Shameless self-promotion

A recent, and overdue, holiday got me thinking about that old boiling a frog metaphor. Read my column about taking holidays on the Freelancentral site.

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Here you go, my second article for the Freelancentral newsletter, looking at whether or not it’s a good idea to charge (or pay for) referral fees.

Enjoy!

I’ve been a huge fan of Freelancentral ever since I started out as a PR and marketing freelancer two years ago. I really do think Jo Duxbury (the brains behind Freelancentral and new outsourced marketing agency, Peppermint Source) should be given some sort of award for single-handedly empowering so many freelancers / solo-ists / self-employeds / cubicle-frees in South Africa. If you are a freelancer and haven’t signed up yet, give yourself a hard slap on the wrist!

So I was really excited to submit my first column to Freelancentral last month. Have a read, I would love to know what you think.

Most people who know me, know about my enthusiasm for South African wine and my *very* amateur status as a somewhat informed wine tasting type. I have been lucky enough to taste wine around the world and I very firmly believe that South Africa makes some of the best, if not the best, wine in the world.

In order to put this to the test, I and my wine tasting buddies Karen and Sven, signed up for the Wines of the World course run by the Cape Wine Academy, starting this month, to learn more about wines from other countries and compare them to our homegrown offering.

But sadly, there haven’t been enough takers for the Wines of the World course to go ahead The CWA needs another seven winos (I mean, fabulously sophisticated and intelligent wine appreciators, who are of course gorgeous and talented to boot) to sign up for the course. You don’t need to have done any wine courses before to sign up, so read on.

Here are the details:

Step into the international world of wines and broaden your international wine knowledge. Explore the world’s wine regions and discover the interesting wines that they produce. From France to Australia and the Americas, you will be able to compare their wines against ours!

With International wines becoming more available in South Africa, this course will benefit your personal knowledge and if you have a career in the wine tourism industry, i.e. hotels, wine shops, wine farms; it would be a benefit in your career path.

For people interested in proceeding to the Diploma Wine Course, this would be a valuable stepping stone to this next level as an introduction to international wine regions.

COURSE CONTENT:

Lecture 1 France: Bordeaux & The Loire Regions

Lecture 2 France: Burgundy & The Rhone Valley Regions

Lecture 3 France: Alsace, Champagne Regions & Germany

Lecture 4 Italy & Spain (including Sherry)

Lecture 5 Portugal (Including Port) & New World: California, Chile, Argentina

Lecture 6 Australia & New Zealand

Venue: De Grendel Wine Farm, Plattekloof Road, Panorama, Cape Town

Time: 6 pm – 8 pm

Dates: Course starts on Thursday 29 April, then runs every Thursday until 10 June, which is the date for the theory exam.

Cost: R2,200

I have previously completed the Intro to SA wines, Advanced course and Certificate course and can tell you that the CWA courses are fun, entertaining and informative. You are lectured by some fabulous South African wine makers such as Groot Constantia’s Boela Gerber, have guided tastings of some great wines, and meet like-minded wine drinkers.

So come on, it’ll be fun. We’ll head out for dinner afterwards and marvel at our newfound knowledge and wine tasting prowess. The nights are drawing in and the sundowner season is over – and this sure beats staying at home watching some silly sitcom.

To sign up – just give drop Susan at the CWA a line on info@cwa.org.za or give me a shout on vanessa@twokats.com.

Disclosure: In the interests of full disclosure I am doing this because I really, really, really want the course to go ahead. I am paying for my place in full, and I have no affiliation with the Cape Wine Academy, apart from supporting their promotion of wine appreciation.

I’ve been in a bit of a new client frenzy recently and am delighted to have signed up two interesting South African companies run by good people doing things differently. In fact, that pretty much sums up how I choose who to work with.

Firstly I am going back to my tech B2B roots with Jon Maliepaard and the team at Cape Town-based eNetworks. This is a 10-year-old ISP and network services company that has been building enormous enterprise-grade networks for some of South Africa’s biggest companies. They are obsessed with customer service, and one of their clients calls them “networking angels”. They also kick ass with WiFi. eNetworks has been flying under the radar up until now – so watch this space to find out more about them.

This week I also signed up JobCrystal, the only online passive recruitment service. Karl Westvig and Kevin Laithwaite have been plotting how to improve how people get hired and how companies hire staff for some time, and JobCrystal is the result. This PR freelancer will be working hard over the next few months to raise brand awareness and let recruiters and candidates know there is a better way to go about things, thanks to this Cape Town start-up. (Oh, and there is a sweet referral programme too, refer a friend and earn a commission when they get placed).

I am delighted to included these guys in my current list of Twokats Communications clients.