Initially, I was interested to read the report as I was on the hunt for a new role and wanted to make sure that my expectations, in regards to remuneration and a couple of other factors, were on track for my industry.
Also of note is how out of step the salaries for those in the executive branch of the industry are, when compared with professionals across the spectrum of roles included.
At $200,000, the median salary of Senior Digital Executives is markedly higher than that of the second most highly paid digital professionals (eCommerce: $120,000).
What I would like to see is a report comparing expectations of those looking to enter the digital industries to the realities of working in the field. I’m talking points like salary (obviously a large factor), hours worked in the office, hours worked outside of office hours, unpaid work hours (come on, we all know it happens), and job satisfaction. I think these are all important factors to consider when looking to enter a new job, but are of especial interest to those who are new to the workforce in general.
Numbers make me happy. Numbers about groups of people make me especially happy. Numbers about groups of people that include me? Even better!
That’s why the results of the benchmark 2015 Australian Community Managers Survey was of particular interest to me.
The survey was commissioned by Dialogue Consulting, SWARM community management conference co-founder Venessa Paech and Quiip, Australia’s leading social media and online community management company, to investigate the state of the professional online community management sector and its practitioners who build, manage and support online communities. The results delivered in spades.
It has revealed a highly educated work force under pressure, with four in 10 earning less than the national average despite long working hours that sees half working more than a five day week. But, beyond that, it also highlighted a number of issues needing resolution:
Approximately 40% of survey respondents earned less than the national average.
43% of respondents are working more than five days a week,. Almost one in 10 (30 of 262 respondents) work seven days a week, with three in four (77%) work more than an eight-hour day.
Despite the 24/7 nature of social media and online communities, less than one in five respondents said their organisation provided around the clock monitoring. Eight in 10 (82%) said their organisation conducted moderation within business hours, with at least some out of hours.
While almost all organisations collected metrics around their communities, four in 10 respondents said only some of their communities had a defined purpose – and one-third of those that had a purpose had no formal strategy in place.
So, why does this matter to me? Why am I writing about it? Well, for starters, it shows that there is a lack of understanding in this field. Organisations are realising the need to hire community and social media professionals to help support their brands, but lack the knowledge to harness, utilise and support this highly educated and, to be perfectly frank, freaking awesome group of professionals. It’s just another case of something shiny and new being brought on board without a clear plan for optimising the workforce.
If you’d like to obtain a copy of the report for yourself, you can do so at the ACM website.
The internet, and by extension the web, has become central to our day-to-day existence. We use it to communicate with our friends, family and colleagues. We use it to access information that might otherwise elude us. It’s the first thing we think to turn to when it comes to the ever-present question, “What will I make for dinner?” In fact, with the Internet of Things invading our appliances, the day is not too far away that we see the Internet becoming the single most integral element in our everyday life outside of air, food and water.
Facebook sees itself at the centre of this brave new world. Its active hunting and acquisition of smaller companies offering something it wants is just one part of the strategy to offer everything online in just one place.
The Facebook wall has taken over what websites like LiveJournal and MySpace once offered, with Facebook Messenger giving us what Skype can. It’s not creating new opportunities, but more an act of integrating existing offerings and sticking a shiny new Facebook blue badge on it. Games can even be played in Messenger as well! Where will it end?
In Australia, you can now have your memorial online with Facebook. Not even your end will mean an end to your social media presence.
All this plugging in to your general life has left some people concerned.
Long time readers of this blog and my Twitter feed will know that I am a believer in keeping the net neutral (amongst other things). Now, I’m not saying that Facebook is evil. There are plenty of other people who have written on that subject. All I’m saying is that, as with any form of technology, there are things to be considered when you’re delving into the realm of social media.
I seriously love my friends. They’re a varied crew, all interested in a huge range of subjects. There is one common thread, however. They’re almost all into what is right.
I recently received this email from a friend in regards to a conversation underway about an online copyright infringement discussion paper. As it is a subject rather close to my heart, I thought I would share its contents with you. It is from the Australian Digital Alliance.
It continues to be an exciting year for copyright in Australia! Of particular note is the government’s request for feedbackon its proposals on online copyright infringement which are due on 1 September 2014.
Online Copyright Infringement Discussion Paper
The government recently released a discussion paper aimed at reducing online copyright infringement. The paper had three main proposals:
Extend authorisation liability;
Provide a new injunctive process to block overseas websites whose dominant purpose is to infringe copyright; and
Extend the safe harbours to a wider class of intermediaries (including schools and universities).
