Interview: Sydney Local, Renae Mason

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Renae Mason

Name: Renae Mason

Website: awesomefoundation.org

Twitter handle: @awesomefoundsyd and @missnae

Works at: Boomworks by day, Awesome Foundation by night

Sydney has a chapter of the awesome foundation, which is awesome. Can you tell us a little about it?

The Awesome Foundation provides micro-grants for micro sparks of genius and creativity. Every month ten trustees chip in a collective $1000 of their own cash to fund a project, no strings attached. There are currently about 33 chapters in the world providing a great support network and sharing so many inspiring stories, it can be hard to keep up with all the good news!

What do you think is awesome?

Well that’s easy. Every month there’s something new to choose from in the world of Awesome! One of my favourite projects is The Oxford St Design Store, where a variety of quality, local and handmade goods are sold for $1, $5, $10 and $20 respectively. They are also hosting events, an artist-in-residence and a co-working space. It’s great to see this happening right in the heart of Sydney, where rental prices can make this kind of gathering very difficult to pull off.

Some of my other favourite projects just demonstrate what a big kid I am. In Awesome Boston, they built the world’s biggest hammock in a park for all to enjoy. In Awesome LA they installed guerilla swings in interesting locations all over the city (imagine the joy of swinging under a boardwalk as the tide rolls in!), and in Toronto there was a night of cardboard fort building. The designs were epic!

Who do you think is doing cool stuff in our industries?

I like a lot of stuff that’s happening at the edge of industry, with events like Pecha Kucha, TEDx and Trampoline Day. These events empower people to come together and share their unique perspectives.

Also, I’m a huge museum and gallery fan and the work of the White Rabbit Gallery in Chippendale really stands out from the crowd. The passion for Chinese contemporary art, cultural exchange and audience engagement shines through in everything they do.

Where do you get your information from?

All over the place! I’ve got to admit – my feed reader is bursting with loads of interesting things I will never get the time to read. Mostly I find great links and stories from people I know via Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Goodreads, Foursquare, Instagram, Path, LinkedIn. Yes, I’m an app junky.

What are some awesome upcoming events you would recommend to the Fetch community?

We’ll be holding an epic event as part of Vivid Sydney festival this year. It’s called ‘Awesome Soup’ and the idea is that folks will pitch their projects to the audience, who will then vote for their favourite project, whilst sharing a delicious meal. It’s going to be awesome! Anyone can apply to pitch their awesome idea on the night. Tickets are now on sale on the Vivid website.

How do people learn more or get involved with the awesome foundation?

We’re about to launch our own Sydney website, but for now you can find our more about us here. We’re also on Twitter and Facebook. If you’d like to be considered for a position on the board, we’d love to hear from you at any time – just email sydney@awesomefoundation.org. Likewise, we are open for applications all year round, so head over the website to apply.

Interview: Brisbane local, Jessie Roberts

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Brisbane curator, Lani Pauli, interviews Jessie Roberts. Jessie leads the program development of the QUT Innovation Space.

Name:  Jessie Roberts

Program Designer at QUT Innovation Space 

Twitter: QUTInnovation 

Tell us more about QIS? 
The QUT innovation Space (QIS) is about animating ideas. We aim to foster a community and culture of big-thinkers, innovators and entrepreneurs. We provide a support network and learning platform for people with big thoughts and a passion for action and change.  The QUT Innovation Space is located at the QUT Gardens Point campus and we deliver events, mentorship and community. Our events run through out semester and are either designed to be educational, inspirational or network orientated. We have a community of professional partners that provide support to our members, including a marketing strategist, IP Attorney, Start-up and project management coach. partners that provide advice Our doors are open to anyone with a curious mind, from any faculty, industry or age group.

Who do you think is doing cool stuff in our industries?

River City Labs (Co-working space), The Edge, MIT – Opencourseware (education… awesome & Free!), SEED MAGAZINE (Science + Design + Culture).

What was your first job?

Street Busker (8yrs old, Violin) :)

What’s the hardest challenge you’ve had to face work-wise?
Define what I “do”, what my job title is or the professional ‘box’ that I fit into.  I still ‘um’ and ‘ar’ at parties when someone asks “So, what do you do?”.

