Heavy Chef chatted to Tanja Lategan, CEO of Primedia Online. Her excellent portfolio includes responsibilities for 365 Digital, Dash of Lime and iAfrica. She discusses the roles of these divisions, their new partnership with Umuntu, and Twitter charging for tweets. Read on to hear the scoop on Twitter. Read Further
Luma is an award-winning and internationally acclaimed Digital Content Creation Studio. Luma started in 2001 just after 9/11 when Paul Meyer, Jason Cullen and Jacques Venter were retrenched from their animation jobs at The Worx. A year later Gerhard Painter and Dale Best joined as designers to answer to the demand for motion graphics and design. Luma has since grown to a complement of 45 animators, producers, designers, illustrators and photographers. Their mobile game created for Microsoft, The Harvest, is ranked as number 3 in the top 10 best mobile games of 2010 across all platforms. They have also developed an animated series that was sold to Disney and was shortlisted as a finalist in the Best Series Family Category of the KidScreen Awards. Their specialities include visual effects and digital high definition for film, as well as for television series. Heavy Chef chatted to Gerhard Painter, Creative Director at Luma, to hear about how technology is advancing advertising. Read Further
Last night Heavy Chef held yet another memorable and intriguing session. Christo Davel from 22Seven was there to explain his latest service, a money management tool that aims to highlight our emotional spending. 22Seven was inspired by The Institute of Play, bringing game design, research and critical tools together in order to illustrate spending and saving. Read Further
The Johannesburg launch of the new BrandsEye Crowd, shed light on the new ways in which they will now use humans and crowdsourcing in order to improve accuracy and create positive and negative rankings. This is the world’s only crowdsourcing ORM service. For brands, this means higher accuracy about online conversations surrounding your brand. Read Further
Richard Mullins is the Managing Director in the Middle East and Africa for Acceleration. Acceleration aims to integrate technology systems and digital marketing as well as improve customer data control. Richard has experience with publishing, agency and marketing clients, intensifying their online businesses. Read Further
Anton Koekemoer is a social media strategist, digital marketing consultant and a ORM specialist with an emphasis on Web 2.0 technologies. He specializes in the implementation of strategic brand awareness campaigns, as well as the development of interactive online communities. Anton has also been successful with his mobile marketing strategies, optimizing mobile websites and campaigns. Heavy Chef chatted to him about his areas of focus in the digital space. Read Further
We have all heard of the crowdsourcing organisations that allow people to do things with the assistance of strangers. Now imagine doing that for someone in a remote African village. A small amount, with a large impact on their quality of life. Blending modern technology with good causes. This is what Zidisha does. Heavy Chef chatted to their communications associate, Laura Stanley, about their fascinating venture that links people from across the globe. Read Further
Anders Sorman-Nilsson is a renowned Swedish-Australian author and speaker, as well as the creative director at Thinque – a research company focused on strategic innovation. A reformed lawyer, Anders has a unique perspective that has contributed to companies such as IBM, Delta Airlines, MTV and Apple. His experiences have also made him an active member of TEDglobal. Anders is also the curator of The Social Media and Communications Summit. Heavy Chef was privileged to get some insight from him regarding social media, the digital divide and a phenomenon he refers to as ‘word of mouse’. Read Further
Styli Charalambous is the CEO of South African digital news publisher, The Daily Maverick. Known for its witty and sharp take on current affairs, The Daily Maverick was born from the Maverick Magazine. With his extensive knowledge of digital publishing, Styli shares some tips with Heavy Chef as to what publishers need to know about the online news space. Read Further
Christo Davel is the founder and CEO of new financial management service, 22seven. After launching the pilot test, 22seven is now available to the public for free, while final tweaking is taking place. It will then have a subscription fee of R70 a month. So can it change your financial life? Heavy Chef chatted to Christo about the challenges they are facing, their strategy and why money management is so important. Read Further
Eran Eyal has a strong track record behind his name in the entrepreneurial world. He is the co-founder of Evly, the world’s first crowdsourcing social network; as well as co-founder and CEO of design at Springleap, a crowdsourcing company aimed at empowering designers and making great merchandise. He is also a tech presenter on Cape Talk. Eran recently got the opportunity to share his wisdom at Tedx. Heavy Chef caught up with Eran to chat about crowdsourcing and when it is necessary for a business to change their strategy. Read Further
