Firstly, news that Nick Haraway‘s new book, Angelmaker, is finally on Amazon’s pre-order list.

If you’re wondering why this is exciting enough to blog about, read this blurb:

Joe Spork spends his days fixing antique clocks. The son of infamous London criminal Mathew “Tommy Gun” Spork, he has turned his back on his family’s mobster history and aims to live a quiet life. That orderly existence is suddenly upended when Joe activates a particularly unusual clockwork mechanism. His client, Edie Banister, is more than the kindly old lady she appears to be—she’s a retired international secret agent. And the device? It’s a 1950s doomsday machine. Having triggered it, Joe now faces the wrath of both the British government and a diabolical South Asian dictator who is also Edie’s old arch-nemesis. On the upside, Joe’s got a girl: a bold receptionist named Polly whose smarts, savvy and sex appeal may be just what he needs. With Joe’s once-quiet world suddenly overrun by mad monks, psychopathic serial killers, scientific geniuses and threats to the future of conscious life in the universe, he realizes that the only way to survive is to muster the courage to fight, help Edie complete a mission she abandoned years ago and pick up his father’s old gun .

And then if that doesn’t convince you, read this.

I. Am.  So. Excited.

The second thing was this fab little film of the people of Burning Man 2011 performing Dr. Seuss’s “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!”.   Based on Dr. Seuss’s final book before his death, the piece is about the journey of life, complete with the dark and the scary and the lonely bits.  And the people of Burning Man bring it to life with all the appropriate Cat-in-the-Hat madness it deserves.

It makes me happy.  And happy is short supply.

In a week of meh, this little gem lifted me right out of myself.  I’ll take Dr Seuss over navel-gazing any day of the week.

The line up was fab and styled in the short-form TED-type format.  10 minutes to make your point before the next guy got the mike. So the intimidation factor was pretty high.  But kind folk like the seriously fab Melissa Attree calmed my thundering heart and made me laugh out loud.  Lots. And thank the gods, I didn’t have to go after Mike Sharman, aka The Sharmanator. And I only swore twice (sorry mom).

I’d been asked to speak largely because my twitter profile says “blogger, writer, lurker”.  And the organizers were intrigued about the “lurker” bit.  I absolutely love the word ‘lurker’.  I’ve lurked my whole life.  And the interwebs is the finest thing for a good lurk ever to be invented.

So, I thought it would be a useful exercise (for me, largely) to write down (with a little more structure) the 5 thoughts from my on stage natter:

Lessons from a Lurker…

1. Lots of people lurk.
According to Urban dictionary: A lurker is someone that follows the forum but doesn’t post. And Wikipedia says that over 90% of online groups comprise of lurkers. This is probably because people don’t really feel like they are equipped to contribute.  Or they’re just hanging around, waiting for the right time to join in. Or stalking someone.  Stalking is likely.

For those of us learning to navigate digital for business, it often feels like we don’t have the first clue what we’re doing.  But the good news is: no one else does (really).  The other bit of good news is that the interwebs is filled with generous, smart, connected people who share prodigiously.  A good lurker can learn the most extraordinary things just by hanging about.

2. Stalk with intent
But the key is to work out where you want to lurk and what you want to learn.  The trick then is to find the minds that turn you on, to lurk where they live online and to learn the sodding hell out of them. Look for the stuff that gets your eyes all sparkly.  The stuff that makes you stay up late or the kind of juice that kicks you out of bed without hitting the snooze button.

Start there.  And follow the smart.  Not necessarily just the opinionated and loud, but the guys who are quietly passionate.  Who clearly love this particular thing too.  And then stalk who they stalk.  Mentors are everywhere. And with a little judicious humility, you can stand on the shoulders of giants.

But don’t get side tracked by the bubble gum.  Clay Shirky’s thoughts around cognitive surplus changed how I use the internet.  He talks about the time we have when we’re not working or sleeping or eating or socialising…the time most people spend mindlessly watching TV or trawling LOLCats.  And how the internet is allowing people to use their cognitive surplus to do radical, socially empowering things (like building Wikipedia or the stuff the guys at Ushahidi are doing).  What are you doing with yours?  Swop a bit of mindless for even a little bit of focused lurking and you’ll find way more inspiration than anything HBO or (ahem) SABC can cough up.

