The other week I was down in Hobart for a show with my heavy electronics group Dead Boomers and – of course – amongst the indulgences of consuming local produce and catching up with friends there was an extended visit to MONA, the Museum of Old and New Art.

I have no desire to go into all the ins and outs of what MONA means, I think we’re all familiar with David Walsh’s temple to sex and eath. Plus, far wiser and more articulate voices than mine have already done that.

What I did strike me, as I contemplated what to say about the new exhibition, Theatre of the World on last week’s DIY Arts Show, was the idea of a singular and private vision and the impact that has a city and cultural communities.

Without a doubt, MONA has provided a focal point for the arts world. There isn’t another venue or collection like it in Australia (dare I say, the world) and everyone from the artisticly literate to the curious are drawn like moths to a flame. But alongside this obvious economic benefit to Tasmania through tourism, MONA seems to have had a positive effect on the local community.

As far as I can see, the Museum has for the most part been embraced by Hobart, with opposition and public outcry minimal. That isn’t too surprising, given how, err, strange Tasmanians are. I thought it was interesting to think about the effect of this incursion into public space.

But on the art:

Theatre of the World occupies the bottom level of the gallery. It’s a separate, curated exhibition, but seamlessly presented amongst the rest of the evolving permanent collection, Monanisms.

It was great to revisit some both the space – which is something to behold in itself – and works that stuck with me on my first visit: Wilfred Prieto’s empty ‘White Library’ is still a standout to to; as is ‘My Beautiful Chair’, an interactive installation by Greg Taylor chronicalling the final moments of an assisted suicide.

But I think MONA’s strength lies not just in the works themselves, but the manner of their presentation.

It’s about the engagement of the work within the space, not it’s position in the artistic canon. It’s an interesting concept and one that I – ignorant as I am of the various ins and outs of art history – am partial to. With no signage to distract you, you can experience the pieces in your own way. Of course the mobile device they give you (The O) can provide any info you want with the tap of button. I preferred to consume this after returning home.

This idea of reducing the barriers between the viewer and the works puts the Gallery’s physical space well and truly into frame. You can quite literally get lost in the museum, meeting up with friends some hours later to compare notes and go in search of the pieces you’ve missed.

The strongest reactions I had were to works that utilized light, partly, I think, because they draw the architecture and the space into the work, (literally) bouncing off it and shaping it.

An untitled work by German artist Kitty Klaus (the image at the top of this post) was particularly arresting. With four simple light sources a dense landscape on the four walls of a small antechamber is created. It felt to me like a cityscape devoid of people (as they often are in architects, planners and artist’s visions). It resonates beautifully to the 60s sci-fi nature of the Museum’s design and projects a sense of melancholy that really resonated with me.

It’s interesting that these are the sorts of dystopian references that come to mind with MONA, because the space itself is heavily populated with people and a hive of activity and excitement. This private monolith; a self described activity in enhancing Australia’s cultural life and egoism is a hub for a community – tourist and local, art aficionado and Luddite alike. However much of that was intended, it’s a beautiful outcome.

For a private temple of a seemingly anti-social eccentric, MONA has created a home for a community. It’s interesting that it took a personal undertaking rather than a public initiative to create it. Well worth the $20 entry fee they slug you for being from the mainland.

(Images from the MONA website)

Yesterday, Hugh Evans gave a keynote address at the 2012 Rotary International Convention in Bangkok. Speaking in front of 35,000 Rotarians from around the world, Evans’ urged them to mobilise and maintain pressure of world leaders to funding the fight to eradicate polio.

While video of the presentation hasn’t yet been posted, special mention needs to also be made of Alex Flowers’ animation work. His contributions brought the speech to life, augmenting Hugh’s impassioned delivery.

Below is the complete text of his speech.

—

It’s a great honour to be here today at the Rotary International Convention. I’ve long admired Rotary – for the work you do, and the way you do it. 1.2 million members in over 200 countries, all galvanised around the idea of ‘Service Above Self’.

