Ian Scrivener

by Dr. Iain Corness

The man with the IT solutions for business problems has arrived in Pattaya and has already made his presence felt. A rather large presence, as you will have gathered from his photograph! Australian Ian Scrivener is however not your average ‘geek’, in fact Ian Scrivener is not your average anything, as I was to find out.
Ian was born in Sydney to a boat-builder and his accountant wife, but by the time he was six years old, life seemed to be conspiring against him. His parents separated and for the next few years he was shuttled around between his them.
Academically he was bright (in fact I would say he is ‘gifted’) but his contrary nature was such that his grades were to suffer. “I was always anti-authoritarian. I probably spent 35 minutes of every hour out of the classroom,” he said to explain his deteriorating grades.
By the time he was ready to enter university his parents were still at loggerheads with each other, and with Ian as well, as they tried to push him into their chosen career path, law or dentistry. However, by the time Ian Scrivener was 18 years old and leaving school, he knew he did not want to be forced into anyone else’s idea of a pigeon hole.
His grades were good enough for university entrance, but he deferred and went to the Sydney Film School, as he had already shown an ability in photography at school. He also had good technical skills as well as the ‘photographic eye’ and was soon being picked up by some of the teachers at the film school to work as an assistant at the weekends. It looked as though film and TV as a career was in the offing. However, the Australian government was to close this opportunity. The government changed the tax laws and the support for the film industry was stopped. Within months, the film industry collapsed, negating the need for trained personnel. Ian was unemployable.
Ian shrugged it all off, bought himself a panel van, “And I bummed around,” said Ian, picking up jobs here and there to feed and clothe himself.
Running out of money by the time he had reached Armidale (a university town in northern New South Wales), he had some business cards printed saying he was a photographer and was taken on by the local newspaper. “I stuffed up my first roll of film, but they didn’t give me the bullet,” said Ian with a grin.
He learned fast by his mistakes and soon was the star cover photographer for their publications, and through this, caught the interest of one of the prestigious schools in Armidale, which asked him to be their Audio-Visual consultant. Once he had his foot in the proverbial door, he went on from there, becoming the IT support in computerizing their library. I asked him who taught him the required skills for this IT based position. “Me. The mental me,” said Ian, tapping his skull.
But it did not stop there. He suggested the school should have a position on staff as ‘Artist in Residence’, and was shocked when they immediately offered it to him, but accepted. “My ego got some real inflation over that.”
He introduced some radical methods into teaching, and having had no formal training in that discipline was able to formulate his own way of doing things. “I related to the children. I was a catalyst for change. I changed students from being captives to participants.”
His different style might have been appreciated by the students, but there were some of the teaching staff who did not. Products of tertiary training for their Diplomas of Education, they were uneasy with this unqualified teacher in their midst. Pressure was brought to bear upon the school management who asked Ian to take a sabbatical and get his Dip. Ed., for which they would pay. However, this was tantamount to forcing him into the ‘teacher’ mold, and Ian Scrivener does not do well when pigeon-holed. He turned down their offer and returned to Sydney.
There he dabbled in fashion photography, but quickly tired of the commercial photography clique and branched out into the magazine and publishing business, very quickly taking the reigns and assuming the position of production manager - the man who had to get the music industry magazine published on time. He was so good at it that his boast to the owner was, “If the mag comes out late, don’t pay me that month!”
He was still only 26 years old but could see that the internet and businesses revolving around it was the way to go. He began an internet company working from his bedroom. He knew the music industry, convinced one of Australia’s award winning young female singers that she needed a website, and from that moment never looked back. He went on to have 25 percent market share of the web based IT business in Australia, and attracted all the high-flying Dot.Coms. It looked as if there were no limits.
But there were, and Ian Scrivener could see that there were, and got out just before the Dot.Com bubble burst. He joined the Canon corporation where he worked in cutting edge technology research for them before his next move.
“I thought, wouldn’t it be great to get $150 an hour and drink other people’s beer, sailing around Sydney harbor.” So he bought a boat and did precisely that. “I was good fun, but it was a folly,” said Ian. “But everyone needs a folly,” he added.
It was then back to the corporate world where he ran IT-based projects for the Australian Museum and other semi-government bodies, but you don’t need me to predict that this was not his pigeon hole either.
He needed space away from the strictures of Australian society. “Where could I go to leave Australia?” He knew Thailand from previous holidays here, and is looking to settle in SE Asia. Welcome to Pattaya, we need you!