Author Archive for Mike

IBM Puts Dollars Behind the Crowd

Published
by
Mike
on August 14, 2006
in Connection Economy, Innovation, Technology, The Quick and the Dead - case studies and Trends - Future Trends
. 0 Comments

IBM logoIBM CEO Samuel Palmisano has announced what he calls an Innovation Jam - an attempt to come up with new business and product ideas by leveraging the collective intelligence of IBM’s 100,000-strong ‘crowd‘.

According to Yahoo! Business, IBM has “used these online brainstorming sessions to mine for new business opportunities in 2001, to exchange ideas about good management in 2002, and to discuss IBM values in 2003″ - this is not a new idea, but is unique in that IBM is looking for ideas from clients, suppliers, consultants, resellers, employee family members, etc. They are going open source with innovation - 2 x 72 hour sessions in which stakeholders pump ideas into the system - “IBM won’t own any of the nuggets that emerge” - but are willing to put up to $100 million behind the strongest concepts.

Continue reading ‘IBM Puts Dollars Behind the Crowd’

A Delicious Fetish

Published
by
Mike
on August 6, 2006
in Blogging, Connection Economy, Global View, Innovation, Knowledge Continuity, Social Network Analysis, Technology and Trends - Future Trends
. 0 Comments

Delicious imagesJoshua Schachter once sent me an email. At the time, I had no idea who he was – his response had come from a request I’d sent to the del.icio.us ‘support team’. Del.icio.us is a social bookmarking site, I needed some help figuring out how to use it (being new to the concept) and support@del.icio.us seemed a good place to start.

His email was dated 11 October 2005. Not two months later, on 9 December, Joshua announced on his personal blog that Yahoo! had snatched up his fledgling Web 2.0 startup as part of their extreme 2.0 makeover. Nobody is really sure what was paid, but considering the bulk of the rumours estimated the price at USD30 million, give or take ten percent, Joshua did ok.

I’m not sure what it is about del.icio.us. It certainly isn’t pretty. In fact, it’s arguably one of the ugliest darn sites on the web. It might be the name – the name is downright smart, using the .us domain to complete a sublimely catchy Web 2.0-ish lilt. At least I got excited about that. Perhaps it’s all the extensions and plug-ins the del.icio.us community has created to integrate functionality into popular web browsers and blogging platforms. Then again, it might just be that I have found del.icio.us to be the least flashy, most functional, most valuable, most sustainable Web 2.0 application (and information resource) on the internet.

Continue reading ‘A Delicious Fetish’

Crime Doesn’t Pay. Or Does It?

Published
by
Mike
on July 25, 2006
in Articles and Blogging
. 6 Comments

Let me begin by saying that I have never been a victim of violent crime in 25 years of living in South Africa.

A Golf I once owned did get broken into overnight. My childhood home in Johannesburg was invaded and goods were stolen, once. My brother was held up at knifepoint on a sidewalk. I know people that have been hijacked at gunpoint. That said, I do not claim to identify with people who have been subjected to devastating acts of violence, assault, abuse and discrimination, and admit up front my bias towards a country and a nation I love, celebrate and feel privileged to be a part of.

There are many who wouldn’t agree. Neil Watson, a South African citizen, feels so strongly about what he believes is an understated and out-of-control crime reality in South Africa that he’s started up a website to rally support from like-minded compatriots. Crime Expo South Africa is a blog that, according to the site, “aim(s) to provide victims of violent crime, as well as friends and families of the slaughtered, with an opportunity to collectively register their anger and provide the world with a preview of violent South Africa…” and “provide(s) an opportunity to the murdered to raise from their graves and haunt those who let them down!”

Continue reading ‘Crime Doesn’t Pay. Or Does It?’

BMW: Blogging Meets Wheels

Published
by
Mike
on July 11, 2006
in Blogging and General
. 0 Comments

How lame is that title? You come up with a better one…

Exciting news in my inbox yesterday - Jonathan Cherry of Cherryflava.com and more recently, the Cherryflava Media Company, has secured a deal with BMW to support the launch of the new Z4 Coupe with a blogging campaign. Kudo’s to Jon!

Z4

The press release:

A first in South Africa - BMW have taken the leap into the world of blogs by advertising the launch of their new Z4 coupe on one.

