Blog

Just when I'm starting to bag the Federal government, they're starting to hand out the dough (but they'll have to do plenty more to change my rock-bottom opinion of them). Aaanyway, it's been a good day for us at QUT, with to funding decisions in favour of the Creative Industries Faculty: not only will we be setting up a new ARC Centre of Excellence in Cultural and Media Industries, but in addition our founding Dean John Hartley will become a Federation Fellow.

It's nice to see your students do well after university - and especially if they remember you. Today an ex-student of mine who now works for Channel Ten in Brisbane came by to interview me for their Friday news show. He's found some 1980s news footage about the (then) impending changes due to the rise of computers, and is putting together a kind of reality check and update of the predictions made back then.

So, I talked about the 'computers will take over our lives' scenario from back then, and how it has, and hasn't, come true by now - yes, they're almost ubiquitous in our everyday lives, but they still aren't much smarter or in control of us than they were then. The main thing that has happened, and continues to happen, is the gradual shift away from manual and menial and towards more intellectual and creative work environments which computers have enabled - with all the negatives of workforce changes and unemployment for some, and the positives of more interesting and self-determined work for others. Has the computer destroyed more jobs than it's created, or is it the other way around? Perhaps that's not the most important question, as it's unlikely that we can change or stop the trend even if we wanted to. Rather, we need to make sure that new opportunities are made available to those who are disadvantaged by the changes. (Of course, socially responsible policy is not something the Howard government has ever been interested in...)

I produced the latest issue of M/C Journal last night, which was edited by my colleagues Glen Thomas and Jaz Choi:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - 10 June 2005

                         M/C - Media and Culture
             is proud to present issue two in volume eight of

                               M/C Journal
                  http://journal.media-culture.org.au/

                'print' - Edited by Glen Thomas & Jaz Choi

Print culture has dominated the world - has left its imprint - for the last five hundred years, and traces back to Chinese inventions some two millennia earlier. Today its hegemony is under threat, some say, from the new communication …

I've been meaning to post something about this for a while: in response to that silly article in The Australian recently, some 40 of us in the Creative Industries Faculty (which is what, half the permanent staff?) have written a joint response which was published in the letters section a couple of weeks ago. This was a spontaneous response by staff, not an action orchestrated by Faculty management, and so should demonstrate the massive groundswell of disgust and disagreement engendered by the original article (whose sheer cluelessness and lack of consideration for fellow students and staff continues to amaze me). Unfortunately, the authors of that article still haven't given up on their self-appointed crusade, sending out yet another diatribe (which was largely ignored by all) through an internal forum. Their persistence in the face of so many helpful corrections to their misconceptions reminds me of the old joke about the driver going up the wrong highway access ramp, then hearing a radio warning that someone is going in the wrong direction on the highway: 'What do you mean, someone? There's hundreds of them!' Anyway, here's the full letter we sent to The Australian, with all signatories:

My postgraduate coursework student Qiongli Wu pointed me to the Trendwatching site the other day - very interesting stuff. This ties right in with much creative industries theory, and especially points to the rise in user-led content production which is also at the heart of the open news and blogging phenomena I write about in my Gatewatching book. Of course in watching for new trends in this field the Trendwatching team are involved in a form of gatewatching - and what's more, they've even set up a world-wide network of what they call 'springspotters' to help them carry out this task.

Ugh - it's been a week full of fiddly stuff so far: plenty of work and no end to it. At least I've been able to post the call for papers for the next issue of M/C Journal:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - 26 May 2005

                          M/C - Media and Culture
                     http://www.media-culture.org.au/
            is calling for contributors to the 'scan' issue of

                                M/C Journal
                   http://journal.media-culture.org.au/

Well, after working flat out on it nearly all of last week (and much more work in the preceding weeks), I finally submitted my application for promotion to lecturer level B at QUT on Friday. Let's hope for the best, and that I met the very specific format requirements for it as well! Many thanks especially to my referees - both those who provided statements of support for me and the four colleagues who will now act as formal referees commenting on my performance in the areas of research and scholarship, teaching, and service. So this weekend, I'm going to be catching up with other things that I didn't have time for during the week - answering the 180+ emails that are piling up in my inbox (and that's just the QUT email account alone), posting a few blog updates (including my report from the Eidos launch - see [weblink:212]), and working on the next assignment for the Graduate Certificate in Higher Education that I'm currently studying for.

I got caught in the massive hail storm that hit Brisbane last night. Things looked pretty dark on the way from work, and as I reached the Toowong area all hell broke loose and evening traffic was simply swamped with hail. From all I can tell I was probably lucky as I was on my way south from Toowong before the worst of the storm hit - the ABC studios there were damaged, and even this morning all the way up through to Milton and up to Kelvin Grove there were still melting piles of hail stones in the gutters and on the footpaths. The storm meant that I did miss the guest lecture by ACCC chairman Graeme Samuel at the University of Queensland, though. By the way, the award for best photo from the storm so far clearly goes to Michelle & Heather for their utterly Australian response to an abundance of water ice.

Every once in a while you find something in your inbox that sounds interesting overall but doesn't really say much on what it's actually all about. The invite for the launch of Eidos, a new Queensland-based network of educational institutions, researchers, social policy planners, and industry was such a message - so, on Wednesday I spent the day at the Queensland Art Gallery forecourt to work out what's happening here. (And I'm back-dating this post to Wednesday - didn't get around to posting it immediately because of the promotion application which had taken over the rest of my life...)

Phew. I've spent the best part of the weekend, and half of today, working on my application for promotion to the level of Lecturer at QUT. While pretty much everyone I talk to tells me that I shouldn't have any problem getting there, that's not necessarily very helpful - I can't afford any complacency in preparing the application documents. And at any rate, the work required to complete the application itself (4 pages of a succinct case for promotion, 20 pages of a detailed case, and 20 pages of evidence in support of the application) is still the same.

I'm not necessarily opposed to talking about myself, but spending this much space listing my achievements does get pretty exhausting. Sure, it's kinda nice taking stock of what I've achieved these past few years, but I could well do without needing to prove their impact... I think I have everything under control now, though, and I've secured the support of a great group of referees - John Hartley, Jude Smith, and Paul Makeham from QUT, and my good friend Donna Lee Brien who is now at the University of New England in Armidale. I've worked closely with all of them and I'm sure they'll help me jump through this hoop.