 Good morning. So I've got a slightly sad confession to start off. I have spent my entire adult life in universities. Universities on four continents, I might add, but that is only a very, very small consolation. With that confession out of the boat, I've got to say that in all of my years in universities, I have never seen an IT staff hustle quite so much as they have this morning to pull all of this together. I have also never seen anything to tell you the truth, quite like what we're about to do. It promises to be unique, innovative, challenging, spectacular, you've never done it before. We're not quite sure what's going to happen. I encourage you to break out your laptop or your phone to follow along to pay attention. We're going to try and put on a show that we are calling the Age of Pacific Master Blogging Challenge 2011. This is a first for us, for the ANU camera, but I think it's probably actually a first tool to stop. This is something that nobody has really tried before and we're going to do our best to make it work. We're delighted that all of you can join us for this challenge. This is the first time, and I've got to say, I'm absolutely delighted that we have four master bloggers here with us who will be struggling for glory in our 2011 challenge. I understand that some of you queried in my attire, and for those of you who know that there's a chap in the middle of this picture who's wearing a cravat, and any of the Australians in the audience will know that that is Matt Cravatalicious Preston, and he's joined here by George Columbaris and the other guy, as you can see, who are the three hosts of Australia's most popular television show. And for the past couple of years, this show, MasterChef, has taken Australia by storm every winter. And it is, I guess, with that show in mind, drawing on its potency, its popularity, that we came up with this idea of a master blogging challenge. Millions of Australians tune in to watch MasterChef. It's on pretty much every night of the week, and I should note that occasionally I can be counted among their number. So I know that the most popular part of MasterChef is something called the mystery box challenge. And today, as you all saw, we had the privilege of our dean, Professor Andrew McIntyre, unveiling our MasterChef, and its ingredients are laying out there on the table in front of us. We have, just to remind you, a map of the world in Burmese, a Southeast Asian trident, the Canton sweet and sour sauce with extra pineapple, some photocopied data from the Dean's Library, and in particular, I should note that that data is from a book titled Rising China, Global Challenges and Opportunities. We have the 1985 edition of Ultrashock the Philippines. We have a Royal Wedding commemorative tea town for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. And we, of course, have an Astartian beer. So our master bloggers, drawing on this mystery box, will be encouraged to draw inspiration from at least three of those ingredients when they're coming up with their blogs. So I insist all have to make use of the Astartian beer. Apart from that, there are no rules. This is no-hold barb blogging. They are encouraged to use their creativity and to really challenge themselves and challenge us with the best blogs that they can come up with. So I should get down to introducing our master blogging challenges. In the green corner, fresh from the hallow halls of Columbia University in the United States, we have East Asia Forum blog wizard Dr. Shiro Armstrong. Shiro is a research fellow in our college with expertise in international economics and international finance as well as politics of the Asia Pacific region. He is also the co-founder of the East Asia Forum blog. He brings years of blogging experience to the table. Then in the red corner, we have Cynthia Bannon, who's been the diplomatic editor of the City Morning Herald and the age for many years. She's a veteran journalist. She's currently completing a PhD in our college. Cynthia warns me that she has never written a blog. Not once. So ladies and gentlemen, and Cynthia, let's see what she's got. In the blue corner, we have Graham Dovelle. He writes the Canberra column for the interpreter, which is the blog of the Low Institute for International Policy based in Sydney. Graham was the ABC Southeast Asia Radio correspondent in Singapore and has done several skits as the Canberra-based foreign affairs and defence correspondent for Radio Australia. He's been all over the place in his very long and distinguished journalistic career. He's covered the Falklands War, cruising Beijing, Thailand and the Philippines, Beijing after the pro-democracy movement and also the return of Hong Kong to China. He globes pretty much every week of the year. So, Cynthia and Shira, watch out. And then in the yellow corner, we have Dr Andrew Walker, who is the Associate Dean of the ANU College of Asia in the Pacific. For the past 10 years, he's worked on a wide sweep of issues surrounding rural development, resource management and modernisation in Northern Thailand. Andrew is the co-founder of the ANU's New Mandala blog and he blogs pretty much every day. I was down at the local betting shop this morning, weren't on the street and not hoping to hit too much pressure on him is that Dr Andrew Walker is the favourite. That's the most challenging challenge of the year. So, again, let's see what he's got. If you would like to follow along with us, there are plenty of different ways you can do it. At this particular moment in time, you can get on to the blog site, Asia Pacific Week Slash Challenge should do the trick. You can also get to us through the longer URL or you can load us up through Twitter, et cetera, et cetera. I'm going to be moving around the room once our master bloggers get down to business. I'll have a mic. I would very much encourage you to ask questions, get involved, make comments. All of this is going to be happening up on the big screen. We'll have this other screen up here where there'll be other things flicking through should prove to be really quite exciting. As I said to start, we've never done this before. Nobody's ever done this before, so let's just see how we go. Master bloggers, we have a 40-minute clock. You have your mystery box. There are a range of ingredients for you to choose from. You need to choose