What’s the biggest opportunity and challenge for Brisbane to become a truly “Creative City”?
1. Connection – There are a lot of creative and amazing things/people/projects happening in Brisbane. There is definitely room for more connection between these people and projects. I think Brisbane has so many sparks just waiting to connect with the right person in order to turn into flame.

2. Play – Creativity comes from play and generosity. We are a fun group of people…..

On a more tactile level:

Spaces and Hubs. The emergence of co-working spaces (and places like The Edge) in Brisbane really help to foster a community (or communities) of like-minded creative thinkers.  These spaces provide a platform for people to meet and cross paths, to fertalise ideas,  conversations to occur.

What are some local upcoming events you recommend?

David Wyatt: How to be a Future Maker

What’s next?
Continuing to build and develop our mentor program and consultants that support our members.  Now that our events program is running smoothly, we are focusing our energy on further developing our mentor program.

Featured job: Crack Front End Developer/Designer

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This fortnight, we chat to James Farmer, the CEO at Incsub, about culture, WordPress and current opportunities. These featured roles are a new initiative by The Fetch and aim to uncover what it’s really like to work somewhere – so you can decide if you’ll be the perfect fit!

What is your culture and ethos like at incsub?

If I said we were just making it up as we go along, would that sound bad? ;)

Because, in a way, that’s what we are doing, we’re growing quickly, trying to do the most exciting things we can do, making the most people happy we can, while thoroughly enjoying ourselves.

Which isn’t to say we’re not that grown up, we’ve been developing the company over the last six years, for the first first as a remote organisation with folk based all over the world, now that we’re really kicking into gear though it’s time to build a great Melbourne team, and this job is key to that happening.

The regular day at Incsub can start at 6, 9 or 12 – invariably you’ll always find a while bunch of other folk working on stuff in some corner of the World (there are 27 of us currently, in pretty much every continent) and it’ll most likley find you working on a whole bunch of different projects.

In addition to WPMU DEV there’s a new version of WP Plugins we’re rolling out, the leading WP news site on the web(!) WPMU.org, Edublogs (top 10 in the World blog hosting site!) and a few super secret new projects too.

It can get frantic, it can also be quite peaceful (especially on Mondays when most folk are on Sunday evenings) but it’s never boring.

What do you love about WordPress?

Awwww, it’s the basis for so many things, Incsub is a contraction of ’Incorporated Subversion’ and the thing about WP is that you can subvert it to do pretty much anything, much of it extremely well, and that’s what we’re the best in the World at doing.

Which isn’t to say that I don’t like or admire other platforms, just that we’re teh WP folk. :)

What kind of person are you looking for to join the team?

Someone who’s energised, excited, creative and up for it – who doesn’t mind a challenge, loves putting their skills to the test, learning heaps and taking the initiative.

We’re all about folk taking the lead, and we’d like them to be super ambitious to make an impact… I mean we’re talking tens of millions of visitors here a month (hundreds of millions if you include our WPMU DEV members!), this is your chance to impact on their day to day experience.

What will they work on and create?

Everything and anything.

From brand new projects, to comprehensive user experiences, to revamping sites like Edublogs and creating brand new beautiful WordPress themes.

And from there, leading teams on new stuff, working closely with an amazing team of developers (want to learn PHP and more, now’s your chance!) and who know what else… our CTO (second in command) was a WPMU DEV member ad then junior developer just a few years ago!

How can people get in touch?

Just contact James and Victor with your web based portfolio:
james@incsub.com / victor@incsub.com

For more information visit:

Also:

For the full position description, click here for the document.

Interview: Melbourne local, Blake Hutchison

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This month we interview the founder of Agenda City (formerly known as The Agenda Daily) Blake Hutchinson. As a fellow city-guide publisher, we were keen to find out his thoughts on the local community, how he got his start and what’s next.

Name: Blake Hutchison

Website: www.AgendaCity.com

Twitter handle: @agendacity

Works at: Founder, AgendaCity

What was your first job?

I suppose my first real and meaningful job was at Lonely Planet. I was the Business Development Associate. This meant licensing our travel guide content to websites and for use on other digital properties and platforms plus creating custom Lonely Planet guides. Lonely Planet was good to me. My first boss taught me a lot about the value of relationships and being commercially minded. Ultimately LP sent me to San Francisco where I learned a lot about everything I now know. Your first job and initial successes have a lot to do with who you become.

