As an ADD entrepreneur with a background in cognitive psychology, when I stumbled onto Mike Stopforth's bio which says "I am a social media entrepreneur, writer and professional speaker based in Johannesburg, South Africa. My projects include social media consultancy Cerebra, Afrigator and the 27dinners. " something clicked for me.

I'm a great believer in the power of play, of getting sucked into the zone where you're creating for the sake of creating, instead of pulling in artificial responsibilities. Letting go and learning for the sake of learning allows us to access our less unconscious competence. You know, that state of being that lets us access creativity, good ideas, and is mostly pretty zen. I've recently found myself being pulled into the overly serious world of business, where urgency takes precedence over quality, getting stuff done is more important than doing the right thing, and flat cash is more important than people or communities.

I've been watching closely how we are fundamentally flawed in the way that we attach value to tiny pieces of paper (now plastic) and instead of valuing humans, or the task for the sake of the task, we value the outcome and what it gives us. Essentially we are stifling and choking the creativity and relationships that we hold sacred in exchange for shiny trinkets and bauble.

The way we symbolise things brings with them a shared social meaning.Viktor Frankl's insights into the human mind pushes through this further to show that we are essentially meaning making machines. We assign meaning, and then appropriate a pattern to this meaning.

So, with the meaning of business and companies being so severe, I read Mike's bio, and the one word that popped out at me was "projects". Projects are light, they're fun, they're meaningful, and they have the opportunity to become something that they did not start out as. Projects create the freedom to experiment and play, they invite learning and opportunity.

I have no idea if Mike went through a similar conscious stream or not, but I want to thank him for adding that bit of meaning to my life.

This does however mean that I now need to change all my signatures and bio's.

Last week, shocking revelations concerning the activities of the ANC Youth League spokesperson Nyiko Floyd Shivambu came to the fore. According to a letter published in various news outlets, a complaint was laid by 19 political journalists with the Secretary General of the ANC, against Shivambu. This complaint letter detailed attempts by Shivambu to leak a dossier to certain journalists, purporting to expose the money laundering practices of Dumisani Lubisi, a journalist at the City Press. The letter also detailed the intimidation that followed when these journalists refused to publish these revelations.

We condemn in the strongest possible terms the reprisals against journalists by Shivambu. His actions constitute a blatant attack on media freedom and a grave infringement on Constitutional rights. It is a disturbing step towards dictatorial rule in South Africa. We call on the ANC and the ANC Youth League to distance themselves from the actions of Shivambu. The media have, time and again, been a vital democratic safeguard by exposing the actions of individuals who have abused their positions of power for personal and political gain.

The press have played a vital role in the liberation struggle, operating under difficult and often dangerous conditions to document some of the most crucial moments in the struggle against apartheid. It is therefore distressing to note that certain people within the ruling party are willing to maliciously target journalists by invading their privacy and threatening their colleagues in a bid to silence them in their legitimate work.

We also note the breathtaking hubris displayed by Shivambu and the ANC Youth League President Julius Malema in their response to the letter of complaint. Shivambu and Malema clearly have no respect for the media and the rights afforded to the media by the Constitution of South Africa. Such a response serves only to reinforce the position that the motive for leaking the so-called dossier was not a legitimate concern, but a insolent effort to intimidate and bully a journalist who had exposed embarrassing information about the Youth League President.

We urge the ANC as a whole to reaffirm its commitment to media freedom and other Constitutional rights we enjoy as a country.

