Ross Hill

Indy Socks Mission Report: Cards

If you saw my recent Mission Report: Indy Socks post you would know that Steve Hopkins is working on a sock company and that he had just gotten a logo done through 99 Designs. What’s happened since then?

Do you know that guy? Tell us about them in a comment below.

(July 3rd, 2009 - 119 views)

Why so serious?

I thought I would share this photo I took near a train station in Brisbane.

Why so serious?

(June 29th, 2009 - 163 views)

The Peters World Map

Most of us take the world map for granted – but have you ever wondered about the different ways a map can be drawn? Recently I have seen a… Read the rest of this entry.

(June 23rd, 2009 - 231 views)

It’s got the internet inside it

I have been thinking a lot lately about the concept of the internet as something that can come in a box, and that an item can have inside it…. Read the rest of this entry.

(June 22nd, 2009 - 151 views)

Community Action 2.0

At Future Summit 2009 the topic Priorities For Australia In The Crisis And Beyond was one that Peter Williams has had plenty of experience with – working with the people of Flowerdale… Read the rest of this entry.

(June 19th, 2009 - 224 views)

Mission Report: Indy Socks

Steve Hopkins has always been that guy in the office who wears the crazy coloured socks. You know the one. Taking on the Four Hour Work Week idea, Steve… Read the rest of this entry.

(June 16th, 2009 - 317 views)

Game Mechanics: Putting the Fun in Functional

Games themselves are nothing new, they have been around for thousands of years – so it makes sense that we have figured out what makes them work. Game designers… Read the rest of this entry.

(June 14th, 2009 - 256 views)

The power of the prototype

At any networking event there is a healthy dose of “so, what do you do?” and last night at the Churchill Club was no different. The best reply that I… Read the rest of this entry.

(June 12th, 2009 - 265 views)

Show me the people

The social web took off because as humans we like to have conversations. This is what we need to remember this when we are creating a site – what… Read the rest of this entry.

(June 8th, 2009 - 244 views)

Your Desktop Wallpaper

I’ve got this beach wallpaper happening at the moment. You can get it from Flickr.

What have you got? What does it mean? How often do you change?

(June 4th, 2009 - 313 views)

Big Omaha – Jason Fried and Gary Vaynerchuk

Today I watched two guys talk about the future of business and I think they are on the money so I wanted to share them. They spoke at BIG Omaha, an… Read the rest of this entry.

(May 30th, 2009 - 313 views)

Mob Mentality on Twitter

I have been on Twitter for almost three years now and during that time I have tried many different ways of using it. The progression so far has explored how… Read the rest of this entry.

(May 28th, 2009 - 524 views)

Emergent events with realtime backchannels

Having run and participated in a number of interesting events recently I have been thinking about the formats that we use, and which structures produce an effective environment for… Read the rest of this entry.

(May 19th, 2009 - 421 views)

Connect and collaborate to improve learning

I found this little story from Mark Zuckerberg in Jeff Jarvis’ new book What Would Google Do?
At Davos, Mark told the story of an art class he took at… Read the rest of this entry.

(May 19th, 2009 - 297 views)

I’ll be at Future Summit this week

Future Summit is an annual event that is run by the Australian Davos Connection to share the wealth of ideas within the broader World Economic Forum community with the thought leaders of… Read the rest of this entry.

(May 17th, 2009 - 586 views)

Meaningful engagement is the key to happiness

Many people wonder in the pursuit of happiness..

From Martin Seligman in the Princeton Alumni Weekly:

“There are three levels to happiness: pleasure, the delight you get from chocolate, fast cards, and sex; engagement,… Read the rest of this entry.

(May 15th, 2009 - 487 views)

Your don’t need a replaceable battery, or that other stuff

When was the last time you replaced a laptop battery? In the past 5 years I never have.

Apple have moved most of their products to sealed batteries and they… Read the rest of this entry.

(May 13th, 2009 - 346 views)

How to create a winning business pitch presentation

In 2008 I was involved in two business plan pitching competitions and I wanted to share with you the process my teams used to come up with our award-winning… Read the rest of this entry.

(May 4th, 2009 - 660 views)

Do you back up your most important stuff?

