Of Relevance

Pheww….this blog post has been a long time in the making.

You might not have noticed, but I have been very quiet lately. That is about to change.

There is nothing quite like taking (being forced to take?) eight months of “take it easy” due to health issues (and a new baby!), to reassess ones life and career. And trust me, I have been doing a lot of thinking, scheming, planning and …reassessing. So, there are a lot of changes afoot, and I thought I would jot some of them down here quickly.

1. I am moving to Joburg
This is mostly motivated by the fact that I had become really unhappy with my daughter’s school (I think I will do a blog post on this later), and I was looking for alternatives. I realised that I was also displeased with the whole education standard/process and that I need to move out of the system. So the kid is starting the American International School in August, which I am very excited about. The school is 7.5 km from Dainfern and the surrounds, so I will probably be moving there.

2. I am rather fed up with social media
I am still very, very much interested in the technology/start up scene, and am putting most of my focus there. I will still be available as a consultant or strategist to third parties, but I will be taking more of an assessment and advisory role (I really like Toby Shapshak’s title of “bullshit detector”!)

3. I am going to write. And then I am going to write some more.
I’ve always wanted to, but have never really followed through. So expect many many more posts on this blog, columns with Daily Maverick, Mail & Guardian’s Thought Leader and anyone else who will have me. Heather Ford and I promised each other we would write a book each, and I think our timeline for an outline was the end of this year, so I am in big trouble there.

4. The CrowdFund is ON.
And Geekspace is soon to follow. I was unable to do the project justice because of my health issues over the last 8 months, but I am ready to tackle both the projects now. So I will be posting updates shortly, and we should have our first startups in action by the end of the year.

5. BEE Bible is ON
My main money making focus for the next 12 months is going to be the BEEbible, which is a directory of BEE verified businesses in SOuth Africa. There really isn’t one out there, and if you know how BEE works, you will know that there really SHOULD be one.
So this is going to be taking up a lot of my time and energy, and I am really looking forward to getting very involved in this project.

6. Kids focused sites are ON
I am also going to be setting up a site to help divorcing parents do best by their kids. My boyfriend (Baby Zac’s father) has been going through the most acrimonious divorce possible since 2007 (you will, of course, know that I had nothing to do with the break up of the marriage) and I am horrified by the effects this has had on their two small kids. I have spoken to many psychologists and other professionals, and we are going to put together a website that will help parents navigate a separation in the most child-friendly manner possible.

I am also launching a little side website for fun ways to spend weekends with your kids. Now that we often have four (!) kids under our roof, entertaining them all is a challenge (although, to be fair, four kids really entertain each other). I am hoping to rope in other parents who blog to help me populate it with ideas and venues for weekend getaways.

7. Todays Deals etc
The Todays Deals (aggregator of most group buying deals in SAfrica) is published daily. Sign up to get via email if you haven’t done so already. I t beats having to wade through 15 individual emails from the group buying sites.

There are plenty of other things going on to, but I will write about them as they become more relevant. I will also be updating the design of this blog to be more “Tumblr” like, so that snippets of information can be posted and shared quickly.

Thanks for listening :-)

So Baby Aaron Zachary Blumenow has arrived! The little brat made an unexpected arrival on Feb 11. I woke up at about 4:30 am and realised that my bed was rather wet. For some reason that I cannot fathom now (denial?) it didn’t even occur to me that my water had broken. I just thought there was some “discharge”. It was only when I got up to go to the bathroom and water was pouring down my leg that I realised something wasn’t quite right. Did I jump in the car and shoot of tho the hospital? Nope…I opened up my laptop and Googled “Has my water broken?”. Suffice to say, Google said that it indeed had.

So, four/five weeks early, the baby arrived with no great drama, by c-section, and weighed a healthy 3.08kg. He’s still in the Neonatal unit, now slightly jaundiced, and I am still being monitored for the hemolytic anemia, but hopefully we’ll be united soon :-) I still haven’t held him, fed him, bathed him or done anything maternal other than incubate him for 8 months, but we’ll be making up for lost time soon :-)

This pic above is of him about an hour after birth. Isn’t he perfect? Usually babies look wrinkled and mangled, but Zac looks as if he arrived into this world in a limo. Except for the part where he pee’d all over himself and the doctor, probably with excitement :-)

The three siblings are quite enamored with the bambino, and have all given their approval. I am particularly glad that all 3 have dropped the “half” in half-brother, and have claimed full ownership. (The 3 are made up of my daughter, and Craig’s son and daughter). The next step is circumcision (ouch!) in case Zac decides to follow the Jewish religion (to which he is fully entitled since I come from a Jewish bloodline from my maternal side, and his father is Jewish). But we’re still celebrating Christmas! :-)

If all goes well, we should be going home on Tuesday/Wednesday. Either way, I hope our departure is coordinated to coincide, since I am so sick of traveling to and from the hospital. (In the last three months, I must have made at least 50 visits, and spent at least 25 full days here. So over that.)

Otherwise? I’d love to say I am all emotional and teary eyed at Zac’s arrival, but the truth is that I am simply taking it in stride. I can completely see me in him, and he’s definitely going to be my “little man”. We’re going to have some fun times. Micole is also in love with him, and has even forgiven him for “ruining” her birthday (which is today, and the party had to be cancelled).

