#ausvotes #mofo -Social Media Redefining #Ozelection2010 - or not

#ausvotes is surely trending ahead of Oz Fed Election hashtags - although #mofo is definitely cheekier - yet it's only Day 1 of the 31 day of the Australian 2010 federal election campaign . 

And there's #aus2010 #ozelection #election2010 and a host of other hashtags : #environmental #myliberal #openinternet #nocleanfeed - undoubtedly more will emerge.

@JuliaGillardPM opened with #MovingForward, her opening campaign speech on YouTube in the ALP campaign blog - withing hours that hashtag had been shortened Aussie Style to #mofo - which may have other connotations - looking at timeline of its use pre July 17 2010 !

We are invited to connect with Julia by the ALP - and to donate $5 to the campaign - seems to herald the Barack Obama campaign of many many small donations that gave him an unprecedented election campaign war chest. 

The fake Twitter personalities are emerging - as are the personalities seeking to expose the true person eg Tony Abbott Revealed. There's also some fairly ugly personal tweets around that might attract some legal actions if widely circulated in conventional print form

However seems it's not just Facebook or Twitter that is redefining this Australian 2010 Federal Election. notwithstanding the NSW Opposition Leader's Ranga goof - a public broadcast Tweet rather than a private DM - Direct Message.

There are rules around elections and rules of engagement - the big effort currently is getting people onto their correct electoral roll.

The on-line call to make sure you are enrolled to vote in this election is just so unprecedented - Tweets like "if  you're 18 and not enrolled to vote then get yourself enrolled on Monday. No excuses m'kay." And it's being re-tweeted

This election seems to have a really different feel with such community participation in the electoral processes - within 6 hours !

And it's so easy to check you are correctly enrolled - if not then update it - or  if you are a new voter then download the form - fill it in - scan it - and email it back in - they've even included - how to find the right email address for your electorate based on your postcode - with a few helpful hints on avoiding glitches - too easy ... for the digitally well endowed ! And besides - they're even opening up electoral enrolment centres on Sunday July 18 2010 to give everyone a chance to make sure they're enrolled. The Australian High Commission in London has already advised UK based Aussies of early voting dates or how to do a postal vote. With 1.4 million not on the rolls with Australia's compulsory voting system - the effort to get people onto the electoral rolls is stunning.

There are strict rules on electoral how to votes, election pamphlets & posters - contravene them and you risk having them withdrawn. I've been a candidate (successfully) in a few elections and it is just such a trap - even the most experienced in major parties have been caught. What does it mean for a social media context ?

And there are the usual election blackouts of television & radio electronic media advertising coverage several days out from an election ie "This three-day blackout effectively provides a “cooling off” period in the lead up to polling day, during which political parties, candidates and others are no longer able to purchase time on television and radio to broadcast political advertising."  In the 2007 federal election the internet basically circumvented this blackout. 

So how it all pans out #movingforward on the August 21 2010 #mofo election is going to be interesting.

 

 

 

 

Posted via email from kerrieannesfridgemagnets's posterous

July 4 - An Australian Family Celebrating Our American Heritage - inspired by Bill Ives Gumbo family

Cold early July winter nights in Australia - time for a Cajun Gumbo perhaps ? And hey - today is July 4 - American Independence Day isn't it ?

In Australia many of us with family from the UK tend to think mostly of our Anglo Saxon heritage - overlooking the mix - other Europeans eg  the Basque - the Hugenot - plus the Asian - the African-  the Middle Eastern - and also the Americas.

Both my husband and I have American heritage in our family trees - in my case - the details are very very hazy and uncertain - whereas my husband's is more certain - California - from Sierra Nevada via South Africa. So sometimes as a reminder I do like to do some American themed cooking.

Recently I was inspired by Bill Ives as he shared his mother's Cajun Gumbo with Paula Thornton (aka Rotkapchen ) in a post #e2conf Boston Conference convo. I was delighted when he responded to his request for a genuine Southern Gumbo recipe : sharing his 2004 blog post : First Make a Roux - please read it : it is such great knowledge sharing. 

I had done Gumbo's with a Roux once or twice - although more frequently "cheated" without a Roux via a slow cooker approach. If you find risotto's take time - be warned - Gumbo's take much much longer.

Tonight I used Bill's Roux as the base, with a modification of my own Chicken, Andouille & Vegie Gumbo (see below).

I hadn't intentionally done it as a July 4 theme - somehow it just worked out that way after coming across Bill's Gumbo convo's.

