MIKESTOPFORTH

Honestly, I’m convinced we hire some of the coolest and cleverest people in the country at Cerebra. Just take for example this email from Carl, subject ‘Can’t work with this poop any longer …’ which landed in my inbox this morning, had me in stitches, and which I couldn’t help but share publicly. I haven’t [...]

This is the topical question a couple of interesting people, and myself, will be discussing in a session that forms part of the SA Business Schools Expo at the Sandton Sun this coming Wednesday evening (17h00 to 19h00). Max Kaizen (under the banner of her newest project, Epiphany) has pulled together Branko Brkic (Editor of [...]

Mandy de Waal has kindly written up a profile and interview with me in her new Moneyweb Life Wired section… I’m pretty honoured and it’s a very flattering piece. Other people she’s featured include Charl Norman, Vinny Lingham, Ronnie Apteker and others. Thanks Mandy!

I am a beeeg fan of the Dave Matthews Band. Have been for nigh on ten years now. I own all their albums, most of their DVD’s and a healthy selection of their bootlegged recordings. Their truly unique sound and jamband stage act is not everyone’s cup of tea, but despite that they remain one [...]

Vincent Maher and I spent a fascinating day in a very sunny Cape Town with the Design Indaba team today. On the way to the session at the gorgeous 12 Apostles Boutique Hotel (kudos to the staff – best service I’ve experienced in ages) we got chatting about the state of the social Web, and [...]

Or at least I thought so. Sure, we struggled to hear at times as we competed with another party upstairs at Primi Forum Melrose Arch, but all in all I think it was a super evening. Just under 100 people rocked up to the biggest 27dinner so far, we might have even clocked 100 as [...]

Thanks to Neville‘s Muti link I’ve just picked up on a very intriguing post by Y Combinator, the seed-funding venture firm built around Web 2.0 startups, talking about ideas they’d invest in. Being a bit of an entrepreneur myself I was immediately drawn to the post, and a couple of things surprised me… First of [...]

One of the most inspirational characters I’ve ever met is a guy by the name of Rich Mulholland. Rich runs two companies, Missing Link and Thunk!, the former being a ‘presentation strategy company’ and the latter a ‘perspective lab’.  Rich’s story is an inspiring one – having progressed from rock band roadie to uber-successful entrepreneur [...]

It was inevitable that the 27dinner movement would eventually outgrow it’s PBwiki-hosted home in time.  The movement has grown substantially and truly exciting things are coming up.  The new site is up at 27dinner.com.

I’d like to humbly request that you understand that the new site is (and will continue to be) a work in progress, it’s not meant to be perfect this first time around so your feedback and insight would be greatly appreciated.

Nothing changes about 27 – you still get to attend for free and we’re going to try ensure that the content is not only up to standard with some of what you’ve seen before, but even better so.  We’ve also decided to respond to the numerous enquiries we’ve had from companies wanting to get involved in the form of sponsorships, etc. in such a way that it doesn’t detract from the ethos and culture of the movement.  In other words, we’ll only allow companies to get involved if it adds to your experience and pumps energy and value back into the community.

So check it out, let us know what works and what doesn’t, and what needs to change.  And thanks especially for you continued support of the dinners countrywide.

…because after this he’s going to be hard to get hold of.

Henk is the founder and MD of Skyrove (who I advertise on my blog not because he pays for it, but because I love them so much :P) and without doubt one of the nicest, smartest and most humble people in the industry.

I hope this compliment to him and his hard work will mean even more success. Well done bud!

Today has been an embarrassingly sentimental day for me. It marks the three year anniversary of my first ever blog post. Ha ha. Had I known in advance the realms of geekiness I would be sucked into I might never have ventured so far, but in retrospect I’m glad I did :)

Just after that first post on the faith-themed Idle Banter and before starting this blog, much of my creative energy was invested in TomorrowToday’s blog, which you can check out here… My foray into citizen journalism sparked a chain of events that included quitting a comfortable job at this company to work with people at another completely different company, trying to build what I called a ‘blog consultancy’ at the time (yikes) that eventually evolved into Cerebra…

For some reason I’ve been ignoring MyGenius.com – the Southern African social network for business people. I have been a member since late 2006 – MyGenius’s very early days – and never quite got in to it. I get the odd message from a MyGenius member wanting to connect but have spent little no time on updating my profile or adding content to the site.

