Archive for the 'Geek Dinner' Category

27dinner: premier edition rocking Jozi

Saturday night is the first of the 27dinners in Jo’burg and the lineup looks epic.. friends Paul (he of chilibean fame) Dave (the marvellous marketing geek) & MsRitz are on the speakers roll…& the guest list is throbbing with some fine form! I know Mike’s organising the whole shebang & maybe a little busy on the night but I’m sure he’ll get up there too & reveal a little of his legendary energy & insight into the wild opportunities abounding for South Africa in tech & marketing.
.. AND no doubt he & Dave will be celebrating Cerebra’s launch (at long last!!)

Really almost sad that I’m staying in midsummer’s paradise, on the beach in Cape Town & not heading to the big bad city for the fun. I’ll have to wait for a whole month till 27 rocks the MotherCity.. so heads up to those not going to Jozi for the premier edition because you’ve got a month to make plans to combine business & pleasure on the 27th of Feb. Go to your diary NOW >>

Too 007 : Bond.ing & innovating against the clock

..”before we resume our regular programming: a word from our sponsors”..thanks scoobymoo!

AAAARGH!!! I swear I can hear an audible click as my brain defocusses and searches for an alt.activity to fill a few minutes. Oh I know there are those who remain placidly cow-eyed and obediently absorb, but increasingly our human immune response to, shall we say oldskool bacterial bombardment of ads thrown at us unbidden, is on high alert.

Though we are still very prone to viral campaigns it seems :-P
Like some frenzied biological warfare campaign from the labs of a nefarious evil genius - media companies and ad agencies from every corner of the globe are striving to sequence the freshest viral DNA code to unleash upon the masses, in a bid for world domination of the attention kind of course. It may last only a few days.. but those feverish few days can pay off handsomely. Continue reading ‘Too 007 : Bond.ing & innovating against the clock’

damn you guys rock!

love cafepress!I really want to tell you about how wonderful last night’s geekdinner was (think it may have been the global final for 2006 ). But a severe case of Christmas weekend writers block has befallen me zzzz :-/ .. my brain’s on cruise mode /// some lazy languid loll after a frenetic few days, nay weeks.. ah hell, months. whew. exhale. Continue reading ‘damn you guys rock!’

Summer Geek Dinner in the Bay

Hooray! Time for our 2nd official Stormhoek Geekdinner has arrived.
If you haven?t been to one yet, and you are a geek, don?t miss out! (If you are one of the mighty lucky ones to be visiting or living in Cape Town this week that is). It?s this Friday 22nd December

Continue reading ‘Summer Geek Dinner in the Bay’

JoziGeekDinner - more delight with less delirium this time

THANK YOU MIKE!! Huge thanks to that force of nature: Stopforth wentforth and magicked up a brilliant evening for the Jozi geeks to map their network offline.

Big smiles and lots of surprised people, whose illusions/delusions of what geekery is, have been soundly smashed. It rocked.
Mike & I are now veterans of the SA Geek Dinner scene, and give bountiful thanks to Graham Knox of Stormhoek Wines for starting the meme (you’re a legend dude!) along with the blogging behemoth Hugh MacLeod (Gaping Void) for making it sooo sexycool to get out from behind our screens and play realtime : where LOL actually has an associated sound component.

I was completely staggered by the fact that right at the moment I’d been waiting for all damn week - the Seth Godin surprise (the real Free Prize Inside of this event) - I went to pee.. charming. (thank you Mike for the replay mate.. and respect to Seth for potent inspiration that gave us renewed fire under our broeks!) Especially love Seth because of Small is the New Big meme - if you’ve ever met me you’ll know why :-P

Met so many bloody brilliant beings, and reconnected with buds that I haven’t seen in ages who I seriously digg: From dazzling mate Christof & his real sillybilly (yes I do mean boy-goat) story that celebrated South African quirkiness to the sobering strength of storyteller supremo Aiden; the incisive clarity of Gabi the sharp brutha (sorry I didn’t get to chat more to you, and Adriano); Roger the macgeek who introduced me to young visionary Thando, and assaulted by Jacques who tagged me a hippie (hahaha.. I only wish!); all too briefly pinged Heinrich; my bud Mark (who was 1 of the surprised fellows that we geeks don’t look like troglodytes); readjusted the Scott awhile by asserting the fact that I’m actually a girl version; blazed by Metacognitive Carl (you’re a keeper bru!); rapped about nanotech, RPG’s, math, arcane Egyptian philosophy and other scruptious brainsnacks with Andrew; am determined to discover more about leadership with George; got lots of love from the irrepressible Tumi; did the quick connect-in with the Missing Links who I think looked at the rest of us pretty disdainfully.. but went to their office next day and was blown away - you guys are too damn cool for school, especially Rich who may well be one of the scarysmartest peops I’ve met in a while (if you get a chance, wangle your way to their playspace you wont be disappointed)..

I missed my Cape Town geeks madly.. maybe we come up with a crazyass way to do this gig in the air next time. Thanks to all of you for making me feel so welcome back in gold-veined Jozi.. I loved it, and think I may actually have been well-behaved this time!

