TheiPlex is situated in the newly developed Boulevard Complex in Woodstock just outside of the CBD in Cape Town. Woodstock has become somewhat of a buzz in the last few years with creative, tech and corporates moving out of the city centre.

A Business Idea much needed in “Silicon Cape”

I really love what TheiPlex have gone about setting up and blogged about something of this nature way back in 2007. That was just before I decided to go solo and what a roller coaster it’s been since then. I’ve never fully mastered the art of confining myself to my work space at home and to be honest I doubt I ever will, so having the chance to catch some quiet time in a clean, clear workspace was really refreshing.

I called them up in a frantic rush, with deadlines hanging over my head and anxiety boiling up from the need to get things done.

TheIplex has been designed to set an atmosphere conducive to creative work and innovation. You’ll see form the get go colorful backdrops, themed meeting rooms & clean workspaces.

The Reception Area

Jts outside the building you’ll find a nice little Vida Cafe, one of my favorite coffee shops in Cape Town, though they are a little pricy. The iPlex offers some pretty decent coffee themselves at quite a good price and you can give the reception/concierge team a buzz when you need some caffeine to keep the engines firing.

The Workspaces

I Grabbed a spot in the corner near the window and plugged in. Wifi on tap and coffee a few meters away got me in the mode to get some serious work done.

Later on after feeling a little more relaxed i decided to poke around a bit and check out some of the meeting Rooms. My favorite one was the war room, which comes with whiteboard style wall paint so you can brainstorm directly onto the wall surface, take some pics when you’re done, if I’m not mistaken they take snaps of your ideas for you as well. I was alone so would probably have been a bit strange to test it out on my own, really looking forward to the change to brainstorm with a team in a space like that.

The War room is fitted out with netting and camouflage hang in from the ceiling, color coded seating and some really great little army figures running about to get you into combat mode.

After a couple of days of driving into Woodstock I needed to take a break from driving, LOL. But the cool thing is it’s flexible so if you buy some hours you can choose when to make use of them.

Some other meetings rooms and pics form the rest of the space below. I’v been planning on running my WordPress theme Dev course here as well, it’s a great venue and caters for events as well with a largish events room.

He passed on a really great online business idea

It was Something really simple and with potential to make some good dosh online, which got me thinking about the way I have been approaching my career. I’m not about to share his idea with the world to run off and make it irrelevant to me, but after coming across the following post written by Bud Caddell on whatconsumesme.com, I also re-thought whether just any good business idea would do for me.

This Venn diagram gave me some serious food for thought in terms of how to go about sticking to what I do well, what I love doing and still making a decent living out of it. The post is entitled “How to be Happy in Business“. Apart from being a really well designed piece of informaton design, the concepts really hit me hard and also made me think back to my business ideas convo with @naeem. Would it do to get into just any type of business just to make money?

Budd lists the 3 problems highlighted by the diagram:

• We can’t determine how to make enough money from the things we want to do, and do really well.
• We’ve found things we want to do, and can be paid for, but we’re not the best game in town.
• We’ve come across things people want us to do, that we do well (or at least better than the competition) that we really don’t want to do.

I’m the type of person that generally comes up with business ideas connected to a direct need I have, and also most times relating to something which I’m really interested in, which helps me get my head fully inside the whole development process. Ok so I haven’t really succeeded with any of my crazy business ideas yet, LOL, nor have I even progressed to prototyping phase with some of the more serious ones, but this means that something disconnected to what I love doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance of even featuring. Then comes the problem of monetizing what I’m really truely passionate about.

Me gots lots to think about regarding this diagram!

On the same little stroll around the interwebs, I also found a really great way of identifying my own special business model, and applying my efforts in that direction. Gina Trapini, “software and self improvement junkie” wrote a piece on Freelance Switch where she says,

“While I do plan to make money as a freelancer, my ultimate goal is to generate satisfaction.”

