OpenID/SDSN ID’s for the real world

Hash wrote a good summary of efforts underway locally to eliminate the pain and hassle of maintaining your identity online in fifty different locations [sometimes it feels like you’re living fifty different lives]
However, sitting somewhere the other day filling in application forms made me wonder how easily this solution could be applied “offline”.

How about this:

• a chip in your ID book [which is apparently on the way already] linked to…


• an online database that you maintain yourself with all your personal details [with varying levels of authorisation, allowing you to set how much of your information a vendor can see, from just name and telephone number for the local video store, to comprehensive family and medical aid information for a hospital/chemist]
  You can give any vendor all the information that they require by just a swipe and pin number.

No more ridiculously long forms. No more wondering what your work postal address is. Not having to arrive half an hour before your first appointment to make sure you can somehow scribble down all that information, particularly when you feel terrible and just want to get home to bed.

I think this would be great. So guys, once SDSN is done, please make sure this on your to-do list. It would save us all a lot of hassle. Thanks!

Further opportunities for excellent SA developers and startups

By now, most SA developers will have heard of Hasso Plattner [founder of enterprise software giant SAP] and his new R350 million venture capital fund launched in South Africa recently.

In fact, I imagine many will be incredibly keen to somehow get in on the action and spearhead South Africa's revolutionary development arena [after all, a little financial backing never hurt anyone, did it?]. Hopefully HP Ventures Africa will generate more innovation and provide a more sound international platform than other local venture capital funds have done.

For those interested, I suggest listening to this iinnovate interview with Mr Plattner. It's not too long and touches on how he started SAP, as well as giving a little bit of insight into their approach to keeping a growing company innovative. At about 10 minutes in gets to probably the most interesting part of the talk. Worth listening to once - you never know when you might run into Mr Plattner in an elevator...

Local relevance. Global excellence.

Why not? Many companies have proved it, and in fact it’s the way that businesses have grown throughout history… starting off small and growing from there by taking a successful formula and replicating it elsewhere.

It’s funny how some people think this doesn’t apply to technology/internet businesses as well. Just have a look at Justin's comment on this previous post – spot on, and sadly where many local investors fall short. Where’s the vision to see what others don’t see?

Incredibly successful businesses are often built on one key element – community.

Just think of a simple example [I’ll borrow here from muti’s functionality a bit, so please forgive me Dave]:

How often do you go around looking for someone who can help you with handyman-type-work at home, or someone to install a pool-net, or possibly even paint and seal your roof [yes, those heavy rains a while ago bring this clearly to mind]? But you don’t want just anyone – you want someone reliable. Where do you go? The yellow pages and local newspapers are littered with names, and more often than not, the one you choose brings along a suitcase full of shoddy service, leaving you wondering why you bothered in the first place.

Enter a community website listing local suppliers [similar to Muti’s listing of posts] and where community members vote suppliers up or down [with more detail as to who voted and why, to maintain integrity], with tags for the different types of services. Surely this would make finding good people for the job much easier? It offers something for everyone:

• for community members, a trustworthy source of reliable local suppliers;
• for suppliers, a good way to leverage word-of-mouth referrals, where good service really does pay off; and
• for the developer, a great way to reach a focused community and a way to earn revenue while doing so [most obvious way is targeted advertising for that community]

Sounds silly and simple, but if you can make this work in one small community [I would love a service like this], who’s to say you couldn’t make it work in 100 small communities, and then 1,000, and then 1,000,000. And in that case, wouldn’t a “small” investment in making the first one work pale in comparison to the potential rewards to be earned from a locally-global business.

So then how can you say you won't invest in a small business without global appeal? Look a bit further!

Locally, relevant.

Globally… excellent!

Brilliant and creative initiative by Stormhoek. Well done!

Please read this: Own a vine. Save a job.

What a fantastic initiative by the team down at Stormhoek to address a very real problem. They have taken a suitably creative approach to solving an issue rather than just sitting back and complaining about it. I salute you, gentlemen.