What impact that motto has – a conviction that individuals, working together, can change the world.

My first encounter with Rotary was in 1997, when at the age of 14 I found myself preparing to head off to the Philippines to spend time in the slums of Manila.

The trip was organised by World Vision. I’d been able to raise significant funds through the 40 Hour Famine and was rewarded with the chance to see their work on the front line.

Unable to afford the journey on the savings from my paper-round, I turned to my local Rotary Club in North Balwyn for help. There I found not only the financial assistance I needed, but also the support and encouragement of an inspiring group of people who saw the value in a young person widening their worldview. I’m not sure I’d be standing here today if they hadn’t stepped in.

In Manila, I was taken to Smokey Mountain – a makeshift community built on and around a massive rubbish dump; where the very infrastructure of this community revolved around scavenging.The children literally ran after the garbage trucks to find pieces of food and things that they could recycle.

It was about as far from the comfort of my suburban Australian life as you could get.

That night I was placed in the care of a boy my own age, by the name of Sonney Boy. We were both 14 years old, but where I’d come from suburban Melbourne, Sonney Boy had tattoos all over his forearm as he was about to become his gang leader and that was his form of initiation. That night he took me to his house and we cooked a meal together with some food that I’d brought with me.

Coming from Australia I was so naïve. I thought we’d be going to some kind of bedroom to go to sleep. When it came time to go to sleep we simply cleared away the pots and pans on the ground and lay down on the concrete slab about the size of half of my bedroom – myself, Sonney Boy and the rest of his family, seven of us in a line.

I’ll never forget lying there that night, with the smell of rubbish, and cockroaches crawling around us. I didn’t sleep a wink that night.

If there is one moment that has the ability to change someone’s life forever, that was mine.

To those of you who’ve been exposed to abject poverty, you know – once you’ve have seen it, experienced it, endured it – you can’t pretend it doesn’t exist. You’re forced to confront an uncomfortable truth: the poor – those living on less than a dollar a day – are people just like you and I who deserve the same universal rights and opportunities we take for granted.

I was no different from my friend. It wasn’t fair that by virtue of the country in which I was born, I had access to the basic necessities of life, which Sonney Boy did not.

After I returned home statistics took on meaning: twenty-one thousand children dying every day from preventable diseases. These were no longer just facts in news reports. I’d seen the human face of it and to be honest, at that age, I felt helpless and disillusioned.

That’s when I came back to Rotary’s idea of ‘Service Above Self’.

When we focus on the needs of others, our own burdens become lighter. Our perspective sharpens. The world doesn’t need to be this way.

This idea – the same one that drives you as Rotarians – guides our work at the Global Poverty Project.

We don’t have to stand idly by and lament the horrors of extreme poverty. We don’t have to just accept the statistics. Like Rotary, we believe that the mass mobilisation of individuals can affect real change in the world.

Today, I’d like to share with you some of the things we’ve been doing and what our plans are for the future.

It’s been an incredible journey to where we are now. It began back in 2006 when Dan Adams, John Connor and I put on the Make Poverty History Concert, a free event held in Melbourne to coincide with the G20 Summit.

The idea was to reach out and campaign for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, the United Nations’ eight-point plan to halve the number of people living in extreme poverty by 2015. We had a whole bunch of great Australian artists that no one outside our borders had ever heard of.Then one day our dream for a concert of global significance became a reality…

Bono from U2 called – and everything changed.

The event went on to become the largest ever youth run concert in the history of Australia. The following year’s Federal election led to the Zero Seven Road Trip and a campaign to increase Australia’s foreign aid to 0.7 per cent of GDP.

Simply asking the government wasn’t going to get a result, we needed to prove that this was an issue that resonated with the electorate.

Working with our partners we mobilised people all over Australia. We even lit up the Sydney Opera House to spread the message.

