SA Rocks

Before I continue with this blog, let me add a ‘disclaimer’: I am in no way affiliated with the Democratic Alliance or the ANC and there are aspects of both parties which I like and dislike…

Whilst Helen Zille has certainly not been exempt from hurling the odd insult at the ANC, I was extremely disturbed yesterday to hear ANC Youth Leader Julius Malema refer to Helen Zille as a ‘racist little girl’. Whenever any South African reverts to the tired ‘racist’, ‘colonialist’, and/or ‘imperialist’ tags I feel overwhelmingly irritated as, nine times out of ten, it is a cheap trump card which has no truth in it whatsoever. It is also slightly amusing to hear the terms ‘colonialist and ‘imperialist’ in particular still being bandied about this country when Colonialism normally refers to ‘a period of history from the 15th to the 20th century when people from Europe built colonies on other continents’.

Had Malema perhaps done a little research into Zille’s past, he might have found out that she was a prominent anti-Apartheid activist and that, while working for the Rand Daily Mail in the late 1970′s, she famously uncovered the truth behind the Steve Biko murder, risking her own life in the process. Zille was also a leading member of Black Sash, a white anti-Apartheid and pro women’s rights movement.

I love South Africa and am proud to be South African. I am however tired of the political mud-slinging (which does not exclude the DA and Helen Zille) that seems to be an intrinsic part of our society and I would like to ask all of our leaders to please put aside the filth.

I challenge and encourage South African politicians to engage more in open debate where proverbial points are scored through intellectual prowess and not cheap slander.

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Recently I have been doing a lot of blogging about voting, voter education, political parties and similar topics.

It is fitting that the Zoopy Gauteng team attended a Round Table discussion held by 702 Talk Radio – who evidently are doing a sterling job to raise political awareness in SA.

Much was said about democracy in yesterdays debates and discussions. Here are a few videos from various parties talking about their opinion of democracy in SA:

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As I have already blogged I was asked by the lovely Max Kaizen to attend a debate at the Sandton Sun.

The Unexpected Business Case for staying in SA sparked my interest immediately. The event is about to get underway. Mike Stopforth and Paul Jacobson are already at their seats on the panel with their Macs right in front of them. Nice.

So from here on end I’ll be updating as the debate goes down. I’ll try and save the post and update every few minutes. I’ll also be tweeting the event as much as I can so follow my twitter stream if you feel so inclined.

The panelists setting up pre-debate

17:05

As per usual at events like this people trickle in. Painful. Why can’t South Africans (read humans around the world) ever be timeous?

It also looks like each panelist is either going to be using Google to gather facts/stats or will be presenting something along the way. Interesting. Paul mentioned that his approach is a bit out there but in some strange way comes back to the SA Rocks mantra of Positive Action. Let’s hope Paul!

17:15

Things are underway. “We are not trying to agree or disagree with one another, we are trying to open debate.” – David Donde

All panelists are doing a 5 min presentation. Then debate will open.

Mike Stopforth

First sad year for Mike as he seriously considered leaving SA. Went abroad and it was like he was shopping for a new place to live instead of being excited to stay in SA.

“Despite economic constraints we [SA] see opportunities opening to us all over.”

“The more people that leave, the less likely we are to solve the problems that face us.”
“There are always opportunities to create links, network and build relationships. As companies there is a desire to say How do we build together” – this is the foundation of Mike’s talk.

I’ll add Mike’s short video tomorrow

Paul Jacobson

Paul has a VERY big photo up on the screen.

Paul says he has a different take on (messes with Microphone) the topic today. No pie-chart, graphs or anything like that. He’s talking from his own thoughts and perceptions.

“We live in an environment which isn’t fixated on laws as rules. Rules tend to be more like guidelines here.”

Living in this enviro – a loose sense of rules – makes a fair amount of wiggle room in SA. This gives rise to opportunism in SA. Either there is not enough regulation or an absence altogether.

Less regulation = more innovation (not sure I agree with Paul here). This can lead to lack of respect for judicial independence and integrity. Which also leads to a notion of endless corruption.

YET – there seems to be a fair amount of potential despite bribery or what have you. Some of the reasons being telecommunications industry is opening up (How is this not going to be affected by the lack of integrity and ethics in SA?).

Respect for human rights is NB = freedom of expression.

With all the possibilities it is still going to be a rocky road ahead.

Democratic institutions still under threat. Yet we have the promise of a new world. IF we are prepared to adapt to a new reality of moral and ethical relativism. If we can do this, we can find a space to thrive.

Joshin Raghubar

A lot of South Africans have struggled with the “stay or go”.

What does topic mean by “unexpected”… is it stating obviously that it’s unexpected to leave or to stay?