Along with many others, I look forward to seeing the successful fruits of your efforts!

There is a lot that South African business can learn from Stormhoek. Perhaps once they've worked through this issue, they can start the Stormhoek consultancy and help move SA forward!

Microsoft top dog heads for professional sports. Is Mr Gates next?

If you were to ask me what Microsoft and the NBA [the National Basketball Association in the US] had in common a little while ago, I would have probably just looked at you funny. But since the NBA announced their formation of NBA China, they have decided to dig into Microsoft’s pockets [skills pockets, not financial pockets] and appointed Microsoft Greater China CEO Tim Chen as CEO of NBA China. Yes, I know the NBA won’t be competing against Microsoft in the computing field anytime soon, but its interesting to see that they’ve managed to lure away a key player in such an …. unrelated… industry.

I can’t help wondering whether Mr Gates himself appears on the list for potential NBA Commissioner replacements after current Commissioner David Stern retires... [I bet you were picturing Mr Gates playing professional football or ice-hockey. Sadly, I don't have photoshop to add a pic of what that could look like]

With most of the known world flocking to the hugely appealing Indian and Chinese markets recently, its not surprising to see professional sports also taking the leap. As it stands, China has not only provided the NBA with one of its tallest superstars ever [Yao Ming of the Houston Rockets, standing 7’6 tall], but now also provides its greatest growth opportunity as a new market.

According to the article above, Tim Chen has a sparkling history in corporate China, as Microsoft sales grew more rapidly in the Greater China region than in any other market in the world in his time there, and before that he helped Motorola become the leader in the competitive Chinese mobile phone industry. It will be interesting to see how Tim handles a career in professional sports and whether he can repeat these past successes there.


[Yes its true, I’m writing about this because I love basketball and the NBA, and have done so since I can remember. And for this reason, I have to drop a note about the South African link to one of the best players in the NBA…for those of you who aren’t aware of South Africa’s influence in one of the world’s greatest professional sports, here’s a little known trivia fact – Steve Nash [currently with the Phoenix Suns] was the Most Valuable Player in the NBA for two consecutive years [2004/05 and 2005/06 seasons], following in the footsteps of greats like Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, and Charles Barkley. Steve was born in Johannesburg and spent several years here while his dad played professional soccer. He later moved to Canada, and is now sadly billed as Canadian. So while it is officially a Canadian that was the NBA MVP two years in a row, we know better – he’s South African!]

Service. Everywhere except where you need it

If you watched “Gone in 60 seconds” you’ll know about the elusive Eleanor [Nicolas Cage plays Memphis Rains who has to steal 50 cars. Among them is a Shelby GT500 which has always eluded him, even when he thinks he has “her” - this car is nicknamed Eleanor].

In South Africa, good service has become our “Eleanor”. You know it exists, you know others have had it, but you just can’t quite seem to get a hold of it yourself.

There are few things I dislike more than complaining, but bad service is definitely one of those things. And I really don’t like complaining – I can think of far better ways to use my time and energy. Sadly, I know this is wrong, as the only way to communicate to those companies with bad service just how bad it really is, is to complain.

In the last few months, one particular company in the security industry has driven me to the depths of despair, ignoring my pleas for action and just seemingly losing sight of the fact that its customers safety is its primary objective. I’m sure you’ve had similar experiences with other companies [haven’t we all]. It’s quite ironic that companies have changed the names of their “complaints departments” to “customer services departments” – there is fairly often no customer service in sight, making me believe that the former name is often far more appropriate.


An interesting industry has started up in companies that help consumers to formally address this through an intermediary. getclosure.co.za is one of the additions to this stable, and hopefully they will be able to contribute to the eradication of the “poor service” stigma associated with many of our countries companies.

Personally, I think I’ll give it a whirl. Like I said, I have little interest in wasting time complaining more, but I would love to see this particular security company realise how far away they are from any level of decent service. Let’s see if they finally get the message, and I finally getclosure.

