Yesterday evening I had the opportunity to attend the Cape Town launch of the Aston Martin Rapide all thanks to Justin Stanford. Aston Martin has long been an aspirational brand for me personally and I’ve had my eye on the DB9 for a long time now. I guess, however, that the biggest issue with owning a DB9 is the practicality of having more than two passengers. Well the Rapide now solves this issue…

The Rapide is arguably the most beautiful four door sports car in the world and is powered by Aston Martin’s hand built 6.0-litre V12 engine from the DB9. From the DBS the Rapide has inherited the suspension and combined this adds up to an impressive and practical sports car that blew my mind away.

Sitting in the Rapide is an experience to behold and it feels like you’re in a F1 car – only far more comfortable and stylish. All four seats are independent from each other and in true Aston Martin style they have all been hand stitched. The Rapide boasts a 1000w Bang & Olufsen sound system that is just as impressive as the interior itself.

The boot space in the Rapide is mind-boggling and there is so much space that it’s now completely conceivable that you can take the wife and kids on a seaside holiday in this car.

With a starting price of around R2.7 million it makes for a hefty chunk of change but as a consolation every Aston Martin now comes with a full maintenance plan as of 1 May 2010. At the Gauteng launch I think they sold four Rapides on the night (including a One 77) and I’m keen to know how many more were sold last night.

The only thing left for me to do now is to organise a test drive which may, or may not, be a good thing. For more pictures from the event and of the car click here.

At exactly 00:00 today my father passed away after a long battle with Cancer. Back in 1995 my father was diagnosed with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL) and at the time I was only 15 years old. I remember thinking that my dad was going to die but the beauty, I was told, was that we’d have between 15-20 years before that would happen due to the stage they caught the disease at.

Through out the last 15 years my dad has lived a pretty normal life. He never complained once about his illness, he never lost his hair from chemotherapy and he basically never missed a day of work either. For the last 15 years it was as if CLL never existed.

This all changed at the turn of the new year.

Back in August 2009 my dad started to develop a swollen head which made him look like the elephant man and this happend a number of times since then. He became chronically fatigued, his immune system was weak and he started to lose a lot of weight in the process.

At the end of January this year they finally diagnosed my dad with a secondary cancer in the form of tumours that had become widespread and consumed most of his body. At the time they felt treatment was still possible because the tumours hadn’t appeared to spread into any vital organs.

From January until today the cancer spread and grew at such a rapid pace that it was simply eating my dad’s body up. Three weeks ago they discovered three massive tumours on his brain and the prognosis wasn’t looking good for him. A series of radiation treatment ensued and this ended just before mother’s day where my family and I flew up to Johannesburg to have lunch with him.

When we left I knew that this moment was probably the last time I’d ever see him alive again and it made me sick. Sick, quite simply because there was so much I still wanted to tell my dad before he died and I knew that I probably wasn’t going to get a chance to do so. I felt unresolved.

On Sunday morning my mother phoned me to say that my dad’s really slipping away very quickly and that I mustn’t be shocked if she calls me to say he’s gone. I knew the time had come so on the early hours of Monday morning I wrote my father a letter. This was something I had thought about doing for a number of months but now the timing seemed right. I emailed the letter to her and asked her to please read it to him – it was my way of saying goodbye.

Late Monday afternoon my mom called me again, in tears, telling me that he has asked her and my 10 year-old sister for permission to die. He told them that physically and mentally he simply hasn’t got the strength to continue and they gave him their blessing.

I asked my mom if she received my letter and alas she hadn’t. I asked only one thing and that was to please read him the letter before he goes. Later that night I sat going through emails from my father and thinking of him as already dead and I had to stop myself because he wasn’t – yet. So, on Monday night I booked a 1-way ticket to Johannesburg so that I could hopefully spend the last moments of his life with him.

I arrived yesterday at 12:00 in Johannesburg and went pretty much direct to the hospital. I was very relieved to hear that my dad had read my letter to him and I was already feeling more peaceful knowing that he at least knew how I felt.

When I saw him though I simply wasn’t prepared. He could barely talk, couldn’t hear anymore and was passing in and out of consciousness the whole time. He knew I was there and was very happy and surprised to see me but I knew the man was on deaths door.

My visit with him however was extremely special for me. I held his hand, which is something I haven’t done since I was a kid, I told him I loved him and he even asked me for a kiss when I left. I connected with my dad on a very different level and I felt like I had now finally said goodbye and I was ready for him to die.

We were told by Ali Bacher and the hospital that my dad wouldn’t make it through the night and at 00:07 we got the phone call that he had died. My first reaction was that I needed to go and see him and I convinced my reluctant mom to come with me.

