Goo Goo Dolls Live

I have been back in the US for a month now. The summer has been hot after a cold Winter in South Africa. Since been back it has been back to work. Got to work on a project I dubbed Spyder Car with an intern in the lab and its currently a work in progress looking at some interesting topics. I also got a great opportunity to meet students from the Governors School of Engineering and Technology at Rutgers. The Governors school is a summer program for talented high school kids from all around New Jersey. I have also been able to do some summer travelling. I spent my 4th of July weekend in Philadelphia with another Fulbright student. It was a great way to spend Independence day and also get to experience it in the City that it all started. To make it even better I also got to see The Roots and The Goo Goo Dolls live by mistake (yeah it was by total coincidence it happened but it was a great  concert). Now after all of this and some other things happening I got an opportunity to go to Camp Rising Sun Redhook this past weekend.

Camp 2010

Welcome Back!!!

It has been 8 years since I attended camp. I am a 2002 alumnus and now I was back where I think another big part of my life was shaped. It was a 3 hour drive from New Jersey but it felt like 10 minutes. I took the trip with Agnes who was my journalism councilor in 2002. She is also an unbelievable dancer. She was also a councilor at CRS Stendis in 2001. We had met again last year for thanksgiving and now had 3 ours to burn an catch up with old camp stories and also talking about what camp really means at this moment and time. I had met with the new South African campus before I left SA and I was happy that a new season would begin with 3 campus (should have been 4) instead of the normal 2. The weekend was production weekend so both camps (The Boys and The Girls) were putting on their drama productions. The first was at Clinton (Girls Camp) on Saturday. There was a lot of dancing in their production and I think the heat on the day just made the production even more psychedelic . It was great(abusing this word now) again seeing the girls camp and also seeing some Alumni from 2002.

Lala, Agnes and Me

The Saturday evening was spent at the boys camp watching as they were rehearsing for the next day. The South African campers are all enjoying their time and I am happy as the new selectors have done a great job. Camp is  wonderful experience for young minds like this. Thinking back to how after I came back from camp my mindset on life had shifted. I have seen this with my own siblings on how these international programs in general just push you to explore more and also try to do more than you had ever believed. For me it was a time of introspection while also thinking of loved ones back home in South Africa. We go through so much in life but as long as our core stays rooted we cannot be shaken. Camp is one of my deep roots. It gave me the opportunity to really express who I was while at the same time honing some of my skills. At camp I was the journalism manager for a while with another camper. We put out a number of newspapers and that was a great experience. I have since moved this love to writing and also composing multiple online projects. Sometimes its so good hearing about past campers and how they have gone on with the loves they had while at camp and conquered their worlds, sometimes shocking when you here they have done a complete 180 and done something else. But hey thats live we do what we have to do so that we can do what we want to do. So this is my first post on Camp in a while and there might be one more to be pushed out. The best part of being back at camp was meeting up with Zsoka and Dave again. Councilors are awesome. Should be returning to camp again this weekend and cant also wait for my significant other to experience camp even just for a day next season.

Enjoying the Freedom

Me, Khwezi and the Liberty Bell

Going back to Independence day weekend. What a weekend. I had my first Philly Cheese-steak in Philly and also got to really take in the history of the independence of the US. It was also great having Khwezi around as we could then frame the theme of independence and freedom to the rest of the world. I love my freedoms and also am respectful to other’s freedoms. I think that expression of freedom is needed everywhere in the world. There were a number of protests around Philadelphia on the 4th of July, reminding us that there are still a lot of people struggling for their freedom and sometimes independence even in this day and time. Lets all continue fighting for whats right and necessarily politically correct.

