Crazy Frog Knight Rider

If you're like me and loved Knight Rider as a youngster, you have to see this one. Less than 50 seconds long, a brilliant combination of nostalgia and hilarity!

Enjoy...

We've been having it!

Advertising at it's best! This has to be the funniest advert I've seen in years, and everytime I see it I can't help but pack out laughing. Well done Vodacom!

If you haven't seen it, do yourself a favour and have a look. If you have, you'll know what I'm talking about, and probably want another look anyway. A brilliant take on the complexities of modern cellular telephone technology and how primitive all of the wonderful features actually are. Here it is:

The 3 Web 2.0 experts that ITWeb missed

Mandy de Waal wrote this good article on ITWeb listing some of SA's top web 2.0 experts. However, Mandy missed three many of us know quite well, so I thought I better add them here [better late than never]:

1. Bolton Deventer
   The SEO guru with the name that sounds more like planning for a holiday [Jannie, grab the bakkie, bolt-on de-venter trailer and lets go to de coast]. The truth about this "webtrafficmaker" is still unknown to many of us [although there was plenty of popular speculation], and it seemed our friend Bolton may have been a case study in why only kids should have imaginary friends. Nevertheless Bolton caused quite a stir in his time online and made a substantial name for himself.
   
   
2. The spammers formerly known as D-A-D
   With the relative youth of internet marketing and therefore the lack of precedents in online behaviour, these guys showed us very clearly how not to do it. Whether it was intentional or not, we can all learn something from this [something we should already have known, admittedly], but the best part was watching how users picked it up and spat it out - proving that there is an effective element of self-policing within the web 2.o world.
   
   
3. Vernon Koekemoer
   A South African internet phenomenon that came out of nowhere, Vernon has jumped through the window of opportunity presented by his instant fame. I don't quite know what role VK played in the whole thing [think Steven Spielberg vs Chuck Norris], but either way, it has been a huge web 2.0 storm.
   

Ha ha. In all seriousness though, I know several of the people on Mandy's list and have great respect for them. Great job Mandy - I trust that with the growth online it will be a lot more difficult to make next year's list. But that's a good thing!

One thing I want to add is how good its been to see what web 2.0 can do for us, not just from a marketing and business perspective, but also in terms of contributing to social awareness of serious issues. The recent xenophobic attacks are a perfect example, as Afrigator and many others posted information - creating tons of awareness about these important social issues.

So if anyone asks why web 2.0 really matters, to me this is it. Yes you can create great businesses. Yes you can market almost anything. But most importantly you can transfer knowledge amongst interested community members far better than ever before. And its these web 2.0 experts [and hopefully the rest of us as we tag along] that make the wheels turn.

It's amazing what a change in perspective can do

It's time to start getting back on track with the theme of this blog, and I thought the best way to do that would be to provide a little bit of perspective on South Africa versus this world we're living in. Over the next few weeks I'll be putting up some [hopefully] interesting info which might just give you a slightly different view of this place we call home.

Just to give an idea of what I'm talking about, have a look at this amazing illustration from our stunning universe:

Our home - Earth, which holds over 6.5 billion people like you and me.

Look at how the sun dwarfs our "huge" planet Earth...

...and then look at how insignificant the sun is compared to the largest known star - Canis Majoris

[in the above picture, you cannot even represent the sun with a single pixel, it's so small]

It's amazing what a change in perspective can do!

[See my source here for a nice visual journey through the universe]

8 Things

Justin Hartman has just tagged me in this little blog tag game of 8 things you didn’t know about me. Well, even though I don't usually get personal here, I thought I would give this a go. After all, what's the point if you can't have a little bit of fun too. So here are the 8 things you didn't already know about me:

1. I have three names [with the surname being the fourth]. Its pretty cool most of the time, except when you get a high score in games and you only get space for three initials. In cases like this, I just resort to “DAZ”.

2. Apparently Paul Kruger is my great great great great great uncle [that’s five greats]. I’ve never confirmed it, but that’s the old family story.

3, I have only ever broken two bones in my body – two teeth, when they hit the ground before I did. Either the rest of me is very resilient, or I haven’t climbed enough trees in my time.

4. I first dunked a basketball when I was 15 and about 6 foot tall. This is my only consolation [and my primary retort] to the horrible statement “White men can’t jump”.

5. We moved house three times in the past three years. Ironically, we’ve ended up in the house we started off in. Long story.

6. I’m one of “those people” that travel from Pretoria to Midrand/Johannesburg every day. I choose to take the back roads rather than spending time on the biggest parking lot in the southern hemisphere. Its amazing how much you can do in a car when you’re not actually going anywhere.

7. I taught myself to play piano, to programme [mainly basic and turbo pascal - back in the day], to do magic, to make balloon animals and to swim. Needless to say, I can do all these things, just not very well.