Seeing my dad’s lifeless body was something that I wasn’t really prepared for. He had aged by about 20 years due to the lack of oxygen and blood supply, his skin colour had turned yellow/white, his body was warm but getting cold quickly and his facial features had already sunken in. He was not the dad that I had seen some 10 hours earlier.

The hardest part about seeing him was that he wasn’t moving. In theory we all understand that a dead person doesn’t move, breath, talk, etc. but I was fully expecting him to open his eyes and say something to us. This never happened and it was a harsh reminder of what had just happened.

I spoke freely to my dad like I’ve never done before, I touched him and held his hand and rubbed his leg and generally just looked at him in awe as a man who I regard as my hero.

I nearly didn’t book my plane ticket to Johannesburg on Monday night because I realised I was petrified of having to deal with his death but I am so grateful that I put my fears aside, got on a plane, and shared these immensely important final moments of his life.

To be honest his death has not sunken in yet but I can tell you I feel at peace with it. I did everything I needed to do with him and I’m so greatful that I don’t have any regrets around his death.

Today I remember my father as loving, dedicated and humble person who endured many hardships in his life to make our lives a little easier. The world has lost a great human being and I look forward to honouring him at his funeral.

The launch in Cape Town was an experience to remember. The theme was the Ama-zing Race and we were told to find clues along the way and follow them. We were all given Nikon cameras along with our first clue and the key to a fancy Mini Cooper. The clue was simply to find which Mini was ours and I’m pleased to report we got the convertible.

Our next clue, inside the car, told us to explore the sights of Cape Town and take as many photos as possible along the way. Along with our cool, bright-red cabrio we each had a padkos bag filled with SA-only goodies and an iPod jacked into the Mini which, yip you guessed it, only had South African artists on it.

Adele and I drove for well over three hours in the basking sun, snapping away like German tourists all the while taking in the pleasures of Cape Town.

When we returned to the iStore we were tasked with creating a photo book from our pics using only iPhoto and the built in software. I must admit, after zipping around all day in a Mini, this wasn’t the easiest thing to do but the software did simplify our lives. Sadly our photo book didn’t with the super cool iPod but about three days later we received a hardcopy of the book which can be seen below.

The good news is that anyone can enter this cool campaign and win prizes along the way. Read the A to Z of SA website for more details on how you go about doing this.

This was an awesome day where I got to explore the beauty of Cape Town and I think this new campaign by Apple is one of positivity and hope which we should all get behind. If any of you would like to attend one of the upcoming Ama-zing Race (Jo’burg and Cape Town) where you too can experience a day similar to this – please let me know. You can post a comment below or email me directly justin@hartman.me and I can get you onboard.

The morning kicked off at 09:00 with an introduction meeting with Wernich from Audi Cape Town and some free coffee and snacks. It’s at this point that you basically sign your life over and for a moment I had to wonder if it was worth taking the risk… it was short lived.

Matthew Buckland and I teamed up and we decided to start off small so we took the Audi Q5 for a leisurely drive to Constantia Mall.

The Q5 was the surprising drive of the day for me. It’s a fantastic family car that is somehow less pretentious than the monster Q7 but put your foot down on the pedal and the car accelerates like a sport car. Starting at around R411,000 I suspect this vehicle will become a better seller than the Q7 – but that’s just my take on it.

At Constantia Mall we pitted and swopped vehicles and I saw Matt eagerly take the Audi A5 2.0T keys from Joe Botha’s hands. Initially we thought the A5 was in actual fact an S5 but nevertheless this was still an impressive vehicle.

Matt got to test out the full power of the A5 on the M3 highway when I insisted that we stop halfway so that I could also get a turn. I drove the car from roughly Tokai to Noordhoek where we pitted yet again at Bob Skinstad’s pub The Toad.

Let me just say that of all the cars that were available for the day the Audi A5 impressed me the most. I loved this car and especially loved the multitronic gearbox. Its handling was superb, it’s frighteningly quick and to top it all off it looks super sexy. If I had R424,000 to spend on a car this would be the one I’d chose.

After a couple drinks Chris did a draw to see who would drive the Audi S4 and Audi R8 home. Unfortunately the R8 was occupied for the day but nevertheless Charl Norman’s name was pulled out of the hat and he gets to nail the R8 on a day that suits him.

Sue Rutherford was the other lucky name pulled out of the hat to drive the Audi S4 back. Sue was however not feeling too confident driving the S4 and I was quick on the draw and convinced her to let me drive it – thanks Sue!

I drove the S4 from Noordhoek, down the recently reopened Chapmans Peak Drive and then back to the Cape Grace Hotel where we rendezvoused for lunch. Unfortunately this entire drive was mostly frustrating as traffic really hindered our ability to drive the S4 properly. Sue and I did do a little detour to find some highway and luckily there were brief moments of white-knuckle driving but they were far and few between.