The newly-formed Cherryflava Media Company, South Africa’s first blog media publisher, together with newly established brand activation company, Thirty Four, announced Friday that BMW South Africa has included Cherryflava’s flagship title, Cherryflava.com, in their online advertising campaign for the new BMW Z4 Coupe.

Continue reading ‘BMW: Blogging Meets Wheels’

Business 2.0 Gets It

Published
by
Mike
on July 10, 2006
in Connection Economy, Marketing and sales and The Quick and the Dead - case studies
. 0 Comments

50People

Business 2.0 recently released its list of 50 People Who Matter NOW, and 10 People Who Don’t just to compliment it.

No huge surprises on the Top 50 Who Matter list, if you understand that the role of the consumer has changed dramatically in the last few years.

You see, Business 2.0 reckons the most important business person on the planet right now is…

… wait for it …

YOU!

Closely followed by sires Brin and Page. How nifty is that?

Continue reading ‘Business 2.0 Gets It’

GooglePedia

Published
by
Mike
on June 14, 2006
in Technology
. 0 Comments

One of the many reasons I like Firefox - the free, open source web browser - is that the community supporting Firefox continually comes up with little applications, called extensions, that through a simple installation process add great functionality to my browsing experience.

One such extension, a very recent addition to the stacks of existing Firefox add-ons, is GooglePedia. GooglePedia takes the powerful search functionality of Google and combines it with the formidable content of Wikipedia, so that when you run a search on Google half of the page displays Google search results, while the other half of the page shows Wikipedia search matches.

GooglePedia

In case you’ve been hibernating for the last few years and don’t know what I’m talking about when I mention Wikipedia - Wikipedia is the world’s first online, open-source encyclopedia. It’s an enormous resource built by a community of volunteers - people like you and I - who have expertise and knowledge to share and do so, for the benefit of something much bigger than them, without remuneration.

Continue reading ‘GooglePedia’

MySQL - The Model 21st Century Company?

Published
by
Mike
on June 13, 2006
in Connection Economy, Generation Y, Innovation, Leadership, Talent - Bright Young Things and Technology
. 1 Comment

mySQLI picked up on a great Fortune article on the CNNMoney.com site about MySQL, the open-source software designers, over the weekend. It unpacks the dynamics of this completely decentralised organisation, and just what makes it tick as well as it does.

This, according to the article, is a challenge facing many companies - new and old, established or fledgling - as we transition into a Connection Economy. As globalisation and commoditisation have an increased effect on our workplace and our employees, we need to find innovative new ways to nurture a productive bond among workers who rarely, if ever, meet.

Continue reading ‘MySQL - The Model 21st Century Company?’

Money for Nothing…

Published
by
Mike
on June 11, 2006
in Generation Y, Innovation, Talent - Bright Young Things and Technology
. 2 Comments

…and your clicks for free.

Alex Tew is 21 years old, a student from Wiltshire, England. On August 25th of 2005 he launched the Million Dollar Homepage, an ambitious attempt to raise money (according to Alex) for his varsity education.

Mill

Quite simply, Alex set up a blank website, 1000 x 1000 pixels (one million pixels altogether) and sold off 10 x 10 pixel blocks for $100 each. That’s a dollar for a pixel, effectively. Purchasers had the option of submitting a graphic to be displayed, with a link to their website. Things started off a little slowly but as the rumours passed from pc to pc, email to email, blog to blog – orders began to pour in. Having begun with nothing at the end of August, Alex auctioned off the last 1000 pixels on 1 January 2006 for $38,100 and a grand total of $1,037,100.

Not a bad profit considering his only costs where five month’s worth of hosting fees – approximately R 500.

The incentive for investing in Alex’s homepage? Well, at the peak of its growth Alexa rated the site at 127 for traffic – that’s 127th out of ALL the sites making up the World Wide Web. The story of Alex’s site was pasted all over blogs around the world. The brands shown on the page have been seen literally by millions and millions of users. But not only are these companies, sponsors and individuals part of an elaborate (albeit successful) moneymaking scheme – they’re part of a great story. And sometimes just being part of a great story is absolutely priceless.