8. My father is British, meaning that I could leave SA tomorrow if I really wanted to. However, I believe we’ve been put here for a reason, so I’m not going to be running away anytime soon if I have anything to do with it.

It seems I need to tag 8 more people with this, so folks below, consider yourselves officially tagged:

Charl Norman
Eric Edelstein
Feistyfemale
Grant Sidwell
Jason Bagley
Marc Forrest
Max Kaizen
Tyler Reed

7 reasons why you should want to blog [and you really want to even though you won't admit it]

Stefano Sessa and Nic Haralambous have recently taken opposite sides in the debate about whether it is worthwhile blogging or not. Although each has made good points, they are currently tied at 7 each, so here is my attempt at tipping the scales.

If you, the reader, are uncertain about whether or not to start a blog, here are 7 reasons which may just convince you to take the plunge:

1. You have instant justification for owning [yourname].com. No questions asked.
2. You get to be a writer, designer, artist, developer, and specialist all in one. And it doesn't matter what anyone else says either.
3. You get to proof to everyone how well you kan spel, and how wonderfill your grammar are.
4. You get exposed to new languages and get to meet new foreign friends [like Camiseta, who thoughtfully left a comment on one of my posts here. Now if only I could understand it...]
5. You get to supplement your income [I don't know what I would do without my Adsense cheques]
6. You have a valid reason to add yet another facebook application to your profile - Flog Blog [and you can join the throng of people who blog about facebook. Yay]
7. You don't need a licence to drive a blog [yet. China is possibly the one sad exception]

So, if that doesn't seal the deal, I don't know what will.

Hopefully you've realised by now I'm just having a bit of fun here. In all seriousness, Nic and Stefano's posts are good illustrations of the fact that blogging is a completely personal choice. Fun, yes [mostly]. Easy, no [I might already have stopped if not for the encouragement of a special person]. But definitely a personal choice, made for personal reasons.

Now my only question is - who will be brave enough to write the next post in this "7 reasons why . . . blog" thread? Perhaps something like "7 reasons why my boss should be paying me to blog" or "7 reasons why cows can't blog"?

Here are links to the two previous posts in this unofficial thread:

• Stefano Sessa - "7 reasons why I don't blog"
• Nic Haralambous - "7 reasons why I DO blog"

At last, a Hollywood movie about South African business

Directed by Steven Spielberg and starring some great celebrities. Look out for guest appearances by Cyril, Tokyo and Patrice.

Hey, you never know...

Don't take it too seriously, its just business after all...

How do you talk to your clients?

Probably not like Flickr does:



I love that line... makes me smile everytime I log in [even though there's an outside chance it might not be true].

And I get the funny feeling that if many other businesses out there who want my custom didn't take themselves so damn seriously, I'd enjoy them just as much.

Note to self:

• business is serious.


• but BUSINESS SHOULD ALSO BE FUN!!!

Just look at this beautifully written piece from Mindvalley. [That is, hands down, the best job application page I have ever read. The guy/girl who wrote that deserves a Nobel prize, or at least some other similar award which tells the world - this is how you're supposed to attract top talent - and retain it!]

Now that's one excellent way to make business fun!

Any other ideas?

What is the real impact of accounting on business?

Here is a quote from 'Tom Peters' True Confessions' [fascinating article for any fans of his] on FastCompany, which sums up very nicely the unquantifiable impact that accounting can have on an organisation -

"Who else? I was supremely pissed off at Robert McNamara. McNamara had been an assistant accounting professor at Harvard Business School. Somebody hooked him up with General Curtis E. LeMay, who was running the U.S. Air Force. The way I remember the story, LeMay didn't know how many airplanes he had or where they were parked. So McNamara the accountant figured out how many planes there were and where they were parked, and he put together a report for LeMay. All of a sudden, where there had been no systems, McNamara introduced systems. Terrific. That makes McNamara the Peter Drucker of the Pentagon -- because Drucker had done the same thing for big companies. But by the time the Vietnam War came and McNamara was secretary of defense, the systems had completely taken over. People were driven out of the equation. McNamara introduced the tyranny of the bean counters. So Robert McNamara was the enemy."

Accountants are notorious for only taking into account the Rand [Dollar] value of anything when making decisions. I disagree with this approach entirely - just because there are some things you can't measure, it doesn't mean they don't exist.

Spending much of my working time in a creative environment [and having been trained in an accounting one], I've been challenged with a similar question lately: how do you balance ENERGY and EXCITEMENT with structure and governance?

Well, I'm searching daily, and I'll be sure to post any breakthroughs [although at this point, there still seems like a long way to go to finding an answer]. But with organisations such as Virgin finding a way to make business fun, we can be sure the answer is out there!