Tag Archives: MXit

Entrepreneurs are born, not made! A business perspective on the Franschhoek Literary Festival!

Franschhoek Literary Festival Michael Jordaan Whale Cottage PortfolioWe have written about the odd titles given to the Franschhoek Literary Festival 2014 workshop sessions.  One of these was the discussion about entrepreneurism, entitled ‘Business Bundu Bashers’.  The alliteration in no way reflected what the topic of discussion was about!

Michael Jordaan, former FNB CEO, newly elected Chairman of WOSA (Wines of South Africa), and Chairman of Mxit (left), was the chairman of the panel of four writers, which had one hour exactly (well less to be exact, due to the slow microphone wiring) to discuss whether in essence entrepreneurs are made or born.  Panelists were Peter Vundla (author of ‘Doing Time’), Angela Makholwa (a crime author and writing agency owner, who seemed out of place on the panel, despite her charm), Herman Mashaba (writer of ‘Black Like You‘, a play on words of his very successful African beauty product company Black Like Me), and Bertie du Plessis (writer of ‘Your Small Business Nightmare’).

Peter Vundla worked at Ogilvy & Mather for ten years many moons ago, and shared that he used to watch his white colleagues, thinking that he could run an ad agency better than they could.  He called this process of learning by observation ‘Doing Time’, the title of his book.  He went on his own, setting up HerdBuoys, our country’s first Black-owned ad agency, and they saw tough times initially, having their homes and cars repossessed, in not having any start-up capital. But nothing could break their determination to succeed. Books have been ‘the companions of my life‘, he said.  peter-vundla-doing-timeVundla said his autobiography includes (former President) Thabo Mbeki, his father, the current government, and HerdBuoys.   He proudly shared that he brought the Zara retail outlets to our country, being the local partner of the  international clothing store.  He said that he is not afraid to say what must be said, even in his book, and he attacked the Franschhoek Literary Festival for most of the attendees of the discussion session being ‘White’.  He called for a Soweto Book Fair!  Vundla said it’s lonely to write a book on your own. For him it is not about the money he can make from a book, but about how many persons read it.  The agency did well, taking on Coca Cola, General Motors, and Sprite as some of its top client brands.   Makholwa said that the sale of the Continue reading →

Book Franschhoek Literary Festival before it’s too late!

FLF2As the 8th Franschhoek Literary Festival draws near, it is advisable to book the writer panel sessions as soon as possible, as they get booked out well in advance.  The more well-known the writer/s on the panels, the quicker they are booked out.   In addition to an intensive programme of talks from Friday until Sunday this coming weekend (16 – 18 May), entertainment is also available in the evenings.

The Festival is noble in generating funds for the Franschhoek Literary Festival Library Fund, for the following:

*  donating books to schools and creches

*  employing a librarian to work with four primary school libraries in the Franschhoek area, and part-time library assistants

*   visiting schools, reading and story-telling

*   Book Week for Young Readers, which is being held this week

*   Wine Writers prizes of R12500 each, in two categories: six to eight short pieces of 1000 words each, from a blog or column; and a long piece of 1000 – 4000 words. Winners to be selected by a panel, usually chaired by John Maytham.  Last year the prize was Continue reading →

Michael Jordaan new Chairman of Wines of South Africa (WOSA)!

WOSA Michael Jordaan (LR)After appointing new CEO Siobhan Thompson, who took over the reigns from Su Birch in November last year, the Board of Wines of South Africa (WOSA) has elected dynamic Dr Michael Jordaan as its Chairman. Both appointments are likely to be a breath of fresh air for the international wine marketing body.