I keep hearing about people losing heaps of important stuff so I thought I should give you all a reminder to back up your stuff (as I run my… Read the rest of this entry.

(April 27th, 2009 - 313 views)

How Eddie Harran got to San Francisco

I met up with Edward Harran (@edwardharran) before The Hive Brisbane a few weeks ago and he was telling me about how after winning a scholarship to go to… Read the rest of this entry.

(April 25th, 2009 - 518 views)

She holds the Deck Of Secrets

Ned Dwyer interviewed Michelle in a newsletter for The Hive - I thought I would copy / paste it for you. Update: The latest Apple TV Commercial features the EAT.sydney app,… Read the rest of this entry.

(April 20th, 2009 - 399 views)

Watching a Yammer network explode

Yammer is like an internal discussion board where anybody can post a response to a message. It helps people exchange ideas and send real-time messages in small or large groups. The… Read the rest of this entry.

(April 15th, 2009 - 1,946 views)

Copy / Paste Thinking

Where do you find things to blog about? This is a very common question from people who don’t have a blog and wouldn’t think of starting one because, well,… Read the rest of this entry.

(April 14th, 2009 - 515 views)

Realtime web statistics with Chartbeat

Ever since the internet began, people have been addicted to checking their web statistics to see how popular their site is - but just as the web has moved from… Read the rest of this entry.

(April 10th, 2009 - 3,031 views)

The Hive meets Richard Eastes in Brisbane

Last week I flew up to Brisbane for the first Hive Brisbane event. We have been running The Hive in Melbourne for over a year now and when Mike… Read the rest of this entry.

(April 7th, 2009 - 677 views)

Entrepreneurial Ethics, what would Alice do?

Ned asked me last week what I think about entrepreneurial ethics and what we can do about it as part of an article he is putting together, so I… Read the rest of this entry.

(April 1st, 2009 - 535 views)

Your iPhone is simply a new interface

I have been thinking about this for a while now, but it took Mick’s Mobile Killed The Desktop Star post to remind me to write it down. The correct answer… Read the rest of this entry.

(March 25th, 2009 - 581 views)

Be yourself, even when it is just yourself

How many employees do you have? Where is your office? How much venture capital have you raised? How much will you exit for? In the past, business was all about… Read the rest of this entry.

(March 18th, 2009 - 544 views)

How to follow an event on twitter

Twitter can provide a fantastic backchannel to have conversations during events. The conversation always varies but you might find comments about what the speakers are talking about, links to photos and… Read the rest of this entry.

(March 12th, 2009 - 709 views)

The Hive with Brendan McKeegan

Last night we had Brendan McKeegan speak at The Hive in Melbourne (rumor has it we’re starting in Brisbane later this month too..) Brendan is the CEO of EMUE -… Read the rest of this entry.

(March 11th, 2009 - 422 views)

Video production for bootstrapping startups

Making videos has traditionally been a long, technical and arduous process.. but this is 2009 – we can all record video on our digital cameras and every new computer… Read the rest of this entry.

(March 10th, 2009 - 394 views)

Melbourne, Meet Craig

Craig is becoming infamous since so many people have been forwarding emails of his posters around the social networks. These posters can be found around the Prahran area in… Read the rest of this entry.

(March 8th, 2009 - 1,016 views)

How To Be Interesting

I came across Russell Davies when he spoke at The Do Lectures last year. He has written an insightful post about how to be interesting that I think is… Read the rest of this entry.

(March 5th, 2009 - 575 views)

Make the real world more engaging with ARGs

I was first exposed to Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) in 1999 when the Metacortex game was created to promote The Matrix movie. In the last 10 years they have… Read the rest of this entry.

(February 22nd, 2009 - 448 views)

Peter Williams talks business at The Hive

Peter Williams, CEO of Deloitte Digital, spoke at The Hive last week. This is the first episode of the new Hive Podcast – subscribe to us in iTunes to… Read the rest of this entry.

(February 19th, 2009 - 531 views)

Where the Big Picture blog came from

The Boston Globe’s Big Picture blog is one of most compelling photoblogs around. It tells stories by featuring amazing and huge (990px) photos put in context by a paragraph… Read the rest of this entry.