The S4 is a fantastic car as it has two very different modes of driving. In highly condensed traffic the S4 acts like any other A4 in that it is light on fuel, easy to drive and behaves like any other regular car but put your foot down on the accelerator and this R590,000 car turns into the devil. It’s kind of like sex on wheels but strangely much better. The raw power at your disposal is mind-blowing, the handling is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced and the braking is superb.

There’s only one major problem with it though – it looks like a boxy family car. I’m funny like this in that I’d buy an A4 as a family car because it’s practical and if I really wanted all that power I wouldn’t buy the S4 but rather opt for an S5. Yes I know people want to have the power and still be practical but seriously it’s just not for me. Give me that A5 any day!

The day ended with a magnificent lunch at the Cape Grace Hotel which could have gone on all day given half a chance.

I must thank Chris and Wernich for what was a truly remarkable day. This is an amazing initiative that is certainly going to take Audi a long way and I’m just glad I could experience it all with some amazing people.

I love a good competition. Nothing like the thrill of the chase to drive one nuts. If you’re reading this blankly then let me elaborate by saying that I am now one of two finalists in the $3,000 adtech content revenue strategies giveaway which includes a trip to New York to attend the conference.

This is something I really, really want and I am forced to rely on you to help me get what I want. Basically it’s now down to public voting and your vote will determine who gets to go. Please can you head on over to Shoemoney’s blog by clicking this link and cast your vote for Justin in the vote box?

Voting ends on Friday morning and I’m competing against a really great guy so your vote is important and really will help to make a difference.

I must thank everyone who’s voted for me so far. The support has been amazing from you all – thank you!

So why is this important to me and my business and why do I feel that I should attend over all the other potential candidates? Well there are two main reasons which I’ll highlight below.

Adgator – Africa’s first blog advertising network

Afrigator, the company I co-founded and now the largest niche aggregator in Africa, pioneered the first blog advertising network on the continent called Adgator. We launched Adgator almost a year ago and we’ve had some great response and varying success. In particular, what I’ve noticed is that we’ve solved a critical need to connect advertisers with bloggers (vice-versa) and for the first time there is a simple solution for brands to advertise and communicate to a social media audience in Africa.

While we’ve certainly solved many problems we are the first to market and this has come at a hefty price. There have been huge learning curves for us and as the market isn’t as big as say the U.S. we’ve had to be disruptive in our innovation in order to succeed. For me ad:tech would help us to learn from people a whole lot smarter than us, connect with highly influential people in the market and ultimately give us valuable insight into the state of play.

All of this will help us apply what we’ve learned and the insight we’ve gained to a market that we ultimately understand. I’d imagine that attending this conference would leap-frog our business to a completely new level and this is critical to our survival.

Working with the U.S. Government

Back in August 2009 we were contacted by the U.S. Government and together we formed an interesting partnership. We worked very closely with the Department of State, the SA Embassy as well as America.gov to assist them in showcasing the work the U.S. is doing in Africa.

Together we launched a pioneering social stream in time for Sec. Hillary Clinton’s seven nation trip to Africa and not only did this showcase official content from America.gov but it also showcased the conversation happening in real-time across all the social media platforms. We’ve long built up a relationship with African bloggers and content producers and it’s relatively easy for us to pull all of this together and we aggregated everything from Afrigator (i.e. blog posts), Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and Delicious that related to Sec Clinton’s trip.

As a result of our very close connection with the U.S. I think it’s imperative that I finally get the opportunity to visit the land of the free as I’ve never been to the U.S. before. As America continues its mission in Africa and we continue to work with the U.S. Government it would be hugely beneficial to understand both markets and not just the one we live in.

So, Jeremy, you could possibly chose someone else but I think your best candidate is staring you squarely in the eyes.

Twitter have today started rolling out a Beta feature to select users called Lists. To me this is the most useful feature that Twitter have added since they launched. I’ve had my Twitter account since March 2007 and during that time I’ve accumulated a whole bunch of followers. The problem with this is that Twitter has, over time, become far too noisy for me and I’ve lost my ability to follow what’s going on.

As a result I’ve used Twitter more for updating than for following but Lists now change this. As you can see from my sidebar I can now create both public and private lists. This means that I can now create a private list just for friends and instead of seeing all the noise I can just view stuff from people that actually matter to me – my friends.

You can also see that I have created an Afrigator Team list. This list I made public so anyone can view this list and follow it if they want to. As with following individual Twitter profiles you can now follow a list and be updated on that lists stream which is pretty useful. What lists also do is allow you to know who are part of a team. Twitter have a team list as well so you can now follow people from a company or cause that matter to you.

Twitter has just become a whole lot more useful to me and I think it’s a game-changer! How many of you have access to Twitter Lists?