We have a quick overviewof the proposals and have blogged some preliminary responses to the proposal to extend authorisation liability. While this measure is directed ISPs, it is not restricted to ISPs, meaning that the changes will impact on other intermediaries such as schools, libraries, online platforms and universities. In particular we are concerned that:
It will increase legal risk
It will increase legal uncertainty
It will encourage reliance on the safe harbours, including the requirement for an implemented policy for disconnection of repeat infringers
It will put Australia at odds with international norms
We have commissioned Dr Rebecca Giblin to write a paper that examining the effects on intermediaries and also do a comparative analysis of the forms of secondary liability with other core jurisdictions.
We will of course be putting in a submission, and would encourage others to do the same. EFA has put together some consumer facing materials that may be useful and CHOICE is asking for consumer stories about access to content. I haven’t seen anything from groups such as the Copyright Council, but if you have additional resources please feel free to bring them to our attention!
Trade Agreements
We have signed tow FTAs this year with Korea and Japan, both contain IP chapters. On copyright these continue to focus on enforcement, with limited recognition of other interests. In the reports on KAFTA they also included an opinion that the decision in the iiNet case was inconsistent with our trade agreements, and should be overturned, something that has now been suggested in the response to online copyright infringement. We disagree with this interpretation of our international commitments, and said so in our submission.
Negotiations on the TPP continue, the next meeting will be in the first week in September in Hanoi. The intention still seems to be concluding the agreement in November, but this hinges a lot on whether Japan, the US and Canada can sort out the market access issues. We continue to liaise at departmental and political level to ensure that the negotiators and decision makers are aware of the potential effects on user groups.
Within the Attorney-General’s department a small group has been created to look at copyright reform, including online infringement and the ALRC recommendations. We continue to work on this, and will be looking to some wider advocacy efforts toward the end of the year.
And, in some excellent news, we finally signed the Marrakesh Treaty!
If anyone is in Melbourne on Tuesday/Wednesday do consider coming to AuIGF – I’ll be speaking on panels about regulation on the internet and intermediary liability.
As always. please do keep up with our work at http://digital.org.au/blog or follow @aus_digital on twitter. And feel free to email info@digital.org.au questions/concerns/suggestions/queries.
or Why You Don’t Ask An Internet Communications Student For A Comment On A Video Off YouTube, Because You Might Just Get What You Asked For (but that was too long for a title on my blog, so you get the simplified version).
So, it appears I cannot retire my “political hat” any time soon. If you haven’t seen it yet, here is a link from the Vice Chancellor of Curtin University, Professor Terry. All in all, it’s a good delivery of an update on the goings on around campus and what she is doing to keep up-to-date with the various campuses. I, however, have the following email which I am about to send to the Vice Chancellor, as per her invitation for comments.
And now for my extensively long comment. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Dear Professor Terry,
Thank you so much firstly for posting your video on YouTube, and for inviting comments. It is rare to hear someone in an actual position of authority openly ask for, and encourage feedback in such an engaging medium as the Web.
I was happy to hear you speak of the restructuring of the academic teaching system within Curtin University. As a current student, completing my Honours thesis this year with a view to going forward to higher degrees by research in order to join academia and the teaching profession, it is a relief to hear that you will not be cutting numbers of teaching staff. I do, however, offer my story as a view from the other side of the fence that you may not have considered in the implementation of these changes.
I began my undergraduate degree as an Open University’s Australia student, not because I wasn’t as committed to my studies as on campus students but because, as a mature aged, single parent student without high school completion dependant on public transport who was working full time in order to make ends meet, it afforded me the best possible opportunity to fit me life and study together in the same 24 hours everyone else had.
When I made the realisation that this degree I had undertaken was giving me a more rounded sense of accomplishment and personal pride than almost anything else I had undertaken, I decided that I would be furthering my studies. The staff of the department with which I was studying afforded me every opportunity to obtain the necessary information, facilitated my education with a shared passion for the learning material and concepts of study that I thought were a myth amongst academics.
This department was that of Internet Studies, out of the school of Media, Culture and Creative Arts at Curtin University – a group of academics whom I owe a great debt of gratitude and thank no end for the development of a lifelong love of learning.
This inspiration is, I’m afraid, in spite of almost being erased from the history books due to a proposed cancellation of on campus enrolments last year. This move would have seen the end of this department – the first and only dedicated Internet Studies department in Australia. The students of this department lead and won the fight to retain the opportunity to attend on campus classes, despite opposition from the chancellory of the university, through online and offline means of protest.
But my story does not stop here.
