Mayne Report to close - what do you think?
January 20, 2017
Please treat this as confidential for now but after more than 9 years of operation The Mayne Report will be closing on January 30, 2017. No more emails, no more website and no public archive of the past 9 years! All gone. No more.
The reason is that our content management system provider, who we go back with to the very early days of Crikey in 2000, are withdrawing their service.
We are their last legacy client on their oldest system which costs them plenty even after we pay them more than $4000 a year.
There's no bad blood. They've given plenty of notice and we could very well transfer to a different provider. Given the volume of content we're hosting, that would be a mammoth and costly task for a venture which has no revenue beyond event-driven donations. I've instead decided to close The Mayne Report and focus on some other endeavors, although down the track this could include some form of website or email newsletter.
The first short term plan is a bigger involvement with Crikey in 2017, including working up a Crikey Lists section based on some of our Mayne Report content.
The second is a potentially bigger role in shareholder advocacy, which would logically be at the Australian Shareholders' Association. The ASA board declined a full time role ahead of the council elections but we're inching forward and shuttering The Mayne Report will free up some time and remove what has sometimes been viewed as a competitor publication to the ASA. The so-called "confusion" will be no more.
It's good being back on the ASA board and I've recently taken on responsibility for ASA tweeting, plus wrote the cover story on the AGM season for the January edition of our monthly magazine. We're going well and generated record media coverage in late 2016. There's also a bigger role in media commentary emerging, as was seen over the past week with Seven West Media.
ASA should have a Sydney-based CEO (definitely not me) on board in the first quarter of next year which will hopefully turbo-charge our performance going forward.
The most interesting and uncertain aspect of the period ahead involves local government. There will be a one-day VCAT hearing on February 21 to determine the replacement for Brooke Wandin, who was declared a City of Melbourne councillor but then withdrew.
As these orders after the late December VCAT directions hearing attest, I've been joined as a party and will probably self-represent in February. See here for the submission I worked up for the Directions hearing but never provided to anyone. There's only a 20% chance of getting back on City of Melbourne and frankly, it would probably be better to move on.
Assuming that happens, another option is getting into the local government advisory game, focusing particularly on transparency and governance. There is no trade union for councillors and media coverage on the sector is also woeful, even though it really does matter for every community. The recent scathing Victorian Ombudsman report about local government transparency would make the timing good.
After 8 years serving on two councils (Manningham and Melbourne), there's a fair argument for putting some time and effort into improving the capability, reputation and callibre of councillors, who are just like non-executive directors of companies. Discussions have been held with a not-for-profit capacity builder and entrepreneur about getting into this space and it's exciting stuff, but would require a singular focus.
One other area of keen ongoing interest is the gender diversity space, as this recent missive to Boroondara councillors demonstrates.
Anyway, the purpose of this piece is to open a discussion with each of you about The Mayne Report and life after it. Which way should we jump? Do you any ideas not mentioned above?
There is the important question of salvaging some of the content which all sits there freely online at the moment but will disappear from view on January 30, 2017. Over the next month, I'll be packaging some of it for posterity and emailing it out so don't be surprised if members of the Mayne Report Closure Advisory Committee (MRCAC) get the odd email such as "10 favourite business lists", "20 favourite AGM accounts" or "links to every Crikey story since 2005". It's just about salvaging some memories in an email format.
The bigger question is what should happen to the 14,000-strong Mayne Report email list, not to mention the 28,000 @maynereport twitter followers? The twitter handle should probably be re-badged but to what?
If any of you want to chat, I'm on 0412 106 241 and around over the next few weeks. Be frank and fearless in your advice.
The future is fluid but there are some interesting opportunities and closing The Mayne Report will be one of those fork in the road moments.
Looking forward to engaging with you on the issues and many thanks for your wonderful support, friendship and advice over the years.
Thanks also for supporting The Mayne Report which did last a lot longer than most ezines and produced some lively material, particularly in the shareholder advocacy and local government space.