3. Expose yourself
The other benefit of lurker-learner behaviour is the ability to learn in the age-old way of monkey see, monkey do.  The multimedia nature of online means we can literally watch people try new things, and then see if we can do them. And then before you know it, you’re doing it better (because you can learn from other people’s fuck ups, to put it bluntly).

Wired Editor and Ted curator, Chris Anderson, talks about Crowd Accelerated Innovation “a self-fueling cycle of learning that could be as significant as the invention of print.”  To hear him explain it better than I ever could, check out this video.

Basically, he’s saying we’re all becoming passionate amateurs – but that the collective advancement or learning that comes from sharing lessons and seeing success is faster than individual learning.  It means we’re psychologically able to succeed quicker and faster – and to accelerate incremental improvements.

There has literally never been this much access to the other people who love the small, niche thing you love.  And the more you expose yourself to that thing (and others) the more proficient you’ll get at it.

4. Early adopter, schmerly adopter….
You don’t have to rush to get there first.  Let other people make the mistakes so you don’t have to.  A good lurk before you act can save you a lot of time and heartache – and make you look super smart if you can apply the lessons (and colossal mistakes) of others to your own set of circumstances.

5. Lurk…pause…Engage!
Lurking is great.  But getting stuck in there is even better.  The wondrous nature of the social web really only starts to unfold when you stop lurking and start joining in.  Because the connection, the innovation, the sparking of ideas through engagement.  My life has been fundamentally changed by the simple process of lurking and even more so by the brave leap of engaging.

To see me warble on in the flesh, so to speak, click here.  But to be honest, you’d be much better off spending the 10 minutes either watching the fairly mental Mike Sharman (although he’s terribly NSFW), Mel Attree, David Alves,  Dan Pinch, Max Kaisen,  Rich Mullholland, Julia Possett, Matt Visser, Craig Ross or any other of the seriously smart speakers, pretty much all of whom I stalk vociferously.

___

Image credits.  Brain from here.  ‘Expose Yourself’ and ‘Engage’ from ThinkStock.

Herman Chinery-Hesse, SOFTtribe Co-Founder and keynote speaker at Tech4Africa 2011

“What are you doing here”, at least three people asked. “I didn’t know you were a geek.”

I’m not. Well, I am in a loose sense. I don’t code, but I know enough about HTML to occasionally end an email to mates with “</rant>”. I’m not techy, but I do spend a lot of time stalking the interwebs. And I’m in a highly iterative learning curve with part of my day job and the business’s digital strategy.

I am, though, a very enthusiastic geek stalker. I hope, a lot, that I will somehow absorb ‘geek’ by osmosis. Because the tech world turns me on. Like a chav Christmas tree.

The level of innovation, the adoption of failure as a critical precursor to success, the liberal and generous sharing of stuff and the collaborative and accelerated learning that happens as a result fills me with a peculiar glee.

In that context, absolutely no surprise then that I was bouncing around Tech4Africa with ill-concealed delight. And this is what’s surfaced after two days of mulling it over:

Know your user
A major theme, from UX design (user experience design) to start up tech to the talk by Adam Duvander on Maps. It’s nothing new (#mrx, anyone?) But I found it fascinating that the UX guys were creating consumer typologies and bringing them to life creatively to help designers focus on the end user, not the tech. (Something we’ve been doing for years in more traditional market research/insight work.) It really is the bottom line for business – who is your user/consumer, what problem do they have and how can you (uniquely) solve it? Everything else is a waste of time.

Collaboration increases your chances of success (via Cennydd Bowles & James Box)
It’s no surprise the UX guys revved my motor. Behaviour, usability design, the gentle art of persuasion – all these things hit major passion points for me. But the point about collaboration really resonated. One of the things I love about the business I’m currently in is that most problem solving is done collaboratively. Create a good team with mix from across all divisions involved in the project. Design a process that allows for maximum creative input with minimum ego interruption and keep an open mind and before you know it, you’ve got an answer. Collaboration means that projects are often more efficient, teams are more engaged and problems are more easily overcome.

Integrate
Tech solutions should have the bigger marketing picture in mind. Again a point largely made by the UX guys, and pretty key. How will the look, feel, language, voice of your site or app translate into offline activation. I’m not sure that’s even on the radar for some developers…or start-ups for that matter.

