being Blunt

Last night I went to the James Blunt concert in Johannesburg. Yes, that soulful crooner whose not short of admirers and often makes headlines for his penchant for two timing and then dumping his model girlfriends. Despite being a slightly built man, he has the stamina of an Olympic athlete and the voice of an angel and possesses phenomenal stage presence. I am not ashamed to admit, that I enjoyed being part of a 10 000 strong audience of die hard Blunt fanatics. It seemed to me that suburban South Africa, from the very young to the very old, male, female and across the race spectrum had ventured out en mass to get a brief respite from what has been a shocking week in Gauteng filled with the relentlessness of xenophobic violence. My own frayed nerves were smoothed over by Mr Blunt and I was pleased he hadn't allowed international press coverage of the current Xenophobic crisis to stop him from coming to South Africa and particularly to Johannesburg. However, when I got up this morning, the fond memory of my evening dissipated abruptly as I opened the newspaper and read through the headlines. I have been trying for some time now to avoid being drawn into the feelings of negativity and powerlessness others in my social group feel about the state of South Africa. I bear witness to friends and colleagues all discussing plans to leave Johannesburg, either to live in Cape Town (it is perceived to be much safer) or the country. Unfortunately these outweigh the number of homecomers I meet. The crime crisis, the electricity crisis, the political crisis, the Zimbabwe crisis, the economic crisis and now the latest xenophobic crisis is one blow too many. I cannot help today to feel a chink in my own armour. I am so sad that my country which has so much potential, with so many good people living in it seems to be in a free fall into a dark deep abyss. As much as I want to be positive, part of being positive solution, also means being in denial. As a white affluent woman, my life here, is something of a sham. It's a sham by the very nature of its duality. The one life is filled with great work prospects (being skilled and experienced helps), nice homes, good schooling, holidays and other luxuries and then there is the other life. A life embedded in a harsh African existence, where many people are just without basic access to employment, food, water and roof over their heads. Roaming among us all are many desperate people without an inch of humanity in them who have been damaged over the years growing up deprived of basic love, food, education and shelter. Our current government refuses to acknowledge we are a society whose psyche is in need of serious help. Mondli Makhanya, the editor of the Sunday Times has really summed it up for me today in his column. We are human and we need help. So many innocent people are being murdered daily for a variety of mindless reasons from petty crime, to xenophobia. I face a personal challenge along with many others. How do we continue to live this dual life, which in itself fuels part of the problem, but also how we stay in it manage our fears and contribute positively to helping sort it out?

face off Facebook

Today I revisited my Facebook dilemma. Should I? Should we...? Yes I am back at that again. It happens regularly that I have to challenge my thinking about FaceBook. You see I am one of the few resistors of Facebook and have been from the start. Not that I don't acknowledge its enormous influence as a social media, but I have quietly declined many invitations to join and neither am I convinced its a place marketers should be exposing their brands to unless it has very specific social and market relevance. I prefer to eavesdrop on my son's FaceBook activities to make sure I am "in touch with the medium" and watch from the sidelines as marketers dive into this arena. I'm probably a lone voice here, because there's a rush currently by South African marketers to set up Facebook profiles for their products and services. I'm finding it hard to understand why people would willingly spend precious time interacting with sites that are there to promote goods and services (even if it isn't obvious at first) and not fulfill the function of a social network in its purist intent. I really believe in the savvy Internet user who deplores any commercial intervention in these specific social online activities, unless of course it really has a very specific relevance to the interaction (..you can be sure I'm searching for case studies here). FaceBook is a fascinating global phenomenon with around 60 million members and is one of the fastest-growing and best-known sites on the Internet today. Of course the real big news this week is Facebook's decision to block Google. and here I turn to Steve O'Hear on ZNet an expert on Social Media, who summarises it all very intelligently; "When Google announced its ‘Friend Connect’ product to deliver social networking features to the ‘long tail’ of the Web, the option “to see, invite, and interact with… existing friends” from competing social networks was bound to raise a few eyebrows. Not least from Facebook, whose inclusion was made possible via the site’s public API not through a formal partnership.The response: Facebook blocks Google access claiming privacy concerns, while the search giant says it’s done nothing wrong as users have to explicitly opt-in by being re-directed to Facebook’s own log-in screen, and can unlink their Google Friend Connect and Facebook accounts at any time." He adds, "the data portability land grab of course many suspect that this has very little do to with privacy, and instead what we’re seeing is an attempted data portability land grab by Facebook, MySpace and Google, in which users will be given the ability to share their social graphs elsewhere on the Web from where the data originates, so long as the primary source can remain the sole controller of that data — a kind of social control panel for the Web OS. In this scenario, data can never really leave the originating site - not in the strictest sense as that would imply it doesn't have to remain on the original host’s servers - but, a limited subset of that data can be synced with other sites."
Land grab, corporate battle, whatever you want to call it, its all part of the the quest of the monoliths for digital domination. So while the virtual powerhouses battle it out, I mere mortal digital immigrant will sit on the sidelines and figure out whether to join those 60 million odd users and marketers or face off?

