Online Insights on FIVEaa Sunday December 4 2011
With xmas about 20 sleeps away a couple of sites this month will focus on that event on how to navigate work parties and how single people can treat themselves to festive feasts, we’ll discover some quick house cleaning tips (always useful this time of year) and we finish with some thrilling rides.
Andersons Law Blog Christmas wisdom
Between now and Christmas Day, many people will be letting their hair down at various work functions – those held at their place of work, their partner’s, their clients, customers or suppliers.
And as much as it is a time for fun and letting hair down, there is always a risk of letting too much down, so to speak.
The first website tonight is actually from the blog run by Andersons Solicitors here in Adelaide and it is called - The work Christmas party, fun or frightening?
This is one of the simplest and most helpful pieces I have seen on the risks of office or workplace parties.
This quote sums it all up: More than ever, it is important to remember that work functions are just that, work functions and as work functions the employer is responsible for what happens to employees (and other attendees) at work.
Online Insights on FIVEaa Sunday November 6 2011
This month we get real about food, about money, about music and about publishing a book.
What does a healthy person eat?
Leandra Walker's Roast Beetroot Salad
There are many theories and diets around the best food for us. There are also many examples of healthcare professionals who abuse their bodies worse than their patients do.
But a young, Darwin-based chiropractor who does live a holistically healthy life has just started a public project to help her clients (and the rest of us) see how easy it is to eat a diet consisting mainly of whole foods.
Dr Leandra Walker is co-founder of The Chiropractic Place and every day during November 2011 she is photographing and logging everything she eats.
She says it is because her clients always say they want to eat better but have no idea how to incorporate OR sustain the changes.
Her mission is to at least wean as many of us as possible OFF white bread sandwiches for lunch! Continue reading
The value of friendship: 83 minutes that might have saved my life
Friends add colour: Previous night with mates 1249 days ago
I have long been an 80-hour-a-week kinda guy. I have been lucky enough to love my work with all my heart whether it was radio, journalism or, now, marketing.
If you analysed my ‘weekends’ for the last 15 years, I think you would struggle to find more than 15 days of purely social time.
This has never really bothered me because I take my work seriously and personally and feel deeply connected to my clients.
I have had bouts of guilt about family time and taken some measures to increase time with them (just replace it with time drawn from later in the evening for work).
But on Saturday I took 83 minutes out of my week to spend time with two dear old friends with whom I had not stopped to be with for almost two years.
I think what I realised today is something important for me and for you, if you are similarly blessed/cursed with a deep love for your work and a drive to achieve. It took me by surprise!
Continue reading
A memo to the ANZ bank
It must be hard running a banking organisation but at least my client base, small business owners, can learn from this.
Imagine running the ANZ. You are at the helm of a large, money-making empire in a country with only a handful of competitors to share spoils between but you know you have to ‘be seen’ to be caring and responsive.
The trouble is, if you were really caring and responsive, some of the multi-billion dollar profits might need to be spent on one’s customers or on creating a team of thinking people who actually want to make banking a pleasant and efficient experience for customers.
At the moment, the ANZ is plastering slogans everywhere about how it has people to help you with any manner of question or financial problem ‘anytime, anywhere’.
Well, I have found one place where that DOES NOT apply – their ‘convenient’ online banking service.
Continue reading
Every Generation needs every generation
Later today I am performing the role of MC for an Every Generation event held by Adelaide City Council. The event will focus around the screening of Babies, a documentary about the first year of life of four babies on four different continents. As part of my plan to expand the breadth of material archived via my blog, this post is sharing my introductory notes – likely to be changed upon delivery.
Amid the warning NOT to go overtime (I need to leave time for Adelaide Lord Mayor Stephen Yarwood), the organisers did suggest I make some comments about how the mix of generations in the city leads to a rich diversity of experience. Here are the notes and the preview video clip for the movie.
Continue reading
Online Insights on FIVEaa Sunday October 2 2011
This month we explore what is meant by Australian Women’s Weekly when it claims that Frugality is the new Black, experience the fun side of HTML5 (who would have guessed), and a small video of magic and high tech blended into one. Enjoy.
Frugality is the New Black
Deception - tonight's theme from magic to our consumer society
My wife told me the Australian Women’s Weekly has claimed that Frugality is the New Black and a quick Google search reveals that various media outlets have been claiming this since about 2008 when a book with that title was released to ‘cash in’ on the Global Financial Crisis.
Of course, there is nothing like a tight patch to teach us how to be less wasteful and more resourceful but it is probably best to practice some of these skills and approaches to life BEFORE a crisis FORCES you to adopt them.