Gangstarise it (Herman Chinery-Hess)
Keynote speaker Herman Chinery-Hess absolutely rocked the audience with an almost throw-away comment: The African entrepreneur said “We didn’t have a marketing budget, so we ganstarisied it. We cut the radio stations and media guys in, and all of a sudden they were doing it for us.”

Gangsta.

Made me think about what I could ganstarise. *insert evil grin*

The story is everything (Herman Chinery-Hess)
The other lesson from Herman’s talk was the power of the story. He had no slides, no tech…just a powerful story, filled with personal lessons and anecdotes. And he had the audience hanging off every word. But story telling was woven across the event. How to deliver a powerful pitch. How to design a great journey. How to access the engaging stories out of big data, maps and design. How tech fits into the daily consumer story. I don’t think anything works unless the story is clear.*

“Service doesn’t always scale. Don’t be the product” (Gareth Knight)
This has been sitting in the back of my brain since Tech4Africa organizer and founder, Gareth Knight mentioned it in his candid conversational panel with fellow entrepreneur, Vinny Lingham. It’s a really simple and blindingly obvious point. If you’re selling hours you’re selling a finite commodity. And unless you’re aggressively hiring, service doesn’t really scale. And it’s an issue for start-ups and established businesses alike. Finding the product in what you offer (and in service industries this is a tough answer) and how much scale you can reasonably expect from that offer are a pretty important questions to answer before you kill yourself trying to build a business.

“As soon as you have a new technology doesn’t mean the old one has to die. It’s not Highlander.” (Robert Nyman)
Ok, I just liked the Highlander reference. But it’s also dug into a corner of my head because it’s true. We’re always looking for new shiny. And our default is that new will automatically replace old. But frankly that’s not efficient, it’s not sustainable and it’s not even true. We’re heading into the ‘mass adoption’ area on the curve and that means fragmentation, segmentation and adaptation. The guys on the edge of the curve will still pursue shiny, but the large mass of humanity are going to be quite happy to stick with what they like. Innovation won’t necessarily need to be about ‘completely new’ but about ‘new and improved’.

“Geeks don’t want to be management. They just want to be paid more to be awesome” (Vincent Maher)
This is true of any creative, innovative tribe. So, what can the tech industry learn from other ideas-based industries to motivate, engage and support their people? How important is it to the success of a project to hire other people to do the managing / admin stuff that your talent doesn’t want to do? A tangent of the conversation around the event was the fierce competition for good developers (good talent, full stop). And the entrepreneurs mentioned building businesses that they wanted to work for; different to the model that currently exists. So what does this mean for the ‘work experience’ piece of the start-up team? Will the model of building a sexy business, but paying peanuts still work if all the businesses get sexier? Where do talent acquisition and retention strategies fit in the new world order?

Work out how much fear and risk you can handle (Gareth Knight)
Once again Gareth nailed a fundamental question. This is not a qustion I can answer. But I’ve had to at various stages in my life. And I know that the best decisions I’ve ever made have been the ones where I’ve dropped the fear and embraced the risk.

Mobile is changing everything (Gustav Praekelt)
The case studies, innovative start-ups and thinking around mobile at Tech4Africa reminded me again just how much mobile is changing things. To paraphrase thoughts from the conference, if we can get the handset and data costs sorted, for the first time in the last couple of hundred years, Africa will not be barred from access to the technology that’s changing the world. And Africans will have the tools to by-pass traditional barriers to market.

My only (and seriously, only) criticism of the event was the lack of diversity in the line up. Debby Edelstein covers the point perfectly in her blog here, so I’m not going to bang on about it anymore.

I’ll just add that if anyone has ideas for great speakers for next year’s conference (who aren’t pale males), please put those names forward to the organizing team – these guys put a huge amount of effort into the organization and could probably use any extra help they can get.

So will I be there next year? Absolutely. Wouldn’t miss the quality geek stalkage for the world.

___

*For example, I might have woven a bit more story into this blog post. Bad blogger. No biscuit. :\

Oh, and P.S.  When I grow up I want to be a ‘Tech Evangelist’.  Coolest job title ever, Josh Spear, Simone Brunozzi and Robert Nyman!

This may seem like a pretty obvious observation, but it shifted something in my understanding of leadership.  I’ve always understood that truly great leaders do more than just their jobs.  But I’d never considered how important good leadership is to our collective social consciousness. However subtle, the cues our leaders give us become benchmarks of a sort.  A view to what we could be.  There is a ripple effect of repercussion in that idea that is in equal parts thrilling and depressing.

