Hey there! I’d like to take a moment to wish you and your family a very merry, safe and frivolity-filled festive season over the coming weeks.

I am hoping that everything about 2010 was good to you, and that the coming new year (2011 – amazing!) has plenty of success in store for you; both professionally and personally.

If we know each other in real life, I trust that we’ll see each other in the coming new year. For those of my Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn friends, thanks for connecting, and I look forward to staying in touch. Finally, for those who read my musings here on my blog; thanks for taking the time to visit, and I really hope that you’ll stick around.

Enjoy the break, and best wishes for 2011!

The cat is out of the bag, so to speak. I’m stepping down from my role as National Chairperson of the Australian Web Industry Association, at this years AGM. Since this forum post appeared, a number of people have been emailing or calling me to ask the inevitable ‘What’s up?’ and I felt that it was worthy of some explanation.

I rose to this role way back in 2002, when I did a call out for people to catch up for a pint and a chat with industry peers. The idea was low key, and it wasn’t long until we became an Incorporated Association under the name Port 80 Inc in July 2004. We then changed names to reflect our national focus a few years later. We’ve had great committee members come and go during the last seven or so years, and it’s been a great journey.

However, I’ve always been the Chairperson. Over the last eight years, we’ve really grown up as an Association, and I feel the last real change has been obvious for some time now; a changing at the top.

The reason is that I embrace the notion that great organisations need regular new blood to surivive, prosper and grow. We’ve had great new committee members join in the last few years (well, ever since the start), but I’ve always been there. I don’t think it’s a bad thing to have consistency in management, but there must be a point that the Chairperson can change, and the underlying committee and structure becomes the constant.

I believe we’ve reached that point.

I’ll let my resignation email tell the story from here…

This hopefully won’t come as a surprise to anyone, however i’ve been thinking more frequently recently, that it is my time to move on from AWIA.

It’s been a very difficult decision, because since starting Port80 back in mid 2002, I’ve been involved in every decision and direction that AWIA has chosen. I’ve often felt that AWIA is one of my children, and I don’t want to stop being involved. I have, to a certain degree, felt resistant to leaving because I worry about the message that sends to our members.

On the other hand, I strongly believe that it’s important for any association to be seen to have fresh blood, and to reinvigorate the management committee frequently. It provides innovation, career paths (can you call this a career? :)) to fellow committee members and encourages fresh thinking. Over the last year, I have had less involvement from meeting to meeting, and it has been great that others have taken these duties and run with them.

My life has been very full the last 12 months. I feel that I’m not giving the Association the attention it deserves, and therefore not living up to the high expectations I personally have for somebody in the role of Chairperson for AWIA. A plethora of changes have occurred for me both professionally and personally, which has meant the time I have to devote to AWIA activities has become increasingly smaller for some time now. As a result, I’ve felt frustrated and guilty, in equal measures.

This is a long winded way of saying that after careful consideration, I wish to notify the committee that I will not be standing for re-election at the end of my current tenure, the August AGM. I would be open to being co-opted for a position such as ‘Immediate Past Chairperson’, which many Associations have as a way of reducing information loss, however I will not be standing as Chairperson. This has possibly been the hardest decision I’ve had to make in a long time.

I strongly believe that AWIA is in great hands, and the current committee have done a great job since the last AGM. Many of you have been on the committee for far longer, and a HUGE thanks for that. I wish to thank you all for showing through your actions your willingness to help foster a great web industry and strong member community. AWIA has an exciting time ahead of it, however not without some challenges, and I look forward to seeing where it heads in the future.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all of the committee members, both past and present, for giving their time up for such a cause. I’d also like to thank all Australian Web Industry Association members, for supporting the work that we’ve done, and will continue to do.

It’s been a great journey.

We were very lucky enough to go to Ubud, Bali again last week for four days. This was only six months after our last visit of the same length. My wife, Meredith and I hired motorbikes for the entire time and went riding, ate lots of local Bali Makan, and practiced our Bahasa. We even went to the northern areas, Lovina, Singaraja and specifically the only dedicated Buddhist temple on the island, Brahma Vihara Arama, for a day too.

I’ll write more about our adventures shortly (there are a few articles in the works…) however in the meantime, please enjoy this video (above) of one of our rides, this one taking us from Nyuh Kuning (south side of the Monkey Forest from Ubud central) through to Pasar Ubud (the Ubud Markets).

Thanks to the power of Google Maps, here is the route that the video takes you on.

View Nyuh Kuning to Pasar Ubud in a larger map

If you keep dreaming of visiting Bali, I recommend that you check out some of my other videos (please vote for them whilst you’re there!), and perhaps even check out some of the reviews I have given on TripAdvisor. Enjoy!

Why is it, that there seems to be a long standing connection between geeks and pizza? It has often puzzled me, yet I digress.

I admit it, I am a pizza snob. The problem with having a wood-fired pizza oven installed in September this year, means that I am now spoilt. So spoilt, that I could be considered fairly elitist when it comes to pizza consumption.

I remember a time that I could eat gas- or electric- domestic oven fired pizza, and in fact, for a while many (like, 20) years ago, I worked in a pizza store which did just this.

Now? I can’t eat that sort of pizza. I’ve been to a few restaurants recently, and have had to turn it down. I’m considering this style of pizza a poor cousin of real pizza. Is that bad of me? I’m sure it is, but I’m pampered gastronomically now.

I’m hoping to write a few posts about Pizza, maybe even a few recipes, in this blog in the future. Pizza is too important a topic not to cover – wouldn’t you agree?

