Mario Olckers - Latest Comments

Re: Why Social Media Will Fail in South Africa

jonyojonyo — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 04:07:52 -0000

They are thus the custodians of the old wealth and the old ways and are doing everything to protect their position of privilege from being usurped by pretentious nouveau-riche blacks who wants to overrun and nationalize everything in sight. Recent political developments like the ANC youth league president threatening with killing for the very unsuitable presidential candidate does not exactly help in easing their fears.

Re: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and Social Media Strategy in South Africa

Cameron — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 19:49:00 -0000

Nice post.

What would you say would be a solution to bringing the majority populace up to speed? Is this a lost cause, or do you think making sure schools or libraries have pcs with internet access might help?

I would presume that theft/vandalism might come into play then..

Do you think more universities/design schools/media course offering bursaries or scholarships might help?

Being a white (mostly) male in SA, it's easy to feel in the minority and picked on, and feel the 'need' to stand ground with my ass, mostly in the butter. That said, I think the point isn't that I've got it too good, but that most of the other SA's don't have it good enough (no vice intended) - as this is obviously the case, how can we go about pushing reform and change? Is this a case of one person at a time, because unless huge amounts of cash is invested in infrastructure, the masses will be left out in the cold for a long while still.

And, as you say, for many, internet access/ pc literacy is the cherry on top of desert, when many don't even have a main course. There's so many other things that need to be provided for before internet/computers will hit the necessity list (if it ever does) - that, to me, leaves giving access via public areas as in schools, libraries, etc as a main point of access, and looking at some form of cheap internet-based computer initiative that can bring internet to the masses in some or other way.

An interesting concept, might be to use second hand pc's coupled with internet over powerlines as a means to at least get basic internet into areas where telephone cables, etc aren't yet available..

Glad you started the conversation on this, it's an interesting task to tackle

Re: Why Social Media Will Fail in South Africa

warhammer gold — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 04:44:26 -0000

Present setuation a man cannot live without internet connection and a mobile network so, it is necessary things of our life.

Re: Chinlone - Burmese acrobatic ball game - mega awesome!!!

John — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 12:53:47 -0000

A Myanmar boy recently moved next to me in Detroit. He is a very nice and was wondering where I could purchase a chinlone ball ?

Re: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and Social Media Strategy in South Africa

Selwyn — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 03:05:34 -0000

Very insightful!

Re: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and Social Media Strategy in South Africa

jerome — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 17:56:51 -0000

thanks ....

Re: Why Social Media Will Fail in South Africa

Wessel van Rensburg ( Mhambi) — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 00:03:23 -0000

Maslow applied to the internet as if its a living thing smells like the work of a Californian Ideologist.

I thought this piece will help us understand why people use social networks and how Maslow can explain this.

Anyway, think of a mobile phone as a social network node, and th address book as a friend list. Seen in this way its obvious that social network will have a big impact in Africa.

Re: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and Social Media Strategy in South Africa

Wessel van Rensburg ( Mhambi) — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 23:53:59 -0000

Interesting post but you need to be more to the point. Have you tried blik.co.za?

Re: A 50 Ways Mashup between Chris Brogan and Jeremiah Owyang

marioOlckers — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 14:54:03 -0000

Hi Beth, no problem ;) glad to help out, just shout if you need help on your way to figuring this all out ;)

Re: A 50 Ways Mashup between Chris Brogan and Jeremiah Owyang

Beth Jones — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:39:58 -0000

thanks for the trackback advice Mario, much appreciated. hopefully i'll get to grips with all this soon : )

Re: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and Social Media Strategy in South Africa

marioOlckers — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 11:55:19 -0000

Thanks Augie, yeah we are very much in the embryonic stages here in South Africa and it is a bit challenging with all the socio-political dynamics ;) That is why I found your article so useful and insightful because it speaks to the fundamental causes of human motivation which essentially makes up the collective behaviour of social groups and leads to phenomena such as 'social media'

Re: A 50 Ways Mashup between Chris Brogan and Jeremiah Owyang

marioOlckers — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 11:52:05 -0000

Hi Chris, thanks for the comment, yeah I quite liked the giant Jeremiah as well but I made it smaller ;) Nice learning from you guys ;)

Re: A 50 Ways Mashup between Chris Brogan and Jeremiah Owyang

Chris Brogan... — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 11:43:13 -0000

I rather liked the giant Jeremiah. : )

Thanks for the post, and glad it worked for you.

Re: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and Social Media Strategy in South Africa

Augie Ray — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 11:27:29 -0000

Thanks for the link to ExperienceTheBlog.com. I'm glad you found it insighftul. I know nothing about social media in South Africa, but I felt as if I understood the interesting and challenging state of things after reading your post!

Re: A 50 Ways Mashup between Chris Brogan and Jeremiah Owyang

marioOlckers — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 09:49:37 -0000

Hehe ;) I've reduced it now, sorry about that ;)

Re: A 50 Ways Mashup between Chris Brogan and Jeremiah Owyang

Jeremiah Owyang — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 09:13:08 -0000

Thanks for this, but wow, you can make my pic a lot smaller! You'll scare readers away!

Re: Morphic resonance, IP infringement and how to build a web app in four days…!

Mario Olckers — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 01:15:59 -0000

Hi Scott, thanks for that, yes I did see it and if you read my own post you will see I deliberately used the words morphic resonance to illustrate the fact that it was all just a big coincidence and ideas thoughts converging in some unknown quantum field we're not aware of ;)

But all in all I think the buzz generated for both Afrigator and Regator should translate into lotsa extra page views and maybe subscribers, no...?

I shall go and redo my post and maybe not use the words IP infringement since it is a bit strong ;)

Re: Morphic resonance, IP infringement and how to build a web app in four days…!

Scott Lockhart — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 23:57:44 -0000

Hi Mario!
I am not sure if you are aware but Justin Hartman over at afrigator has retracted what he said earlier about regator doing anything close to copyright infringement as our site is anything but identical to theirs, even by coincidence once they actually saw the site. You can see his post here. They seem to be nice guys and this was just a misunderstanding that snowballed.
You can see his post here: http://justinhartman.com/2008/07/04/regatorcom-...
Cheers!