SA Rocks

Have you heard of SASSI? That’s the Southern African Sustainable Seafood Initiative – a public awareness and educational project that aims to inform seafood consumers and dealers about legal and conservation issues surrounding seafood and aims to promote legal and sustainable seafood choices. And they have developed an extremely cool tool to help consumers choose fish from healthy populations and thus relieve the pressure on overexploited species

Say you’re sitting in a fancy schmancy seafood restaurant and the waiter informs you that the linefish of the day is geelbek. If you want to know whether geelbek is an ethical choice, all you need is the FishMS service. You text the name of a fish to the number 079 499 8795, at standard text message rates, the fish name is checked against the WWF database, and you’ll immediately get a message telling you whether to go ahead and order, think twice before ordering, or avoid the fish completely completely.

The information has up to now only been available as a booklet or a condensed wallet card, which reduces information about the impact of fishing on stocks of local seafood species to a simple traffic light system:

* Species marked with a green fish can generally be eaten with a clear conscience because their population numbers are healthy (e.g. gurnard, hake).

* Species marked with an orange fish are legal to sell, but if you have a choice you should opt for one of the “green” species (e.g. geelbek, kingklip).

* Species marked in red are illegal to buy or sell in South Africa (e.g. abalone, musselcracker).

Full details of how the classification system works are available on the SASSI website.

With the new FishMS system, this information will be available at the touch of a cell phone button, even if you’ve left your reference card at home. SASSI hopes that the ingenious system will not only help consumers make informed choices, but will also demonstrate to retailers and restaurant owners that customers are willing to give up popular menu choices if these are not eco-friendly – which should in turn alter restaurants’ and retailers’ buying habits. SASSI has also launched an initiative whereby restaurants and small retailers can sign up and pledge not to sell fish classified as red, and always to have green options available to customers. It is hoped that by giving over-exploited species a break, their populations can recover and they can once again become more widely available.

The FishMS feature resulted from cooperation between SASSI, local IT company iVeri Payment Technology and developer Tony Seebregts - a rocking South African initiative.

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I picked this video/presentation up from Erik’s blog, White Africa. It’s a presentation he did at Pop!Tech.

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South Africans are resourceful, passionate and innovative. We like to create something from nothing, success from adversity and potential from disaster.

This is one of the reasons that I love being here and love South Africa. We are just different.

Finally it seems as though the world is beginning to take notice of this in the online/internet/innovation spheres.

SA Rocks blogged about Springleap in February of this year, we are ahead of the game! And now Springleap.com has been nominated for an Innovation 100 Award. Here’s a snippet from the Springleap Facebook event about the voting:

Some fantastic news!!!

Springleap.com (our proudly South African Initiative to promote SA Artists and rejuvenate the SA Garment Trade) has been nominated for the Innovation 100 Awards.

There are 100 companies that have been nominated in 10 categories… and springleap has been nominated as one of the top 10 innovative companies in the world’s retail category – this means we are right up there going against Amazon and the Apple App Store – and this is your chance to help put South Africa on the map by voting for springleap.com and telling your friends to go there and vote.

Please click on this link to go there and vote for Proudly SA:

http://www.thestandard.com/awards/tis100/show_category/5742

It’s a great time to show our South African unity and pride at something that puts SA on the map right up there with the big boys. A precious moment to show that we are springleaping together.

Facebook your friends, e-mail your pals and support South Africa at the Innovations 100 awards.

So what do you need to do?

It’s simple. Visit the Industry Standard website and VOTE FOR SPRINGLEAP.

And on a parting note it must be noted that Vinny Lingham‘s wonder-product, Synthasite is also up for an award so that makes two South Africans cracking the nod of approval this year.

Head over to the Innovations website and VOTE FOR SYNTHASITE too.

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I had the enormous privilege last week of stepping in to lecture at UCT, in Dave Duarte’s place (which is VERY daunting I must tell you! He has people sitting in the aisles). The sheer size of the class is staggering, some fiercely bright Commerce students sparkling between those that aren’t there for anything other than obligation, this course being part of the core curriculum. There’s a saying that when 1 teaches, 2 learn, and never more so than this experience for me.

