HAPPINESS IS ..

We expect the superb quality writing, of course this is no repurposed regurgitated press-release mill, by default. Okay, the ad model is a touch of genius (simplicity against the usual enmeshed complexities of CPM, impressions and arcane billing structures of online ad placements) but for me, the cool things aren’t as apparent.
 
It’s in funny things, like discovering there’s a reader’s covenant..

Give us a tiny slice of your time and we’ll give you the world. We’ll also throw in a whole lot of fun, just to sweeten the deal. In the background, there’s a whole lot more to it, of course, but that’s all just detail. The Daily Maverick exists to provide you with the news, analysis, insight and opinion that you need. Whether you’re required to make big decisions or just want to hold your own over lunchtime conversation, we’ll provide the tools.

Here’s another promise: we won’t ever waste your time. We don’t let algorithms decide what is important and what is not. Our journalists and editors are humans, and some of the best and most experienced ones around at that. They’ve spent decades refining the craft and we think they’re pretty good at it.

…

We’ll do all of that for you, and we’ll do it with the greatest of integrity. Nobody will ever pay for our opinions, no matter the size of the chequebook. We will never sell your private information, or let somebody else dictate our agenda, or conspire behind your back.

Honestly, for most of my life I couldn’t have cared less about news. It all seemed a never-ending churn of tragedies from places you’ll never see in your lifetime about people whose fates you can’t change. Awfully good for curbing those irritating bouts of cheeriness when all seems well with the world. But the one thing that teaching globalization has taught me in return, is that no matter how far-flung, we’re all interconnected, life doesn’t happen in isolation anymore. The other, is that we CAN actually alter the fate of others on the other side of the world. One person, with the right knowledge can make the world of difference.
 
I, like so many of us who trade in knowledge, am compelled to ingest the news now, and would prefer not being swallowed by the depressing, drowning depths of data. The Daily Maverick promises FUN (no less!), an enjoyment in the news, for which I may be one of its toughest customers. It’s only the beta beginnings, but given the quality of minds gathering to make it so, they may well live up to that reader’s covenant. 

Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win – Mohammed Ali

May the muses and the might of money be with you this round >>
 
 
* As it happened, just such an embodiment has meant that I am biased. As consort to the editor I may see through a brightened filter, but being lucky enough to have a ringside seat to the blood, sweat, tears – and resiliant rise again, I have respect for this uncrushable team beyond any loyalty. I dare you to go see if I’m wrong and The Daily Maverick doesn’t feel like the kitten’s whiskers ..and crisp apple strudel.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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PS. For a little more insight on the indomitable team’s once and future visions, this meaty interview (The Media Online) lays bare what many oldskool Maverick readers have been burning to ask.
PPS. Simon Dingle weighs in on the revolutionary nature of TDM, as the return of quality, who’da thunk.

The Digital Dreams Department

With the help of some exceptional people, the Digital Media department launched this week. The first class of students have started a 4 week programme to infuse the internet’s power into their being. Skills they will walk out with next month will allow them to speak to the world, to work global and stay local, to channel life, laughter, business, creativity through a screen in ways they couldn’t have imagined (and most of us still can’t imagine). Skills that WILL change their futures.
 
The impossible is being effected here at 9 Ntemi Piliso Street through the hearts and minds of some very special people:
 
Taddy Blecher -  the legend whose mind evoked CIDA University (<< read this for an inspirational dose of defiance of ‘reality’) and now this School of Management
Mandy De Waal -  whose rare quality of getting things done, took a conversation and made it so >>
Dave Duarte - cited as one of the most innovative forces in global business education, specializing in digital marketing and philosophy, takes up the mantle of Dean of the faculty.
The Quirk team – especially Lyndi Lawson who collaborated with Dave to craft the first curriculum around their eMarketing textbook (psst.. free for download here).
My particularly heartfelt thanks to Ismail Dhorat and Saul Kropman who have generously offered their time and fine.grained expertise to teach the eager first class of 60 in my stead.
 
No photocopied keyboards to learn and imagine from this time, CIDA’s new sister business  school will be accelerating deep into the digital with some of South Africa’s social media finest lighting the way.

[I'm looking forward to seeing this school, and those without whom 9 Ntemi Piliso would be just another anodyne downtown building, grow strong and reap rewards for generations to come].

