Tag Archives: Wesz Madz
Are Bloggers Journalists?
The fact that you blog, are you a Journalist? The question that we argued over lunch at #ITWebSocial Summit 2013 with @BontleMoeng , @lilly_tech and @TkaySA and I promised them I would post a blog post.
Let’s start with definitions (my favourite way in any argument)
Blogger – a person who keeps and updates a blog.
Journalist – A person who writes for newspapers or magazines or prepares news to be broadcast on radio or television.
So by definition, the fact that WeszMadz blogs doesn’t make me a Journalist but just a person who keeps and updates a blog. (I LIKE)
But what is a blog?
A Blog – A Web site on which an individual or group of users record opinions, information, etc. on a regular basis.
WeszMadz Top Tweets from #ITWebSocial
A selection of the Tweets I found interesting from the ITWeb Social Media Summit 2013
Mo – Ya’eesh @Mo_Yaeesh You know you’re a geek at a geek event when no ones talking to eachother and everyone is frantically typing away #ITWebSocial
@marshyp16m: Thanx to @WeszMadz and @tallulahlucy for the Social Media Summit tweets yol got me glued to my timeline #ITWebSocial
@ITWeb #ITWebSocial “Don’t let your customers have more technology than you – otherwise they’ll beat you up with it.” – @ryanhogarth
@DavidGrahamSA @weszmadz . . . and make the investment to learn, understand and master all the functions and features offered by LinkedIn #ITWebSocial
@Mo_Yaeesh Jeez these Microsoft dudes could bring about world peace with a simple presentation.. Hide your women #ITWebSocial
@Jeanine_F Except that I am freaking out & going through my feed with a fine tooth comb, @mngomezulu_n ‘s talk on SM law was amazing
@TkaySA “When great minds come together, anything is possible…” Thank you #itwebsocial
@WeszMadz Putting Social Icons on Your Website is NOT a Social Media Strategy #ITWebSocial
@WeszMadz Use CRM and social together to maximize revenue #ITWebSocial
@WeszMadz Social is not a destination! It is a capability that provides a transportation service #ITWebSocial
@WeszMadz Get Mobile! #ITWebSocial almost every speaker is saying Go Mobile! Be Mobile!
@WeszMadz Use Hashtags to be found #ITWebSocial
@WeszMadz Social Media Landscape is changing everyday. Change your strategy on a regular basis #ITWebSocial
@WeszMadz Companies are blocking Social Media access at work but they have follow us icons on their websites #ITWebSocial
@tallulahlucy: So in other words I’d better never say anything dodgy because I’m totally associated with my company #ITWebSocial
@WeszMadz Don’t bring your employer into disrepute as a result of your comments on Social Media #ITWebSocial it can be used in your disciplinary
@WeszMadz You may publish something that’s defamatory as long as you can back it up. fair comment #ITWebSocial
@WeszMadz You have the right to privacy but is your expectation of that privacy reasonable #ITWebSocial
@WeszMadz No platform will be a success if there is no strategy #ITWebSocial we have different platforms for a reason.
@liamarus Don’t cut and paste one post across all social media platforms #hrpulse #ITWebsocial
@WeszMadz Data is a pain point, we are the 12th most expensive Internet in the world! #ThankYouTelkom #ITWebSocial
@WeszMadz There is no space for B2B on Mxit, they are no deals! It’s about search then you sorted, it’s about B2C on Mxit #itwebsocial
@Mo_Yaeesh: I think there should be a day dedicated purely to Social Media Law – Very insightful #itwebsocial”
@jonmetricas @RichSimmondsZA @WeszMadz @jamaaludeen most popular users at #ITWebSocial http://twtb.in/2F7E13uhze8 via @TweetBinder
According to TweetBinder.com #ITWebSocial. WeszMadz was the Most Active User and the Most Original Tweets Generated. Oh Yes! I also won a R1000 Kalahari.com Voucher!! What a fruitful day. Thank You ITWeb!
The Re-Invention of Everything – Future of SA Recruitment Industry
I attended a workshop organised by APSO and presented by Greg Savage all the way from Australia and on one of the slides Greg had a topic “The Re-Invention of Everything – Future of SA Recruitment” and that inspired this post. With your permission Greg I will take some snippets of the words you used in this post.