This, I believe, is why the whole world is currently mourning a CEO.  Because Steve Jobs did what truly great leaders do.  Only passing reference is made to the bagillions Apple earned under his tenure.  But practically every eulogy, blog post and social media stream is filled with stories of how he inspired people.

And so to me it’s no surprise that Apple and Tim Cook have been under scrutiny since Jobs stepped down from his leadership.  Because the kind of leadership Steve brought to the company is rare.  And while I think Apple will easily ride on the equity of its past success, we all feel that something has been lost now in Steve’s passing.  Something intangible and almost impossible to replicate.  And that will have repercussions for the business long into its future.

And in the meantime, I’m thinking a lot about who I turn to for leadership in my own life and what that is really saying about who I want to be.

This tweet has been bugging me all day.  I don’t know which bit bites me more.  Our ‘issues’ about selling out?  Cashing in one’s “cool”.  Or the quip about girls not respecting a man for driving a Tazz.

Seriously?

Ok, let me caveat this briefly.  Twitter as stream of consciousness is a given.  Sometimes our collective conscious throws up some pretty dumb stuff.  It’s hard enough to share layers of thought and meaning and innuendo and subtlety, let alone in 140 characters.  And I don’t know CapeTown_Girl in the real.  Or how much of her online persona is mixed in with who she is.  So I have no idea as to her intent.  Flippant?  Deeply ironic?  I’m going with both.

So this here rantlet is purely my own reaction to the words as they stand, in my very own frame of reference.

I work in marketing.  I work in the very industry that finds new and ingenious ways to flog more stuff to people.  I have no illusions about any great altruistic contribution to the world.  The gift of my graft to the greater good.  I’m frikkin’ PR, for god’s sake.  But I like to think I have integrity.  I’ve said no to clients who’ve thought spin means finding nice ways to tell lies.  I’ve turned down high-paying work because I don’t support the category.  I find it hard to write drivel about stuff that’s not important.  And I’ve found a place to work that supports my values, even when we occassionally disagree on the exact shades of gray.

It’s bloody hard being a marketer these days.  No one believes advertising any more.  Trust is out the window. The pursuit of the advertising budget means the only worthwhile reads are the Daily Maverick and the Mail & Guardian.  You can’t just say you’re better than the competition, you have to prove it.

And that’s just the corporate machine.  The whole world seems to be finding ways to cash in on the almighty brand.  The clutter is beyond comprehension.  Students branding their cars for petrol money.  Okes selling their foreheads as advertising space.  Women selling their unborn children as brand ambassadors.  Ok, I made the last bit up.

But the point is, we…at least I…want some things to remain unstamped by the big green money making monster.  I want to be inspired, moved, touched, motivated, embraced…but not (always*) brought to you by Big Brand, selling brands since 1863.

So when people like artists and poets and dreamers can be bought….when their whole aim in life is to sign that next big sponsorship deal…my heart sinks a little.  How can I trust you, what you say and what you stand for if I know that even a percentage of that ‘supports the message of our sponsor’ or whatever.

I get that there is nothing sexy about starving for your art.  Freezing garrets are not great real estate.  But surely there can be patronage without being patronizing?  More Medici and less McDonalds?

As for men in a Tazz.  I knew a man who chose to drive a Tazz instead of an Audi.  Let’s call it a lifestyle choice.  A choice that meant he made less money, but he was home every night to put his kids to bed.  I respect the hell out of him.

—–

*Of course, for all my ranting, I’m not sure why I’m ok for Lady Gaga to be a brand bitch, but I’m disappointed by The Parletones?  The subjectivity of art?  My own aesthetic as a form of prejudice?  All of the above?  Either way, it reminds me that it’s always a little more complicated than that.

via Telegraph.co.uk

This is my own little social media FTW story.

I’m rather partial to books.  I collect them.  All over the house, it appears.  Mostly, I don’t remember authors.  Of course, if I fnd an author I like, I read everything they have ever written. Preferably in order, if I can manage it. And if I find something I like, I share.  With my coven, my bookclub, my friends…and now with Twitter.

Standard bibliophile behaviour, I think.

Earlier this year I tweeted that I’d just found a cracking book; Nick Harkaway’s The Gone-Away World.  To my astonishment, Nick Harkaway replied to say ta.