And we did it. Just before the election, the incoming Government announced an addition $4 billion dollars in aid for the world’s poorest countries by the year 2015. Make Poverty History showed us what was possible when people were galvanised around an issue.

Our work came to the attention of Salil Shetty at the United Nations who wanted to help us get our message around the world. With his backing we created the Global Poverty Project, an educational and campaigning organisation that activates citizens to be a part of the global movement to end extreme poverty.

We developed the 1.4 Billion Reasons presentation as our key tool for not only raising awareness, but as a way of showing how individuals – through what they learn, say, buy, give and do – can help bring an end to extreme poverty.

We are not asking for your money, we’re asking for your action.

To date, 1.4 Billion Reasons has been seen by more than 110,000 people. Taking this journey to the next level, we wanted to show our supporters what life is like for the 1.4 billion. So we developed Live Below The Line, an annual event where participants attempt to eat on less that $1.25 a day for five days. The campaign raises both understanding of extreme poverty and funds for health and educational projects across the developing world. By plugging the campaign into social media, participants and supporters share their progress with their networks, extending the message’s reach.

So far, we’ve established annual events in the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand, with over 10,000 people raising over $1.6 million annually. We haven’t done this alone. All of these activities have been conducted in partnership. No single organisation can tackle these problems in isolation. We need to work together.

This is something we were aware of last year when we joined with Rotary in the fight to eradicate polio. But more on that later.

As Rotarians, you know all about the power of cooperation and working together. The incredible, sustained effort of the global fight against polio – started by Rotary – has led us to one hopeful, promising statistic.

The number of polio cases around the world has been reduced by 99 per cent.

This will be just the second time in history that we have achieved such a feat. Humanity did it with smallpox and you’ve been working for almost 25 years to do it with polio.

There’s just that last one per cent to go.

It’s worth remembering that in the 1980s, while polio was safely in the past in places like the United States, the disease was still endemic in 125 countries around the world. 350,000 new cases were being reported each year — most of these in the developing world.

Since Dr Salk created a vaccine for polio in 1954 we’ve had the tools to strike this disease from the map – and in much of the developed world, we did.

Upon introduction in the US, it didn’t take long before polio was a thing of the past. In the UK the picture is much the same. In Germany … Canada … Australia … Japan … even here in Thailand. The widespread fear and panic that once swept entire nations was now nothing more than a historical footnote.

So thorough was the campaign that many believed the disease had been completely annihilated. But the luxury of that belief did not extend to the developing world, where polio retained a deadly stranglehold on the world’s poorest citizens.

In 1985, Rotarians responded by quietly implementing a vaccination program, the first people to picture a polio-free world. Three years after the launch of PolioPlus, the international community took note and the largest public-private health campaign the world has ever seen was born: the Global Polio Eradication Initiative.

The initiative brings together Rotary, the WHO, CDC, UNICEF and others.

In just two and half decades, this unprecedented immunisation effort has brought together 20 million volunteers and raised more than US$8 billion. The result: 2.5 billion children have been immunised. The number of endemic countries has been reduced to just three.

This year we had a historic success, with India going a full year without a single polio case. The country, arguably the toughest technical challenge for polio eradication has been removed from the list of endemic countries.

This huge achievement leaves no doubt that a polio-free world is now within close reach. Yet, as we saw in 2010, with resurgence in six countries, if polio exists anywhere, it is a threat everywhere.

Containment of polio is not an option.

Eradication is the only solution

It sounds easy, doesn’t it, one per cent? Such a small number. And in the light of what’s already been achieved, it shouldn’t be a big deal, right?

Wrong. I say today unequivocally, this last per cent will be the hardest of them all.

The UN reported yesterday that the global polio eradication effort faces the largest funding shortfall since its inception. To fund the fight we need governments to follow the unwavering example set by Rotarians and strengthen their commitment.

