Online Community Building

On the Road

admin — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 06:20:26 +0000

We have hit the road. Not quite running, rather looking. Not quite sure which direction to take. But convinced one of those trails lead to where we want to be.

Show Me Knysna

admin — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 05:59:07 +0000

Being a little naive I approached Show Me Knysna and grandly suggested that despite the fact we are competing for the same market I believed we could sell their products along with ours. I introduced our Sales Director (self appointed) to them to work out a commission structure and the parameters we would be working to. But thereafter everything went quite.

When I started asking questions I discovered that Show Me had presented Pete with an employment contract and a badly drafted restraint of trade. A contract which grudgingly acknowledged, in passing, that he was currently working for me. I advised him not to sign. But he claimed that they would not accept any other arrangement, that he would ensure that they understood his position and the fact that his first priority was to our clients.

But the damage was done.
I don’t conduct business that way.

In the case of Show Me I do not know whether it was arrogance or incompetence but whatever their motive and excuses it was unquestionably bad manners, underhand if not dishonest. And as far as Pete is concerned it exposed a side of the sales psyche I don’t like. You do not sign what is supposed to be a legally binding agreement just because it is badly drafted and unenforceable. Integrity is the cornerstone of any successful business and Pete was just far too hungry for their business. He was already losing focus.

I contacted Dominique at 2Heads. The discussion we had was straightforward and constructive. We agreed that almost everything was good. I acknowledged that Show Me viewed Local Info and iLaaik as a no go area. They would be uncomfortable with Pete representing other web sites that are in direct competition with them.

And those alarm bells just kept ringing.

We are in direct competition with them. We also have web directories and listing sites. We are also actively involved in a local community build and in developing an information resource that is both useful as well as dynamic and interesting. But in my mind, this does not mean we cannot work with them. To the contrary I see Show Me as part of what we are doing and a project we can and should contribute to. But they don’t and they won’t. They see our activities as a threat to their theirs. And whilst given the circumstances its an odd way of looking it, nothing I say will change that.

But it was worth trying and I brought up the issue of the integrity of the free content that gets added to these online directories. I also outlined my belief that this could be best dealt with by feeder sites set up as quality circles within niche sectors of the market. Sites which are run by people with an incentive to keep them current. I briefed him on our workshop and our plans and how I felt we could contribute to their programme. Dominique had no problems with any of it. However there was still the mindset hiding behind the need for Pete’s restraint of trade and I requested him to confirm that both his partner and the franchisor were agreeable to the stuff we were discussing.

And once again the trail went cold.

Something I do not understand. Why when there is an issue that needs to be resolved and closed out do people think they can just ignore it? Do they believe that its just going to go away or is it something more perverse?

The first response I got to my subsequent follow up was from Perino Pama who is the attorney. The man who drafted the restraint. The one they can never in their wildest dreams enforce against an employee who everyone but me, wants to pretend is still my Sales Director.

It’s not just weird, it’s absurd.

But we met a week before Christmas and he apologised profusely for the manner in which it had all been handled. He acknowledged the fact that they had cocked up, the importance of and the need to work together and undertook to arrange a follow up meeting with the franchisor.

And whilst we were getting along so well, once again, I deliberately raised questions about our plans, our feeder sites and how we could input to theirs. And true to form, no acknowledgement, no follow up.

The trail just went cold.
Again

It was Christmas after all. Christmas which is followed by New Year. And nobody who is anybody in this part of the world wants to work at the best of times.

Certainly not when the holiday makers are around.

The next mail I got was from Graham who once again apologised for the ball play and he arranged a meeting at their offices in Plett in the second week of January.

We went over the issues once again. There was without any question a problem in the way the different parties approach the net. Seeing that Pete was firmly entrenched as their employee, not just part of but actually driving their sales initiative, I asked if they had a problem with me selling their products, given that I would never sign an unenforceable restraint of trade.

That is where the discussion stopped.

