Online Insights on FIVEaa Sunday March 06 2011
This month on Online Insights we take a kite’s eye perspective on hobbies with international appeal,
Let’s go fly a kite. Up to the highest height!
Kevin Saunders' soft, inflatable kites loosely based on road signs
I had two very interesting South Australians take part in my Online Marketing workshops last year and their “hobby” of kite flying blew me away (is that the best term to use?).
Kevin and Linda Saunders know everything there is to know about making a flying kites and this passion has helped open up the world to them.
Who would have thought that designing and making kites would lead to invitations to appear at international festivals all over the world, or that international kite festivals even existed? I didn’t. They have been flying the flag for South Australia at:
- “Jakarta International Kite Festival”
- “Toronto International Kite Festival”
- “Weifang International Kite festival” – China
- “Smithsonian Kite Festival” – USA
- “Cape Town International Kite Festival” – South Africa
- “Colour The Sky” – Thailand Continue reading
Online Insights on FIVEaa Sunday January 09 2011
This month on Online Insights we look at a different approach for New Year’s resolutions, fun activities for kids and seriously fun activities for kids for the holidays, and indulge in the parmi reviews (I hope my exercise physiologist does not read this month’s post).
Creative Goal Setting
The creative goal setting blog has a timely post for this New Year season called, The Damage “Intellectualising” Can Do.
What I loved most about stumbling onto this post in this period of resolutions, is that I am halfway through the first fortnight of holidays in at least five years. And this is the very first time that I have actually disconnected emails from my mobile phone and completely shut myself away from “work”. As an “always on” kinda guy I expected this to be harder than it has been. But as the first week has passed, I noticed this morning that my sinuses are clearer than ever – something I am not that used to.
Lo and behold, the blog entry I found has argued strongly that this symptom of clearer sinuses, along with less headaches and stress, is a direct result of not “being on” by thinking things to death. I quote, “The first and most obvious clue to when we are intellectualising is the higher stress levels felt in the body and mind. Our immune system struggles and the first signs of this is any of the following: the runny nose, raised temperature, swollen glands each side of our neck and/or sore throat … and our thoughts are continually returning to the imagined problems associated with our goal.” Continue reading
Online Insights on FIVEaa Sunday December 05 2010
This month we bid bon voyage to a new, Adelaide-based, Web2.0 startup, find a plan incubator, look at a new identity sniffer, and get some inspiration for a life-or-death fitness workout.
Trace My Trip
Steve Davis in San Francisco
A new Web2.0 site was launched this week in Adelaide, and has dubbed itself the “Facebook for travellers”. It is still in its early days after launch and I have had some trouble accessing some of the features. However, this could be a site to watch because it couples specifically-designed tools for sharing holiday planning and publishing with tight security options for privacy.
Founder, Ryan Adams, said the difference between his site and Facebook is that TraceMyTrip is specifically designed in a way that travellers can plot their journey and then share it with the select few friends and family they want to choose.
There are other travel-sharing sites out there but one thing this site promises is that you can upload your photos and videos along the way, in high resolution. This means serious photographers won’t have to lug hard drives around with them: they can just upload when they need to and know their memories are safe.
It is only open for Australians at the moment with the rest of the world invited in come 2011. Continue reading
Online Insights on FIVEaa Sunday November 07 2010
This month we give one last hurrah to the local government elections closing soon in South Australia, listen to the voice of the River Murray, give our dogs a dementia test and ogle over some Adelaide sunsets.
Local government elections
Campbelltown Mayor, Simon Brewer, at the Black Hill Challenge
A few weeks ago I was asked by my father-in-law who is also president of the local Lions club if I would volunteer as a timekeeper for the Black Hill Challenge – a footrace attracting a few hundred competitors to Black Hill Reserve and the nearby Thorndon Park Reserve.
As fate would have it, a fellow volunteer was the current Mayor of Campbelltown, Simon Brewer. Having been asked to give advice and/or support a number of candidates in the Adelaide City Council and Burnside Council elections, I was keen to ask Simon about his campaign and whether or not he was using social networking sites as part of his push. Continue reading
Online Insights on FIVEaa Sunday October 03 2010
This month on Online Insights we encounter a homegrown charity, a homegrown food writer, a homegrown fatalist, and a job that seems potentially fatal. Hope you enjoy the ride.
Lamb’s Ears and Honey
I have spent the weekend at a public tasting of beer, wine and coffee (my Baristador Coffee actually) at Homestyle Solutions, a boutique furniture and glassware boutique in Malvern, and one of the visitors was a local food blogger, Amanda McInerney.
She was in heaven at our little tasting and told us a little about her blog, Lamb’s Ears and Honey, in which she writes about good food, where it comes from, and how it gets to us.
Her style is to showcase small, South Australian food producers and celebrate what they do while illuminating the back story for those of us who care about what we consume!
To give you an example of her work, there is a very interesting and alarming article on apples in which Amanda takes us into the details of dangers facing our apple and pear industry AND our health as our markets open to Chinese imports. Continue reading
Online Insights on FIVEaa Sunday September 05 2010
This month on Online Insights, we will celebrate fathers day, look at parking in a whole new light, view incredible video tricks, and think about a calendar that falls to pieces.