Then I did a Twitter search this morning and discovered lots of folks salivating about their Gumbo's.  There seemed to be so many Gumbo themed tweets this weekend - then it dawned ... of course July 4 - I was just so busy and nearly hadn't realised the date. And. in Australia we don't necessarily appreciate that Gumbo is July 4 theme fare in the south around New Orleans Louisiana (NOLA)

I'd googled Gumbo's a few times in the past ..  and it's now been 3 years since I visited Gumbo Town and downloaded its Gumbo pages - but it remained my favourite inspiration ( until I read Bill Ives' post). Here's some Gumbo links to Gumbo Town ....

• Seafood Gumbo
• Chicken & Andouille Gumbo
• not to mention "Making the Roux" : "More than anything else, it's the roux that gives gumbo its particular character. ... A Cajun roux is just flour cooked in fat until it acquires a dark color and a deep, complex, somewhat smoky flavor with nut-like overtones." - I love the advice given by Gumbo Town - great knowledge sharing

 

For the last few years I used the above Gumbo Town pages as inspiration for my own KerrieAnne's Chicken, Andouille & Vegie Gumbo :

Ingredients

1/4 cup Canola oil                                        500gm ( 1 lb) chicken breast chopped small pieces

1/2 cup all purpose aka plain flour                  500gm ( 1 lb) Andouille sausage - sliced 

2 cups chicken stock                                    1 capsicum (bell pepper) chopped finely

2 cans tomatoes (400g size)                          2 tbpsns parsley chopped

2 tbspns Worcestershire Sauce                     2 slices spinach chopped 

2 onions finely chopped                                 optional Tabasco sauce

2 carrots finely chopped                                 optional Jalapeno peppers

1 medium potato diced                                  1 cup Okra chopped

2 sticks celery finely chopped                        1/2 tspn cajun spice

2 zucchini's finely chopped                             1 bay leaf

20 ml crushed (minced) garlic           1 tspn lemon juice                        

shake each of thyme black pepper cayenne pepper ground cumin

Method

1. Make a roux like in Gumbo Town's pages
2. Add stock - slowly - a little in time - stir in each lot
3. Add all other ingredients except spinach and zucchini
4. Simmer gently until vegetables are tender but not mushy
5. Add zucchini & spinach and simmer another 5 minutes
6. Serve over steamed rice

 

Then there's Gumbo Pages : " dedicated to the preservation of New Orleans culture."- I really liked Mark Savoy's Gumbo & the Simple Chicken and Sausage Gumbo

 - not to mention American Government Health Page Chicken Gumbo & About.com's Gumbo pages : for the time challenged there are slow cooker Gumbo's : eg Chicken & Sausage at About.com or the Epicurious slow cooker version.

 

A few more ideas that I discovered during my Twitter search on July 4 2010  ....

• Seafood Craving's Scallop Gumbo
• Healthy Home Recipe's Chicken Okra Gumbo with Sausage
• Karol's Kitchen Seafood Gumbo
• Mahalia Jackson Okra Gumbo
• Myriam's Seafood Gumbo
• Two Silly Yak's Gumbo - suitable for Coeliac's  ?
• Fishing News Daily : Creole Shrimp Gumbo with Duck

 

 

 

 

 

Posted via email from KerrieAnne's Kitchen

Preventing Knowledge Collapse - ARK Knowledge Capture Retention - May 24 2010 - Luke Grange

I found the presentation by @Luke Grange (of Knowledge Solutions) fascinating and in places, taking me well out of my comfort zone - stretching to better understand concepts I'd parked for "later on". Nevertheless, as last speaker of the day, Luke did well to hold the audience's attention and involvement .... nb a couple of weeks after Luke tweeted this clip from Vimeo

Meanwhile, it has taken me a little while to do some reflection and deeper sensemaking of Luke's thought provoking presentation. Especially with respect to the Semantic Web and was Augmented Reality mentioned ?

Communication deficiency was to be a strong Central Theme of Luke's presentation on preventing knowledge collapse - where he highlighted the follow issues

• Lack of Communities of practice - which means problems keep occurring
• Experiencing system limitations – eg for projects this may be the lack of project audit trails
• Breakdown of systems – discovery map
• Intranets & wikis – tend to be unstructured
• Do you need structure ? Data tends to be unstructured ?
• Context matters – fast food vs library - he showed silliness of ordering a burger & fries at local library
• "Normalizing" your document collection – categorizing & taxonomies
• Neuro network(s) – does this make key info more findable ?
• Time relevance to data – microblogging/microsharing helpful here - but constrained as cannot do audit trails of Yammer & Twitter
  

Luke stretched a few at the next point (was late in the day too) : Semantic web leading to ontological aspects :

• I always like to see what Wikipedia has to say on concepts where I am a little hazy eg Ontology aka Information Science
  • " What ontology has in common in both computer science and in philosophy is the representation of entities, ideas, and events, along with their properties and relations, according to a system of categories. "
• And on the Semantic Web ...
  • " The Semantic Web is regarded as an integrator across different content and information applications and systems, and provide mechanisms for the realisation of Enterprise Information Systems. ..... It describes methods and technologies to allow machines to understand the meaning - or "semantics" - of information on the Web"
• To help explain further on semantic web and ontology : Luke showed a video clip of people at a railway station - with everyone talking at each other
• They were all really only in their own space - so not really connecting & conversing with each other and- definitely not providing the help that others were requesting
• He then spoke of searching for information on fishing as another example ...