Meanwhile, you should take a look at some of the photos (Thanks Gary!) that were taken at the Pizza night that we held at our home, on the eve of Edge of the Web.

Image: Wood fired pizza oven at Burke’s Pizzeria.

I’ve read some great books recently, and I always mean to write a detailed review for each. I never seem to get around to it, so here’s a quick rundown of my five most recent book purchases…

Editing Made Easy by Bruce Kaplan
If terms like tautology and possessive apostrophe get you excited, then you’ll want to grab a copy of this book. This title is a handy pocket sized book on editing, which has the great side effect of improving your writing. Pitched mainly at beginners, but likely to be good for anyone who wants to write (or edit) well.

Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay
As a fan of the television series, I had to get my hands on the book that inspired it all. It has all the characters we’ve grown to love in the series, but quite a few changes in storyline than the TV series. I’m a fan of reading the book after the movie/TV series, and not a fan at all of consuming stories the other way around; the movie or show normally disappoints.

Making Meaning by Steve Diller, Nathan Shedroff and Darrel Rhea
The subtitle of this book is ‘How Successful Businesses Deliver Meaningful Customer Experiences’. This book delivers the idea that a companies only way to gain customer loyalty is to build a meaningful customer experience. A fascinating read.

Designing for the Social Web by Joshua Porter
This is a great read for anyone involved in the user experience of any web application, social or not. There are still plenty of lessons here, and they’re delivered in an understandable and enjoyable way.

The Principles of Project Management by Meri Williams
Meri has an easy, clear way of outlining great practices for website project management. This is well worth a read no matter your team role. Note: I have a commercial relationship with SitePoint, publisher of this book, however this had no bearing on mentioning this book.

So, I’ve shared what’s on my bedside table. I encourage you to answer; What’s on your bookshelf or bedside table?

Image: Bedside table reading.

If you’ve wondered what has happened to me, and why I’m not online much, the above picture should give it away.

Our third child, Quinn Nathaniel Burke was born on Monday (30th June), making this blog post three days late (I did manage to update Twitter and Facebook though!). The photo above shows Quinn on his first day in this world, eyes shut and getting used to the sounds.

Mum, brother and sister are also doing well, and as you can imagine, we’re a very proud bunch!

Image: Quinn Nathaniel Burke, a few hours old.

You may all be interested to learn that Buddha has joined Twitter. OK, maybe not the real Buddha, but twice a day you can receive some of his teachings and inspirational quotes on your Twitter feed.

As a testbed for some ideas I have for using Twitter in business applications, we’ve created a ‘twitter bot’ which posts sayings of the Buddha or Buddhist verse and quotes twice a day onto twitter. If you have a twitter account already, you can follow thebuddha, and if you are in the USA, you can send a text which states ‘follow thebuddha’ to 40404, or to stop following (why would you?) send a txt to the same number with ‘off thebuddha’.

Let me know what you think (suggestions for quotes under 140 characters, and bug reports welcome!) below.

Enjoy!

Image: Screen grab of first tweet from thebuddha.

In one of those crazy meme trends that spread the blogosphere, two friends, Nick Cowie and Ben Winter-Giles, both ‘tagged’ me for the ‘8 things you didn’t know about me’ meme.

The rules of this meme are;

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules.
2. List EIGHT random facts about yourself.
3. Tag EIGHT people at the end of your post and list their names.
4. Let them know they’ve been tagged.

So here are eight things you may or may not know about me;

1. I normally never do these memes.
2. This year I’m celebrating 25 years of being a (lacto-ovo) vegetarian.
3. I am going to be a father again! Our third child is due in early July.
4. As a result of the above, I also bought a new house a few weeks ago. We’re due to move houses at the end of next month.
5. I consider myself a follower of Buddhism. I’m known to attend temple at Dhammaloka, and am a member of BSWA.
6. My middle name is Andrew, named after my fathers first name. My son’s middle name is Miles, to continue the theme.
7. I spent many of my school years learning Jazz Ballet, and did a number of classes per week.
8. I have held jobs as a Nightclub DJ, Service Station worker, Radio Announcer, Pizza delivery driver and Retail Manager.

So, the eight people who I am ‘dobbing in’ to continue this meme are;

1. My beautiful wife, Meredith
2. Vy-Shane Sin-Fat, who last blogged in 2005!
3. Bad joke curator, Adam Braimbridge
4. Singstar competitor, Rosemary Lynch
5. He who knows all about coffee, Jordan Brock
6. Drinking buddy, Myles Eftos
7. Simon Wright, you blog slacker!
8. The ever energetic Lachlan Hardy

Image: Miles Burke, photo by Meredith Burke.

It’s with excitement that I hand over the reigns of wrongwrite.com to the team at 18a Productions in the United Kingdom, dedicated to carrying on the fight against spelling and grammatical catastrophes.

Recently, I posted here about my lack of time to dedicate to the blog I started last February, so it was great that I found someone to take over the blog (it was a gift to them) and keep it alive.

Lisa and Tom are passionate about the advancement of our language, and I wish them all the best of luck in managing the blog. I’ll be sure to send in the occasional contribution!

Image: Miss Print signage, taken at a local Chemist.

In recent news, I was honoured to be asked by the team behind SitePoint.com, the third most popular eBusiness site in the world, to join their star studded blogger lineup, to blog under the topic of Web Pro Business.

My first two posts, one posted last week, titled The Business of Building Web Sites and today’s latest post, Do you have the right personality for running your own business? are being well received, and I would love it if you wandered over there to have a read.

Please let me know what you think – and I promise to post more often here as well!

Image: Screengrab, SitePoint.com