Ha it seems I did not hit the 1000 word mark this time. Next time

I leave you with the Roots

The Roots - You Got Me

World Cup 2010

Vuvuzela Blowing at Bafana Bafana Game

South Africa is drunk on patriotism. We have our flags, our shirts and yes I also got a car mirror flag . The roads are finally opening up (there was lots of construction). The new highways are great. I have been moving between Pretoria and Johannesburg a lot. The fever has hit fever pitch and South Africa is bracing itself for the most unproductive work month in South African history. Living in central Pretoria has been great and the city has gotten in on the party. The gardens outside city hall are illuminated at night and have bead sculptures for the world cup. The streets are full of flags and I was lucky to see a municipality parade when the world cup trophy was at city hall. I worked at home until a submission and now just taking some brief time off to just enjoy my new life journey. We were lucky enough (made sure we got tickets) to see Bafana Bafana (South Africa football team) beat Denmark on the 5th of June. It was a great day. We got to the stadium early and shared in the joy with South Africans of all colours (very important in SA). The event was great and thats when the fever for me really started. I will not be catching another Bafana game during the world cup as I leave in the middle but was grateful to see the team before the cup started.

South Africa and Race

Mandela House Museum 8115 Vilakazi Street Soweto

This we can never run away from. South Africans are always walking a tightrope when it comes to race relations. I was very very very very happy the other day when I went to the bank and the Afrikaans lady who was ahead of me in the queue walked over to the teller and actually carried a whole banking conversation in Setswana. Why was I happy? Because at the moment I wanted to converse with her in Afrikaans (Even though my speaking is bad), it was not her doing it because she should but because she wanted to and it brought her that little bit closer to the employee who was helping her. Thats the South Africa that was envisioned by those who wanted it to be a free country. We have such a richness and being relevant locally is great. Okay I know that was a bit of a rant, and it was my rant. Catch me up on  conversation if you want more of that later on.

Fulbright 2010 and CRS 2010

Player no. 24. When 23 is just not enough! Aww Benni at the Pretoria Town Hall

I had the wonderful experience to attend some Fulbright events last week. Me and Thembi attended the opening reception and met with the new Fulbright scholars for 2010/2011. Was another humbling experience meeting fellow country men and women doing the most amazing things. I salute them and wish them all the luck when they join the rest of us later in the year. I also go the chance to meet Judge Leona Theron. She got me thinking again on what it means to actually do work that is meaningful. Change your world and that of others! I then had a number of sessions with the new Fulbright scholars. Just giving some advise on what they should expect in the US and also sharing some experiences that I had in my first two semesters. I mentioned a lot my new friends in the US so hopefully do not have to pay any royalty fees for using your names. I also cant wait when Thembi comes over later in the year and we get to experience it all together.

In the same week I also got a great opportunity to meet the new campers for Camp Rising Sun 2010. I was a camper back in 2002 and those experiences shaped my current work and life. I am so so grateful for the opportunity I got then and always love meeting the new campers. I was the lead selector for a number of years and now have passed on that baton. The campers are always inspiring young leaders and as per the words of one of the speakers, “the future of South Africa is bright” with these young leaders at the helm. I will make it a point to visit the camp in late July for one of the weekends.

Beings and Doings

Coca Cola Pixel Art. Newtown

What have we done since the last update.

• Big Event.
• Went to the Bafana Bafana vs. Denmark game on the 5th of June. Enjoyed and South Africa won 1-0. Atmosphere was more than electric.
• Went to watch Without Blood at the South African State Theater. It was an intimate show and we enjoyed it. Was very disappointed that Lion of the East was canceled. Looked forward to a Mbongeni Ngema musical.
• We went back to Soweto a couple of times. We joined the black diamonds (Taki and Thato) at Panyaza in Mofolo.
• We went to the Mandela House Museum on Vilakazi Street. Was a great experience for me but was disappointing due to the poor guides and commercialization of the house. Good thing I had my Rutgers ID to get a large discount , not too great for Thembi .Was a great time to reflect on a family that went through a lot for the country. And not to forget the rest of those who fought and sacrificed for the rest of us to be where we are today. The experience would have been better if the guide was someone I could have conversed with more about the history around the area and the time. We got more information from reading the pamphlet and me recalling my South African history reading from last year. I would have liked to just have a space to sit and read in the house and just feel being in the time. It has been turned into “a spectacle” as Cornel West would say. The substance is glanced over. Its great for the tourists as this is just one stop in their list of many but I think it misses the chance of a deep insight into Nelson Mandela and his family.
• 

  Telkom Towers near Hillbrow Johannesburg. View from Constitutiona Hill

  We will also be going to Freedom Park in Pretoria in the next few days to remember all who sacrificed for this countries future. I did something mischievous here but lets leave that for after the visit.