It’s not a race thing anymore. Many diverse cultures are leaving.

Business Case – meant to be rational and backed up with empirical evidence. But humans are not rational. The choice to stay and go is not a rational one in the end.

We need to rationalise our irrationality.

Do you have to leave to make it big?? – Joshin believes to REALLY make it big, you have to STAY. If you really want to “shoot the lights out” you need to be in SA.

UK – People are comfortably poor.

Let’s rationalise things: Total Access – we have total access to anyone if we really want to get to them. It’s relatively easy to pick up the phone and meet someone. (Agreed fully).

If you want access… just ASK.

Untold Opportunity – in first world countries alot of ideas have been done. Here, there is room for growth, experimentation and the ability to learn from the mistakes of the world. At the top skills level we are producing world class people.

Gateway to the continent – Africa is the final untouched market and globally people are scrambling for it. SA is still seen as the gateway to Africa. Abroad people are paying up to $250 a pop to listen to what SA is doing in the markets.

Skilled people benefit disproportionately – The skilled will benefit with a larger slice of the pie.

We speak English

Technology trumps geography – (I love this) Anything you can send down a wire is up for grabs. We as South Africans are in a position to benefit from this.

Expand your world views. If you leave stay South African, don’t become an ex-South African. (Great quote).

What narrative do you want to play for yourself? There are very few more compelling than the triumph over adversity.

Branco Brkic

Branco displaying pictures that represent reality in SA today in place of a presentation.

“Really worried about the state of SA. Fork in the road and we aren’t sure which way the country will go. We have serious problems (not challenges).”

Not certain we will sort out our issues.

We need to stay true to ourselves. Who is going to be in power, Zuma, Motlanthe? VERY NB.

The issue is that the situation, the way we feel about SA, is always influenced by your current level of success. “I’m not having great success at the moment and that influences my state of mind”.

Branco just left stage. Very ill. What a pity. He was on to something.

Debate begins:

Is immigration leaving a void or an opportunity?

“Africa is a rough place and that is probably what makes us able to succeed abroad. The only constant factor in SA is… change.”

“How many white people can speak a national black language?”

David Donde – built a global micro-brand and discovered it’s pretty cool to be African.

Andrew (Internet developer) – Intrigued by Paul and Joshin’s comments. Paul’s moral relativism.

Discussion around why South Africans are tolerant of crime. Paul: Laws are just disregarded in general. Thus we are tolerant.

To stay here you need: “Your own moral compass. Where you stand for your choices. On the other hand you need to accept that not everybody is going to see eye to eye with you. You need to find your place in society.” – Paul Jacobson.

I’ll have to stop writing now, taking part in the debate.

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I will be attending a very interesting debate on Wednesday. It is being held and hosted by Epiphany.

Let me quickly jump back for a second. I have recently joined Zoopy.com as the GM of Gauteng and have spent the last week or so in Cape Town. Along the way I met some fantastic people, one of whom is Max Kaizen.

Max is a contributor here on SA Rocks and we have been threatening to bump in to one another for a while now. Eventually, Tuesday night we managed to get in touch with one another at Asoka in Kloof, CT.

Firstly let me just say what an absolutely fantastic venue Asoka is. Great jazz, cool people, mixed crowd, good cocktails and good company made the evening top notch.

But back to the Unexpected Business Case.

Max and I got talking about SA, as it happens fairly often with me. Then she mentioned a debate that is taking place in JHB on Wednesday and I couldn’t refuse the chance to attend.

Here’s the press release:

The UNEXPECTED business case affecting SA’s best and brightest
-a provocative public debate - why staying may be smart strategy
at the South African Business Schools Expo,

Sandton Sun, Johannesburg
Wednesday, 3 September 17h00 – 19h00

JOHANNESBURG – Amongst the financial doom & gloom, xenophobia, political incompetence and exit strategies traded over dinner; a question must be asked:
“Is there a business case for using South Africa as a platform in a global economy?”

Think tank engineers, Epiphany in collaboration with Huddlemind, executive education specialists, will be facilitating a dynamic debate at the South African Business School Expo to interrogate the perception that South Africans have to go elsewhere in the world to “make it big”.

Respected industry leaders: Branko Brkic (Editor, Maverick), Mike Stopforth (CEO, Cerebra), Paul Jacobson (New Media lawyer, Jacobson Attorneys) and Joshin Raghubar (Aspen Global Leadership fellow/ CEO, iKineo) present their opinion on the flight of human capital out of South Africa; and how the changes in technology, media, global economics and local politics have opened up gaps that the swift and smart can take advantage of now.

