MIKESTOPFORTH

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 [...]

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 [...]

Popular business social network LinkedIn and the New York Times have struck up a content partnership that makes a whole lot of sense to me – in fact the MyGenius blokes should think of integrating something like this into their site… (because none of the other changes I suggested have been implemented, yet). From ReadWriteWeb: [...]

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.

One of my professional speaking colleagues, Erik Vermeulen, forwarded a very cool email newsletter to me the other day. Normally that would tick me off but the newsletter, produced by Scott Ginsberg (check out his site and blog, they’re awesome), had an article titled 46 Marketing Mistakes Your Company Is (Probably) Making that caught my eye. I read it an thought I’d share it with you – some of it ought to be familiar already but there are a bunch of cool thoughts I thoroughly enjoyed…

Some time back I wrote a post on this blog titled What Is Web 2.0? (Or Web 2.0 For Beginners) which was my humble stab at defining some of the (then most significant) drivers of the Web 2.0 movement / phenomenon / ethos. This post will attempt to do the same for the much-hyped and bandied about phrase, Enterprise 2.0.

Sachi and Lee LeFever of Common Craft fame occupy a very special, non-romantic place in my heart :) Back in the oooold days (about 3 years ago), when I was still quite unsure of the jargon and buzz behind Web 2.0 and social media, Lee was one of the few ‘A-listers’ who invested personal time and energy into answering my silly questions.

Today they’ve turned that gift for translation and a passion for all things social into a very cool business, producing informative, entertaining videos that quite simply, well, explain stuff. Whether they’re making videos for their ‘Plain English’ series of technology-related shows or for corporate clients, the LeFevers have fine-tuned the art of translation using the very tools they evangelise. Few businesses can boast that!

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.