The third annual Digital Citizen Indaba kicks off tomorrow night, Saturday, 6 September 2007, with drinks at the Rat & Parrot Videos in the Rhodes University town of Grahamstown (my alma mater). Bizcommunity.com will be there, represented by myself once again (and straight after DCI comes the 12th annual three-day Highway Africa, which Biz senior freelancer Issa Sikiti da Silva and myself will be attending, thanks to SABC).

The official DCI site is http://dci.ru.ac.za and the Zoopy social media page, which will feature live updates from the event (videos, photos, blogs and Twitter stream), is now live at http://www.zoopy.com/dci2008.

I will also be blogging and tweeting, so go follow me on Twitter.

I’m always impressed by great customer service, pathetically so, sometimes it seems, probably because we’re not a very service-oriented culture at the best of times and customer service often tends to be a privilege, not a given! And I can say that with some authority, having travelled overseas a fair bit and experienced some of the best customer service in the world. So when a client actually proactively tries to address a media complaint by finding out what it is that we actually need to make our lives easier as journalists reporting from the multitude of events we attend on a monthly basis, I’m seriously impressed. Kudos go to Glynis Hyslop, CEO of The Forum, who has actually called us in to workshop our needs as daily, online, media and bloggers to find out how to maximise our reporting requirements at her current venue, as well as the phenomenal new conferencing venue under construction at Turbine Hall in Newtown. She is the first event venue to actually try to understand the needs of the new media professional of the future who has to report live from events - instantaneously these days. On another subject altogether, I caught up with ‘disgraced former columnist’ and uber-ego, David Bullard, last week (he’s ‘TM-d’ the former to put on his business cards, he quipped), who intends taking Avusa all the way to the Labour Court to air as much dirty laundry in public as possible. A scorned columnist is an angry columnist indeed!

Enjoy!

Louise Marsland, editor@bizcommunity.com
Marketing news: marketingnews@bizcommunity.com

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This column originally published 25 August 2008.

The first Wordcamp South Africa was successful held this past Saturday, 23 August 2008, in Cape Town, with Matt Mullenweg, the founding developer of blogging software platform Wordpress, as guest speaker.

For coverage, go to: http://www.zoopy.com/wordcamp08, http://afrigator.com/search/blogs/wordcamp, http://www.muti.co.za/hot?tags=wordcamp and http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23wordcampsa.

I was discussing knowledge management and capacity building in organisations the other day with colleagues in the industry. I’ve always felt that those of us who have racked up a couple of decades of work experience in our chosen fields should ‘give back’ in transferring knowledge and skills to build capacity in organisations/industry. The point was made that many either don’t pass their skills on because they are not empowered to do so; don’t know how, ie, no suitable vehicle or mechanism’ or don’t want to, to protect their positions. Apart from individual knowledge transfer, it is also up to industry associations/professional bodies to facilitate this process, many of which have an appalling track record in this regard. Two organisations, with which Bizcommunity has already partnered to launch, hope to change this by establishing true communities of practice: the global Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council and the Trade, Association and Business Publications International (TABPI) Editor’s Chapter in South Africa. TABPI SA was launched earlier this year and will be holding its first series of seminars to B2B editors in September 2008, reporting back on the American Society of Business Publications Editors (ASBPE) annual conference in the States last month; and CMO Africa held its first board meeting last week with South Africa’s marketing leaders on the continent. In the words of US founder Donovon Neale-May, who is visiting SA and opened the first CMO Africa board meeting: “We bring a different perspective, global best practice. Our programme is all about intellectual capacity. We capture knowledge and insight and work with senior members of the industry to define best practice, create models, build advocacy programmes…”

Spread the word!

Louise Marsland, editor@bizcommunity.com
Marketing news: marketingnews@bizcommunity.com

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This column originally published 18 August 2008.

So here I am, sitting on a grey carpet floor in the Durban Exhibition Centre, waiting for the remains of our Media Stand to arrive for the Durban Good Food and Wine Show. I am a bit blurry-eyed, I have to say, and that is not from overindulging last night, but for the fact that my flight from Cape Town left at a bright and breezy 6:15am this morning. I am not bright or breezy, however, but I am sure that after one of the coffees made by a professional barrister, taking part in the barristers competition, I will be wide awake!

From where I am seated, on my grey carpet, I can see Yottis Turkish Delights decorating their stand in pretty pink paper. Exactly the colour of Turkish delights in fact! I think that will be my first stop tomorrow when the doors open at 10am. Next stop: Wild Bean Café…? Or maybe a trip to the Piemans Factory. Although I am not a veggie, Fry’s Vegetarian stall looks intriguing and worth a try. And I am interested to find out what exactly Mobi Chef is all about. There are so MANY of the fantastic stalls in the process of setting up. I’m looking forward to walking around an experiencing the wonders of the Durban Good Food and Wine Show. I only wish I was here for the weekend too, so that I might have more time to stroll around. If you are in Durban tomorrow or anytime until Sunday, take the time to pop in. The live “Chefs in action” alone is worth the visit. And don’t forget to pop by the Bizcommunity.com Retail stand!

Jo Hardiman is Bizcommunity.com’s marketing coordinator.

The inaugural advisory board meeting of the global Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council Africa will take place in Johannesburg tomorrow, bringing leading South African marketers together from most of the major banks, telecommunications providers and other key marketing companies together in one forum. Included are Happy Ntshingila (Absa); Santie Botha (MTN), Connie de Lange (DiData), Noah Greenhill (JSE), Sarah-Anne Orphanides (Standard Bank), Enzo Scarcella (Vodacom), Paul Appleton (Nando’s) and Bizcommunity.com MD Robin Parker. As announced three months ago, Bizcommunity.com has partnered with the CMO to bring the influential network to Africa, and CMO founder Donovan Neale-May will be in the country to lead the first board meeting this week. The key theme at tomorrow’s board meeting is growing the CMO Council in Africa. The CMO network includes more than 3500 senior marketing decision makers in 52 countries, controlling more than US$90 billion a year in annual marketing spend. The council focuses exclusively on intellectual capital building through continuous engagement, funding studies and thought-leadership programmes on relevant and critical challenges and issues facing senior marketing management. It aims to collaborate with all other marketing bodies and shape thought leadership in the industry in Africa. As an international, peer-powered affinity group, it is hoped that it will aid in elevating the industry to the professional heights it enjoyed before the dismal failure of the Marketing Federation of SA and the heights that marketing should enjoy in the boardroom.

Have a good week!

Louise Marsland, editor@bizcommunity.com
Marketing news: marketingnews@bizcommunity.com

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This column originally published 11 August 2008.