at least three and everybody has to use the Asahi beer. Those are the only rules. The 2011 Asia Pacific Master Blogging Challenge starts now. Nick, I'm sitting there as a comment already on the blog. There is Andrew. Two comments, okay. We'll get to the comments in a minute. And... Okay, so our bloggers are going to be kicking off, and they're just about to get themselves started with what's going to be 40 minutes of blogging. We're going to pull everything up on the screen here so that we can see what is going on on each of their own screens. And I should say, while he's up here in front of everyone, that Glenn Landrell deserves a special land of applause for all of his work in getting this set up. This is a feat of IT wizardry, and I reckon by the end of that he's going to deserve a drink. So, a round of applause for Glenn Landrell. We're going to have an opportunity to talk to them before too long, but before we do, are there any thoughts from the audience? Does a mystery box look particularly challenging? Are there ingredients in there that you'd really like to work with yourself? Any targets? Well, I hope they use the game in a multi-tell. I guess for most of us it's the most impressive part of it, and how they probably mix it with a sauce? But I know for sure that they all be going for the beer, so those three regions probably will be the ones that look forward to especially the game. OK, thanks for that great comment back there, all about the sweets and our sauce, the juicers, the chess and pain breaches, and the beer, it's quite a combination. Does anyone else have any ideas about what they might do with our channels for this particular mystery box? Yes? Do you know which country the tower is meeting? Ah, good question. Come on, OK. Thailand, China, what have we got? It is cotton. 100% cotton. And it carries a code number 291R, if that helps anyone, but as best I can determine, it doesn't have a place of manufacture. So, no. Any other thoughts? All right, well, we might then just get a quick update from our four master bloggers. You can see what they're getting up to here on the screen, and we'll be able to toggle through the areas of what they're playing around with. This is Andrew. There you go. And what they thought was comparison, they're reaching out, they thought it was a private place as well, so they thought it was an adult occasion until I was with the bloggers. Very physical, friendly, and free as an adult ever. And why do you think I'm so deep while we're here? Very excited about the quality of it. And also, this is what I said, how did you know I'm there, possibly? Like in Skylanders. Look at that, very far. Thanks, Andrew. It's in here? That's how you find it in Skylanders. I'm feeling a little bit raising in the headlights up here, but I have found, actually found this this week, I don't know if you can see on the screen, but it's an illustration that I've just seen. It sums up my situation today. I'm just updating my blog. As someone who sees this in front of me, Brian tells me it's a nature of cruising embrace. It's a lullaby. It's a lullaby, a lullaby. And I have to say, I'm sort of more from the old reading school, and so we'll just have to just have to see how I go today. Please be patient. Great, thanks for being here. We're looking forward to what you've brought for us. How about you, Shiro? How are things playing out in your living room? Yeah, pretty good. I'm watching a tweet about it. Someone doesn't find it too interesting. I don't know who it is. Come, put your hand up. Yeah, if you've got this. Yeah, go for it. Oh, yours. Thanks, Shiro. And, Brian, how do you... Well, see, as always with these things, this is actually not a computer. This is actually just an old reading typo. It's all in the way that you construct it. And so you're sitting here in front of your remedy. Yes. And as I always do, and I've rolled the carbon paper in, and when I've finished, I've seen bits of paper off to that big blood layer that Cynthia's got. And that's how you do it. That's how you do it, yeah. Okay, all right, wonderful. We look forward to what you're coming up with. I see already that you're playing around with the metaphors from the mystery book. Well, when you get paid, when you get paid by the word, you actually produce the words. A good lesson for everyone out there. When you get paid by the word, go for the word. So we are all keeping along here, I suppose, all watching and waiting, some with anticipation, some with a measure of concern for exactly what all of this might need. Does anybody here have much prior exposure to academic blogging? Is there something that you're familiar with that makes sense in this university context? Have you sort of looked at a few people going their heads to you, frowning, people shaking their heads out of their minds? Always okay? I suppose that one of the reasons why we were excited to get this Asian city master blogging challenge off the ground is that within our college of Asian and Pacific, we've got a fair few people who spend a not inconsiderable amount of time doing academic blogging in different formats. I'm one of those people. Shira Armstrong is another. Andrew Walker, of course, is another skill. And between a fair number of us now in the college, we have come up with different ways of trying to get academic content out to much, much wider audience. We don't pretend that too many people read most of our academic journal articles, but we do know that a lot of people read or put up on our blogs. So we are here as everything is kicking along. I suppose maybe with the anticipation for what our master blogging is going to come up in the next 40 years. Now, you're allowed to do Mexican waves, you know. We need a bit of cheering. I mean, you've got to get into this. Sort of rah, rah, and you've been... And Nick, Yeah, that's right. A bit of... I've forgotten how I've got photos. How come I... Come on, Nick, the fan, come on, come on. A bit of wave. A bit of a wave. I've got wave from the audience for crowd. We've got wave. Over this wave. And back again. Back again. Haven't you ever been to the Sydney Cricket Grand? Okay, on weekend with the wave. Okay, starting on this side. One, two, three. Yes! Forward it's dying out. And the four people at the back get to chuck chickens. Okay, again. Back. One, two, three. Yay! Well, that must