This is not a lecture by talking heads. Epiphany is tackling the question in a fresh way, through provocative public debate with powerful thought leaders – not only from the expert panel – but the audience too. Among them, social media powerhouse Nic Haralambous (editor, SA Rocks) will be on the floor to offer rich perspectives on opportunities most of us miss in our misery. The group session will be facilitated by David Donde (journalist, GQ and presenter 567/702).

Are there practical strategies to leveraging world-scale success from the bottom of Africa? There are companies and industries booming despite the downturn.
What are they doing that may be a little unusual?

This session is highly recommended if you’re considering a great trek of your own, or rapidly losing some of your company’s best and brightest.

Tickets are R250 (including admission to the Expo) available online (click here) at www.epiphany.usgeni.us
or contact Max Kaizen 082 832 6434 or max@usgeni.us

And for a bit more on each of the participating personalities:

Branko Brkic
Described as the guardian of the higher mind, Branko is the owner of Business Century, publisher and editor of business magazines Maverick and Empire.

David Donde
David will be facilitating the session for Epiphany. He is a talkshow host on 702/Cape Talk and journalist at GQ on cars and lifestyle. He is a founder of Origin Coffee Roasting (singularly the best artisan roasted coffee in the country). Recognised as a global expert on the matter, David does talks on coffee; but also on branding, fair trade economics and the collapse of the middle market. He voices his strident opinion out in the web at daviddonde.com

Paul Jacobson
Paul is a new media lawyer working in Johannesburg. He has a general commercial legal practice, Jacobson Attorneys and focusses on new media and the law. He is currently a member of the Advisory Council on The Open Knowledge Definition Project, Sub-Committee 71L (Document description and processing languages) and is the legal advisor to a number of non-profit organisations. Paul speaks at universities and conferences globally about new media and the law and writes about these issues (and others) on his blog.

Joshin Raghubar
Joshin serves as a director of the Cape Information Technology Initiative (CITi). Chairman of the Bandwidth Barn which is Africa’s leading non-profit business incubator and accelerator for technology businesses. He has also recently joined the board of the South African Chamber of Commerce in America. Has has recently become a Global Leadership Fellow of the Aspen Global Leadership Network (African Leadership Initiative). Somewhere between all of this, he is also CEO of marketing and communications firm iKineo.

Mike Stopforth
Mike is perhaps one of the most quoted people on social media in South Africa, helped set up Afrigator, is the brains behind Cerebra, and co-founded the 27Dinners. He’s an acclaimed public speaker, columnist and tells the likes of Toyota, Standard Bank, Rand Merchant Bank, Samsung Mobile, ABSA, Converse and Calvin Klein what they should be doing online. For kicks he is an associate of the Institute of Technology Strategy and Innovation (ITSI), the Center for Complexity Studies

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Last night I had drinks with some people at a pub. I was shocked and astounded to find out that parents of the one people were planning on immigrating from SA to Australia.

Why the blog post? Well let me put it to you this way. In my experience people like to talk about how crappy their situation is, how unhappy they are and how they want to leave. When the truth of the matter is that they neither want to move or are able to move financially. Not to Australia or anywhere else for that matter.

It seems to have become trendy to discuss where you want to live when you leave. It seems to have become dinner party chatter. I think it’s crap and it irritates me.

My immediate take on immigration is that it is such an extremely personal choice that it shouldn’t be thrown about like a game. It’s not a game. It’s not a game for you, your family, friends, country and lifestyle/livelihood.

I say it’s not a game because most people really don’t think it through in its entirety. Immigrating is not about escaping crime, it’s not about the political state of the nation that you live in, it’s not about power cuts or anything other than your personal outlook on things.

You need to move if you personally feel that your quality of life would be improved anywhere else (or the place where you intend to move to). You should not be leaving any country or lifestyle for one factor alone. It needs to be you deciding to better your life. If you are running away, trust me, your problems will follow you.

Then another friend of mine decides to mention that when he completes his studies here in SA he is leaving to go to the UK. Why? Because he will never find a job here, he’s white, young and semi-privileged, thus he believes that he will never, ever, ever find work in SA.

Let me clarify my stance on this point; yes affirmative action is around and yes it affects some people at some point. But in my personal experience (including my friends and associated friends groups) it has not affected anyone detrimentally. At all, ever. All of my friends graduated from university and got jobs. Not within a year, not within five, but from the time of graduation within months.

There are exceptions to everyones rule, there are cases that defy what you think is normal, or actually taking place. In the end the most irritating part of the entire discussion was that the end result is personal. The best part is that there are people in SA who are passionately, defiantly and overtly proud to be here, live here and build a life here. That makes me happy, that keeps me going.

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