Richard Millington is the founder and mastermind behind the globally successful online community consultancy, FeverBee. He helps clients understand the best practices for creating thriving online communities and build invaluable communities of their own. The FeverBee blog is ranked in the top 10 UK marketing blogs and is well-known for its influence in helping organizations around the world improve their community efforts. Richard is also the author of Online Community Manifesto, aimed at creating a change in our approach to building communities. He has also worked closely with Seth Godin on various community projects. Read Further
World Wide Creative is fortunate to have Louis Janse van Rensburg on their team. Manager of the Johannesburg branch, Louis is highly passionate about the entrepreneurial cause. He has been involved with many successful online projects including Virgin Mobile, The Thabo Mbeki Foundation, Honda South Africa and Exclusive Books. Louis has also been involved with numerous bloggers such as Jay Naidoo. Heavy Chef got the chance to hear what he has learnt from working closely with successful bloggers. Read Further
After graduating from Cambridge University, Will Critchlow founded Distilled in 2005 with business partner, Duncan Morris. Starting out in web development, the focus soon migrated towards SEO and PPC, when Will’s brother, Tom, joined the team. In 2010 they joined forces with SEOmoz to create on of the most successful SEO organisations in the world. Distilled now have offices in London, New York and Seattle offering internet marketing services, especially SEO, to businesses of all sizes, up to Fortune 500 brands. Heavy Chef was fortunate enough to get some insight from Will this week. Read Further
Heavy Chef got the opportunity to speak with Glenn Roberts, the founder and lead developer of Siyelo. Glenn has 12 years of professional software development experience and has consulted with several leading technology companies such as Accenture, Ericsson, Hutchison ‘3′, and Tele2. His experience is in architecting, developing, and deploying scalable business applications; including revenue-assurance systems, web-applications, and Internet business. Siyelo is an expert web consultancy, specializing in building bespoke web applications and websites. Read Further
Anny Mouton is the MD and the driving force of Ogilvy Namibia. Her career highlights include launching Saatchi Namibia in 1990, founding partner and creative director of Ogilvy Namibia from 1996-1998 and MD of Ogilvy from 1998-2007. She was the co-founder and director of Business School of Excellence and since 2009 Anny is back in the managing director’s seat at Ogilvy. Heavy Chef had the privilege of speaking to her about advertising in emerging countries, and acquired some lessons from her experiences in the advertising industry. Read Further
Giovanni Ghignone is the engaging voice behind the Virgin Active SA brand. With his role as social media manager, he is in charge of interaction between the Virgin Active community, as well as providing clarity, information and monitoring the brand. Gio does this exceptionally well, so Heavy Chef decided to have an in-depth conversation with Gio about being the face behind a brand name, and keeping a brand strong and active. Read Further
Mike Saunders is the CEO of DigitLab, a well-known business that focuses on digital strategy, design and development, research and training. Mike also provides training, presentations, consulting, social media, social business and networking, email marketing, and is an avid blogger. Along with his array of offerings, Mike was also voted one of the top 20 people of follow o Twitter in South Africa. Heavy Chef caught p with him to learn about his success and specialty role as a keynote speaker. Read Further
Nicholas Haralambous is the CEO and co-founder of Motribe.com, a platform that allows users to manage their own mobile social communities. He started off as a journalist, but quickly moved from print media to the online space. He has worked with the Sunday Times and Financial Mail. Nic is also the head of the mobile division at Mail & Guardian, and the General Manager at Zoopy.com. He also adds product manager of Vodacom SA’s mobile and social networking division to his resumé. With such success, we thought we would chat to Nic about mobile and the various platforms that are necessary to flourish as a brand. Read Further
Christine da Silva is the Head of Search for Neo@Ogilvy in South Africa. She has extensive experience in the international markets including the Unites States, Europe, The United Kingdom, and South Africa. She has also been at the head of SEO divisions of three well renowned Search Marketing companies, prior to starting her own consultancy, AlterSage. Christine successfully managed AlterSage for four years before it merged with Ogilvy’s Neo division. She took some time to chat with Heavy Chef and share some important elements concerning international marketing. Read Further