be a plus. So, we're kicking along. We've got the timer set now. It's counting down. 30 minutes to go. Our master bloggers are writing the thick of it. Shira Armstrong has asked us in guidance on uploading photos with this particular blogging platform. Not every blogging platform is the same. But I can probably assist here. Does that incur penalty? Okay, thank you. Okay, so we're there. And here, select files. But I suppose, why don't you read this slide if we were here to put on this display or blogging talent and flair. Is that we hope that you all come away somewhat inspired to think that, okay, blogging doesn't necessarily have to be something that takes all day or needs a great deal of resources or extra effort. It can be something that can be almost done in a spare time. Any other comments from our audience? We've got one down the back. Therefore, I happen to know from the fact that your brother is in the audience here today. And I just thought he might have a comment on your performance. That's very interesting. We're fairly experienced bloggers whether it's writing bloggers or reading blogs. And it's a pretty familiar with the tropics and tactics that people in the focus here like to use, you know, the trolling, the flaming, the stirring, etc. I would like to see coming over to the cooking school today and we'd like to see some people who are trying to mix it up in a very commingial way, potentially good for some conflict. Thank you. Oh, come on. I agree with you. No, just for you and my brother. It's a bit awkward. You know, he's got to have something to put into the mix. It's not just, he's not just sitting there. If he wants to throw, he's got to throw. Come on, a bit of argy, argy for the audience. A bit of argy, argy. Okay. That's a great, great, good suggestion. I think the Twitter feed is starting to light up. Is there anything there that anyone would like to give our attention to? A sigh should be the top prize. A sigh should be the top prize. Okay. All right. That's a good recommendation. War. Oh, okay. Hang on. We'll put some up. Less chatty. Okay. All right. Hang on. Okay. Hang on. So, do you just have to publish? Is that all you have to do? Yep. Okay. So, we have a question. What is flaming? What is flaming? Four. And you can, and you can, and I want, oh, okay. Repeat. Help with the spelling. Does anyone want to put a trolling on the box? Oh, we've got to prepare trolling All right. In the meantime, I should just draw everyone's attention to the fact that on this side screen here, we have Graham Burbell's uh, a whole thing drawn at his blog. So, he has, as promised, using his old school typewriter style, decided that the best way to get it up there is just to be banging out short paragraphs and then putting them up for the world of short paragraphs. Blogging is all about short paragraphs. It is indeed. And it's much, much easier to read that way. And so, we've got Graham's a whole new graph here up on the screen for anybody who is inclined to digest that. And we have with our comments for two, do we get prizes for commenting? I'm Tom between the tea towel and the Dean's economical charts and I haven't bought it. Um, very common. Suggests that they would, um, like to sue the nears of what we've got here. I reckon there could be bids for the tea towel, I'm afraid, but the economical charts are all yours. And please, feel free to sit in front of the computer. You can add comments. You can tweet about it. You can do whatever it is that you'd like to do to, um, participate in this. I think one of the, there's a nice thing about bloggers that need to be a one-way conversation. So please do maybe it's doing some one a hard time. Go to Shiro. Okay, so we've got a blogger explaining to them some of the hard time intentionally. Middle row. Go to Shiro. I have 20 dollars on me. Shiro, how does it feel to have the audience behind you? It's not the audience. It's just one. They're like, Shiro, okay, so there's at least one person here who is all the way with Dr. Shiro Armstrong on the train. Okay, we're thinking that Shiro's going to give us some interesting stuff. Andrew, we're now 23 minutes in. Now, we might be on the screen. Hang on, we've got 23 minutes. Where do we get time? Tell him to shut up, so we can rock. Thanks Andrew. Good to be here to give you a call for it. And just to clarify, we have 23 minutes on the clock. Now just over 22 minutes on the clock. So we've got plenty of time for our bloggers to be pulling things together. I know that Shiro chipping things off his list of things, mystery box ingredients. He wants to make sure that he gets his free minimum from the mystery box and then he also uses the Asahi beer. So we're all kicking along. We're all, I think, a bit of a flavor of what this challenge is all about. It's not easy this blogging. It's certainly not easy when you're doing that with a live audience. Hey, where's the book gone? I think... Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's going on then, here? Ah, yeah, yeah. Are they all still on the table, boss? I think everyone is still on the table, right? Bit. Oh, watch these people. He has. He has. He has. He has. He has. As the time runs down it's 20 minutes further than 10 minutes. You have to play it up, mate. He's actually done a good thing, isn't he? On the clock. I think that as Shiro has suggested, this isn't easy. This isn't easy. It's basically not an easy goal. There's the Twitter feed asking for points to be deducted for spelling this thing. Oh, what? Oh. And I have to spell it. With the totem I can put that hand up and make a plan in between. That point should be deducted for spelling errors. Can we put a line in front of you to get a little bit of the back there? Can you tell us why you think spelling is so important for people? I would like to say it's important for people. Delphi, it's Praniel. Crosperphobia. We hold it in the U.S.T.O.P.U.H. from the United States. Oh. It's Australian or American spelling. Let's get a show of hands. Who would prefer to read blogs with Australian spelling? Okay. Who would prefer to read blogs with American spelling? I think Australian has to vary today. So, can we have one response? A response? Yes, please. Okay. That's an extra subtlety but except that we're probably doing a blog in a way that's relevant to our audience, our master blog, so it