Continue reading ‘Money for Nothing…’

The Bead4Need Race Against Time

Published
by
Mike
on June 9, 2006
in Blogging and General
. 0 Comments

Bead4NeedI recently presented at an SABMiller Management Development Programme. One of the groups on the programme have taken the bull by the horns and are leveraging social software and viral marketing for maximum reach on a pretty exciting project. Their objective is to raise USD $10,000 before June 16th by auctioning off 3 unique beaded artworks.

This from their website:

The Bead4Need Team is a group of young dynamic business leaders in the corporate environment that want to make a difference in the lives of many Southern Africans. Ian, Navin, Fenias, Roger, AK and Gerrit are in a similar struggle, a race against the sun, against time.

The Bead4Need Race against Time has one simple objective, “To raise $10,000 before 16 June 2006�. Every last cent of this money will be channelled into The CIDA City Campus that aspires to making a sustainable difference in the lives of the disenfranchised people in Southern Africa.

What’s in it for the Bead4Need Team you may well ask? It’s simple, they are a team in an Apprentice Challenge as part of their Leadership Development Experience. The team wants to be the top of their class and realised that just making money is not what it’s all about. They have a golden opportunity to make a real difference in the lives of many less fortunate than themselves and they want to invite you to be part of this success.

Really great news is that SAB has agreed to double any funds that the group raise through this initiative. I think it’s a great idea, only because CIDA benefits (in other words, this is not about lining SAB’s pockets). So, check out the site, visit eBay and make a bid. Help us spread the word and lets watch this grow.

When Books Died

Published
by
Mike
on May 24, 2006
in Technology
. 1 Comment

I spend a great deal of time in my car. In the past, if I was to maximize the value of that time, I had a number of choices. I could listen to the radio. Sadly, I have never found a commercial station offers me a three solid hours of stimulating listening. I could catch up on phone calls. Productive and meaningful, provided I use my hands-free kit, but seldom taking more than a half hour to complete. As I got increasingly busy, I had a growing concern that I was grossly underutilising my car QT.

At about the same time a number of peers and mentors were almost serendipitously reminding me that I was reading very few books. Having always been an avid reader, this was an enormous frustration for me. I realised I had to do something about my flailing reading commitment. I tried and failed. All my good reading time was taken up with online content – with my job.

AudibleThen I read a recent article by Jeff Jarvis’ BuzzMachine blog - see it here - and realised that my perceptions were possibly skewed. It occurred to me, and this can be argued, that the value of books lies more in the content than in the medium. If anything, the book medium (bound pages and ink) is horrendously outdated. It isn’t searchable, it isn’t conversational, it isn’t interactive, it isn’t inter-linkable. To quote Jeff – “I have nothing against books. But the book is an outmoded means of communicating information.�

Then I clicked (in a manner of speaking). I was a tech savvy guy. I owned an iPod. I’d been listening to my iPod in the car – customized playlists and podcasts had become my personalized radio content. But what if I could read in the car? Well, you’d most likely crash, I hear you say. Fair enough. But what if I could listen to my book instead? How much valuable reading time could I sneak in while commuting?

In a flash, the Google god told me where to find Audiobooks. Audible.com, he said. I went, faithful and expectant. I offered up my credit card and was blessed with two Gladwellian treats – The Tipping Point and Blink. I downloaded. I imported. I celebrated.

I am half way through Blink and loving every minute of it.

Mark Cuban - Blogging vs Traditional (Mainstream) Media

Published
by
Mike
on May 21, 2006
in Blogging
. 0 Comments

Mark CubanMark Cuban, charismatic owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team, is an extremely popular blogger and web personality.

Mark spends a lot of time commenting on the impact of emering social (or consumer-generated) media on mainstream media, and recently wrote an excellent entry on the relationship (or divide) between blogs and what we understand as ‘traditional media’.

Here are some of his key points:

In traditional media, you are first defined by your medium - “There is a cost vs time vs interest vs access series of constraints that determines who your audience is, how
you reach them and what they expect of you. Over time, that has evolved our media into very defined roles”, says Cuban. However, blogs cost nothing to create. Blogging is personal. It is a tonal factor that most distinctively divides the two media: “Traditional media
has become almost exclusively corporate while blogging remains almost exclusively personal”.

Another key factor to blogging is the varying roles one author can take - and the subsequent diverse audiences it attracts. I can identify with Mark on this one. I write very differently for my MoneyWeb blog, my Citizen Op-Ed and my other blogs, but all the content invariably gets posted here. So you as the reader are offered a pastiche of journalistic flavours from conversational-informal to print-formal.

