The Platform 8.0 - Thinking out of the Box

'Poju Oyemade

‘Poju Oyemade comes across as a deep person. The more you know him, the more profound he is. But one thing that most people can agree about is that he is passionate about developing the human and spiritual mind. Some people may know him from his pastoral teachings from the pulpit every Sunday at five different services (He is the Senior Pastor of Covenant Christian Centre) or from the television programme “Insights for Living” that airs on TV stations in Nigeria and United Kingdom or from the numerous outreach programs that dot the annual calendar which includes “The Platform Nigeria”.

The Platform Nigeria is an initiative where global, prominent business men and women (that are believers) share how they thrive in their industries using and applying principles founded in the Bible. The next edition, “The Platform 8.0” - which comes up on the 7^th of May 2011 is aptly themed “Thinking outside the Box”. This will bring together some of the most influential people to discuss some thought provoking related issues that will transform the way people think, feel and see issues.

The prominent thought leaders gracing this edition of the platform include the following:

Jared Cohen

Jared Cohen - Jared Cohen is the Director of Google Ideas, an adjunct fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations focusing on counter-terrorism, counter-radicalization, and 21^st century statecraft. He previously served as a member of the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning staff from September 2006 to 2010. There he acted as a close advisor to both Condoleezza Rice and later Hillary Clinton. In September 2010, Cohen was named by the Huffington Post as one of the 100 game changers of the year and by Devex as one of the top 40 people under 40. Jared Cohen will be giving and extensive teaching on “Understanding the technological revolution” at the Platform

Leke Alder

Leke Alder – Leke Alder will be sharing thoughts on a topic coined “Tabula Rasa: Stories from an Empty Box”.  He is the founder and principal of Alder consulting, an ideas and branding corporation. He has consulted on policy formulation for the Federal Government of Nigeria, Federal Ministries of Information and Communication, education, Foreign Affairs, as well as Solid Minerals development.

Sam Graham-Felsen

Sam Graham-Felsen – Samuel is an American blogger and journalist who was the blog director of the presidential campaign of Barack Obama in 2008. As the blog director of the New Media Committee, he wrote for and oversaw BarackObama.com/blog, worked with key national and state bloggers to promote the campaign’s message, helped direct the campaign’s online rapid response operation, and produced and collaborated on dozens of online videos for the campaign. Sam Graham-Felsen will be discussing his record-breaking blueprint on “How we did it: The story of President Barack Obama’s Online Strategy”.

Sarah Lacy

Sarah Lacy – Sarah Ruth Lacy is an award winning American technology journalist and author. She is a senior editor at TechCrunch.com, the largest blog on tech entrepreneurship in the world. Before that, Sarah was a staff writer for BusinessWeek and the founding co-host of Yahoo! Finance’s daily show “TechTicker”. She is the author of the critically acclaimed “once you ‘re lucky, Twice You’re Good: The rebirth of Silicon Valley and the Rise of Web 2.0. Sarah Lacy will be sharing at the Platform the fascinating and propelling thoughts of one of her bestslling books; “Brilliant, Crazy, Cocky: How a new breed of Global Entrepreneurs is changing the planet”.

Others speakers  include

Pastor Tony Rapu

Pastor Tony Rapu – Pastor Tony is a medical doctor by vocation and the founder and Senior Pastor of THIS PRESENT HOUSE. He will be talking on “The Changing Paradigm”

Anand Giridharadas – Anand is a columnist for The New York Times and its global edition, the International Herald Tribune. He will be talking on the concept of “Hardship Innovation: Gandhian Engineering and the Changing Geography of Bright Ideas”. He will be answering questions as to; How Indian companies built the world’s cheapest car for $2,000 and created the world’s cheapest cellular cars? Why are Kenyan firms at the leading edge of mobile-banking and crisis-mapping technologies?

Anand Giridharadas

Lanre Olusola – Lanre Olusola is Nigeria’s Number one Peak Performance Catalyst, Mind, Health and Life Coach. He has worked extensively in various capacities as Consultant, Advisor, Strategist with the UK Government through the Department for International Development (DFID), the Nigerian Givernment in education, Health, Commerce and Industry. He will be expounding about “The Power Within”.

Lanre Olusola

You can get more information about “The Platform 8.0” at http://www.theplatformnigeria.com. Registration for the event starts online on the 24^th April 2010. Attendance is free but restricted to registered participants. It will also be broadcast live on the internet too. It is truly an event you cannot afford to miss if you are in the innovation space.