• We visited Constitutional Hill in Johannesburg on a wonderful Sunday afternoon. Weather was great and we walked around the precinct.
• Visited Ditsong Museum of Natural History (Previously Transvaal Museum of Natural History).
• Visited the Pretoria Town Hall
• Visited Museum Africa and Mary Fitzgerald Square in Newtown Johannesburg.

Visual Moving Art

We also got a chance to share in some great film, documentaries, and talks

• Capitalism: A love Story
  

  Michael Moore Takes on the Banks

• For the Bible Tells Me So
• Secrets of the Psychics Revealed
• Grizzly Man
• Into the Wild
• Requiem for A Dream
• Law and Disorder In Johannesburg
• Cornel West Age of Obama Talk at Rutgers 2010 Link to Video
• A lot of TED talks

Just to name a few. They are all great pieces and I am sure Thembi would attest to that. Expand your horizons and watch just some of these.

What is there still to do.

Gautrain. Feel it, it is here!

A world cup match awaits us in Nelspruit on the 20th of June. This will be our last big trip. In between there it will be time to slow down and just be at home with family and getting ready to leave again. It has been a great time being back in South Africa with loved ones and experiencing all I have. I am grateful and feel very blessed at the moment. I have seen a lot of family and friends. I have met little ones and old ones.  Another great update for my friends. This one is again over 1200 words long. Maybe I am getting used to this. Ohh and the Gautrain. Yes we are going to ride that train!

Yes after over a year of some really interesting experiences I decided to put this down. What am I putting down, well its a little comment on how social media and the Universities in South Africa have danced so far. Just to kick it off, in late 2008 I was asked to shed some light to the Wits Alumni Affairs office about “Facebook“. What I guess I did not know at the time how fascinating this little assignment would be. 1.5 years later I would like to jot down some of things I have noticed in the time were I volunteered as a consultant for the university alumni affairs office and some of the challenges that I think will face institutions going into the future. I am not a media student, I am for all intents an purposes a scientist and thus if you have futher ideas on this catch me on twitter (http://www.twitter.com/vukosi), send me a message on facebook (http://www.facebook.com/vukosi) or just go to the contact page on this website. Any constructive comments welcome . Alright lets get into it

Where do we start? The Beginning…

Olde Book Face

Social media is a tricky beast. When asked to look into how we could reach alumni and current students through the available social services, one wonders, if the service is free how do others do it better than others? Email campaigns with the regular newsletter are great for those like me who want to just sit back once in a while and have some proper reading. But in this new age of information being readily and quickly digested what you need is something more dynamic, enter my subject for today Facebook. Yest the dreaded BookFace[Reference]. A lot of time was spent looking at Facebooks services and how they worked and how we could then enter into providing services to alumni and students through it. This is a timely process, requires patience and a lot of care. You do not just create the page or the group and hope they will come. You create a campaign, you get interested stakeholders together, you provide content and you encourage user generated content. Thus just like a marketing campaign, a facebook campaign for whatever you want to sell or present needs work. An interesting part I would want to point out is negotiations we had early on with other students or alumni who “owned” groups that had been created before we came in. They had large numbers, over 1000 members. What we did was look at the groups that were large, the ones that were then active and then narrowed it down to one that we wanted to work with. Why not start from scratch? Sometimes, most times, someone has already started a group and it has a lot of people you might end up spending more resources starting from scratch instead of just asking for access. This has happened many times for me and it always comes with negotiation of terms with the “owner”. From then taking over the group then its running it.