(While money is a part of that, so is learning, service, and creativity, so we’ll just use the umbrella term “satisfaction.”)

She shares her personal “business model” in plain & simple terms, What’s important to her is more than just paying the bills while doing what she specializes in.

This particular concept highlights the importance of consantly tracking your activities based on what’s most important to you. Of course knowing what’s most important is step 1, having a plan to engage more in those areas comes next. I found in the last 2 months, tracking my activities in detail has given me huge insight in where the problem areas are. I’ve started taking a few steps in a new direction and these 2 posts/diagrams has helped wrap my head around the way forward.

This month’s Heavy Chef session will see Rob Stokes, author of the e-marketing textbook and founder & CEO of Quirk e-marketing, giving an introduction to e-marketing.

Heavy Chef sessions are run by the guys at World Wide Creative on a monthly basis. They’ve been hosting top events for the last 1.5 years. I missed the last one which focused on e-commerce but definitely don’t want to miss this one.

Here are the details:

Aug 31 (Cape Town), 5.30pm – 7.30pm:introduction to eMarketing

Speaker: Rob Stokes, CEO of Quirk eMarketing

Want to attend? Email Rowan to enquire about booking your seat.

Seeya’ll there!

Saying Hi makes all the difference

One of the lessons I learnt from Shane is that adding some meaningful value by being genuinely involved leads to meaningful developments, while being superficial and just chatting to be cool really gets you nowhere. Bloggers who should really be great at genuine dialogue, are guilty quite often of just being chatty for the cameras.

Add value and become a star

Due to that little step of Shane saying Hi and sharing some thoughts, led to us meeting and chatting about a business idea I have been working on and getting some great advice from him. It also lead to me finding out about the Heavy Chef Session run by World Wide Creative and attending their User Experience Design presentation. A whole series of events which I have benefited from. Shane probably has no idea how saying hi has affected me and place him in my list of respected individuals. He’s someone who walks his talk.

Here’s his post on Ten Excellent Networking Tips, which was inspired by the original post Ten Excellent Networking Tips.

The Finance module is an optional one, though most of the companies involved in VeloCITI saw the need to attend and with good reason. Getting the numbers right in business can be a matter of life or death, for the business that is.

We started out with an introduction of what the Finance module will cover in the next few months and I was completely overwhelmed by the amount of business concepts I have either never heard of or never been directly exposed to. It’s all well and good to be a master of your own art, but when you’re an entrepreneur and running your own show you need to be a jack of all trades and a master of a few as well.

So we started out with a few definitions of what Accounting is all about. I found this one interesting, using the word "Art"

“the art of recording, classifying and summarizing in a considerable manner and in terms of money, business transactions, activities and events, which are part of a financial character and later on interpreting the results of the reports”

Keeping Financial Records – Some of the benefits

Keeping financial records is most definitely an art. Having a clear, logical system, one which can be easily analysed later, and from which certain insights can be gained is a skill which must be developed as a necessity. This is a serious weak point for me having always been an employee and not needing to worry about overheads and that type of thing.

Budgeting & Tax Records

Keeping good records helps you budget correctly, helps you easily spot areas you can streamline and keeps things in order for when the taxman inevitably comes knocking at least once a year. Keeping clear financial records is most importantly done for SARS(the South African Taxman) without which you could land yourself and your business in some trouble with the Law. This is an activity which has to be done on a monthly basis. You’ll know when you’re spending too much on entertainment and when and how you might have saved on your telephone budget as well.

Tracking your businesses health

Knowing when money comes in and when it goes out gives you a clear idea of how you’re doing, whether you’re making profit or operating at a loss at any given time. Having the figures on a timeline can also allow you to track if any activities engaged in have resulted in significant gains or losses.

This timeline can be inspected will help should you need to review any inconsistencies in your cash flow as well.

Investors want to see the money

Should you be looking to bring partners on board or to apply for investment, loans etc, having a clear financial history in black & white helps make a case for your business.