(February 16th, 2009 - 590 views)

Make your iPhone battery last longer

Like anything if you use it more it will take more energy. That’s the only ‘battery issue’ with any of the Apple stuff – it keeps coming up.. iPods,… Read the rest of this entry.

(February 11th, 2009 - 947 views)

Less is more with EcoFont

SPRANQ have taken the less is more idea and applied it to fonts.

How much of a letter can be removed while maintaining readability?

The EcoFont reduces ink use by 20% and… Read the rest of this entry.

(February 9th, 2009 - 433 views)

The Nature of The Flow State

At the last Creative Skills Training Council, Susan Ryan from Artelier lead a live drawing session “Creating Life in Flow – The Artist’s Process”. It was a very interesting few… Read the rest of this entry.

(February 4th, 2009 - 548 views)

Big Websites Start Small

It is easy to forget that the big popular sites were once small too.

The first version of Digg cost $200 to build and launch.

After Kevin Rose came up with… Read the rest of this entry.

(February 1st, 2009 - 11,258 views)

Infrastructure failures a win for community

Public infrastructure failures are temporarily a massive win for the local community. In times of crisis, we take a step back from the world and focus on what is… Read the rest of this entry.

(January 31st, 2009 - 437 views)

The making of Coverhunt 2.0

I thought I would share the process that I went through for the CoverHunt2.0 redesign. I started this site about 2 years ago when I needed a way to… Read the rest of this entry.

(January 27th, 2009 - 1,208 views)

Following the crowd on Twitter

Since you asked, I’m going to share some of my ideas about Twitter. This is not a prescription, it is simply a recipe that works for me. If there is one thing… Read the rest of this entry.

(January 26th, 2009 - 1,185 views)

The iPhone Headphone Mic Buttons

The iPhone iPod app is obviously great because it holds your music collection. I have got the home button set so that if I push it twice quickly it… Read the rest of this entry.

(January 22nd, 2009 - 1,285 views)

It Is Time To Get Past The Paradigm of Printing

I grew up reading books so I will still have a few around me but.. well I walked into the library of the RACV Club in Melbourne not long… Read the rest of this entry.

(January 20th, 2009 - 514 views)

Get a Gravatar for your comments across the web

You might have noticed that some blog comments have little pictures next to the authors name and others get a boring gray blob. Those photos are called Gravatars or… Read the rest of this entry.

(January 19th, 2009 - 659 views)

Social Media Breakfast Melbourne

The Sydney crew were getting far too confident about their recent slew of events so it was awesome to see Kate Kendall step into the ring and summon the mob… Read the rest of this entry.

(January 16th, 2009 - 1,162 views)

Done One Thing? Now Do This.

With over 1000 pageviews I think it is fair to say that the I will do one thing today idea is a popular one.

Once you have done your One Thing there… Read the rest of this entry.

(January 14th, 2009 - 520 views)

The Interesting* and Hive events

I’m interested in what makes events worth sharing, both as a co-founder of The Hive and as somebody who likes going to interesting events – so when I heard… Read the rest of this entry.

(January 12th, 2009 - 670 views)

Aussies get good mileage

A recent study by the University of NSW found the average Australian walks about 900 miles a year.

Another study by the Australian Medical Association found that Australians drink, on… Read the rest of this entry.

(January 7th, 2009 - 749 views)

Simple web platforms make amazing things happen

If you spend your time making websites or platforms that enable people to connect it is easy to get lost in the numbers and get carried away with things… Read the rest of this entry.

(January 4th, 2009 - 1,398 views)

Is it worse to be late, or a serial rescheduler?

I ran into this situation late last year trying to have a celebratory dinner with some friends. They had rescheduled (a whopping 4 times) which really annoys me, and… Read the rest of this entry.

(January 2nd, 2009 - 239 views)

Which stars will you hang this year?

Between celebratory drinks, new years is a great time to look back at the stars that you have hung in the sky over the past year and consider those… Read the rest of this entry.

(December 31st, 2008 - 844 views)

12 Web Services That Shine

I just wanted to highlight some really well-built websites I might not use every day, but like anyway.

They have a strong brand, they have attention to detail, they have… Read the rest of this entry.

(December 29th, 2008 - 791 views)

This is how news breaks from now on

When my grandparents were young they waited months for news about the war because it had to be mailed from the theatre of operations back across the oceans to… Read the rest of this entry.