Over the last two days I’ve witnessed two jaw dropping incidents in the ICC Champions Trophy, both of which involved England, and these have had a serious impact on Luke. The first and most controversial was an incident involving Graham Smith and Andrew Strauss during the SA vs. England game on Monday evening.

Smith was on 124 runs with South Africa needing another 69 from 36 balls to stay in the ICC Champions Trophy and requested for a runner yet Strauss declined it. After the match Strauss explained that “He asked for a runner and the umpires took the view that cramp is a symptom of fatigue. Being tired does not qualify batsmen for a runner under the laws of the game”.

It is my belief that this decision by Strauss was a defining moment in the match and was a major contributing factor to our loss. After Strauss turned him down you could see Smith’s whole demeanor change. Couple that with the fact that he could barely walk and Smith was now forced to look for boundaries to try and steer our team to victory which ultimately lead to the fall of his wicket at 141.

If you asked me Strauss knew that Smith could win the game for South Africa and he wanted him off the field as his bowlers were pretty much ineffective against him. I believe that Strauss broke the rules of the gentleman’s game in a display of the worst sportsmanship I’ve ever seen in cricket in recent times.

The impact this had on Luke astounded me. He was in Graham Smith mode at the time, with pads on and bat in hand, trying to win the game and when he saw how upset Smith was he went from excitement to total disappointment. He got furiously angry with England and accused them on cheating and not being fair and this frustration ultimately brought him to tears. It took a long time to console him and explain to him that sometimes things happen in sport that prevent you from winning but he struggled to comprehend it all.

This was the first time that he’s ever understood and been exposed to injustice in sport and he didn’t like it one bit. When he went to bed he told us he’s never playing cricket again – a truly shattering moment for a child who just wants to be the next AB De Villiers. As parents this was a difficult moment for us and I’m not convinced we handled it as well as we could have. Be that as it may, Luke agreed to take up cricket again the next morning.

The second incident I witnessed was during the England vs. New Zealand match yesterday evening. Paul Collingwood, who had been declared run out after wandering out of his crease, went up to New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori and had a mini-conference with him. Soon after they shook hands and Vettori decided not to uphold the appeal and Collingwood was allowed to continue his innings.

To be honest I’m shocked that England expect every other team to honour the Spirit of Cricket ethos while they only really do so when the pressure is not on them.

It is true that Andrew Strauss had made a similar decision in England’s opening match against Sri Lanka by recalling Angelo Mathews however there wasn’t the same sense of pressure or intensity during that match. The truth is, when England are on the ropes they are simply bad sports.

If you don’t believe me then lets look at last year when Collingwood was captaining England when New Zealand’s Grant Elliott had been run out after a mid-pitch collision with Ryan Sidebottom. The umpires were obliged to rule him out, but Collingwood’s refusal to withdraw the appeal had infuriated Vettori and invited widespread criticism from the media.

Vettori’s decision yesterday was more significant as there was no case of obstruction in this instance, and Collingwood had no one to blame but himself for venturing out his crease. In addition, it was a do-or-die match for New Zealand yet despite this Vettori still showed outstanding sportsmanship at the time.

You make your own decisions around this but I for one am disgusted by England’s tactics and the fact that the ICC continue to back this team and the decisions taken by them on the field. What example are we setting to the youth who idolize these players and the game?

Two days ago Colette and I went to see a psychologist about our eldest son Luke. There’s nothing wrong with him but we were asked by the pre-school to put him through a series of tests to see if he is ready for big school (i.e. Grade 1) next year. The meeting was essentially a report-back on her findings.

While the results of the tests were very interesting (more about this in a later post) the strangest thing emerged. One of the questions asked to him was if he had three wishes what would he wish for. His first answer was… a clock. Colette and I were both taken aback as was the psychologist. None of us could figure out why a five year old would wish for a clock.

During the session we also realised that we don’t have a single clock in our house. Not only that but neither of us own watches either so there is nothing apart from computers and mobile phones indicating the time. Maybe this is the only meaning around this but then some more random events happened.

Last night I received a phone call from my late best friend’s mother. We haven’t spoken in over two years and I think it’s mostly due to the fact that the context of our relationship was connected through my friend and with him not being there it was difficult to maintain the relationship when we both reminded each other of him. So, needless to say it was a pleasant and unexpected surprise to hear her voice again.

I suspected that the call was in relation to the sixth anniversary of his death (September 15th) but this wasn’t the case at all. She contacted me to tell me that she’d started making, wait for it…, children’s clocks in her spare time and wanted to know if I can help her market the kids clocks online.

Soon after the phone call I put Luke to bed. Every night Colette reads him a story before bedtime but last night I decided that I should do story-time instead. As is customary Luke choses a book and tonight was a rather large Dr. Seuss collection of five stories.