When Bill Gates addressed this convention last year, he called on us to act, to pressure our governments to contribute $400 million. Standing here today, the programs funding shortfall, for this and next year, is over one billion dollars.

The sheer scale of the resources required, in the timeframe they are needed, means that civil society and Government have to work together on this. We need to urge our governments to meet this urgent funding shortfall.

We’ve come so far; to falter now would undo decades of progress, and condemn hundreds of thousands of children to a preventable fate. At every step of the way – from the discovery of Salk’s vaccine, to the founding of the GPEI – advocacy, collaboration and the mass mobilisation of people have provided the means for progress.

In the 1930s it was the March of Dimes, which funded the scientific research that ultimately led to Salk’s vaccine. Next came Rotary, which mobilised its global membership base to begin coordinated vaccination programs in parts of the world previously ignored. And most recently, Bill Gates – both in funding contributions (now more than $300 million annually) and in advocating for governments and other donors around the world to step up their commitments.

This is an immense history and we at the Global Poverty Project are total newcomers to the eradication effort.

But why did we get involved in the first place? Because polio and poverty go hand in hand.

Polio keeps the poor, poor, and perpetuates the cycle of poverty. The costs of rehabilitation, treatment, and the loss of productivity that flows from this incurable disease have enormous economic and social impact. If we can eradicate this disease we’ll be one step closer to our goal of ending extreme poverty.

It was our Australian Country Director, Wei Soo who first joined the dots between the fight to eradicate polio and the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting last year, where over 50 leaders would gather in Perth, Western Australia.

In conjunction with Rotary and other partners, we formulated our campaign.

Australia’s contributions had been sorely lacking, so we called on the government to increase its funding to $50 million, and put polio on the agenda for the upcoming meeting of Commonwealth leaders.

We knew from past experience that for this to be effective we had to demonstrate demonstrable public support. We focused our energies on The End of Polio concert, held on the eve of CHOGM.

The concert allowed us to spread the message about polio through the mainstream media, who otherwise would not have covered the story. We worked with partners across the country. Key among them was the Rotary Club of Crawley in Perth – some of whom are here today. They matched every petition with a donation of one dollar to the PolioPlus fund. At the concert they proudly handed over a cheque for $20,000.

The impact created by this campaign led to new funding commitments at CHOGM by Australia, Canada, Nigeria and the Gates Foundation totalling $118 Million.

These were great results and we were proud of the small part we played, but there is still much more that needs to be done.

We need to maintain this effort.

Over the course of this year we’re ramping up our awareness and fundraising activities in partnership with Rotary. We’re establishing local operations in Canada and other G8 nations to campaign those governments to pledge further funding and mobilise other donor countries to do the same.

All this will build to the 67th UN General Assembly in September, where we will call on Governments to commit to polio eradication.

As world leaders converge on New York we will stage a global festival, a 60,000-person concert drawing together thousands of campaigners and supporters. Polio eradication will be centre stage at this monumental event.

However, there is an immediate need for action.

In a matter of weeks the World Health Assembly will meet in Geneva to vote on the global priorities for the coming year. At this meeting they will consider a resolution to declare polio eradication a programmatic emergency.

While this sounds bureaucratically inconsequential it is actually one of the most powerful launching pads we have for mobilising governments to take action. This means that 194 health ministers and countries will have committed to polio eradication.

Now we’ve got to make sure they follow through.

We, the voting electorates of our countries, need to let our governments know how important this emergency – and the funding required to address it – truly is. We need to send world leaders a direct message that this resolution needs to be backed with ongoing funds and global commitment.

To do this we need to mobilise.

There are 35,000 of us here today. That’s a massive start.

You’ve all done so much already. You were the start of it all. You spurred the international community to action and have remained at the forefront of the effort: travelling the world to perform immunisations and raising over $1 billion dollars.

It’s no time to stop.

I call on all of you to send your Health Minister a message ahead of the Geneva meeting. Add your names to the chorus. Share this call to action with your families, friends and colleagues and encourage them to lend their voices.