I think I shrieked like a girl.  The author.  Of that book.  Replied to *me*.

I promptly stalked him on every known social networking channel and he was gracious enough to reciprocate.  That alone impressed me enormously.  I cranked the fangirl recommendations up a notch, told the story whenever I did, and left a lot of people with a brain hook with Nick’s book hanging off it.

I thought that was the end of it.

Fast forward a couple of months.  I was sitting in Athens airport with a *very* long wait for my next flight.   Bored and frustrated, I was frootling around on the interwebs, poking people with sticks, hoping they’d play with me.  I sent Mr Harkaway a tweet implying that if I had his next book, I would have something which which to occupy myself .

And then a little personal magic happened.  Nick replied asking me choose five words at random and he’d see what he could do.  I gave him handbag, carrot, daisy, flagellation and hairnet.  For the next 4 hours he live tweeted and blogged a writing process to turn five words into a starter piece for a story.

The results, in three posts, are here…

I think it’s safe to say I was completely blown away.

The point of this little Twitter tale?  I will read every book Nick Harkaway ever writes.  Even if they are shite.  I will tell every book reader (and then some) to read The Gone-Away World.  (Which is, incidentally, very, very good).  I will be a Harkaway fan for life.

The fact that he’s a fan of our own Lauren Beukes is just a bonus.

This is the power of the social age.

This moment when acknowledgement and connection turns an ordinary and largely commercial relationship into something more.  That moment of warm fuzziness when a muggins like me feels like a contributor and co-conspirator to something more than just bond repayments.  Feels special.   Its the holy grail.

Marketing theory calls this the ‘surprise and delight’ factor.  And there are millions of every day moments on the social web to delight people.  Millions of opportunities to create connection.

My final thought on the matter?  Read Nick Harkaway’s book.  It’s freakin’ awesome.

We were talking about how digital is shaking things up and how terrifying that sometimes felt because there’s no rule book.  No step -by-step guide for what works and what doesn’t.

That’s what got me really thinking.

I wondered what the implications will be for this always-on, over-sharing generation?  Will they (we) regret hanging it all out there.  Like the free-love generation of the 70s, will we realize there are consequences to the kind of anarchy we’re attracted to when we’re young.  When we’re pushing boundaries, discovering ourselves and making massive cock-ups along the way.

20 years ago, if you made an utter arse of yourself in public, you were relatively safe.  Friends or colleagues might mock you for a few years, and there might be on cringe-worthy pic out there on celluloid film to haunt you, but that was the extent of it.  The world moved on and it’s memory dimmed.

Today, you’re a lot more exposed.  Every mistake can be filmed, photographed, annotated and shared with the masses in a nano-second.  And it never goes away.   It’s there, cached, somewhere, for the rest of your natural life.

So when you’re applying for that job or chatting up that guy or applying for that loan, it could all come back to haunt you. Out of context and larger than life.

Will we regret it?  Or will our new order just usher in a more transparent, humans-as-flawed-beings era?  Or will we become so bored by the tabloid machine social media will make of our lives that we just won’t care.  We won’t flinch when the headlines reveal that the new president of the nation was once photographed in the nude with cigarettes up her nose and her knickers on her head? Or worse, smooching a poster of Edward Cullen!

My jaded self thinks there are going to be a lot of opportunities for ‘cleaning services’ in the not too distant future. Nice agencies that trawl the net for your embarrassing stuff and make it disappear.  Or negotiate with the Facebook Emperor Supreme for the quashing of those high school photos.

Maybe we’ll see the rise of the personal spin doctor for the average Joe.  An industry of unctuous individuals who’ll rewrite the past as only so much photo-shopped propaganda.

I think that this generation, just like every other, will want to hide it’s youthful indiscretions.  The question is, how?

Image from here.

Al recently took a guest on safari.  An ordinary day for him in every way but one; the guest was blind.

Imagine trying to bring the magic of the African veldt to life for someone who can’t see how the light changes the landscape or how a giraffe moves in the acacia trees?

But this man without sight changed the way Al ‘saw’ the bush.  Having to explore his world without this critical sense opened his own eyes, so to speak, to the other layers of sensory beauty the bush has to offer.

He wrote a moving piece about his experience – something he’s graciously given me permission to post here.  It’s a long read, but worth it.

I’m reminded how lucky I am to live in a land so filled with wonder.

