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A speech by the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, calling for Israel to be wiped from the map, has been badly received in Israel.

From the synopsis of this report on PM yesterday.

Coming to work at 4AM for the 3rd time in a week for a must-attend meeting with US colleagues (actually, the previous two meetings have started at 3AM) or arriving to find that the meeting has been delayed by an hour?

I guess I picked the wrong week to give up checking my meetings before I jump in the car and sleep-drive to work.

NARRATOR: The first reading is an account of a mass meeting at the outset of the Civil Rights Movement, occurring in the aftermath of Rosa Park’s arrest in December of 1955. Parks’ arrest had galvanized the African American community. The large gathering that night back in 1955 was the first of its kind. Here’s the story as recorded by Taylor Branch in his Civil Rights classic, Parting the Waters…

NARRATOR: The hostile press later estimated the crowd at five thousand people… Whatever the exact number, only a small fraction of the bodies fit inside the church, and loudspeakers were being set up to amplify the proceedings to an outdoor crowd that stretched over several acres, across streets and around cars that had been parked at all angles. “You know something, Finley,” said King as he prepared to abandon the car. “This could turn into something big.” It took him fifteen minutes to push his way through the crowd. Shortly thereafter, the Holt Street pastor called him to the pulpit.

King stood silently for a moment. When he greeted the enormous crowd of strangers, who were packed in the balconies and aisles, peering in through the windows and upward from seats on the floor, he spoke in a deep voice, stressing his diction in a slow introductory cadence.

KING: “We are here this evening—for serious business.”

NARRATOR: When he paused, only one or two “yes” responses came up from the crowd, and they were quiet ones. It was a throng of shouters, he could see, but they were waiting to see where he would take them.

KING: “We are here in a general sense, because first and foremost—we are American citizens—and we are determined to apply our citizenship—to the fullness of its means. But we’re here in a specific sense—because of the bus station in Montgomery. The situation is not at all new. Just the other day—just last Thursday to be exact—one of the finest citizens in Montgomery—not one of the finest Negro citizens—but one of the finest citizens in Montgomery—was taken from a bus—and carried to jail and arrested—because she refused to give up—to give her seat to a white person.

“And since it had to happen, I’m happy it happened to a person like Mrs. Parks, for nobody can doubt the boundless outreach of her integrity. Nobody can doubt the height of her character, nobody can doubt the depth of her Christian commitment.” And just because she refused to get up, she was arrested. And you know, my friends, there comes a time, when people get tired of being trampled over by the iron feet of oppression.”

NARRATOR: A flock of “yeses” was coming back at him when suddenly the individual responses dissolved into a rising cheer and applause exploded beneath the cheer—all within the space of a second. The startling noise rolled on and on, like a wave that refused to break, and just when it seemed that the roar must finally weaken, a wall of sound came in from the enormous crowd outdoors to push the volume still higher. Thunder seemed to be added to the lower register—the sound of feet stomping on the wooden floor—until the loudness became something that was not so much heard as it was sensed by vibrations in the lungs. The giant cloud of noise shook the building and refused to go away. One sentence had set it loose somehow, pushing the call-and-response of the church service past the din of a political rally and on to something else that King had never known before.

Thank you Miss Rosa, you are the spark,
You started our freedom movement
Thank you Sister Rosa Parks.

So we dedicate this song to thee
for being the symbol of our dignity.
Thank Sister Rosa Parks.

There was a great radio moment on ABC Radio National’s PM yesterday. Telstra’s Phil Burgess demonstrated how his media training is coming along since that nasty incident where, with one sentence, he wounded shareholders, upset the Federal Government, and let the Australian public know that he wouldn’t be engaging in any insider trading with his grandmother (for now).

PETER RYAN: Mingling with shareholders was Telstra’s Chief Operating Officer Phil Burgess who unsettled investors recently, including the Federal Government, with comments that he wouldn’t recommend Telstra shares to his 88-year-old mother.

Today, after keeping a low public profile, Mr Burgess said he was comfortable with Australia’s political and cultural environment and didn’t back away from his recent investment advice, although he was choosing his words carefully.

