I recently read an article by Chris Brogan about how he would do things if he had to start a new business from scratch. As an entrepreneur (and regular day dreamer) I really enjoyed reading that and it made me think about how we sometimes get stuck in a rut in day to day life. Follow the jump and find some tips on how to enjoy your job and life more!

continue reading "How to really enjoy your job"

I have searched all over the net and I can’t seem to find a simple software tool for converting Pastel Data into Quickbooks Accounting format. Surely this must exist somewhere?

Calling on all bloggers and friends that know anything about accounting software (what, you don’t like admin?) out there to let me know if there is such a product that actually works.

This will save myself and many out there countless hours of data capturing…

And for those of you who are looking for a niche product, I think we’re on to something here   Now lets see how much attention this bait gets…

Ok, so the Springleap compo’s all done and dusted. I hope that we get some well deserved exposure for making an effort Eric, be sure to send some link love back to me this side, hey

Springleap’s bound to have gotten some excellent exposure out of this.

All the best guys…

It can be understated or LOUD! Objects of art or comfort. Sexy enough to sleep with or merely fit for workouts. Vintage or new. It can be funny, punny or provocative. Something to team-build or conform, or shocking declarations going against the norm. Famously trademarked and branded, or an obscure, private joke. It can be gratuitous advertising. Or it can be declarations of love to places, or people, or odes to icons. You can have it blinged out or plain. Designer or no-name. It can be tie-dyed or leave you tongue-tied.

It has breached class systems and borders, gender and race, age and body types. Royalty, models, the poverty-stricken, the rich, the famous, infamous and unforgettable… even dogs have been seen with it. The oh-so-trendy-and-hip in-crowd has been caught alive in it… and yes, in fact… sometimes even dead.

When you’ve been there and done that, you normally say that you’ve got one. Chances are, you have. It is the one item that can be found in all wardrobes across the globe…

It is, of course, the humble t-shirt.

A South African e-commerce venture called SpringLeap is striving to take the simple garment to new, artistic heights.

Every month, SpringLeap invites anyone who thinks that they have a cool t-shirt design idea to submit it to the SpringLeap website. And really, they mean anyone. You don’t have to be a professional designer, artist, or trendy fashionista to enter. All wannabes are welcome too.

Like most of the greatest ideas in the world, the premise is simple. Designs are submitted to the site via an easy-to-use image uploading template. Visitors to the website then get to exercise their democratic right by voting on their favourites.

After a month of voting, the top 21 designs are picked, produced, printed, pimped and sold, not only at the SpringLeap site, but also at Big Blue (link to site) and eSquared Fashion, an über-cool clothing store co-owned by Eric Edelstein and Eran Eyal, the same guys who are the brains behind SpringLeap.

Apart from getting the great exposure of having one’s art and name showcased in a public domain, and the bragging rights of winning, the most popular designer also receives a R2 royalty on every t-shirt sold, while the 20 runners-up all receive a R1 royalty fee.

Eric and Eran dreamed up this latest venture as a way to discover and nurture new and existing design and art talent in South Africa: “On the one hand we have artists who desperately need to be empowered, earn cash and who deserve recognition for their work. On the other hand we have the vendors who want a really special product that they know will sell. What better way to promote designers, suppliers, South Africa as a whole and fulfil the needs of the economy, than to make everyone a winner.”

And they mean it. In a display of absolute marketing genius, SpringLeap has cleverly seduced the local blogging community into spreading the word about the t-shirt design contest with a Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) contest. Whichever blogger/copywriter manages to boot SpringLeap from their current number one Google search ranking, will receive R2,500 for knocking the site of its top spot. The author of the site that takes the number two spot will receive R1,000, and number three will receive R500. The judging will commence after the closing date, on 1 April 2008.

But if you’re not an artist or a blogger, you can still enter SpringLeap’s Karmic ‘Positivity’ contest. Everyone gets to submit a positive, uplifting message that the community then also votes on. (Yes, indeed. SpringLeap takes democracy seriously.) The positive message that rocks the most votes gets printed in the hem of each shirt and the winner receives a bunch of that month’s shirts.

Although the t-shirt design contest is open to the international community as well, the end products will be produced locally in order to keep it authentically and ‘Proudly South African’.

Unfortunately local doesn’t mean cheap. A SpringLeap t-shirt will retail online for a hefty R160 (excluding VAT and postage). But customers will get great quality in exchange for their hard-earned cash, because according to SpringLeap, all the fresh, winning designs will be printed on super-high, export grade, 165 gram South African combed cotton t-shirts, cut to SpringLeap’s specific slim cut pattern, and with the artist’s name and title of the creation printed on the back of the t-shirt.

With such fantastic exposure, fame is sure to follow suit… or shirt!

It seems that during this time of the year everyone is focussed on something else, other than work. Which is not entirely a bad thing. That brings the question to mind on what you’re actually doing here reading this blog when you can be out on the beach, catching up on some long anticipated sunshine?

All I can do is tell you to be more ‘social’ and enjoy the holidays. Hopefully you don’t pick up something ‘viral’ during this time, so look after yourselves. Forget about marketing mumbo jumbo, forget about those final deadlines that you have to complete before Christmas, life will go on in the new year… (Don’t we all wish it was that simple?)

2008 is going to be a great year for South Africa. Hopefully you’ve started working on some new year’s resolutions (for yourself and your business), so fire away and give me some!

We’re (www.peronii.co.za) employing again and are looking for a PHP programmer with minimum 2 years experience in Cape Town. I vibrant team worker that can handle deadlines and multi tasking.

Your skillset includes:

• (X)HTML
• PHP 4, 5
• MySQL
• Advanced Cross Browser CSS
• Photoshop
• SEO & Compliant coding

Skills that would help your cause:

• Flash / ActionScript
• E-Commerce Programming with Gateway Integration
• Advanced Email Handling (Python an advantage)
• Dreamweaver
• LAMP
• MVC methodology
• CakePHP
• Javascript/AJAX
• Knowledge of XML would also be beneficial

Salary Neg depending on experience. Contact info@peronii.co.za with your CV.

We have been featured on the Skills Portal (www.skillsportal.co.za). They have some interesting information about skills development and BEE in South Africa on their website.

Had some positive response on the interview with Scenius, a great tech culture blog started by the famous book publishing house. To quote them directly:  “Scenius stands for the intelligence and the intuition of a whole cultural scene. It is the communal form of the concept of the genius.” – Brian Eno. Read the full interview here.

Go out and buy the latest issue (July) of Intelligence Magazine (here in South Africa), I’ve been quoted on various SEO matters there. It’s great that we’re having this educational excersize at the moment! BTW, we got a mention in the BizCommunity newsletter/website. Make sure you’re subscribed!

I will be posting some interesting topics on Internet Marketing on this blog. There is a vast quantity of information out there, but quantity vs quality is always an issue with Internet Marketing, especially the SEO industry as it is so volatile.

My first advice is don’t believe everything that you read out there regarding SEO. Anything older than 6 months could already be outdated. Subscribe to my feed in the right hand column to receive up to date tips and information about what’s happening now!