Origin story

When I was a PhD student, my Faculty sent all the tutors along to a 2-day professional development course focused on how to run tutorials and write lectures.

Obviously it was much-needed and super helpful - this isn’t a standard part of academic training.

I’m sure I learned a lot, but the quote I can still recall nearly 20 years later related to the importance of not loading too much superfluous information into a lecture.

The presenter told us it was crucial to distinguish between what was ‘need to know’ and what was ‘nice to know’ about a given topic.

We learned to share the ‘need to know’ first up - then add the ‘nice to know’ if there was time.

In my current work as an academic, I don’t lecture much, but I do a lot of writing and presenting for specific audiences: other media researchers, health professionals, and general news audiences.

This content is also - by necessity - crafted around ‘need to know’ (bolstered with empirical evidence, or pop culture examples).

For the last decade or so, my ‘nice to know’ - and my half-baked ideas - have lived on social media posts. But I started to share these thoughts less and less through the Melbourne COVID lockdowns.

Why here, why this, why now?

Now the social platforms are beginning to implode, it seems like a good time to experiment with an older form of mediated sharing - the old school blog.

Most folks who blog these days seem to use the newsletter format. Often these are monetised, but they don’t have to be.

I really enjoy Seb Chan’s Fresh & New (for example), because it feels closest to ye old blogging platforms like Livejournal.

I also love Charlie Jane Anders newsletter Happy Dancing. Both of Seb and Charlie Jane run their newsletters from the Buttondown platform - so here I am too.

What will happen here?

Honestly, it’s an experiment, so I’m not sure. It will be a not quite work/not quite personal space I think.

I’ll share things I’m reading, thinking and doing - including some links and maybe some reels and memes. Feel free to subscribe if that sounds interesting - or not!