Jordaan had a high profile job as CEO of FNB, turning the bank around in the ten year period he spent there, the bank receiving an accolade as the world’s most innovative bank at the BAI-Finacle Global Banking Innovation Awards in Washington two years ago.  He left the bank late last year, to spend more time with his family on their farm Bartinney on the Helshoogte Pass in Stellenbosch, having commuted between Johannesburg and Stellenbosch for many years.  He remains an Executive Committee Member of FirstRand Banking Group. Jordaan is also Chairman of Social Media platform Mxit.  He has been named CNBC Africa Business Leader of the Year for Southern Africa. He and his wife Rose also own Bartinney wine and champagne bar on trendy Church Continue reading →

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 1/2 March

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*   The price of petrol increases by 36 cents a litre at midnight on 5 March.

*   To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Amarula brand, Distell is launching a new spirit Amarula Gold this month. The new 30% spirit is described as ‘aromatic and vibrantly fruity with intriguingly spicy notes and a very smooth texture’.

*   Tourism Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk is attending the second World Tourism Forum Lucerne Think Tank in Switzerland this weekend.  This year the focus is on ‘Infrastructure and Investment’, with attention on financing tourism and travel infrastructure.

*   The Franschhoek Literary Festival will be held between 16 and 18 May, and 170 authors will speak on various topics.  Speakers include poets Adam Small and Breyten Breytenbach; heavy-weight writers Damon Galgut and Mark Gevisser; and controversial writers Andre Brink, Max du Preez, and Tim Noakes.  Archbishop Desmond Tutu and his daughter Mpho, as well as former FNB MD and now Mxit Chairman Michael Jordaan will also participate in the pregramme. 

*   The 4000 strong penguin colony at Betty’s Bay is under threat from a diesel spill Continue reading →

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 25 February

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Design news headlines

*   A total of 10,6 million South Africans use WhatsApp,  a free messaging service which was bought by Facebook last week.  This represents close to half of all adults living in cities and towns.   Facebook usage on mobile phones is at 9 million (45%), Mxit is at 25%, BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) (21%), and Twitter 20%, according to a survey conducted last week.

*   The Stellenbosch American Express Wine Routes will be participating at the tourism and travel show ITB in Berlin next month for the first time.  (received via media release from Random Hat Communications)

*   The ATKV-Oesfees will be held at Solms-Delta outside Franschhoek on 22 March, with headline acts including Karen Zoid, Theuns Jordaan, Robbie Wessels, and Loukmaan Adams.  It is the 7th Oesfees on the wine estate, and 100 performers will participate, to celebrate the harvest in the Franschhoek valley with local music and dance.  Last year more than 5000 music fans attended the Oesfees.   Solms-Delta is dedicated to preserving and developing the musical heritage of the Cape, through its Music van de Caab project run by Adriaan Brand.  Entrance costs R130 per adult. (received via media release from Paula Wilson Media Consulting)

*   Food Routes has launched a new Culinary Sensibility Identities (CSI) tool, allowing restaurant goers to match their culinary personality with that of a compatible restaurant on the Food Routes Continue reading →

Social Media Trends 2014: Facebook leads in South Africa!

Facebook logoFacebook has the largest number of Social Media users in South Africa, and grew by 40% to reach 9,4 million active users in 2013, a survey entitled ‘South African Social Media Landscape 2014’,  and conducted by World Wide Worx and Fuseware, has found.  It has overtaken Mxit, which has 6 million users, for the first time.

Twitter experienced the fastest growth in the number of users, at 129% in the past year, reaching 5,5 million users.   Mxit’s growth has been curtailed by the popularity of instant messaging apps WhatsApp and 2Go, and the growing use of social networking sites on smartphones. Google+ too has been slow to grow, with less than half a million users, but Instagram has grown six-fold in the past year, and is expected to grow even more.

The majority of South African Social Media users is accessing the sites via their smartphones, 87% for Facebook and 85% for Twitter.

The Social Media usage trends of individuals reflect those of companies:  93% of major Continue reading →

WhaleTales Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines: 16/17 November

WhaleTalesTourism, Food, and Wine news headlines

*  Nando’s, Prince Harry’s and Beyonce’s favourite chicken take-out in London, will be opening its first store at Gatwick airport.