 
REFERENCE bites on the Silicon Cape:

• I think this was the first public post (though I remember Vinny making his intentions public at the Cape Town launch of Synthasite a while back).
• Loved Guy Taylor’s take. And he’s a Jo’burger mind you.
• For amusement, the Google search currently yields 4,340 for “silicon cape” 29/09/09

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So here I am,¹ still in Johannesburg, Joburg, Jozi, the District 9 city. The African version of LA.
The rough & tough old mining town that I was born in. esCAPEd from. And evidently needed to return to make peace with (like an ex-smoker I bore greater rights to cast scorn on its dirty sexy evils when I’d slipped its golden handcuffs in ’99).
 
Here for the best of reasons – which means I’m not here for the money. And not leaving anytime soon. Which means I better bloody well deal with it.
 
I’m sure you’ve also caught strains of that tatty mantra : it’s not your conditions but your decisions that make for success. Unfortunately the damn thing rings true, and not the kind of thing a “When I ..” wants to hear. (You know those When I’s? those who stubbornly defer giving their best until some favourable condition shimmers in: when I ..get married ..finish school ..lose weight ..write that book ..get a job/liver transplant/goldfish ..er, get out of Joburg).
 
We humans have so many forces that nudge our destiny: biochemistry, genetics, market forces, religion, politics, chemicals in our food, the neighbourhood we live in, our choice of friends. We can’t even trust our rational decisions any longer – beware the descent into paranoia from Dan Ariely’s book Predictably Irrational all ye elegant logicians (or watch this for 17 minutes for a quick scare).
 
It’s easy to be buffeted, eroded and move along en masse with the grand forces of our time and evolution. It takes a ferocious inner force to carve out your own destiny, regardless of circumstance. Hard cities are the best places to track down those who embody that level of defiance and strength.
 
Living in a place with a sophisticated, stable market to support your talent, obviously makes it easier to succeed. Urban social scientists like Richard Florida [Rise of the Creative Class] make sense of why some cities attract a disproportionate share of talent, spawn innovation and wealth with greater ease than most (think Silicon Valley or Singapore).² Being in Jozi just requires digging deeper (as you’d expect of an old gold mining town), but it yields some dazzling human.shaped gems.
 
This is a place where unexpected local brilliance radiates out globally, like YouTube star Khaya Dlanga

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Urban Survival : my 2 rules for enjoying cities that don’t share your ambitions

1. Deal with it. Resistance is futile. Remember the maxim: “bloom where you’re planted” fortune favours the fast adaptors. One of the best things you can do for your career is to learn some improv theatre techniques [think "Whose Line is it Anyway"]. Same goes for moving cities. Rocket scientist of adapting improv in business is Rob Poynton (Everything’s an Offer)³ who preaches almost only one thing: ACCEPT, then make something fresh/ useful/ outrageous from whatever life thrusts your way (sounds easy, but it takes serious theatre-ninja skills).

 

2. Genius begets Genius. There are 2 things I believe about developing genius. The second of which is that genius begets genius. Surrounding ourselves with people who are ferociously brilliant and determined, awakens the brain’s portals to significance, positive competition and heroism, otherwise dormant in less challenging company. HANG OUT WITH PEOPLE DOING INSPIRING THINGS, not just friends by convenience. Find your tribe and then go adventuring. Thankfully we aren’t limited by who’s in our hyperlocal ‘hood any longer. We have the world to search for our kind. Nothing beats realworld though – which is why it’s a no.brainer that the best and the brightest cluster in close vicinity - but resourceful digital nomads can get the best of both worlds. To stave off entropy, your average coffee, dinner, movies with friends doesn’t apply to this tribe. These are the people you want to go on expeditions with, develop a cure for Albanian measles, rack up some patents with, learn new languages together, build a school, discover a new species ..find something in your area of shared passion to defy time and the numbing cycle of work.buy.display.repeat. that our cities can loop us in.

[Wherever you are, be there.]

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* Check if YOUR city on the best-of lists (Joburgers, let me end your suspense. It isn’t. Deal with it.)

Monocle Magazine’s 25 Most Liveable Cities 2009
Business Week’s slideshow on The World’s Best Places to Live (from the Mercer 2009 Global study)

1. 9 months after leaving Cape Town for a 2 week holiday
2. Keep an eye on the Vinny Lingham & Justin Stanford passion project – Silicon Cape – vying to make Cape Town the first African creative attractor city
3. I’ve been lucky enough to get into Rob’s classes – find out where he is in the world and catch one of his sessions if you can

..