What’s the hardest challenge you’ve had to face work-wise?

Building AgendaCity off a zero base. All of my professional networks were back in the US so starting something fresh in Australia was difficult. Not to mention how quickly the environment has changed. Standing out for us comes down to quality… that’s been tough while others throw a couple of million dollars (or spend years) at getting the runs on the board. We’ve got to go quickly and continue to innovate. That’s what we’re doing.

Who do you think is doing cool stuff in our industries?

Still seems that a lot of the true innovations come out of the US. Gilt Groupe is a big influence for us. Also can’t go past the impact that companies like Pinterest and even Foodily are having. 

What is AgendaCity and how does it work?

It’s a sales and recommendations platform for top places and top experiences. Customers trust us for our first to market news on new bars, restaurants and things to do. That trust is reflected in the quality of sales we offer and the huge number of people buying from us.

Congrats on the round from Future Capital! How hard was it to secure investment in Australia?

In short, very hard. The market is small and crowded. Find an investor who you resonate with and will genuinely understand the opportunity.

What’s next for you and AgendaCity?

We just launched AgendaTables. It’s new and nobody else is doing it (though no doubt people will try). Tables is about offering our discerning members access to top restaurants at privileged pricing. Restaurants offer tables that they would typically not fill, we offer these to our members and they receive 30% off the bill. There’s no coupons and the reservation is guaranteed. It has launched in Melbourne with Sydney, Perth and Brisbane coming very shortly.

Hello Justin – our Perth fetcher

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Go West, this is what we’re gonna do, Go West!

Perth! Booming Perth. We’re heading there too and I’m pleased to welcome Justin Strharsky as our city curator. Justin is active within the WA startup space and is the managing director at Synaptor – a platform where you can manage health, safety, and environmental risk in real time. You can follow him on Twitter here or connect with him on LinkedIn.

Justin will be sharing the best events, meetups, community news, jobs and more in each fortnight’s fetch. You can submit items to him via email here, via @thefetchper, FB and don’t forget to subscribe on http://thefetch.com so we’ll arrive straight to your box. Our first navy/purple-themed fetch (cough West Coast Eagles FC) will be sent shortly. As part of Justin’s welcome, we put a few questions to him:

Justin Strharsky

How did you end up where you are today?

I flew South from Russia. I spent three and a half years on Sakhalin island working with an Australian consultancy. We helped to manage health, safety, and environmental risks on what was at the time the world’s largest integrated oil and gas development project. When that project transitioned from construction to operations, and the GFC hit, I closed our Russian office and relocated to Perth.

In 2011 a client asked us to build yet another mind-numbingly boring and inadequate paper-based safety tool. We decided that we had had enough and could do better. We launched Synaptor in order to free workers from the tedium of safety paperwork and to enable companies to manage risk in real time.

Before moving to Russia, I had a few other ‘character-building’ experiences. I helped manage a family medicine clinic in Alaska, owned a cafe-bar in Prague, and worked for several years in Silicon Valley, primarily for Sun Microsystems.

What makes you tick? What makes you ick?

Most days it seems that coffee makes me tick. One cup too many and it also makes me ick. I get excited by big ideas, big plans. I dislike talking to people when they’re not really present. Hello, are you in there?

Why do you love ‘fetchin?

I’m convinced that culture – the ideas, attitudes, and habits of those around you – affects what you believe is possible. I want to contribute to a local culture that encourages people to believe that they can make good things happen.

What things excite you about our community right now?

I think it’s a fantastic time to be an entrepreneur in Australia. There are so many big, exciting problems to get after, and so many resources at our disposal. The community is relatively small and approachable, and while we are learning from the way things are done elsewhere, there is an invigorating freedom to make our our own way.

What’s your favourite thing about your city?

I think Perth is wonderful – don’t tell anyone, okay? I’ve found Goldilocks’ bowl of porridge here – it’s just right.

Today my favorite thing is the first rain of the season.

Where can we find you in Perth?

Hopefully I’m in King’s Park, enjoying a famous sunset. If I’m not there, check my desk.

How can we connect with you?

Twitter:
https://twitter.com/JustinStrharsky
https://twitter.com/thefetchper

Email:
justin@synaptor.com.au
justin@thefetch.com

Come out to one of the entrepreneur meetups.