Recently I decided to give MyGenius another go based on two realisations. Firstly, the value of social networking is undoubtedly found, or much easier mined, in niche communities. The quintessential example is Charl Norman’s Zooped Up community for owners of modified cars and suchlike – completely useless for me but absolutely invaluable and addictive to people entrenched in that community. MyGenius cannot be compared to MySpace, for example, because it’s not trying to be a globally dominant player. It’s simply trying to do what it does well.

Yes, it’s an odd request, but I have a good mate who is driving a very worthy project called Siyakhula (we are growing) that seeks to offer basic PC and Office instruction at a drastically reduced rate to disadvantaged communities, and he needs about 25 decent PC’s…

My good mate Erik Hersman is passionate about techology and passionate about Africa. He has combined these brilliantly in the recent past in the shape of projects like Ushahidi and AfriGadget. He’s been rewarded for his outstanding efforts by having AfriGadget named as one of TIME Magazine’s 50 top sites of 2008 alongside the likes of Yahoo! Answers Health.com, Mint and more.

Without going into too much detail, do you support Ramon Thomas’ assertion that the article written by Mandy de Waal about the who’s who of Web 2.0 in South Africa was ‘distasteful and offensive‘ or do you think Nic was right in saying that Ramon’s response “immediately marginalises his audience and those involved in his article”?

Have your say…

I don’t have an MBA but the little I do know about business tells me the ultimate goal for anyone starting or running a company is that it be profitable. Everything else – production, people management, marketing, accounting – is fashioned around that single purpose. I want Cerebra and Afrigator to make money. Sure, I want them to be fun, interesting and progressive – but they must make money.

I think it’s fair to say that websites like Facebook, YouTube, Zoopy, Twitter, Technorati, Digg and others aren’t meaningful and/or popular because of their technology (although good tech helps), but rather because of the vast networks of human beings using them. It’s humans that make Web 2.0 apps popular, not code. But looking at the significant list of apps and services I use daily, it’s hard to pick out any that are making money, never mind profitably so.

It’s a little late, but I’d like to thank all who attended last night’s 27dinner in Jozi (we were at Primi Piatti, Melrose Arch) yesterday evening. Considering the cold, dreary Cape Town weather the turn out was good and the vibe was even better.

Our speaker line-up included Ramon Thomas who spoke about Technology Stress in a Wireless World (view the preso at his site) followed by Jason Hobbs who gave a fascinating and stylish report on research he’s done into the disproportionately large, but thriving internet cafe industry in inner city Johannesburg. The photo essay and report are both available at his website (which is also pretty impressive).

If you have nothing better to do feel free to watch me talking about “The importance of Networking” on Alishia Seckam’s show, ‘Africa’s Entrepreneurs’ on CNBC Africa at 13h50 20h30, tomorrow, Tuesday 28 May (we’re recording at 14h00, sorry for the confusion).

The producer has nominated MyGenius, local business social networking site, as a case study and I hope to cover the subject of personal digital profiles and the Google CV, if I get the chance.

So as usual I’m the last person to get around to posting that our little project has grown up again.  But then again I’m the only person who really works for a living :P

Charl Norman scooped the launch announcement this morning, and Justin updated the Afrigator blog with a list of cool features the new version boasts.

After over a year working out of a bit of a skanky joint, we decided we wanted our own space (and also just got too big) and can officially announce the new residence of Cerebra on the first floor (middle suite), Block F, Rochester Place, 173 Rivonia Rd. That’s just after the Harley Davidson dealership [...]