Deep within the Sydney Opera House there is a small room, no bigger than a toilet cubicle.
Inside that room there are a number of equipment racks. In the last two racks there is a mess of orange and yellow cabling, some grey boxes, and a lot of flashing LEDs.
If you were to see them, you would wonder why it weren't a little cleaner.
However, those two racks run the Opera House.
Over the past five years I have worked with a number of industry leaders in creating what is possibly the most complex Performing Arts Network on the planet. We've taken the lead in convergent networks, and over the optical fibre backbone. The Audio, Lighting and video control and distribution systems all sit on the same network as the ticketing system, the web stream box and the website itself.
It has not been and easy path, and everyone involved has learned a lot. Nor has this journey finished. As soon as we sign the cheque on one project we start another three. There is a chain reaction of upgrades, future planning and fixes that grow the network ever wider.
I started this blog to try to spread the stories of love, woe, and just downright awesomeness that is Arts Communication.
I define "Communication" as "the process of moving information from one place to another". That information can be anything. Voice, images, audio, video, text... all of these things are simply information in one form or another.
I will be tagging all of my posts with as many tags as I can logically fit, however there are some special tags that I have made up specifically for this blog:
TechNote: If a post is labelled as a TechNote, it means the post is very technical in nature. As much as I would like to make this blog accessible to all, I will occasionally have to get my geek on.
But don't despair! Whenever I write a TechNote I will make sure to link to as much information as possible and draw up as many diagrams as possible.
TechNotes are meant to inform, and I'll be aiming at as many communications topics as I can.
Tutorial: As you'd expect, a Tutorial will go more into the "How To" of getting people talking. These will be easy-to-follow guides, meant for all comers. Whenever a technical subject is raised, it will be accompanied by a link to the relevant TechNote, but it will be written in a way that hopefully won't rely on technical know-how.
RealLife: Moving down the Technical Chain, the "RealLife" stories will be stories of successes and failures. They will (hopefully) contain no technical jargon whatsoever, and I'll try and make them fun, too.
Glossary: I'll also be working on a glossary of terms. This will be an eternal work-in-progress, so please remember to check back in.
If you would like to contact me, please use the built-in comments system, or contact me on camoneillsystems@gmail.com.
Please feel free to request specific articles from me, however I do ask that you check to make sure your desired subject isn't already covered. I also encourage healthy discussion on these topics. Whilst networking and communications are relatively known quantities, the combinations that we are seeing, and the improper application of technologies that we are already seeing are making for a very turbulent time.
Thanks for dropping by, and I hope that I can make your journey into the world of Performing Arts Communication a fruitful one. If there is anything further that I can do to help, please don't hesitate to let me know.
