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A couple of weeks ago, I was invited to take part in a writing project, organised by Darren Gorton. His plan was to bring 13 of South Africa’s most passionate bloggers together and have them each contribute a chapter to an online book / series. The theme “a piece of significance” was centred around the role of technology and a technologists’ life in a positive South Africa.

The project has been a fantastic success, and it’s truly moving to see how quickly 13 people got motivated enough to write full opinion pieces on positive elements of our country. It’s not good enough to just have SA Good News and SA Rocks. Right behind them, stands SA Sucks (I’m giving the link out of principle!), and hordes of people that feel a Zimbabwe situation is but a hop, skip and a Zuma away. We need a positive mobilisation on a much greater scale.

In the end, the true power for me lies in our ability as web citizens to use the speed, power and viral nature of our medium to tell the good stories. Shout them out. The world is listening.

TechLeader readers… please enjoy the 13 chapters of The SA Blook: A Piece of Significance. Your feedback and dissemination of these works would be greatly appreciated!

Introduction
1. The new South Africa - is it real?
2. Is SA rich or poor?
3. What the world thinks of South Africa and what our global opportunities are
4. The importance of each individual’s contribution collectively
5. SA Inc and the business of doing business in SA
6. The beauty and grandeur that surrounds us
7. The importance of technology in SA’s global emergence
8. Building brand South Africa
9. Making the most of SA’s creative talents and abilities
10. Innovate for a better South Africa
11. The role of the younger generation in SA, and what we need to do to support them
12. Connecting South Africa - Communities that transcend technology
13. We are African - the role of collaboration in South Africa’s growth




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5 Responses to “SA’s first online book - A Piece of Significance”

Excellent stuff :) I’m definitely blogging about this initiative. andy , please keep me updated should any further projects come up , I’d love to get involved in any way :)

(Report abuse)

Muhammad on June 6th, 2008 at 1:44 pm

[…] Andy Hadfield at Techleader at posted about an on-line collaboration between some of South Africa’s best bloggers in order to create a book which glorifies this great country we live in, A Piece of Significance.The content of the book is a positive viewpoint on South Africa, amidst the many sad tales and general negativity about the country. […]

(Report abuse)


Will do Muhammad… Suggest contacting Darren Gorton - but I’ll definitely keep you in the loop. The project hits an interesting phase now - if it’s good (which we think it is) - what do we do with it? Go hard copy, move it around the internet - we’re not sure.

Like any good community intiative, we’re relying on the community to point us in the right direction…

(Report abuse)

Andy Hadfield on June 6th, 2008 at 3:08 pm

I believe I owe Tertia (from So Close fame) an apology - there’s a rumour floating around that SHE actually had something to do with the FIRST online book in SA. Much humble apologies. We’ll gladly take second place. :)

(Report abuse)

Andy Hadfield on June 10th, 2008 at 8:44 pm

[…] also want to thank Andy for posting about the blook on Techleader [and also on mygenius], and Mandy, who wrote a quick biography of the various authors just prior to […]

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The SA Blook - in retrospect | OutThink on July 5th, 2008 at 3:59 pm

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Andy Hadfield is a digital guy from South Africa. He runs a bunch of online and mobile stuff for a bank, consults a bit, speaks a tad, drinks wine and proudly represents Johannesburg's greatest 20/20 cricket side - The Fine Legs.
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