Traveling Geeks

Back to South Africa

I’m off to Africa. Whenever I leave the states on an extended trip, I always think about earlier trips in my life when a departure could have meant a permanent one. I followed the gypsydom of my youth more than most because I figured those “callings” were designed for youth.

They certainly weren’t designed for my elders so I thought, since it seemed like so many walls, excuses, what ifs and responsibilities were attached to all the adults around me, wearing them down like 60 foot ship anchors. If my future was one of adults complaining they never lived out their dreams, using every reason why it didn’t happen ‘for them,’ I figured I may as well ‘create’ a dream or two before the world conspired to take them away from me, which is how it seemed most adults felt at the time.

So leaving always brings about a nervous but intense and exciting energy. With this energy in place, you are much more open to raw opportunities rather than ‘scheduled ones.’ When you leave on a business trip for say, India, China or Germany, you have an idea of who you’re going to meet with, the deals you’d like to cut and your return date.

Creative gurus, change agents and branding consultants can ignite new ideas and passions in people by getting them in a room with a whiteboard or you can simply tell them to go walkabout to a place that has always inspired them or they’ve had dreams of since childhood. Give them an outline so they have some kind of focus and send them off.

Be sure that something will unlock in their unconscious mind, something that will be life-changing for them and more likely than not, positive for the company as well. It’s not a vacation, it’s a walkabout and be sure to emphasize the difference. The latter will clear old energy and bring on the new, a bit like hiring a fresh new face and voice but with years of experience under their belt.

I’m a huge fan of walkabouts and while some do this in some shape or form in the way of a sabbatical, it’s not a standard we’ve come to adopt in this country. Here we live to work rather than work to live. This cultural difference is fundamental and defines who we become, not just as individuals but as a nation.

My journey back to South Africa for the first time since white rule is a journey of re-discovery, it’s a journey of expression through the written word as well as photographic and videographic art, and it’s a journey into the past lives of people who both touched and shaped my world perspective now more than twenty years ago. While I spent most of my time in English schools in Durban and Johannesburg suburbs, below is a shot taken at an Afrikaans school I attended for awhile.

Back then, life’s encounters were largely with teachers, parents, farmers and friends. On this trip, I’ll be talking to technologists, green enthusiasts and creators, energy experts and animal experts, farmers, artists, designers, journalists, bloggers, photographers, CEOs, doctors and shop owners. More from the road. Be sure to follow along on this marvelous journey, not just my own, but the journey of 12 other bloggers who I’ll join for a fifth of this adventure.

Confederations Cup advert

I am very impressed with the advert that has emerged for the Confederation Cup next year in June.
You can apply for tickets at your nearest FNB branch or visit fifa.com.

Similar Posts:2010 ticket prices and availability

Real men don’t rape – Zola said it

You can register to vote in weekday office hours

Nike Advert For South Africa

Eagle-Eye […]

Local startup makes it on to CNN

Wizzit has received a relatively large amount of publicity from magazines and newspapers in SA. This is great exposure for the local company that has created a cellphone bank in your pocket.
Watch the video, it explains it all:

Similar Posts:South Afican Toilets – Support local industries

Gautrain information via Youtube video

Battle at Kruger

Braaiday’s video on Zoopy

12 […]

Sustainability Includes Planet AND People

If you ask five friends what it means to be sustainable, you’ll likely get five varying interpretations. Most response would center on the treatment of the natural environment, or possibly the ability of a business to continue into the future.

On a macro level, sustainability also includes about the health impact of its mining industry, according to The New York Times.

The rate of fatalities in South Africa’s gold mining industry is improving, but still runs at more than four people per week. This is of particular concern to me since I’ll soon be a few thousand feet underground in the TauTona gold mine , as part of the We Blog the World media tour. The Tau Tona mine — the deepest operating mine in the world — has been improving its safety record but experiences dangerous seismic activity.

No enterprise where mother nature has a say in the outcome can ever be 100 percent safe, but it is important that strong guidelines be in place. As long as there is demand for high value minerals and metals, there will be mining, and people will lose their lives.

To ensure that those events are as rare as the metals being mined, the South African parliament is considering a law that would criminally prosecute mining executives — including jail time — for avoidable accidents on their watch. This would be a significant step towards protecting workers and making mining a more sustainable endeavor. All nations should consider such penalties.

Shameless Self-Promotion

Brand South Africa’s US country manager Simon Barber is interviewed about the bloggers tour by John Maytham on Cape Talk. Click below to listen. The Business Day column John mentions can be read here.

Eugene Terre’ Blanche lives…

Can you believe the man is still around. Meneer Eugene Terre’ Blanche. Ha! Who woulda thunk it?
Here’s what he had to say about his time in prison, sounds sort of bitter to me. What do you think?

Similar Posts:Ruda Leaves Carte Blanche

SA Is Buzzing…Have A Look

Archbishop Tutu loves to braai

South Africa, Murder Most Foul

Getting the best […]

South African Innovation to be Seen by Top Bloggers

South African innovation to be seen through the eyes of top bloggers on an upcoming blogger tour staring on November 29th. Some bloggers leave in less than a week, and are heading to Cape Town and Johannesburg to prepare for a nine day tour north to south and then back again. I announced the tour about a week ago and will be posting updates until the tour officially starts.