26 Mentors have stepped up to contribute to this special programme, and I’ll introduce them as the as the journey progresses, because they deserve to be recognised. Each chosen for their particular approach to bridging business and creativity.

..

For the reason that I don’t think too many of us get the opportunity to create a mentorship program¹, I’ll share some of my thoughts, maybe it’ll spark interest about creating one for your organisation/class/local good cause/ ..or yourself.

..

8 Ideas on Modern Mentorship:

As a mentor:

1. You don’t have all the answers. There was a time when it was feasible that we could predict (with fair accuracy) how the world will operate in the years to come. That time is not now. Share skills, show the hidden paths you’ve discovered – but know that we aren’t in the certainty of our parent’s world. Our job is to inspire greatness.

Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity -General Patton

2. Stories are the best way to learn from someone else’s experience. It’s a quirk of the human brain – music and stories have the sticky stuff. We remember and pass on case-studies, parables, gossip, jingles. Embed big lessons (softly) in captivating true tales of luck, calamity, humour ..and let it unpack later as an aha! Be a great storyteller (the once and future king of all leadership skills)
3. Monoculture is bad, and not just in agriculture. Leave the cloning to the gene-splicing engineers, mentorship is not about sculpting someone into your likeness. Our job is to spot what makes our charge special, draw out what was dumbed down to ‘fit in’. Genius is rarely safe and orderly.

As a mentee (horrible word, but it gets the consensual nod over apprentice):

1. ASK. Most of us far too polite to ask for anything that may inconvenience anyone else (PLEASE do yourself a favour and refresh yourself on Stanley Milgram’s subway experiment). Oh yes, also grab a copy of Dan Ariely’s Predictably Irrational², and read the chapter on social norms vs market norms. It WILL do your head in about what we assume about money and work.
2. That said, the kryptonite to a mentoring relationship is.. asking too much. Take a quick peek at Tim Ferriss’ post on getting this contact right. Entitlement is creepy. Demanding meetings to discuss the Next Big Thing ( still in idea.ware format and prefaced with the ubiquitous NDA), the assault of thick book manuscripts, lifeless CV’s and half.baked business plans to be analysed is something many people in high-profile positions get pelted with daily – witness any Branson gig! Stand out, offer something that would be of value to your would.be mentor (not the great opportunity to buy in now!)
3. You’re never too old or too successful to get a mentor. Brain plasticity³ is an invitation to free.choice learning. Go borrow someone else’s brilliance >>

I think you should profit from the mistakes of others. You don’t live long enough to make them all yourself.” – Lowell Ferguson

As a mentorship curator:

1. This isn’t your average mentorsheep program, so I needed to hunt for mentors who can look around the corner, not just behind them to point paths to success. Many high profile mentors who have forged their success in the world as it was. Globalization, the web, mobile, resource-strain – have rapidly forced us into new work for a new kind of world.. and so we need new kinds of guides.
2. Use fresh tools. It wouldn’t be much of a pioneering program if we didn’t experiment with the different channels that make up our blended.reality⁴. Challenge the idea that mentorship should be bound to 1 hour coffee meetings. The web is teeming with wonderful tools to enhance communication and inspire creativity (struck with tech.terror? ..hunt a mentor to help you learn, of course).

1. Yes, I have been watching Star Wars again in celebration of some of the most famed sequences of masters and apprentices (or padawan). We have very few powerful formal institutions or guilds left that require the mentor/apprentice model that demands that we face a great trial (no, end of year exams don’t qualify) to prove our mastery before entering our profession ..and maybe we’re collectively paying the price for that (but mercifully, I’ll save that discussion for another day!)
2. there’s an audio extract at the bottom of this page link if you’re living 3 weeks from a bookstore
3. your brain isn’t just doomed to entropy with the best wasted on your youth – IF you exercise it. Challenging learning = new neural connections, fresh brain cells and a cranked up IQ whatever your age
4. Our digital home base will be a custom social network from which we’ll begin the journey tomorrow night.. I’ll report back on what works

The TEDxJoburgNorth programme, launching on the 15th July 2009, will  be the beginning of many more such TEDx events in the city. I’m helping to gather the forces for a city.size TED Johannesburg in November with TEDsters and fellow raving fans, under the passionate leadership of publisher Alicia Woolf [want to get the early heads.up on getting your seat or collaborating to make it legendary? mail me or leave a comment below.]

TEDx Events have the same general goals as TED Conferences. TEDx activities are dedicated to leveraging the power of ideas to change the world, and they cover a broad set of topics including science, arts and design, politics, culture, business, global issues, technology and development, and entertainment.