I tend to hang out, real.world & virtually with pioneers who operate actively in the participation economy and I had some assumptions crashed mercilessly. For example: when I asked one of the classes who uploads videos to share on Youtube, NOT ONE hand went up 8-*
I was floored!
With the ease with which we can shoot video on mobile phones?! I was speaking to a born.digital crowd for goodness sake. Or maybe not. Thanks to Telkom bottlenecking our bandwidth and charging like an enraged bull for communications, we don’t have the freedom to connect and share that we could. This has stunted our growth horribly, and leaving South Africa trailing behind, holding onto some tatty old has.been echo from the 80′s/90′s of economic empowerment of the elite.

Isolation creates mutants (think Galapagos) which may be good in part, in that we have to be more resourceful & creative about making a plan. Or we could lose our brightest minds who choose the path of least resistance, and head for a culture where greed of the few doesn’t impede the productivity and potential of a whole nation. Developing nations are the ones who can benefit MOST from the emergence of freely shared tools, global distribution, online commerce and opensource everything. What will it take to get the vampires from draining the life from this country?

Someone needs to point out how ubuntu is counter.intuitively one of the most progressive, enlightened and profitable economic models humans have experimented with. Like the resurgence of yoga, many global thought leaders (even Clinton LOL!) are vaunting the sexiness of this ancient African philosophy: where doing good & doing good business aren’t mutually exclusive.

It isn’t a communist delusion, but healthily democratic, and shares the best aspects of the ‘net – transparency, collective problem-solving, opensource sharing and co.creating culture serve the individual as well as the whole. Realising and amplifying the possibilities that tech.enabled innovation coupled with the natural ubuntu-like culture it engenders may be our last hope, not just in SA, but as a species.

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I know that there is going to be a lot of content floating around on the web in SA today, tomorrow and now this week with SA Rocks.

I am going to be blogging heritage-centric content for the next week. Hopefully it wont be boring, hopefully we’ll spark some interest, debate and reflection – but not too much reflection if you don’t want to!

The Sunday Times has an insert this week in there paper focusing on Heritage and have launched a website to match their print ideas – not sure about the situation of their website is at the moment but give it a try and see what pops up!

Then iCommons has initiated their project titled iHeritage. This is without a doubt one of the coolest online convergence projects that I have seen from any organisation in the world.

From the iHeritage website:

The aim is simple – to build an online repository of South African culture and heritage – as lived in the day-to-day lives of ordinary South Africans, to be added to the growing collection of indigenous content on Wikimedia Commons.

This is a really incredible project in my humble patriotic opinion. This collection of data, of history, is invaluable to us and our past here in SA. You can upload content in various ways such as:
Wikimedia Commons and Flickr. If you are going to use Flickr you need to tag your photos with South Africa and iHeritage. Simple.

But if you are the kind of person who likes to contribute on a face to face platform then get down to Rosebank in JHB NOW! You only have 2 hours left to contribute at the event in The Mall of Rosebank so make it count and get down there. If not, stick to the online areas I’ve mentioned above. This is a great project to follow up so keep a look out for new developments.

Coming up this week: I take a look at Sunday Times’ special Heritage insert. I will be analysing heritage, what it means and if I am truly African in spite of or because of who I am and where I’m from.

This should be an interesting and challenging blogging week for me here on SA Rocks. If you have anything to add to my week of heritage please email me and let me know your thoughts or suggestions.

Note: I would love someone from the iHeritage event to send me a blog post about how the iHeritage event was received and how successful it was! Do It guys, do it!!

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Let’s talk about bridging the digital divide: Knysna. There I’m done.

Knysna has become a bridge, I massive, invisible, wi-fi enabled bridge.