Fail faster. Succeed sooner.

[that quote from David Kelley, founder of IDEO Product Design, says quite enough. Read it. Again. and again. and again!]


*this post left blank intentionally*

Love bites [?]

Def Leppard’s song of this title quite unequivocally disagreed with common sentiments of the day that is upon us. Voicing even stronger disagreement was The J. Geils Band [didn’t know that one – thanks Google] with their cool song “Love stinks”, sung so brilliantly by Adam Sandler in “The Wedding Singer”.

However, for today [14th Feb] I couldn’t leave this topic alone as it allows me to quickly slip this one in and still remain in the spirit of the day, so to speak [and please excuse the Google-inspired amateur doodle above, included here just to prove that even a boring business blog can be a little bit creative]. [edit: for those who missed it, you can see the doodle here]

Observation: people who excel at what they do really LOVE what they do. Haven’t you seen that too?

And please note - I’m not talking about what they do. I’m talking about what they DO...

I’m not talking about dentists that love drilling teeth or filling holes... I am talking about dentists that love making people feel good about their teeth. I’m not talking about accountants that love counting beans and preparing pages filled with numbers... I am talking about accountants that love providing useful relevant information so that businesses can grow beyond their wildest dreams. I am not talking about developers that love coding things to death... I am talking about developers that love creating apps that revolutionise the way people work and think forever.

It’s not about what you’re doing but why you’re doing it. And why do I say that? Just look at this:

“Vision is about… wild, passionate, intemperate… LOVE.” – Boyd Clarke and Ron Crossland [as referenced by Tom Peters]

Now read it backwards too… it comes back to the vision. I believe if we have a real vision of why we’re doing something, we’ll really love it [not the task itself necessarily, but everything about it] and therefore we will excel at it [even if just by accident].

So let me ask you… do you love what you’re doing? Not what you’re doing. What you’re DOING!

Why customers really are the only thing that matters

We’ve all heard the phrase “The customer is always right”. I’ve seen many business people getting very upset at the mention of this, and in some cases where customers totally abuse their relationship with a company, it is justified. After all, how can the customer always be right when it’s our business. Our product. Our vision!

Admittedly, I like the idea of “firing bad customers” [and there are definitely instances where this is called for], but all I’m saying is that, before you go ahead and do this, ask yourself whether that really is the best or only solution to the problem.

The bottom line is this – customers are the only thing that matters.

[The rest of the business merely consists of details required in fulfilling the company’s services to its customers.]

Without customers, there is no revenue. Without revenue, there is no business. Simple.


But if we’re talking about innovation, perhaps then it’s an entirely different story…

Thought Leader? Really?

Is it just my imagination, or has Thought Leader lost its edge? It seems that every time the front page opens, we’re bombarded with individual’s views of how much is wrong with our country, and in that respect, there is little to distinguish it from the daily news [both newspaper and television]. During the course of last year, this site was one of my first and favourite stops for good reading, but now I struggle to even open the site without specific cause to do so, merely to avoid the onslaught of pessimism and camouflaged insults that permeate the pages. Judging from the first comment on this recent TL post, it seems I’m not the only one who feels this way.

“Thought Leader” is a truly great name. It conjures up images of inspiring writing, simply overflowing with innovative ideas and contributing towards leadership development amongst its readership. In fact, the Wikipedia entry for “thought leader” says this term is “used to describe a futurist or person who is recognized among their peers and mentors for innovative ideas and demonstrates the confidence to promote or share those ideas as actionable distilled insights.”

Don’t get me wrong, I’ll gladly admit that most of the contributors on TL are highly skilled writers with an excellent knowledge of their subject matter - hence they are most probably considered leaders in their field. And as a social commentary forum, I greatly respect what Matthew, Vincent and company have built here. It’s just sad to see that this social media leader now largely consists primarily of para-journalism and critical political commentary... and too often doesn't continue from there with the thought leadership that its name promises.

