SA Rocks

Practical visionaries, particularly qualified futurists, real geniuses (of the Mensa variety) who also happen to be genuinely good guys are rare finds.
Even more so if they choose to stay in South Africa despite the obvious lures from other shores for this unique & valuable combination. This Guy has a captivating vision for what we could be, as South Africans/ Africans within a global context. He speaks without the hypnotic ra-ra of sugar-rush motivational speaking, so often unfounded on anything but blunt patriotism.
Instead, strong, clear, sometimes challenging solutions – based on long-term strategy and unlocking present untapped resources – inspire real possibilities. This is what anyone fortunate enough to spend time with this man will see and hear.

If you haven’t been introduced – I’d be honoured to give you a little glimmer of the force for good that is Guy Lundy. If you read SA Rocks regularly, you won’t be surprised.. Guy has been celebrated here before (thanks SA Rocks founder Nic) for his legendary speech “I Pledge Allegiance“. The speech went viral after it profoundly rocked our Toastmasters group; passed hand to hand around the world when South Africans desperately needed the clarity and optimism it offered.

From that seed of hope a book was born, and then another, and saw Guy jetting around the world to share the miracle of South Africa’s unique lessons in transformation. His background as an economist and futurist offers an expanded view that most SA pundits need to provide solidity for their scenarios. Guy has an engaging scenario that was developed coming in as CEO of Accelerate Cape Town : Southern Comfort / Southern Tiger (THIS is well worth a read! especially if you don’t count yourself among the apathetic & would love to get involved in ensuring SA rocks).

If you’re also keen to bridge the gap between idealism and productive action (read: good business): stay connected to the projects that Guy will be initiating through Accelerate Cape Town. Join the Facebook group for updates. Or even better, if your company/organisation can afford to get Guy to come in to do one of his legendary presentions: this is a guarantee that your trajectory will take an upturn from re.visioning your future here.

Join in & get fit for a future that is increasingly disrupted, unpredictable and define your own vision given the opportunities and risks on the horizon. The more of us that have a coherent, creative set of targets to work towards the more likely it’ll be that South Africa will get her day in the sun. We became a more united, diverse, colourful nation that miraculously transformed into a democracy.. is that it? All our karma burnt up? Or have we got the capacity for more?

I believe with my head & heart that we do. And passionate about celebrating the work of the brilliant & brave individuals who step up and do more than just speak. Hence the series >>

There are few people who have inspired as much confidence to contain a realistic yet still determinedly optimistic strategy for our future in South Africa as Guy Lundy. Read his blog, his books or book him to speak ..and let’s get some vooma & accelerate with more confidence into an SA we are REALLY proud of.

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I missed out on a week of SA Rocks because I was lucky enough to be helping introduce a brand new course – Nomadic Marketing – at UCT’s Graduate School of Business, in the company of some of our finest web.minded ones. It was a success (whew) and for those who missed out, it runs again in October. Book early this time!

I really do try to move beyond the brilliant people from the south.west shores of South Africa. I keep saying, next week, but then I always HAVE to introduce you to just one more bright Capetonian making SA rock. No exception again today.

Today I have a threefold celebration/cerebration of genius:
1. the school 2.the director 3. the course

South Africa’s oldest university – University of Cape Town’s GSB – has held the leading edge in consistently ranking as one of the Global Top 100 MBA programs by the Financial Times (London). More noteworthy though: in the Top 10 for Executive Education internationally. Did you get that?! Top TEN in the world.

The blues.singing award-winning poet, MA(cum laude) & MBA-toting director of the
Executive Education unit at the GSB is no less than a force of nature. Elaine Rumboll has cleared a path for success for UCT among the impressive old giants of business schools’ fiercely contested short-course sector. Taking risks that seem to keep paying off, primarily choosing collaboration over competition is a fairly handy strategy. One of those risks was Nomadic Marketing.

Another is this >> Business Acumen for Artists >> a 13 week program that empowers the creatively talented with the practical business skills to forge a successful and profitable career from their craft. Musicians, designers, writers, fine artists, photographers, filmmakers, poets, actors, animators.. whatever the artistic field this program has the potential to change the course of a lifetime. Enough with the starving artist routine.