How I currently do it

Currently my accounting procedure involves keeping any and every slip, including coffee at Vida which happens quite regularly for meetings. That’s a business expense by the way. My lovely wife then helps me with a beautifully structured excel document she has created which keeps a nice record of our financial activities broken down into personal and business and allows us to create calculations for each type of expense. This has helped in a few instances for me to determine when an invoice was paid or when I topped up my last data bundle for example, so it serves many other functions as well.

Petty Cash

One of the simplest systems you can use to manage your daily expenses is the petty cash float. basically you start out with a box, hopefully one which has a lock. based on your budget for these types of expenses you put some cash in and each time anyone needs to use the petty cash they need to give you a slip of paper with their name, signature, purpose of the cash and amount taken. When they return they hand over the slip and any change. Once all the cash is gone the total amounts from all the IOU’s and the slips should equal the original cash amount.

Accounting Software

My process for keeping records is not sophisticated at all and leaves much to be desired, though it’s a starting point and with the help of VeloCITI I hope to take a step up into the world of Quickbooks or Pastel accounting packages pretty soon. I’ve also been investigating a few open source accounting packages though with the little knowledge I have right now it’s a tough decision to make.

If you’re interested in open source accounting Cubit(made in SA) & Compiere seem like pretty powerful packages for more than just accounting. For now excel is my friend, it will make the transition into an accounting package a little easier than written notes I would imagine. Be sure to back up though.

I’ve got a long way to go in the area of finance and appreciate every little bit of advice I receive along the way. veloCITI 2008 rocks!!!

A free customizable website just a few clicks away

Don’t fret, there are many ways you can get your hands on a free website which you can customize to suite your needs. WordPress.com is one of the easiest ways, in my experience, and provides you with a platform from where you can eventually launch your own, fully customized website on your own domain, when you are ready to do so.

All you need to do is go to wordpress.com, sign up for a free wordpress.com account and follow the quick, step by step process. In a matter of seconds you can be online for free and speaking to an international audience. Your new web address will however have wordpress.com attached to it at the end. Once you have some cash in your pocket, registering your own domain(web address) and installing WordPress is not too much of a mission. You can then export all the content from your freely hosted website and upload it to you new site very easily. Not many other solutions provide this feature.

VeloCITI Cape Town startups using WordPress

On the VeloCITI business development program I have introduced a few of my collegues starting their businesses to WordPress. They’re now online and communicating with their markets quicker than they thought they would. Visit them online:

http://rainbowitgen.wordpress.com

http://digitaldocuments.wordpress.com

http://bluerayoutdoor.wordpress.com

Sometimes it’s just a matter of working with what is available as many companies unnecessarily hold themselves back due to lack of budget.

I personally started out blogging in the same way and eventually migrated to my own domain using a freely available theme. I then started modifying the theme to suite my needs and eventually ended up where I am now a few months down the line with some regular daily traffic and over 100 posts to date.

The other nice thing about WordPress is it’s constantly being improved and upgrading is quite easy. Changing your theme is even easier and adding functionality through freely available plugins makes it a user friendly yet powerful option for many companies big and small.

A few simple benefits of using wordpress:

• WordPress sites are known to rank high on google searches
• RSS feeds come built in
• Tons of freely available themes with which to change your site’s look & feel
• Free functional widgets available to plugin to your site
• Site contents can be exported and imported easily
• Adding and changing content is just about as simple as writing a word document and saving
• WordPress sites are more sociable and helps develop important conversations with you target audience
• WordPress is constantly being updated and upgrades are published for free
• There is a huge community which publishes tutorials, tips, tools and advice and can provide free support on just about any issue related to your WordPress site
• WordPress is one of the most user friendly web publishing platforms available today.

So what’s holding you back, if you’re ready to get online quickly and start publishing or promoting yourself, your ideas, your business or your organisation check out wordpress.com right now.