*   Heathrow needs a third runway to deal with the estimated doubling of traffic by 2030.  One plan is to build a floating runway on an estuary of the Thames, instead of demolishing houses in a village close to Heathrow.

*   Wide-spread flooding hit Somerset West, Franschhoek, Hermanus/Stanford, Strand, and Cape Town on Friday evening.  The Franschhoek Pass, Chapman’s Peak, Betty’s Bay/Gordon’s Bay road, and Victoria Road* between Camps Bay and Hout Bay are still closed.

*   Eben Sadie of The Sadie Family Wines is the winemaker featured in the weekly Terroirist blog interview!

*   Not only is Stellenbosch famous for its many wine estates producing excellent Continue reading →

Table Mountain reaches New7Wonders of Nature climax, for the wrong reasons!

Just when all of Cape Town, and even South Africa, is feverishly voting to make Table Mountain a New7Wonders of Nature when voting closes today, damning articles were published yesterday in the Cape Times and The Guardian, questioning the credibility of this competition.

The Guardian wrote that the 4-year competition has become controversial, with some countries having been charged millions of dollars for the marketing use of the campaign.  In its final leg of voting, to select the top seven ‘natural landscapes and places’, a short-list of 28 includes Table Mountain, the Great Barrier Reef, the Maldives, Mount Kilimanjaro, Uluru, the Dead Sea, and the Amazon rainforest.  Charged a mere $199 registration fee to enter initially, some participating countries have since been charged exorbitant fees for a global marketing campaign, leading to the threatened withdrawal from the competition by the Maldives and the Komodo Island national park in Indonesia.  The organisers have encouraged these two attractions to remain in the competition, without any further payment.

Past CEO of Cape Town Tourism and past Mayor of Cape Town, Gordon Oliver, is quoted in The Guardian as asking: “What authority does this organisation have to determine a natural wonder as a finalist? It’s important that our authorities get the credentials of such organisations who set themselves up as the authority to decide the prominence of natural features”. The New7Wonders Foundation has denied charging excessive fees, yet it has confirmed that there are fees to be paid if the Foundation’s branding is used. A spokesperson said that the income derived from the competition funds the running of the competition and ‘maintaining a voting platform’.

In its lead story yesterday, the Cape Times wrote a damning report about the New7Wonders competition, the Foundation earning half of the R2 SMS fee per vote (potentially generating up to R1 billion, if it achieves its goal of 1 billion votes). The report also states that the campaign does not have any standing with international official or scientific bodies.  It has no relationship to UNESCO, which governs the World Heritage sites.  The article also quotes Oliver, and he asks what additional benefit the New7Wonders of Nature title would have.  Being based purely on a vote by SMS or on MXit restricts the campaign to a vote by cellphone and computer owners, and does not reflect the views of the ‘entire world’, said a UNESCO spokesperson, the organisation having distanced itself from the campaign.  The City of Cape Town confirmed that it has spent R1,7 million on advertising country-wide, to encourage South Africans to vote for Table Mountain.  The City has justified its expenditure , in that Table Mountain has made it to the finalist list of 28, from 440 initial entrants.   It also quoted research by Grant Thornton (the consultants who grossly over-estimated the economic value of the World Cup), which estimated that Cape Town specifically and South Africa generally could benefit from being named a New7Wonder of Nature, through an increase of R1,4 billion in tourism revenue.

We have seen that the accolades which Cape Town has received this year, including being named top world travel destination by TripAdvisor, have had little benefit for tourism to date, and therefore question the value of the New7Wonders competition for tourism.  Earlier this week it was announced that votes for Table Mountain were lagging badly behind those of many other finalists destinations.  It has been noticeable that Cape Town Tourism has given Table Mountain little support for its New7Wonders of Nature campaign, despite Sabine Lehmann, Table Mountain Aerial Cableway Company CEO and driver of the Table Mountain New7Wonders campaign, being a Board member of the tourism body.