As a current Honours student in the Arts, I have seen more uncertainty regarding the offerings to students already this year than I feel is acceptable. This is absolutely through no fault of the teaching and support staff who have done the very best with what they have had available.
I am attending classes on campus, having made arrangements with my family and employer, as an off campus option has not been made available to students this year. I have been lead to understand that this is due to a revision and restructuring of the unit material and teaching method. This, in spite of having been offered as an off campus study stream in previous years.
Class timetables were finally made available to students, in order to select the days and times of their classes, only a few days before the beginning of the semester. We then received automated confirmation that our chosen times and days would be made available, only to be told the following week that they were not, and that the classes would be combined and only available on a single day of the week. Thankfully for me, I have a moderately flexible employer who understood that these changes to my schedule were not under my control.
We were then told, just a few weeks later, that the previously possible day and time for class to be held was still available and that the consensus of the class would be the deciding factor as to whether or not the day and time of our compulsory-attendance class would be changed in the middle of the first term. While it only took a matter of an hour or so for the decision to be made by the students that keeping the current day and time would be best, the moments of panic were felt by more than just myself, I can assure you.
I was probably not the only student who felt that continuing studying would be jeopardised if the class were to change circumstances again.
I was probably not the only student who felt that their employer might not be so understanding if study circumstances were to change again.
I was probably not the only student panicking that the Honours we had invested ourselves in might be taken away from us before we had the opportunity to really get started.
What I do know for certain is, I am the only student from my department currently studying Honours with Curtin University. Why? An unofficial poll of my fellow online students puts this down to the inability of enrolling off campus.
With so many Internet Studies students currently enrolled in off campus or online only study of the Internet Communications degree, it makes no sense to not have this further education offered online if, as you say, numbers of teaching staff have not been reduced.
It makes no sense to not offer Honours online or off campus, especially with the fine online access to Curtin Library resources we now have available.
It makes no sense to not offer Honours online or off campus with the degree of control and interaction possible through the Blackboard system, which served as my lecture, seminar and tutorial space for three years quite sufficiently.
It makes no sense to not offer Honours online or off campus, when the Internet Studies department of Curtin university have shown that this mode of study facilitation can create future scholars that will, one day, make Curtin University proud.
This, Professor Terry, is why I find it difficult to believe that the current restructuring at Curtin University has no negative impact on the numbers of teaching staff available to students of Curtin University. I have seen the ability of the teaching staff of Curtin University to traverse space and time to deliver a world-class degree second to none in the world. I have also seen the trials of trying to deal with university bureaucracy when staffing changes, restructuring, budget cuts, reforms and proposed denial of access take place.
Please, if you want to be sure that these staffing changes hold no negative impact for the students of Curtin University, both current and future, I suggest you ask the current students if they are seeing any ramifications from the initial changes today. You may be surprised to hear what they have to tell standing in direct opposition to what the numbers and figures suggest.
I may be just one student telling my story today, but this is not my story alone.
Many thanks for your time,
Melissa Nile.
– current Honours student of B.A. (Internet Communications)
TL;DR:
I didn’t write all that so you could cheat and look for the Brodie’s Notes (and if you don’t know what they are, you’re too young!) version of my email. Go read it! And get off my lawn!
Having just finished this article I fear, once again, for the future. Why? Because it contains a very important message that will, ultimately, get drowned out by all the other important messages we are currently facing both here and globally… but that’s a post for another time.
Australian copyright laws always have been considered antiquated. In fact, we are not terribly forward thinking as a nation, legislatively speaking. Copyright is, however, one of those topics that very few people understand and even fewer care about, unless they stand to profit from the proceeds of it.
Every study period throughout my undergraduate degree I was approached or pointed to a discussion regarding the unsanctioned use of unattributed copyrighted material for assignment purposes.
“But if my tutor says it’s okay to use this picture in my project, then isn’t it okay?”
“What do you mean using the writing of another person is illegal unless I have a specific agreement from the copyright holder to say I can?”
These questions, and so many others like them, resulted in me banging my head against a non-existent desk or wall, as the people I was attempting to educate gleefully told me that they didn’t care, the law was stupid, and they’d go and use copyrighted material anyway because no one was going to chase them for the royalties for their use of said material.
This.
This is why ideas like Fair Use won’t take hold here.
Fair Use is a legal idea allowing people to use copyrighted material so long as the copyright holder isn’t losing out on profits from said use. It’s that simple really. Of course, the real legal mumbo jumbo goes into exclusions and restrictions, but that’s pretty much what it amounts to.
Parliament’s a funny place. And by funny I mean disparaging to the human soul.
