Our client Village Building is the organiser and main sponsor of the event, and are the reason contentgroup is able to document the concert. Village building have committed one million dollars to the construction of the visitors centre, as well as an annual commitment to Voices in the Forest. It is tremendous that they continue to support this event as it really is remarkable to have performances of such calibre in Canberra and I really encourage everyone to take the family this year – if you see me, come and say hello! I’ll be the tall guy running around with a camera.

Voices in the Forest 2012 will feature some of the best classical voices in the world with performances by Sumi Jo, Stuart Skelton and Amelia Farrugia. I’m really looking forward to the event, not only to film the proceedings but also just to appreciate the music on offer. Last year the concert was a really great experience with everyone really enjoying the afternoon and I don’t see how this year could be any different – in fact, I think that they might even top last year!

Oh, and by the way – tickets are available now through Canberra Ticketing and you can find more information on the event at the official Voices in the Forest website. Hope to see you there!

David van Dijk
Content Producer

I started thinking about this question on the weekend. We all get advice in so many areas of our lives, but how much of it do we really listen to? How much of it do we take in? What are the pieces that stick with us throughout life?

As if fate wanted me to continue thinking about giving and receiving advice, on Monday I found a list of Dr Seuss quotes “that can change your life”. In regards to business though, we found him a little lacking.

Our office had a variety of business advice, but my favourites are below.

Suzanne Kiraly, our Social Media, Education and Training Manager, said her best piece of business advice came from her father. “Each and every day, do one small thing which will help to grow your business.” She said he was very keen on the principle of “working on the business” as well as “working in the business.”

Our managing director David Pembroke’s favourite business quote is from Walt Disney: ”When you’re curious, you find lots of interesting things to do.”

Personally, I was told that it is very rare anyone will turn down coffee. People love to give advice. Explain who you are, what you do, and that you’d love to have a coffee to get their advice. I want to guarantee they won’t say no. (I want to guarantee; but I won’t.)

What has been the best business advice you’ve received? Facebook us or tweet at us and you might see your reply in a future blog post!

Ellen Harvey
Digital Media Publisher

Image credit: jannetajeda

Highlights of the gala event included local beat boxer Keegan Brady, Shakespearean performer Cameron Thomas and the ever-engaging international rapper Omar Musa—the boy from Queanbeyan.

We also heard from the previous winners, Ashley Orr and Yvonne Wood; LITLINKS coordinator, Suzanne Kiraly; and Dr Chris Bourke MLA, the Minister for Education and Training.

However, when Dr Anthony Eaton took the stage, silence fell across the room. Dr Eaton, as he has for the past four years, judges the finalists’ stories—and as he openly admits each year, judging creative writing competitions is completely unfair, because another judge would pick something different for completely different reasons.

A selection of the comments from Dr Eaton appear below.

Junior Division

Shadows by Natasha Zivkovic
The writer has given a strong sense of both intimacy of a character’s grief, but also the odd sense of detachment that so often comes with the process of grieving.

A Poisonous Affair by Kate Wagner
Written in the style of the 1940s film noir type detective story, A Poisonous Affair draws upon many of the classic motifs of detective fiction…the writing is confident and assured.

Alys by Zoe Horvath
While only a short narrative, there is a definite sense of place and purpose and the writing has been crafted to draw the reader completely and utterly into the ‘space’ of the story.

Straight From the Heart by Anna Brooks
The writer has very cleverly used the structure of her sentences and language on the page to mirror the inner, emotional, physical and psychological disconnection.

Senior Division

Requiem for the Brave by Yi Yuan
The central characters, particularly the main protagonist, are drawn with a degree of depth not always evident in short action adventure stories.

Bones by Sophie Clews
This is a wrenchingly-moving piece of writing…what is particularly impressive about this piece is its refusal to compromise at the ending.

The Taxidermist by Erin McCullagh
There is something slightly redolent of the writing of Neil Gaiman about this deeply Gothic, deeply uncanny narrative.

King Lear Unspoken Sonnets by Sam Hardwick
The use of the sonnet – a notoriously difficult poetic structure – lends the piece both an authentic Shakespearean tone, but also provides authority and verisimilitude to the central idea.

