Thank you for visiting our new corporate blog. I hope you’ve had the time to view our CEO David Thodey’s welcome video, and more importantly, I hope you’ll subscribe by RSS or email and become a regular reader and commenter.

This new site is really about you – whether you’re a Telstra customer, shareholder, employee or just someone with an interest in our organisation, we’re very interested to learn about you and what you need and want from us. We’ve been gathering information via our Feedback Blog and survey over the past few weeks, but with your further input, this site will be continually evolving.  For example, if you missed our AGM today we announced that we will drop the $2.20 administration fee for bill payments made over-the-counter or by mail after listening to feedback from customers and shareholders.

You’ll find that this blog is divided into two sections: Telstra Now and View Point.

• Telstra Now is where you can find news about Telstra and discussions that our people lead about all aspects of our business, its impact on communities and relationships, and the possibilities our networks and technology creates.

• View Point contains blogs about technology from every view.  It covers industry issues, trends and themed topics like technology and social norms, user tips and examples of how we incorporate communications technology in everyday life.

Within this structure we’re hoping we can inform the online conversation by introducing the people behind Telstra.  People like our senior leaders David Thodey, David Quilty or Michael Lawrey, or hands-on employees like internet guru Jono Haysom and social media guy Mike Hickinbotham. We’ve also constructed some community guidelines to ensure all of you get the most from discussions on this blog.

As for me, I’ll be the overall leader of conversations on this site.  Obviously I’m not in charge of everything that happens at Telstra (thank goodness), but I can find the people who make it happen – and I know there are a ton of people here at Telstra who are listening via this site.

Just a quick note about customer issues. This is a great place to have a conversation with and about Telstra. It isn’t a first port-of-call to get individual problems resolved and we won’t aim to replace any existing Telstra customer support services and teams.  Rather, this is the place to talk about how we can do things better for everybody rather than solving individual issues.

I’m looking forward to hearing your first impressions, so please leave any feedback in a comment below.  Over time I look forward to getting to know you better, whether we’re talking Australian telecommunications, the questions you’d like to ask Telstra’s senior executives or even the latest happenings on MasterChef.

Feel free to check out my Telstra Exchange profile and follow me on twitter to get to know me better. You can also send me a note or ask a question via the contact us page or share any thoughts about this website. 

First things first though: What do you think of your first look of Telstra Exchange?