So, as long as the public don’t care that they’re breaking the law and could stand to lose a significant amount of money to an already filthy rich corporation (think of how many times you’ve share a meme based on someone else’s work, or a music video, or copied a line from some book onto a completely unrelated image), or face jail time and as long as politicians sit in the pockets of those corporations that believe they will miss out on all the profits if they allow people to do what they’re already “turning a blind eye” to, then legislation such as Fair Use will never take hold in Australia.
Still not sure what it’s all about? Check out the video below for more information.
Provided you download no more than 50mbs per connection, within a one hour connection enabled for any and all wifi enabled device. Should you last an hour without downloading that much, you will have to disconnect and reconnect to keep using it.
The Free City Wifi from the City of Perth is the first of its kind in any capital city of Australia, with blanket wifi coverage in the area shaded pink on the map below:
So, what do you think about the move to give all who visit Perth free internet access whilst in the city? Is it a good idea, or just a waste of money? I’d love to hear your views in the comments below.
So, if you’ve been living under a rock, we’re having an election. I know that it’s tiring, and I for one am completely over the nonsense. This is the first election where I have taken part, having been a conscientious objector to compulsory voting up until now. My decision to enrol to vote is, however, a topic for another day’s post.
What I do want to discuss today is the “media blackout period” we are supposed to experience in the last few days before the actual voting day.
What is a “Media blackout period”?
Under Schedule 2 of the Broadcasting Services Act 1992, which is administered by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), election advertising in the electronic media is subject to a ‘blackout’ from midnight on the Wednesday before polling day to the end of polling on the Saturday. This three-day blackout effectively provides a “cooling off” period in the lead up to polling day, during which political parties, candidates and others are no longer able to purchase time on television and radio to broadcast political advertising. (AEC, 2013)
Apparently, this doesn’t cover the Web, where election hype and discussion is still going crazy. This wasn’t helped by the fact that the Liberals had an “interesting” time of releasing an Internet policy that apparently wasn’t quite right first time
It’s a pretty special set of circumstances that would lead to a completely incorrect policy being released online, unbeknownst to the main politician supposedly responsible for the area the policy covers. But I digress.
The time has come for those who conduct political discussion online to understand one very simple premise:
We Are The Media.
It’s really that simple.
The media blackout is there to give voters a “cooling down period” from the financially-supported party campaigns. Political parties are not being held accountable for their actions online, and this is a worry. Political discussion between voters is not covered by this blackout, and nor should it be.
It seems to me that this is just another instance of governmental guidelines not being kept in synch with what is happening in the real world, away from the hallowed halls of parliament.
It was an intensive two-day workshop, so there was little time to dilly-dally. After a gentle icebreaker exercise to get to know the other people in the room with us (a useful exercise when you’re going to be creating games with them), we stepped up and started making our first game, based on the Race to the End model.
This is your usual board-based type of game where all the players start somewhere and have to finish somewhere else. We broke into two teams and came up with very different results. Strangely enough though, both teams had a game mechanic wherein the board and rules changed. Perhaps that was because, as adult players, the “usual” board games is boring for us? Either way “Space Crash” and “Switchboard” both ended up going through the conceptualising stage, on to the prototype stage within a couple of hours. Just before lunch on day one, both games were ready for play testing. Now, that’s nothing if not incredible. From thinking up the rules and mechanics to making the game in a few short hours is an incredible feat for a group of people who had little knowledge of each other before entering the room, and had maybe not created a game before.
We play tested each others games, debriefed as “real game developers” would, and thought about how to iterate our games to come up with something better and fix the bugs.
We then popped outside and played a game of Gargoyles. For those not familiar with this game, take a look. No props, except for team designation bands, just people in a space playing. What could be simpler?! The inherent learning in this game is all about proximity and overcoming the fear associated with entering another person’s space to overcome a problem, namely getting your team to win. There are also lessons about collaborating and teamwork in a small space of time.
Heading back inside, we thought about the various reasons that had brought us to the workshop. Breaking, again, into two teams, we began brainstorming community games that would satisfy a general consensus of our interests.
Day two began with a short presentation by Kate of what a community game could look like, how it could work, and what it brought to the community.
We also played a game about the creation of a game, aptly named “Metagame”. Players are dealt a series of cards, with a pile of potential props in the centre of the table in front of them. Players take turns pitching a rule, utilising the instructions on the cards they have been dealt (points awarded as per the cards if theirs is the successful rule as voted by the other players). Rules cannot created a paradox, illogical loop or an otherwise unplayable game, then the universe is destroyed and the game is over. Needless to say, there was laughter as people pitched their wacky rules.