That's all for now.
Do ya best, Stephen Mayne
The reason is that our content management system provider, who we go back with to the very early days of Crikey in 2000, are withdrawing their service.
We are their last legacy client on their oldest system which costs them plenty even after we pay them more than $4000 a year.
There's no bad blood. They've given plenty of notice and we could very well transfer to a different provider. Given the volume of content we're hosting, that would be a mammoth and costly task for a venture which has no revenue beyond event-driven donations. I've instead decided to close The Mayne Report and focus on some other endeavors, although down the track this could include some form of website or email newsletter.
The first short term plan is a bigger involvement with Crikey in 2017, including working up a Crikey Lists section based on some of our Mayne Report content.
The second is a potentially bigger role in shareholder advocacy, which would logically be at the Australian Shareholders' Association. The ASA board declined a full time role ahead of the council elections but we're inching forward and shuttering The Mayne Report will free up some time and remove what has sometimes been viewed as a competitor publication to the ASA. The so-called "confusion" will be no more.
It's good being back on the ASA board and I've recently taken on responsibility for ASA tweeting, plus wrote the cover story on the AGM season for the January edition of our monthly magazine. We're going well and generated record media coverage in late 2016. There's also a bigger role in media commentary emerging, as was seen over the past week with Seven West Media.
ASA should have a Sydney-based CEO (definitely not me) on board in the first quarter of next year which will hopefully turbo-charge our performance going forward.
The most interesting and uncertain aspect of the period ahead involves local government. There will be a one-day VCAT hearing on February 21 to determine the replacement for Brooke Wandin, who was declared a City of Melbourne councillor but then withdrew.
As these orders after the late December VCAT directions hearing attest, I've been joined as a party and will probably self-represent in February. See here for the submission I worked up for the Directions hearing but never provided to anyone. There's only a 20% chance of getting back on City of Melbourne and frankly, it would probably be better to move on.
Assuming that happens, another option is getting into the local government advisory game, focusing particularly on transparency and governance. There is no trade union for councillors and media coverage on the sector is also woeful, even though it really does matter for every community. The recent scathing Victorian Ombudsman report about local government transparency would make the timing good.
After 8 years serving on two councils (Manningham and Melbourne), there's a fair argument for putting some time and effort into improving the capability, reputation and callibre of councillors, who are just like non-executive directors of companies. Discussions have been held with a not-for-profit capacity builder and entrepreneur about getting into this space and it's exciting stuff, but would require a singular focus.
One other area of keen ongoing interest is the gender diversity space, as this recent missive to Boroondara councillors demonstrates.
Anyway, the purpose of this piece is to open a discussion with each of you about The Mayne Report and life after it. Which way should we jump? Do you any ideas not mentioned above?
There is the important question of salvaging some of the content which all sits there freely online at the moment but will disappear from view on January 30, 2017. Over the next month, I'll be packaging some of it for posterity and emailing it out so don't be surprised if members of the Mayne Report Closure Advisory Committee (MRCAC) get the odd email such as "10 favourite business lists", "20 favourite AGM accounts" or "links to every Crikey story since 2005". It's just about salvaging some memories in an email format.
The bigger question is what should happen to the 14,000-strong Mayne Report email list, not to mention the 28,000 @maynereport twitter followers? The twitter handle should probably be re-badged but to what?
If any of you want to chat, I'm on 0412 106 241 and around over the next few weeks. Be frank and fearless in your advice.
The future is fluid but there are some interesting opportunities and closing The Mayne Report will be one of those fork in the road moments.
Looking forward to engaging with you on the issues and many thanks for your wonderful support, friendship and advice over the years.
Thanks also for supporting The Mayne Report which did last a lot longer than most ezines and produced some lively material, particularly in the shareholder advocacy and local government space.
That's all for now.
Do ya best, Stephen Mayne