For it was PolioPlus Chairman Dr Robert Scott who said:

“Polio eradication hinges on vaccine supply, community acceptance, funding and political will. The first three are in place. The last will make the difference.”

Let’s ensure we have political will.

Our voices cannot be ignored.

We have the tools at our disposal and the plans in place. We just need the will to end it.

Let’s finish the fight you started in 1985.

We’ve got to act now, and we’ve got to act together.

Thank you.

The question of how to manage gentrification has pre-occupied me for some time. On the one hand, it’s beginnings enhance the amenity of a district. On the other, the seemingly unstoppable process inevitably destroys that amenity.

The rise of new small and independent businesses — cafes, restaurants, bookstores, and my favourite, record stores — in neighbourhoods usually once considered ethnic ghettos is very appealing. These businesses cater to the influx of usually young people, brought there by cheap rents. The cultural regeneration and integration that occurs when the old and traditional sit side by side makes for an interesting and diverse place to live and spend time. Neither has complete control over the character of their area.

This lack of supreme control may be the amorphous ‘X’ factor; the key to the code of why these areas are what they are. No one can have everything the way they would like it.

This golden period only lasts so long. As sure as night follows day, every idyllic hamlet that transforms itself into a unique and desirable destination is overtaken by the human and fiscal tidal wave of new residents and investors wanting a slice of the life (and profits) contained in the area.

Property prices and rents in these once undesirable locales rise with the demand, pushing out the traditional residents until all that is left are the shinning, design-led buildings and inner-urban middle-class amenity that seems so perfect until actually lived in.

Jonathan Raban wrote eloquently about the effect of supposed ‘ideal paradise’ back in 2008. He was referring to the South Lake Union area of Seattle — a city I’m currently on route to — where a developer-led rejuvenation program gutted a once vibrant and diverse community and began the process of creating an urban planners ideal suburb for “white, twenty-something computer programers”.

On the surface there’s much to like about this idyll. But, as Raban points out, it lacks even a light shading of diversity. It’s diversity that makes cities and urban enclaves great: “the essential element of variety and surprise.”

In thinking about it, I can’t help but come back to the idea of no one entity having ultimate control over an area.

Roban’s piece was written in June of 2008, mere months before the credit markets collapsed in paroxysms and developers found the credit rivers of gold dried up almost overnight. I’m curious to see what has become of South Lake Union while I’m in Seattle this week. Will it have marched on to its monochromatic planning utopia, or will the GFC have necessitated a change of plans and slackening of grip around the urban master plan?

I am constantly thinking about this question of gentrification in relation to my life in Melbourne, and in particular Sydney Road. I like good coffee, I want interesting boutiques to browse, I appreciate an architecturally designed restaurant, and I need a record store that feels like an extension of my lounge room. But I also want a green grocers run by an Italian family, the Mediterranean wholesalers, cheap but exquisite Lebanese food, and a no nonsense place that sells $40 jeans.

It’s tricky.

If lack of complete control is essential to the initial creation of these desirable post codes then it might offer a possible solution: regulate the amount of land that any one person or entity can control. It’s much the same idea as the the media ownership laws we have in Australia (Convergence Review pending) — a single company can only own a limited number of media properties in each market.

I’m well aware of the impracticability of the idea, but I’ve been preoccupied with it during my last 20 hours of flights and stopovers. No one developer could own all the property along a shopping strip, stopping the development of malls. Equally, the construction of gated communities would be prohibited if developers were unable to purchase all the houses in a residential block. This would not prohibit all development — a disastrous idea. It would simply encourage owners interested in preserving the individual (and this is the important part), diverse nature of a neighbourhood. Developers interested in shopping malls and gated residential developments would focus their intentions on other areas more interested in this kind of development.

This of course does nothing to address the inevitable issue of increased rents and rising land prices, but it might go some way to preserving one of the elements destroyed by the onslaught of gentrification.

