SA Blog Awards

March 19, 2006 Barrie Bramley Blogging No Comments

SA Blog awardsWhoah, what a night. This was certainly (and hopefully) the fringe of blogging. Even as wierd as Mike is, he didn’t even look like he fully fitted in with the ‘interesting’ human beings in the room.

Winner of best new blog, went to ‘peas on toast’, Mushy Peas on Toast. Interesting story that goes with this blog. You’ll have to do some work on your own to dig it up, but well worth it.

Our best shot was in the category ‘group blog’ and we lost out to a blog called Chump Style They’re well known for their ‘boobs of the week’. And they won three awards for the evening. Maybe says plenty about the aparent fringe of blogging? Mike thinks not, but that’s because ‘boobs of the week’ is his home page : )

Best lifestyle blog went to ’splattermail’ Splattermail These guys looked fairly normal and human. Maybe why they get to win that kind of award.

If you want to see all the winners and runners up and links to their site go to SA Blog Awards

… Continue Reading

Boomers worry about their children’s finances

March 19, 2006 Graeme Codrington Boomers RetYrement, Generation Y, Generations No Comments

In a survey recently completed by Ameriprise Financial, it was found that a majority of older workers said what they most needed was advice on how to teach their own children about money and finances. Advice on their own retirement and finances came second and third. In another survey by Hewitt Associates, looking at involvement in retirement savings schemes (known as 401(k)’s in the USA), “only 31 percent of Generation Y workers (those age 18 to 25) eligible to participate in a tax-deferred 401(k) retirement plan are doing so. By comparison, 63 percent of eligible Generation X workers (those age 26 to 41) are using these plans, while 72 percent of baby boomers (age 42 to 59) are doing so.” (See source here, New York Times, 19 March 2006).

In 2000, I wrote a book with two co-authors, “Mind Over Money” which looked at how generations interact with finances. Get the book online at Kalahari.net or at the TomorrowToday shop.

Middle-escence – a whole new stage of life

March 19, 2006 Graeme Codrington Boomers RetYrement, Generations No Comments

In an article entitled “They Won’t Grow Up“, Kevin Downey (Broadcasting & Cable, 3/20/2006) quotes Ken Dychtwald, head of San Francisco-based consulting firm Age Wave (a consultancy focused on the ageing Baby Boomers) as saying that Baby boomers aren’t quietly shuffling off into old age. The oldest of them—the ones born in 1946—turn 60 this year, but boomers are putting a new spin on growing older. And, they are essentially creating a new stage of life, which could be called middle-escence.

I like the phrase. Its nicer than what we mean by “having a mid-life crisis”, although the symptoms might look the same (opening more buttons on the open-neck shirts, wearing more jewelry, botox, buying flash sports cars or that Harley you’ve always wanted, exotic travel, etc).

The article goes on to give some interesting facts, especially about the US Boomers…
… Continue Reading

Capitalising on Ageing Boomers

In an article entitled “New ideas to ease into old age“, Roxana Popescu in the International Herald Tribune of 17 March, 2006, addresses the issue of what ageing Boomers are looking for in healthcare, and some of the trends and products and services emerging in this field. But she makes some great points that are applicable to every industry:

Unobtrusive, preventive, personalized and remote: Welcome to the future of geriatric health care. Increased life spans, more education and more disposable income than any preceding generation means that the baby boomers – those born between 1946 and 1965, the elder members of which are standing on the threshold of retirement – will demand technology as sophisticated as their expectations about aging.

According to estimates by the Metlife Mature Market Institute, the 78 million boomers in the United States are spending more than $1 trillion annually on housing, insurance, pensions, transportation and health care. And they are eager to invest in products that will allow them to feel younger and remain active longer, analysts are finding.

There’s hardly a business that can’t capitalize on the aging of the boomer population.

This week in the Connected World…

Connected world…good news for Apple as the Pope endorses the iPod. And speaking of iPods, even DA leader Tony Leon is getting in on the podcasting act. Other South Africans making a mark on the Web are AJ Venter, who’s just launched a blog on his site, and Stormhoek Winery, whose blog has helped them double their wine sales in less than twelve months.