At my last count there were 112 signed-up bloggers. With so many contributors, its obvious that new posts fly through the front page faster than you can say “Mail & Guardian”. And what is the prevalent message being put out there? Well, I’m not too sure, because the consistent flow of bitter anger is drowning out even the real thought leaders amongst the arsenal of contributors.

[As an aside, if Vincent’s target of 1,000 contributors ever realises, it will be even more difficult to hear anything amongst all the noise. Perhaps allowing users to “follow” or “block” specific contributors [as used on Twitter] would help keep content relevant to readers individually?]

Surely thought leadership requires the exhibition of at least some of the following characteristics: innovation; constructive writing; inspirational thinking; instigating positive action; either describing or demonstrating leadership qualities; and encouraging readers to make a difference and change the world. In his post referenced above, Vincent even describes the characteristics required of contributors as being the ability to “provide high-quality critical commentary on his or her field of expertise and provide leadership in terms of starting important conversations.”

Okay, perhaps I’m wrong here. I actually hope I am. In the last paragraph of this TL post, Grant Walliser makes a fair argument that Thought Leader is indeed serving its purpose. I’m sorry to say that I still can’t agree with him. Do yourself a favour and just look at the posts on the front page at any given time, and ask yourself whether they are constructive, negative or irrelevant. Sure, this is a subjective assessment, but the best I could come up with was about half of the posts being constructive in any way at any given moment.

Most people would probably believe that the site as it currently stands is social media in all its splendour. I agree that it cannot be censored to weed out the negative commentary, nor can restrictive guidelines be used to ensure a warm and fuzzy tone, as that would defeat the purpose.

However, one thing I would challenge all involved to ask is why you do it. Are you just using it as a platform to vent your own thoughts, regardless of any consequences whatsoever and without thought to the thousands of influential and influence-able people that read these posts?

Or are you truly aiming to be thought leaders in whatever sphere you write about, to understand the world and environment we live in [yes, the good and the bad] and to put forth constructive ideas and solutions that generate real excitement and perhaps, just maybe, instigate change?

Is this really SA thought leadership at its best? Think about it.

Customers vs end-users: who hid my revenue?

Many of today’s tech and internet business are gearing themselves totally towards their end-users, and seem to be forgetting about their customers [the guys who bring in the revenue]… resulting in awesome, well-loved businesses with business models that just don’t work.

The reason for this could be simply confusing the two. With traditional products, very often your users are your customers, therefore it’s much easier to keep both happy.

Take these examples:

1. As a traditional company, you build a great lawnmower, price it well and sell it to your customer who is then [hopefully] reasonably happy with the price and the performance. Customer and user in one – your efforts are easy to target and the results will speak for themselves.
2. As a tech business, you develop an awesome system to store, tag and find e-mails. The system is online, free and works amazingly well. Your users are ecstatic and use it frequently. But are your customers happy? Well, maybe the first question should be “Who are your customers?” If you follow the traditional internet-advertising marriage route, you sell advertising space on your pages for your customers to reach your users. And if you don’t make it attractive for those customers [however you may choose to do that], don’t expect your customers to be very happy or very willing to part with their money.

Despite what I’ve said above, we can learn from those who’ve been there and done that:
“The company isn’t run for the long-term value of our shareholders but for the long-term value of our end users.” – Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google in Time Magazine, 20 February 2006

Very interesting one. Perhaps Eric’s point is that if they are always aiming to keep their end-users happy, everything else will fall into place. Which it has done so far, so I won’t argue that – but there is one stark difference between Google’s business model and that of other world-wide-wannabees – Google has found an effective way to generate revenue [in their case, also to place adverts] that keeps both users and customers happy. Which is something that many young startups cannot yet lay claim to.

So please keep in mind that there is a difference between customers and users – there’s no point only trying to keep end-users happy when you need to make it work for your customers too. If not, end result = no revenue. Simple.

For some interesting reading on this topic, have a look at the Long Tail post: "What does the 'Media Business Model' mean?", which includes a list of revenue models you can find in the media industry.