• • Eg searching for information on Deep sea trawlers vs fly fishing – there are some similarities - but a lot of differences
  • yet how often do we find that when we do a google search - filtering out the irrelevant items to get to the "gold" ?
  • wouldn't it be better if we could get better meaning from our online searching - if behind the scenes info bases & searching could be designed to be smarter - without being too intrusive and threatening privacy and security
  • I guess that's why I really like Delicious Social Bookmarking
    • • ie where I can check on what others, whom I respect, have bookmarked on subjects where I have a common interest - sort of pre-filtered search

Luke then spoke on aspects of Search and Findability of needed Information

Knowledge, convenience and findability (thanks @KerrieAnne) "

- where Kate in turn referenced Nick Milton :

– we often have a hazy idea of what we want to find

– as humans we need "natural language" to ask questions, ie not just "keywords"

– the information we find can lead to building our knowledge base(s)

– but the information we find needs to be further refined

– Folksonomies are one way – use human beings to help categorise information - not just done by "professionals" - Luke showed a Pepsi ad which had us guessing : themes of Marshal arts & a brand on faces

– Luke suggested that as we grow in our understanding, this helps us to refine our query so we can get better discoveries

– so we repeat this process until we get the answer we want eg KerrieAnne's recent searching for testing of radioactive contamination of steel

– We need to feed that info back so others can gain useful / helpful knowledge too eg we can communicate or store info via email or G Drive or wiki

At this point Luke focused on Finding / Searching in context of Knowledge Sharing and Communities :

– We can do this sharing better by actively developing & enhancing participation in formal & informal networks (Luke used Prezi - however here are some of his slides)

there is a blurring between online & offline occurring – the "watercooler environment" is evolving

• • eg Luke and I had shared via Twitter previously but it was at the ARK conference that we had first face to face contact
  • and - likewise many attendees at June 2010 Conference on Enterprise 2.0 in Boston, had tweeted how great it was to meet people in their network face to face for the first time

– Luke mentioned that Online communities starting to meet offline eg at social media breakfasts (also Tweetups etc that occurred at June 2010 Conference on Enterprise 2.0 in Boston) - Clay Shirky also has commented on this

– he argued that it was critical to have face to face time for these online relationships – as the relationship becomes more set in stone - many studies on communities of practice have remarked on this

- also noted that Formal and informal network/channels lines are beginning to blur eg work colleagues talking about their use of email to connect with others in less formal hierarchical manner - they find it less intimidating when they are seeking help or advice to use email vs phone or letter

- referred to Anthony Williams Tapscott 'sWikinomics case study on use ofWOW (World of Warcraft) as a tool for teams

• • More WOW points - peaking using VOIP technology – talk about work related things – however it does have a high authority structure – reflecting mainstream org structures ?

On to Authenticity - marketing focus : crucial to social media - in fact many are talking about this concept of authenticity - too many bots on social media - too much auto-following - is considered especially important in online community marketing & brands

• • eg as explained in this slideshare "authentic brands have a story to tell that people want to be part of" & mentioned Iconic 88 (Chief Happiness Officer ?)
  • interestingly - in June I attended an Illawarra Business Chamber After Hours connects-meet where Rhonda Brighton-Hall (Corp HR & Communication Senior VP of Luxottica, Asia Pacific Africa) spoke on her key points for success : again the "be authentic" message
    
  • there is a lot of echo chamber effects as people re-tweet the same message - it reaches more people eg 6000 ++ in an hour is easily possible - but are all authentic when they tweet or re-tweet ?
  • Luke mentioned a Target of Empathy around this point of his presentation
    
  • Made the Key point : It's not just numbers of followers you have in social media - it’s about Value of those connections
  • recommended Olivier Blanchard on twitter as Brandbuilder (– esp around Oct 29 2009) - more at his blog (Social Media ROI & Prinicipal Characteristics of the New Social Business)
  • I found this interesting following online conv's with an old schoolmate Tim Tyler (& following his daughter's EmmaKate Tyler on her Community Girl blog)

Luke finished with these Key focus areas :

• breakdown of silo’s - increase sharing of knowledge
• interconnectivy – reconnecting company organically with outside world - relationships & sharing of knowledge
• metrics - kpi’s - do matter - but so does Value which can be intangible - not always measurable

Posted via email from kerrieannesfridgemagnets's posterous

KerrieAnnes Lamb Shanks around the Globe at Tony Hollingsworth Request

I've been a big fan of Taste.com for ages and had been adding some of my favourites to their "My Taste" section - where home style cooking foodies can share. The Teenager had insisted I upload some of the favs that were fading fast in my old handwritten notebook.