If you’d love to dive into a more creative career; know an artist who really needs to take the 13 week journey or if you would like to gift an artist with this (go on unleash your inner Medici) call or mail Lisa Maddison for the application (each artist must have a goal & motivation to be realised from the program)

Conceived and developed by Elaine; associated costs taken up by the GSB; some of the business schools finest minds and visiting international lecturers and mentors in each field have offered their time for free : the full course fee goes to strengthening the Observatory Community Centre (incubator to SA legends like Tannie Evita and FreshlyGround). Stuff like this make SA Rock bigtime! It’s an exciting and very valuable endeavour.

I’ve created a blog for news and learning around BA4A and a Facebook event to make it easy for you to join the conversation. Come jump in >>

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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 adore entrepreneurs. For the guts it takes to risk your livelihood on a great idea. For the fact that life rewards these brave beings with the fastest, grittiest schooling and gruelling tests to prove commitment. For the fact that entrepreneurs always get in over their heads if the idea is big enough, worthy enough.

The guarantees that come with choosing this path are, being screwed over at some point, emptying your bank accounts at others, and taking an ego hammering from critics and the market.. among other exciting challenges. But those who make it out the other side are ALIVE and interesting and add value to the world and get rewarded accordingly.

In South Africa we have a pitifully small percentage of people with the guts to dare to be an entrepreneur – don’t believe me? check here

Henk Kleynhans is one of those who is rocking the game with style. Not because he hasn’t had his fair share of scary and absurd obstacles, legal, financial, logistical. But he keeps proving that if you play the game with clean hands, have good taste in problems and gather a strong network of mentors and fellow maniacs.. the gods will finally smile broadly on you.

Henk has won numerous awards for his company, Skyrove. It launched in 2005 as the world’s first prepaid wireless hotspot service. And he doesn’t just keep the business all to himself – he enables others who want to run their own businesses to get started easily in this HUGELY promising industry >> Go check out Skyrove’s opportunities for entrepreneurs (a little residual income never hurts)

I’m so excited to watch where Henk is going to go next, especially after the very healthy injection of venture capital from Lingham Capital (good job Vinny!)

Henk is an asset to the tech industry in South Africa, particularly for the young entrepreneurs who need to know how the hell to deal with the challenges that we all undoubtedly face starting our own businesses. Get to know him and link in before he goes stratospheric.

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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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I met Donna McCallum newly returned from Argentina, enroute to Jozi and ablaze with spark for a new project called Fairy Godmother inc. She had been working with Mignon Lotz-Keyser of Peer Power (hit the Bandwidth Barn & check it out if you’re an entrepreneur in Cape Town – it is power!)

Donna makes her own luck like no other, and she helps others tap into their own daring realms beyond corporate slavery or lack of direction/confidence. The heart of her mission is to help those she works with discover their dreams ..and then helps them translate it into practical reality. Don’t let her fairy dust fool you, she brings in the clarity of hard-nosed applied business strategy learnt from her own business successes here and in San Francisco through the dot-com boom. She’s also the powerhouse manager behind Verity, who graced us at one of the 27dinners.

If there was a quote that I believe she embodies it would be this one be Theodore Roethke:

“What we need are more people who specialise in the impossible“

Donna disregards the notion that to be successful in business one should dress the part & appear serious to be taken seriously. It takes a lot of courage & confidence to move in the other direction, to embody the quirkiness of your character, and rock a pair of wings on the back of a finely tailored business.suit, which she pulls off in style.

Success and international recognition have caught up with her and she jets off to Europe to take her workshops to Germany & London. If you’ve ever longingly ached to do something that you think would be utterly absurd, but afraid that you’ll plunge headlong into destitution if you follow your heart.. I recommend a chat with the Fairy Godmother. The world of work is changing and the kind of inspiration and leadership required for the wild times to come will be those who coax us out of the Calvinist work ethic, from tired old Industrial Age hangovers. Donna has exactly the right mix of expertise and fearless character to inspire SA entrepreneurs into action.

She’s also an alarmingly potent networker. She’s just joined us in the blogosphere and on Facebook so get in contact.. and if you’re in London, pop into her workshop & connect with this force for good while you can.

Addendum: just dashed down to St George’s Mall to support the Fairy Godmother in launching the Free Hugs Project in South Africa. Should be hitting Jozi soon.. watch the Facebook group for updates. Oh and watch the clip if you haven’t seen it before, there’s a reason why this thing went viral. Respect for bringing it home Donna!