Blog Roll

http://thoughtleader.co.za/siphohlongwane
http://rwrant.co.za
http://vocfm.co.za/blogs/munadia/
http://vocfm.co.za/blogs/shafiqmorton/
http://blogs.news24.com/needpoint
http://capetowngirl.co.za
http://thoughtleader.co.za/sentletsediakanyo
http://thoughtleader.co.za/davidjsmith
http://letterdash.com/one-eye-only
http://boyuninterrupted.blogspot.com
http://amandasevasti.com
http://blog.empyrean.co.za/
http://letterdash.com/brencro
http://6000.co.za
http://chrisroper.co.za
http://pieftw.com
http://hamishpillay.wordpress.com
http://memoirs4kimya.blogspot.com
http://thoughtleader.co.za/azadessa
http://watkykjy.co.za
http://fredhatman.co.za
http://thelifeanddeathchronicles.blogspot.com/
http://blogs.timeslive.co.za/common-dialogue/
http://clivesimpkins.blogs.com/
http://mashadutoit.wordpress.com
http://nicharalambous.com
http://sarocks.co.za
http://blogs.timeslive.co.za/stompies/
http://helenmoffett.book.co.za/blog/
http://01universe.blogspot.com
http://groundwork.wordpress.com
http://iwrotethisforyou.me
http://fionasnyckers.book.co.za
http://attentiontodetail.wordpress.com
http://blogs.women24.com/editor
http://www.missmillib.blogspot.com
http://snowgoose.co.za
http://dreamfoundry.co.za
http://www.vanoodle.blogspot.com
http://www.exmi.co.za
http://cat-dubai.blogspot.com
http://alistairfairweather.com
http://www.zanedickens.com
http://www.nickhuntdavis.com
http://guysa.blogspot.com
http://book.co.za
http://baldy.co.za
http://skinnylaminx.com
http://blogs.african-writing.com/zukiswa
http://www.mielie.wordpress.com
http://blogs.timeslive.co.za/gatherer/
http://thoughtleader.co.za/sarahbritten
http://stii.co.za
http://blogs.news24.com/FSB_AP
http://twistedkoeksuster.blogspot.com
http://whensmokegetsinyoureyes.blogspot.com/
http://trinklebean.wordpress.com
http://commentry.wordpress.com/
http://matthewbuckland.com
http://blogs.news24.com/colour-me-fran
http://gormendizer.co.za
http://helenmoffett.book.co.za/blog/
http://www.harassedmom.co.za
http://ravingfans.co.za
http://khadijapatel.co.za
http://simon.co.za/speakza
http://gnatj.com
http://moralfibre.co.za
http://www.exmi.co.za
http://fsi.org.za/
http://synapses.co.za
http://www.macgeek.co.za

I was fortunate enough to be involved with the TedX Johannesburg event from close to its inception. A large part of this was in watching a rather remarkable woman in Alicia-Thomas Woolf.

Alicia has always been a women that acknowledges those that give back, and I think it's only appropriate to acknowledge the amount of effort that she went into, in a completely voluntary state in order to put together a production that made me feel not only proudly South African, also proudly human. In fact I don't recall being in a room packed full of individuals as eager to give back to their various communities, across divergent background, despite race, gender or education as I did yesterday.

My own company, Telamenta, in which Alicia is strongly involved, has always taken a large involvement in community give back. I had always written this off to the fact that we're a bunch of geeks, that were welcomed into the age of digital enlightenment through open source software (OSS), an intrinsically communal development. Yesterday these, I know realise cynical, blinkers were lifted To see individuals from incredibly colourful backgrounds, from nursing to technology, from biology to biomimicry (to alchemy) showing the fundamentally human trait of caring.

I strongly suggest those that want to give back read through Ivo Vegter's Live Blog of the event.

My small 2c is simply to say Alicia, well done, it was an idea that was worth spreading and you use just the butter knife for the job.

The emotions that drive us are strange things, anger over the dehumanisation of Caster Semenya, fear of an unknown East taking over an unfit West, and hope for a better day, and a better land that we love. Yes I'm an ardent patriot, doing what I feel is necessary to change the landscape for a better South Africa, and it seems I'm not alone.