should only take 15 minutes to check out the anchored comments. Okay. We have a comment. Concerned blogger take me through and have a shower. What it says now, all I can imagine is taking a shower. Be nice to the nerds in the back row. We are even gone. That sounds like a threat. Yeah. Okay. So, the nerds in the back row are laying out a bit of a party budget on their own and support for comments to come. All right. Let's just go on the back over to our table of master bloggers. I just might interrupt Cynthia's work. This is Cynthia's first ever blog and when Cynthia was invited to be involved in the master blogging challenge, she insisted she'd never done before and I said, Cynthia, that is wonderful news. And I said it was wonderful because to have someone who knows that this is something which you can do, you can do quickly and you can do for the very first time. So, Cynthia, how's your first blogging done? It's awful, actually. I thought I'd start in my first part by trying to get at least one degree into elevate so it would take a bit of pressure on myself which I did with the view because when I get by this lot I find that view really helps three other thought cases that I can do now. Then I started to think this is my first end blog. What do I want it to be about? And then I started to think, well, my favourite bloggers in the world or writers in the world, the one question that I'd really like to ask them is what's bravery when you've got this amazing choice out there through the internet, this whole world of websites and news sites and writers, what are the best writers of really? And I'd be really interested to find out about your list of masteries because I'm sure they're all very different. I would go to give a bit of a a taste of mine and there's probably going to be a long kind of traditional medium out there, old medium for a bit of a mix. And it's just something that I'd like to know from you guys and quite a bit of stay crystal kitchens or more endow or someone like that, the bloggers that I read a lot, you know, what are your masteries? That'd be something that I would really interested in. So that's what I'm doing now. Thanks, India. That sounds like an invitation to me. So if anybody out there with the comments or the tweets would like to perhaps make some suggestions about what the must read things are, traditional media or new media that please feel free to send those messages in. Shiro, you've worked out the picture of this blog engine. Can you talk through your headliner? My headliner. How many I'd say years in the world is this negated forging? So, thanks. He's the winner. Am I going to read it out? He's the winner. Unfortunately, in China in 2003, where 500 Japanese businessmen had at least as many Chinese prostitutes over three days and hit the headlines in a very bad way. So, I'm trying to wait for something I know. Hang on. Hang on. How do you know about the truth? Not about the 500. You're really deep, you're really deep here, boy. I'm only going to write on something I know. My research, Japan, China, trade relations, politics, gone for that angle. You know, I find a topical book and so I've got a study somewhere, a couple of pictures of prostitutes and, you know, some catchy words like Andrew mentioned that bring some people on the post. Absolutely. What do you have sex in there? Okay. So, shouldn't you suggest that he's going to use a bit of Google, baby? I think it's in the blogging world, so sex and orgy are going to be turned to the Google algorithm that's going to pick up on and hopefully drive traffic towards his blog. Okay, we've got a tweet that's coming through that suggests that Shiro is recycling his girls at the blog post. So, I know one of the issues with blogging is that they came together to repeat with any response from Shiro at this point. I knew it was the same picture and went to the post. I only got to try it out. Are we up? Yep. Well, explain it. Okay, Shiro's going to explain his sexity later on. Let's see if there are any other comments from further down the line. Graham, how are you finding things? Oh, it's good. It's relaxing. Japanese, Japanese, orgy. Orgy, yeah. All right. So, Graham's looking very relaxed. We have some more comments that have come in here. So, let's have a look. We have all right. We have the Huffington Post. We have Go Cynthia. Go Cynthia. So, you're being your first blog suggestion right about new families for a back. A wonderful suggestion. Is smoke coming out of the server? A bad thing. Yes. That's a question in front of the nerves. Now the bloggers handle the added pineapple in the source without overpowering the other items. Now, that's a great question. All right. That's one for our bloggers to mull over. Andrew Sullivan, the ultimate master bloggers, says you have to update your blog at least every day in order to be permanent. Thoughts from down the master bloggers. That's a great question. There's a comment there that I'll read out. In the spirit of free exchange of ideas of all sorts. There's a shower in the heat of power to toilet outside. And that's all we've got from the list at the moment. Let's just make a quick poll on our master bloggers. When they're producing blogs or reading blogs or what have you, do they think that updating your blog regularly is a key thing to bear in mind? Let's start with you, Andrew. The comment is a key thing to bear in mind very, very, very often. But in other words, there's one thing that you want me to not have regularly. The same is my own stuff. I don't know about that, so I think that's to the extent that we've achieved any success with human art. Which I think a little bit is leading that on average we're posted every day in the five years. So I think that's a lot of noise. Thanks Andrew. You're reading blogs and it's important that they're updating when you do it? I guess definitely. Otherwise you're going to look at it once in a while. You know, if you look at it seven times, I think it's not really going to go back again. So I think that's critical. Okay. How does that work for you, Shiro? Does each stage of forum have to get updated every day? Yeah. We put one thing you guys probably checked out the web page and I've seen a few magazines uploading but we do try to write from research and link back to the research. So most of us they all go through peer review