Luke opened up the book and said to me that he wants to show me his best part. He continued to page through to a particular page in the book and said look Dad, this is it. I took the book from him and asked him why this page was his best and he said, because the long hand is hanging off looking all squiggly and he was referring to the rather comical looking clock on the page.

Maybe I’m being nuts but these three, seemingly random events around clocks, kids clocks in particular have me wondering if there’s not something there. I don’t believe in co-incidence, I believe in things happening for a reason and everything has meaning but I can’t find anything online that can help me understand this better.

Hopefully you have more insight into the random events of the last two days.

Let me start by saying that Mailchimp is an amazing company and their bulk email service is worth every penny. They deliver a punchy service and their UI is awesome however we no longer use them as our account has now been deleted.

I certainly can see the value in newsletters but from experience our newsletters were more often than not perceived as spam and I think, ultimately, this has hurt our brand. Added to the fact that many of our @afrigator.com email addresses now end up in people’s spam/junk folder and I think you’ll see why we’ve ultimately decided to drop our newsletter service all together.

Maybe our execution was poor, maybe we’re just not experts at doing this but I can tell you in future I’ll be hesitant to send out any emails to users. It’s a tough one for a small online business as email is, fundamentally, your only communication tool with your clients and this tool needs to be used very wisely…….. or else.

I can in all honesty tell you that we’ve learned more than we’d have liked to (mostly painful stuff) and if I had to do it all again I would have never started email newsletters in the first place. We had all these grandiose ideas about how we could leverage off email to our users but in the end I think we failed.

It is no secret that I’m a Parlotones fan-boy (as is evidenced by this post) and this once in a life time opportunity event was certainly not going to be missed by me and trust me, I had a fantastic time.

If you know me well enough then you’ll know that I am often mature beyond my years but last night I was like a teenager again. Singing, jumping, irritating Mark Bayly, asking the band for special requests, pestering Kahn for signatures and photos and just generally being an absolute nuisance. I had a blast and now have some cool signed memorabilia including a signed bottle of Giant Mistake by all the band members. Check out some of the pics from the night.

But this post isn’t all about the fun. As I mentioned on the Afrigator blog we actually got involved with The Parlotones on this and did some work with them on their new website and there’s some more exciting stuff in the pipeline.

As for the wine? Well if the crowd last night at the event are anything to go by then Giant Mistake is going to be a massive success. There wasn’t a single person who said they didn’t love the wine and if you’re a sceptic then I guess the proof will have to be in the pudding. I mean we are just human after all…

When I say at all I mean at all. For example, Nokia Software Updater isn’t compatible, Nokia PC Suite isn’t compatible, there is only limited Mac compatibility (i.e. GPRS & Bluetooth), Nokia Music isn’t supported so you can’t download songs to your Mac and finally, there is no iSync plugin for the 5530 XpressMusic either.

While I respect that Nokia are still in development with their Mac version of the Nokia Music app I am perplexed that there is no plugin for iSync. With no other access to Nokia applications, using iSync is the only way you can get contacts and calendar items to the phone and without the plugin the phone is pretty much useless.

I didn’t like this ofcourse so I’ve created a 5530 XpressMusic iSync plugin that any Mac user with this phone can happily download. Here’s what you need to do:

• Download the 5530 XpressMusic iSync plugin here
• Double-click the downloaded ZIP file and it will expand and leave you with a file called Nokia_5530_XpressMusic_isync_plugin_2v0.phoneplugin
• Now you need to move this file to the following location on your Mac: /Library/PhonePlugins/. You may need to create the PhonePlugins folder because mine didn’t exist when I did this.
• When you’re done, open up iSync and click on Add Device – it should pick up your 5530 and you can then double-click it to add it to iSync.

When this is all done, you should see the following screenshot and voila – you can now sync contacts and calendars with the Nokia 5530 XpressMusic on your Mac.

What’s particularly special about Comes with Music is that with every purchase of a new handset (see supported models) you get 12 months of unlimited access to over 5 million songs on the Nokia Music Store. This translates into 5 million songs, for free, for life.

Yes you heard correct! You can download (potentially) all 5 million songs on the Nokia Music Store free of charge for one year. Once your twelve month subscription is over the songs you’ve downloaded are yours to keep for life. (read the press release for more info).

The caveats to this are that the songs are DRM protected and can not be burned to CD and are additionally linked to your PC and mobile handset. You can share music with other Comes with Music users but you will need an additional DRM license to share or copy your music to another device – which will cost you, naturally.

I’m not entirely sure how Nokia plan to really make money off this offering. You can be assured that people will download as many tracks as humanly possible, or as Telkom bandwidth allows, and that will cost them a pretty penny in licensing rights to the artists and record labels. That said, Nokia can be assured that people will continue to buy their mobile devices as a new phone purchase renews the subscription and who’d want to lose their music collection they’ve spent downloading over the last year?