If you have any questions I’ll be happy to answer them or point you in the right direction. If you’re excited about what wordpress has to offer we’re having a wordpress meetup on 28 May 2008 at the Bandwidth Barn in Cape Town which you are welcome to attend. We’ll even help you set up a quick & easy free site if you want to test it out. Visit www.wordpress.org.za for more details on the meetup.

Have a look at a recent client project I just completed where I helped my Praxia Technologies design a self manageable wordpress website. View it at www.praxia.co.za.

I offer wordpress customization, as well as custom wordpress design and development and am a wordpress enthusiast. For more information or a quote contact me on nur@nomad-one.com.

It’s sometimes referred to as the elevator pitch, you only have a few seconds to convey to someone what you do in a way which uncovers it’s unique characteristics while still being clear enough for them to perfectly understand what you’re saying.

David Murray of Cape Venture Partners hosted an excellent half day session with us taking us through the nuts & bolts of value propositions. We also focused on company names and how these impact the way the market perceives the company.

Describing your company in 10 words:

If you had just ten words with which to describe why people should buy your company‘s product or service, what would you say?

10 words are very few, especially when there’s so much we want to say to those who ask us that all important question: “So, what is it that YOU do?”. Many times we are faced with this question, not only from business people, but sometimes from our family members and friends. If we are stuck for simple words to describe what we do,chances are we haven’t Mastered the art of selling our businesses yet.

So What exactly is a Value Proposition?

Otherwise known as USP or Unique Selling Point/Proposition,it’s a condensed, yet simple and easy to understand expression of what your business is all about.

• It has to be Unique, Different and that uniqueness has to be attractive enough to matter.
• It has to be clear and easy to comprehend with as little jargon if any at all.
• It has to matter to the customer or potential customer
• It has to be a solution to an existing problem. In other words there must be real(or perceived) value in what you are offering or no-one will be willing to pay for it.
• It has to be different in some way to what your competitors are saying in order to make you stand out and be more attractive to the potential customer.

Real world Value Propositions

David took us through a few examples of varying lengths to give us an understanding of how Value Propositions are used in the real world.

Volvo: „For safety-conscious consumers, Volvo cars are the safest (as rated by Consumer Reports) for adults and children, at a price that is 10% higher than the standard GM family sedan.”

Burger King: “Have it your way at Burger King.”

Domino Pizza: “We deliver hot, fresh pizza in 30 minutes or less or it’s free.”

As we can see, due to the differences in Brands and product or service offering, a different approach is required.

Its interesting to note that Volvo has part of it’s Value Proposition explaining it as being 10% more expensive than its competitors. We recognised that though Volvo’s Value Proposition was relatively long in essence the the word which Volvo has worked to own in the consumer’s mind is safety, and it has done a great job of doing this.

We noted that Burger King, though it’s statement is very short it holds alot of meaning in it. The fact that the company’s name has the name of it’s product in it also made a significant difference in helping us understand what it does without needing to know the brand at all. Burger King are also indirectly saying that you don’t get it the way you want it from their competitors. The Value they offer is the freedom to choose the burger you want. It’s all about customisation and choice.

Domino Pizza focused heavily on the service delivery and quality areas which the majority of Pizza lovers have issues with.

• Time it takes to get the Pizza
• Heat & Freshness
• Accountability if the above 2 are not met

Our Value Propositions in the Hot Seat

We engaged in another little exercise where each of the 15 companies was placed on the hot seat in the middle of the room and we had our original Value Propositions which were extracted from our business plans from the VeloCITI application up on the big screen for all to see. One by one we had feedback from the floor and had to give our own opinion of what we had originally written.

Nine times out of ten the response was that from the word go, the VeloCITI sessions had changed our perspectives completely on how we are supposed to be communicating our businesses. This is true for me without a doubt and I have already completely change my concept of what my business is all about. Below is the snippet which was extracted from my own VeloCITI application business plan.