Wells Fargo has made history by being the first major US bank to launch a public blog. Guided by History is an attempt to provide readers with resources to better prepare for the future, using the analogy of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake & Fire.

Google are busy buying, well, everything… the two latest acquisitions being Writely and @Last (who created Sketchup). Om reckons this is part of a much bigger plan, “Now buying Writely is in line with Google thinking of using browser for everything. I mean an online word processor, and online excel spread sheet…”.

The Web is abuzz following South Africa’s miraculous cricket win. Top cricket blog, The Googly, has some interesting comments.

And finally, if you really have nothing better to do, Ian’s Shoelace Site (I kid you knot), has more than 16 methods, brilliantly illustrated, to tie the average pair of shoelaces…
“Most people only know the one shoelace knot that they learned as a child, having been taught by either a parent, a sibling, a relative, a teacher or even another child. Many are surprised to learn that there’s more than one method, let alone sixteen!”

Highlight of the Week… Chuck fever!

A rant: Sport is about money

barry?ic@TomorrowToday.biz is a blog that faciltates discussion about two predominant, important themes:

1. Thoughts and musings about the emerging Connection Economy

2. Rants about SA cricket. Ok, more specifically, Graeme’s rants about Jacques Kallis. And now mine, about Barry richards.

Amongst a vast array of sideline hobbies and activities that keep me busy, absolute obsessed cricket fanaticism takes precedence. Which is why you’ll understand that Sunday’s incredible, fantasy-like battle between our boys and the fine lads of Australia Fair had my synapses frayed.

… Continue Reading

The truth…

March 15, 2006 Mike General No Comments

Following the carnage of Sunday’s final ODI cricket match, the truth is slipping out.Here’s how we really won that match…

… Continue Reading

The bottom line on blogging

Mobile blogI’ve stumbled across an excellent article at KansasCity.com entitled The Bottom Line on Blogging which takes a look at some of the emerging stories from blogging and bloggers in the corporate world.

Our very own, extremely successful Stormhoek Winery blog gts a significant mention!

A snippet from the article:

“But blog watchers — and yes, there are blogs that track business bloggers — say 23 of the Fortune 500 companies now have formal blogs. The practice has been institutionalized at companies such as Microsoft and IBM.

… Continue Reading

Unconferencing

Boring conferenceDave Winer has come up with the idea for an unconference out of sheer desperation – conferences are malignantly boring. Here’s the full text, or you can read his post here.

“The idea for an unconference came while sitting in the audience of a panel discussion at a conference, waiting for someone to say something intelligent, or not self-serving, or not mind-numbingly boring. The idea came while listening to someone drone endlessly through PowerPoint slides, nodding off, or (in later years) checking email, or posting something to my blog, wondering if it had to be so mind-numbingly boring.
… Continue Reading

Will it help?

March 13, 2006 Mike General No Comments

In a desperate attempt to curb the ever-increasing digital download problem the Music Industry faces, one indie label has opted to appeal to the inherent good nature of mankind – with a love letter. Read the full story at Boing Boing.

Before you go, tell us what you know

March 12, 2006 Graeme Codrington Boomers RetYrement, Knowledge Continuity No Comments

The ability to extract critical information from about-to-retire Boomers is absolutely essential. And now, the big boys are weighing in with consulting services to assist companies in the process. IBM is the latest to join the party.

From the Atlanta Business Chronicle of January 13, 2006, written by Randy Southerland.

The employees behind the desk and on the shop floor are a lot grayer than they used to be. And, this aging work force is starting to worry a growing number of companies as baby boomers near retirement and get ready to take years of experience and knowledge with them.

“They’re facing a risk that demographically they have perhaps the largest group of individuals who are going to be approaching retirement age that they’ve ever faced before,” said Eric Lesser, associate partner with IBM Business Consulting Services.