To that end, I discovered a series of posts on this topic by Kim Sbarcea, a Kiwi who writes under the topic of ThinkingShift. What I like about her posts is that she does not come across PREACHY and in fact often acknowledges her failings and struggles along the journey to a more sustainable lifestyle. In her post about feeding the plastic pig (a piggy bank), she confessed that she goes through cycles of being very good for months on end and then indulges in a splurge although not with big designer brand names – she has kicked that habit.
Online Insights on FIVEaa Sunday September 4 2011
This month we look at the importance of sleep for weight loss, of how to get our minds straight, take a global glimpse at Fathers Day and finish off with a handy way to use Lego.
Sleep adds weight AND makes you fatter
Lack of sleep bad for weight loss (Picture: iNform Health)
After reading this article, I have worked harder and harder at getting more sleep each night.
You can read the article for the technical terminology but in short, research from Stanford University has found that when we sleep less than five hours each night our hormones go crazy and end up making us not only feel hungry but feel less full.
As the writer summarises well, ‘so poor sleep essentially sets us up to feel hungry, crave food and have less satisfaction after eating. It’s not a wonder that people who sleep less have a higher BMI.’
However, the real shock came when researchers got healthy men and women to sleep just four hours in one night. They became dramatically insulin resistant the next day.
What does this mean? When you are insulin resistant it means your body cannot regulate blood sugar levels and that four hour night of sleep dropped insulin resistance to a level that was the equivalent of carrying 10kg of extra body fat. It just makes is harder all round.
The research also found that six nights of extreme lack of sleep can fast track you to Type Two Diabetes.
So, what can you do if you have trouble sleeping? Continue reading
Online Insights on FIVEaa Sunday August 14 2011
This month on Online Insights we look at incredible printing technology, furniture planning software that allows you to order your design, troubleshooting bitter coffee and a fun poke at MySpace.
3D Printing
Dungeons and Dragon Dice (Image: 3dfuture.com.au)
During a workshop in Murray Bridge recently for Regional Development Australia, I met Andy Ide, a man obsessed by the technology known as 3D printing.
When he mentioned it to me on the night I nodded cautiously, thinking I knew what he was talking about but it was when I walked through his website and watched a video of the process that my jaw dropped and I realised I was listening with a 20th Century mindset to 21st Century science!
In essence, 3D printing is when three dimensional plans are applied to a printer that can spew resins and different substances from its printing head, rather than just ink.
Online Insights on FIVEaa Sunday July 03 2011
This month we prepare for an indoors winter with tips for making better home movies, things to do with your store of pumpkins, ways to find public toilets when the cold conditions prompt an unplanned call of nature, and one of the most obvious cases of political messaging captured on film. Meanwhile, on the Web 2.0 front, it has been a busy time with Google rolling out their newest attack on the Social Networking market with Google+ and Facebook poised to strike back this coming week with an announcement of integrated video chat within Facebook using the Skype service. But for now, on with the sites.
How to make a movie at home
Unlock your inner Kubrick (Blue Seduction Movie Set by Redvette via Flickr)
With winter upon us it is likely that you will be needing to entertain families at home and inside. With a video camera, a computer and some creativity, you could work as a team and create a celluloid masterpiece.
Here are some wise tips that will lead you through the process.
- Think about the genre or style of movie you wish to make first
- Go and rent some movies in that genre/style
- Decide on a narrative movie (story-telling), documentary style, or a compilation (editing together bits of footage you already have) Continue reading
Social Media Day in Adelaide 2011
Today was Social Media Day, a virtual event organised by Mashable, the online magazine of all things Web 2.0 and Tech.
In Adelaide, the key ‘gathering’ was an online converstation using Twitter and the hashtag #socadl. (NOTE: Using hashtags immediately before words or terms in Twitter, transforms an ordinary word or term into an index term that enables users to thread together all tweets using the particular hashtag into a timeline. #socadl is the term we created in Adelaide to thread together the thoughts and discussions of Adelaideans wishing to contribute on all things social media or social networking).
The official online conversation lasted one hour (although it continued on well into the night) and revolved around five questions. Given that Twitter is notoriously bad for archiving content and the fact that #socadl is used quite a lot outside of this particular conversation, I thought I should do my bit of internet curation and pull together some of the contributions I found most helpful or interesting.
Here are the questions and the comments. Continue reading
My latest snaps on Instagram
Listen to Steve
- stevedavis: The #socadl Daily is out! http://t.co/vLwzsWJH ▸ Top stories today via @scottmccarten @hayleybw @hellobenteoh May 18, 2012
- stevedavis: @JoshuaWhiteSM must be a good feeling! Wordpress workshop walks biz people through basics of running wp site with lots of marketing input May 18, 2012
- stevedavis: @JoshuaWhiteSM how was yours? May 18, 2012