Blogs

Saturday September 19 2009 was software freedom day. Creative Contingencies took part again as part of our commitment to the free and open source software community.

It's a challenging day.  Most of the challenge revolves around promoting the event, and knowing who to target. Our own focus is largely in the education and small business sector, so naturally we see strong benefits in using Free and Open Source Software in schools and small companies.  We had a very mixed crowd this year - with lots of members of Melbourne PC and Apple Users Society of Melbourne taking part for the first time. This is really exciting as we extend the software freedom message to these passionate computer groups, who may not have appreciated that they too could enjoy Free Software.

Brianna Laugher did a phenomenal job of designing and delivering a comprehensive program of talks and workshops, and Melbourne PC's facilities provided ample space and resources to make it all happen.  Unfortunately we were unable to harness the resources and energy to video the talks but will certainly make more of an effort to do that next year. Ultimately, time and energy are limited commodities when it comes to an event such as Software Freedom Day and I'm very pleased with what we were able to achieve.

Last week I got a call from friend and colleague Pia Waugh - saying she needed some Plan C magic from Creative Contingencies. The Melbourne venue for the 3rd installment of Senator Lundy's Public Sphere event had fallen through with only 5 days to go.  I called around some of my contacts, most of whom were booked out. But Trinity College not only came through with a suitable space, and great catering, but mobilised internal resources to put in place a wireless network with broadband access to the Internet where previously there was no such access. Wow.

Cynthia Karena reported on using wikis in biztech section of The Age a couple of weeks back. In preparing her article she interviewed me about wikis, and followed up with some questions via email.

Creative Contingencies uses a wiki to liaise and collaborate with our clients. And we also host wikis for other small to medium businesses. Larger businesses will have a communications structure in place, but a wiki is a cheap  and simple way for smaller businesses to start working collaboratively on documentation tasks. We use Mediawiki - primarily because it's the same software used by Wikipedia, and many people are familiar with it. If they learn mediawiki syntax, they can also use that on other wikis.