Crunch: Kickstart special; Kahuna to invite Thodey

Linked gallery: Photos: Linton, Ludlam let spray on NBN

In the Crunch this week we have some news about our challenge to make Telstra cool.

Also, Patrick Gray from Risky Business has a message for security vendors. But first of all, we must tell you about our new hero, John Linton, the CEO of Exetel.

At the Kickstart conference in Queensland this week, the Crunch discovered that not only is he passionate about his business, he also speaks his mind.

When asked about the NBN, John's answer started, "anyone who knows me knows i think it is a load of crap." [apologies for the audio quality]

It's so refreshing when vendors say what they think instead of simply spouting a load of marketing claptrap.

Unfortunately, John didn't stay till Monday night, when Kickstart delegates took part in a celebrity chef-like cook off. The Crunch was very amused to see high ranking execs and the country's top tech journos put on their aprons and get down to some serious chopping, squeezing, scraping and grilling.

Collaboration between comms managers from Microsoft (Cathy Jamieson) and IBM (Sue Craig)

At the end of the evening, when all the food was cooked, the Crunch's team won - probably because I was too busy filming to do any actual cooking!

On Tuesday, after a nice long rest (NOT!), Symantec held a fun trivia lunch and demonstrated that if you put actors on the door, as soon as they see a camera they perform - these 'security guards' took one look at me with my camera and the last thing on their minds was security, so i walked right in without knowing the password or being hassled. Social engineering at its best!

Back in Sydney and the Crunch was very excited to bump into Symantec's MD Craig Scroggie, who is the drummer for a band made up of tech bigwigs, which featured in the Crunch last week.

After seeing the show, Craig has promised to invite David Thodey to perform with the Big Kahuna, so watch this space for the Telstra CEO's first gig.

And finally, The Crunch's friend Patrick Gray, who runs the super secure podcast Risky Business, has a message for security vendors.

"Stop sending journalists press releases warning us to be on the look out for disaster themed malware.

"You are telling us to be on the lookout for people exploiting a disaster for financial benifit and you don't realise that that is actually what you look like when you start sending us press releases and trying to generate press coverage for your company off the back of human misery," said Patrick.

Hear hear!