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From technology to cartoons

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CIOL From technology to cartoons

After working for more than 10 years as a public relations consultant for some of the world’s biggest technology brands, Brendan Boughen, alias Jim, Communications Manager at Microsoft New Zealand has decided to publish a cartoon book titled Sounds Like a Game Changer: A Soon-to-Be Obsolete Collection of Technology Cartoons by Jim inspired by his tech career.

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CIOL From technology to cartoons

Cartoons have been Jim’s constant companions since he was a teenager, but the technology flavor in his cartoons came when he took a job in the PR industry in 2005.

“Throughout my career as a PR consultant, I always seemed to find myself managing comms for technology brand accounts, so naturally my cartoonist's brain turned towards subjects from that industry,” he says.

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Prior to Microsoft, Brendan has worked with tech brands including Philips, Samsung, Panasonic, Huawei and Breville, as well as telecommunications providers Telecom (now Spark), Vodafone and 2degrees, among others. His 30-year cartooning career has seen him published in a wide variety of media around the world, which included 18 months as the editorial cartoonist for New Zealand IT industry magazine NZ Reseller News, prior to it becoming an online-only publication.

“In the last 10 years, the world has seen some truly amazing developments in technology, which have fuelled our very human obsession for whatever the latest gadget might be. Similarly, the revolution in cloud computing has forever changed the way business is done,” he says.

“As a PR consultant in the IT industry, I have seen the phrase ‘It’s a game-changer!’ used almost on a daily basis to describe new pieces of technology. While some of these certainly can be described as being game-changing, it is an over-used phrase which more often shows just how addicted we are to finding something new and dazzling in our technology than anything genuinely revolutionary,” Jim adds.

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Jim’s cartoons in his book poke fun at that very human tendency to obsess over tech, while also celebrating the amazing ways it has evolved and developed over the last decade, and how it has dramatically changed our lives. He hopes the book will appeal to anyone who uses technology and loves cartoons, as well as those who work in the IT industry, which inspired the many themes of the book.

CIOL From technology to cartoons

The book will feature over 100 cartoons arranged in chapters based on seven key areas pertinent to technology – Innovation, Devices, Life Online, Tech at Work, Big Data, Sustainability and The Future – and also include some of Jim’s written reflections on these topics. It will also feature a foreword written by notable Kiwi scientist and nanotechnology guru Dr. Michelle Dickinson (Nanogirl).

The campaign for the book is running until 1 July 2016, via New Zealand crowd-funding platform PledgeMe, and if successful, Jim says the book will be available by early September.

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