What’s particularly interesting for me is the gauntlet that has now been set to other suppliers of digital music. In particular I wonder how this model will affect iTunes and in turn iPhone sales. I’m busy using the Nokia 5530 XpressMusic device which is very iPhone-like. It has full touch screen support, a 3.2 megapixel camera, records video and comes with 4GB microSD card which can be expanded to 32GB. Granted it’s not as responsive as the iPhone but did I mention free music, for life?

With iTunes music not being available in South Africa the Comes with Music model is sure to dominate this market and potentially hinder Apple’s ability to penetrate the music crowd if/when iTunes comes to SA. In addition, sites like Amazon etc. also don’t support purchasing of music in SA so I think Nokia have the right model at the right time in this market. I honestly expect this range of mobile phones to be a hit as people will buy them just for the music access.

TechEd Africa 2009, Microsoft’s pinnacle conference that attracted more than 2000 delegates has ended amongst a hive of activity within the Microsoft community. Microsoft sure does know how to get its users and developers excited by the prospect of new software, approaches and company developments!

Attending the conference was an interesting experience and I have to admit that it was extremely difficult to decide on a focus area at TechEd. From a myriad of topic choices, from information security to product overviews, and self-paced hot labs, Tech-Ed offered us a unique perspective into what the future holds for the company.

As mentioned in an earlier post live demos proved to be a problem throughout the conference. While I get the need to do these live demos bandwidth constraints and software problems hindered the impact of the message but in the end we got the information we needed.

I was particularly interested in the discussions around IE8, PHP for Windows, Windows 7 and Silverlight 3. Of them all I must say I think Silverlight is certainly an interesting product worth watching as it allows native developers to create applications relatively easily.

Microsoft is also embracing the future in cloud computing, through the creation of Windows Azure, designed to enable application developers and users with better access and less capital outlay in application development and deployment. I seriously doubt that cloud computing is viable in Africa right now but nonetheless Microsoft feels differently.

While it may have been difficult for me at times to find my place within the TechEd community I can certainly see this community thriving. Microsoft has done a fantastic job at entrenching themselves within the corporate/enterprise market and this is evident by the varying array of delegates at the conference.

It’s that sense of community that made networking relatively easy at TechEd. From the opening party, to the informal gatherings round lunchtime drinks, to the closing party featuring Louise Carver, we’ve certainly had a fantastic time.

So, thanks, TechEd, for giving us the opportunity to explore and evaluate an environment and working atmosphere that has not been our own. I’m not sure if we’re ready to drop Apple and Linux just yet but it’s certainly been a great ride.

A couple weeks back I was contacted by Eben De Wit who is the Microsoft Developer Advisor for the broad developer community in South Africa and was invited to attend Microsoft’s TechEd conference in Durban.

Eben wanted me to attend as a non-Microsoft person in an effort to get some perspective on the Microsoft offering but more importantly he has asked me to blog about my experiences while at TechEd in an honest way – so here goes.

Last night was the start of the conference which saw a two and a half hour Keynote presentation. The format was pretty dynamic and interesting but after two hours it was just too much to take in. The key elements of the Keynote were a focus on:

• The IT Pro
• The Developers
• The End Users
• The Cloud

The reason it was structured in this way was to highlight the new Microsoft offerings to each of these core areas.

What I didn’t like

The Keynote was filled with various live demos, most of which didn’t go as planned and many times the system (Windows 7 based) simply hung.

Seriously, there is no reason to do live demos during a Keynote presentation. They never work, never go according to plan and it’s embarrassing for the presenter when it all goes pear-shaped. As a non-Microsoft person these failed live demos reiterate my position on why I don’t use Microsoft but at the same time I’m not sure how it was received by the 2000 strong delegates in the audience.

I must also admit that I really didn’t like the Bing presentation much. The main reason was because the guy presenting (someone high up in Microsoft SA) kept having a dig at the competitor. I’m not a big fan of competitor bashing and the whole presentation was based around how Bing should be people’s new default home page and how much better it was to Google. Not a good strategy in my opinion.

What I did like

I must say I’m very impressed with the Office and Exchange 2010 offerings. The applications are looking slick, seem very fast and most importantly PowerPoint now has some Keynote coolness which means there’s no longer a need to bore people with bland slides.

In the 2010 ranges all these applications will be available in The Cloud – which essentially means you’ll be able to work on docs, spreadsheets, presentations and email from another computer via the web. This is an interesting move in that Microsoft is now combating the Google Docs effect and it’s going to be interesting to see how this battle pans out.

While I wasn’t particularly wowed by the other applications I have to say that each one that was on show had some really useful functionality that really does enhance the offering.

My take on Microsoft’s offerings

Windows 7 looks great. It was sad that the live demos tarnished Windows 7′s real stability but 7 is certainly a massive step in the right direction. For Apple or Linux users Windows 7 isn’t really ground breaking as we’ve been exposed to this type of functionality for some time but for Windows XP/Vista users this is an earth-shattering release that is going to wow users.