Nevertheless, there can only be one winner. From the Junior Division, Anna Brooks won with Straight from the Heart; and the Senior Division winner was Sam Hardwick, with King Lear Unspoken Sonnets. Each year, the Senior Division winner is invited back to help pick the shortlisted stories in the second round of judging, in the succeeding LITLINKS writing competition.

The LITLINKS Writing Competition is an initiative of ACT Association for the Teaching of English (ACTATE) and was sponsored this year by Paperchain Bookstore (the major sponsor of the competition), the Canberra Writing School and contentgroup.

Ellen Harvey
Digital Media Publisher

It has been a wonderful week to reconnect. This week South by South-West (SxSW) has been running in Austin, Texas. For those who haven’t heard of SxSW, it is one of the biggest emerging technology conferences and festivals in the world. And as we push full steam ahead into digital media, we know the technologies uncovered at SxSW can and will become commonplace in the digital landscape.

Don’t believe us? Have you heard of Twitter or Foursquare? Both were launched at previous SxSW expos.

So, this rainy Friday afternoon in Canberra, we want to share some of the most useful links we’ve found over the past week.

Gowalla has been shut down! Never heard of it? Don’t worry, a lot of people didn’t. To us, it was a better designed foursquare, than it was purchased by Facebook, and now, three years after its original launch at SxSW 2009, it has been shut down at SxSW 2012.

Highlight has been the most talked-about app. What is Highlight? It lets you know when people you know are nearby. It’s called location-sharing. It works in the background of your iOS device. Is this a bit creepy for the app to work when you aren’t even thinking about it? Maybe. But it was one of many apps like it at the conference. Maybe it is the next big thing.

It’s hard to get press at a conference as big as SxSW. Fortunately, these are the tips to help. Only, we’d recommend ensuring these tips are enforced all the time for all areas of business—not just when you want to get press. Keep a good press page, make sure you have a personal contact for help and provide real, quantifiable data.

Closer to home, B&T have been asking: What’s next in digital? Are marketers embracing digital media fully? Is there still lack of digital talent in Australia? What will be the ‘next big thing’ in digital? What is the future for social media? Some of the best in the industry answered these questions.

But at the end of the day, there is always a moral. And StartUpSmart has provided the top ten lessons to take away from SxSW.

Ellen Harvey
Digital Media Publisher

Sales of ukuleles in Australia have this year outstripped guitar sales, suggesting that the uke is now the most popular musical instrument in Australia.

For his first time in the Capital, Daniel, who was born in Hawaii and is now based in Los Angeles, will perform and hold free workshops for Canberra audiences at the Festival in April.

At 43, Daniel Ho is a producer, composer, song writer and multi-instrumentalist on ukulele, guitar, piano, and voice.

His professional music career began in the 1990’s; as the keyboardist, composer, and producer for Kilauea, a contemporary jazz group.  By 1997, Kilauea had released six chart-topping albums, two of which hit the Top 10 on Billboard’s jazz charts.

Folk Festivals audiences will be treated to performances off his Grammy award winning ‘slack-key’ guitar albums: Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar – the Complete Collection and Ikena.  Daniel spent over a decade mastering the traditional Hawaiian finger-style guitar.  His other ‘slack-key’ titles include: Sweet and Gentle and Island Classics.

Daniel will also perform on the ukulele, an instrument he said he recently re-fell in love with. “I picked up ukulele again in early 2000, when I started singing. So I’ve gone full circle back to one of my favourite earlier instruments”.   Daniel will perform tracks from his solo ukulele album realised last year, titled Polani which means ‘pure’ in Hawaiian.

Daniel is working hard to finish a new vocal album for release at the Festival.  The yet to be named album will have a contemporary acoustic sound, combining elements of jazz, classical, folk and pop.  “The orchestration is piano based, with drums, slack-key guitar and ukulele.  The songs are about life in Hawaii and personal experiences”.

The solo album will showcase Daniel’s work as a multi-instrumentalist and singer songwriter.  “It’s sort of a culmination of everything I’ve done to date” he said.  Despite a move away from his more traditional recordings, Daniel said the new CD will have island flavours “the Islands are present in all my recordings” he said.

Anyone aspiring to learn ukulele, will be able to give it a go at Festival workshops for beginners, led by Daniel Ho.  “It’s probably the easiest instrument in the world to play” He said. Daniel’s recently released instructional DVD titled Ukulele: A Beginning Method will be available to take home.

