If you’ve watched it and want some background info I suggest you read the following links.

• Did you Know?
• Over 2 million served
• Shift Happens

While I wasn’t expecting a response from the post in question I was extremely impressed when I received an email from Sean Carolan the operations manager for Schenker in South Africa on Tuesday.

Hi Justin

I am the operations manager for Schenker in South Africa. One of my colleagues in Germany sent me the link to your blog (what happens to fragile boxes).

I cannot view the clip, but judging from the text it did not look good, and I would like to get to the bottom of it and address the relevant driver/staff member regarding this.

Please could you send me the clip in, as well as advise in which area this delivery was taking place (and the time)?

We train our staff, and try and enforce good practices throughout the delivery process, and when incidents like these go by ‘unnoticed’ it is good that we do get feedback.

I immediately responded and sent all the relevant details to Sean who then, it seems, went on a fact finding mission and managed to get to the bottom of things.

Just this morning however I received another email, this time from Andrew Dinnie – General Manager of the Western Cape, in which he tries to address some of the comments in the post. I thought it relevant to post some of his remarks in the email as it addresses the issues quite nicely.

The delivery was a scheduled delivery to BMW parts dealership in Town. The boxes on the video which were planned for that delivery are robust automotive parts not TV screens. They happened to be very light (5-6kg’s) and hence the proceeding method of handling. We do not condone the method and have already addressed this issue with all our handling staff. We are fortunate that to date there are no recorded damages and we have confirmed with this dealership that they maintain their support for our services.

I would also like to remark on a comment made on your blog by Sean Nieuwoudt, who is incorrect when he says that our east London branch is under liquidation. It is 100% owned by DB Schenker and continues to trade healthily, as in the past.

Now I’m no rocket scientist nor am I a specialist in online reputation management (ORM) but the way in which Schenker Logistics handled this situation is exceptional. By all accounts this measly blog doesn’t attract a massive readership and it would have been easy for the guys at Schenker to simply ignore this yet they decided to tackle the issue head on.

Tim Shier, marketing manager for both Quirk eMarketing and BrandsEye, recently wrote about the SAA ORM crisis in which he details 10 points for companies to consider when dealing with ORM. I’m not sure is Schenker knowingly knew what they were doing but they’ve done a sterling job at managing their online reputation by dealing with this somewhat minor issue.

Now prior to the new look Last.fm site there was no way to actually ban or remove artists from your profile. I asked other Last.fm connections if this could be done but alas, there was little hope of cleaning my profile up.

The great news is that all thanks to this…

…My Last.fm profile now looks like this:

Thank you Last.fm for giving me this much needed functionality!!!

Brought to you by The Times

Grab the embed code for your site below.

<div><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" quality="high" src="http://data.pictogame.com/gc/gc.swf" width="410" height="340" allowFullScreen="true" flashvars="gameId=oHeEPEXPmceB" name="flashContainer644787388"></embed>
<div style="width:410px; text-align: left;"><a href="http://www.pictogame.com/create.php?from_blog=1&template=13" target="_blank"><strong>Make games</strong></a> | <a href="http://www.pictogame.com/game.php?from_blog=1&game=3Y4go0BpLpvt" target="_blank">Share</a> | <a href="http://www.pictogame.com/gallery.php?from_blog=1" target="_blank" title="play free online games" >Play free online games</a> | <a href="http://www.pictogame.com/?from_blog=1" target="_blank" title="user generated games" rel="tag">User Generated Games @ Pictogame</a></div></div>
<br /><br />
Brought to you by <a href="http://www.thetimes.co.za/">The Times</a>

If you missed it then you seriously lost out. At around 12:00 on Wednesday morning the snow started to fall in Johannesburg for the first time in around 26 years. In fact the last time I saw snow in Johannesburg I was only 2 years old.

With the downfall of the snow I managed to capture three really cool videos. They’ve been uploaded to Twac and I’ve included the final video below so you can see just how thick it came down.

There is also more. Here are the links to the three different clips taken at almost half hour intervals:

Snowfall Part One – 12:05

Snowfall Part Two – 12:30

Snowfall Part Three – 01:05

You can also view some pictures I took of the snowfall by visiting this link.

WOW – what fun this was, if not a little cold!!!

Nic very kindly exposed this new feature this morning and Stiaan has done a cool post on it as well. Then of course there is the Afrigator Blog which shows this new feature in great detail.

But I’ll highlight exactly what Gatorlove is all about:

Gatorlove shows you just how much love you are getting from other Afrigator users in the Afrosphere by outlining how many blog posts and blog sites link to yours. If you login to Afrigator and click on the Dashboard link you will now see a list of your sites showing you your Gatorlove.

We have very cool plans for Gatorlove and this is really only the beginning so watch this space for further announcements!

The play is a touching and vibrant account of acclaimed South African writer, Chris van Wyk and is based on the book of the same name. The theatre version of Shirley, Goodness and Mercy has been adapted by director Janice Honeyman to capture Van Wyk’s love of storytelling and the wonder of a child’s inquisitive mind in stifling and oppressive circumstances.

I have certainly forgotten just how powerful theater can be and the play captured my imagination from almost the very first line. It’s wonderfully entertaining and Christo Davids, who plays the young Chris Van Wyk, was absolutely brilliant in his role. In fairness though each and every member of the cast were amazing and I take my hats off to their performances last night.

I think I may just have to do this more often.

Sunday morning 8:55am I found myself eagerly awaiting the implosion of four buildings in the heart of the JHB City. Yes I made a conscious decision to go and see my very first implosion and what excitement it was. The streets were packed and alive with activity as we all awaited the final countdown.

I have to admit I was expecting a louder bang when the explosion went off but nonetheless seeing these buildings come down in less than 12 seconds was well worth the lack of sleep. Within 30 seconds we found ourselves covered in dust from head to toe as a thick grey cloud of dust and debris came hurdling towards us.

A sudden chill of fear and remembrance consumed me at this point as all I could think of when this grey cloud consumed me was the tragedy that was 9/11. I’m often very blasé about the whole 9/11 incident but this was, if only a small version, a practical and very real example of what those poor New Yorkers must have gone through on that tragic day.

Sunday evening I watched the news and the television shots of the implosion and subsequent cloud cover do it no justice and I’m pleased that I got up early to bear witness to this event. While it’s not the same as driving an Aston Martin DB9 for the day (yes that’s you Mike) it does mean that I have one less thing to do in my life.

Now onto being pessimistic… I love this part of my persona and it is no surprise that when I stumbled onto the NO DATA website I immediately fell in love with it.

NO DATA is a questionnaire of sorts and has previously been used as an ‘art’ exhibit in the Watershed Media Centre, Bristol, and as part of an earlier incarnation of www.radiohead.com (one of my favourite bands of all time).

It’s long but takes you on an interesting journey and I highly recommend spending some time to discover the myriad that is our pathetic existence. What are you waiting for? Go there now!