One last great quote from the man:

“Traditional media goes to work, bloggers live their work.”

Talent - Barrie and Aloysias

Published
by
Mike
on May 16, 2006
in Connection Economy and Innovation
. 0 Comments

Talent is an issue on everyone’s agenda. Especially in the Connection Economy.

“We’re good enough, therefore we’re old enough”. - The voice of the Young Snots.

“Call me by my first name - I know I have to earn your respect”. - The voice of a Savvy Boss.

Some companies feel like managing talent is just like herding cats. We’d like to suggest it’s not about trying to herd cats. You need new stategies. The danger is trying to offer perks, and attemting to strangle them once they’re in.

“Where are you?” - the mobility factor. Today’s talent can conduct business from anywhere, say the front of a conference room for example (a random example). Young people graduate to the world. See what Wikipedia has to say about talent here.

We hope to prepare business in terms of attracting, retaining and nurturing this talent.

They’re also a Gaming Generation. Their virtual reality interacts with their ‘real-life’ reality. Games have taught our young people how to learn from their mistakes.

“If at first you don’t succeed, learn from it and try again”.

Failure IS an option.

Google’s Product Plethora

Published
by
Mike
on May 16, 2006
in Blogging and Technology
. 0 Comments

Ever clicked on the ‘more’ link just above and to the right of Google’s search box?

Google more

It’s got to be the Web’s best kept secret. Behind the discreet little hyperlink lies Google’s veritable goldmine of products, services and offerings. Some of them you’ll be familiar with - Adsense, Gmail and Google Earth are terms you may have stumbled across in recent times.

But did you know the mighty search machine also offers a Financial portal, web-based Calendar, Book search, Video directory, and that there’s even a Health portal on the horizon? Let me offer you a glimpse into some of the nifty tools Google has hidden behind the ‘more’ link.

Gmail - Google’s webmail service. Competitor to Hotmail and Yahoo! mail, Gmail offers over 2 GB of storage space, a smooth Ajax-powered interface, integrated IM and Talk (Instant Messaging) service, virus scanning, free POP access (unique to Gmail - allows you to receive Gmail in Outlook), mobile compatibility, an address book, spam filtering, and the list goes on. Signing up for a free Google account also opens up the option of a Google Personalized homepage - another great feature. Read more about Gmail here.

Calendar - Google’s calendar service. Recently launched and fully integrated with Gmail, Calendar offers the following features (taken from the overview page):

Calendar Sharing - set up a calendar for your company action cricket team, and share it with the whole roster. Or share with friends and family so you can view each other’s schedules side by side. Invitations - create event invitations, send them to friends, and keep track of people’s responses and comments, all in one place. Your friends can receive your invitation and post responses even if they don’t use Google Calendar themselves. Gmail Integration - add your friend’s Super 14 braai to your calendar without ever leaving your Gmail inbox. Gmail now recognizes events mentioned in emails. Search - find the exact date of the same braai (you knew it was sometime this summer) using Google powerful search technology. Or, search public calendars to discover new events you’re interested in and add them to your own calendar. Mobile Access - receive event reminders and notifications on your mobile phone. Read more about Google Calendar here.

If you hadn’t figured it out yet, Gmail + Calendar = Outlook online. And it’s free. And it’s web-based, so you access your personal information from any mobile, connected device, anywhere in the world, anytime. While we’re talking about an online office suite, it’s worth mentioning that Google purchased Writely earlier this year, a web-based word processor that rivals MS Word in functionality and performance.

As increased broadband connectivity, albeit slow in coming, improves our access to the Web, it is becoming more and more feasible to shift your entire personal desktop online. For free.

Moving on…

If you’re into tracking the online buzz to make sure you’re at the cutting edge of new developments in your industry, around your brand or even mentions of your own name, use the following powerful tools:

Alerts - once again free with a Google account, Alerts allows you to enter a search term once-off, and have updated results sent to you via email when they appear on the Web. I have alerts for my client’s company names, my favourite search topics (youth markets, as an example), and more. If you find you regularly check Google for the same or similar search terms, set up an Alert and have the results delivered to you instead. Nifty!