At the end of it all I was left with a strong impression that Microsoft is trying very hard at repositioning the company in all spheres of the market. They’ve invested a lot of money and resources into usability and the applications, while clunky at times, are really much better than any of their predecessors.

There also appears to be a strong drive now to take on Google in a big way. They’ve adapted a lot of the coolness from Apple into their offerings and are competing head on with Google in the fight for enterprise and search market share. Sure, Microsoft own the enterprise space right now but they know that Google are hot on their heals and while Google owns search, Bing is fighting to take some of that control away.

Over the next couple days I’ll be spending some time attending break out sessions that are relevant to me and I’ll post more as I go along.

Special thanks to Darren Gorton for unknowingly allowing me to use his lighter side of startups presentation in mine! I simply love it! He’s also got a great post on funding for startups in South Africa which any entrepreneur must read.

It’s no secret that I love Apple and I’ve owned many of their computers and accessories for the last six years and to be honest I simply don’t see the issue with pricing in SA. I also have to concede that the Core Group have actually done a fantastic job at distributing and growing the Apple market share in South Africa.

With the advent of the Internet and more recently the adoption of Social Media many people would have forgotten or are not contextualising what it was like six years ago in the SA market. I remember when Beeld bought an Apple computer for almost R500,000 because it was the super-computer that would take them to a new level in production. Today, however, pricing of Apple products have dropped considerably and the company has positioned itself away from publishing and graphic design to the more lucrative consumer market.

I also remember a time when the Core Group had a lot of competition. Many years ago Apple granted multiple licenses to companies in South Africa yet despite this open market the only distributor to survive was the Core. At that time gaining market share was near impossible yet despite it they’re still around to tell the tale hence why Cupertino decided to award the Core Group with the sole-distribution rights to South Africa.

Granted that the Core Group have benefited by Apple’s overall positioning and mass global adoption but irrespective they have seen the best and worst of Apple and stuck to their guns.

So what’s the point of all of this I guess you’re wondering? Well the point is that not everyone is Social Media hates companies or are out to hurt reputations. I’ve sat in countless meetings with potential Adgator clients where I’ve explained that when a blogger takes the time to write something bad about their company it generally means only one thing – they care about you.

In fact not only do they care about you but they’ve taken the time to write something about you in the hope that you will respond. Most of the time, no one ever does.

It is because of this that I encourage people to engage users, no matter how tough it may seem, because by turning a negative response into a positive you start to create brand champions for your company. These brand champions will take your company a lot further than any marketing initiative could ever accomplish because quite simply put, people value their friend’s opinions more than they value yours!

From my experience, dealing with the negative responses in the right way is sure to change perceptions however the issue is that most companies have no idea how to go about this.

The Core’s situation is a case in point. RJ van Spaandonk retaliated, via Twitter, to the angry lynch mob which really just fueled the fire even further. While he tried to highlight similar pricing strategies from countries outside of SA it wasn’t handled in the right way and his strategy, or lack thereof, backfired badly.

The bloggers now hate the Core Group even more and RJ van Spaandonk is now recommending that companies stay far away from Twitter, bloggers and Social Media in general. In the end everyone has lost.

Had I been the Core I would have sought help from professionals before publicly making statements and retaliating. If you don’t know how to deal with this medium, ask for help – there are many professionals today who can help and advise you on the right Social Media strategy and how to mitigate negative responses around your brand(s).

For any company the message is simple. People are having conversations about you all the time and you really can’t afford to not be apart of it. Seek help, build a good strategy and above all – #DLFS*!

* Don’t Look For Shit! (this is Afrigator‘s corporate motto and we stick to it, religiously! We learned our lesson the hard way.)

A CAPTCHA is a type of challenge-response test used in computing to ensure that the response is not generated by a computer. The process usually involves one computer (a server) asking a user to complete a simple test which the computer is able to generate and grade. Because other computers are unable to solve the CAPTCHA, any user entering a correct solution is presumed to be human. (via Wikipedia)

I really do consider myself an intelligent human being yet despite my own personal beliefs other websites simply don’t agree. For a long time I’ve struggled with CAPTCHA’s implemented on websites. Either I’m really dumb or the technology is flawed – I lean towards to later.

Let’s look at my latest example. Last night I went to Register.com to look for available domain names. Now I normally use GoDaddy for domain name squatting hunting but alas the last few days their search results have not been working properly so I decided to use the other giant.

When I tried to access the WHOIS details for a particular domain I was presented with a CAPTCHA – I guess in an effort to determine if I was a robot or a real human being – but after twenty unsuccessful attempts I simply had to give up the challenge-response test and succumb to the notion that I must be a robot/spammer/computer and not human after all.

