The idea of authentic co-creation is quite obviously the most important shift that is happening in marketing and strategy today. It is a move away from centralised control of communications and branding to a more decentralised, user-oriented approach. At the iCommons Innovation Series last week in Jo’burg, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales stated that any business […]
2007
Posted inNews/Politics
Families, closed doors and raps on the knuckles
So, the Burma saga continues. After recent events — September’s bloody crackdown on peaceful rallies in the South-East Asian country, global protests and a worldwide vigil outside various Chinese diplomatic missions — the monks took to the streets again. In the days following the October 31 rally in Pakokku, a number of attempts to solve […]
Posted inMedia, Tech
Google SA: Set to rule
Unfortunately, I was not lucky enough to receive an invite to the Google South Africa event that happened in Johannesburg yesterday. Stafford Masie, country manager for Google South Africa, gave some insight into Google SA’s plans once it has launched in February next year. I think it’s great to see Stafford wanting to leverage the […]
Posted inMedia, Tech
Are the media colonising the blogosphere?
I have been asked by this newspaper to be a contributor to its blogospherical initiative Thought Leader. This is my maiden input. At first, I was sceptical of the newspaper’s invitation. Well, I still am. I thought to myself: whatever it is we call the “blogosphere” is meant to be deinstitutionalised, far removed from the […]
Posted inLifestyle
‘Follow your bliss …’
I want to follow my bliss. Joseph Campbell, a lifelong student and teacher of mythology, and an extremely inspirational man (find out more about him at the Joseph Campbell Foundation — www.jcf.org) brought this idea of following your bliss to light when he said: “If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Robert Fisk: Bush is a holocaust denier
Robert Fisk, in his latest article for the Independent (UK), claims that President George W Bush’s about-face, on the resolution to declare the 1915 atrocities committed by the Ottoman Turkish authorities on the 1,5-million Christian Armenians an act of genocide, tantamount to holocaust denial. Fisk even goes further in styling Bush as the David Irving […]
Posted inBusiness, Lifestyle, Media
What the Idols taught me about brands that should blog
Last week I had the good fortune to be on the same kulula.com flight as the last five contestants in the Idols 2007 season. I wouldn’t say it was good fortune to hear them sing Happy Birthday over the intercom to one of the cabin attendants, even if it was very sweet of them, but […]
Posted inGeneral
Oh, wind your neck in!
Am I missing something or are we rapidly putting our ability to take criticism in the same parlous condition in which we’ve put our planet? This isn’t about the futile he-said-she-said roundelay or the kind of puerile my-view’s-better-than-your-view nonsense. This is about listening, really listening to what people are saying, questioning their propositions, their motives […]
Posted inMedia
Of ivory towers and diseased black men
Here is why people are so afraid to “debate” Ronald Suresh Roberts. After last week’s post in which I objected to Ronald’s name-calling, I called him and explained why he’d really pissed me off. I know him and believe that he has a great mind that should be applied to weightier matters than personal attack. […]
Posted inMedia, Tech
Interview with danah boyd, social networking expert
danah boyd (she insists on the lower case) is one of the world’s leading experts on social networking sites (SNSs) such as MySpace and Facebook. She is a PhD student at the University of California, Berkeley, and a Fellow at the Harvard Berkman Centre for Internet and Society. I interviewed her to try to understand […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
Don’t expect political BEEs to sting
It’s temporarily quiet on the Johncom buy-out front. No doubt, though, there’s movement behind the scenes. And the issues certainly have not gone away. The biggest one is the political interest in owning the newspaper stable. No one believes that this interest is purely business-driven, despite protestations to the contrary by Koni Media (with some […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
Whatever happened to the Economist?
The Economist was founded on principles of free markets and free trade. It has lost its way.