a hard drive

I try not to blog too much on the weekend. This is the time to lay down tools, to be outdoors riding horses, paddling or cycling taking in the beautiful South African weather and countryside. I spend all my time outside the city on weekends with my family, so I can regain my sanity before we set back to work on a Monday morning in the urban jungle called Johannesburg. My mother-in-law is a dairy farmer and is heading for 80 years of age. She's an extraordinary personality, running an organic dairy farm single-handed, waking up at the crack of dawn each day, while other grannies an grandpa's are sitting in old age homes waiting for nature to put them out of their misery. My mother-in-law makes most able bodied younger farmers look lazy. Anyway, today, she showed me her new mobile phone, but she doesn't know how to work it. So I sat and tried to guide her through all its features. I told her she could take pictures of her cows, sms or email them to friends or potential buyers or even save them to her hard drive (she has a dilapidated computer) so she could archive their details when needed. Frustrated by my talk she yapped back at me. "Listen darling, just give me the basics. All I want to know is how to put it on and off, make a call, read a message and then delete it. I don't care for technology and all these fancy phrases. I mean, do you know what a hard drive is to me? Exactly that! A hard drive after a long day driving back to the farm after my milk round!

Is Google the Wolf in Sheep's Clothing?

Yesterday I sat in a presentation by a “consultant”, who was selling us his services by trashing Google. Well perhaps trashing is a strong word, let’s say, he was trying to persuade us that we were the little lambs that would be eaten by the “wolf dressed in sheep’s clothing” aka Google. This follows the launch of Google in South Africa and yes they clearly do want as much advertising Rands as they can possibly lay their hands on? After all why else did they come here? Our new “friend” threw us the question “do we honestly think they do the best for us, or the best for their own wallets and profiteer unfairly out of us naïve South Africans who are not used to dealing with the wily likes of Google?” Of course, we all knew what the answer was to that question and we could avoid the unfortunate experience by procuring his services to ensure that Google doesn’t rip us off. I was somewhat offended by his patronising approach. He is one of those know-it-all IT guy – they always think they can baffle the less technical, especially if they are young and female (one of my work colleagues in the meeting - who is extremely bright and is set to lead a major new innovative technology driven initiative in our company) or blonde (that’s me). This approach irritates me. Where I work, there are scores of clever web and mobile developers. IT specialists, engineers and even actuaries, because we lead in technological innovation in our sector, so actually I reckon there are enough of us to work out when we were getting ripped and when we aren’t. However, I must be honest here, I quite enjoyed coming across an adversary of Google. You see, to date I have only come across Googly eyed people who think they are just great and good spirited, so in a way, despite the arrogance, I enjoyed listening to someone who could put a different face to Google. The irony of all of this of course is, that Google evangelizes about all the small businesses it spawns and entrepreneurs it makes rich - our consultant being a case in point! After the meeting, I couldn’t help myself but go to Google and search on the topic of “Is Google the Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing?” Well there are a lot of blogs and webpages dedicated to this subject, lists of the lawsuits they are facing etc etc. It all makes to fascinating reading. Google is a monopoly, after-all they control about 70% of the world's search and as one commentator remarked, even if you ditch Google you always go back, because they have got it right! Before I knew it, I ended up on a web trail of many opinions and new insights. From this little foray I have found a new site to add to my favourites at InsiderChatter.com so thanks to our consultant friend, I did indeed learn something new that hopefully will make me a little more cleverer than I really am.

learning from 10 Downing street...

