Paul Jacobson

For those who don’t subscribe to the iCommons mailing list,Heather has just sent out the following email to the iCommons community:

Dear friends,

At the 2 August iCommons Board Meeting, the board decided to make some difficult but necessary changes at iCommons. It has become clear over the past months that our vision for iCommons is different from the Board’s and that it would make more sense to enable the current team to be able to implement our vision independently, while iCommons develops a lighter, federated structure that enables global membership while keeping core costs low.

During the next few months, we’ll be transferring keyp projects over to The African Commons Project in South Africa and handing over to the new iCommons staff that the board will appoint. The team that has been running iCommons in Johannesburg will also soon be announcing its plans for the coming year, which includes, among other things, an iSummit in South Africa in October, 2009.

We’re very sad to be saying goodbye to the organisation that we’ve all worked so hard to build over the past two and a half years, and we hope that the new iCommons and the new African Commons Project – along with Creative Commons – will find clearer ways of collaborating with one another in the future for the greater good of the global commons.

Best wishes,

Heather.

This announcement is pretty significant because it means that the iCommons community will see quite a significant change occurring at iCommons in the coming months as the current team moves from iCommons to the African Commons Project to continue and initiate what will surely be innovative and fascinating projects.

At the same time iCommons itself will move in a different direction as a sort of community development organisation for the benefit of the broader Commons-based community.

Both shifts are pretty exciting and although my time at iCommons comes to an end at the end of this month, I am looking forward to seeing how the team continues to grow and innovate in the African Commons Project and how iCommons shifts its emphasis to make a greater contribution towards community building overall. I have been privileged to have the opportunity to work and interact with Heather, Kerryn, Daniela, Rebecca, Rosanne, Hettie, Anna, Stephanie, James and Raj on one hand and with the iCommons board, in particular Ronaldo Lemos, Lawrence Lessig, Joi Ito, Catharina Maracke, Paul Keller, Tomislav Medak and Jimmy Wales (unfortunately I didn’t have an opportunity to interact all that much with Laurence Liang and Jonathan Zittrain during my short time at iCommons) on the other hand.

The bottom line for anyone involved in the broader community or interested in the community’s work is simple: watch the space!

Technorati Tags:
icommons, african commons project, heather ford, changes, strategy, announcement

I am really excited to share the news that FNB has just launched Shine 2010:

Shine 2010, an online social networking platform which offers a place for South Africans to congregate, learn and communicate in the run-up to the 2010 FIFA World Cup^TM.

Shine 2010 will serve as the first port of call for 2010 good news, offering insights into the critical infrastructure projects and serving as an outlet for the positive stories that aren’t currently being told.

Apart from providing news and feature articles, Shine 2010 leverages the power of online media to offer interactive and engaging content. This approach ensures that the community can consume the good news according to their own preferences. These include a blog, regular podcast interviews, a Facebook group, a YouTube channel and the FNB Roving Reporters interviews. The FNB Roving Reporters – a first for a South African corporate – will serve as citizen reporters, hitting the streets to source video interviews with key influencers, whilst also polling public perception ahead of 2010.

Shine 2010 is yet another one of FNB’s digital initiatives and follows the launch of FNBTV in early June 2008. Furthermore, the bank continues to engage in social media with MXit and FNB Facebook employee groups.

I had the fantastic opportunity to work with FNB’s PR people, specifically Casey Monteiro at Fleishman-Hillard, on the legal side of this project over the last 2 weeks or so. The terms and conditions will feature Creative Commons licenses for content published on the site that FNB’s people produce (an aspect which I am pretty excited about) as well as some pretty interesting tie-ins with a variety of social media platforms including Flickr (the images are licensed under a Creative Commons NonCommercial ShareAlike license), YouTube and del.icio.us. There is already a lot of content available which you can share. I understand there is also going to be a Facebook application so look out for that! Oh, don’t forget to get the code for the countdown clock on the site too (top right):

Visitors to the site will find positive news about South Africa and the upcoming World Cup in news articles, blog posts and even a podcast. It is really good to see a major corporate in SA like FNB launching an initiative like this. Sites like Shine 2010 and SA Rocks go quite some way to balancing out the often overwhelmingly negative news that sells newspapers. I am privileged to have had an opportunity to work with Casey and FNB on this project and contribute in my small way.