and then tutorial process but quite often they link to deeper research and the idea is to try to communicate these 30-page research pages into something policy makers or you know Shiro. What about you Graeme? How often do you think you need to blog on the interpreter to keep people interested? As I said my mental frame is actually it's a type of so it's whenever I want to whenever I run a roll of a bit of carbon paper I think the beauty of the web is that when there are when every every minute there's a deadline there's actually no deadline so you file whenever you feel like it and that's the great freedom. I find it much more liberating I for decades I actually had to deal with this where there was a half hour TV and they had to be fed in an alley radio button this stuff is great because if every month there's a deadline then there's no deadline. Great. Thanks Graeme I think those are some really insightful insights there based on a very long and distinguished career as the Australian journalist blogging does change the rules there means that every minute can be a deadline which is quite remarkable I think we have any comments from the audience now I think we'd like to shout out to what we need to say How are we going at the time? We have I think about ten minutes left now we can just try ten minutes and thirty-three seconds there I think himself he's probably the man I'm showing you back before to all right we might pull up the comment stream on the screen the nerves so now we know that my dial was created in the shower and I wonder if it goes through so many laptops okay that's cheeky I like it I like it a lot and you know Andrew's back in a glass of water everyone I suppose is coming down to the business end of their blogs for today we've got up on the screen here some instant and immediate commentary on the Twitter thing Andrew constant and consistent blogging is the key so I suppose as much as this must a blogging challenge is somewhat artificial it does show that there are so many different ways that academics journalists and others can now engage in this that we can if we're just there in front of our lecture theaters talk to students sitting in 7 hours writing our academic papers or books so that's one of the challenges also one of the wonderful things about it we've got less than 10 minutes now so I'm not going to get involved in distracting our master blogs too much more but I wouldn't like to hear from anybody in the audience who's got any comments or reflections we have one right over the back we'll come to you in a second if you're recycling I know it's a comment that doesn't say anything but the question was where are the specific ingredients thank you very good it's a great and somewhat awkward questions where are the specific ingredients on this table we have them in the world I think that's right we've got the specific ingredients over the back and at least for some of our specific island neighbours they're stellar along you're ongoing a vibrant relationship with the British world family that might be too long to go with your all so I appreciate your finger on something but in the front I like that I think that's sharp go on who's got tips on how to make academic lobbying interesting for others any must do's and must don'ts to somebody who's never done any more lobbying from the audience or panel or any great thank you very much that's a great set of questions with the audience in the front up the back there we have a picture of what you want to see with some suggestions there's a saying in vlogging and that's content is king and that's what counts you know you're living in my love it's very nice and it's put together great but it doesn't have you know one of those what it does have is content and really if you go into content content content and that's what comes from intellectual property so that's my thank you we have a question in the more common here is all coming in and the crowd continues and doing some lobbying others just somehow have this I think if you can demonstrate if you've got something interesting to say no one else is saying it and you can do so but the last vlog you pretty came to be from so it's a good tip thanks for that also we have another one over here and then on this side one of the things I think is really important is relevance so you know the East Asia Forum we used to have fairly regular meetings each week saying what are the issues that come out this week and what are the important things that's happening this week and basically setting the agenda make sure we knew that the person again is going out well on things that people care about and which is being now because when people search for what they want to read they're doing searches they don't stumble across the East Asia Forum great thanks Tom there's a pretty key point there there are lots of good blogs out here already but the key thing with content and dry ingredients it's going to be relevant to somebody and there can be all kinds of niche topics that can be a big relationship we have another comment here just a just a short comment from you Madara I think it's not a content it's a key I think the key is the content that's very nice and we have another comment over here I'm sorry I don't have a comment but actually I have a question so when I started doing my own blog a few years ago I just did a personal blog because at the time I was in my high school so I know I mean most of our kindness today they're actually doing academic blogs so my question is that when you want to both show your family interest and your you know your story of life do you choose to put this two title stories in the same blog or do you prefer kind of personal blog and a family blog that's a terrific question and I'm sure it's one of that is on many other people's minds as well so I just want to get some quick reactions from our panelists or at least one or two of them four minutes to go now so I won't be striking for long Andrew but just let me ask you this was a good pleasure as it were and would you make a personal analysis on your academic blog yes just to make across personal I think like someone said before what's the key to make a academic blog interesting and I think it's in a sense to have it academically informed but not academic but we don't view reviews we have some review cases that get sent in but