30 January 2012So lets think of the evolution of the mobile operators.When they started, the fixed line operator tried to smash them through predatory pricing, dirty tricks with transmission and games with the regulator. Eventually the fixed line guys realized the world had changed. Mobile operators are here to stay and they’ll make more money….
26 January 2012 I was at Exclusive Books the other day, killing an hour whilst looking after my kids. During the random wandering amongst the shelves something caught my eye. It was a book, surprise surprise. It was not a book about business, tech, history or psychology, my usual favourites. It was a book about…
22 January 2012 My name is Alan Knott-Craig. So is my dad’s. This has been a source of confusion for many people… we both work in the telecoms sector, he’s famous, and, of course, a surname like Knott-Craig has enormous potential for amusement. “If you’re not Craig, who are you?” is a joke that seemingly…
7 December 2011 On Monday I had the privilege of listening to (Lord) Sebastian Coe, Chairman of the London Organising Committee for the 2012 Olympics. He used a great analogy for how to view the Olympics which I think is perfect for how you view your business. If you think about it, the Olympics is…
29 November 2011 At its most basic level, a social network is a “bush telegraph” system.[1] This seems particularly apt for a network such as Mxit when one considers that most of Africa is bush and Mxit is the biggest social network in Africa! And since man originated in Africa, that would make Mxit the…
28 November 2011 Decision-making is like evolution. The wrong decision and you’re dead. No decision and you’re dead. Right decision and you’re alive. The dodo is a great example. At some point in history, a dodo was born that could not fly. The (temporary) lack of predators on Mauritius meant the non-flying dodo could survive…
I have two young daughters. The most beautiful little girls in the world, and I can see the not-too-distant future where I am struck with fear that they might walk into real life and get into trouble…What happens when they start going to parties, talking to boys, and using social networks like Facebook and Mxit!Now…
Yesterday I awoke with a giant pimple on my forehead. I read the paper to discover that Bafana Bafana had in actual fact not qualified for the Africa Cup of Nations. And then, just in case things couldn’t get worse, the Boks lost to Australia in the quarterfinal of the Rugby World Cup.Life is grand.When…
Have you ever considered how hard it is to actually do things? Build a bridge? How hard can that be? Write the Google algorithm? It’s just a string of words, piece of cake! Connect to the Internet? What could be easier! As an accountant, I tend to oversimplify and underestimate the magic of much of…
There is a difference between secrecy and privacy. Secrecy is the hiding of facts from the light of day. Privacy is the ability to be by oneself. Alone. Undisturbed. With the arrival of the Internet, mobile phones and social media, secrecy is dead. There are no more secrets. This makes the world a better place….
Some jobs are easy to measure. Some jobs are difficult. That’s how life is. Big corporations spend millions of Rands and hours trying to create measurables to determine whether their people are doing their jobs effectively.Why? Because big companies have too many people. Too many people means the boss can’t know everyone, which in turn…
(co-authored by Peter Matthaei) Not so many moons ago, the only meaningful way to offer a service for cellphone users was through the Value-Added Services (VAS) channels that the network operators provided. These include SMS, USSD, interactive voice response (IVR) and carrier billing (where the user can pay for mobile content from their airtime). It…