“Nomad-one consulting is an Independent Design & Web Consultancy which focuses on advising businesses and organizations and developing creative and strategic solutions in order to solve business Problems. We use a collaborative approach, focus on networking and building relationships and prefer to promote ethically sound businesses.

It’s already change completely though one or 2 points might still be true. How embarrassing so many ands and and. Nothing too unique as well and quite vague – back to the drawing board then hey!

Value Proposition Homework

We were all tasked to revisit and improve or completely rewrite our Value Propositions to be more in line with what we had learnt on the day.

Doing some browsing around online and seeing what else is being said about Value Propositions I came across the following PDF which asked the question, “Is there REAL VALUE in your Value Proposition?”.

A few questions asked in the PDF highlight what we should be asking ourselves to find the value in what we are offering. It’s worth thinking about and answering on a regular basis.

• What do we do in helping our customers increase their revenue?
• What do we do in helping our customers decrease their costs?
• What do we do in helping our customer increase their profitability?
• What do we do to help our customers better respond to the needs of their customers, to new opportunities that might be presented by their customers, or to threats?
• What do we do to help our customers improve their productivity?
• What do we do to help our customers improve their cycle time/speed?
• What do we do to help our customers improve the satisfaction, retention, and growth of their customers?
• What do we do to help our customers improve their quality?
• What do we do to help our customers improve the satisfaction of their employees?

The Generic Value Proposition

Another exercise was to craft a VP using a generic template similar to the one below found on http://www.goldsbrough.biz

The example they supplied:

“For a commuter who wants to eat breakfast on the train without mess, our Excello BrekkieBar product is a health food, which provides a completely nutritious and delicious breakfast that you can eat anywhere.

Unlike grain bars and breakfast cereals, BrekkieBar tastes like a full English cooked breakfast, but has no fat and no calories, and even the wrapper can be eaten, leaving no waste.

This is because of our unique combination of innovative use of genetically modified foods and bio-engineered plastic packaging, that we have already used to produce a leading product in this market – Excello BrandyMints – the all-in-one after-dinner treat.”

I also found an interesting Value Proposition Design Template which you can download here to guide you through the process of assessing different facets of your offering.

Once You’ve got something going, keep asking the question, So What? It helps to assess whether what you saying matters and whether it’s of any real value. Once you run out of “So Whats” you should have a clear idea of what is important to convey and how to do so.

Once again steer away from Jargon and keep things as simple to understand as possible so it can appeal to a wide audience. Simplicity should not render your VP completely generic though as it still has to be unique enough to get people interested.

These range from PR consultancies to advertising agencies, branding agencies, media companies, new media, event managers, design studios and general communications consultancies.

What influences companies to use a specific type of communication? Why do certain companies naturally gravitate towards PR rather than new media, or above the line rather than direct marketing? It’s not always the appropriateness but sometimes they just haven’t thought about anything else. It also seems there is a fear to reach out in new ways.

We’re at a point in the development of communication technologies and methodologies, where we’re leaving behind us many old ways and embracing new methods of interacting with each other as a society. Companies are slowly taking up the challenge of developing more human ways of interacting with their customers and clients.

What do you think will be the next shift in the way companies relate to people and society in general?

• What does new school communication look like?

• Is it only about web 2.0 & social media?

• Do companies need to change the way they function fundamentally?

• What new processes, methods and mechanisms of communication do you think companies need to embrace to keep in tune with changes in society?

• How do you think people want to interact with businesses & brands.

• How do you think companies need to change their marketing approaches.

• Do companies still need to speak in a specific kind of language?

I think communications professionals perpetuate the same approaches and patterns, creating an expectation from both businesses and individuals in terms of how companies are meant to interact with society. Regular conversation and relationships requires change, challenging ideas and points of interest and inspiration to hold our attention. This is no different when applied to the interaction between businesses and individuals. Alot has changed with the shift in web communication and the proliferation on web 2.0 but not enough of the thinking behind these interactions have filtered down into the offline space.

