snowgoose

My drinking buddy Zahira (a.k.a @zk) is the Momma of this week’s victim. (I say drinking buddy cos she doesn’t drink, so she gives her free drinks at 27Dinner to me!). I haven’t met Kay “in real life” yet, but after reading about her, I sure want to.

So without further ado, I present you Kay – a Hatchling that’s out of this world!

Real name (or “Earth name” if you come from the planet Zigort):
erm… my passport says Khadija Patel but I think the goons manning the immigration desk up on the Earth-Moon border, meddled with that.

Where do you live? (Besides the 5th solar system, down the lane from the Xreton star):
Joburg/Jozi/Johannesburg, nestled behind electric fence, a boom gate and sluggish security guards, somewhere between the mine dumps (there was a time I thought they were mountains) and the FNB stadium.

Twitter URL:
http://twitter.com/kayenchante

Blog/website URL:
http://kayenchantey.blogspot.com

Tell us a bit about yourself. Include something that we dont know, like when did you land on earth or are you related to Kevin Bacon?
I speak copious amounts of Pig Latin and am quite fluent in Garbeledygoo. I offer lessons if anyone’s interested…. Oh and I intend earning my Nobel peace prize by giving sign writers the world over free lessons in the use of the apostrophe.

When & how did you get interested in the Social Media community in South Africa (Facebook doesnt count)?
I started blogging on a lonely December night a couple of years ago, quite convinced that if I set up a blog and wrote a few lines the internet Gods would send adulatory readers my way. Hélas, my faith in the net Gods waned and so too my blogging activity. Then a friend started blogging and wondered aloud why I didn’t start one as well, I explained my love’s labour’s lost affair with the deities of the web and decided I would contribute to her blog instead. And then quite miraculously within that hour I received an email from a Ugandan sub-editor saying he quite liked my blog and politely asked why I hadn’t continued blogging. It was sign from above enough.

That I’m a Twitter addict I blame @zk. I first met her at a blog meet and then at a talk shop held by some previously grand empire nation and well Twitter should have her on their payroll, she extols the virtues of social media so enthusiastically, it’s rather infectious after a couple of sessions. Although, she’s quite adamant I’m now worse of an addict than her, I’ll give her the credit for that dubious honour.

What do you do when you are not tweeting/blogging (or abducting earthlings to probe)?
I used to quite enjoy doing nothing but blog and pretend to do an MA in a thing called sociolinguistics (not social linguistics like the nosy bank manager’s got in my file) and proudly brandish the cause of the gainfully unemployed, but then this thing happened, I started meeting these fantastic people and somewhere in the periphery of the hive started selling my words, I still think it’s a kind of prostitution, but the words are easier now. Currently, I’ve got an entire magazine to fill with prostituted bits of language, so while the MA is still a work in progress, it’s on the backburner while I peddle the words on a street corner near you.

What is the one thing in your life you simply cannot live without?
I don’t think there’s any one thing I could point out, there’s so much that contributes to a complete life (even an alien one).

In 20 words or less, why should people follow you on Twitter/read your blog?
I am, because of everyone. And I live (and twitter) so that I can contribute, in turn, to everyone. (as per my spindoctor @mirfaan)

Well Kay, welcome to Earth. And thanks for making me paranoid about my incorrect use of the apostrophe.

P.S. If you have recently introduced anyone to the twitterverse or blogosphere and want them to be a Hatchling, email me.

As I said in my previous post, when I started this blog I had no idea what I was going to write about. I thought I’d write a few posts and it would come to me, or I would decide to keep it general. It seems the answer lay in my second post. Among all the serious stuff, I suggested we geeks bring along our non-geek friends and family to 27Dinner and introduce them to twitter.

Well, that’s what my mission has been and I think it is time to share. I have been evangelising my favourite subject; twitter to “offline” friends and family for months, no matter how irritated they got of hearing it, I persisted. Heck, not even total strangers are safe! I often meet people at events or in business meetings and they too get the full twitter 411.

So I have decided to dedicate a part of this blog to profiling the new geeks myself and other geeks have “converted”. Hopefully this will introduce you to them and make them feel the warmth of this amazing community. (aw, sweet!)
This new direction comes with a new design and a new-look goose. The only goose that tweets.

The rest of the blog? That will be left for all the “other stuff”. You know; the real-life stuff, the work stuff, the friend stuff and of course….

The twitter stuff.

People’s positive attitude and enthusiasm since the start of  “Two Thousand and Mine” has given me a good feeling about this year. But I was not even remotely prepared for the events of last week.

Even though it started (and ended) as a joke, the Nerdies 2009 was a huge ego boost. To be named the second sexiest girl-geek in SA is awesome! The side-splittingly funny ShebeeGee and her crazy crew of SteveMcD, ExMi, Byron, Lord Wiggly and SimonB had us all in stitches with the twists, turns and almost x-rated bits of commentary. I’m almost glad I didn’t win (even though the prizes are awesome!) cos I promised that if I did, I’d wear my Little Miss Twitter outfit, undies and all, to 27Dinner this month…. phew! close call!