… Continue Reading

Inter-generational Issues at The Adventure of Strategy

March 12, 2006 Graeme Codrington Book Reviews, Generations No Comments

Rob Millard has a great blog on Strategy. He has recently added an entire category for inter-generational issues onto his blog. Check it out here (I think there is only one entry so far, pointing to a recent post of mine, but it should grow nicely, and is worth watching).

This comes at the same time as my latest reading group is starting on TKB. I’m reading, “Getting Them to Give a Damn” by Eric Chester (buy it online at Kalahari.net and Amazon.com). You can read it with me and a group of other people by going to http://www.tomorrowknowledge.biz/Give_a_Damn.

This looks like a fantastic book from the author of “Generation Why”.

Generations in Conversation

March 12, 2006 Graeme Codrington Generations No Comments

A good cyber-pal of mine, Duncan Macleod (no, not of the clan Macleod) from New Zealand runs a great blog site on Generational issues. He’s got a great global view on what’s happening with the Gen Xers and Millennials, and his site is well worth keeping an eye on. Check it out at: http://www.generations.postkiwi.com/

Unbelievable

March 12, 2006 Graeme Codrington General 7 Comments

Please excuse me for being completely parochial and using this forum to eulogise my country’s cricket team. Unbelievable!! There’s no other way to describe it. Today, at the Wanderers, the records have tumbled – the biggest of those was the previous highest innings total in a 50 over game. Sri Lanka had set that in 1995 – it was 398. See the match summary here.

Australia won the toss, chose to bat, and scored a mammoth 434-4. South Africa hunted it down, beating that score with one ball to spare. Without doubt or fear of contradiction, the greatest single day’s cricket in history! I’m still grinning from ear to ear!!!

Well done, the Proteas. Now, go and win the Test match series.
… Continue Reading

30 years on …

March 11, 2006 Aiden Choles General, Generations No Comments

Today I sit as a judge at the Gauteng contest of the annual Anglo American Sowetan Young Communicators Award. Hosted at the Apartheid Musuem, 30 years since the Soweto uprising on June 16th 1976, young talented speakers have come from English 2nd Language schools to battle it out for a spot at the National Final in June. As a 26-year old white male, it is my first visit to the museum and the first time I have heard participants of the 1976 riots speak publically. Murphy Morobe, one of the convicted organisers of the uprising spoke of his experiences in Soweto some 30 years ago.

… Continue Reading

The Middle Ages, part 2

March 10, 2006 Mike Leadership 2 Comments

Ok not really.  But Steve Rubel is using the term we usually associate with kings, Asterix and lengthy hollywood epics to describe an emerging business leadership phenomenon.  The original blog post, at MicroPersuasion, can be read here.

From his post:

“What if leadership didn’t originate from the top of an organization, society or ecosystem, but from its middle? Thanks to a flattening Earth,
a declining trust in hierarchy, plus the rising prominence of mid-level
stars, we’re entering such an era. I call it ‘The Middle Ages.’

…It’s about technology-driven societal change that elevates people in the middle, not just goods. …People increasingly seek out each other as trusted sources. This is because leadership is shifting from the top to the middle.”

Bottom line, Steve is supposing that the Internet has democratised, connected, linked and shared information to such a degree (information = knowledge = power) that the ‘hotspots’ of cutting-edge thinking and innovation aren’t coming from the high-up-there places we’re used to.  Ordinary people with extraordinary contributions are able to share, contribute and participate their magic thanks to the platform provided by the Web.

A good example?  Me.  (If not a self-indulgent one).  6 months ago I sold machine parts to construction companies for a living.  Fair enough, it was good work, and I met great people.  But I was dying inside.  I had something to share – a whole lot to say – mostly useless stuff but with the odd sprinkling of magic that, thanks to the Internet – you are reading and (hopefully) deriving value from.  I’m not HTML expert, no BSc Computer Science graduate, but the New Web is highlighting the fact that sometimes the most incredible insights and innovations come from the underdogs – the plebs – the East Randers.

I’m glad I live in the Middle Ages.

1000 entries!!!

March 10, 2006 Graeme Codrington Blogging, General No Comments

Earlier today, the 1000th entry was posted on this blog. Aiden Choles, a regular contributor and member of the TomorrowToday team, was the one who did it.