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No matter how smart you are, how much money you have, how many Facebook/MySpace/SecondLife/real.world friends you’ve amassed, what cool companies you work with, how deep your bloodline runs, how beautiful your car, computer, phone, house, partner is :: none of it really counts until you do something that only YOU came here to do. Unlike anyone else.

When you’re in the company of someone who is doing their life’s work it’s almost impossible not to be profoundly rocked.

I’ve just been through a heavy course that walloped me back into my Maxness. Part of what defines me is the Hunter of Genius gene:: I’m lucky enough to know some of the exceptional people who are powerfully influencing South Africa.. people who are brave enough to have surrendered the safe options to follow their vision. [Respect to those whose lifework is to open the way for others to live their dreams. Confidently. We need more of you guys]

This isn’t about feeding the cult of celebrity: where you’re only worthy if you’ve been on TV, earn a million a month, or recognised at the supermarket. It IS about celebrating the genius of YOUR unique coding & expresssion. Like Van Gogh, Tesla or Bach, many brilliant humans sadly blazed in anonymity or died in poverty, their gift to humanity discovered a little late. Outward success is not a reliable indicator of future radiance. It’s not a bad idea to get the word out a little earlier, because the world isn’t good at rewarding those who don’t market themselves, no matter how talented or brilliant.

As with every age or movement, it’s always the strength of the characters & individuals who colour the stories and drive social evolution. I’m cracking open my black.book to celebrate those who rock my world.

So every Monday at SARocks will be devoted to someone I’m excited to share with you.. to connect, inspire or support..

PS. thanks to Nic who embodies all the good stuff that makes this place rock!

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..this could be one of those obvious no-brainers – but then again it might just be one of the deepest questions we can ask ourselves (if existential’s your thing)..

but just for today – why are you literally here: why do you live in the city that you do, the continent , the climate, the neighbourhood that you do? What makes a place feel like home.

I was chatting to a guy from Burundi who sought to assure me that “white people like the cold“, or at least extremes of temperature (WTF?! was my initial reaction followed in due course by much uproarious laughter.. then curiousity).

It got me thinking about how we humans move about on our great big home.ball. Why do we cluster where we do? If every modern human, [no matter how different we look 50 000 years on] started walking from the deserts of Southern Africa, why hell didn’t we all stop when we made it to the tropics, kick it back on the beaches, pick low-hanging fruit & make music? Surely that would be sensible?

If there’s one thing that I have learnt from studying the learning patterns & cognitive evolution of our species it’s this:

Humans aren’t machines. (oh yeah max, how profound!) smirk if you will, but governments around the world, incredibly smart people with MBA’s, multinational companies and grade 8 teachers are true believers. No matter how efficient the system, it’s never a guarantee that humans will work efficiently or be perfectly trained. We just aren’t an engineering problem. We are fundamentally counter.intuitive in our behaviour, and though we may honestly believe that we would be happiest lolling in an endless summer, that we truly want peace, that we really really want to live in luxury and ease.. our history says otherwise.

The weird thing about humans is that we ACTIVELY choose challenge. We yearn to grow beyond ourselves, to make a dent in history. It may be part of a greater plan (Orgel’s 2nd Law – “evolution is smarter than you are”). Yet for some peculiar reason, you have chosen to live where you do (even if you feel like you’re irrevocably bound – mortgage, marriage or money – remember there were decision points along the way).

If, today, you find yourself living in a place that irritates you, scares you but occassionally inspires you & makes your heart leap – you’re home. This place has a challenge level appropriate to your spirit.

If you’re one of those people who works best under pressure, and you love the rush when you’ve accomplished something that you thought was impossible; this is doubly true for you. We have the ability to be digital nomads, free to roam our world & ply our trade. Why are you here? What did you come to do here? Is it just to ingest info, to be productive, manage efficiently, reproduce, consume goods to keep the wheels of the economy going. Work.Buy.Display.Repeat ?

When we try to apply the rationality of engineering processes to our lives, somehow the wheels come off. [Admittedly there are some for whom it works - but generally they're not the kind of people you enjoy hanging around with at a braai]. You’re here for a reason, and it’s probably not a rational one, or you too would probably be Shaiking in your boots and packing for Perth.

It’s the one in your heart. Remember why you stay here.