Facebook is always adding services so as part of the work, like any other job you have to keep up with changes and also anticipate the future. I use Mashable as my weekly staple of social network news. Facebook Pages have changed a lot, and through this we spotted the potential of a more dynamic way to engage members instead of sending out group messages (spamming as its called if it becomes a nuisance). Thus we went from group (which is still there) to Facebook page that has regular news that a lot of the fans comment on. The group at writing had around 6000 members and the page has about 3300 fans (competing with UCT now, more about that later). The numbers are slowly growing and thats a good thing. The last thing you then need to do is keep close attention to your numbers and reputation. A big part of the social networking game is reputation management. We gauge the fans and group members reaction to most content and adjust accordingly. Thus you need staff that constantly are checking comments and posts by others for user sentiment. A lesson is that you have to respond or point negative commenter’s to sources of information to help them resolve the problem they have. This then gives the institution an image that they actually care. Well I hope that is a short introduction about what I have dealt with, if you want to talk more about this, just by me a good decaf coffee and lets sit down.

The Current State

Here I give short analysis of the big universities Facebook campaings.

University of Cape Town

Numbers: Page- ~3500 fans

University of Cape Town has a fast growing fan base. The Page, started only this year and populated by the marketing department. To that end the default landing is content from the University without fan content. Upon further investigation the policy taken is not to allow users to contribute content (so no posts allowed) only comments to the posts put by the university. Guessing this is to protect the page from comments that might not be to the universities liking and also to reduce the departments workload in terms of having to sensor. This personally is not my cup of tea as the admins will put up the discussion board as the place to discuss anything but that is two many clicks away IMHO. The information on the page itself is great and tied in well with the main university website.

University of Pretoria

Number: Unofficial Group- ~ 7000 members

This was peculiar one. To get a page took a bit of looking. Ended up having to use google to find. It does not look like there is any official Page. The only thing I found was an unofficial group (not maintained or created by the university). Its default landing page is the information for the group. It has an active community but suffers from community spam (most posts are adverts).

University of South Africa (UNISA)

Numbers: Page ~ 11900

UNISA’s page is awesome to say the least. Why? Engagement. UNISA does not allow users to create their own wall posts but encourages discussion very well. They also moderate the page very well. The amount of people actually commenting on posts is amazing and very encouraging. The university announces a lot of things via the Facebook page and I believe is a good example for the other universities.  They have a professional team on this one I bet.

University of Stellenbosch

Numbers: Page- ~7000 Un-Official Group- ~9000 members

Stellenbosch has an official page and an unofficial group that has a bustling user run community. The group suffers from a little wall spam but in general the group members have been populating the group with relevant information and posts. The page is well maintained the news are up to date, the integration with the website is excellent (Best of SA?) and it shows with solid numbers.

University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg

Numbers: Page- ~3300 fans Official Group- ~6000 members

Well as I said Wits University has about 3300 fans on its page. It updates its news regularly but not daily. Big news stories are highlighted and fans also generate content. To that end the default landing page of the Fan Page is for all content and not content just from the university.

The End, but the start of great things

The normal problem with social networks and institutions is how they take them seriously. Having the marketing department taking care of your page or twitter stream is important. Having all of your other web services have links to your Facebook page is important. The social networking systems are taken as more dynamic and a better way to deliver information. Without a strategy on how to engage your user base then the numbers will stay low and will likely not contribute to your content. Letting go of tight control over user contribution is also something that still has to be learnt. A little bit of moderating posts is good, totally not allowing user content means that users feel that they can only consume but not be part of the news. They cannot put up news or also express their views.

All in all Social Media has changed and is changing the way we connect. An opportunity to interact with an audience is presented that needs as much work as normal marketing and engagement. The norm of cold calling or sending out letters to alumni in order to get a response from them is slowly fading. The social networks allow for engagement without borders and can then be used to mobilise people on the ground. Thus the old reunions take on a new dimension as the alumni can be more involved with how they are structured and they can be virtually advertised. The way forward? Well research research research your audience. How? By actually creating your page and designing a campaign around it. When it works its beautiful. When it doesn’t its painful. But the only way to learn in this field is to actually make those mistakes as early as you can and then keep on learning about your audience as time goes on. Well thats the end of another post. This one is a new record. >1600 words. I need to go back to my research. It took 3 weeks to put this together. Too much time but I wrote small bits at a time.

McDonalds 24hr, the sign of progress in the world?

