What you talkin about 'a cat'??

Speaking of Retro

Speaking of memories and the last post, I found this image while going through my Adobe Lightroom Catalogue, its of a cat asleep in 'cat' heaven. I captured this image on Phi Phi Island off Phuket Thailand in 2002. Go figure?? Absolute luxury and decadence is available for cats here too ;-)

Mungo Tree

Mungo National Park is an isolated national park in the south west of New South Wales about 75 kilometres south east of Pooncarie NSW and 110 km north east of Mildura, Victoria. The main feature of Mungo National Park is Lake Mungo, an ancient dry lake, that dried up about 10,000 years ago. Mungo National Park is most significant for the archeological remains which have been discovered there, the remains of Mungo Man found on the shore of Lake Mungo is the oldest human remains discovered in Australia. These remains were discovered beneath the 'Walls of China', a series of low crescent shaped mounds formed by wind erosion on the South eastern edge of the dry lake. Its along this feature I found a solitary tree in the early 1980's and photographed it with my Olympus OM10 film camera.

Olympus OM10, Olympus Zuiko 50mm f/1.4

This image was entered into a photography contest by me at the Mildura Regional Art Gallery and although it won no prize it was awarded an 'honourable mention'. I have no recollection or record of any camera settings or what the term honourable mention signified.

Manly and the Wormhole

Manly is just 20 minutes from Sydney’s CBD and sits on a peninsula surrounded on three sides by the Pacific Ocean and Sydney Harbour. Manly was so named after the confidence and ‘manly behaviour’ displayed by a group of local Aborigines in Manly Cove by Australia’s first Governor, Captain Arthur Phillip in 1788. Freshwater Beach is the first beach North of Manly on the Peninsular. Harbord was renamed Freshwater in January 2008. There is a tunnel linking Manly and Freshwater beaches which was built and blasted out by some of the Freshwater locals and fishermen. Manly and Freshwater are now connected though the sandstone headland by the cave and a rough walkway. The pathway requires a bit of mild climbing ability but if you are steady on your feet its an easy journey. Source.

From the Queenscliff Headland looking back to Manly

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ ISO 200, f2.8, 11mm, 1/800 sec

The houses blend in with the environment

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ ISO 200, f8, 11mm, 1/2000 sec

Approaching the 'wormhole' you can see the entrance near the centre of the image.

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ ISO 200, f2.8, 11mm, Photomatix Pro HDR

Looking in towards Freshwater Beach

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ ISO 200, f2.8, 11mm, 1 image Photomatix Pro HDR

Inside the Wormhole looking North

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ ISO 200, f2.8, 11mm, 9 images, Photomatix Pro HDR

Looking behind back to Manly

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ ISO 200, f2.8, 11mm, 9 images, Photomatix Pro HDR

The Freshwater end bathed in the morning sunrise

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ ISO 200, f8, 11mm, Photomatix Pro HDR

Sunrise

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ ISO 200, f8, 11mm, 1/200 sec

Some of the locals were quite 'Crabby'!

Nikon D300, Nikkor 70-200mm f2.8 @ ISO 200, f8, 200mm, 1/80 sec

Early morning swim

Nikon D300, Nikkor 70-200mm f2.8 @ ISO 200, f8, 70mm, 1/640 sec

While On A Stroll Today

I snapped these three today while strolling with Hermione on the way to the shops a good 2Km from home and there are a lot of gardens in between, so I took my D300 with the new favorite lens the NIKKOR 35mm f2.

Nikon D300, Nikkor 35mm f2 @ ISO 200, f2.8, 1/8000 sec

Nikon D300, Nikkor 35mm f2 @ ISO 200, f2, 1/8000 sec

Nikon D300, Nikkor 35mm f2 @ ISO 200, f2, 1/4000 sec

Nikon D300, Nikkor 35mm f2 @ ISO 200, f2, 1/3200 sec

Nikon D300, Nikkor 35mm f2 @ ISO 200, f2, 1/6400 sec

Market Research and Social Media

Do you use twitter lists? Twitter Lists are groups you make and is a new way to organise the people you’re following or find new people. Its a way for you to collect together other users on Twitter into groups so that you can get an overview of what they are all tweeting. These Twitter streams give you a snapshot of the list by viewing that list’s page. Lists allow you to organise the people you’re following into groups that make sense to you, and even to add people you’re not following.

This got me to thinking about developing a capability for using social media for market research. The Internet is fundamentally changing how market research and data collection is done. Using social media tools to ask questions is part of a broader trend called crowd sourcing and is tapping into the collective intelligence of the public. Low cost online survey tools like Survey Monkey make it easy to design, and conduct survey research. Even easier is using social media sites and tools to ask questions and bloggers have long used their blogs to ask questions of their audience, but if you don't blog you can still ask questions online.

LinkedIn has a section where users can ask questions and Twitter can also be used for market research in addition to getting a lot of answers and good information if the number of Twitter users following you big enough. Used by companies like Innocentive and Amazons Mechanical Turk which uses crowd sourcing to solve corporate research and other task oriented problems.

New third party services like Brizzly have a fun approach to understanding the world's trends. Brizzly allows you to see why topics are trending on Twitter, and edit their descriptions yourself. No longer wonder why a certain event or company is suddenly in the news.

Speaking of research I have just read a very interesting book, The Abc Of Xyz: Understanding The Global Generations by Mark McCrindle and Emily Wolfinger. With marketers so interested in generational attitudes the book makes the tidy little definition of what a generation is, 'generations are people of a comparable life stage and age who's attitudes were shaped by the same developments, events and trends'. This short synopsis from the publisher "The Abc Of Xyz is designed for educators, business managers and parents who want a brief and useful introduction to Australia's living generations and how they interact. It begins by exploring what a generation is, how its definition has changed, and the trends that are emerging for the future. It goes on to examine specific generational conflict in schools, home and the workplace, and the ways in which they can be understood and resolved. Interspersed with useful tables and figures, the book also offers insights into how our generations compare to their counterparts in Japan, the US and even Finland, and what might lie beyond Z". ISBN: 9781742230351