By Magatte Wade Last Saturday I spoke at the Harvard Women in Business Conference, an annual event that I love. I wore a bright blue dress in a sea of sober black suits and talked to them about the importance of being authentic in order to be happy. These young women, many of them ready […]
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Posted inGeneral
Growing SA’s skills quotient
South Africa’s performance in several key economic areas – and a few others that haven’t enjoyed due priority – has been moderate in the past few years, when most commentators have been expecting explosive growth. Focus area flops For a long time, one of SA’s most hyped exports, our business process outsourcing (BPO) industry, has […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Who’s to blame for the M23 rebels in DRC?
By Arinaitwe Rugyendo The M23 rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo have once again been accused of gross human-rights abuses by Human Rights Watch. An earlier accusation by the UN implicated neighbouring Rwanda and accused it of not only supporting the rebels but also of complicity. According to Human Rights Watch the rebels, which […]
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Understand cloud options to maximise value
A great deal has been said about cloud computing – although companies still have a limited understanding of what it is and how it impacts their business. Simply put, the cloud is a set of services and technologies that enable the delivery of computing services over the internet in real-time, allowing end-users instant access to […]
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The lies of Verwoerd in black and white
It is the destiny of simple ordinary folks to be fooled. If a political leader or party cannot fool the masses, it is most unlikely to garner popular support. If the common masses cannot understand that the political leader or party is promising them a pie in the sky, they are most likely to give […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
The role of development banks in times of crisis
Within a historical context, development banks (DBs) have been a critical instrument for governments and administrations to promote and facilitate economic growth. This has traditionally been achieved through providing credit as well as a plethora of advisory and capacity building programs to households, small and medium enterprises and large private corporations, whose financial needs are […]
Posted inNews/Politics
When the prophet became a political tactic
Nearly two years after the uprisings that started in Tunisia and swept across the Arab world, toppling the long-entrenched dictators of Tunisia, Libya, Yemen and Egypt, another wave of protests is now sweeping across the Muslim world, this time over an amateur film that maligns the Prophet Muhammad. The initial uprisings were hailed as an […]
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The art paradox
Theodor Adorno captured the paradoxical nature of art nicely when he remarked that it goes without saying that nothing about art goes without saying. What his observation does not make explicit (although it is implied) is that art’s paradoxical character lends itself to being elaborated upon by identifying several paradoxes at the heart of this […]
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How do we go from e-business to social commerce?
E-business is growing in all possible areas – network connections, consumer numbers, transaction volumes, revenues, and the range of digital content and services on offer. But as the industry continues to bloom, it is also diversifying. The addition of mobile and social platforms to traditional web channels is making the market more accessible than ever, […]
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The genius of Foucault
Few 20th century thinkers have provided as much food for thought on the humanities and the social sciences (that is, the “human sciences”) as Michel Foucault. And the way he does it rescues the human sciences from those uninformed people who contrast them with the so-called “hard (natural) sciences”, the object-field of which – as […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Marikana a marker of profound dissatisfaction countrywide
The explosion that at Marikana mine left 10 dead to union violence and 34 dead to police gunfire oddly caught the government by surprise. It was as if social discontent is not a seething issue in South Africa, surging constantly against the breakwaters of complacency. But it seems that neither the government’s intelligence networks nor […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Race underlies this race
Sometimes it’s shockingly explicit, sometimes it’s subtle, but it’s always present: There’s an undeniable racial undertone to this year’s US presidential contest between President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney. Part of it is structural: Most Americans are no longer white. This year, for the first time, Latinos, African-Americans, Asians, and Native Americans together outnumber […]