for me a little bit of a hit and miss a little bit of spontaneity I think humans important I'm certainly not saying that that happens but it's a different sort of approach and I think that means mixing your personal stuff into a blog I think that's very important alright thanks Andrew and I just might ask Shiro for a quick response to that would he stage a forum ever verge into dealing with more personal matters not really know we keep that the other private what what did you it's a little drier it's a little drier in that sense but you know we have a on the call he's like how purpose and a strategy and you know we have a bit of fun with pictures sometimes but in terms of you know there are a lot of blogs out there you probably read there's a marginal revolution and the others that have ideas or one sentence posts and their personal and funny people ask me for good response here and there people engage but it's a very different style absolutely okay thanks for that Shiro I will leave the audience wondering whether you have a personal blog perhaps written under some soothing that none of us have thus decided that we have less than two minutes on clock and we have a look if there are any comments that have come through in the past five or so minutes let's just scroll up there we've got first picture for the economics charts two dollars for Andrew pics from the shower or whatever um cheap stuff I might say I think the presence of the associate did end with college but as you probably picked up by now that's all in the spirit of this event and all I think also in the spirit of good academic blogging there can be a bit cheap back and forth we don't have very long at all on the clock now if there are any final comments from the audience we'll hear those otherwise we just might wait for our master bloggers to wrap things up they have something like one minute to go let's give them a round of applause we've seen what they've all got up on their various screens here um my first tennis lesson and I've just entered Wimbledon um that is a headline provocative headline a good one um we've got the great Nobel blog he's emerging quickly I know that he hasn't changed his headline yet um any thoughts on the headline ground it's just such a great headline I think it'll be there for days I mean you know when you hit it the first time you don't change okay thanks for that bro okay we've got 10 seconds so what's your specific master blogging challenge as you would all by now appreciate has been something to give ourselves a bit more of a sense of how it's all playing out what I like to do now is just to take a minute just to all take a deep breath and then we're going to ask each of our master bloggers to talk through what they managed to do over the past 40 minutes talking through perhaps some of the successes but they would attribute to their work but also perhaps where things didn't go quite according to plan so our bloggers are basically all got themselves set up and have I think everybody's blog posts now up on the website so those of you with a laptop or a phone in front of yourself will be able to log in and have a look at all of them do feel free to share your screen if that proves a way of looking through things but what we will do now is we will go through each of the blogs and they will be up on both of the big screens at the same time and we might start with Andrew Walker's blog which is up on the screen now Kate and Will's wedding gap begins anthropologist etc etc etc hang on I thought it was his blog it is it is it is and so we are going to see big or bloody academics paraphrasing actually are there going to be footnotes as well or we are using the Harvard system there is there is lead text there is lead text there is lead text there is lead text there is there are there is lead text very or very secure and the very secure is there is is is a think there is Okay, thank you. We'll come back to you, but those of you who've got a screen in front of you can read Andrew's blog in full. I just might ask Cynthia how you went and how you found your experience of blogging for the very first time? I've found it very difficult and I think that's because when I write an opinion piece, I usually have a burning issue that I really want to write about and when you're sort of based under pressure and having to make sense of something that you haven't really had that time, whether it's in a shower or somewhere else, to sort of parlor and think, you know, what I've been so strongly about is it's really hard, it's very hard to do it. So full credit to those people who do it all the time because I don't think it's easy. I'd kind of like to put some illustrations up there that I try to look at how to do it. So I'm sorry that I might not be very careful. What more journalist than an academic? I am more journalist than an academic. Thanks, Cynthia. And again, those of you with the screen in front of you can read through Cynthia's very first blog post which is titled My First Tennis Lesson and I've just entered Wimbledon. So yeah, do feel free to scrutinize and digest that one. Shiro, how do you go? Okay, I know what you're saying, but it's hard to just blog with a timeline because when I write something, I do write around an issue that I want to write about, maybe I've just written a paper or something I've written about before is in the news, that's topical. And I take seriously a day to write a piece, half a day short, on average probably a day. They take a long time to write, so doing this in 40 minutes is pretty rough. I think I covered most of the elements, well, more than half of the pineapple in there at the end. I got this, can you see that? Sexy picture from BBC to do with the orgy. See, it's all right. Yeah, that's about it. Thank you. Thanks, Shiro. For those of you who should be able to make that out there, it's a somewhat busty silhouette against the Chinese flag as the BBC's icon for that particular news story. And now, to turn into Graham. I think Shiro is far too modest. He's learnt the first law of blogging, put sex in it and it'll be a bit more history. And Graham, how did you find your blogging today? Fine, I suppose, I spent many decades doing radio. And radio is proof positive of the line that ignorance has never any barrier to Germans. And can you talk us through a bit of what you actually did