MIKESTOPFORTH

Why I Love Working At Cerebra

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 [...]

“Do You Know Who I Am?”

After the rugby on Saturday I was chatting to one of our clients about the SA blogosphere when she mentioned, quite out of the blue, something about ‘all the influence and importance’ I had. I nearly choked on my beer, as I often do (but not always on beer) when people, with the best intentions, [...]

links for 2008-08-30

Jo’blog » Speednetworking hits SA Oli Barrett has been described as being “more connected than a bowl of spaghetti” – at the first ever Global Entrepreneurship Week is taking place this year and part of it will be speed networking activities across the globe… (tags: entrepreneur entrepreneurship social networking network business)

Is There A Business Case For Staying In South Africa?

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 [...]

Google South Africa In Trouble With Entelligence And The Competition Commission

It seems Google South Africa, which until now has pretty much hovered under the radar (other than one or two events that they’ve hosted), suddenly find themselves in hot water with Cape Town-based ‘IT  and  Digital  Marketing  solutions provider’ Entelligence the Competition Commission. This intriguing press release found it’s way into my inbox today… Cape  Town  [...]

links for 2008-08-27

Saw dust and solder – Two string fretless bass My buddy Pete built a two-string fretless bass guitar out of practically nothing – and it sounds AWESOME. Check out how he made it… (tags: bass guitar fretless two-string musical instrument peter le roux)

links for 2008-08-25

Saw dust and solder – Two string fretless bass My buddy Pete built a two-string fretless bass guitar out of practically nothing – and it sounds AWESOME. Check out how he made it… (tags: bass guitar fretless two-string musical instrument peter le roux) Intel cuts electric cords with wireless power system It looks like wireless [...]

Montecasino Bird Gardens Are A Family Treat

I give the guys from Cape Town a hard time, I know. The truth is I love Cape Town, but my heart is in Jozi. One of the things that suck about Johannesburg though, and probably more than anything else, is that when you’re not working there’s not much to do – recreationally I mean. [...]

links for 2008-08-22

Home | GSB Execution Education Blog Network The Graduate School of Business in Cape Town launches a business education social network (tags: GSB UCT social network education) Office photos feature – Cerebra and Brandsh Webpreneur Charl Norman features our offices in his office pics feature (tags: Charl Norman entrepreneur Cerebra Brandsh)

LeRoi Moore’s Last Show – Sledgehammer

Goodbye LeRoi

You know I’m a fan of the Dave Matthews Band. Devastating news for the band and it’s fans today is that founding member and saxophonist LeRoi Moore died yesterday afternoon, August 19, due to complications resulting from a serious motorcar accident near his Charlottesville ranch at the end of June. From the band’s website: We [...]

A 20 Minute Talk On Social Media, Consumers And Brands

This is a video of a recent talk I did at the exclusive Tintswalo equestrian estate (note the horse’s bum in the background) with the MasterMind Group of Professional Speakers, of which I’m a member. I decided at the last minute to ditch my PPT slides in aid of the old fashioned approach. Your critical [...]

Moneyweb Life Wired People Feature About… Me!

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!

Gearing Up For WordCamp SA 2008 – 23 August 2008

This blog is powered by WordPress – the phenomenally popular and powerful open source blogging CMS (content management system). As with most open source initiatives WordPress has enormous online community contributing to it and improving it on an ongoing basis in the form of plugins, themes and more. We even have some pretty clued up [...]

The Writing Is On The Wall

…but not on the billboard, it seems. I’ve been planning this post for some time, stopping arbitrarily (and rather riskily) on the side of the highway to snap photos of lifeless billboards, but it seems the incomparable Rui Esteves beat me to it at Ideate. Now I’m a bit notorious for bashing billboards in my [...]

Jailed For Autism

I had a fascinating chat over Skype with Rafiq Phillips this morning. In case you don’t already know, Rafiq is a prolific blogger and Web AddiCT, he was recently featured on Carte Blanche in a piece about Web 2.0 and has rubbed shoulders with the likes of Bono and the founders of Google at global [...]

Liveblogging The Mobile Marketing Summit 2008

Oops, stumbled in a bit late… freakin’ traffic. Thanks to Vincent Maher and Vodacom for my ticket – here are my observations: Rick Joubert: Vodacom Mobile Advertising “Mobile is the seventh mass media… Print, Recording, Cinema, Radio, TV, Internet, Mobile. Reach, targeting, frequency and response make the mobile medium so compelling. “Mobile has twice the [...]

Thomas Otter Scales The Alps For Zimbabwe

One of my nicer, completely online friends, Thomas Otter, is doing something pretty spectacular in aid of raising funds for the Zimbabwe Benefit Foundation. He and some friends are going to do a week long Alpine ride – on their BICYCLES – all proceeds of which (donations wise) will go to the foundation. It’s a [...]

Guitar Hero 3 For Mobile

I’m a bit of a Guitar Hero nut. I even have mates over at my house on occasion for Guitar Hero parties (the height of geekiness – yes) and I’ve converted many a previously cool individual to an Xbox-buying-Gibson-wielding nerd. And I’m proud of that fact :) Today I got a mail from my good [...]

7 Things The Dave Matthews Band Has Taught Me About Startups

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 [...]