Of course, you stated that no one should worry about it, since these things get lost in committee.

Well, don't let it get lost in committee.

Ignore the committees for now.

Find small places where you can experiment with this on the site. Not in big, flashy ways that attract attention, but as alternate pages that a small percentage of people go to, and do metrics. See what works and doesn't. Tweak the message and get the proof.

Then go to the committees and say. "We know we had a problem. We found you a solution. Here it is. Here is our supporting evidence that says it will work as is. I can't promise it will work if it is changed, but it works now and as is." No promises that this will work of course, but you've stacked the odds the most you can in your favor this way.

I may be being dense here, but can't the frontpage say something along the lines of what you said to us:

ABC is a public media empire. TV, radio, Internet , live performances.

It tells us that there's lots there, and then you can offer choices 'go to the TV area, the radio area, the live performances area' etc. Then people could fairly quickly find the part that applied to them.

I also like the 'by postal codes' idea. That's another way of sorting it so that people can find what they want quickly.

Um, sorry. Did I freak people out...?

Um, sorry. Did I freak people out...?

Nope. I just thought "Bill should be a news director" again.

Um, sorry. Did I freak people out...?

Speaking as a sometime consumer of ABC product, I think your suggestions are excellent ideas. They fit quite nicely with my impression of its image.

Hah! Not an advertising creator Hec?

Actually, there is a local public access channel I have been thinking of joining, just so I could have access to equipment and maybe do something fun (news and opinion pieces for Public Access) or creative (hey, they have animation computers there!) but I look at all the current demands on my time and have a coronary...

EtA: Thanks billytea, I appreciate it. It was hard to come up with something with so little info to go by, glad I hit it...

All the while I was being hit by boxes last night at UPS :)

billytea, I am just catching up with Natter.

I see there were carnivorous roos and man-eating eagles.

So how recently did these suckers die off?

I see there were carnivorous roos and man-eating eagles. So how recently did these suckers die off?

The carnivorous roos, about 30,000 years ago IIRC. I could be out by 20,000 either side. It was, however, after the arrival of the Aboriginals. Haast's eagle died out only 500 years ago. Maoris arrived about a thousand years ago, IIRC.

I assume the Maoris made it a high priority to get rid of the eagles that carried off their members on occassions...

I assume the Maoris made it a high priority to get rid of the eagles that carried off their members on occassions...

It's a possibility. I should note here that it's really speculation whether the eagles would've attacked a healthy human. They probably wouldn't have had too much fear of us, having developed away from large mammals of any kind, and they'd have been able to do so. We wouldn't have been any bigger than their usual prey, the moas.

Here's where there would've been conflict anyway, though. Maoris hunted moas too, and in fact drove them to extinction - so they killed off the eagles' primary food source. (Plus, if they weren't in a sharing mood, they might have gone after the eagles just to remove the competition for moas.) After that, there wouldn't have been much else to sustain such large birds.