Hello Lisa – our Berlin fetcher

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Berlin. Yep, we’re heading there. It took me all of one week out of a month-long stay to fall in love with the place last year and I’m pleased to see we’ve now got a fetch there. The best part about it? We’ve got the amazing Lisa Lang (@lilaineurope) as our city curator! I first met Lisa at a #socialmelb meetup in 2009 and have followed her journey with interest through her days at Sitepoint in Oz and most recently as head of content for Campus Party Germany and print editor-in-chief of Smashing Magazine. She’s also calls herself a “Geekette, Podcast Nerd and Whip-Cracker”. And there’s more! She’s bilingual! (She was born in Germany.) Check out more on her LinkedIn.

Lisa will be sharing the best events, meetups, community news, jobs and more in each fortnight’s fetch. You can submit items to her via email here, via @thefetchber, FB and don’t forget to subscribe on http://thefetch.com so we’ll arrive straight to your box. Our first black themed fetch will be sent shortly. As part of Lisa’s welcome, we put a few questions to her:

Lisa Lang

How did you end up where you are today?

Long story, I started as freelance journalist, turned to a photographer, turned into a New Media student in Germany. From there I left for Australia, stay there for five years, started in PR, turned into project manager for web projects, turned into Program Director for web tech/design publishing. Now back in my most favourite city in Europe, fetchin’ for new adventures!

What makes you tick? What makes you ick?

The love and passion for the industry, the people, the projects, the stories. And chocolate and olives (but not necessarily at the same time).

Why do you love ‘fetchin?

I love the hunt; always looking for the next event/meetup, new stories, new people – there is a whole world out there!

What things excite you about our community right now?

The opportunities, the potential – imagine what is possible!

What’s your favourite thing about your city?

The energy! Berlin will go through a lot of changes in the next years and it is just the place to be in Europe right now.

Where can we find you in Berlin?

In one of the bars in Neukoelln Kiez, at coworking spaces, most of the time at some sort of event/meetup/drinks.

How can we connect with you?

I’m @lilaineurope on Twitter.

Interview: Brisbane local, Sally Bagshaw

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Our Brisbane editor Lani Pauli says Sally Bagshaw, Brisbane-based copywriter and content strategist, is one of the first people she noticed actively talking about “content strategy” before it was hip. We sat down to talk to Sally about her niche in content strategy and what it all means.

Website: www.snappysentences.com and www.webcontentstrategy.com.au

Where does your passion for content strategy come from and what keeps it going?
I’m passionate about content strategy because it treats content as a business asset, not just pretty words on a web page. It aligns everything you do regarding content—from its planning, to its development, management and maintenance—to the overall goals of the business. In a world where we are all publishers, good content strategy is a way to stay focused and put your energy into the right areas. I also like that it shines a light on the business processes and technology needed to do these great things with content.

Who do you think is doing cool stuff in our industries?
That’s a tough one, there are cool things happening in different areas. Some people are doing great things with technology, some with voice and messaging, and some with cross channel content. Online retailers are often ahead of the game with content, especially as it’s easy to measure the ROI for great content (more sales).

What was your first job?
My first ever job was at the Eumundi newsagency on Saturday mornings for the markets. The early starts were hard, but it was a fun place to work and it taught me to count change very quickly!

What’s the biggest misconception about content strategy?
The biggest misconception is content strategy is content marketing. Content strategy is broader and can go across many traditional silos like IT and marketing. That said, content strategy isn’t only for big business. Smaller businesses can be smart with content too; it doesn’t have to be complex.

What’s the biggest opportunity and challenge for content strategy to be more consistently employed by businesses?
Even though content strategy has a higher profile than it used to, it still can be a hard sell to senior executives who are used to thinking of content as an operational (rather than strategic) part of the business. The big opportunity is the way technology is evolving so quickly, it’s not realistic to keep repurposing content for all of these different platforms anymore. It’s causing a shift to smarter thinking around content.

What’s next?
I’m starting a meetup group to bring together all Brisbanites interested in content strategy. The first catch up is planned for early June and will be a debrief about Confab – a content strategy conference that I’m going to in Minneapolis. I’ll announce further details soon on Twitter via @ContentBNE and the Brisbane Content Strategy Group meetup page.

You can follow Sally on Twitter here.