First though, Google unveiled a new tool in Gmail accounts since we last spoke. If you have a Gmail email account you can turn on priority sorting. This means that Google applies some clever thinking in your inbox, based on your usual email habits to help sort your more important email from less important stuff. For example, if you always open emails from certain people, they will sit at the top of your inbox and vice versa for emails you usually leave unopened or delete. Another clever tool from Google – sometimes I wonder how I’d navigate the world without them!
Fathers Day
It’s Fathers Day today and that brings us to Australian Camp Connect. I’d never heard of this group but it exists to help dads connect or reconnect with kids. It says it is all about grabbing your kids, a sleeping bag and a torch, and heading off on a journey to deeper relationships. Continue reading
Online Insights on FIVEaa Sunday August 01 2010
This month in Online Insights I combine one part election with one part masterchef and two parts history, unveil a tool to help you maintain a secret journal, give you a political voice, and give you front row seats to as many local jazz concerts as you wish right from your computer.
History Chef
Hardtacks - staple and enemy of civil war soldiers
Recently, our Prime Minister and the leader of the opposition held a contrived, plastic debate on live, Sunday night television. It marked the beginning of another federal election period with all the smear, puffery, deceit and staging one sadly has come to expect. What drew most coverage before the event was the fact that this excruciatingly tedious program was scheduled at the same time as the grand finale of yet another stale reality show, MasterChef. It was feared the masses would rather watch formulaic reality programming with cooking-show flavour than formulaic political debate with, well, no flavour.
It irks me that both television and our political landscape have descended from nutritious staples to artificially-flavoured poison. But that is for another article. What I have stumbled across is a website that ties politics and the culinary arts together in a much more appetising way – History Chef.
This delightful, albeit American, site is worth a meandering visit. Suzy Evans, who got her Ph.D in History, has woven a whimsical collection of food-based anecdotes involving US presidents and historical figures and their dietary preferences. Probably doesn’t sound that interesting at first, but I urge you to take a look. What I loved about this site was the way its stories gave is easily digestible tid bits of daily life. As you read and picture the people and the food they were consuming you really do feel like you have been transported back in time and given a truly authentic taste of life in another era. Some of my favourites include: Continue reading
Online Insights on FIVEaa Sunday July 04 2010
This month in Online Insights, we discover when fresh is really fresh, have fun with the beginning of everything, unlock a free planning tool, and set you up for some family and holiday fun, geek style.
Pop Up Book
Voyage to the heart of matter - the big bang as pop up art
I think I have discovered the secret ingredient that will help modernise children’s books and it comes from an unusual pop up book that has been produced in Switzerland.
The book is a pop up book that charts the Atlas Experiment, which is described by the official website as “a particle physics experiment at the Large Hadron Collider [and it will] search for new discoveries in the head-on collisions of protons of extraordinarily high energy. ATLAS will learn about the basic forces that have shaped our Universe since the beginning of time and that will determine its fate.”
You will recall the talk of the end of the world when they first started running their machine last year. Continue reading
Online Insights on FIVEaa Sunday May 30 2010
This fortnight in online insights, we help you converse better, help you get on better with your kids, shine the spotlight on some dangerous journalism and then finish with some dangerous album covers. Enjoy
Can you improve your conversation skills? Certainly.
The Positivity Blog is quite a gold mine of timeless articles focussed on helping you tweak important areas of your life. The blog post I have focussed on for this show is one on common conversation mistakes.
It is a worthy read and I encourage you to look at it. Therefore, all I will do for this report is share some choice food for thought.
1 – Not listening. This is the most obvious conversation mistake and the post quotes Ernest Hemingway who once said: “I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.” The way to deal with this mistake is to check your ego at the door and actually not planning what you will say next but instead doing your utmost to be present and to get inside the story the other person is sharing.
2 – Asking too many questions. This is not as obvious but the point is that asking too many questions can feel like an interrogation. So their solution is to mix questions with statements. This means you actually invest in the conversation while keeping it going. Continue reading
Listen to Steve
- stevedavis: The #socadl Daily is out! http://t.co/vLwzsWJH ▸ Top stories today via @leehopkins @joannatsoukalas @_adriankh @cullenofadelaid February 10, 2012
- stevedavis: @Prakky @tripleb Vitamin C overload until symptoms pass OR just give the germs a Dutch stare ;-) February 10, 2012
- stevedavis: “@steverubel: The Year Of New Ebook Tools http://t.co/quihOFAV” What I need is The Year Of More Reading Time! February 10, 2012
- stevedavis: “@KasiaCichonska: Leonard Cohen - Hey, thats no way to say goodbye: http://t.co/kztYAmBL via @youtube” Hey, that's a beautiful song February 10, 2012
- stevedavis: @VIPVirtualSols @razchorev What I like about it is that something displaying skill has gone viral, not just a dog chasing a cat February 10, 2012