Social Glass

I’m not usually off topic when I post here, but I thought I’d expand a bit on my Life in Oz post from last month. I went back to Colorado for Christmas last year and barely made it home in time because of a bloody snow storm. Once I made it I spent a lot of time shoveling snow (hence the picture) as a series of storms came past once I’d arrived.

I don’t think it snows here in Melbourne as it barely gets below 8C (about 46F) in the winter. And yet when one takes a look around the train station on a “cold winter’s morning” one sees scarves, gloves, beanies, ski coats etc. When I first got to Melbourne I couldn’t believe how bundled up people got for 45F. But now that I’ve been here for a while I understand. 8C is bloody freezing.

They say I’ve been “climatized”. I’d say I’ve been “wussified”. Regardless, I’d never let my Colorado friends know.

I’ve mentioned it a few times in my blog entries, but I thought I’d divert away from the Enterprise 2.0 topic for one post and discuss life in Australia. I’m an American who’s been living and working in Australia for about 4 years all up (there’s a two year gap when I went back to the states to be a geek Software Engineer).

I must say life down here isn’t that different than it is in the states. Australia is a wonderful place and I’ve never met a culture that has such a good work/life balance.

I have Foxtel (cable) at home and as a result get a healthy dose of US TV including CNN, ESPN, Fox News, and Monday Night Football (broadcast live on Tuesday morning). This helps me keep in touch so I can talk with my brothers about the important stats.

But there are a few differences - like “Rice Bubbles”. Why can’t they call them “Rice Crispies” like they are in the states? And why do Aussies say (and forgive my horrible attempt at phonetics) “straw-bry”, “ras-bry”, but “blue-berry” (”bry” vs” “berry”)? Believe me I’ve had hours of fun with my Aussie friends debating these very important issues.

And I love vegemite.

Onto more serious matters, despite all of the press talking about Australian Web 2.0 companies seeking venture capital from abroad because Australian VCs are just too conservative, there is a healthy a share of Web 2.0 companies based in Oz. Check out Vishal Sharma’s list of these companies here. Omnidrive and Atlassian are perhaps the most famous of these. Google also has a significant presence down here.

So, while there are roughly 19,000,000 people in Australia (California has close to 60,000,000 for a little perspective) I’d say that per capita the Aussies aren’t doing too badly in the Web 2.0 space as far as company presence goes.