Nokia's Teach the Technophobe: Eight brave Nokia fans have signed up to help some close friends and family join the messaging generation using the E75. Their technophobes will negotiate various hurdles and challenges. The one who finishes this traini...
I've been victim (stupidity or entrapment, I'm not sure yet) to a couple of mobile subscription services recently. Browsing any old half-decent mobile site only to be hit with a 5 euro/month charge that apparently I opted into once downloading the co...
It's been a long time coming in this country, and another proud move towards a true virtual community.
Today, FNB launched How Can We Help You, a niche social network centred on financial content. And I'd like to think we really are first to marke...
I've been catching up on my RSS feeds lately. A new thing for me. It has actually been a fairly disappointing experience. Well over half my RSS feeds are truncated, forcing you to click through to a site. I tend to browse most of my feeds using Googl...
The race to own the social profile
Companies, brands and start-ups are waking up to the fact that there's a really easy way to disintermediate service providers. Own the social profile, not the mother brand. Look what Mint.com is doing in the US f...
I've often commented on the vacuous nature of social media. Echo chambers and shallow content -- its like "small talk" on a volume never before experienced. Why, just yesterday a friend of mine and I did a little experiment to attract attention on Fa...
I've often spoken to clients, colleagues and conferences about the "rule of thumb" in terms of community engagement. This could be engagement in a social network, a community content portal or an enterprise venture. It's a little Jack Walshian in its...
South Africa is abuzz with tales of "controversial social networking platform" Facebook and the group "Ek laaik nie n houtkop nie sou what".
Ok. So, people, catch a wake up. This is social media. We've taken a soapbox, amplified the volume an...
This is a theory I'm hatching ... Would appreciate some feedback. The premise: trying to look forward and predict what will happen in the adoption cycle of social media. It is, of course, only when we look forward, that we can invent truly differenti...
I found this interesting -- yet another example of social media being considered a viable facet of a marketing strategy.
Lenovo has sponsored this portal for athlete bloggers at the Olympics.
The site is well designed. Lots of bloggers wri...
Andy Hadfield is a digital native (can’t remember life without the Internet) and is fascinated with the impact it is having on our lives and businesses. An entertaining and compelling personality, Andy speaks with authority and insight about the new shape of life, work and play in the digital world.
Importantly though, he’s not a “techie”! Andy understands the hard realities of business, and delivers pragmatic, realistic lessons from the future, which every business will find valuable. His intensive front-line experience underpins these viewpoints.
He has played in every corner of the digital industry, launching his first startup at age 19 - getALife (gAL) was a social network before the word was even invented. The site was a political and community mouthpiece for South African students between 1997 and 2005 and was covered on every major media platform, including Time Magazine. It also has the dubious honour of being sued by Robert Mugabe.
He then spent the next 7 years honing his strategic skills across a range of industries, including finance, professional services, construction and media. With The Virtual Works, this included building the digital platform that underpins “The Deloitte Way”, a real time strategic assessment, staff engagement and reward programme. He was also involved in creating Africa’s first monetised niche social network (www.designmind.co.za) which drives communication and collaboration across the construction industry.
At First National Bank, Andy helped develop a team to manage digital strategy across the consumer banking segment. This included projects such as corporate crowdsourcing, the bank's first official FaceBook presence, a major overhaul of www.fnb.co.za and a world-class “Amazon-style” online sales system for financial products.
Since 2010, he founded and operates www.OneBigWidget.com, a boutique strategic consultancy and stable of pioneering digital projects. You can find him on www.andyhadfield.com or tweeting his love for cricket, wine and the new style of business on www.twitter.com/andyhadfield.