Working in conjunction with the town’s local authorities, internet provider UniNet has set up a system of base stations which spread wi-fi around the town.

courtesy BBC

Obviously providing wi-fi access to people without computers that are able to access the internet is a fairly futile exercise. So the Knysna community has been provided with computers that are able to access the internet throughout key areas in the community that enable all people from all walks of life to gain access to the global community that is the internet.

This is a phenomenal step forward, not only for SA but for the African continent. Let’s hope that more and more nations, city’s, villages, businesses, organisations and governments wake up and see the potential for growth that access provides to a community.

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We all know how mobile mad SA is, has become and will be in the near future. I am sure (someone help me out with the stats here) that SA has way, way, way more cellphone users than PC users. This invariably means that SA has more internet access possibilities via cellphones than via PC’s. Interesting.

Speaking of Mobile madness:

The South African film industry is credited with starting the mobile-phone-as-movie-camera revolution by shooting the world’s first full-length movie, SMS Sugar Man, entirely on cellphones.

In 2006 the world’s first television commercial, filmed using only a mobile phone, was shot in South Africa.

And finally:

Vodacom was the first GSM operator in the world to offer fax and data communications and access to the Internet, the first cellular network to implement satellite links, the first network to develop the SIM Surgeon, a diagnostic device aimed at detecting and repairing problems with SIM cards and the first cellular network to offer free voicemail access.

I must admit that I haven’t verified these facts, but have a list of references. If you would like that list please contact me.

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This is a follow up post from something I posted last week. The reason that I am doing a follow up post is that SA Magazine actually took the time out to email me, thank me for the mention on SA Rocks and to explain more about my statement regarding access to the information.

I stand corrected:

The sites content seems to be blocked and I can’t locate anywhere to actually read anything from the magazine online. There is a “Digital Magazine” section but that is locked to “unauthorised” visitors.

After review and a little direction from the guys at SA Magazine I must admit that I am thoroughly impressed with what they are doing. The magazine is literally available, page by page, online. All you have to do is register with the site and confirm your account. Then you are set.

They have created a novel and interesting way for readers to view their content. Instead of having a website that simply claims to be a “magazine online” there is actually a magazine that you can page through online. Pick up the corners with your pointer and flip the page over. Click and zoom in on a story, advert or section of the page and read it as you browse.

Have a look:

Above is a screenshot that I took while I was perusing the mag online. The picture quality is great, everything is legible. The action is smooth, the pages look and feel as real as one can imagine a page should feel online. Great stuff.

Go and register right now!!

Before I end the post I would like to mention a couple of things that I would like to see on the site. I would like to see some of the content available directly on the site without using the flash-generated magazine. I would also like to see the RSS feed feature the content from the magazine. What is an RSS feed without content?

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DISCLAIMER: I am more than a little biased in presenting the next talented one to you. I believe he stands on merit, but I’ve known Dave for a verrrry long time & we work together (so now you know) proceed forth.. gently >>

“You can never go wrong doing the right thing” is not something one expects to hear as the guiding philosophy of a marketer. Marketing has connotations of being best for the ethically-challenged. Truth and ubuntu have had very little to do with the business-end of marketing – until now.

There is a clear voice coming out of the distortion as business, society and new economies are disrupted by fast.paced technology here in South Africa. Recognised as the foremost authority on social media marketing (neomarketing if you will) by not only UCT’s Graduate School of Business where he lectures; but through agencies like Jupiter Drawing Room – those right on the cutting edge of new tech trend with practical application to the market NOW.

New marketing is a place where radical transparency and authenticity are the rule for those who want strategic advantage. Which is why Dave Duarte (otherwise known as the Marketing Geek) has rocketed into the attention space of those in anxious leadership to provide guidance in turbulent times.

He is young enough to immerse like a digital native into online social networks with gusto. But balances that reality with many business lessons under his belt. And the smarts to form respected strategic alliances with thought leaders across a span of industries and disciplines.

