Davos Newbies

Now that I have my new weblog software sorted out, I can get back to the real business of writing.

I’m in Australia for a week for the Alfred Deakin Innovation Lectures in Melbourne. My lecture, which is paired with Jay Rosen, is on Wednesday night. So what else am I doing? On Friday, I did seminars with high school and university students, and Saturday I spoke to the Future Summit. I’m now on my way to Brisbane to do a seminar there. Great fun.

As always when I’m in Australia, one of the clearest impressions I get is of a nation wonderfully comfortable with modernity. Melbourne in particular is a city where the startlingly modern — architecture and public art — has been sensitively interwoven with its nineteenth and early twentieth century heritage. Very encouraging.

As you might have noticed, I’ve switched Davos Newbies from Manila to WordPress. It’s a work in progress, so do bear with me in case there are any glitches.

Although I’ve moved from Manila after five-and-a-half years, I still feel a huge debt to Dave Winer, who developed the software and who was the original person to encourage me (and so many others) to weblog. It now seems an utterly obvious thing to blog about creating the Davos program, but Dave saw the potential of that years before anyone else.

Dave has been a constant support for both Davos Newbies and myself. When the time came for me to move, he swiftly moved to help me with the transition. Thanks, Dave.

I can’t say moving from Manila to WordPress is the simplest thing in the world. Fortunately, Jason Levine, who wrote a clever bit of software for just this task, kindly offered to do the crucial exportation for me. We’ve never met, never corresponded before. Another great example of the continuing kindness of the blogosphere.