I’ll be in the United States from this morning until 21 February. I can still be reached via my Australia number (+61 411 055 299) for the cost of a standard call.

For the first two weeks I’ll be on the west coast, so feel free to call anytime during normal Australian business hours. After 5 February, it’ll be best to call in the AM.

I’ll still be fastidiously we’d to my inbox, so anything sent to lt@leiththomas.com.au will be picked up and responded to.

See you all upon my return in late February.

This morning, over breakfast, I gave a presentation on disruptive language to the good folk at Taylor & Grace. Despite lacking the accompanying dialogue, I thought I’d share them here as a brief overview of an essential part of communications.

A ransacked home, a distraught customer and a response that equated to a corporate shrug of the shoulders dropped online start-up AirBnB in the middle of it earlier this year. After fumbling their initial response, the company’s subsequent actions and follow through has provided a textbook example of how to manage crises in the social age.

AirBnB is a site that connects users around the world who have or are looking for short-term accommodation—everything from a couch or a spare room to a whole apartment or villa. It’s kind of like a cross between Facebook and Wotif.com. In fact, you can log in with your Facebook account to avoid creating yet another account. It’s the next step in evolution from Craigslist.

The rise of social enterprises like AirBnB has created a class of consumer who, rather than seeing themselves as purely economic actors in a transaction, consider themselves part of a community. In these environments there are no serious threats because the community is self-regulating and quashes any negative elements. It’s a social version of free market ideology. Trust is given over wholly by many to what is ultimately a marketplace that runs on goodwill. AirBnB definitely falls into this category.

The recent crisis highlights how unprepared for the worst many of these start-ups are.

AirBnB’s initial response—which equated to basically saying ‘not our problem’—was one of an inexperienced business that had never even thought to consider a crisis such as this could occur. To their credit, their follow-up was a text book case for handling a situation such as this – they apologised, put their CEO and founder out as the messenger, and amended policy and procedures within the organisation to address the problem.

They spoke to their audience in the forums they were using and communicated directly with their membership base—how I first became aware of the incident, having used AirBnB to find an apartment while in NYC last year.

All in all, a textbook response, straight out of the pages of crisis management 101. Where AirBnB has shown some initiative is in their follow-up.

Most companies caught out by a crisis follow the well worn path of acknowledgement, acceptance and apology. The better ones will throw in an action of some kind to prevent future instances happening again. Mea culpa complete, case closed, move on.

AirBnB’s response has been refreshing in that they have not seen the case as closed. While their revised response arrested the negative coverage stemming from their initial mishandling of the incident, they haven’t seen the matter as closed. The company has seen this as a real opportunity to address a problem within their systems and has called on their 2 million community of members to let them know what they’d like to see.

In a follow-up post on the AirBnB blog, CEO Brian Chenky laid out phase two of the changes to increase security on the site and laid out a range of possibilities for further improvements, asking members for their feedback before they embark upon a third stage of changes. The company followed that up with the announcement of 40 new safety features, including a $50,000 insurance guarantee against property damage.

This goes beyond the textbook mea culpa to actually demonstrate the company’s commitment to working with their members and maintaining the faith they have in the system AirBnB provides.

A tip of the hat to Steve Jobs—or whoever ghosts his words—for the the wonderfully concise statement last week announcing his resignation as Apple’s CEO. In 153 beautifully clear words the statement communicates the decision, provides details of an established succession plan, offers reassurance he’ll stay on as board chairman, and even gets a little personal message in at the end. The accompanying media release is equally brief.

Jobs doesn’t need to waste words, he knows the media and Apple devotees hanging on his every proclamation will do that—and they did. It was last week’s impossible to miss story across seemingly ever media outlet, old and new.