There are two cultures that are diametrically opposed each to the other. They see the world, their world to be in one place and one place only. This is what they are investing in. This is what they believe in.

Whereas they appear to have forgotten that all that glitters and the only value that Show Me has is derived from the Google search results. Results which are the sum of an infinite number of parts. They do not believe that it is in their interests to share that stage with others and surprise, surprise, they let slip that they are launching feeder sites in an effort to manage and keep their database current.

Good luck to them.

I am still naive enough to believe in a culture of open, transparent and constructive interaction. I believe that the only way to add value to what we all do is to build a community that embraces and respects each individuals talents and furthers their respective aspirations. Restraints of trade, control and domination are not internet wise.

Those are attitudes that are a throwback to the bad old times when the village was still a village. Concepts ideas and strategies that are reactionary, conservative and just plain dumb. Attitudes that have stunted the growth of the internet and the opportunities it presents to people in this country. Attitudes that should have been long gone.

We need to be opening doors not closing them.

They are welcome to poach any of the people I work with any time they want. If I can’t keep them focused, if I can’t offer them the incentives to work with me, they should be free to move. Show Me can also bastardise and corrupt any of the ideas I am naive enough to discuss with them whenever and however they like.

Ideas are for free.

And they lack the basic morality it takes to make this all work. The passion and vision that is needed to unlock the potential that is there. They are no threat to what I am trying to achieve. Merely another obstacle and a challenge that has to be addressed.

I do not like the way they do business. Its a mindset that turns on you eventually and if I was developing Show Me I would be looking for a gullible corporate to take the fall that’s coming. It is going to be interesting to see what happens and whether that happy little band will make it through to the finish line.

Naturally Knysna

admin — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 08:16:06 +0000

The Naturally Knysna programme?

Hi Sue

Please see Mark’s comment in the second column below – I think it could be worth the two of you having a cup of coffee?

Mark – Sue is the driving force behind Naturally Knysna….

Kind regards

Nicci Rousseau-Schmidt
Knysna PR
on behalf of Knysna Municipality | Knysna Tourism | Pick n Pay Knysna Oyster Festival

Sent: 26 October 2011 06:31 AM
To: Nicci Rousseau-Schmidt
Subject: Re: Rankings

One thing I have been asking myself is when does the Naturally Knysna programme get real? Nice ideas but not particularly practical when it comes to putting food on the table. Do you not think that the organic development of a cottage industry in the local market would fill that particular hole?

Mark

Naturally Knysna

Knysna PR – Nicci Rousseau Schmidt

admin — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 08:06:19 +0000

Nicci Rousseau Schmidt owns and runs Knysna PR assisted by Jacques Marais. They are represent Knysna Tourism, the Knysna Municipality and are responsibe for organising the Oyster Festival….I think. They have an office at Tourism but have a flexibile work routine.

Nicci has the overall responsibility for promoting Knysna and is the obvious starting point to promote the workshop concept.

Hi Mark

I am happy to speak to the municipality and Tourism – are you thinking that they should sponsor a competition? How does that work – do they write a challenge as per the link? What costs will be involved?

Kind regards

Nicci Rousseau-Schmidt

Knysna PR

Nicci no costs or should I say minimal costs. I deliberately want to keep it as low key and cost effective as possible. We want to involve local businesses. And they are all very cost conscious at this stage. So yes, all that is required is a challenge that I will post on the site and a couple of small adverts challenging the writers to submit their work. I will then file the submissions by Sponsor and they can make awards according to the criteria they have set. If the writers also want to participate in the workshop as a “writer on call” I will need a regular biography as well as a second “public” biography if they want to write under a pseudonom.

If we can get enough sponsors to grow a big enough pool of content there are two things we might achieve. The first is to catch the eye of the large professional Internet Marketing companies and two much needed exposure as a town where businesses work together to promote not only their own interests but the fynbos, forests, rock pools and sea horses.

