The website for Kloorzicht lodge http://www.kloofzicht.co.za/ begins by saying "Nestled at the foothills of the Zwartkops Mountains in the Cradle of Humankind, Kloofzicht Lodge is the essence of tranquility and ultimate Luxury, a comfortable 40 minute drive from both Johannesburg and Pretoria." For once, the online brochure captured it all in one. The venue was a little piece of heaven, just a stone's throw away from the big cities. Their catering was also up to the challenge and did not let their side down either. Very definitely a venue to be revisited!
Ramon Thomas http://www.netucation.co.za/ was the guest speaker for the morning, the title of his talk being "Leadership in a technology driven world". In his talk, he explored the books and people that had made an impact on his own life. When it came to technology, he informed us about the acceleration adoption rate per 50 million users: Radio took 38 years, TV 13 years, Cable 10 years, Digital Cameras 8 years, Internet 5 years, with the digital camera phone being less than 3.5 years. If anyone had any doubts about the pace of life speading up, this would have put to rest any doubts that they had.
With regard to cell phones, he commented that there is currently a move amongst certain sectors of people wanting a simple phone without all the additional extras. He suggested that on an average, there are 2 sim cards per phone, but in poorer communities 1 cell phone is being used by 8 different people with 8 respective sim cards. He indicated that in some rural areas, airtime is becoming a new form of currency whereby airtime is being bought and resold with the rural entrepreneur taking 5% commission for the transaction. The individual will sms and receive the code for the airtime, and then sell the code for cash. I did not realize that I was walking around with the potential for a small business in my pocket, did you?
As someone who has dabbled in MXit to keep in touch with my children when attending international conferences, I was pleased to hear that as from 2008 MXit had blocked off all areas to chat rooms with a parental control function. This has been an area of personal concern for some time and I am delighted that some intervention is in place. I would really recommend Ramon Thomas "Parent's guide to MXit" which is available as a download from his site. It is a worthwhile read.
Ramon described what he called the three pillars of technology terrorism: conflict, confusion and complexity. He is currently working on this theory for his Masters Research project at the University of Johannesburg. His advice was to keep things simple. Know what it is that you want to achieve with technology. We are often using less than 5% of the capabilities of the software programs we are currently running (he used MS Office as an example).
As far as the technology terrorism was concerned, he had the following solutions to offer:
Ramon Thomas http://www.netucation.co.za/ was the guest speaker for the morning, the title of his talk being "Leadership in a technology driven world". In his talk, he explored the books and people that had made an impact on his own life. When it came to technology, he informed us about the acceleration adoption rate per 50 million users: Radio took 38 years, TV 13 years, Cable 10 years, Digital Cameras 8 years, Internet 5 years, with the digital camera phone being less than 3.5 years. If anyone had any doubts about the pace of life speading up, this would have put to rest any doubts that they had.
With regard to cell phones, he commented that there is currently a move amongst certain sectors of people wanting a simple phone without all the additional extras. He suggested that on an average, there are 2 sim cards per phone, but in poorer communities 1 cell phone is being used by 8 different people with 8 respective sim cards. He indicated that in some rural areas, airtime is becoming a new form of currency whereby airtime is being bought and resold with the rural entrepreneur taking 5% commission for the transaction. The individual will sms and receive the code for the airtime, and then sell the code for cash. I did not realize that I was walking around with the potential for a small business in my pocket, did you?
As someone who has dabbled in MXit to keep in touch with my children when attending international conferences, I was pleased to hear that as from 2008 MXit had blocked off all areas to chat rooms with a parental control function. This has been an area of personal concern for some time and I am delighted that some intervention is in place. I would really recommend Ramon Thomas "Parent's guide to MXit" which is available as a download from his site. It is a worthwhile read.
Ramon described what he called the three pillars of technology terrorism: conflict, confusion and complexity. He is currently working on this theory for his Masters Research project at the University of Johannesburg. His advice was to keep things simple. Know what it is that you want to achieve with technology. We are often using less than 5% of the capabilities of the software programs we are currently running (he used MS Office as an example).
As far as the technology terrorism was concerned, he had the following solutions to offer:
- CREATIVITY
- There is a paradox of choice.
- Clarify exactly what it is that you need. (Know thyself)
- Have technology FREE DAYS. Allow you to switch off the cell phone and computers and just "be yourself". Do you really need to be wired 24/7?
- CONFIDENCE
- Decision making.
- Collaboration. Open plan offices, open source software, and social media.
To sum up: Adopt the KISS principle with technology. Know what it is that you want to achieve, keep it simple and you will avoid the confusion, complexity and conflict that was mentioned by the speaker.
Contributed: Janet Zambri
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