The SA Blog Awards Friday last week was an interesting evening.
Heading for the Storm Joburg quarterly staff function and following Ryan’s emphatic directions to what I used to know as Randburg waterfront (ridiculous, but at least memorable name), now called something else (less memorable) I ended up at Zoo Lake. Thanks Ryan - wrong pond mate! Then, after spending the late afternoon attempting not to get wall-eyed as the down-down crew (names withheld pending blackmail payments) plied me with booze, I proceeded to get hopelessly & bladder-stretchingly lost somewhere in Fourways trying to find Cool Runnings. Capetonians navigating in Jozi… hopeless, even without someone running interference!
The evening was pretty casual, loud, a bit insular for a newcomer, but good to be there. Jon Cherry tried to attain some sort of order, the sound system contended with generally rowdy bar noise and its own feedback, the manic Joblog crew did their thing, and blogger type folk of all walks of life generally milled about, sharing yarns. Thanks to everyone who put effort into making this happen! The video can be found here.
It was great to put faces to names and in some cases to voices on the phone. Too little time and too much noise for much meaningful conversation apart from catching up with Henk from Skyrove. It was not funny to find that Tertia who won the Mac was back in Cape Town and I had to lug the damn thing back to the Mother City with me. C’est la vie – should have called Jon before should I not!?
Worthy winners in all categories I could say I was vaguely au fait with. Amusing to see the Joblog guys accepting the award for “most humorous post” on behalf of 2Oceansvibe – the irony was not missed. Mike Stopforth won the “tech” category – hey, well done Mike, and of course Tertia of “So Close” walked away with the “Best of the Best” – well done Tertia (you don’t really want this MacBook Pro, do you? I rather think it likes me ;)
With no idea what would be expected of me, I had jotted down a few words earlier in the day, just in case somebody demanded that of me. Fortunately, no one did, but for the hell of it, I’ll share them here:
“Today, Tim O’Reilly called for bloggers to come up with and adhere to a bloggers code of conduct. This follows the hullabaloo after prominent US blogger Kathy Sierra of Headrush received death threats from other bloggers. And now as it turns out, she is not the only one – others are claiming similar harassment. The FBI are involved. Bloggers vs FBI…wtf?!?
The blogosphere - an interesting place, especially to a Mafikizolo like me (a Johnny come lately). Twelve months ago I was aware of weblogs (those personal online diaries) but never read them; I had “better things to do”.
Bloggers I find (or those I’ve come across of late) seem to be a fairly
“tight-knit” community. The danger of elitism lurks, and although there is no open dissing of those who are not as “tech savvy” or "blog-sussed" as you, there is an aura, of needing a password and a secret handshake to fit in here. This is bollocks I hear offended bloggers mutter, as there is none! That is so, but that aura remains. Let’s face it, it is natural for camaraderie to raise some sort of delineation. And most of the people I know are approachable, friendly folk - it's the collective that seems unapproachable somehow.
In a poor area of the Cape Flats called Philippi, Storm are involved in a CSI project to uplift the community, primarily with support for people affected by Aids, but more specifically we’re providing Internet access to a community centre and stimulating entrepreneurship.
Only 10 to 20% of the people there know what the Internet is and to some degree what it does. Email is for them a marvel. And here we are grappling with online terrorism and cyber-bullying and debating how to (or not to) judge the SA blog awards.
Before next year, I’d like to see some clarity for myself on what we are rewarding, what are we encouraging, what we want to look back on in a few years time and say we helped create.
I’d like to challenge us all (and I give myself a well placed KITA here) to step out of our comfort zones, walk across the room, engage others of unlike mind and encourage the use of the so-called “web2.0” world to a build an open, inclusive, collaborative community who draw others in. I’d like to challenge you to share your knowledge and skills to encourage and uplift others. Ensure the aura of exclusivity is not reinforced.
Blogging is about communicating – it is a wonderful tool to enhance and stimulate conversations – we should wield it wisely. A bloggers code of conduct is not a bad idea – I’ll give some thought to what I’d want in there.
So from me, a Mafikizolo, I’ll leave you with this thought:
'Technology can never replace smart people who care'
(thank you Judy for that! :)”
That’s me. Out of my tree & off my soapbox.
Stumble It!