All South African blog posts on Down the Avenue will be automatically pushed to newly launched blog We Blog the World. Posts from eight other American bloggers, one French blogger and four South African bloggers will also be sharing content on-the-ground, posting directly to their own blogs as well as We Blog the World, including Ndumiso Ngcobo, author of “Some of My Best Friends are White,” and Nicholas Haralambous of SARocks.co.za.

The tour is being sponsored by Brand South Africa/IMC who with the help of Graeme Addison is putting together a top notch agenda that will wow even the savviest of travelers. Simon Barber of IMC also announced the tour on the Brand South African blog.

We’ll be armed with mobile devices, camcorders, laptops, cameras, 3G wireless modems donated by Vodacom, and digital recorders so we can be connected around the clock, even in remote rural areas she hopes with a geeky yet coy smile. While the schedule hasn’t been finalized, it will include:

A helicopter ride out to De Beers’ state of the art mining ship, Peace in Africa, off the west coast

A glimpse of South Africa’s sustainable energy and green technology projects, including the Joule electric car and the Darling wind farm

A close to 4 kilometer trip down to the ore face at the world’s deepest mine: Anglogold Ashanti’s Tau Tona

A hike in the Magaliesberg with an innovative programme to rescue troubled youth

An overnight in Soweto to get a feel for its history and transformation

A visit to Soccer City to get the latest on World Cup 2010

A sampling of South African wine at Stormhoek Winery, one of the early pioneers of using web-based social networks to become an internationally-respected brand (go Web 2.0 🙂

I have been helping organize this upcoming wild ride. Thanks to Michael Gray once again for his technical expertise and patience in getting We Blog the World off the ground, not to mention various other sites and social networks that will present our journey visually.

We have set up We Blog the World accounts on YouTube, Twitter and flickr and bloggers may also be posting to Zoopy, a South African social network that includes photos, podcasts, video and more. Please join our feeds, follow along on Twitter, YouTube and flickr and tune into our individual blogs, the Brand South African blog, and We Blog the World (South Africa page).

South Africa Struggles With Carbon Footprint

South Africa’s growing economy may be slowing, but its appetite for energy is not. The nation has struggled to keep pace with its need for fuel and power and continues to expand its use of coal — and therefore its carbon emissions.

According to a new government report, South Africa is now ramping up efforts to at least account for and disclose its CO2 emissions without promising reductions. The country’s leading private coal producer also says emissions are on the rise, and is hoping for new technology to offset the continued expansion of coal used for electricity and transportation.

The government of South Africa just released its second Carbon Disclosure Report, which included more than double the amount of participating companies from the prior year. While more companies are beginning to track their carbon emissions and set goals, the data is far from complete, according to the report:

Relatively few companies (23 percent) have disclosed specific, company-wide GHG emissions reduction targets; and most of those companies that have emissions targets have focused on reducing their emissions-intensity, rather than striving for a reduction in absolute emissions.

Other South African companies that are expecting an associated cost for carbon emissions to be added in the coming years are starting to track their emissions internally.

South Africa has been slower to address climate change than other nations because of a lack of international obligations to do so, according to the report. While South Africa, signed onto the Kyoto Protocol, as a developing nation, it is not required to set or meet emissions reductions targets.

Energy company Sasol, which participated in the report, issued its own sustainability report this week that stated that greenhouse gas emissions grew from 69.8 to 72.7 million tons during the past year. Sasol is the nation’s leading producer of transportation fuel derived from coal (coal to liquids, or CTL). CTL fuel requires three times as much energy to produce than gasoline, losing 40 percent of the energy during the conversion process.

Sasol, one of the world’s top emitters of greenhouse gases, is pursuing a new coal to liquids plant, saying it would create jobs and help to ease the country’s energy crunch.

Sasol hopes that new technologies will someday help to green its business. The company does not have wind, wave or solar power generation facilities because according to CEO Pat Davies, they are not part of its core competencies.

Coal provides 90 percent of the electricity and one-third of the transportation fuel in South Africa, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

State-run utility Eskom hasn’t been able to keep pace with electricity and has resorted to rolling blackouts while it ramps up the construction of new coal plants. South Africa’s growing economy has been slowed by the international financial crisis, but the power demand is growing as the nation modernizes.

In addition to its 13 coal plants, Eskom operates two hydropower plants, one nuclear power plant, and a small pilot wind farm.

Image courtesy of Flickr, DanielDVM.

(Matter Network’s John Gartner will be touring South Africa and blogging about sustainability initiatives starting on November 29 as part of the Blogging South Africa program. Sign up for the RSS feed here.}

Bafana take down Cameroon

photo: Alexander Joe, AFP
3-2 to Bafana Bafana. You know it.
Very short post but have to show my pride that Bafana has taken on Africa’s best and won. Great work.
Similar Posts:Can you twist? – a South African online reality show

SA soccer in tatters – Let the Boks go, focus on Bafana

SA Triumph In Golf, Soccer […]

Get your South African and African initiatives on Muti

Yes, Muti.co.za is a submission site where anyone can submit content and have it voted up or down by the community.
But the Muti folk (Neville, Dave and Charl) have kindly placed the SA Rocks banner in the advertisement spot in the Muti sidebar.
I cannot express my gratitude enough to Neville for helping me […]