Hope it makes sense. This is how I suggest we drown out the noise made by malcontents like Wicked Mike. It can be made to work. But there has to be enough of us with reasons to make it work.

Mark

No see, No do, No hear

admin — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 04:57:25 +0000

I nearly bumped into Wicked Mike, my arch nemesis, as he was padding down Gray. But he studiously managed to steer his way past what was a difficult moment by assuming the foetal position and adopting a no see, no do, no hear attitude. And I just couldn’t resist a cheeky wave and gloat as I sailed past.

And its that attitude that defines everything.

I’m unable to comprehend how the masses of poor (so far) can look down, from their nearby hills, at the thousands of large houses and cars without succumbing to debilitating depression or overwhelming anger?

This man is dishonest. His anger has nothing to do with the plight of the masses. He is merely using them. Using their desperation to hide his lack of ability, his abuse of the skills he has and his belief that he is somehow entitled to share in the bounty and opportunities offered by the public purse. He has an education, he is a communicator and he has access to a global market. So why is this man so angry?

The answer is quite simple. He does not understand the need to share. He is so wrapped up in himself and his own insecurities he cannot open the doors, even for himself. All he has to offer is arrogance and when things do not go the way he wants he gets downright nasty and rude. The man has a great deal to say and offers nothing that is constructive and useful.

And my advice to him is to get off his backside, make him self useful and once he has proved that he has what it takes to change the course of things, then and only then does he earn the right to start telling others what they should do and think. Either lead by example or put a cork in it.

And whilst we are on the subject…………….

Moral impropriety

admin — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 04:58:12 +0000

I am not sure when or how I first made contact with Wicked Mike. But it was a few years ago, soon after he arrived in town. I think I was looking for writers at the time. And he was licking his wounds after an Entertainment Blog he was working on, crashed and burned. He has skills, there is no question about that. And I subsequently comissioned him to write a couple of articles to see if we could build a working relationship. But that soon ran into attitude and I backed off. He got involved with Swing Cafe. He got uninvolved with Swing Cafe and was running Garden Route Concerts.

Every now and again we would do coffee or a breakfast where I would discuss my ideas, the project I have been working on and the opportunities which I believe are available to writers on the net. I have tried to involve him, to work with him and we even got to the point where we almost started working on a site the Food Agency. But it wasn’t to be. He is a control freak and is terrified of getting lost in the crowd.

After organising a disasterous concert over one of the Oyster Festivals, he managed to get his claws into Shaun van Eck at Knysna Tourism. He was organising and running workshops intended to equip particpants to run and organise events. A project which was dumped at short notice apparantly because it was unsustainable. And this is where Wicked Mike lost it.

He turned on his mentor and friend overnight, snapping and snarling all the way to the Western Cape’s Premier’s office. So we did a couple of breakfasts once again, where I tried to get him to look at an alternative way to do things. A concept and idea that I have been working on for the last eight years. We agreed once again to set up a site for Knysna Copywriters but surprise, surprise he has once again decide that its in his personal interests to go it alone and repackage what are essentially my ideas, as his own. He has submitted a proposal to the local Knysna Municipality seeking funding for Junior Journalism training programme.

I accept that none of us has proprietrary rights over what are nothing more than ideas. That ideas are for free. But I do consider his behaviour to be underhand, deceitful and given the fact that he has grievously insulted everyone in local government who has crossed his path, most inappropriate. Wicked Mike is just another self centred and greedy parasite, intent on getting his snout into the trough and his sticky fingers into the public purse.

The writers workshop

admin — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 07:06:55 +0000

We have had half a dozen very bubbly and entusiastic replies so far and I have asked them to submit three short posts on different subjects as well as some pictures and a biography. Now we wait. In the meantime I have mailed this to Nicci Rousseau Schmidt asking her whether I need to contact Shaun van Eck at Knysna Tourism and whoever else at the Knysna Municipality and Knysna Local Council offices.