Voting for the Top New7Wonders of Nature will end at 11h11 GMT (13h11 in South Africa) today, 11 November 2011, reports The Guardian.  In a Southern African Tourism Update article received last night, it is announced that the result will be announced at 21h00 in the V&A Waterfront this evening. www.new7wonders.com

POSTSCRIPT 11/11: I read the City of Cape Town’s ad properly after writing this blogpost – it features Archbishop Tutu with outstretched arms, standing on top of Table Mountain, so badly photographed by Oryx Multi Media that he is unrecognisable.  It also contains a quote by him: “I really can understand how, when God created all that there is he said, ‘I think I’ve got to do something special here’. And so God produced this fantastic gateway in the South – Table Mountain – our mountain, what a wonder!”. Over-optimistically, the ad claims boldly that becoming a New7 Wonders of Nature will ‘boost the South African economy by R1,4 billion per annum’, and that ‘11000 new jobs will be created’.

POSTSCRIPT 11/11 21h15: Table Mountain has just been announced as one of the New7Wonders of Nature, with the Amazon Rainforest in Brazil, Halong Bay in Vietnam, Iguazu Falls in Argentina, Jeju Island in South Korea, Komodo in Indonesia, and Puerto Princesa Underground River in the Phillipines.  What is extraordinary is that the organisers write that the list of seven is provisional, and subject to verification, as late as the start of 2012!

POSTSCRIPT 12/11: Tourism consultants Grant Thornton have issued a media release today, predicting that Table Mountain’s inclusion in the New7Wonders of Nature will attract 108000 new tourists per annum, and that this translates to additional tourism revenue of R 1,4 billion per year, for the next five years.

POSTSCRIPT 12/11: City of Cape Town Mayoral Committee member for Tourism Grant Pascoe has been extensively quoted in Kfm news reports this morning, stating that Table Mountain’s inclusion as a New7Wonders of Nature will boost tourism and create jobs, emphasising the latter in particular.  One hopes that the expectations he is creating will not be dashed!

POSTSCRIPT 12/11: The organisers of the New7Wonders of Nature have found a new way to generate income, and announced last night that they are starting a new campaign to choose the New7Wonders Cities, for which city nominations close on 31 December.

POSTSCRIPT 13/11: A surprise sentiment is expressed in a media release sent today by Cape Town Routes Unlimited, its CEO Calvyn Gilfellan subtly requesting lower rates for ‘ordinary people’ to go up Table Mountain: “We want to salute the thousands of ordinary South Africans who voted for Table Mountain, and whose support ensured that the city’s iconic peak was named one of the New7Wonders of Nature. These ordinary people, we believe, stand tall among the real heroes in this accomplishment. Together with the official organizing committee, they deserve our richest praise and congratulations. Now the challenge is to make Table Mountain, and the rest of Cape Town’s tourist attractions usually associated with visitors who have deep pockets, more accessible to ordinary people. After all, it was the ordinary people who stood up to vote for Table Mountain. We at Cape Town Routes Unlimited, the official destination marketing voice of Cape Town and the Western Cape, stand ready to assist with this”.

POSTSCRIPT 13/11: Earlier this week provincial Tourism Minister Alan Winde did a tandem jump from Signal Hill, taking a ‘leap of faith‘ in the vote for Table Mountain.  He said: “As nervous as I am for this jump, I am far more nervous about this vote”. The Minister stated that the win for Table Mountain would mean a 20 % increase in tourism numbers, reported the Cape Argus.

POSTSCRIPT 4/5: The status of Table Mountain as a New7Wonders of Nature has finally been confirmed, six months after Cape Town’s landmark received a provisional award, subject to a voting audit.  All seven New7Wonders of Nature have had their status confirmed.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter: @WhaleCottage