“Radical innovation never originates with the market leader” — Jim Utterback, MIT Did you know Mitch Kapor tried to license 1-2-3 to IBM for $3,5-million in the 1980s? They told him that hardware was a multibillion-dollar industry, and that the market for PC software was only a $50-million industry. IBM later bought Kapor’s Lotus Development […]
2008
Posted inGeneral
South Africans, here is an Inconvenient Truth
Submitted by Judy Sikuza “Woe to me who is South African! All the problems that I see and experience in my country must be sorted out. Somebody should be doing something about the crime and the violence and the poor education system? Shame, those poor people in the squatter camps. This is really unacceptable! Well, […]
Posted inGeneral
Social networking: Are we moving towards total computer domination?
Wikipedia’s definition of a social-network service is software to build online social networks for communities of people who share interests and activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others. I have been observing the growth of these social-networking sites over the past few years. There are so many that it’s […]
Posted inGeneral
The five rules for building an online community
I found a piece by Guy Kawasaki which really got me thinking. It perfectly illustrates the disjunct we find between the allure of social networks (and my new obsession — niche business networks) and the practice of implementing them. Many companies think that building a virtual community is as simple as throwing up a cool […]
Posted inLifestyle
Okay, then, God is just a hypothesis
I’m glad my God blog got so many responses. The conversation continues, which can only be a good thing, though I do rather sympathise with those who say: “What? Are we still talking about this issue?” I didn’t mean to reopen the debate about whether there is a God or not, or at least not […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Roll up the sleeves, a new war is coming!
There’s a new twist to the geo-political battle in Iraq, unforseen by even the most farsighted of Amireca’s free marketeers. When Ahmadinejad paid a state visit on the 2nd and 3rd of March to US occupied Iraq, condemned American presence and outlined a programme to foster economic ties between Tehran and Bagdad, he caught both […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Xenophobia – it’s time to march in protest
I have just moved back to Johannesburg after spending about seven months in Cape Town. Even though I am very glad to be back in Johannesburg ,I am still stressed about the change, and to a small extent I have been sulking a little bit — finding a place to stay, new job, new friends, […]
Posted inBusiness, Media, News/Politics
Damned lies, journalism and private healthcare
What is it about journalists and numbers? Mathematical incompetence among journalists is, as the American media scholar Steve Maier once put it, ‘legendary”. Actually, Maier was wrong. Far from being legendary, the numerical cluelessness of journalists has been empirically established in a number of studies, including one of my own, soon to be published in […]
Posted inGeneral
Information superhighway robbery
Few things infuriate me. In fact, very few things make me use the word infuriate. But today, as a survivor of rampant, blatant bandwidth theft, I have no alternative but to put this polite description to work. The others that rush to mind are reserved for the invisible culprit who should only hope that we […]
Posted inGeneral
An open letter to the President
Honourable President, I was very hesitant to write this letter in the first place, for I know how dearly you love to committeefy all matters. Well, most matters then, for you certainly did not call a committee together last year when you overturned the decision by the honourable Finance Minister and the esteemed Governor of […]
Posted inGeneral
The web 2.0 password crisis
Users increasingly need to create accounts with logins and passwords on the sites they visit these days. This is because the web today is no longer a place just for brochure sites, but is increasingly a place for online applications and services like email, instant messaging, banking, social networking… you name it. In the world […]
Posted inGeneral
A time for less compassion
Like everyone else, I am horrified and sickened by the images of people being burned alive, chased from their homes, and other unspeakable acts of violence occurring on our doorsteps. However, I am not filled with a sense of charity in the light of these acts. My overwhelming response is: foreigners, go home. Everyone can […]