Al’s article is after the jump.

Viewing Nature without seeing it
Alan Yeowart, Singita, July 2010

I think that any reasonable guide understands the value of, and is able to express the emphatic power of utilizing a full spectrum of sensory props to enhance a guest’s safari experience.

Up until yesterday I was of the opinion that, although backed up solidly by the other senses, a wildlife experience was primarily a visual one.

Throughout my career as a field guide I have looked after people with many physical disabilities that have challenged what the “normal” exposure may be, and have had enormous admiration for the individuals and how they overcome these challenges. I have recently been afforded the great pleasure of looking after a blind man on Safari over the period of two days.

Blindness, in my opinion, must be one of the most devastating and debilitating of disabilities, but I learnt that Nature is powerful enough to overcome even this in Her ability to deeply touch individuals. It was a hugely humbling experience indeed!!

I was really quite unsure how I was going to manage the safari experience with a blind person on my vehicle, and how to try and portray wildlife with the same degree of enormity that is so simple visually. But as it transpired, I needn’t have been even remotely concerned, as Nature would divulge Herself in a cacophony of sounds and non-visual prompts that left me bewildered.

We began by crossing the Sand River, and aural experience in itself, as the land rover waded through the crossing and the water cascaded around us and the tyres crunched over the rocky bed. Switching off the vehicle to listen to the soothing current – suddenly a large Nile Monitor Lizard scrambled from a rock where it had been sunning itself, its long, sharp claws grinding against the rock as they sought purchase; its gravelly belly and tail scales rasped across the surface portraying its size and serpentine swiftness. Had I heard this before?

Next we encountered a lone buffalo bull in the reed beds on the opposite side of the river – this I was certain was to be a “sighting” that would be only for the benefit of the sighted as there was little I could do to try and improve it for my blind guest. Just as I was about to start the vehicle (and get the diesel engine running, that was to become such an intrusive noise throughout the experience!!) this great General steered towards the water’s edge and proceeded to wade out into the river and across to the northern bank! Quite audibly depicting his huge bulk as he laboriously heaved himself, splashing and sloshing, across the River.

It was then the turn of the most silent and elusive of all, the leopard. Having undertaken some rather hairy off-road maneuvering, and navigating angles that gave the feeling that the vehicle may roll over at any moment! (Although this was far from the critical levels that can be safely negotiated, it was an experience in itself) We came upon a sighting of a female leopard with a young impala kill deep within the sprawling branches of a river bushwillow. The visibility for the rest of us was fairly average, but she was feeding on the carcass as we located her. The ripping of flesh and skin and the cracking of bones, coupled with the olfactory element that accompanies sightings such as these, gave more than enough stimuli for the mind to paint a picture.

I was really starting to enjoy this. Already there was a relaxed and absorptive atmosphere amongst all on the vehicle and on we went.

The cards continued to fall perfectly as we came across a young male cheetah lying in fairly long grass. Again it began as a mediocre scene with little potential of improving for any of us, being especially enigmatic and challenging to try and describe this lithe feline who is significantly more famous for its high-speed chases than its vocal repertoire or raucousness. Just then the cheetah stood up and walked straight to a tree a few metres from us and proceeded to reach up the trunk and claw the bark audibly (with the very same partially-sheathed claws that I had described only seconds prior), this was followed by a flurry of circular sprints in the fallen leaf-litter of the deciduous woodland that it had been lying in, which appeared to be completely for show, and provided another amazing display of aural tangibility.

It was then the turn of my favorites, the elephants; I would surely get some audio from these giants and felt quietly confident as I approached a herd that was just finishing a drink at a large waterpoint.

“Elephants!” I announced somewhat unnecessarily as two fabulous bulls jousted one another mere metres away; clattering ivory, slapping trunks and ears, growling and bellowing, pushing and shoving through bushes which tore at their tough hide. Calves squealed in the background, others slurped audibly at the cool water and strayed trunk-full’s over their bodies in a noisy, drenching shower. Then sand was kicked loose and hovered up with the trunk and blown with great exhalations across their sides.

Trunks wound around thorny acacia branches and slowly and purposefully stripped along the length of the branch to de-nature the lignified thorns, creating an almost “hissing” sound. Clatter again as ivory collided and deep, guttural rumblings that reverberated around us…

Elephants, they certainly know how to come to the party!!

