Goal: Go To Melbourne To Make Things

One trip. Two sub-goals. Make it happen, people.

1. Cover Ruxcon, one of Australia's leading information security conferences, on 22–23 October. We've done it before. Twice. It's cyber. You like cyber. Let's do more cyber.
2. Bring The 9pm Edict's Public House Forum to Melbourne. Not much cyber, but plenty to drink. And it'll keep me out of Sydney longer.

Podcast Things With Sounds In Them

The Public House Forum episode of my irritating podcast The 9pm Edict will be kinda like this one...

There'll also be a post-Ruxcon episiode of Corrupted Nerds, my occasional podcast about "information, power, security and all the cybers in a global internet revolution that’s changing... everything," kinda like this one.

Written Things With Words In Them

Things like these post-conference articles from last time.

• New top-level domains a money grab and a mistake: Paul Vixie
• Take a lead from Turnbull’s ‘forward-leaning’ infosec posture: senior ASD officer
• Australia’s Children’s eSafety Commissioner wants a great human firewall

Your contributions will pay for my travel, accommodation, in-Melbourne transport, and minor incidentals, plus the now-standard $500 per podcast episode as in previous Pozible campaigns.

Target 1: $3100 (short itinerary. Monday forum)

The budget includes: 5 nights accommodation $1140; airport transfers; in-Melbourne transport; podcast production fee, essentially my salary", 2 x $500 = $1000; catering for podcast guests; cost of rewards (10%); Pozible fees, bank transfers, and admin costs (9%).

Since this budget was first posted, the airfares will now be covered by LaTrobe University. A Pozible target can't be changed, so I've added in some catering for the podcast guests (which I'd forgotten). Any other savings will go towards my general living expenses.

You'll get tweets and photos from the conference as it happens. I'll take notes. I'll pitch stories to my usual editors at ZDNet and elsewhere, and I'll record interviews and other material for Corrupted Nerds.

Target 2: $4200 (longer itinerary, Saturday forum)

The key extras are:

• Moving the Public House Forum recording to Saturday afternoon, so more people can be part of the audience, and more pre-production time.
• More time in Melbourne for interviews and recording.

Budget as above, plus: Three nights accommodation $807; additional transport in Melbourne.

Target 3: $5000 (panel recording gear, extra podcast)

Past of my Master Plan has always been the ability to record other people's discussion panels and turn them into podcasts. To do that properly, you need to split out your own microphone feeds and remix it later.

Hit Target 3 and I'll get that gear and, as a trial run, record the final panel at Ruxcon.

I'd need one of these, a mic splitter:

That's a S8-3way which I can get for $428. I'd also need seven 3-metre XLR cables — six to create a six-channel feed from the splitter to my six-channel recorder, and one more to add to my existing five to make a six-channel feed from the splitter to the client's gear.

Add in a replacement duffel bag to carry this stuff, and a bit of freight and running around, plus the usual fees, and we're at $5000.

Beyond Target 3: More podcasts

For every $500 beyond Target 3, I'll record another podcast while in Melbourne, to be posted in November.

A NOTE ON THE REWARDS

Right now the Rewards are much the same as  previous  campaigns. I wanted to get this launched. I'll add further Rewards, though, so  follow the project and check for updates.

Producing media, and managing other people who produce media, are what I've been doing for most of my adult life. There’s no real challenge here. I do this stuff every week.

The keys risks when producing any media to a defined schedule are that there won’t be any interesting content, that the production crew runs out of time, or they’re suddenly not available due to illness, accident or disaster.

We’re certainly not short of potentially interesting content. In fact the real challenge — not that there are any challenges, sorry — the real production issue will be selecting what to cover from a fascinating conference program.

As for the schedule, I know precisely how long it takes to make media. I’ve already blocked out time in my schedule for the core project work, and I’ll block out the post-production work as the funds get committed.

The worst-case scenario — unless I’m actually completely incapacitated or even dead for the duration of both conferences — is that the delivery of the finished media objects and rewards gets delayed.

If I die, you’ve blown your money.