I believe Dave’s genius lies in creating communities & the effortless eventing which spawned South Africa’s first BarCamp with Conrad Strydom; into an alliance with Stormhoek to cultivate SA’s first Geekdinners; and then as a partner in Cerebra into building the wildly popular 27 Dinners. He’s gradually introduced the deepest techies to their previous nemesis: marketers - and forged a strong bond on both sides, with exciting projects born of these gatherings.

He can be found talking about the future of marketing on the move just about everywhere : at conferences, global summits, to MBA classes, in newspapers, magazines, radio and TV, or rocking a dinner for brilliant professors.

All with customary humour and uncluttered concepts for immediate application. Dave’s great fun to be around, as well as being one of those very useful fellows to have on your side when business as you knew it stops making sense.

PS. UCT Business School will be running the Nomadic Marketing course on which Dave serves as course director. Starting on the 17th July (3days of Web2.0/mobile media & marketing) and due to demand have extended applications till the end of this week :
¡sǝɯıʇ ʎʌɹnʇ.ʎsdoʇ ǝsǝɥʇ uı ʎʇuıɐʇɹǝɔ ǝɹoɯ ɹǝɟɟo puɐ buıʇǝʞɹɐɯ ɟo suoıʇdǝɔɹǝd ɹnoʎ dı1ɟ ʎʇ1nɔɐɟ ɹǝʍod ǝɥʇ & ǝʌɐp sɐ ɥɔʇɐʍ ǝɯoɔ

..and if you can read that you certainly are welcome to join us in this groundbreaking program and put your ability to see things differently to practical use. Come see the likes of Prof Jon Foster-Pedley, Mike Stopforth, Vinny Lingham, Emma Kay, Uwe Gutschow, Heather Ford, Eric Edelstein & many more dazzling minds share their insights.

PPS. Dave also offers customised in-house presentations or specialised courses on neomarketing & social media marketing >> it’s easy to connect in with Dave and the Nomadic Marketing faculty – click here.

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I met this WebAddiCT on June 16 2006 in a freeeezing old school.hall in the middle of who.knows.where. It was South Africa’s 1st BarCamp organised by Geekspin & the Marketing Geek. I think that BarCamp was critical to the evolution of our little geek/blogging/socialmedia community >> so in some sense this is an anniversary post of that tipping point too.

Dave had been raving about this respected blogger Rafiq Phillips of the legendary Web Addicts was going to be there – the man now also known as trafiq (because if there is one thing that the Web AddiCTs know how to do : it would be driving digital traffic to their site) – SEO with its ever.changing algorithms is their speciality. But oddly enough it’s not the only traffic they’re into. Rafiq and his equally bright business partner Miguel Dos Santos run a business called iDrive. It’s changing the way driving schools work, but has the genius seed other service industries can learn from & use.

The innovative concept behind iDrive has been their ticket to the African Innovator of the Year award, and more recently to TED Global (oh the envy!!). They’ve been working with Mxit and mobile applications for a while now & have no doubt that mobile’s the future of technology best suited to Africa: lightweight, low.cost, massive reach and doesn’t rely to heavily on fixed infrastructure.

Rafiq believes that getting web-enabled mobile phones into the hands of other young Africans will unleash a wave of innovation throughout the continent. [Creativity is always sparked when a new tool is combined with limitations and curious minds]. There’s a really easy way you can help begin that process right now BTW: head here and vote for Rafiq to donate a phone to a Tanzanian student.

He’s passionate about helping to build African tech without a dependence on external aid. About solving our own problems in a fresh & innovative way without cloning. Unlike a lot of our brilliant young tech minds, he has chosen to stay in South Africa:

3:47 PM Rafiq: what makes me stay in za (cape town)?

the ppl
the beauty
my family
za is a 1st world county
compared to rest of africa
we have 3rd world problems
only solutions & business opportunities waiting to happen

Love it!
Go celebrate the brilliant people you know who are using their talents in South Africa, helping to get this place rocking! See you next week with yet another of the geniuses I have the pleasure of sharing with SA Rocks.

 

*respect to our own Google Summer of Coder Charl van Niekerk who’s also holding his ground here in ZA – thank you guys!

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