Blog Search - If you’re still in the dark with regards to blogs and blogging I’ve written muchos info here. Blog Search will help you keep track of what is being said in blogs worldwide.

Trends - still in Labs (development) phase, Google Trends allows you to compare search term results graphically. The search will highlight news results corresponding to the graph and normalise results by region and city, if necessary. As an experiment, try running a search for ‘Nedbank, ABSA’ and peruse the results. To quote Steve Rubel, PR expert and A-list blogger: “This tool is a must-bookmark for every PR person and marketer worldwide. Search is so important to how brands are perceived. As I noted earlier today, it’s critical to understand how people are searching for you and your competitors. The news volume tool is an awesome value add for PR measurement.” And it’s free.

There are stacks of other value-added services hidden behind Google’s discreetly placed ‘more’ link. My advice - take some time out to explore the possibilities and try out some of the products. You’ll soon be Googleized.

The Little Things

Published
by
Mike
on May 15, 2006
in General and The Quick and the Dead - case studies
. 0 Comments

Keg Cigar Lounge

This is a photo of the ’smoking section’ in the Keg, Johannesburg International Airport. I think it’s a stroke of genius. In most restaurants, tucked away in some corner, smoking sections often resemble neglected herpetological exhibits. I’m not a smoker, but I often feel sorry for our oxygenically-challenged brethren.

The Keg has turned this perception on it’s head by enclosing the busiest area of the restaurant off and calling it a Cigar Lounge instead of a smoking section. Ironically enough, it was the busiest section of the pub when I visited this evening, and my guesstimation was that less than 50% of the people inside where smoking anything at all. It appears that it is quite cool to sit in the Cigar Lounge and leaf through the morning’s paper, regardless of whether you smoke or not.

Sometimes the difference between brilliance and a missed opportunity is just a little thought. Another great example is an ancient old lady that works a till at our local Pick ‘n Pay. She always greets me when I arrive at her station by looking me in the eyes and smiling. She scans my groceries as though they are ming vases. If I pay by credit card, she glances at my name and says, “thanks for your business, Mr. Stopforth. Enjoy the rest of your day”. Mr. Stopforth. I’m one-eighth her age, for crying out loud.

Small acts of brilliance, huge impacts.

Tracking the World Wide Buzz

Published
by
Mike
on May 11, 2006
in Articles, Blogging, Connection Economy and Marketing and sales
. 1 Comment

Marketing, media and consumer behaviour redefined

Standard Bank recently had a few marketing and banking tongues wagging after forking out millions to change their well known and fairly acceptable ’simpler. better. faster.’ pay-off line to the abstract, Triple-B: ‘inspired. motivated. involved.’

Sentiments echoed across the blogosphere were all somewhat scathing, which illustrates the power of blogging and the fact that consumers have found their voice and are not shy to use it. (A good example of what was and is being said can be found on the popular community blog about all things cherry - Cherryflava). One wonders what results Standard Bank would have enjoyed had they pocketed their marketing budget and instead implemented a direct mail campaign asking clients for recommendations on the new slogan. They could even have thrown in a sparkling new iPod as a prize for the best submission. Let’s face it, for the most part 50,000 heads can only be better than 50.

Continue reading ‘Tracking the World Wide Buzz’

The Moleskine Evangelists

Published
by
Mike
on May 4, 2006
in Marketing and sales
. 3 Comments

Perhaps you own one. I don’t. I barely write anymore – most of my thoughts get hammered out on a keyboard or spoken directly into a digital recorder. But I’m intrigued. Not by the odd Moleskine-bearer strolling nonchalantly around Melville or Rosebank (I usually dismiss them as artsy-types), but rather by the phenomenal online following the ol’ Moleskine brand enjoys.

The Moleskine (pronounced mol-a-skeen-a) is simply a brand of notebook manufactured by Modo & Modo, an Italian company, bound in oilcloth-covered cardboard (Moleskin) with an elastic band to hold the notebook closed and a sewn spine that allows it to lie flat when opened. Not particularly high tech, or particularly sexy, for that matter. The pocket notebook’s reputation has grown in stature through the endorsements of the likes of Bruce Chatwin, Neil Gaiman and Pete Doherty, and rumour would have it that the Moleskine was a favourite accessory to the likes of Picasso, Hemingway and Van Gogh.