We then formed back into our teams from the previous afternoon, and continued working, brainstorming and prototyping, our games. By just before lunch, both team had working prototypes of their community games.
One team had come up with a local area narrative collection or challenge game, utilising QR codes and a “treasure map” of stories to collect in a specific area of a local council’s jurisdiction. Aimed at promoting local area awareness, it was customisable and adaptable for various events and end goals, all the while promoting knowledge of the immediate area and its people. Designed to make residents aware of the local history, local businesses, and local features, it seemed to me to be an wonderful way of gathering families together to explore their streets and go a little outside of their comfort zone to do that exploration.
The Zombies Are Coming! I Need To Get To Know You.
The team I was part of came up with a collection-based game as well. Breaking a real space down into zones (in this case the various areas of the SpaceCubed collaborative space), players had to gather stories under the premise that the players were a crack force of humans. Being briefed at HQ, they then had to go out into the space and collect stories, feelings and re-enact random acts of kindness in order to develop a map of the humanity in the space. Those approached who didn’t want to take part, or who refuse to play along, were dubbed “Zombies”.
Aiming to reconnect people with the stories in the space they are occupying, and forcing human face-to-face interaction in an environment where people may well feel they are there to work on their own project, alone, we felt this was a fun and safe way for people to realise that we are edging towards a state of aware zombie-ism.
After being being run through each team’s games (and running our team’s game within the space), we then debriefed and got feedback to iterate the games and make them better.
So, what is a “community game”?
A community game is a space of play where in the community is engaged, rather than isolated, and where the Magic Circle of play has an embedded goodness in it. It fosters, instead of cutting, community ties and educates “under the radar”. By this, I mean, the lesson is not the objective. The lesson is incidental and may well not become apparent to the player until well after the games has ended.
So, what did I take away from the whole experience?
All those times I have been playing a board game or a card game, and I have thought “This could work so well in an urban space”, I now have the tools and knowledge to make that happen. All those times I was sitting wondering how to get kids to think about recycling or the environment in a way that wasn’t the same old boring ways that are taught in school, I can now make that happen. Any time I was sitting in a public space thinking everyone is so set in the routine of “look down, keep walking, rush rush rush” I now have the tools and knowledge to subvert that in a way that will make people smile, look up and realise there is something else going on in their world if only they would stop to smell the roses (stay tuned for that game! *lol*).
At then end of the workshop, we all realised that this was something that needed to happen in Perth. The community-game community is strong elsewhere, and has brought so much to other places of the world, that we thought it was high-time Perth joined in the game.
Stay tuned for more details on what community-gaming events are happening around Perth. If you would like more details on community games, let me know in the comments below. Have you played a community game and want to tell me about it? Cool!
“New” media is a term being used by a variety of people and platforms to describe online tools for disseminating news. I am here today, to call an end to the madness, and suggest we stop calling it “new” and start calling it what it is: “just plain ole media”.
Why hello there “New Media”…
Let’s face it. The wen, the net, social media, email groups, newsletters delivered to your inbox, online video material, user-generated content… None of it is new anymore. I mean, sure. The number of years that the printing press has been around is a vastly larger number than the blink of an eye that we have all been online. Having said that, we have a new sense of time now, and these tools, in the new wibbly-wobbly time we live in, are old hat. Really. Let’s face facts. It’s a truth.
youTube has been around for eight years.
Online newspapers have been around for donkey’s years!
Email is 42 years old.
When will marketing executives and institutions wake up and smell the coffee? Calling your social media respondents “new media consultants” is silly. Having a “Head of New Media” is also silly. What do they do? Work just with the online tools, while another person sends off copy to print newspapers and magazines and television studios? No. That would be too much like the right hand operating with knowledge of the left hand. So why not have just “Head of Media” with a unified idea of what is going on? Makes much more sense to me!
So why do we still have scholarly journals using “New Media” like some sort of separation from media?
“New Media and Society”
“Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies Online”
“Journal of New Media and Culture”
I could go on and on listing them. What matters is these are clear signs that the scholars of the world still view online tools for spreading news as new-fandangled and shiny. It’s not that surprising as new ideas tend to take a long time to be integrated into the vernacular of academics. I have a theory that it would take five full rotations of chancellory for a new idea to be integrated fully and no longer seen as “new”, but that’s a story best left for another time.
So, can we please agree to stop the silliness of this “new media” nonsense? It’s not new. It’s here to last, and the sooner we stop using antiquated terms and start viewing it in the correct light, the sooner proper policy can be made governing its use (Again, another story for another time).
nephthysnile 