Essential to Manage Twitter

Twitter has cemented its influence in business as companies capitalise on feedback and leads from customers, suppliers and prospects among the site’s 140 million active users.

But who do you entrust your company Twitter image to? Both Waller Realty and Warren Hughes, two businesses in Castlemaine, have a manager looking after their Twitter posts. This is just a matter of nous.

Buy Nothing New Month

”I don’t see the need to consume that much,” said Patrick Zhou, a 36-year-old Shanghai lawyer with a two-year-old son. Mr Zhou said he and his wife each save about half of their income, which still leaves them with enough to eat out regularly and take a yearly holiday. ”We have our house. I have my car. We travel every year.’
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I have been on the Buy Nothing New site and made the pledge to buy nothing new in October. It really is Just Nous as far as I am concerned.

Personally I will take it a step further and dramatically reduce my purchases in at least six month of the year. I have way more than I need and do not need to buy new. As far as I am concerned enough has been made in the world to last us all a very long time.

However it does not surprise me that retailers are not fans of this program.

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Jon Stewart – My Kind of Man

I am sure that Jon Stewart already has a fan club. He is one of the few people in the world I really want to meet. What a joy to be able to listen to someone who speaks the same language. I may be an Australian living ‘Down Under’ but ‘The Daily Show’ is one of my daily fixes. Jon Stewart is ‘my dealer’. He consistently deals out portions of nous on the Daily Show on a daily basis. I cannot get too much of it. I have to have my daily fix!

The Holstee Manifesto

Why Bother Blogging?

When I was teaching classes filled with students who tested all my ‘rules of engagement’ skills I invariably spent time examining reasons why we should be bothered writing in daily journals.

Tristan Rainer, in her New Diary provided a guiding hand. I remember having a printed sheet with some of her points such as journals providing a healthful release for feelings and tension; a place to advise yourself; a place to gain clarity and to make decisions; a place to rehearse future behavior and so on.

This article in the Bellingham Herald provides some good reasons why a would be writer should bother keeping a blog. I still smile when I remember Mike Browne’s blog about his lunch box. I had a whole project where students became lunch box spies and interviewed ancillary and teaching staff about what was in their lunch box. Insane maybe! But Browne did establish a profile for himself.

Facing the Dark Side

This morning I was browsing through The Age and stumbled upon an article about the dark underbelly of the web.

If I were still working, on a daily basis, with students, I would be using articles like this as a part of clear thinking exercises. I would also be using them to talk about how, just as we should be wary of all sorts of dubious people walking around, in clear daylight, here on earth, so we need to be wary of a percentage of the cyber population.

It is just nous that we educate the population about the darker aspects of society, as it presents itself on earth and in cyber space.

Makes Complete Sense

There’s a gardening uprising, and it’s all happening beyond our front gate.

Guerilla gardening is a movement turning neglected land in cities into community gardens or artistic expressions.

Although active since the 1970s in New York, it is fast spreading, with thousands of guerilla gardeners around the world.

In London, Richard Reynolds is becoming the modern-day leader of the movement, aided by his marketing knowledge from working in London advertising agencies.

Reynolds began guerilla gardening in 2004, when he started cultivating neglected public flower beds and roadside verges in his south London neighbourhood.

He is driven to ”transform neglected public land with more uplifting and biodiverse habits” and wants to encourage more people through his website (guerrillagardening.org) to do the same in a way that is environmentally and socially positive.

This year, it isn’t just the Chelsea Flower Show capturing the imaginations of green-minded Londoners. The Chelsea Fringe festival is making its debut and runs until June 9.

The festival is the brainchild of British garden writer and historian Tim Richardson, who wants to ”spread some of the excitement and energy that fizzes around gardens and gardening”.

Richardson’s idea is to ”give people the freedom and opportunity to express themselves through the medium of plants and gardens, to open up possibilities and to allow full participation”.

Although independent of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, the Chelsea Fringe has the support of the Royal Horticultural Society, and Richardson wants the festival to ”explode out of the showground geographically, demographically and conceptually”.

Gardens range from grassroots community projects to avant-garde art installations. Examples include pop-up London bus-stop gardens and a travelling bicycle beer garden – complete with potted beer cans – that is towed to various venues.

In Australia, the movement has faced hurdles. Guerrilla Gardeners was a show broadcast on the Ten Network in early 2009 before being axed due to struggling ratings. The show drew controversy for its ”illicit” gardening activities and complaints from councils.

However, one Australian is making headway. Now based in London, ”the Pothole Gardener”, Steve Wheen, is gaining a following by turning street potholes into miniature gardens.

Source: The Age

Closer to Home – Local to Castlemaine:

Growing Abundance
Transition Mt Alexander
Sharing Abundance
Very Edible Gardens

The Whole Point

Since I first worked on the internet back in 1998 the dynamic has, in accordance with the law of physics, moved at an amazing pace and these day I do wonder why I persist and blog. There is such an amazing array of material available that it is easy to plunge into self doubt and question the whole point of it all. Continuing to blog is a bit like putting myself in a scene from Project Runway where Heide constantly reminds designers that ‘one day you are in and the next day you are out.’ It is difficult to see the point of maintaining a presence in such a highly competitive environment.

Originally when I established the Writing Directory at the Soul Food Cafe the object was to be a guide and show people things that I had found.

I have wondered if being a guide is actually enough.

Then I reminded myself that a good guide is curious about their surroundings and likes to learn about new things and share them.

So I find myself sharing Brain Pickings again today. This is the kind of site that a good guide would keep returning to. It feeds my elephant trunk like mind that wanders casually from one thing to another.

Brain Pickings is a fabulous site that focuses on the essence and anatomy of creativity, a subject that has long fascinated me.

Showing Nous

It frustrates me that there is so little good material on the magazine stands these days. There is nothing I like better than pouring over some magazines that are actually full of inspired ideas that not only resonate for me, but feed my personal interest in gardening and the lifestyle of everyday people of all ages, as compared to the lifestyle of celebrities.

I still enjoy ‘Country Style’ and ‘Slow’ and a visit to the doctor or, more likely the hairdresser, does provide the opportunity to check out mags I would never consider buying.

As I seek inspiration about how to live now that so many of the people who filled my life are gone I remind myself of the huge amount on the web. It is a bit hit and miss but sometimes treasure appears.

It was, therefore, with some delight that I  discovered the Empress of Dirt. As a part of composing a new life for myself I recently moved house. I am currently putting down roots in Castlemaine. I have a rather big yard just waiting to be ‘styled’ imaginatively. This Empress has some cool ideas that I can apply in my backyard with no great cost.

Radical!

Aside from cool dirt ideas anyone who asks ‘ What if Climate Change is a Hoax?’ and publishes this cartoon has mind patterns that interest me.

Seems there is evidence of nous out there! I will have to keep checking out what the Empress is up to.