with your approach to ignorance and journalism today? Well, when in doubt, illiterate. So I started with a bit of illiteration. Okay, wonderful. Wonderful. All right, well that gives you all a bit of a flavour for how our different master bloggers have done. Do we have any new comments for the comedy world? No, we have some tweets up on the screen. Kudos to the master bloggers Impressive Innovative Cool. Asia Pacific Master Blogging Challenge has finished. Who will win? A sick question on my mind too. Who will win? And we'll come to that in about three or four or five minutes time. In the meanwhile though, I think it'll be nice if we did just get some reactions from the audience. Okay, be nice if you all told the master bloggers a bit about what you think they've done here for us today. Let me bring up a piece of it. Is it a stressful to understand? Okay, so the question is, was it as stressful as MSN? I don't have a hundred and something people watching me when I'm working for MSN. It's a little bit stressful, yeah. Absolutely, I think it is stressful. It's very brave of our master bloggers to come here. Very few of us would ever be in a situation where we actually have our screen being put up on a big screen for a hundred other people to really actually do it again. That's really quite a confronting situation. So kudos to everyone. Any other comments or questions for our master bloggers? Well, just as someone who doesn't follow many academic blogs or anything, I want to say congratulations to the organisers and the bloggers because you're definitely inspired by me to kind of go out there and look it up because it seems to be a really exciting thing. So thank you. Okay, great. Thank you very much for that. To me, that's very exciting. Just being involved in this, to me my main objective is just to say to you, you can do it. You can employ. It's not that difficult. My experience with students, too, is that often people get tied up in the writing block and they try to work on a chapter and they try to write a program. They just write a short blog post, put it out there and see what comes back. And often it gets people's ideas down, just the responses you get. So I really, really encourage you, who both as an academic or as a student, just make part of the normal writing practice. I think it doesn't have to reduce the amount of other writing you do and increases it. Thank you very much. Thanks Andrew. Sure. Yeah, as all researchers, we probably know that if you publish a paper in a journal, you know, it doesn't, people may read it, may not read it, you know, you might get five people reading. If you take the main points you find is put it on a blog, your own blog, or link to a much bigger blog over the mornings, you know, it automatically gets a thousand people having all that. So I think it's definitely a good idea. It should be part of your outreach, your research. It's a no-brainer. Great. Thanks, Andrew. Yeah, I'd agree with that. I think one of the stories that I like in it reflects back, I suppose, on my way I think about writing is about Remington's or all of Eddie's. But people who think about typewriters as that process, one of my great favourite columnists in the years gone by was a guy called James Reston who wrote for The New York Times. And Reston was not writing his column for a month because The New York Times was on strike. And a friend bumped into him in Washington and said, why are you looking so absolutely bereft and lost? And Reston, I thought, came up with a classic journalist's line, which was, how do I know what I think until I see what I write? And I think that's what this is all about. Thanks, Brian. We have another comment from the audience. Actually, initially, just a few weeks back, I think four or five weeks back, I was inspired to blog by seeing one of the lecturer blog. Then I started my blog, but I didn't know how to do it. And I seek support with one of my IT colleagues who's doing a PSG in UDS. And then from there, I learned to blog. And I'm writing and I'm posting to an integrated blog as well. And whoever asks me, integrating to my film, I link to them and go and see, visit like that. But really this time that I've been blogging has, again, another insight and also the lesson that we can even blog among the enemies of all. And I mean, get to learn more about the, I mean, in our own field or can get other insight, other inputs in a really good way. Thanks a lot for organizing this massive blog. Thanks. Thank you. Our pleasure. We have another comment from the start. Are any very fine comments from the audience? So it's now one of them. One over here. Okay. Yes. Thank you. Some to the comment here. We can take another couple of comments. It's 12.15. We're breaking from lunch at 12.30. And in the meantime, we will have an opportunity to decide on the Agents in the last blog of 2011. And we'll come to how we're going to do that precisely in the next few minutes. I was just wondering, as an academic, I came from a science background and I know that research is something that's really held close to his chest. So how do you go about putting your ideas out on the website? I worry a lot of people will steal your ideas and talk to themselves and there's no way to hold them accountable. Great. Thank you so much. There's going to be some interesting responses to that. They will need to be brief. Andrew, what's your field? I think the best insurance is to have ideas so eccentric. No, I'm not. Works for me, so. And to Andrew. Cynthia, how would you approach that as a journalist? Do you think that academics should be cautious about getting their ideas out to the wide audience? Well, I can't say I have any personal experience of that and it's, you know, it's recently taken an issue to start to weigh out. You know, you spend so much time on your research and it means so much to you. You know, what's the point on the shooting, Cheryl, and other people and I guess that there are risks involved, but I think that's a job that we have to make. Thanks, Cynthia. Cheryl? Yeah, I'm not so worried about people stealing my ideas or anything. I'll be more, I mean, the benefit far outweighs the cost, I think, of getting your ideas out there quickly before anything else, especially if it's, you know, something on the Asian Pacific or something very topical that you're working on or if