A big thanks to all the contributors up to now. This blog is truly something to be proud of.

Generational Metaphor

March 10, 2006 Aiden Choles Generation Y, Generations No Comments

There is a wonderful metaphor we can use to understand the differences between generations: Music playback medium … the gramaphone, LP Records, 8-track, Cassette Tapes, CD, and now the MP3, digital. Each one “belongs” to a certain generation.

However the nice thing about this metaphor is that it shows how generational cycles occur. i.e. Vinyl records are now a big part of Xer/Millenial dance culture … no longer are they just in the realm of Boomer taste.

… Continue Reading

The Entitlement Generation

March 10, 2006 Graeme Codrington Generation Y, Generations 1 Comment

The “cusper” generation between Gen X and the Millennial kids have been given a name. They’re the “entitlement generation” according to a great article on the West Texas A&M University website: Read it online here.

Born from 1979 to 1994, this generation was born during some of the most dramatic times of change ever experienced. And, they will dominate the job market for about the next 70 years! Read more below.

A quick summary of what companies can do to attract and retain them:

  • Work-life balance (work is a “gig”, and they have other gigs, especially family, to attend to)
  • Flexible schedule
  • Meaningful work, with a structured feedback loop
  • Opportunities to be creative

… Continue Reading

The community employer

March 10, 2006 Aiden Choles General 3 Comments

Transit strikeI was watching the news a while back, and a story was featured on the Metrorail strike that is plaguing the commuter industry. The Labour court has just ruled that the strike is legal (wow, what a precedent!). The central issue in the strike, as with most in SA, is a dispute over wage increase. The Union is “demandingâ€? a 6.5% increase across the board while, and Metrorail is “offering” a 5.5% increase. And so, we have a deadlock. Neither party is prepared to move on the issue, let alone compromise. The Union is claiming that anything less than a 6.5% increment is unjust and underserved, while Metrorail is claiming that any increase beyond 5.5% will severely cripple its viability i.e. it cannot afford the increase. This scenario is typical of most strikes in SA, almost to the T. I ask Why is an annual increase seen as a right? Why should companies give wage/salary increases when there is not a related increase in their revenues?

… Continue Reading

The Toyota Way

March 10, 2006 Aiden Choles Book Reviews No Comments

ToyotaCare of Barrie Bramley’s upcoming book review of the Toyota Way:

‘Is Toyota a conservative company? Yes. Does it seem to be very plodding and slow to make changes? Yes. Is it innovative? Remarkebly so. Go slow, build on the past, and thoroughly consider all implications of decisions, yet move more aggresively to beat the competition to market with exceptional products.’ – Jeffery Liker

Project Origami

March 10, 2006 Barry Brady Future Trends, Innovation, Technology No Comments

Ultramobile PCMicrosoft has been tight lipped for some time about its latest offering in the PC realm. They finally took the wraps off this week and presented the latest PC offering at CeBIT. The computer is called the ultra mobile PC, why you may ask. Well it is about the size of a paperback novel but runs full version windows XP. Weighing about 1 -1.5 kg, the 1-inch thick device sports a 7-inch touch-sensitive screen that responds to a stylus or the tap of a finger.

Device looks great, and it is expected to retail in the US for between 600 and 1000 US$, so it could feasibly be under R 8000.00 locally. What about the specs you ask, well it will have up to a 60 gig hard drive and battery power of up to 2.5 hours…it is being pushed as a replacement for lugging a laptop around. Note to self, must get one of these soonest, for more info, take a look at some of these websites and be careful not to drool on your keyboard!!

http://www.windowsfordevices.com/news/NS3801638897.html

Food marketers reaching out to aging boomers

March 10, 2006 Graeme Codrington Boomers RetYrement, Marketing and sales No Comments

We’re convinced that one of the largest, largely untapped markets across the world is the ageing Boomers. Born 1946 – 1960s, the is the world’s richest, healthiest, “youngest” set of old people ever. Although they don’t like to think of themselves as “old”, they are getting that way. But at 40 or 50 years old, these days, you’re only just getting to the half way point of your life. The point is this – the Boomers need special focus and attention as a market, because their needs, priorities and lifetage are changing rapidly. We are constantly on the lookout for stories of success and failure in this market (for more, click on the Prime Time category of this blog).

