The television program called "Australian Story" is a very popular and culturally important TV show loved by most Australian's.
Amazingly, I have been the subject of two episodes of this classic Australian show. Not because I'm anyone special but mainly because I'm a pretty normal Australian caught in extraordinary circumstances.
I invented something that just happened to end up being used on most computers around the world and was placed in the unusual position of having to stand up to some of the big software publishers to make sure that my family, my partners, my investors and I didn't get run over.
1st Episode - A Big Deal (Aug 2009)
(video) | watch on Youtube
(transcript) | read on Australian Story website
This first episode came very closely after the news that my company Uniloc had one a jury verdict of $388 million USD ($530m AUD) but before the judge overturned their decision.
The episode before was about Australian formula 1 legend Jack Brabham which rated about 800,000 viewers. I was thinking, wow if Jack Brabham gets that then Id be lucky to get 1 or 2 hundred thousand viewers, but for some reason the show took off. It rated 1.2million viewers on the first showing, then another 600,000 on the following Saturday. It ended up being replayed a few times so it's fair to say at least a quarter of all Aussie homes ended up seeing the episode.
The reason? People love a good David and Goliath battle. Aussie battler versus Microsoft but I don't think so. I think its because in every Australian family there is at least one closet inventor driving everyone crazy with their latest idea or project, and most of those Aussie homes want to see their loved one enjoy a bit of success.
With all this going on how could I do anything else but start to do volunteer inventor help sessions every Friday morning at a local cafe. So far Ive helped about 400 people with their ideas.
2nd Episode - A Done Deal (Apr 2012)
(video) | watch on Youtube
(transcript) | readon Australian Story Website
The second episode came just after Uniloc settled with Microsoft and it was all finally over. By this time I really wanted to move on to using the lessons learned with the next thing.
Looking back I feel very privileged to have warranted a couple of hours attention from many million of my Australian neighbours.