Amongst the career summaries and editorials on Jobs’ significance and impact was the unearthing of a quotable gem from 1997. Valerie Maltoni, whose work was picked up by PR Daily last week, transcribed a section of a Q&A Jobs did where he offered his thoughts on media relations and its relation to the activities of Apple:

“The press is going to have a lag time. And the best thing we can do about the press is to embrace them, do the best we can to educate them about the strategy. But we need to keep our eye on the prize.

“And that is turning out some great products, communicating directly with our customers the best we can. Getting the community of people that are going to make this stuff successful like yourselves in the loop, so you know everything and is marching forward, one foot in front of the other.

“The press will take care of itself. It’s like the stock price. The press and the stock price will take care of themselves. By the end of this year, it’s going to look quite different.”

This is an attitude more businesses and organisations should take heed of.

Too often the decree to get media coverage comes down from on high, resources are allocated, releases written, pitches made and, ultimately, no results follow. What’s regularly missing is an understanding of the role media coverage plays in an organisation’s communications mix. The thinking is simply: “I’ve decided I want it, I’ve paid for someone to arrange it, so surely the coverage will come.” Complaint ensues with little or no thought given to what the organisation has done to actually warrant media attention.

This thought process treats media coverage as something in and of itself, rather than as a channel for communicating something the organisation has done.

Where is the organisation’s community in this approach? Rather than devoting energy and time to the pursuit of media hits, the focus should be on actually creating something of value for them—be it better products, critical research or insightful industry comment. This can then be distributed via a range of channels, including the organisation’s website, blog, email newsletter and the media.

By all means, keep the media in the loop (you should), let them know what’s happening and build relationships with key players, but keep your energies focused on what your customers or stakeholders actually need. Get that right and not only will media coverage follow, you’ll likely have an engaged and devoted customer and stakeholder base. It’s something Steve Jobs has understood for quite sometime.

The News of the World phone hacking scandal has become a juggernaut, crashing through the once unassailable walls of Rupert Murdoch’s empire of influence and power. What started in 2009 as a case of celebrity maltreatment garnering little serious attention outside media ethics classes was instantly transformed the moment it was revealed the same tactics had been used on a 13-year-old murder victim – not only listening to her messages, but deleting them to clear space so more could be added, leading the family and police to believe the girl may still have been alive.

Public outrage in Britain was swift and thunderous. News International, the subsidiary operating News Corporation’s UK media assets, moved with almost equal speed to contain the damage and minimise the fallout. They took the unprecedented step of shutting the 168 year old publication—the highest selling newspaper in the country—and gave away advertising in the final edition to “good causes“, as well as donating almost 75 per cent of the cover price divvied up between three charities.

All of which failed to ring-fence the issue and contain it to the News of the World. The contagion had already spread to the parent company, killing it’s bid for full ownership of BSkyB and taking scalps both within and without of News Corporation. Nine arrests have been made, two senior members of Scotland Yard have resigned, and PM David Cameron has become embroiled over both his personal relationships with the Murdoch and former News International executive Rebekah Brooks and the hiring of former editor Andy Coulson as his press secretary.

Up is down and black is white for the once all-powerful Murdoch. The former political king-maker can’t seem to find a friend at the moment. Once silent politicians—buoyed by public sentiment—are lining up to issue stern and public rebuke’s (and distance themselves) from the media empire and it’s ageing mogul. On the business side, institutional shareholders are threatening to sue and calls are being made to split the dual chairman and chief executive role currently held by Murdoch. Ex-members of the News Corp stable are lining up for their confessions, stating they knew all along something wasn’t right.

After his appearance before the House of Commons Media, Culture and Sports select committee there was no shortage of commentary on the fundamental power shift that has occurred. Many saw a picture of a boss far more hands off, wielding far less influence over his asset’s editorial content than conventional wisdom had hitherto accepted.

As Jon Stewart pointed on last week on The Daily Show, Murdoch has had “the run of the planet” for several decades.

