Beyond Infinity

Michael Simonetti, founder and CEO of Melbourne agency AndMine, talks about his past (very busy) 18 months. He discusses how to tap into group creativity on a collaborative whiteboard, even when working remotely. He explains Zoom etiquette and how his staff have become tighter, having learned about each other's home lives via web cams. He also covers security, cyber crime and going viral on TikTok.

Piers chats with online digital marketing expert Michael Simonetti about how demand for his company's services has exploded over the past 18 months. He reckons the fundamentals of marketing haven't changed, but have actually become more important than ever before.

Live-to-air radio interview with Piers Cunningham and Brendon Telfer. The politics of covid: Federal Opposition on the attack over Australia's squandered victory over covid; vaccine availability and supply issues. Delta variant spreads to Victoria. Mixing and matching vaccine doses. UK set to end covid restrictions from 17th July, while infections increase sharply.

Is Australia's response to the pandemic becoming, as Labour politician Bill Shorten put it, a "sh*t show"? Even though the country mass produces its own Astra Zeneca vaccines, there are vaccine shortages. International borders remain closed to enter or leave, the delta variant is on the loose causing repeated damaging lockdowns and crucially the level of vaccination in the population is stubbornly low.

China has become only the second country after America to successfully land on Mars, at Utopia Planitia. The ambitious Tianwen-1 mission includes an orbiter, deployable camera, lander, drop camera, and the Zhurong rover. Its already sent back images of its entry, descent and landing sequence, recorded the sounds of its operations on Mars and taken a now-famous selfie (and video) of its rover and lander on the surface. Instruments include hi-res cameras, weather station, ground penetrating radar, Mars surface compound detector with laser and a magnetometer.

Live-to-air radio interview with Piers Cunningham and Brendon Telfer. Feds finally get urgent about vaccine rollout, but their messaging is mixed and confusing for Aussies weighing the jab. Shortages don't help either. If astra zeneca isn't supplied to locals, CSL says it will happily sell supplies overseas where demand remains high. Big business enlisted to help Fed rollout, as doctors administering vaccines are guaranteed indemnity. Treasury's 2021 Intergenerational Report paints a concerning ecomomic future.

Live-to-air radio interview with Piers Cunningham and Brendon Telfer. British medical journal 'The Lancet' reports up to a third of people infected with covid develop brain disease and psychological disorders; problems emerge with Chinese vaccine; vaccinating under-18s; Australia's slow roll out draws criticism; Clive Palmer's anti vax campaign.

A look at how great NASA is at solving problems with its spacecraft over vast distances. From saving the Apollo 13 astronauts to deliberately ripping a rover wheel off on a sharp rock on Mars, the space agency's 'tiger teams' have superb form when it comes to finding creative solutions to otherworldly threats.

As Melbourne's 4th economically devastating lockdown draws to a close, we discuss the political fallout and changing attitudes to compliance with government health directives. Also: vaccine shortages and supply issues in Australia, which lags behind many other developed countries in number of people who've had the jab; more on the Wuhan leak with the G7 and WHO demanding more info from China; illogical lockdown restrictions; convalescing Premier Andrews reappears on Twitter after 3 months' silence.

Live-to-air radio interview with Piers Cunningham and Brendon Telfer. As Melbourne emerges from 2 weeks of stage 4 lockdown, attention returns to the origins of the virus. Did the pandemic result from animal to human transmission of covid or was it a leak from the secretive Wuhan Institute of Virology? And to complicate matters further, was the US involved in funding some of the Chinese 'gain of function' research looking at ways to make naturally-occurring corona viruses even more deadly?