Rockstar entrepreneur (and poker player) Vinny Lingham and investment entrepreneur Justin Stanford shared a dream typical of many in this country, and instead of letting the typical culture settle into it, have pushed on it and pushed hard. Part of the problem that faces this country going forward is what I refer to as corporate succession planning, the gap between the larger corporates and the younger entrepreneurial type companies that can help us push for new blood in the business lifescape. There are many causes for this; whether it be the interesting way our talent moves, either snatched up by the larger entities for security, interesting company jumping for higher packages, or exporting itself because of a lack of trust and security, or the hold back from government, given difficult tax laws and poor incentive, and one cant forget the economic elephant in the room. The above are just a few variables impacting the lack of startups in South Africa, and yet the skills that we have, the passion that we have are at a global level (according to seven time startup owner Gareth Knight).

So the question is then "What can we do about it?" As Vinny and Jus noticed the number of emerging startups in the Cape, and were reminded of the symbolic landscape of Silicon Valley as the future of California in the late 90's, they decided to share their vision for the Cape moving into Africa and do something about it

The Silicon Cape vision is of an ecosystem in the Western Cape of South Africa, that serves to attract and bring together local and foreign investors, the brightest technical talent, and the most promising entrepreneurs, to foster the creation and growth of world-class IP start-up companies in an environment that competes with other similar hubs around the world against the backdrop of one of the most beautiful settings and pleasant places to live, work and play on the globe.

In the style of a digital Martin Luther King, http://www.siliconcape.com went viral quickly, and the team will be hosting their first event in early October. Western Cape Premier, Hellen Zille, cleared her diary to talk to the tidal wave movement of entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and media that is breaking over this vision for the future.

I'll see you in the Silicon Cape.

I think it's important to qualify this post, I'm not a journalist, I'm not even really a blogger, for the last bit I've used these pages as a bit of a personal mind dump, rather than putting out event dependent news and opinions, however this weekend was something special and the reflections on it will be as important as a mind dump as any other book or text that I've read that has made it on here.

It's been a long time since I've been around a group of people that have directed their minds and energies in such a beautiful, open and gracious way. Arriving on the Friday night, I bumped into several of the journalism community I know so well, I figured, like with so many other conferences, that the trend would be for people to gather around their old friends and like so many other conferences we'd walk away a little closer only to those we were close with initially. I'm wrong a lot more than I'd like to admit.

The conversation hit important mental high ground immediately, and inclusion seemed to be the theme. With rockstar personalities across the journalistic, internet and entrepreneurial board it was refreshing to see that every single one of these individuals was here to contrib to something much bigger than themselves, we were taking the best of the South African crop and focusing on how to make our country richer as a whole.

There are a number of points that need to be chunked out, and I intend to write a post on each one. As such my promise to you is to give feedback on the following topics over a period of the next week:

- The geek community
- Entrepenuers locally
- The one element that drove me a little nuts (A suprise)

In the meantime, I strongly urge you to look at the following posts, and I will be putting up further posts and links as they come out:

Elon Lohmann's Impressions of #geekretreat
First thought's from Vincent Hoffman
Toby Shapshak's commentary on the rockstar aspect of the geek community>/a>
Heidi Schneigansz and Scott Gray on working together to improve digital skills & education in South Africa
Jason Norwood-Young's amazing session on tomorrow's media
Notes from Gareth Knight's session on bootstrapping a startup, my favourite session of the retreat
Gareth Knight's views on the geekretreat

Pictures from the social side of things can be found here:

Thanks to Scott Gray - Link now fixed
Pics from Heather Ford
Gregor Rohrig's elephant shots
Gareth Knight's Flickr set

There are a number of outputs that are being put together by the geeks that were there, as these become clearer, and the projects start rolling off, I'll be linking to these too.

A special thank you to Heather Ford, Justin Spratt and Eve D for an incredibly weekend. From a purely personal perspective, it helped me further create a resonance with the community, and helped my head deal with several incredibly large issues that I had been grappling with for a while.

Watch this space for more information coming up over the week. Due to an unfortunate incident with a flu bug in the night, I require a little more sleep than usual, and I'm not processing optimally. As soon as I am, I'll be getting out the important stuff.