Just a quick note to say that Zumio will be “closed” between 24 Dec 2009 and 4 Jan 2010. While I’ll be checking emails during this time, I may not be as responsive as usual, and blogging is likely to be even lighter than it has been of late.

Hopefully y’all will be having an enjoyable break yourselves :) See you in the new year.

When I read Mick Leyden’s Sitting at perfection station… post on Friday, I have to say it resonated with me.

I certainly think I’ve been doing a lot of that lately, explaining the quietness around here. That, and the fact that I have been really challenged recently to assign the time to keep up with reading etc. – the time I have allocated for “blogging” ends up being “reading”.

In any case, I’m kicking out this post as a start in a more free, less “perfectionist” direction…

As some of you may know I’ve been working with the folks at the Inspire Foundation on a contract basis for some time (since October last year) specifically focused on their recently re-launched Reach Out service in Australia, and soon overseas.

Zumio provided and managed the development team over most of that period – and the launch effort explains a good part of my silence here and on Twitter of late. (I hope to post more on the re-launch soon…)

During my time on the project the team at Inspire asked me if I’d be interested in joining the team on a more permanent basis to work with them to help develop Inspire Digital, a social venture established within the Foundation with the dual goals of further developing some of the Foundation’s services and also to provide consulting services to other organisations where there is alignment in mission to Inspire’s broader goals.

I recently accepted Inspire’s offer and as of today have commenced with them in the role of Head of Social Technology. It is an exciting new role that will no doubt evolve rapidly in the coming months as the venture develops.

Both Inspire and I hope that I can continue to work in the area of social media and networking providing workshop, presentation and consulting services, now under the Inspire Digital banner.

For the foreseeable future I’ll be continuing to blog here about all things social- and web-related (hopefully with a bit more frequency I might add!) – so no need to update any bookmarks. I’m looking forward to sharing the new adventure with you :)

Zumio is proud to support the Australia Tibet Council (ATC).

I feel truly blessed that the last four donations I’ve made are to organisations I have a personal connection with through friends and colleagues. ATC is no different – my long-time friend Ashley Brown and his wife Tahne are very heavily involved with the organisation.

Both they and the volunteers and staff at ATC have done a tremendous amount of work to increase awareness of Tibetan culture in Australia, including participating in the organisation of visits by the Dalai Lama, as well as advocating for the human rights and democratic freedoms of the Tibetan people.

This included last years team up with GetUp on the Olympic Silence is not Golden campaign.

Please consider supporting ATC so that they can continue their good work.

For those that don’t already know, each quarter Zumio donates 1% of nett profit before tax to progressive causes. ATC is the recipient for the Oct-Dec 2008 quarter.

Happy new year everyone! I hope y’all enjoyed a bit of a break over the holiday period. I enjoyed some time off in Queensland visiting family and friends, then a few days of R&R in Sydney to celebrate the arrival of another new year.

Today I’m “unofficially” back to work – though I’ll be easing into it, kicking off “officially” on the 7th. But I at least have a moment to blog – which is a nice change ;)

Which is to say it’s been mightily quiet around these parts of late (in part due to my time away) – my apologies. I’ve been busy with work and personal projects which has meant blogging, outside of “recent links” and presentation posts, has been pretty light on.

Hopefully in the coming weeks I’ll be able to get a bunch of posts that have been waiting dutifully on the back-burner up and out into the world. But of course, that all depends on how crazy things get – so we’ll see…

Suffice to say I’m looking forward to what’s in store this year – if last year is anything to go by it’ll be a corker :)

Just a quick note to mention that this space is going to be quiet over the next week or so as I am on holiday until 31 March.

I’m excited to announce (publicly) that I’m now setting out on my own as a freelance online consultant and web developer :)

I’ll be continuing to work at Digital Eskimo until the end of March 2008, at which point I’ll be available to take on new projects.

I’ve set up this blog as a place where I can talk about my work and related issues such as web standards and social media & networking. I’m just getting started, so there’s not a lot to see right at the moment, but I do hope that you find the posts to come interested and/or useful.

I plan to post some case studies, as well as provide more information about the services and skills I have to offer in time.

In the meantime, you might want to check out the about page where I’ve got a bit more info about my background, or perhaps peruse some posts I’ve previously written on related topics over at my personal blog.