PETER RYAN: What about the comment that you made about not recommending Telstra shares to your mother? Do you regret making that comment?

PHIL BURGESS: No. Not at all.

PETER RYAN: Why not? Didn’t you feel that that undermined the stock at all?

(silence)

You don’t want to talk about that?

(silence)

Just in hindsight you wouldn’t have made that comment?

(silence)

Okay. Thanks.

And those were quite long silences.

Even though I’m not a shareholder it’s a little frightening to me that the COO of Australia’s largest telco gets brain freeze every time he’s confronted with a microphone.

My advice?

Pretending to be a tree when you’re asked a difficult question will work on other press organizations, but not the ABC. Remember these people once brought us the Saturday Show (cf). The ABC has a long experience of interviewing arboreal method actors, and worse. He should have tried the Vulcan Nerve Pinch first. If that didn’t work he could always resort to feigning a heart attack and playing dead. Don’t they learn this stuff sometime during their MBA? Oh… he has a PhD
. That explains it then.

Mark Colvin’s closing snark made a good interview even better:

MARK COLVIN: Peter Ryan, illuminating remarks from Phil Burgess there. I’ve heard more informative interviews with Marcel Marceau.

I’ll keep up my search for a transcript of an interview with Marcel Marceau to see if this was typical ABC bias.

[Update 2005-11-7: Phil Burgess is actually Telstra's Public Policy & Communication guy. Oh the humanity!]

What problem are you trying to solve?

That’s the catchcry at work these days.

One of the fundamentals of a project that’s likely to succeed is a clarity of understanding about what benefit a project will bring to a customer. If everyone on the project can describe what problem it solves without laughing, particularly the systems engineer, then a project is likely to go well.

I back this up with my memory of a guest lecturer I saw at UTS sometime around 1998. I can’t remember his name, but he was describing the method of project management at NASA, where he worked as a project manager, since the shuttle disaster and budget cut-backs. The head of NASA would tour project offices and ask everyone on the project “How does this project benefit humanity?” If that couldn’t be answered convincingly by everyone on the project, then he was likely to kill the project.

That brings me to my mea culpa.

Two weeks ago, I was out buying a housewarming gift with my two eldest children. We parked in the gravel car park behind a store we were visiting. In the car park was an industrial bin that contained two old wooden box skeletons. The sort of shoddy wooden construct that used to protect crockery, amphoras, vases and that kind of thing during long ocean voyages.

“Can we get that box?” inquired one child.

“Yeah! Lets get those boxes.” gushed the other.

We discussed them and decided that they’d be good for making something. We just couldn’t think of anything. So we picked them up and put them into the boot of the car just in case they’d be useful for something.

It rained last weekend so in an attempt to keep the kids and myself entertained, and my spouse sane, I got the boxes out of the car and the toolbox out of the shed and stood around discussing what we could make the boxes into.

“A chicken cage!” was one suggestion. “What about guinea pigs?” was another. I don’t want any more pets. We are already on version 2 of our cockatiel, and our 14 year old cat still behaves like a 3 month old kitten coming down from a bad crack addiction.

So, in desperation, and without allowing “what problem are you trying to solve?” to enter my consciousness, we built this:

Loosely speaking, it’s a “ball holder.” It did solve the problem of being at a loose end on a rainy weekend.

I was just in a meeting where someone complained that our team, the Systems Engineering Team, should not be referred to as the “SET team.” Someone else complained about “ATM machines.” After the meeting had been pedantry-free for a while, I volunteered “MOS scores.”

You could have heard a PIN number drop.

David Dale and Nick O’Malley had an interesting article in Yesterday’s SMH on the language of WorkChoices, the Australian Federal Government’s new URL-friendly workplace reform initiative.

CHOICE The word Howard has stamped all over the strategy. “We’ve chosen WorkChoices as a title because there will be far greater choice under this system.”

The big choice for workers is whether to take up workplace agreements. Professor Mark Wooden, the deputy director of the Melbourne Institute, writes: “Surely this is not much of a choice given the Government intends to continue to undermine awards.” He’s a sceptic. “The direction of change is towards providing workers with less choice.”

