time zone, you’ll land fresh and full of energy. For those who find it difficult to sleep, I’ve always found some Baileys with a mild antihistamine works a treat.
So there you have it: my three simple rules for overcoming the jet lag curse. Try them next time you fly to visit friends and family and let me know if they work for you too!
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4 September, 2009 by Benjamin Chong
All investors would like to think they make good decisions. Many think that by performing the right type of analysis or due diligence, they’ll be able to get more information about an investment target and so make a better assessment about whether or not to invest. So what about venture capitalists?
A recent article in The Economist reports investors have a voracious appetite to throw money into venture capital (VC) funds focussed on promising start-ups. Marc Andreessen, one of the founders of Netscape Communications, announced in early July 2009 that he and his business partner had raised over $300m to invest in start-ups and it was oversubscribed. What’s interesting is that a month earlier, the Kauffman Foundation released a study concluding the US venture capital industry must shrink for it to be viable in the long-term. It found the industry has been stagnating, producing declining returns, and has grown far too big.
Although firms such as Google, Home Depot, Microsoft, and Starbucks were venture-backed, less than 20% of the fastest-growing comanies in the US had venture investors. In fact, only 16% of around 900 companies in the sample had venture capital backing. Further, the returns from the venture industry is 10% below a leading listed small-cap index on a ten year timeframe.
So there you have it, too much money trying to find the next big idea. Once investors wake up to the fact that the industry has not been producing spectacular returns, and has been charging a small fortune as a management fee, it’s inevitable they will reallocate their investments to other asset classes. The question is how long will it take?
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1 September, 2009 by Benjamin Chong
Kyotofu's award-winning cupcake
Although many people use the phrase “going out for coffee” as an expression to catch-up (or meet-up) with an old (or new) friend, couldn’t “going out for dessert” be an equally valid social occasion?
A little over a month ago, I did just that with my brother and a bunch of his friends in New York. The venue was Kyotofu a Japanese dessert bar in Midtown. Containing two sections, the front of the restaurant had bar stools and a couple of tables while past the kitchen, while down the back, was a larger dining room housing more chairs and tables. On offer was a full menu of sweets that could be ordered individually as well as a prix fare menu. Being a closet sweet tooth, I couldn’t help but indulge in the sampling menu that included cheesecake, black sesame sweet tofu, and the miso chocolate cake.
The cheesecake, accompanied with a sponge base, was delicate yet had a full flavour. The black sesame sweet tofu came with a roasted green tea sauce and goji berries. The slight bitterness of the berries worked well with the sweetness of the tofu whose texture was smooth but firm. The miso chocolate cake was a surprise. I’ve always thought of miso as being extremely salty but in this instance it was juxtaposed against lightly-flavoured green tea ice-cream.
With good service and the right sort of lighting (dim if you ask), I reckon it’s a pretty good date venue.
If I wasn’t concerned about my carbohydrate intake, I’d be back more often.
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30 August, 2009 by Benjamin Chong
I was chatting with some friends over dinner last night and realised I had forgotten to share a little tip I learnt when last overseas.
Anyone who has travelled abroad with global roaming will recognise there’s a large cost for convenience. If you’re an Australian who is travelling in say, Singapore, and one of your mates in Australia calls your mobile, and you answer, your mate will be charged for the Australian portion of the call while you’ll be charged for the international (Australia to Singapore) portion of the call. This means taking calls overseas can be an expensive past time, especially if it’s your mate who talks and talks and talks, before you can even tell her you’re overseas!
It’s a slightly different story for text messages (SMS). In most countries, it’s free to receive a text message on a foreign phone so texting has been the communication method of choice for travellers. The catch, of course, is the cost of texting on your Aussie phone while on foreign soil. The last time I checked with my Australian carrier, it cost 75 cents to send a text message while overseas, which is a good three times the cost of a text message in Australia.
After a day of sending about fifteen text messages to a friend while I was on foreign soil, I realised I blew through more than ten dollars very quickly. I then remembered I could email! While the cost of data while roaming overseas is much more than when back home, it’s much cheaper than texting. If memory serves me correctly, I pay around 1 cent per kilobyte and given the 160 characters you can type into a text is much less than 1kb, the data rate can go a long way. (Obviously there’s a communications overhead and you could get in trouble if you decide to download that 2 megabyte attachment from the office.)
So there’s my tip. If you’ve got a BlackBerry or email-enabled phone, it can be much cheaper sending emails overseas than texting. (Oh, and if you’ve got a GPS-enabled phone, the A-GPS feature that uses the data network helps you find your way around really quickly!)
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29 July, 2009 by Benjamin Chong
I was in London the other week catching up with some friends. After lunching at the Borough Markets, they suggested we take a leisurely walk along the Thames to check out the amazing architecture and art at St Paul’s Cathedral. Little did I know they had a sneaky plan. Little did I know I was being set-up as a pawn in their desire to hear piano music on the sidewalk.
God Save the Queen
London, like other towns around the world, has installed a bunch of upright pianos around the city. They’re located in popular areas such as Millenium Bridge and Soho Gardens, and they’re free for the public to play. Given London’s habit of grey drizzle, I’m not sure how long the pianos would last but sure enough, as we walked up the Bankside Jetty and onto Millenium Bridge the familiar object became larger and larger. I found myself trapped by three friends who forced me onto the piano stool. Not really sure what to do, I let go of my bag and found myself paying tribute to Queen Elizabeth II with God Save the Queen. I guess old habits die hard and even though Australia has had its own national anthem 1984, many Australians are still fond of Betty Windsor.
What a great idea: providing instruments in public spaces for the public to play! We already provide public furniture, amenities, maps, light posts; why not instruments?
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20 July, 2009 by Benjamin Chong
Kenneth taking a swing (in skinny jeans) at The Baseball Center NYC
I’ve been spending the last few days in New York City, enjoying the great summer they’ve been having here. When I was here earlier in the year, one of my friends suggested I visit The Baseball Center NYC to try my hand at batting against their automatic pitcher. Unfortunately I ran out of time so the much-anticipated visit had to be delayed until my next trip to New York.
Earlier this week, with view to escape the warmth and humidity outside, my brother and I decided to see if we had what it took to be baseball stars. We arrived at the centre, paid up for a one hour session, and headed downstairs to the cages. I wasn’t sure what to expect. When they mentioned cages, I immediately thought of chicken cages, so I was much relieved when I saw they were about five metres wide and eighteen metres long. At one end was a large green machine housing a basket of balls and an automated pitching arm; at the other end was a triangular marker on the floor.
Here's what happens when you get too enthusiastic
My brother went first, adjusting his helmet before entering the cage. Boom. The machine threw a ball and it hit the padding attached to the fence. Boom. The machine threw another ball and it hit the fence again. Kenneth was determined to properly hit the ball. The next time he connected, and connected, and connected. After about twenty balls, he had got the swing of things, connecting most balls, and now trying to work out how to direct the ball. Some went way up, others hit the side fence, a few hit the ground before bouncing up. Oh, and that sound. That metallic ping when the bat connected with the ball!
After about twenty minutes, it was my turn and I was nervous. Kenneth got the hang of this so quickly and I didn’t want to be shown up by his natural ability with racquet sports. It took me a few more goes than him before I connected but found the feeling fantastic when I did. Gee, it was good; seeing the ball move towards you, taking a swing, connecting, hearing the ping, and seeing the ball get air.
I want to do it again!
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