Daniel will land in Australia on the 3^rd April, after touring Japan, Singapore and Taiwan.  After playing his first National Folk Festival in Canberra, he will travel to Thailand, Kuala Lumpur and Korea.

For more information, or to come and see Daniel perform at the festival, visit the National Folk Festival website at http://www.folkfestival.org.au/ or call Venue Tix on 1300 235 849.

The journey to the island is an interesting one. We flew from Canberra to Sydney, then to Cairns and on to Horn Island. We were quickly shepherded on to a bus, which took us to the port where a ferry was waiting. This ferry is the only way to get to Thursday Island, and the ride felt very surreal. We arrived under the cover of darkness and I can remember staring out of the ferry window and seeing absolutely nothing but the night. It was clear that I wasn’t in Kansas anymore!

Upon reaching Thursday Island I was greeted with a sign which informed me that crocodiles inhabited the water I was walking next to. Growing up in country NSW hadn’t prepared me for a skirmish with crocodiles, so I took a few steps away from the edge of the water, just to be safe. We walked to our hotel and almost immediately retired to our rooms, tired from the day spent travelling. Sleeping on Thursday Island is best done near an industrial strength air conditioning unit; even at night the humidity can be hard to get used to – (something else growing up in country NSW didn’t prepare me for).

I woke up in the morning and immediately looked out of the window, curious to see what this place looked like during the day. Wow! It was a car park. So I went to the other side of the hotel. Wow! What I now looked upon was what I would expect to see on a postcard from paradise. If I went to a travel agency and asked them to give me a brochure for paradise, this would not be far off. The water was a bright blue, with the white of boats dotted out along the horizon. This would be my office for the next few days, and it wasn’t half bad! We spent most of our time shooting (film I mean), but there was enough daylight after working each day to take a stroll around the island and watch a sunset or two. Watching the sun sink into the ocean on the west coast of Thursday Island definitely gets a spot on my list of favourite experiences.

The island is possibly not going to become a holiday destination for the masses, and I’m glad about that. I got to experience something completely different; out of the ordinary. I was taken out of my comfort zone and oddly found it comforting. No traffic jams, no buses, no queues at the Curry Place! No coverage! I always thought the idea of no mobile phone and no internet too painful to bear, but I loved it.

David van Dijk
Content Producer

Pinterest has been in operation for over a year now, and in the early days, up until recently in fact, it has attracted a predominantly female audience who actively operated within the social network. But most recently, (since December 2011), there has been much buzz about its sudden growth, so it’s probably timely that we take a look at this platform and what it may offer our clients in a business context.

What is Pinterest exactly? Well, it’s a virtual pinboard – an aggregation tool, which allows you to collect, organise and visually share the things you find on the web that are of most interest to you. Browsing through some “pins”, it seems that it is largely made up of interests people pursue in everyday living. There are weddings, culinary delights, gardeners’ passions, beautiful artworks, animals, fashion, children, inspirational quotes, architecture, and many other curios that have inspired people to share their joy with others. In other words, it’s really the embodiment of a person’s lifestyle!

So can it be harnessed for marketing, branding, building loyalty, or meaningful engagement? Yes, of course it can. Wherever people gather, there is opportunity.

Pinterest’s bold Mission Statement regarding their social network is: “to connect everyone in the world through the ‘things’ they find interesting.” The site is highly focused on the “visual”, and as you browse through the pins it is assumed you will come across some that are synergistic with your own interests.

So then, how does this come into play from a business organisation’s perspective? Simply put, it’s all about driving traffic. Driving traffic from where people gather in large numbers to where you want them to go.

According to Hubspot (www.hubspot.com), in February 2012, Pinterest was driving more referrals to their Hubspot blog than Google+ – and that’s worth noting!

Secondly, in terms of search engine optimisation, the process of pinning in the Pinterest environment actually involves having inbound and outbound links to your blog, (or whatever pages you choose to drive traffic to/from), and having links is a key element for improving those search engine rankings. It’s all to do with the “pingomatic” effect. Part of the way Google determines search engine ranking.

Thirdly, the concept of social networking is alive and well enhanced through the “sharing” capability, an inbuilt feature of this social networking platform. So, it is easy to share your interests pinned in Pinterest, with major social networking sites like Twitter and your profile page on Facebook. This capability allows you to drive traffic in a targeted way, directed towards your followers in both Twitter and Facebook, and from there, further dispersed to other networks like LinkedIn, etc.