Nicci we have launched our writers workshop. Any chance of getting you to join the programme http://askthelocals.co.za/writers_workshop/sponsors/ ? All it requires is a challenge which I will post on the site and then a small advert or two. If enough of us do it, we will flush out enough writers to give us the skills we need to promote their services and to start building a cottage industry brick by brick, drop by drop. This is how one uses the net constructively. This is how one counters the inane rumblings of trolls like Wicked Mike.

Can I contact Tourism and the Municipality? Or do I take them at their word and refer everything to you?

Besides Martin Hatchuel, Wicked Mike is the only casual blogger I know but I am not going to waste any more time there. For what it’s worth I have already spoken to him . That was over a long coffee saturated breakfast and before he accused me of being hypocritical and an armchair critic. That pissed me off. Besides which I don’t like the friends he keeps. I don’t see the point in engaging the political structures he is so wrapped up in. The ANC that has already failed the country and on the other side of the coin the DA and COPE neither of which have anything to offer other than more of the same.

So why bother?

It’s off to work I go

admin — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 04:55:04 +0000

We have just launched the writers workshop. Despite the fact we are still trying to figure out what we are doing and are still trying to get the pages to say what needs to be said.

But that is not what is important. Doing it. Getting started is.

This is one of the things I enjoy most about the net. It is fluid. The tracks you follow fan out, converge and disappear in a swirl of dust. Everything can be changed and edited. There are no deadlines. Just time.

Whatever.

I placed an advert in Action Ads looking for writers, inviting them to enter the workshop challenge with the objective of pooling their skills and promoting them to an international market. This with the ultimate objective of injecting eight hundred thousand rand a month in earnings into the local economy. Next week the advert will be targeted at the local businesses inviting them to join the workshop and urging them to join us on Ask the Locals and for them to issue a challenge of their own.

It should be so simple. But it won’t.

Knysna is a small town with plenty of attitude but little or no sense of a community identity. People tend to be very territorial and have rather a parochial and negative outlook on things. Making life here interesting, albeit a little more difficult than it should be. I doubt this project is going to work. It is too simplistic. It’s about imagination, trust and all the stuff that makes people feel vulnerable. So no, the chances are we are never likely to get there. But that is not important. It’s the doing of it that is important. And hopefully we will manage to put a few pegs in the ground and extract some value as we weave our way through the mine field of peoples expectations and attitudes.

The Alternative

admin — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 09:33:19 +0000

Having decided to take Wicked Mike head-on I thought I would talk to the Knysna Municipality first. I spoke to Nozuko Mbatani in Communications and was referred through to Jacques Marais ” at Knysna Tourism”. So I left a message for him and when he returned my call, I started asking difficult questions. I did manage to get a few guarded answers but he was not comfortable and referred me on to Nicci Rousseau Schmidt ” the owner of Knysna PR”.

Wicked Mike has hit his mark. They all know him.

Some giggle, others put a plastic bucket on their heads and most just duck the question to pass you on to the next. So his message is getting through and no one quite knows how to respond. Nicci was no different. She has been targeted and is annoyed. And I suspect mostly because she has no way of addressing the problem. What they do not want to understand is that Wicked Mike is no different to the schoolyard bully. He is using the net to push a personal agenda. He has over stepped the mark. He is abusing the net, he is abusing the resource he has access to and what Nicci needs to recognise is that all she needs to do is to challenge him. He has no special skills other than a passion to waste as much time as he possibly can.

Nicci as discussed, you guys and the municipality in particular, cannot afford to ignore Wicked Mike.

He is all over Google and you are damned by the fact that there is no visible counter balance. I am not saying you have to engage him, nor do you have to answer his accusations directly. But you do need to be there. You need to be seen . You need to be seen to be precisely what he says you are not.

It’s not difficult to do. I run a free online workshop where I show anyone who is interested how it can be done. No tenders, no committee’s, just results everyone can see. I show them how to make themselves “useful”, how to get seen and how to get used. Thereafter its a question of how to turn what they start into a micro-business. All of which could be turned into the beginnings of a cottage industry that could make a huge difference to many families in this area.