(December 22nd, 2008 - 912 views)

Do is the action behind your beliefs

I’m sure you have had conversations with people then afterwards had a sudden rush to do things. The Do lectures are about getting a handful of speakers together in… Read the rest of this entry.

(December 20th, 2008 - 678 views)

Let’s fill the Melbourne Cricket Ground

I sent this message to the Rentoid Team the other day as a reminder of where we are and where we need to be. It’s now on the wall… Read the rest of this entry.

(December 14th, 2008 - 669 views)

Revisit Your Old Flickr Photos with Time Capsule

Photographs have an amazing ability to induce nostalgia. We capture them without regard for how we will view them in the future. They are sharper than our memories, something… Read the rest of this entry.

(December 2nd, 2008 - 846 views)

I will do one thing today

For those of us who are hopeless at todo lists, this pad is revolutionary.

I will do one thing today. thing: ___________________.

The pads are available from the Pretty Bitter store,… Read the rest of this entry.

(November 27th, 2008 - 29,124 views)

The Rudd Filter Has Been (Phone) Bombed

You wouldn’t have seen the headline in the media, but on November 10th 2008 Senator Conroy’s office was phone bombed. It’s alright, he is in good health. In fact,… Read the rest of this entry.

(November 24th, 2008 - 1,173 views)

Silicon Beach Melbourne

Meetups are important. As much as the internet promises to connect us all around the world, nothing beats face to face interaction. Let’s step away from our screens for… Read the rest of this entry.

(November 5th, 2008 - 2,418 views)

Hyperinflation in Zimbabwe, in pictures.

Zimbabwe’s official inflation rate is now 231,000,000% – while Australia sits on 3%. The World Food Programme has launched an appeal to feed 5 million Zimbabweans as they say… Read the rest of this entry.

(October 31st, 2008 - 1,344 views)

Twitter: Fishing for thoughts in the collective consciousness

Twitter is a messaging service that limits you to 140 characters just like an SMS does. This means that if you want to say something you have to get… Read the rest of this entry.

(October 27th, 2008 - 1,351 views)

What action are you taking?

This is an entry to LearnAboutPoverty.org’s Blog Action Day Competition – to win an epic prize of a trip to Sydney to play with Australia’s only Microsoft Surface, learn… Read the rest of this entry.

(October 9th, 2008 - 1,681 views)

17 Secrets to Finding New Subscribers for Your Blog

When Darren Rowse made a post about how to find new subscribers for your blog I was a little underwhelmed, but of course he was trying to prove his… Read the rest of this entry.

(September 20th, 2008 - 2,633 views)

Google shows their hand with Chrome

Google have expanded their vision. They started off with a simple search box that simply found you whatever you were looking for. That google search page is just as… Read the rest of this entry.

(September 4th, 2008 - 966 views)

The Future Of Blogging

Recently there has been a lot of talk about the Future of Blogging, and since have just decided to start blogging again I find this conversation quite interesting.

Before considering the… Read the rest of this entry.

(September 3rd, 2008 - 879 views)

Creating Passionate Addicts

This post has been imported from the Thrive Web Marketing blog in 2006.

Nudie Juice went about business in an interesting fashion – “Tall Tim” wanted to sell juice just like the kind… Read the rest of this entry.

(September 3rd, 2008 - 988 views)

How to Follow Australian Spam Email Laws

This post has been imported from the Thrive Web Marketing blog in 2006.

Everybody hates spam, and while it seems there is no way to avoid the annoying messages they are currently… Read the rest of this entry.

(September 3rd, 2008 - 1,044 views)

The Cleanest Graffiti In The World

This post has been imported from the Thrive Web Marketing blog in 2006.

Do you remember using your fingers as a kid to scrawl the words “wash me” in the layer of… Read the rest of this entry.

(September 3rd, 2008 - 867 views)

Stage 4: The Glass is 73.6% empty!

This post has been imported from the Thrive Web Marketing blog in 2006.

Here in Geelong, Australia there have only been 542 millimetres of rain in the last 10 months, compared to the annual average of… Read the rest of this entry.

(September 3rd, 2008 - 681 views)