Other choices include whether to cash in overtime, penalty rates, meal and rest breaks (see Protected) and whether to take a job when all that’s offered is a workplace agreement. (See Market.)

Of course, this is all optional. It’s only the 25% of workers who change jobs each year who will be entering the new era of choice. Once enacted, the legislation will see most new workers joining the 2.4% of the workforce who have elected (or otherwise decided) to negotiate an Australian Workplace Agreement since 1996.

The Federal Government’s so far undisclosed legislation for overhauling employment law in Australia is preceeded by government standard advertising and a WorkChoices web site.

I’m not against changes. I don’t doubt that there will be some good in the package when we finally see it.

So what irks me? It’s the untested allegation that the as-yet unseen legislation will increase employment. It’s the cautious stepping around of the effect on lowering the wages of the working poor. It’s the abandoning of independent arbitration. Finally, seeing hundreds of millions of dollars wasted on an advertising campaign to sugar coat the changes before the Government rams these new Choices down our throats particularly irks me.

I would quote Devo’s “Freedom of Choice” (…is what you’ve got, freedom from choice is what you want) except that my previous attempts to pursuade Julian that Devo’s lyrics were more sablime than vacuous, have failed utterly, and it’s not likely to hold water with the high standard of skepticism around BS. So here’s another reference from high culture.

The emphasis on Choice (yes, the noun) has reminded me of the meditation on choice and power that is Trainspotting.

I encourage you to view this advertising twice. The first time to be lured into sailing your career perilously close to Choice Rocks by an advertising siren equipped with an acoustic guitar and a very deep voice. Wave back to the siren’s previous victims as you pass Choice Rocks. Brim-full-of-soma they wave away their current conditions as you pass.

The second time, turn down the sound, press play, and repeat after me:

[Cue Underworld's Born Slippy]

Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players, and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol and dental insurance. Choose fixed- interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisure wear and matching luggage.

Choose your future. Choose life… But why would I want to do a thing like that?

I’d have spliced some new audio onto the video myself, but this is Australia, and I have no idea where I’d stand on copyright law.

I learned a new word today, thanks to Kareem Mayam.

For a long time Apple sites ave been rumbling with rumours of the next big thing for iPod: Video. Reading this, I would yawn, and try to understand why Apple would do such a thing. Surely the primary use case for the iPod is listening to music. The display limitations and likely use of the iPod and the push to video reminds me of 3G vendors competing with each other to haemorrhaging the least money on their video-enabled infrastructure. Even the “photo” part of iPod photo, seemed just a review-checkbox-stuffing distraction.

But I was forgetting iTunes (easy to do when you don’t have access to an iTunes store), and Apple’s ability to do deals. In particular, deals with Pixar’s old pals Disney. Suddenly it makes a lot more sense to me.

Disney is a conservative company, so getting them to sell their shows on iTMS is a coup for Jobs. But it’s also an experiment for Disney, which is why there are only five TV shows available. When this takes off–and it will, because Jobs convinced Disney to make the hot Lost and Desperate Housewives available, and because customers want to consume media when and where they want–the TV studios are going to jump on board the iTunes Music Media Store faster than you can say Eva Longoria.

And when that happens, Apple will own digital music distribution (they currently own 84% of the legal downloads market) and they’ll own digital video distribution, because once TV happens, movies won’t be far behind.

Then, Apple will move into the living room. Apple won’t buy TiVo, because it’s inconsistent with their “secret until launch” strategy and “not built here” mindset. Instead, they will build a better PVR with a slicker interface than TiVo. And they’ll have existing win-win-win (the third win is for customers) relationships with TV and movie companies, so they’ll launch their PVR with a video on demand service that has an iTMS-esque purchasing experience that millions are comfortable with.

I’d draw an iTunes-Napster and iTunes-TiVo analogy, but it wouldn’t be a fair and balanced comparison.

I’m trying out the collaborative word processing capability at www.writely.com.

It’s a simple, but clean WYSIWYMG interface.  Features apparently include:

• Multiple simultaneous editors and readers of one document
• Import and export in Word format
• Email or RSS feed updates of document changes
• Posting, updating and deleting to blogs (crosses fingers)