Pretoria the city

I have lived for most of my schooling life in Ga-Rankuwa, north west of Pretoria. I moved to Johannesburg when I started university and stayed there for close to six yes and fell in love with the city. Now I am residing across the street from the South African State Theatre, we plan to watch at least two shows in the next few weeks. Pretoria is different from Joburg. A simple example is that the city is still alive at 10 pm. I mean the central city is still alive. If you go to downtown Joburg at 10 pm it is spooky and no one(in their right mind) walks the streets. The first time I ever saw tumbleweed was in Joburg at 11 pm. Maybe it was plastic tumbleweed, but it was tumbling. Here in Pretoria there are still hawkers out at odd hours. Almost all storefronts are closed but people are still making the rounds. There is a 24 hr McDonalds across the street, perfect for Thembi’s McFlurry addiction, if thats a sign of progress in the city. I have setup shop in the Sammy Marks library (Also across the street) doing my research there and also coding up in MATLAB during the day while other preparations also happen in between. I guess having now lived without a car in the US I have come to appreciate the walking and taking in the city. I am also planning to figure out the bus system and want to take the bus from one side of Pretoria to the the other and snap up some pictures. We also plan to visit some museums. The urban renewal projects are taking off and I sure do hope it leads to a complete revitalisation(Yes in British English this time) of the inner city. It is jewel in South Africa’s crown. To lose it would be fatal for a lot of people.

Since I have been back

Its been a busy two weeks. In between preparations, research, report submissions and algorithm coding I still have found time to do some visiting. If I have not seen you yet I still am making plans. Probably things will happen after 30th May.

• 

  Pretoria World Cup Fever

  I went home to Ga-Rankuwa for a few hours with family, then travelled to the apartment in Pretoria.

• I saw Iron Man 2, Geek Awesomeness (Not as good as the first, never expected that anyway, sadly thats the end of the summer movie season for me, not excited for much else)
• Found the National Library of South Africa in Pretoria and was happy to see them using Linux but was discusted by the internet situation there.
• Discovered Sammy Marks Community Library. Had a good talk to the librarians in the Information Center about a new project I am working on that is slated for late June release (so keep a look out).
• Setup shop at the library.
• Visited Peter Maher, The Director of Alumni Affairs at Wits (Good catching up)
• Visited the ancestors at Knockando (lol). Here is to Edward, Muntu and Collen.
• Went to Soweto already. Too much construction happening all over the place. We have 20 days left before kickoff, some people are working 24 hr shifts it seems.
• Watched my brother build his first Lego MindStorms robot. Awesomeness, cant wait to get my own. Played HALO 3 online and got our avatars whooped. Need more practice.
• Had dinner with Prof. Tshilidzi Marwala, my previous supervisor, now Dean of Engineering at the other university, University of Johannesburg.
• 

  They Finally finished the chamber of mines. Decades later that is.

  Visited Prof. Ian Jandrell, Head of School Electrical Engineering, University of the Witwatersrand. Had a good talk about some exciting stuff that’s coming up. Also saw the revamped chamber of mines. Looking good.

• Paid a visit to CSIR, both Pretoria and Johannesburg. Met the old gang. Mistry, Lesedi, Nthabiseng and the rest of the team at CSIR.
• Got a visit from a Venda guy driving a coffin on wheels,  a Smart car. Thanks for the stuff Taki.
• Hunted down my sister and found her without any technology whatsoever. Her phone died.
• Work, research, work, research, work, Skype, work submitted some algorithms. Yeah I know I am no fun right.
• Visited my cousin Mabosigo and her daughter Tlamelo (hope I spelled that right, I am hopeless). Kids love iPod Touches and iPhones. Still experimenting with them, maybe we can find a way to cash in on this later.
• 

  Cake up for donation.

  Ohh before I forget we celebrated a late birthday with some good cake baked by a nice lady across the street. Also crowned a new Scarlet Knight.

What’s still to happen

More work life balance will be happening in the next few weeks before I go back to New Brunswick.