Why do you think most of the business world has kept itself stuck behind the corporate veil and not embraced the new openness which social media has unleashed?

I particularly admire Cerebra & Huddlemind locally for the manner in which they interact with their respective markets. I’m also particularly interested in the services & approach of Ethical Media based in the UK as well as The Ethical Agency. Skyrove‘s approach impresses me as well in terms of it’s keenness on developing real meaningful relationships with the community it serves.

It’s more than just about social media. In fact the technology has only served to facilitate the inherent human need to connect, communicate, collaborate and have a meaningful conversation.

The way business people are starting to understand real value or values, is moving closer to a more human-centric vision of business.

How can communications agencies and consultancies change mindsets so the old models can get some “CLUE“s to where the human “TRAIN” is headed.

This has been a random rant and thought storm thrown together in short disconnected bursts , let me know what you think and if you have any answers to any of these questions. Or add a few of your own randomly profound brainwaves and lets talk.

See more about What VeloCITI is?

We started off at 9 waking up to cups of coffee and a round of congratulating each other for making it onto the program. It was great seeing the familiar faces from the bridging course 2 weeks ago and re-connecting. I feel this year will unlock some really special relationships and it seems it already has.

We were introduced to Judit from PeerPower, our facilitator and mentor for the day who was later joined by Mignon(PeerPower). I think I can speak for all when I say we were rearing to go and eager to find out what the topic of focus for the day would be.

Introducing ourselves

First off we completed a quick introductions/interview exercise in which we each interviewed one of our VeloCITI peers and had to introduce them to the team. We then focused on setting some guidelines going forward in terms of rules of engagement and how we as a group think we would need to work together to produce the best results within the team over the next 7 – 8 months.

We agreed that in order to participate fully we would need to:

• Get to know each other
• Listen
• Question
• Share our experiences & challenges
• Help each other (peer mentoring)
• Honour the diversity of the group
• Focus on our commonalities
• Not be judgemental
• Be open, interactive and curious
• be constructive in our criticism
• sometimes agree to disagree
• be aware
• not be oversensitive and tip toe around each other
• allow ourselves to be challenged

Some of the expectations we had as a group for the program:

• Gaining Valuable business knowledge
• Gaining soft skills
• building business relationships
• Experience Intelligent business growth
• gain a 3rd eye view – hear others’ perspectives on our biz
• Make friends
• Grow personally

Finding our Core values

Next we were given an exercise which interrogated us on our values and what we deem to be important as individuals. As Mignon and Judit pointed out, business exists within the context of the rest of our lives and not the other way around, so our businesses need to align well with our values or we would be bound to experience conflict.

The questionnaire asked questions like:

• What do you value most
• What do we want our lives to look & feel like
• How do you want people to see you

This was coupled with a speech we were asked to write for our own funeral. These exercises were designed to expose those things which make us who we are and are dearest to us, our Core Values. The importance of knowing ones Values in business cannot be overstated. For me specifically it has driven the majority of the decisions I have made over the last few years with relation to my work and relationships I have formed.

Aligning your businesses values with your personal values makes for a sustainable relationship. A misalignment would ultimately result in conflicted directions between ones personal and business objectives.

For the 15 participants, values were varied and ranged from freedom, independence, balanced lifestyle, collaboration, religion, ethics, the need to make money or to be of benefit to others. We identified CORE VALUES which did not change or at least rarely changed, and aspirational values, which are negotiable and could change depending on the need. The core values are those which will cause us to walk away from something like a business deal, a partnership, a relationship etc.

The Bigger Picture – Defining your PURPOSE

Next we split into groups and discussed what we understood by the word purpose. There were a few angles which came out of the group and we explored the difference in meaning between reason, aim and Purpose, but ultimately we agreed that Purpose was a much more profound concept which related to our reason for existence. Purpose is the motive or driving force and our Purpose is informed by our Values.