I'm a great fan of Sky Television these days for two reasons. Firstly, watching Sky TV puts the world into perspective and also makes me think that despite our troubles in South Africa, it’s still a great country to live. We think that only SA has problems, but the world is full of bad news, not least the UK . I was interested to watch the Prime Minister of the UK Gordon Brown’s press conference on Sky this evening where he tabled a whole lot of proposed reforms to deal with the UK’s ailing economy and social framework. What really caught my attention was on the podium from which he addressed the press briefing there was a large white signboard which advertised www.pm.gov.uk. It certainly wasn't subtle! The UK has a very high penetration of Internet users, in fact it is estimated that in this coming year, advertising investment online will outperform television. So clearly Gordon Brown and his government recognise the need to direct people to the official government website at any opportunity. They got me interested and I went to take a look. It has all the stuff you would expect from government, with a strong emphasis on interaction with consumer polls and opportunities to vent back or even email the PM. What I thought was really cool was a whole section aimed at kids. Now I don’t know how many parents and or their children are visiting the site, but what impressed me was the initiative taken to drive home key social issues to UK’s youth. The site highlights the plight of Africa and the impact of HIV, it talks to Climate Change issues. It asks; “What does the Prime Minister mean when he talks about "respect", and what are the Government doing to make our communities better places to live?” There's even a section on healthy eating featuring well known UK chef Jamie Oliver. Not forgetting how popular stories on celebrities are to the youth, they have included celebrity section on which celebrities have visited 10 Downing street recently.
The second reason I enjoy Sky is that every evening between 20h30 and 21h00 SA time they talk about the hot Internet news stories of the day, most popular video downloads and most clicked stories. This evening, the stabbing to death on Oxford Street in London of a man convicted of gang raping a young girl was most popular, followed by the earthquake in China with riveting video material supplied by a citizen reporter and third, Duchess Ferguson defending the weight of her daughter Beatrix. Sky is an Award winning broadcaster and is living proof of a media harnessing the growing influence of the Internet through its own programming. They are not alone of course, CNN are going to great lengths to encourage citizen journalism and actively interact their audiences. Locally I have noticed that Radio 702 is actively encouraging citizen journalism and is placing their editorial contributions increasingly in the hands of Joe Public out there. They consistently encourage listeners to visit their website and interact with them via mobile or other devices and report the news. They are also doing a brilliant job with their community efforts with the 702 crime line. As a talk station this transition into the digital space is quite seamless and painless it seems. Of course The Times, South Africa’s first interactive newspaper which was launched just under a year ago has lead the way with this and is growing from strength to strength. Now what I would really like to see them (and/or others do) do, is take a leaf out of Downing street's book when it comes to children. After all, they are the digital natives of today and the world's hope for the future.




S

Cure for a Crackberry addict?

I’m a Crackberry addict, otherwise known as a Blackberry user. Probably something I shouldn’t be admitting too, but hey, isn't the challenge of getting over an addiction to something is admitting you have an addiction in the first place? I also have to admit that I’m currently a very distraught Blackberry user. Not due to any fault of the phone, but because I have not been getting my FULL daily dose. When I changed jobs recently I had to make a great sacrifice – the corporate I now work for, won’t support my Blackberry (can you imagine that? Unthinkable!). I refuse to give up my Blackberry, so now carry two phones, switching between the mandatory Nokia (which I HATE) and my Blackberry (which I LOVE). This is really causing me huge frustration, and has really put a dampener on my otherwise great job! As an addict, even one who recognises I have a problem, I still cannot make the final cut. I’m holding out that my powers of persuasion will get me my way with those bureaucratic IT people despite the company policy! I have an added incentive, because today I read on www.wired.com that Blackberry has just announced the launch of the BlackBerry Bold. They rave about its impressive features, it’s ability to load several graphic-heavy sites quickly with its fast 3G data access, unrestricted Wi-Fi access, a gorgeous bright and colourful screen which offers great viewing of movies among an array of other features. The geeks at wired.com explain (quote) that the GPS paired with location-based services plus BlackBerry Maps, means you can use it while making a phone call – “ Try that while driving and see if you can avoid crashing your car.” The external speaker is loud, clear and excellent for handsfree use – they add “comparatively, it's about as powerful as the speakers on an average laptop.” Brilliant I say, because I keep losing my hands free plug ins! ”The keys have also been reconfigured slightly from previous BlackBerry iterations. They now have metal dividers resembling the shape and feel of guitar frets, making touch-typing easier. Interesting, considering most CrackBerry heads I know can already touch-type without a second thought.”
Yes that me - just one of the many millions of Crackberry heads out there with an overworked thumb! There are numerous other features to mention, but I am already sold. I’m salivating despite not being technologically minded, because I know what I like and what makes my work life easier and it’s a Blackberry. With the Bold on its way, I am destined to carry on switching my sim card, until I either get another job, figured a way to cut through the IT bureaucracy or perhaps perhaps, you never know, but it has been suggested to me - I try out the new Apple iPhone (which will be in SA in June) and miraculously get cured. Now there’s a thought!

beauty is nothing without brains

Well it’s the end of a long week, so I have decided to stop tapping on my laptop and take a break from blogging for one night. Of course, I can’t escape my duties entirely, so have something small to share. Today, I sat through a really informative economic overview session held by the First Rand Group for its executives. Now as you can well imagine, given the current global and local economic pressures on financial markets, the day’s proceedings were filled with data which was rather daunting. However, the great thing about First Rand management is that they never lose their positive attitude or sense of humor despite the challenges. After a series of particularly intense sessions, the Group Investor Relations Manager, a sophisticated female executive ended off her serious presentation with this video. Even the blondes in the audience had to giggle and I'm thankful because she’s given me a new site to reference. http://www.whoisthemonkey.com/videos/01/funny-dumb-blonde-commercial