Joburg’s first TEDx organised by:

Extraordinary documentary filmmaker and liaison for HH the Dalai Lama for his visits in South Africa, Guy Lieberman.

Ephraim Moss, a first class geek – using the latest in technologies and computing to develop holistic business and communication systems.

Nachi Mendelow, who considers himself an ever evolving monkey trying to work out why we ever descended from the trees. Loves banana’s, which clearly generates the formidable energy to his supercerebral cortex.

I’ve been invited to give a talk that shakes stale ideas from comfortable crusted niches.. to present ideas worthy of TED grade – dear mercy! (If you haven’t been introduced to the TED treasure >> map here). The brief is simply to talk about the ideas that burn the brightest for us – for 18 minutes. Counterintuitive evidence around my research that “The Machines are making us more Human” will fill my nerve.fraying 18 TEDx minutes. (Not sure there’s any space left – but just in case, I’d love you to join in if you’re in Jo’burg on the 15th July, check here).

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For TED fans and prospective speakers, below the lesser-revealed TED Commandments that ensure that the talks aren’t just your average powerpoint parade; and why attendees to the annual conferences in California, will do homework in the hopes of being offered an invitation for which they will eagerly pay $6000, if accepted.

(the stone tablet is delivered to TED speakers as they prepare to give the talk of their lives)

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Next Wednesday eve, Cape Town will pingback after seeing so many of the blogger community from Joburg for Wordcamp & more last week. At the SA Business Schools Expo at the Sandton Sun, Epiphany (the new baby) in collaboration with Huddlemind (homebase) is doing a transcity mashup of minds. On an issue that seems to be affecting all of us, particularly if we work in new media, mobile and associated tech.

Is there a BUSINESS CASE for staying in South Africa when you’re one of our best & brightest ?

Do you believe that we’re all just biding our time waiting for a big buy-out, and anyone who isn’t has had too much of Nic’s Kool-Aid?

The organic process of establishing a well-rooted economy isn’t being given the chance to flourish in these accelerated times. As soon as the blossoms of our baby blogosphere started to show fruit they’ve been whipped off by corporate harvesters as Vincent & Mike have pointed out. Initially from local companies scooping the ones that glow from the top, but the shortage of talent is a global economic reality (and South Africans speak English), the best & brightest are plucked from here into fueling the intellectual capital needs of those who have the heft to pay handsomely. The vortex of the brain-drain in SA is rapidly accelerating because of crime, corrupt leadership and absurdly unfavourable conditions for entrepreneurs.

Regardless of what industry we work in, there is an unyielding perception that we have to leave SA shores to “make it big”.
Is that still valid in a flattening world? Maybe the cracks are starting to show, opening up opportunities to leverage your geopositioning to strategic advantage. To build what Hugh Macleod defines as a global microbrand, geographically agnostic success.

The best that we can do is to keep refreshing our headspace (doing a Zander challenging our bounds of possibility). There are challenging contrarian thoughts from lucid thinkers and brave pioneers that help stretch our horizons beyond insular dinner party conversation – repeating the same highly charged superficial sliver of reality that makes news. I selfishly want to create more interesting conversations around me so I don’t have to deal with rounds of regurgitated opinion at parties.

An enriched debate may be a fun place to start a good convo & we have some sexy thinkers on the panel: Branko Brkic (Editor, Maverick), Mike Stopforth (CEO, Cerebra), Paul Jacobson (New Media lawyer, Jacobson Attorneys) and Joshin Raghubar (Aspen fellow/ CEO, iKineo) and opening up into a open debate  with the audience, facilitated by David Donde (journalist, GQ and presenter 567/702).

BTW. this is NOT a lecture by talking heads. We’re tackling the question dynamically and collaboratively, engaging through provocative public debate – not only from the expert panel – but from bright minds in the audience too. We co.create the solutions to the issues to make sure they’re practical and relevant to reality.

This session is highly recommended if you’re considering a great trek of your own, or bleeding some of your company’s best and brightest to higher bidders globally. It may make for an interesting inflection point on your future strategy.

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Wednesday 3rd Sept. Sandton Sun. 17h00 – 19h00 (come earlier or stay later because you’ll have access to the Expo at your leisure)
Tickets are R250 (includes admission to the Expo) book online (click here) at www.epiphany.usgeni.us or give me a call on 082 832 6434 or mail me. easypeasy.