After the first ten or so failures I decided to screenshot all my responses to the CAPTCHA images presented to me because I have to prove to myself that I am not a robot by getting your help on the matter. Here are my results.

Please can someone tell me where I went wrong…….?

The net-result is that Register.com will not be seeing any of my money any time soon and I can’t tell you how often this exact thing happens with CAPTCHA. I realise why a site like Register.com uses it, GoDaddy uses it too, but surely it could be easier for real people to pass the challenge-response test?

In 2005 the W3C Working Group wrote a paper on the Inaccessibility of CAPTCHA and there were some interesting findings. Most importantly they discovered that many of the CAPTCHA systems can be defeated by computers with between 88% and 100% accuracy and that all CAPTCHA effectively does is give site owners a false sense of security.

So if you implement a CAPTCHA system and are only able to achieve at best a 12% success rate in avoiding abuse of your system, then surely it’s time to implement other human verification methods?

Herewith my reponse. Let me know what you think about it.

Dear Monique

Someone sent me the link to an article you wrote on 8 June titled “Social media: Is it worth it?” (http://gatorurl.com/qmi3mg). Let me begin by saying that while I see your view-point regarding big social media sites such as Twitter & Facebook being unable to monetise their websites and become profitable I strongly disagree with most of the remaining article.

Let me disseminate some of your statements and highlight my perspective on the issues you raise.

But somehow I have difficulty accepting Powell’s suggestions: how many microcelebrity’s are there? Does it not come down more to the year you were born in, your culture, your history and being dealt the right hand at the right time, as Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers illustrates?

I too have read Gladwell’s Outliers and agree with everything he wrote in the book. I am a strong believer in the principle’s of the year you were born in, your culture, your history and more importantly the 10,000 hour rule but I struggle to see the relevance in the context of your article. If you look at Evan Williams, Mark Zuckerberg and Biz Stone you’ll see that they all form part of the culture that defines Outliers and I’m pretty sure we’ll find that each one of them have been granted extraordinary opportunities that have helped define their individual, personal success.

How much value can there be in a service that spews out so much information that if you have prolific tweeters and many follows on your profile you see hardly any of their entries?

Value is in the eye of the beholder but from my personal experience this prolific information has helped determine a new way to spread information that is both useful, relevant and real-time. There is no other platform in the world that really highlights how real-time interaction can change perceptions, influence brands and drive revenue than Twitter does. Even Google is now trying to look at how they can plug into the real-time data that is Twitter.

Social media firm Facebook is yet to make a profit. It failed to deliver on Reed’s promise for Cope. Cope’s Facebook group had over 20 000 members before the elections, but only managed to get 7% of the vote.

This statement is laughable and taken completely out of context and I find it quite sad that you’d even try to relate a Facebook groups membership directly to COPE’s inability to obtain more than 7% of the vote. While COPE’s Facebook group may have attracted 20,000 members you failed to contextualise that COPE entered the political sphere with a bang and created a new sense of hope for voters in South Africa who were fed up with the ANC’s inability to deliver on their promises. However, by the time election day came round COPE’s decisions and actions started to highlight their flaws in their initial strategy. While 20,000 members may have supported them on a Facebook group what isn’t clear is just how many lost confidence as and when COPE started to lose support.

By contrast, the DA’s social media strategy was very aggressive and molded off the Obama election campaign and they had a very successful voting day which won them the Western Cape. The DA group on Facebook only has 25,000 members and Reed’s promise may have delivered for them because their message never changed along the way. It just interests me how you chose to highlight how Reed’s promise and Facebook failed to deliver for COPE but at the same time ignored the effect this may (or may not) have had on the DA.

I am yet to meet or hear of a South African who has used social media to make money, influence people or change their career. If you know of any Saffers who have, share your story below…

Your lack of understanding and knowledge in social media is clear to me when you make such a sweeping statement to an audience (Moneyweb readers) that is struggling to come to terms with how social media can benefit them. I run a very successful company that has been built entirely on the ability to use social media to help grow our business. We use no traditional mediums to market and grow our company yet despite this we managed to take a garage startup to part-acquisition when MIH Print Africa, a division of Naspers, bought into our company.

Then let’s look at how Storm Hoek wines (www.stormhoek.co.za) used only social media to market and promote their brand. They targeted bloggers and social media platforms to promote their wines and had massive success along the way. They export wine all over the world.

The list goes on and I can write a book on the amount of people, in South Africa, that have used social media to grow businesses, influence other people and change their career path. I myself used my blog to get a new job which would ultimately set me on a course to start Afrigator.

I would, in all honesty, re-consider your initial approach of this article and look to write a more detailed one that includes some basic research and perhaps trying to explore how South African’s are using the medium successfully. Your readers deserve as much.