My previous post quotes Greg’s buddy answering the question, When will the market recover by saying “You know, maybe it has recovered. Maybe this is the new-normal. Maybe, the way it is now, is just… as good as it gets.”
Having said that, what is the Future of the Recruitment Industry in SA? Should we really re-invent everything?
Legislation
At the time of going to press these are the laws that are being chopped/changed/added/substracted/withdrawn that affect our industry
- Basic Conditions of Employment Act
- Labour Relations Act
- Employment Equity Act
- Employment Services Bill
- UIF Bill
- COID
- Immigration Act
Definately our future needs re-invention as some of these are definately going to change the way we do things, perhaps we are going to do the same things but differently.
Reminds me of what my GM said, what did the mice do when the cheese was moved? There is a book by Spence Johnson called Who Moved My Cheese? and there is a character called Hem. Hem denies and resists change as he fears it will lead to something worse? Are you being a Hem? Do you know the changes to the above Laws? or you are like Haw who learns to adapt in time when he sees changing leads to something better.
Whatever parts of us we choose to use, we all share something in common, a need to find our way in the maze and succeed in changing times to get our cheese back! “Who moved my cheese?” “Its not fair!”
Anyway back to Greg Savage
Leadership
“Manager” is what you have on your business card. “Leadership” is how you influence attitude and behaviour. Greg encourages leaders to set the tone, always and he refers to a situation where, if a plane is going through some serious turbulence and the pilot say its okay its all normal but in a shaky voice, you can imagine the reaction of the passengers. What’s your tone in times of hardships, tricky situations with your team?
Your future as a leader is to master the art of getting things done through other people by balancing between doing and delegating. Hire people that are more skilled than you and don’t hire someone who is like you! Bottom line – Build A Team that Enhances your Productivity
Social Recruiting
Do you remember Kodak? Do you know Canon? What is Instagram? Is your business still in Kodak days or Canon Days or Instagram days? Are you not a dinosaur that is going bye bye? Is your business a cassette player or walk-man or an iPod or iTunes? Old ways are becoming extinct… oooops YOU TOO! if you don’t wake up and smell the coffee.
What am I saying! 
Greg SAYS! Job boards are not the threat to the recruitment industry. LINKEDIN is!
Clients want to replace the recruitment industry with Social Media. That’s where your extinction process commences. South Africa’s Corporate world is far ahead on Social Media than most of the Recruitment Companies. What are you doing about the fact that your client is more advanced on Social Media than you? How relevant will you be to them? Is your value still the same?
Don’t get me wrong, you still need the usual processes such as interviewing but it will be Skype interviews. Are you geared up? What world does your candidate live in? Picture this, candidate walks in with iPad and wants to run a Prezi Viewer presentation of his CV to you. How would you handle that?
How social is your website? Do you have a mobi site or is your website mobile friendly? This is Mobile Recruiting – a topic for another day. @ksgsakyi Tweeted- At least 40% of mobile internet users in South Africa, India and Indonesia, never/infrequently, use a desktop computer to go online. Do you have a presence on the mobile scene for candidates to apply for jobs?
Toby Shapshak wrote:
The youth of today sniggers at using e-mail, for instance; smartphones have effectively replaced desktop computers and are most people’s primary device. We’re all going mobile. Innovation occurs because of necessity. The refinement of existing techniques is all good and well, but where would the world be if Henry Ford devoted himself to making a more comfortable horse-drawn buggy?
RE-INVENT YOUR WHOLE BUSINESS
Call in your whole team for a session and ask them one question “Team we need to re-invent this business, what should we do” Tell them Wesley said I must ask you.
Durban Sun Rise
Beautiful View of the Sunrise in Durban, July 2012
44years later, Snow touches down in Pretoria August 2012
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGoK0wn4wrE&feature=plcp]
Video – Mandela’s Socialnomics
The #MandelaStory
Would our nation’s father, Nelson Mandela have spent 27 years in prison if he had access to the same technology, social media platforms, instant sharing apps and global monitoring tools as we do today? Watch the video to find out.
Produced by PrezenceDigital
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXvuRFby8cc]
Post Conference: Using Social Media to Recruit and Brand 2012
This is the post conference posting to the previous post. It was a two day conference and I only attended Day one so the quick summary below is only for Day one and from 5 speakers
Great Line up of speakers and great delegates.