Technorati Tags:
creative commons, del.icio.us, flickr, youtube, shine 2010, fnb, fleishman-Hillard, fifa world cup, world cup, soccer

I just read a newsletter my financial advisor sent me to read. It is a JP Landman Political Comment news letter published by B.O.E for its private clients titled “Is the bad mood justified?” and I think it is worth reading because it presents another, arguably more realistic, perspective on South Africa and where we are heading.

The newsletter basically sets out a number of facts that show how the negative view of South Africa by many South Africans (typically whites, of whom only 31% were optimistic about South Africa in February 2008 compared to a national average of 60%) has little basis in fact and has perhaps been cultivated by skewed media coverage of certain issues. For example, I remember how there was media buzz about R4 billion worth of budgeted expenditure that went unspent recently. It turns out that this R4 billion was the unspent balance after R124 billion was already spent on capital expenditure in this country. It represents 3% of the total capex budget of R128 billion.

There are a couple points made which appeal to me:

• “Things were not as clean as some whites’ memories tell them.”
• “Progress does not come from having no challenges; rather it comes from responding successfully to challenges.”
• “In the late nineties SA had a low growth crisis; a 1% economy that looked as if it could not break through a 3% growth ceiling. And now growth is sufficient to lift per capita incomes quicker than Australia, Brazil, Germany, France, Italy, the UK and US. The country responded successfully to the challenge of low growth.”

… and the best was kept for last …

“All that remains now is to put one foot in front of the other, carry on and expect a lot of messiness. Sometimes I think it is our inability to live with messiness that paralyses us. If Whites can make this paradigm shift their mood might not be so bleak. More importantly, they can capitalise on the opportunities. “

So, yes, lots of messiness but none of this seems to justify the negative so many of us have of South Africa. There are still god things ahead if all goes well (yes, there is always an “if”) and perhaps there will be a lot more (white) people who also think that SA rocks in the not to distant future.

(Image: Views of Tidal pool on Rooi Els Coastal Road, South Africa by DanieVDM published under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license)

P.S. It would be really handy if B.O.E would publish these newsletters with an RSS feed … come on, share with the plebs!

Technorati Tags:
eskom, perspective, policy, politicians, south africa, jp landman political comment, facts, economic growth

Here is a presentation Heather Ford, iCommons’ Executive Director, has posted to SlideShare.

| View | Upload your own

I really should use SlideShare myself …

Technorati Tags:
icommons, isummit, isummit ‘08, heather ford

I am a little slow this week.  Mike posted an appeal to bloggers a couple days ago to support Richard Mulvey’s bid to raise R100 000 for the Reach for a Dream Foundation through his expedition to climb Mt Kilimanjaro.  The awesome Missing Link and Jo’blog people put this video together about Richard’s plan:

You can keep track of Richard’s, his wife’s, Sheila, and friend’s, John van der Horst, plans to climb Mt Kilimanjaro on their blog.  If you have the means, be sure to pledge a donation.  You can find the pledge form here.  As I write this Richard has managed to raise about R34 000.  None of the money raised will go towards the climb.  It is all going to Reach for a Dream.

Thanks to Mike for publicising this and spreading the word.

Tags: richard mulvey, kilimanjaro, climb, reach for a dream foundation, reach for a dream, fundraising, charity

My wife and I had breakfast at the Mugg & Bean in Killarney on Sunday.  We overheard an anti-semitic comment from someone we thought was a Mugg & Bean person and I published a blog post about it on my personal blog which I have subsequently updated for reasons that will become clear when you read the post.  I am impressed with Mugg & Bean’s management and how they dealt with this complaint.  If anything, that is a good reason to visit not just this Mugg & Bean, but your local one too.

A couple people wanted to comment on the post but are not members of Vox so feel free to comment here.  As always, I recommend that you post something about this yourself.  We are so used to talking about companies that don’t even listen and this is a good example of a company that listens and does something about it.  That is something worth talking about.

Technorati Tags: customers, mugg & bean, listening to customers, customer service

iCommons is running an event on 23 September at the Rosebank Mall called iHeritage:

Welcome to iCommons’ iHeritage project. Thanks for stopping by.

As part of the celebrations around Heritage Day in September 2007, iCommons has just launched a project called iHeritage. The aim is simple – to build an online repository of South African culture and heritage – as lived in the day-to-day lives of ordinary South Africans, to be added to the growing collection of indigenous content on Wikimedia Commons.

