Posted by: Vanessa Clark @ May 27, 2009
A notable feature of my recent social events seems to be the common theme of geeks and wine. Could this be 2009’s cheese and wine?
Last night was no exception when Delheim wine was served up at the bi-monthly GeekDinner. A delicious Merlot 2006 (and I am not typically a Merlot fan) as well as Sauvignon Blanc/Chenin blend. I am a bit of a glutton for red wine at the moment, so I stupidly forgot to taste the wine - will have to remedy that soon.
The list of geek-friendly South African wine seems to be growing: Stormhoek, of course: Perdeberg (not sure why they don’t sponsor GeekDinners any more but hooray for Delheim), Moreson has turned up now and again, and now Delheim.
Nice.
In my opinion Geek dinners are the black horse of the current Cape Town social media circuit. Always incredibly fun - and funny, you have to witness the slideshow karaoke at least once - and with the widest variety of topics at a dinner/networking event I have come across.
Last night was no exception, with Mandy Watson taking impromptu to a new level and testing out her new presentation pointer, slide mover thing in front of a live audience. It’s called an Apacer Wireless Presenter. You can see why she is queen of the tech reviews with her astute observations and questions about the technology’s capabilities.
Next up was Wessel Venter talking about Aspergers syndrome. Discussing it later, Kerry-Anne and I agreed that we live in amazing times where increasingly there is no normal.
Wessel was followed by poster child for “Saffers taking the world by storm with a pocket full of VC money”, Vinnie Lingham. Vinnie, head of Synthasite … I mean Yola, held a lively question and answer session about his move to Silicon Valley and observations on what’s up in SA. I am not sure he is totally convinced that Silicon Valley beats Silicon Cape Town hands down though.
And of course the ever-present Springleap team provided the geek schwag for the evening.
Posted by: Vanessa Clark @ May 24, 2009
Posted by: Vanessa Clark @ February 9, 2009
Smart retailers have turned to SaleSearcher, www.salesearcher.co.za, the online sales and specials listings site, to drive additional traffic to their stores despite the current tight economic conditions.
Latest shops to use the site to promote their special offers include Foschini, the leading fashion retailer; Keedo, children’s clothing store; wantitall, online comparative shopping site; tour operator Thompsons Holidays; ShoeHQ, fashion shoe shop; and Springleap, crowd-sourcing online T-shirt site.
These retailers have taken advantage of this innovative way of reaching people who have money to spend, but want to make their Rands stretch further by taking advantage of sales and special offers.
The SaleSearcher site offers online listings of promotions from both online and offline retailers in South Africa. The site allows customers to search for sales according to merchant or by specific product category.
As well as giving retailers a new platform to promote themselves, SaleSearcher aggressively drives traffic to the site via targeted online advertising using channels such as Google Adwords and Facebook. It passes these traffic reports on to the retailers, demonstrating the effectiveness of the service.
In addition, the flexible pricing structure is based on a daily rate and contract so that retailers can quickly and easily ramp up a campaign around the time of a promotion, without being locked into longer than necessary contracts.
“Signing up for SaleSearcher was a no-brainer,” said Nelia Schutte, founder of Keedo. “We can quickly and effectively drive customers to our stores across the country and our website during a promotion, and then convert them into loyal and regular customers.”
“South African shoppers are incredibly savvy and love seeking out a good bargain, especially in tougher economic times,” said Ryan Ferreira, founder of SaleSearcher. “We’ve been getting a great response from our marketing initiatives and seeing traffic grow rapidly on the site.”
“A great idea in my opinion and a foretaste of things to come in the ‘on demand’ era,” said Chris Moerdyk, corporate marketing analyst and advisor, writing about SaleSearcher in Biz-community.
About SaleSearcher
SaleSearcher, www.salesearcher.co.za, offers a quick and easy way for consumers to search for sales and special offers from retailers located around South Africa. It allows consumers to make the most of their hard earned Rands by pinpointing the sales they are looking for, and gives retailers an additional platform to engage with South African customers that have money to spend. The site is the brainchild of young South African entrepreneur, Ryan Ferreira. After working and travelling abroad, Ryan spent six months researching the viability of SaleSearcher before launching it in November 2008.
Posted by: Vanessa Clark @ October 9, 2008
Great article by Jo Duxbury of Freelancentral in ITWeb recently looking at what it takes to survive as an entrepreneur. Jo is single-handedly revolutionising the freelance industry in South Africa and has some great insights to share.
Have a read here.
(She also quotes some great people in the article 
)