The beginning of many outstanding collaborative projects will emerge, like BarCamp, from this dinner. I’ve seen the power of loosly banding brilliant people with brave ideas together and allowing for freeplay; which is why my impassioned rant was heartfelt >> go explore beyond your boundaries and discover that there are many more wild ones out there to support your own crazy ideas than you ever imagined.

PS. hugest thanks to my mate Dee (fellow F8r, beautiful, brilliant friend and generally outstanding being) who marvelled at the bright jozigeek (jeek - thx Mike) mindsparkings (we’ll make a geek of her yet!)

geekdinner 2.0

oh hooray another GeekDinner! Thanks Mike for organising :-) and Graham for sponsoring the delirium juice - which I will be staying clear of this time!

Think this one’s going to be a rowdy one .. seen some names on the wiki that I know to be purveyors of playful mischief, amongst some seriously smart beings heading out.

In Jo’burg on Thursday 5th October? Want to connect with some of South Africa’s freshest memetic engineers and blazing tech talent? Want to find out why all the fuss about Web 2.0, social media, integrated marketing, and what relevance it has to your business? Perhaps discover the potency of blogging as a political tool within Africa for freedom and dignity?

Or even just hang out with fascinating peops and drink free (fabulous) wine?

..then what the hell are you waiting for >> get your fingers & eyes over to the wiki IMMEDIATELY and add your name before all the places are gone (then you too will have to go on a fat mission to undo your procrastination habit so you don’t keep missing out on great opportunities… go go!)

Gathering Stormhoek

There is something so exhlirating::so electric about watching massive late afternoon thunderheads banking against the blue highveld summer sky .. the anticipation of the powerful heavy storm to come. Growing up in Jo’burg has infused my body with this natural sequence as indelible cellular memories.
I miss it sometimes.

It’s what gives balance & strength when the inner skies have darkened and not letting fear have its way. The rumbling thunder, phosphorescent arcs of lightning and drenching rain bring life, energy & renewal in their wake to the baked city streets. Nature none too subtly reminds us that everything is seasonal.. no matter what you’re going through it will give way to the next elemental shift.

The concept of the gathering storm fascinates me (great film on the uncrushable Winston Churchill - of the same name worth checking BTW).. but neither rainstorms, nor the impending global storm rolling in on the human family’s horizon is what I wanted to post about.

It’s actually what I meant to say at the end of our geek dinner instead of the stream of who-knows-what that actually came out. Continue reading ‘Gathering Stormhoek’

it’s all geek to me

Aaaaaargh! Mr Cherryflava referred to us as NERDS. neek!Is a geek an evolved nerd or are they simply interchangeable in most people’s minds? Somehow I?m feeling a tad slighted.

I know I?ve some traces of the geek - but heaven forfend - a nerd?! I rushed to Wikipedia to allay my blistered ego and found that I am indeed a classic nerd (confirmed in being an INTP in the Myers-Briggs years back.. must’ve been in denial) %-] For the purposes of simplicity and self-confidence I?m staying with geek till it doesn?t sting so much so… Are you a geek? Geeks love metrics & tests - so for a giggle try this one to determine your GQ ::geek quotient Continue reading ‘it’s all geek to me’

Group Genius

Our Geek Dinner [THANK YOU so much to geek marketing maven Dave for organising this!! :-D] happening next week (30 August ‘06). It promises to be a riot of dazzling minds, blazing new ideas and business opportunities brought back from the very edge of fresh tech, design and marketing.. all swimming in Stormhoek wine (sponsored by the marketing genius Graham Knox).

We’ll have some speakers offering just a teaser of their insights.. with the likes of Mike Stopforth (GoForth.. and wow! is this man going forth>> get connected to Mike while you can), Gavin Chait (Whythawk, WikiMedia: the night will be worthwhile if just to hear this maverick economist’s potent keynote.. register on the wiki NOW), Jonathan Cherry of Cherryflava (reporter from the edge of the freshest marketing and business trends), Conrad Strydom (SERIOUS programming clarity from the man who brought us SA’s 1st BarCamp) of Geekspin and someone called Maximilian Kaizen ;-) of maxkaizen.com

[Thanks to the exquisite Pilobolus dancers for their bodies to express the beauty that can be achieved working together.. I discovered them through the throbbing genius gathering TED (which I do secretly have on my 101 Things To Do Before I Die list).. please feel free to grab the pic above to publicize the geekdinner on your site].

All life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly -Martin Luther King, Jr.

The theme of the evening is from the Zulu saying Umuntu Ngumuntu Ngabantu.. for those of who need to slip the babel fish into your ear: “we are who we are because WE are” (huh?) or as Rafiq has it with more precision: people are people because of other people. We are moving into a new renaissance period and once again the collective intelligence of the passionate, determined, creative and visionary will MOVE the world. Looking forward to some Richter scale TECHtonic rumblings at the GeekDinner..see you there>>




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