The method that is used in Pinterest to gather followers is very different to other networks, in terms of offering two choices. You can choose to follow a particular user or you can choose to follow a particular Pinboard.

If you are posting as a brand, it’s probably important that you build up your followers to the actual pinboard, in terms of having that as the vehicle of branding for your business activities. But as in other “social” networks, of course you shouldn’t just be broadcasting, so you probably need to be creative with the content you “pin” there. The idea is to attract those followers who will like your brand and/or what you do. So you will need to profile your “ideal” follower and pin things that would attract them.

Of course, being a “social” platform, like others, you would be advised to connect with other boards and their producers; in other words, to engage with those who seem to have synergy with you and your brand. Two-way engagement builds loyal followers.

Needless to say that “sharing the love” and cross-promoting throughout your other networks will be an invaluable strategy as well. The more interesting the pinboard, the more engagement you will be likely to create.

Honing in on content that is connected to the values of your organisation would be highly recommended, and remembering that this is a visual medium more than anything else, is to be kept in the forefront of any strategy for Pinterest.

Oh, and don’t forget to add the “Pin It” button onto all of your content across all of your other platforms which may be visually appealing.

Finally, however, at contentgroup we advise all of our clients that content is all about telling a consistent story. If pictures paint a thousand words, then Pinterest will be a great medium for telling that ever-important story that is uniquely yours!

Of course, I am very wary of predicting which social media platforms will be the “next big thing”, and only too aware that bloggers copy the trending predictions of other bloggers, but not always do they get it right. And I am certainly not yet willing to get on that bandwagon, but simply saying Pinterest is worth your consideration.

Suzanne Kiraly
Manager (Digital Media, Education & Training)

In our modern superhighway lifestyle, the bane of our existence has become the sheer volume of information that flows through to us, whether it be the profusion of emails in our inbox or a proliferation of social media channel content.

If you are like me, you find many articles, blogs, emails, videos, podcasts, etc. that you are really interested in, but you are just too busy to get to at the time you find it.

Instapaper has been a wonderful aggregation tool, whereby I can simply press a button entitled “read later”, located in my tool bar and save content in my “Read Later” files, which I can even put into relevant folders, according to my interests.

I have been using it for awhile now and have downloaded the program to my work computer, laptop and home PC. So, I can go there on the weekends or in the evenings, when I have more time to browse; and I must say, it’s made a real difference!

Before this, I used the Bookmarks bar, but it is not nearly as user friendly as this Instapaper program, which is free and accessable, with a pleasing layout of all of the content I have collected in the past few weeks.

Give it a try. www.instapaper.com

Suzanne Kiraly

Manager, Digital Media, Education & Training

Image Source: http://www.20minutes.fr/

This year the National Folk Festival (NFF) will celebrate Valentine’s Day by reminiscing about a love that blossomed inside its gates.

Craig and Simone Dawson are two well-loved performers who have contributed to the success of the NFF over the last several years since their first romantically charged performance together 12 years ago on the NFF stage.

In 2000 Craig was set to perform in promotion for his latest album, ‘The Malfunction Room’, but was unable to source any of his studio musicians to accompany him. He asked Simone to join him on stage on the recorder and this would provide the catalyst for not only the conception of a dynamic musical pairing but the love of a life time as well.

“The festival is such a great place to meet people,” said Craig. “You get people from all walks of life coming together to get excited about music. At the end of the weekend you look back and realise you’ve not only caught up with old friends but you’ve connected and formed bonds with new people you may not normally have had the chance to meet.”

“This was certainly the case with me and Simone. When I asked her to play the recorder on stage with me at the NFF back in 2000 I had no idea we would end up here!”

Their initial NFF performance was so successful, Craig and Simone formed a musical duo producing their first recording, “Jenny’s Flowers”, just months later.

The couple wed in 2006 and continue to cement their love for each other by performing on stage together at a variety of music festivals across Australia every year.

This year they will once again offer their voluntary services to the 2012 NFF as well as sharing their love on stage by performing their blues, roots and folk inspired mix of vocals, flute and guitar.

This year’s festival is sure to provide the ideal environment for other couples to ignite their passion for music and each other with acts such as Flamenco Fire and Gleny Rae and her Tamworth Playboys providing such a sensual atmosphere.