• We plan to see some theatre shows at the State Theater.
• Plan on taking the BRT one of these Saturdays. Soweto and back.
• Plan to take the GauTrain from Sandton to the Airport.
• Watching a World cup match in Nelspruit.
• Might watch South Africa play a friendly. Hopefully Benni plays, lol.
• Might have a picnic.
• Attending a Fulbright Scholarship dinner. Looking forward to meeting the new scholars and alumni and the staff from the embassy.
• Speaking at the IGRISE Camp Rising Sun student departure meetup.
• Launching some new projects and updating old ones.
• And yes work research work research work Submission.

How is it being home especially close to the World Cup

The Dreaded Mirror Flags

Its great being back even for a short period. There is still a lot of construction happening. But the infrastructure is impressive. Pity we cant do this much work for the poor. Pity. A thing I have to highlight is the patriotic madness. Fridays are Football Fridays here. So everyone is encouraged to wear Football (Soccer for you Americans) shirts. Its a great campaign, Fridays are very colorful. People now put flags on their cars. This was great seeing it for the first time for me at the beginning but I am beginning to slowly not love it, its getting to me slowly. But again thats just me. People love it. Maybe I should buy one of those mirror flags and I will feel better, maybe. If I do I will post up a picture of the car and its mirror flag.

Well thats it for now. This is over 1000 words long. Thats long. Very long. Too long and I am not making it better by typing that its long. Adios. Ohh one more thing, that post on facebook university marketing is still on the way.

The best way to view or read this is on my blog.

Girl Talk - Feed The Animals

I am going to just come out and say it. These last few months were a rebirth of my love for good raw music.

Lets Mix

To start it off I will highlight Girl Talk.  I watched RiP!: A Remix Manifesto in early February. It was an interesting view on the world of music and how artists are coming up with innovatice ways to create, adapt and share music(I am anti DRM). I then got copies of Girl Talks albums. You can get them here, you can choose to pay or not to. I would suggest you do, the music is great. Girl Talk uses sampling to create new songs. Not sampling in the Hip Hop sense of having a backing melody with different lyrics, but he takes 10 or more songs, puts them all together and creates a whole new song that comes out to sound like nothing you have heard before. Its beautiful, its dangerous, its rogue its Illegal Art!

Lets Discover

Youtube, more than ever is here. Youtube as a video sharing channel has had its positives and negatives. One thing I will put up that is has brought is another music revolution. From Justin Bieber (If you dont know him, dont worry I didnt know him until I saw the trending on twitter) to the Youtube Symphony Orchestra. My own subjective find has been Boyce Avenue. They have done a lot of acoustic covers of some of the songs I love and also some songs one might not expect. Like an acoustic cover of Usher’s “Love in this club“. So the age of the Youtube star is here and some would say it is so yesterday, I say it will still continue.

Lets Enjoy the Process

Take Away Shows

I met Stefania Rousselle in New York in late March. She is a web media creator and she also showcases some of the “most important” videos one should watch on the web . Through her I discovered The Takeaway Shows. Awesome Awesome Awesome. I love small venues, intimate venues and good music. Music was meant to be heard not seen (thats my view) but we all dont have the privilage of getting that one to one with artists and see them really connect with their music. Well the Take Away shows allow the most raw connection I have seen with artists that you will come to appreciate and love. Its intimately shot, the camera work is beautiful the music is haunting at times. One of my best is The Antlers(Recommended by Stefania) and the one I have been shamelessly sharing this month the Tenniscoats.

Lets Share

During my undergrad I had the luck of meeting Thulani Vilakazi and getting introduced to the process of sharing music as a music DJ. Its an art and there are a few good ones out there, minus the commercialization. Yes I watched B4MD and you should too. From there I learned about sharing the gift of music so here is my list of people i have listened too and loved the last few months.

• MayDay Parade
• Steve Jablonsky
• +44
• Tenniscoats
• Tallest Man on Earth
• The Antlers
• GirlTalk
• Michael Giacchino

Yes this was a different post to what I normally put on. As they say don’t take life too seriously, smell the roses. Well I say don’t take life too seriously, close your eyes and enjoy the music. For Thembi,

Now there is no need for suspicion
There ain’t no frog kissing your hand
I won’t be lying when I tell you
That I’m a gardner I’m a man
In your eyes babe -

Tallest Man on Earth