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WOW.. what an interesting week this has been. Have you been finding that there are more opportunities, changes, things to learn, things to read, people to meet than you’ve got time for?

.. the feeling of how the hell am I EVER going to catch up?!

I woke up this morning with the words of powerful exponent of innovation and leadership – GE’s Jack Welch – cutting through the clutter.

Shun the incremental, and look for the quantum leap

As South Africans this kind of thinking is crucial to our success. Anyone who’s travelled through countries with developed economies and you’ll agree that we haven’t a hope of catching up if we choose a tried & tested, conservative, incremental route to get there.

I laughingly inferred that the Patricia de Lille camp had strategically been campaigning a la Bullard on the post that I thought I was posting for SA Rocks on Monday. South Africa has slipped backed again on the Global Entrepreneurial Monitor’s annual report. Nigeria kicks our butt in entrepreneurial confidence, and hungrily using any tools that give inexpensive leverage.

Technology, particularly web and mobile technology offer us the opportunity to circumvent the heavy infrastructure that was historically required to be a world force. South Africa’s success in business or politics requires a perception shift, from working hard to working smart.. the lifeblood charged with embracing innovation. Innovation requires leadership to provide a solid framework, and guidance but NOT control. Do our leaders have that level of courage?

“Small companies have huge competitive advantages. They are uncluttered, informal. They thrive on passion and ridicule bureaucracy. Small companies grow on good ideas – regardless of their source. They need everyone, involve everyone, and reward or remove people based on their contribution to winning. Small companies dream big dreams and set the bar high – increments and fractions don’t interest them.”

Confidence always precedes courage. The risk to venture into using emerging technology or taking the entrepreneurial leap, is most often not taken because of a lack of knowledge. Being clear kills fear.

I’m helping to design the Nomadic Marketing course running at the UCT Graduate School of Business using the principles of tech-enhanced brain-based learning to make a daunting subject relevant and immediately useful. [So if you find yourself at sitting next to someone at dinner who's in digital denial.. send them the link. They NEED to know how easy it actually is to use technology without being a geek or spending a fortune now]

South Africa hasn’t got the luxury of waiting for the hand-me-down, safe applications of social technology if we have big dreams for our little country.

BUT if we’re happy hanging out on the benches .. then slamming blogger’s rights, or waiting till the “playing field” is levelled is the surest path. Uninspired, derivative success is guaranteed, we’re getting there: slowly and incrementally.

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Fellow SA Rocktonian Max Kaizen wrote a piece this week about innovation in South Africa and it certainly spurred some heated debate amongst readers of this blog. I have to admit it also got me thinking because web-based innovators in South Africa are often called copy-cats for their apparent lack of originality.

So I decided that I’d do some searching to find some innovation and I registered as an attendee at the Futurex expo at the Sandton Convention Center. I figured that I’d go there and find lots of unique and innovative ideas that I could then report-back on and write about in my Technology Thursday post and I headed off yesterday morning to the most comprehensive showcase of products, services and solutions for big, small and home business.

My mandate was simple – find innovative products developed and/or manufactured in South Africa. I really wanted to find any technology that would promote the theme of SA Rocks and prove the critics wrong.

After spending three hours going through two large conference halls filled with hundreds of exhibitors I ended up with finding a grand total of zero innovative products made by us fellow South Africans.

What I did find was the large corporate giants showcasing their various software and broadband offerings and a whole bunch of smaller players showcasing products that were developed all over the world except South Africa.

It’s the first time also that I’ve seen Futurex promoting investment opportunities for countries like China and India and both countries had entire sections at Futurex that they could use to showcase their products to our market. This is fantastic to a point but not what I was looking for.

Futurex last year combined the expo with Linuxworld which I felt really helped promote the idea of Open Source and Linux to companies in South Africa. So much innovation is happening on the Linux front and for me the link between the two was very important and helped promote this innovation to big business.

After a disappointing expo my challenge now is to prove to the critics that South Africa is innovative and I’d like you to help me with this.

I need a list of home grown innovation so that we can shut the critics up so if you know of any innovative products, websites or services developed by South Africans that could be included in this list then please post a link to that website in the comments below.

Depending on the feedback received we might even be able to start a web directory on this site to help promote these home grown innovations so let’s get this thing going.

By Justin Hartman

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