Early Bird 3 tickets are now on sale until Monday, 2 April. To purchase tickets and create your own romantic memories at the 2012 National Folk Festival visit the website at www.folkfestival.org.au or call Venue Tix on 1300 235 849.

By far the most inspiring conversations about the NBN have been with the under-30s, the generation who, as kids, spent more time than was healthy playing massive multi-player online games when they should have been studying for their exams.

I speak, of course, from experience. Two of my boys spent a good part of their adolescence at local area network (LAN) marathons, getting together in friends’ living rooms or in large halls to play online all weekend, living off pizza and soft drinks, or in their darkened bedrooms playing online games all night.

Unbeknownst to their long-suffering parents, the boys were competing at a professional level in Counter-Strike (CS). They played at the first Cyberathletes Professional League (CPL) in Sydney, with my eldest son captaining both of the ACT teams. They also played in the regional qualifiers for the World Cyber Games. I had no idea of all this online activity until it all came out at dinner one night recently, many years after the events.

It’s this generation—the Counter-Strike Generation perhaps—that has the clearest insights into the future of broadband in Australia (check out http://www.therefinedgeek.com.au/). While politicians of all persuasions continue to view the NBN as a political football, the CS Generation is powering ahead, anticipating the day when broadband is ubiquitous, when their upload and download capacity is many times faster than it is now, when multi-user, highly realistic, high-def videoconferencing and high speed exchange of information and services (most yet to be dreamed of) are the norm.

Despite (or more likely because of) their “misspent” youth, many of these people are now gingering up the IT industry as they move into middle management. They see the NBN as the key building block for the development of a highly innovative Australian IT industry that will become a centre of broadband excellence with global reach. When caps on usage are way bigger (or unlimited) and when upload/download speeds are almost instantaneous, the tyranny of distance disappears and the possibilities for free-ranging exploration of potential new applications (apps), new platforms and as yet unimagined technologies is huge.

They see that many of the biggest economic benefits from broadband will come from both entrepreunerial IT start-ups being able to innovate and scale-up successful products and services, and from the results of collaboration between broadband innovators and existing industries.

They will be looking to Governments to create more purposeful enabling environments to support these IT start-ups and to encourage entrepreneurship. They see the benefits of Governments, industry and academia using global capital to build on the broadband network to establish Australian cities as a Digital Cities. They will look to Governments to provide the legal, regulatory and tax frameworks to encourage investors to commit to the Australian IT sector for the long game. The trashing of the fledgling Australian games sector with the pull out of US investors, spooked by the high Aussie dollar, must not happen again.

Already accustomed to cross-border multi-user collaboration in the online games world, they see Australia is well-positioned to establish itself as a centre for collaborative broadband innovation in the Asia-Pacific region, providing new opportunities to deepen our economic engagement in Asia and to attract young IT talent to Australia. And they are watching how the Chinese online market, once saturated with US-produced English-language product, is now being steadily penetrated by Korean language material generated by that other huge broadband consumer, South Korea. The case studies are being assessed with a view to future application.

Yet the politics of the NBN has spawned a rhetoric around broadband that downplays the potential. At the moment the talk is all about the pipes and more efficient delivery of government services. The focus is on the promotion of local services via NBN-enabled apps and platforms to encourage take-up at the community level. It’s all very worthy but hardly the stuff to inspire a new generation of courageous entrepreneurs, mathematicians, researchers and blue sky thinkers. And, as Ian Chubb has told us, we need these people and we need them now.

What might motivate our young people to move into maths and science is a bold and ambitious vision for the NBN that seizes the collective imagination and unlocks inventiveness and ingenuity.

I suppose all of this raises the important question of where the development of the NBN, beyond the pipes, holes and satellite dishes, should rest.

The Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy is to be commended for all the difficult policy and practical work it has done to get this nation-changing infrastructure up and running. It has not been easy, particularly in the current political climate.

But perhaps the Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education, with its brief to to encourage the sustainable growth of Australian industries, encouraging innovation, cutting-edge science and research, international competitiveness and greater productivity, needs to play a more active role in efforts to exploit the massive potential of the NBN, even as the pipes are being put in place.

Zena Armstrong
General Manager

Photo: DreamHack Sapphire AMD Championship 2011 Source: www.itsgosu.com