The next exercise had quite an effect on me and got us all thinking really deeply about what we do and why we do it. We were asked to define in one sentence what our businesses do.

I said my business unlocks and communicates the real value which companies & organisations offer their markets.

We then had to reply to to this with another question, Why does that matter. and repeating the same question another 4 or 5 times until we reached a point where we uncovered the Purpose behind all of this which was informing our behaviour. My answers became increasing deep and reached quite a profound point reaching deep into the core of why I do what I do.

At this point in the session it was clear that quite a few participants were already focusing on the deeper meaning and purpose behind what their businesses were doing.

Some research which Mignon shared with us from a book called Built to Last by Jim Collins, Author of Good to Great, showed us that companies which were driven by more than just profitability and had purpose informing their actions were thousands of percentage points more successful than their profit only focused counterparts.

Also see – Make Meaning in Your Company – Guy Kawasaki

found on http://www.theethicalagency.co.uk

No this is not my business, of course not, not yet that is. I’ve come across quite a few UK based agencies of this nature in the last few years and it’s been my mission for a while to start one here in South Africa.

TEA – The Ethical Agency, is a UK based ethically motivated advertising company which promotes ethical business and lifestyles and does so in a really thought provoking manner.

Visiting their site has pricked my imagination somewhat and helped further crystallise the idea which has been brewing in my head for way too long.

So who out there has any ideas regarding ethical business?

Does this interest you, do you see a need for it?

Anyone passionate enough to take it a step further and do something?

We are all agents of change in our own right and have the responsibility to create a better space for all of us to live in.

I found these inspiring quotes on TEA’s website:

Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, for as long as you can. -John Wesley

A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in. -Greek proverb

I have to say thanks to all of you out there who have been keeping in touch and being great support. This buzzy period comes after month of struggle and difficulty and I’ve seen times of major doubt and disillusionment. My sites traffic has seen a huge spike, some nominations for a few awards and some prizes coming my way from others.

It makes me think of a verse from the Quran which goes something like: “Truely, After Difficulty comes ease, After difficulty comes ease.”

The thing is, this is only just the beginning for me. I look forward to building a great network, upping my game in the blogosphere, building a great business and solving some key problems for business and society along the way.

Open Coffee was a huge success today with a great turnout. As usual Henk Kleynhans of Skyrove was there topping us up with free skyrove credits which we are all grateful for. Thanks a ton Henk! I finally chatted with Eric Edelstein briefly. Eric is the original organiser of the Open Coffee Cape Town Meet up.

I also met up with the guys(Kilian & Nico) from Red Button and chatted briefly about their businesses development, cool things coming from their side regarding wireless hotspots. You can become a Red Button affiliate and earn some cash by recommending a venue which needs a hotspot. I think Red button could learn a thing or 2 from Skyrove’s event sponsorship approach.
Callum Macdonald was around doing his regular Scottishly nomadic thing and promoting the wordpress meetup which has shifted to Wednesday 26 March due to the easter weekend.

I had a very interesting Interaction with Frans Kuipers who I met at the first Open Coffee I attended last month. Frans is an open source enthusiast and a Drupal developer. We spoke about the problem Open Source seems to have with getting rapid uptake of it’s programmes and platforms in the general public. From my perspective it has to do with 1. Usability and 2. Communication and Marketing. Some areas programmers & developers don’t always have a tight handle on

I also met Andre from Biz-community and a guy from Joyent who’s name I forget because his business card was a Joyent Logo on a sticker. A few others who I chatted with briefly were Scott Hayes(Encyclomedia), Michelle Matthews(Writer & Publishing Consultant) and Will Gubb(Wired Communications).

Myself & Callum spent a bit of time trying to convince one of the above that wordpress is better for blogging than Joomla, I won’t mention who.