12 points From the Conference
- Social media is the top mobile media activities among mobile web users in South Africa
- 57% of tweets from Africa are sent from mobile devices (Cool Tech iafrica.com Jan 2012)
- 70% of Social Media in South Africa is being accessed from a mobile phone…(Google SA, 2011)
- Support of mobile is critical to success of your social media strategy
- First step when contemplating a social media strategy is LISTEN!
- “Twitter is to Facebook as Email Newsletter was to a website” Candice Goodman
- Use Twitter as a messaging platform to generate traffic to your sites like Facebook or mobisite
- Because most social media is accessed from a mobile phone, then give them a mobile friendly site to go to!
- Companies are no longer exclusively in control of their brand messages
- Consumers controls how your brands are being perceived online.Use everyone and everything to promote your organisation on the Social SpaceMake it a standard practise to have all level of management on professional social networks like LinkedIn
- Do you consistently communicate your Brand across all Candidate and Employee Social Media channels?
- Have three core messages that you repeat across your networks
From Twitter #SMB2012
Candice Goodman @candicegoodman – @jamiefrank87 from #SuperSport kicks off Social Media Branding #SMB2012 with video from ChatterBoxDigital http://youtu.be/ixgE8Ay99eE
“@candicegoodman: @WeszMadz #FutureofMedia And u showed us today the value of social media by #WesleysRules! #smb2012”
@candicegoodman: @ExpressCent “@WeszMadz wasn’t just great, but true brilliance. We were privileged. 2 here him speak” #SMB2012”
Candice Goodman @candicegoodman – @GarethMcGuire really njoyed your presi at Social Media Branding #SMB2012, especially your #Breed Process!
Mike Said @mike_said_what – #smb2012 Delivering a talk on The Prevention & Handling of a Social Media Crisis. Using #Prezi for the first time. Will post link later
The Legal Retirement Age
I got a call last week and I was asked this question. What is the legal retirement age in South Africa?
A quick Google Search gave me these two comments
1. Bowman and Gilfillan say
Section 187 of the Labour Relations Act renders discriminatory dismissals based on grounds such as race, sex, gender, religion and age automatically unfair. This is in line with the general prohibition of unfair discrimination on these and other grounds contained in the Constitution and the Employment Equity Act. However, where age is concerned, the Labour Relations Act makes an important exception, namely that an employer may retire its employees when they have reached the “agreed” or “normal” retirement age. Once the employee has reached this age, the employment relationship terminates and this does not constitute a dismissal for purposes of the Labour Relations Act, nor is it automatically unfair.
Contrary to popular belief, there is no general retirement age in South Africa. Employers and employees are therefore free to agree at which age the employees will retire. This agreement is normally found in the employee’s employment contract, or may, in special circumstances, be determined with reference to the rules of the retirement fund to which the employee belongs.
2. ENS – Edward Nathan Sonnenbergs say
Employers in South Africa continue to be troubled and to make mistakes about retirement. This is clear from the number of cases that come before the Labour Court. The Labour Relations Act says that a dismissal based on age is not unfair if the employee has reached the agreed or normal retirement age. However, employers frequently forget that what is ‘normal’ must be proved, and that for there to be an agreed retirement age, both parties must agree to it. Employers cannot simply declare a particular age to be the retirement age and think that this will automatically apply to all existing employees regardless of how long they have been employed for and what age they currently are.
WeszMadz says – So bottom line, There is no retirement age in South Africa. Unless agreed upon prior with the employee then it might be seen/taken as unfair dismissal or unfair discrimination.
WeszMadz Blog selected as Blogger of the day 14 June 2012
On the 14th of June 2012 PaperBlog selected WeszMadz as their blogger of the day! Yeah! Thanks PaperBlog! Am Thrilled!
But who or what is PaperBlog?
What is Paperblog? Paperblog helps you find quality articles from the blogosphere, providing a participatory media site where talented experts and enthusiasts can share their knowledge and experience. The best and most relevant articles are not easy to find amongst all the blogs online. Paperblog identified the need to find the best blogs around, offering quality articles to a growing readership.In the first trimester of 2011, Paperblog International received 10 million regular visitors from throughout the world
Here is a snapshot of the day I was blogger of the day from the PaperBlog Site! 🙂 🙂 🙂
See my blog on PaperBlog here http://en.paperblog.com/users/weszmadz/
Are you a blogger? You can submit your blog on PaperBlog as well.