For example, we a launching a Writers Workshop where we are looking for people to write stuff about the Garden Route and Knysna. We will then promote this as a pool of skills and an internet marketing resource, to both local as well as international consultants looking for cost effective and well written content.

This with the objective of identifying one hundred local writers and of getting them to the point where each is earning a thousand US dollars a month. Writers working together with a common purpose, exploiting a global market and spending that money in the restaurants and shops, for paying school fees and if not why not their rates which are currently in arrears. Ask yourself what eight hundred thousand rand a month, every month will do for the local economy? And then ask whether its not worth a try? It costs nothing other than a bit of time which I and many others have to spare And it takes nothing more than a bit of imagination.

But to get back to Wicked Mike. If you let me have two or three people who are interested in learning how to become trainers that train the next set of trainers. We could easily drown out the rantings of what is merely a wicked troll, pushing him off the page and into cyber oblivion.

Thank you, I received your email – Friday was such a crazy day that I have not had time to reply. Will look at it in the morning, I have already discussed some ideas with my assistant, Jacques – maybe we can come for a session just to get a feel for what you do?

Nicci everything I do is done online. There is nothing to it really. What is important, is what one does with the time one has available. Have you had a look at Carlyle’s site/sites? What I am trying to drum into him is that if he makes himself useful, if he gets seen, his sites will get used.

After that he can add value to the service he is providing and build a micro business for himself. The scripts we use are the free default Wordpress scripts. This is where Show Me also started and by the time I have finished with Carlyle he will have a totally new perspective of the net and what it can be made to do.

Yes, I’ve looked at it, and understand what you mean by useful information.

What I’d like to know is when you google Shaun van Eck, Wicked Mike’s websites come up first – there are a lot of newer info out there, why is his sites still first? Because we do not tag the right words when we post in on e.g. Knysna Tourism’s website? Or ShowMe e.g.?

Nicci its impossible to say exactly what Google is thinking but the easy answer is that Mike gets attention because he is garrulous and yes he uses his tags correctly. Google also puts a lot of store in small, genuinely useful sites. What you want, to add value to your shop window, is a network of small buzy, useful sites with targeted back links that point back to tourisms site.

It’s not difficult to do, it’s also relatively inexpensive to set up and run and could have huge spin off’s.

Wicked what………..?

admin — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 14:44:44 +0000

I have been watching Wicked Mike ever since he started Knysna Keep. In fact it was some time before he started Knysna Keep that we first spoke. He is a writer, a communicator and these are the sort of people that interest me. But unfortunately he sees everything as a mirror image of himself and that amounts to nothing other than a wasted talent. An independent spirit? Maybe, but I don’t think so. More like the blind spirit weighed down by phobia’s such as arrogance, fear and paranoia.

Whatever his problems he started deleting my comments from his blog and I think its time to take him on. He is no different to those he criticises. And what gets up my nose is that he doesn’t have any of the answers either. Nothing other than a mean, malignant mean spirit with ill intent. The other side of the coin. The dishonesty, the irony, the wasted time.

But this is what got me “banned”

You miss the point yet again. No Nidhi is not DA. She is just doing something constructive. Just as others are working successfully within the system doing the stuff that needs doing. No, this does not make them DA. But if you do love Knysna why are you not featuring the stuff that is working? Why are you trashing everyone and everything?

How can you simply dismiss these small successes? What is more important than progress and results? You confuse me.

Secondly my business has nothing to do with what we are talking about. Yes we are launching a writers competition, which we have discussed, and that is my way of doing that stuff you merely talk about. Just as Nidhi’s Recycled Band competition is something you don’t consider to be relevant to the current situation and something you have nothing to say about. There is no bitterness. Just disappointment in that you appear to be losing the plot and your activism is no more than a whole lot of vitriolic hot air.

So be it. Whose Wicked………? Wicked Mike?