I picked up a great item on Reuters this morning about food retailers targetting Boomers with smaller portions, better placement and different advertising. Read it online here.

They say:

Many new products are marketed to younger consumers who are part of Generation X, Generation Y or the “Millennials,” but food manufacturers and retailers are recognizing that they need to go after aging baby boomers who have money to spend and time to shop….

Six Jobs that wont be around in 2016

Job of the futureIn an article from Fast Company, they have cited six jobs that they think wont exist in 2016. Well, their list is interesting, but lets just think about this for a minute. How many jobs that were critical at the turn of the century, dont exist today. Much money and time is spent on getting people trained up to do these jobs and a decade or two later, all is lost. Think of what air travel did to the railways and sea travel, think of what home theatres are doing to Movie theatres and by 2016,will we still be going to movies? Maybe we can run a list on this blog of which jobs we think will be redundant by 2016.

So, the FC list is interesting, I have put it below, but click on the link to see the FC article:

http://www.fastcompany.com/subscr/103/open_fast50-jobs.html?partner=rss

… Continue Reading

Office Pirates – Dilbert for X’ers

March 10, 2006 Raymond de Villiers Talent, The Quick and the Dead - case studies No Comments

Dilbert ZoneHere is a great article from the 9 March 2006 edition of New York Times. Once you have read it you may want to visit officepirates.com. Just in case you were wondering…I don’t think this is just for men. Office Pirates is a great place for anyone who has ever been stuck in the corporate ‘hamster wheel’.

Yes, an Escape From Stifling Cubicles and a Clueless Boss
By Virginia Haffernan
Published: March 9, 2006

The fact that America’s baby Einsteins cruise through superenriched childhoods and rockin’ luxury college years only to land in the stifling taupe of office cubicles in the prime of their lives is the master joke at the center of Office Pirates,
… Continue Reading

Let’s have a drink together….from opposite sides of the world

Technology that connectsThe latest edition of New Scientist magazine has an article [read it online here] on glasses that have been invented by MIT that allow lovers to drink together from remote locations.

The glasses are fitted our with LED’s, liquid sensors, and wi-fi connectivity. When one person picks up their glass, or fills it, the LED on the other person’s glows a particular colour. When they drink, another LED indicates this activity. Besides the various other applications in fields like medicine the scientists say the ‘wireless’ glasses “help people feel as if they are sharing a drinking experience together”.

In a recent Business Week podcast the journalists were talking about the advent of ‘Post-Geographic Man’. They spoke of global virtual teams where members had never met personally. What struck me in reading the New Scientist article was the reality that this type of tool becomes a real technology enabler of post-geographic connectivity….bring on the Connection Economy!!!

Potholes in the Global Road

March 9, 2006 Lynda Future Trends 1 Comment

GlobalisationThis is a great article . Read it here.

The blurb says: “Globalisation has been a great liberator — but it also poses a threat to Western professionals”.

As a group some of us at TomorrowKnowledge are reading ” The World is Flat ” by Thomas Friedman. It is a book I recommend as a great read for any person who wants to have a clear understanding of why the world has changed so much. Do we have to wait for Potholes to appear in the road before we make the changes necesaary to fix the road?

How Japan is handling an ageing workforce

March 9, 2006 Graeme Codrington Boomers RetYrement, Generations, Global View 2 Comments

From “Fast-Aging Japan Keeps Its Elders on the Job Longer“, by Sebastian Moffett from The Wall Street Journal Online (17 June, 2005).

In America and Europe, one of the key strategies being employed to deal with the retiring Boomers, is to push for more immigration – importing skilled younger workers from other countries. But Japan is moving the other way – by offering incentives to older employees to stay on and work more years. Some companies are starting to do that now, too.