The next obstacle is getting post-ready for his arrival! We’ve bought NOTHING yet, so thank goodness for gifts and hand me downs :-) Some fun shopping times ahead, including the nursery (and the entire new house in fact, but that’s another blog post!)

Right now, all I really want is a good, guilt-free coffee and chocolate, but in some great wisdom the hospital’s shops close at 5pm, even though visiting hours continue to 8pm. It makes as much sense as waking up a patient to give her a sleeping pill or a painkiller. And no, that’s not a myth. It *does* happen. Trust me.

So another school term began today, and I am not a happy camper.

I hate getting up unreasonably early, and I consider anything before 7:30 to be unreasonable. As things stand, I have to be out of bed at 6:45, and this is not to my liking at all. Not only is it cold and miserable, but by 3pm I am usually exhausted.

I wish schools started their day later. Say, 8:30 or so.

I read recently that pupils at schools in the US that started 30 minutes later had a remarkably increased level of concentration, because apparently that extra 30 or so minutes of sleep in the morning can make all the difference.

And while we are on the subject of school times, I think schools waste so much time that it boggles the mind. Now, I am not advocating that kids go to school and work, work, work straight through (although I am not actually sure why this is such a bad idea), but I think there should be much less of all this crap that is clothed as “school work”.

For example, my kid had to go back to school today, even though she watched the World Cup final yesterday. This is because the school need a certain school days in the year, and it couldn’t sacrifice the Monday. OK. So I considered not sending her, but in the end thought we should be slightly more responsible about it. So she went. And what did she do the whole day? She helped rearrange and clean the classroom. Well. Honestly. She has a whole room of her own she could help me clean.

And I could have slept in.

I have a lot of online accounts to 3rd party services. Some of them are irrelevant to me, and some not. Many of them have content that I have created, and that cannot be found anywhere else (such as this blog). When I die, and especially if my death is going to be unexpected, my family will have a hard time to access these services, should they wish to do so. That’s because I am not in the habit of writing down my passwords etc. They are simply stored in my head.

So I was intrigued to come across Legacy Locker. It’s an ingenious service. For a fee, my family will be given the logins and passwords to services, as stipulated by me. They will also receive a “last email”. There is a strict procedure for determining that I am really dead, so there is little chance of security breach.

The fee is quite hefty though, at $300 (or $30 annually, if you don’t think you have that long :-) )

In theory, I guess if my family had access to my principal email account, they could get access to all my other services, by simply requesting a new password, and receiving it via that email. But we have to remember that not everybody is as online savvy as you and me, and sometimes it is nice to have it delivered in black and white. Of course, I could also just type it all up and attach it to my will, for free. (I do after all, have to inform the Executor of the existence of my info with Legacy Locker). But I still believe that there will be people who are eager to signup for this service, and there will be scores of people who will be grateful for that foresight.

The price point is also interesting. In theory, since the service does not really store any serious files itself, the infrastructure cost is minimal. Yet the price is not. The founder could easily have priced this at $10 or $15 and probably still make a hefty profit. On the other hand, since this goes hand in hand with estate planning, one wants to know that the company is serious, and will stick it out for the long run (or at least longer than you). I wonder if we are slowly going to move away from the “Should it be free?” question to the very opposite side of “Should we charge a premium because it will enhance the perception of value ?”. Or if, in true web 2.0 style, there will be a plethora of copycats who are going to compete on price, and bring the price down to an almost free product?

So the Ideacamp that I am organising with Innovation Hub is going full steam ahead, and is on schedule for Monday.  The GIBS MBA students are attending, and we need about 15 online “techies” to participate as well.

If you have an idea for an online venture and need money to get it going, it is worth your while to attend this!

The event is on Monday, 2pm -5 pm at the Innovation Hub, Pretoria. Sign up here.

Here is a quick synopsis:

“The Innovation Hub, together with the University of Pretoria and Ideabank, will host the first Ideacamp for online entrepreneurs on the 3rd of November from 14h00 to 20h00 at The Innovation Hub in Pretoria. Do you have an idea for the next successful online application and only need to align yourself to a killer team consisting of marketing, business and “geek” brains to make it happen?

Then you cannot miss this opportunity! The Ideacamp has been established to help make your business idea a reality.This forum will address issues relevant to launching online applications with global potential. Topics of discussion will include:

* Innovation, revenue models, African potential
* Incubation, angel funding, venture funding, developing on a shoestring
* Choosing the best development platform for your application
* Creating the right strategy and putting together the best team

The second phase of the Ideacamp, dubbed Business Beat, helps structure teams that will compile a business plan and demo model of an online application with revenue potential. Each team will then present their concept to a number of pre-approved venture capitalists to contend for funding. The best three teams will be eligible for space into The Innovation Hub’s Business Incubator to fully develop their application.

Business Beat is scheduled for the beginning of 2009; it is a prerequisite that applicants interested in Business Beat attend the Ideacamp in November 2008.

Interested parties must sign up on http://ideacamp.pbwiki.com/Sign+Up+List or contact Eve Dmochowska at eved@ideabank.co.za or visit http://ideacamp.pbwiki.com for more information or to view the programme.”