I love not taking myself seriously and am glad that so many other people do too. Huge and hearty congrats to Sue Rutherford and Andre van Rooyen for being the official Nerdies – you both deserve it!

The real honour was being included on “King Blogger” (sorry Mike, I had to)  Mike Stopforth’s list: Ten (More) Young South African Digital Citizens To Watch.

Wow, I am surprised and amazed to be included in a post with the likes of Chris Mills, Adii and Charl Norman! In fact, I think that weird goose-like aliens must have kidnapped Mike, done some very interesting probes and brainwashed him into putting me on that list. Or maybe it is a typo (a big one as it’s hard to imagine someone trying to spell someone else’s name and ending up with Schneigansz).

Either way – it’s amazing and has made 2009 officially the best year ever so far.

Thank you twits, you rock the party!

Sage: [seyj] (noun) 
1. A profoundly wise person; a person famed for wisdom.
2. Someone venerated for the possession of wisdom, judgment, and experience.

Zealot: [zehl-uht] (noun)
1. One who is zealous, especially excessively so.
2. A fanatically committed person.

The fringe fanatics who hide in caves because The World is ending are right. The World is ending, and the whole of civilisation will be wiped out. But what they seem to have wrong is when this will happen. They are so concerned with what the future holds that they forget to live in the present. People often wonder how supposedly ordinary human beings are still caught up in this fanaticism when the date they predicted for Armageddon passes. The reason is they still believe; they just adjust their calculations.

The US, Europe and Asia are ahead of South Africa on the web & social media curve and with over 3 million Americans on Twitter alone, it is easy to see where we, as a country, are headed. It is already happening; large corporates are starting to take the medium seriously, even hiring the most respected web 2.0 gurus to lead them into this digital revolution.

But does this make us, as South Africa’s early adopters, sages or zealots?To you it might be clear – of course we are sages! We know exactly what is going to happen here because it has happened elsewhere. But, the future the religious zealots have mapped out is also right, it is their actions that make them seem weird to ’normal people’.

We often preach only to the converted few. In the last 3 days, I have heard 3 different media being given as the sole reason for Barack Obama’s historic victory; Direct Marketing, Mobile Marketing and Social Media. His victory was because of none of these things. He reached out to his country and spoke to them in a way they could understand, it was not about the media he chose to do so.

Please do not judge me before the end of this post – I am not saying we are lunatics. What I am doing is cautioning us (me included) not to get too evangelistic about our specialities, when our country has only a 10% web penetration, and only a fraction of those people actively engage and understand social media. Most of my friends think Facebook is the beginning and end of Social Media, and dismiss me as a total geek for Tweeting my every move. I am a geek and I am proud of it, because I, like you, see that the web is rapidly changing. But should I just dismiss my friends as ‘tech-Neanderthals’ who need to wake up and smell the 21st century? Or should I actively try and get them involved, to spread the knowledge and grow the medium myself, instead of waiting for it to happen?

If we just wait for the rest of the country (and continent) to catch up with us, while we evolve with the established nations, how can we expect them to? We write lists of what companies are starting to do right in this space and lament on how far behind everyone really is – but do we actively teach them? I am not talking about mapping out corporate strategy. The only people who will engage with you in your brilliant social media initiative are the people already on social media. Maybe each of us should bring a ‘non-geek’ friend to 27dinners, or introduce them to Twitter/Blogs/RSS and teach them what the medium can do for them. This might flop – but if it works we will have doubled our community. And the viral nature of social networking will then hopefully accelerate the change.

Disclaimer: I do not mean to offend, please do not take it that way. I respect the early adopters enormously and hope to make a future in this industry. I do hope this sparks some interesting discussion though.

Wow, finally… my first post. This is quite a momentous occasion for me, I’m a little nervous about what people will think of my blog and if they’ll even read it. You wouldn’t think I’d be nervous considering I blat out my every move on Twitter & Facebook, so much so that there is no need to ask me “So, how have you been?”. Anyone following me will already know… in great, and often unecessary, detail.

But I digress (I will do that a lot, so get used to it), back to why I am nervous about this post: You see, I have some amazing friends/mentors in this industry (Rozz, Mike Stopforth & Mel Attree to name a few) who have been encouranging me to start this for quite a while. And I haven’t yet because I want to do this right. I think it will be a personal blog, since I will not even try to enter the leagues of the web 2.0/social media bloggers I admire yet (Specifically; the aforementioned friends plus Eve Dmochowska, Gino Cosme, Dave Duarte, Jon Bishop, Tyler Reed, Nic Haralambous, etc) – I still have A LOT to learn. But I’m not exactly sure what to write about yet.

This brings me to the real real reason I am nervous (see – I told you I would digress!): In the true spirit of social media, I am going to ask you to tell me what you would read. Do you think I should write about my weird and crazy life? Should it only be about what I am learning in this exciting industry? Or should I do a little of both? I wont ask you to be nice – only be nice if you think I deserve it.

In the meantime, get to know me – if you don’t already. I’ve put together a not-so-short summary of who I am and where you can find me on the About and Contact pages. If you want to find out for yourself if I really exist an am not just a badly constructed bot, catch me at the next Jozi 27dinner!

Laterz,

Heidi