I disembarked the vehicle with my blind guest so that he could get a better cognizance of this experience away from the relative sanctuary of the land rover. I, too, closed my eyes to try and share in his perception, albeit from a different level. His grip was firm on my arm but not with fear, it was rigid with the power of the experience, formulating images and harnessing the sounds and smells.

Aromatic herbs released their scents as they were trampled beneath the great padded feet, and the dull thuds of dung bolus as they hit the ground emanating rich animal scents, not unpleasant.

We could have stayed all day with this group, sight or no sight it was a very special scene, but the pressures of a short safari determined that we continue to explore further.

A pride of 11 lions had dispossessed a leopard of its kill and now lay lazily at the base of a large Marula Tree whilst the disgruntled leopard wiled away the time high up in the branches above them, offering disapproving looks down to his fat relatives below.

Visually this was an extraordinary scene. All the other creatures had performed so well to announce themselves to my blind guest. Rather dreamily I wished that one of the lions would stand up and unleash a mighty roar – the sound so encapsulating and powerful.  But deep down I really expected the lions to fail me, and I was spot on!! There were one or two grunts and a belch as they lazily flopped from one side of a fully-loaded belly to the other. The busy and excited narrative on the vehicle would have to suffice in this instance.

Hippos wheeze-honking; impala snorting in alarm and uttering their nasal bellowing in remembrance of the rut, rhino and herds of buffalo tore at tussocks of grass within touching distance, their heavy scents permeating the air around us. We kicked elephant dung balls and felt the giant circumference of the footprint of a great bull. We felt the length and rigidity of the scented-pod acacia thorns.

Once all was done out in the field it was time to tie up all the loose ends – décor around the lodge! Delicate and informative fingers roamed over the huge ostrich eggs and spiraled kudu horns.  The skulls of giraffe, rhino and hippo; the pitted bone, occluded canines and over-sized incisors. His face was a picture of amazement as he pieced together the final elements of his minds’ image.

Nature had been on show, but as I recollect the many hundreds of game drives I have taken, I cannot recall any being so loaded with non-visual stimuli, or maybe my vision had simply deafened me to it.

Do not underestimate the sounds  the smells and the textures.

———————-

Thanks Al!

‘Whether its software and microchips or music to swing your hips, we’ve got it.’

That’s the line from one of the ‘mash up’ images in a CNA campaign by Jupiter JHB.  The campaign morphs together images of famous people, with some interesting results to make the point of CNA’s wide product range.

The line above belongs to Bill Presley, a visual mash up of Bill Gates and Elvis Presley.

The campaign includes mixes of the likes of John Lennon and Albert Einstein as John Einstein and Queen Elizabeth II and Mother Teresa as Queen Teresa.

And in a move that the Huffington Post describes as ‘controversial’, the most eye-catching mash combines Adolph Hitler and James Dean as Adolf Dean.

The images in the series are quirky and arresting. But I have to wonder if the Huffington Post and AdFreak are right in saying the Adolf Dean image will provoke a storm of outrage.  Is using and image of Hitler in this context apt?  Or is it just another example of clanging commercialised insensitivity?

All kinds of images inform our cultural consciousness, good and bad. And advertising tends to work best if it speaks to and has meaning within that cultural context. What makes Hitler any less of a cultural reference point for dictators than Marilyn Monroe is a cultural reference point for pin ups? What do you think?

Advertising Agency: The Jupiter Drawing Room, Jhb, South Africa
Chief Creative Officer: Graham Warsop
Creative Director: Thomas Cullinan
Art Director: Dana Cohen
Copywriter: Shane Durrant, PJ Eales
Illustrator: Wayne Trotskie

Loeries 2009: Apocalypse Now? For a Loeries virgin, the annual weekend of awards and debauchery was something of an eye-opener. The work was inspiring. The dress code was suitably kooky. And the awards ceremonies were big. Certainly bigger than expected. With uber-graphics, pounding audio and a massive, people-dwarfing stage.

The response from the attendees was less so.

For the rest of the round up, read here.

And since we’re supposed to be talking about ‘the work’ and not the hangovers…my favourite campaign?  BP’s “A Nation United” campaign for 2010 by Ogilvy JHB, who won a gold for the work.

Watch Cafe Owners vs Mamas*

Interestingly, this ad wouldn’t have been made in another country – apparently the suits would have insisted on some skinny mamas and some female cafe owners.