But has this incident really changed anybody’s beliefs, or merely given politicians the courage (and cover) to say what they’ve always felt? Are the times really changing, or are we just more comfortable acknowledging the reality of our surroundings?

Harry Mount, writing in the UK’s Telegraph (republished in The Age today) admonishes Oxford University Press for bowing to pressure from vocal pedants on Twitter to keep the Oxford comma (also known as the serial comma) in their updated stylebook. It’s an outdated form of punctuation whose time is up, Mount writes.

The Oxford comma is entering that zombie half-life where all dying grammatical rules survive for a while — appreciated only by the prissy and the fussy.

It turned out this was not case, as Media Bistro’s GalleyCat corrected, it was merely a style recommendation from Oxford University’s public affairs department (not the vaunted Press – a separate organisation) on the preparation of media releases. This in itself brings up questions about how much checking The Age does before running four-day-old opinion pieces from other publications, but also raises an interesting point about the use of punctuation to clearly communicate meaning.

Depending on who you ask, I am either a stuff-shirt pedant or a freewheeling anarchist when it comes to language and grammar. It is true that I get irate at unnecessary and incorrect use of exclamation marks and visibly shudder at newly minted web-centric phrases, such as ‘infographic’, ‘webinar’ and ‘twitterverse’.

You’ll note the deliberate absence of the Oxford comma in that last sentence. This is the point where I am in absolute agreement with Mr Mount. It’s utterly unnecessary for such a short list, adds nothing to the understanding of the sentence, and distracts the readers by breaking their flow.

See what I did there?

While I agree with Mount, that the Oxford is superfluous for a compilation of single word or brief items, this much maligned comma fulfills an important role in more descriptive lists – such as in the previous paragraph. In this case the Oxford adds to the readability of the sentence and helps effectively convey its message. After all, the purpose of language, with all its attendant rules of grammar and punctuation, is to communicate information. Be it for the purposes of poetic and artistic expression or to clearly convey argument and fact.

So, to use the Oxford comma or not? Personally, only at the end of a list of long or descriptive items. More generally, the rule with punctuation should be: whatever punctuation clearly communicates the intended meaning. In this regard the Oxford comma is still a useful punctuational tool and hardly entering the “zombie half-life” Mount describes.

On the subject of pedants, I will leave the last word to the ever articulate Stephen Fry, a modern master of language and its ever evolving nature.

As the end of the financial years lumbers toward us, an unstoppable force of accounting and bookkeeping, the mind invariably turns to tax – and how best to minimise it. The What Is Music? Festival, arguably the foundation of Australia’s vibrant and active experimental music community, has partnered with the Australian Business Arts Foundation to get Deductible Gift Recipient status. This means any donations made to Festival work as a tax write-off.

From the What Is Music? website:

After a year’s hiatus, What Is Music? has secured essential funding from the Australia Council to bring the Festival to Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne this year. However, further funding is still needed to ensure the Festival can offer a vibrant and challenging program.

There are many opportunities that are not realised due to the combination of limited resources and the logistical challenges faced traversing a country as expansive as Australia. In particular, the ability to invite international performers and extend the touring of the Festival to other metropolitan and regional centres.

In an effort to remedy this situation What Is Music? has partnered with the Australian Business Arts Foundation to provide a way for supporters a tax-deductible way of donating to this year’s Festival. Donations can be made to AbaF’s Australia Cultural Fund, which will in pass the donation on to the Festival

The partnership with AbaF is something more and more smaller arts organisations and projects are doing so they can offer tax deductible donations under the Australian Cultural Fund. It’s a fantastic idea, as establishing DRG status independently is quite onerous and beyond the means of most artists. It’ll be interesting to see what the Harold Mitchell-chaired Federal Government review into funding in the arts comes up with.

In the meantime, if you’re looking for a worthwhile home for any spare change you have in the final moments of the 2011 financial year, I would implore you to consider a donation to the What Is Music? Festival. You can do it online via the AbaF site.