Too easy, then, to locate some of my favourites I've been doing for years and share with Tony Hollingsworth under his AskTonyFood persona. And there's a lot more of foodie's Lamb Shank favs over in My Taste too !

My preference is to used Frenched Lamb Shanks and they fit better in the slow cooker that way ! 

 

Lamb Shanks - Slow Simmered Lemony

Preparation Time

20 minutes

Cooking Time

120 minutes

Ingredients (serves 4)

• 4 lamb shanks
• 2 teaspoons crushed garlic
• 2 tablespoons plain flour
• salt & pepper
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 medium onions, thinly sliced
• 2 sticks celery, sliced
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 cup of water

Method

 

1. 1. Cut slits in lamb shanks & spoon in crushed garlic

 

 

1. 2. Combine flour with salt & pepper

 

 

1. 3. Coat lamb shanks in seasoned flour

 

 

1. 4. Heat oil in large fry pan & brown lamb shanks all over

 

 

1. 5. Sprinkle with sugar & cook for another 5-7 minutes

 

 

1. 6. Remove from pan

 

 

1. 7. Add onions and celery to pan & fry until onion has softened

 

 

1. 8. Pour off oil from pan

 

 

1. 9. Add lemon juice & water - heat - scraping bottom of pan until boiling.

 

 

1. 10. Replace shanks into fry pan and cover

 

 

1. 11. Simmer gently for 2 hours or until tender - add water if drying out

 

 

1. Serve with liquid from pan spooned over the shanks

 

 

1. Can also add parsnips, swede turnips potatoes cut into chunks

 

 

FRENCH LAMB SHANKS ONE POT

Preparation Time

25 minutes

Cooking Time

120 minutes

Ingredients (serves 4)

• 4 lamb shanks Frenched
• 4 small onions peeled cut into ¼
• 2 tsp garlic crushed
• 2 tsp ginger
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1 tsp cumin
• ½ tsp cinnamon
• 1 large carrot, peeled & diced
• 1½ stalks celery
• salt & black pepper to taste
• ½ cup beef stock
• ¼ cup red wine
• 220g tin tomatoes
• 2 sprigs fresh rosemary
• 8 baby new potatoes
• 
  
• Method

1. PREHEAT OVEN 200 C Fan Forced

2. Place cut onions on base of large baking dish.

3. Add prepared shanks on top & roast in oven for 15 minutes

4. Add garlic, ginger, turmeric, cumin, cinnamon, salt, & pepper.

5. Return to oven for another 15 minutes.

6. Turn shanks over & add carrot & celery & roast another 5 minutes.

7. Pour off any fat. Add stock, wine, tomatoes, rosemary, & potatoes.

8. Cover with foil.

9. Reduce heat to 160 C & cook for a further 60 minutes.

10. Remove foil & return to oven for a further 15 minutes.

11. Turn shanks & potatoes over for a final 15 minutes.

12. SERVING

13. Serve with green peas, garlic bread.

 

Lamb Shanks - Braised

Ingredients (serves 4 - 6)

• 4 lamb shanks
• Plain flour for coating
• 2 tbspns olive oil
• 1 clove garlic - crushed
• 1 tspn oregano - dried
• 1/4 tspn ground black pepper
• 1 cup chicken stock
• 1 tbspn honey
• 1 tbspn lemon juice
• 4 onions - peeled
• 4 carrots - peeled & halved
• 2 stalks celery - quartered
• 2 potatoes peeled & quartered
• 4 tbspns Plain Flour - extra

Method

 

1. 1. Preheat oven to 180-190oC

 

 

1. 2. Wipe shanks with damp paper towels

 

 

1. 3. Coat with flour

 

 

1. 4. Slowly heat oil in large fry pan then brown shanks - occasionally turning all over

 

 

1. 5. Add garlic, oregano, pepper, stock, honey & lemon juice - mix in

 

 

1. 6. Move shanks and sauce to large greased ovenproof casserole or baking dish - cover

 

 

1. 7. Cook for 90 minutes

 

 

1. 8. Turn shanks then add vegetables - recover

 

 

1. 9. Cook for further 35- 40 minutes

 

 

1. 10. Remove shanks to serving plate & surround with vegetables

 

 

1. 11. Measure out 1 1/2 cups of remaining liquid - skim off excess fat & reserve 1 tbspn

 

 

1. 12. Place fat in saucepan - blend with extra flour. Add stock & heat until smooth & thickened

 

 

1. 13. Pour over lamb shanks

 

 

Posted via email from KerrieAnne's Kitchen