Read on below for more info.
… Continue Reading

Thoughts on corporate blogging

BlogA few interesting articles around the increasingly accepted practice of corporate blogging (whether as marketing devices or internal communications tools) are finding their way into conversations on the Web at the moment. The first, one CNN Money’s site (but originally a Fortune editorial, I think) is entitled Do’s and don’ts of corporate blogging.The article reasons that some of the intitial hesitation shown by many corporates around blogging, in any capacity, has roots in what we were taught about communication back in ‘varsity:

… Continue Reading

Google Calendar – Put it in your diary

March 8, 2006 Barrie Bramley Future Trends, Innovation, Technology No Comments

When I read of all the ‘office alternatives’ there’s one thing in my mind that no-one’s been able to beat Microsoft at, it’s Outlook. The integration of e-mail, calendar, to do list, memo, etc is way ahead of the pack in my opinion.

But then we get this…. a leak about Google’s Calendar, integrated with Gmail. It has some really neat features, and one finally wonders if it is really possible to build a ‘web based office‘ suite that is equal and maybe even better than Microsoft’s Office. And with Google behind it my expectations are pretty high.

And the irony is beautiful…. I’m going to use Microsoft Outlook to remind me to check out, download and test Google’s web-based office. Luverleeee

Subscribe to this blog

Subscribe

Category Drop-Down

Posts about Technology Trends

How Gen Y sees the Gen gap

March 20, 2010 Graeme Codrington

How Gen Y sees the Gen gap

The 11 March 2010 edition of the TIME magazine had a great cover article on “10 ideas for the next 10 years“. In the same edition, Nancy Gibbs (who has often written on generational issues for TIME), wrote an interesting short piece on how young people perceive the generation gap these days. It’s [...]

Africa’s Gift to Silicon Valley: How to Track a Crisis

March 17, 2010 Graeme Codrington

Africa’s Gift to Silicon Valley: How to Track a Crisis

A report under this title appeared in the New York Times on 12 March 2010. It’s a great example of a few things, but especially of the power of social media, and the fact that innovation (and competition) can come from anywhere these days.
Read the story of how technology developed in the aftermath of [...]

The future of money

March 12, 2010 Dean van Leeuwen

The future of money

For years banks and credit card companies have held a strangle hold over the movement of money and charged exorbitant rates for doing so. Now this is changing and fast.
Michale Ivey the founder of Twitpay has devised a system, using code that PayPal made available to him, that allows people to make payments [...]

Twitter 10 Billion – quality not quantity

March 5, 2010 Barrie Bramley

Twitter 10 Billion – quality not quantity

In the last few hours the 10 billionth tweet was tweeted on Twitter. As one would imagine there was all kinds of hype and excitement, as Tweeps with the necesary skills attempted to predict the time it would happen, and I imagine even be ‘the one’?
My last tweet was 9999989724. Wild. Will be at 10 [...]

Recent Comments

  • Graeme Codrington: From: http://philippschaefer.posterous.com/the-participa...
  • Graeme Codrington: Here is an example of how social media changes the power rel...
  • stace: lazy and sensationalist - I couldn't agree more...
  • Graeme Codrington: Here's another example - a company that developed software t...
  • Graeme Codrington: I agree with you on this point, Barrie. BUT... I just had a...

Archives

Tweet Blender

workforcetrends: Blog: How #GenY sees the Gen gap http://bit.ly/aNFILQ // it's smaller and larger than it's ever been
3 hours ago
tomorrowtodayza: Blog: How Gen Y sees the Gen gap http://bit.ly/aNFILQ
3 hours ago
barriebramley: Hey dad. Today was the best. #SixWordStory
4 hours ago
barriebramley: This morning you made me cry. #SixWordStory
4 hours ago
barriebramley: We don't spend enough time together. #SixWordStory @clivesimpkins
4 hours ago
barriebramley: Risk and courage. All we need. #SixWordStory
4 hours ago
barriebramley: With you, the world makes sense. #SixWordStory
4 hours ago
barriebramley: @Zanndee it's so not Ayoba : )
5 hours ago