Whether all the folklore is verifiable or not the Moleskine brand, through its product’s minimalist design and stylish simplicity, continues to enjoy a formidable, almost cultish following. I’ve never heard Moleskine notebooks advertised on the radio, nevermind on the telly, and yet everyone who’s anyone either owns one or can tell you something about them. That’s exceptional - the immense power of viral marketing, personified by a wad of blank pages.

Inside view of a Moleskine ruled notebook; the elastic band is visible on the right, as is the bookmark in the center.I was interested to hear Jackie Huba of the Church of the Customer blog talking about her Moleskine-fetish, and she listed some fascinating links to some of the more fanatical Moleskine Evangelists in the online world. Moleskine blogs, a MySpace site and even a comprehensive Wikipedia entry (from which, just by the way, I got most of the information for this article). All this free marketing by unpaid, enthusiastic citizens, who believe in the unobtrusive allure of an overpriced notebook.

How many citizen marketers does your brand have?

Learn to speak Teen

Published
by
Mike
on May 2, 2006
in Generation Y, Generations and Talent - Bright Young Things
. 1 Comment

I really enjoyed reading an article recently forwarded to me by Aiden called ‘Entertain. Inspire. Empower. How to speak a teen’s language, even if you’re not one.’ He found it at ChangeThis.com - a fascinating site that “is creating a new kind of media. A form of media that uses existing tools (like PDFs, blogs and the web) to challenge the way ideas are created and spread.” (read the ChangeThis manifesto here).

Josh Shipp, the author, echoes the sentiments of many of us who have something meaningful to share with younger generations but loose effectiveness somewhere in translation. He suggests a few pointers that will help you get your message across:

Entertain

Josh believes we need to earn the right to be heard. To the average teen, what you’ve achieved, how much you earn and what floor you work on means squat. When you get up to speak, or engage them in conversation, you start from scratch. They will listen when they trust you, and trust comes from you being authentic and unique - being yourself in other words. Teens will smell a rat faster than you can say ‘dubya’ if you’re not being authentic.

Inspire

We have long been taught that our mistakes show weakness. That if our kids see us fail, they’ll lose respect for us. However, teens learn more from mistakes and failures than successes, provided they’re authentic of course.

As an individual engaging teens, be prepared to share your story, with all its warts. As a company wanting to engage teens, be prepared to share your story, with all its warts.

Empower.

Listen. Pay attention. Be accountable. They’re smarter than you think they are.

Download the complete PDF below and if you enjoy it, rate it at ChangeThis.com. Shipp’s website can be found at www.joshshipp.com.


Teens Language PDF

Effort

Published
by
Mike
on April 13, 2006
in General
. 1 Comment

I’m sitting at a coffee station at one of my clients’ head office, catching up on emails before I present in 10 min.  I would’ve been half an hour early but I waited 20 minutes outside the gate for the visitor parkade to empty out.  There is a dire shortage of parking space at the office, causing a backlog of frustrated customers and vendors at the entrance.  Not ideal.  What surprised me though, is that it is clearly not a new problem.  They even have a nice stand-alone metallic sign that explains “Customer Parking Full”.  Nice.

Why do we go to so much effort to explain a problem when we could try find ways to solve it?

I find it incredible that they’ve gone to great lengths to help their employees make efficient use the coffee vending machine by means of a colour-coded flowchart (see image), but parking remains a head ache.

Where do you concentrate your efforts?  How often do we try to neutralise problems instead of solving them?

This week in the Connected World…

Published
by
Mike
on March 17, 2006
in Connection Economy and Technology
. 0 Comments

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

Published
by
Mike
on March 15, 2006
in Boomers RetYrement, Connection Economy and General
. 1 Comment

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 ‘A rant: Sport is about money’

The truth…

Published
by
Mike
on March 15, 2006
in General
. 0 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 truth…’

The bottom line on blogging

Published
by
Mike
on March 14, 2006
in Blogging, Connection Economy and Technology
. 0 Comments

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 ‘The bottom line on blogging’

Unconferencing

Published
by
Mike
on March 13, 2006
in Connection Economy and Education
. 1 Comment

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 ‘Unconferencing’

Will it help?

Published
by
Mike
on March 13, 2006
in General
. 0 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.

The Middle Ages, part 2

Published
by
Mike
on March 10, 2006
in 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.