you have a finding in science. I mean, if you put that up there, it's dated, you know, someone copies it and can sort of point to the fact that, well, I've found this first. So, yeah, I'm not too worried about it. I think we should do too much and you don't want to give away everything all at once and, yeah, you might want to pay them some stuff. I don't have a problem with that. Great. Thanks, Cheryl. And what about you, Graeme? Do you think that there are real risks here for academics or are there the opportunities outweigh those? Yeah, I suppose there's a, when you're talking about two different things, aren't you? You're talking about research and you're talking about what you call publishing. I mean, I think you're probably talking about two different parts of the field. And I think I can theoretically understand what you're saying about the importance in your research. I suppose I come from a game where, you know, one incident is an anecdote and two incidents are statistical evidence. So, you know, the research side of what journalists do is sometimes not quite as rigorous as what you guys do. But the beauty, I think, of this sort of stuff is that you can actually publish as you go and actually make more, lay more claim to the field as you're going through it. And I would have thought from dealing with academics over the years that that issue of publishing in some ways might be a little less than it once was. You know, you don't necessarily have to do everything to appear a view. You can actually put some stuff out there. And it's always amazing what you get back. The real fun part I often find is the starting point is what you put out there, but often the really interesting stuff is what you get back. Great. Thanks, Graeme. I think that's a very nice note on which we will end our effort to get some conversation going between you, the audience, and our panel of master bloggers. There seem to be a range of tweens that have also come in here. Profound wisdom for Graeme. How do I know what I think until they write? And, of course, this question that lingers over the entirety of our proceedings today, who will win? The game is the winner. The game is the winner. Every master blogger is a winner. But if you're so inclined, what we have the opportunity to do now, courtesy of some very, very smart Australian scientists is an opportunity to actually determine, by audience vote, the agent civic master blogger 2011. So the way that this works is that you can either ring the numbering question from an Australian blogger, or you can send an SMS with the two final red digits. So that's 96% beyond 97% for Shira, 98% for Graeme, or 99% for Andrew, to the number up on the screen. I think this is a free charge from Australian mobile phone numbers. So there should be no dramas for you. I actually think you could also vote as many times as you like. So that old age vote early to vote off. And vote with both hands. That's all you get, busy time. All you get is a busy tone, and here we're seeing the votes go up on the screen. You don't need the 6-1, we don't need the 6-1. You don't need the 6-1. Stop voting Andrew. How many phones has Andrew got? I think I'll put up an additional post if anyone's interested. Okay, so Andrew's put up an additional post, which we can now have a look at on the screen over here. While we're doing that, we have our master blogging audience, popularity contest, which is a tourney who's done best. Andrew's installation is a shower. Also for those who would like to see his other episodes today. We've had 13 votes so far, Andrew's still in front. We're going to close down the voting in just over two minutes. So for those of you who'd like to vote, those of you who've written an Australian phone, who do you have? People haven't actually read the question. If you'd like to share your phone with them, please do so. It's pretty neck and neck, isn't it? Come on, since you've got a phone. Come on, Michael, come on. If you've actually read any of the blog posts today, that's not bad, it's about a third of the audience. I've read at least some of the blog posts. Come on, keep voting. Okay, if you're voting, you're going to get the most this year. You should stop it now. She raised the distance. You've got about a minute to go. Oh, yes, come on. Go, Cynthia. Go, Cynthia, come on. Come on, Cynthia, we want Cynthia. Come on. We've got a lot. Take the phone off Andrew to start. Go, go. Yes, I did. Come on, go, go, Cynthia. Time is up now. This is an information provided by some very clever Australian scientists who have worked out a way to make this happen. It does appear as though somebody is still voting, but you have finished our survey, and Sam, we're now going to be in a position to see the very final panel that's coming up on the screen. 200 votes. This is actually a tie election. Hang on, where's my envelope? I didn't realise we were doing it to tie rules. Thanks, Brian. 2011 Master Blogging Challenge, no old bar, no rules, except you had to use the assigned beer. Our master bloggers have showered themselves in glory. I think that the audience is somewhat a vibe of which approach they refer to this kind of master blogging event, but I think what we've all seen is an absolutely stellar effort by our four master bloggers. They've taken time out of their very busy schedules to be with us here today, and I think they all deserve a very hearty round of applause. Thanks for our appreciation. Before we get to those, it gives me great pleasure to allow those master bloggers who came in behind our leader today with their tiaras, which have been very specially organised for the event. So thank you very much. There you go. Thanks, Graham. Thank you, Shiro. Thank you very much. You're the green one. The green one and the shiro. The green one and the shiro. And for you, Drew, you have our belt. With an eagle and a star, this is... I'll just have to read it to you. He reads, World Wrestling Champion. 2011, 2016. I think we're in mix. And we also have a bowl of wine for each of our master bloggers, Graham, Shiro, Cynthia. Thank you all. That wraps it up for the 2011 Asian Pacific Master Vlogging Challenge. You've been a wonderful audience. Thank you for taking this seriously, but not too seriously. And thank you also for giving so much wonderful support to all of our master bloggers. Thanks again.