Why are your putting the content on Wikimedia Commons?
Wikimedia Commons is a repository of free content images, sound and other media files. It’s a sister-project to Wikipedia, which is fast becoming the first place people go to find out about stuff. We like to think of material on Wikimedia Commons as the illustrations for Wikipedia articles. We like the idea that anyone looking up South Africa on Wikipedia will be able to see and hear and watch the material that will come out of this project.
We also wanted to put the content somewhere free and easy to find, so that learners and teachers will have easy access. And, quite frankly, we couldn’t think of better place to put the wonderful images and sounds of South Africa.

Sounds like the best project ever. How do I get involved?
We want your memories. School photos, old posters, interviews with your granny, holiday snaps, wedding pictures, memories of old Joburg, bus tickets, old band demos – all those bits and pieces that lie around at the bottom of your drawers, that you can’t quite bring yourself to throw away. We’re giving you the chance to put them online, where they will be stored forever on the Internet, the biggest desk-drawer in the world. As long as it can be digitised, and uploaded, we want it.

You can upload your content to either Wikimedia Commons, or, if you want, to Flickr. Either way, you’ll need to categorise or tag your contribution with the following tags: iHeritage and South Africa. That way, people will be able to find your contribution easily. You can use other tags as well (describing the places, people and events in your photo/audio/video) but those two are the most important. For a very helpful how to, have a look at Wikimedia Commons’ “Perfect upload” page.

Right, I’ve loaded it up. But I’m no fool. What about the licence?
Can’t get anything past you, can we? You’re right, you need to think about how you want to licence your contribution. if you’re loading it onto Wikimedia Commons, your work will need to be licensed under either: Creative Commons Attribution; Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike or a GFDL licence, or it must be in the Public Domain.
If you are loading your content onto Flickr, you will also need to choose from the range of possible licences that Flickr supports.

Well, this was fun and all. But I’m lonely.
Have no fear, cultural warrior… you’re not the only person loading content into this wonderful repository. The iCommons team, and some devoted volunteers will be having a content sprint on the 23rd of September, in Johannesburg, South Africa. We’ll be camped out at the Mall in Rosebank, collecting content, translating it into the 11 official languages of South Africa and uploading it. So come by. M&A will be offering a 10% discount to anyone with a ‘I’ve been scanned’ sticker – so come and have coffee with us!
You guys are amazing!
Thanks. We like you too. If you have any questions, suggestions or huge amounts of cash for us, drop us an email: iheritage@icommons.org

Sponsors

Special thanks to the following iHeritage sponsors:

One of the ideas behind the event is to spark an ongoing effort to preserve our growing heritage for future generations by participating in this initiative. There are a few simple things you can do if you would like to add your photos or other content to this heritage database. The first thing is to license the content you are willing to share using a Creative Commons license. Consider using the Creative Commons Attribution or Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike licenses which will enable iCommons to include your content into the database directly (I do suggest you read up on these licenses before you apply them because they do enable other people to use your content in certain ways). The next thing you can do is start tagging that content you want to share with the tags “iheritage” and “southafrica” (some services won’t allow “south africa” with a space between the words but you can always try both). As the project develops further, content will be aggregated using these tags as well as the services the content may be uploaded to.

If you are a blogger and you are keen to support this initiative, place the “I’ve been scanned” button on your blog with a link back to the iHeritage page and perhaps even publish a post about it yourself. If you are a Jaiku user, you are invited to post updates about your experiences of the event and your uploads to the iHeritage channel on Jaiku. To post to the channel post your messages using the following format:

From any Jaiku interface you can post to a channel by prefixing your message with the channelname.
Example:
#iheritage Hello everyone!

If you are not a Jaiku user, you can sign up for free at jaiku.com and I believe you can also sign up using your mobile phone by going to m.jaiku.com. You can also participate by sms by sending an sms using the format “#iheritage Hello everyone!” (without the quotation marks) to +467374940501 (this is an international number so sms’s sent here will cost more than normal). If you are not a Jaiku user and you send an sms to the channel using this number Jaiku will respond with instructions to set up an anonymous account.

The plan is to also project the Jaiku channel and screenshots of the upload process on a screen on the day. I am a big fan of Jaiku and I use the Jaiku Mobile application for Nokia Series 60 devices which you can find here. It makes posting to Jaiku incredibly convenient and easy.

Disclosure: I am a fellow at iCommons and I have been part of the planning for this event so of course I support it! You will find me there on the day helping people with the licenses and having their content uploaded. I’ll also be posting frequently to Jaiku!

Technorati Tags:
iheritage, icommons, jaiku, wikimedia commons, flickr, creative commons