I had to rush off after receiving a call for an urgent proposal, hold thumbs for me, it’s a nice big one. I spent the following few hours in Kauai recovering from the coffee scrabbling down a proposal just before the sun went down.

All in all, another productive day of networking, doing business and sharing of ideas.

This is the start of my nomadic BLOGUMENTARY, a journey through the world of the web, creative thinking, social networking, business strategy and personal self discovery.

On this digital journey I aim to take myself from amateur blogger / professional web designer with little direction, to what I always envisioned myself to be. I aim to become an agent of positive change and innovation, and to find true meaning and purpose to what I do.

How do I plan to do this you may be asking yourself?

I’m still in the process of figuring all the steps out and plotting my course ahead. I know coming out with this self challenge is a brave move, one I could very possibly be very sorry for if I don’t keep up with the challenge, or fail to achieve the goals I set.

Therein lies the secret. I plan to drag you all along on this journey, get your feedback, give you advice and ask for some as well. I might even involve a few of the Guru’s out there to help make this journey an action packed adventure, which we can all benefit from.

I hope to cover everything from the initial idea / vision phase, on to a little bit of a business plan with clear goals. I will be developing a strategy including the steps which I will need to take to achieve certain goals.

What will I be sharing with You

• my Brand building endeavours and the lessons I learn
• selecting & shaping my niche
• the technologies & methodologies I will be using
• the tutorials, tips & advice which shape my decisions
• my favourite resources & influences
• The tools I use to make my tasks easier

Sharing the Experience

I’ll be sharing the troubles I encounter along the way, the feelings of failure if any(I’m sure there will be), the stumbling blocks & challenges faced and the stresses I experience.

Sharing the successes, stats, milestones & profits

Any success achieved along this perilous journey will be shared with all of you. I’ll let you now when I earn my first paycheck, which I hope will be soon, in fact I desperately need it to be soon. I’ll tell you about what this project does to my web stats and when I’ve made a major breakthrough in learning or self development.

What do I want from YOU

the visitors to this site have pretty much kept their identities to themselves for their own specific reasons. I hope this will change.

Involvement. I hope you will share this journey with me. To this point the visitors to this site have pretty much kept their identities to themselves for their own specific reasons. I hope this will change and that you will start to engage with me and get to know me as well as help me to get to know you better.

Feedback. I’d like to know what you think about what I have to say, about the decisions I’ll make and the advice I’ll be giving. I plan to put in place a few incentives if and when I am able to make it worth your while to get involved. I started with a little experiment in the form of the Logo Design Q & A competition which I ran recently.

Inspiration & Advice. We can never achieve much on our own. We achieve things by learning from others and benefiting from others, and then by sharing this with others. I hope we can develop a mutually beneficial relationship where we influence each other and inspire each other to achieve great things. Where there are areas which you could help me I’ll appreciate it and if there’s anything I could do for you I hope to be able to help as well.

So where do we Start?

Well we kind of have started already. I’ve met some great people already and have a few of you subscribe to my RSS feed. I’ve just crossed the 4000 hits mark since starting out blogging more seriously a few short months ago and have a few more RSS subscribers but have no idea who they are.

I’ve just completed negotiations with a few parties to get into my own office space and have just moved in. I’m also in the process of re-designing my website to empower me on this journey.

I’ve gotten started on a few post series and have some great ideas for interesting and value adding content to help you guys out there with your journeys.

What I’d like to know from you guys is this:

Who are you all out there?

What Can I do for you?

Do you have any advice for me in getting started?

• Who are you out there?
• What do you guys do for a living?
• What can I do for you out there?
• What would you like to see on this site?
• What would you like to hear about?
• How can I empower you all to excel in what you do?
• How do we develop a platform or community which can be a springboard for us all to achieve something good?
• Do you have any advice for me in getting started?

Lets start talking and start something meaningful!