Much ado about “apps”

I didn’t know much about “apps” till I got the Samsung Galaxy tab early this year. I had never heard of the “angry birds” also but now my 4 year daughter asks me for the tablet when I come back home from work every day. After the customary “Welcome Daddy” and the big, warm hug, she asks rather innocently; Daddy, where is the tablet? Please put it on for me. I want to play “angry birds”. She then huddles up on the tablet and plays away with her siblings hovering around to pounce on it when she gets tired of playing. (The Angry Birds is a game where upset fowls fight pigs who have stolen their eggs. It is said to be one of the most successful mobile applications - or apps - in the world with 100million downloads)

Now back to “apps”, what are they? An app is a piece of software that is downloaded onto a mobile device - be it a phone or tablet - which can then integrate with the gadget's features. It is said that there are about half a million apps in existence and almost 8bn apps were downloaded in 2010. Some of them are offered free while you have to pay for some. I have often wondered if the companies offering free apps make money. I hear some of them are expensive to create. A simple app can cost about $30,000 and about 2 months to create while a complex app could cost over $150,000 and up to 6 months to develop (hoping it is not obsolete before it is launched). It is estimated that the global industry would be worth more than $30bn by 2015.

Though apps have only been around for the last three years, it has taken the world by storm.  Why do people create apps? Companies create apps for some of the following reasons:

•          To engage their customers in a more rich and interactive way;
•          As a Public Relations tool;
•          Because it is expected that as an innovative, proactive company ahead of its peers, you must have your app;
•          To improve branding and advertisement;
•          Get more followers and fans for their products and services;
•          To understand their customers and their demographics;
•          For business process improvement
•          To increase revenues

The future of “apps”? Hmm….with basically an app for every little thing, the future is bright and the number of apps developed is set to increase geometrically over the next couple of years.

Recent jobs on ecommerce, innovation, internet media and project management

I have decided that I would be sharing some of the jobs in the related industries every weekend. You can check the full details via the links

1. Google is looking for an Industry Manager in Nigeria. Click on the link for more information. http://lagos.dealfish.com.ng/offer/industry-manager-google-IDubz.html
2. Google is looking for a New Business Development Manager for West Africa. Click on the link for more information. http://lagos.dealfish.com.ng/offer/google-new-business-development-manager-west-africa-lagos-IDuaV.html
3. Wild Fusion is looking for an ads operation executive. Click on the link for more information. http://lagos.dealfish.com.ng/offer/ads-operation-executive-wild-fusion-limited-IDubf.html
4. GVA partners is looking for an Information Technology Analyst. Click on the link for more information. http://lagos.dealfish.com.ng/offer/information-technology-business-analyst-gv-alliance-partners-IDulT.html
5. GVA partners is looking for an IT VAS Manager. Click on the link for more information. http://lagos.dealfish.com.ng/offer/it-vas-manager-gv-alliance-partners-IDulx.html

Happy job hunting

Multichannel Analytics - Tracking online impact of offline campaigns

This is quite an interesting article by Avinash Kaushik on a topic that has been worrying a lot of marketers and Senior Management.

How do you measure the impact of your offline marketing spend?
What is the balance between your offline and your online marketing spend?

Avinash is the author of Web Analytics 2.0

Click and read on
http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/2008/12/multichannel-analytics-tracking-online-impact-offline-campaigns.html

Juliet Ehimuan resumes as new Google's Country Manager for Nigeria

In a bid to sustain customers’ confidence and bring the best innovative search in technologies that connect millions of people around the world with information, Google, a top web property in all major global markets, has appointed Juliet Ehimuan as Google’s Country Manager for Nigeria.
Juliet, a Nigerian national, in her humble manner, has garnered experiences in technology that span international markets, particularly Europe, Middle East, (EMEA) Africa and United States.

Responding to her new appointment, she said: “It’s a very exciting time for me to join Google. At least, amongst other initiatives, it will afford Nigerian enterprises the advantage of growing and at the same time engage their customers online world, she said. “The internet is set to play a critical role in the country’s socio-economic development; Google is committed to investing in Nigeria and to making the internet accessible and relevant for all Nigerian users.”

Juliet Ehimuan

In addition to Juliet’s appointment, Google’s lead for Sub Saharan Africa, Joe Mucheru, said: “Google sees great potential in the Nigerian market. We are excited to have Juliet Ehimuan bring her expertise and knowledge to help fulfil that potential.”

Ehimuan started her career at Shell Petroleum Development Company as Performance Monitoring and Quality Assurance Supervisor. Following that, she worked as Program Manager at Microsoft UK for six years, initially managing Strategic Projects for MSN EMEA. She received the Microsoft ‘Ship-IT’ award for successfully launching the MSN online subscription business in Europe. She later became Business Process Manager for the MSN Global Sales and Marketing Organisation. She left Microsoft in 2005 to start SI Consulting Ltd UK, providing collaborative programs that connect African Business leaders with their global counterparts.

In the last two years, Ehimuan worked as General Manager, Strategic Business Units at Chams Plc leading four major lines of business, and key nationwide government projects.

Juliet Ehimuan holds an Executive MBA from the London Business School, a Post Graduate degree in Computer Science from the University of Cambridge, UK; and a Bachelors degree (1st class honours) in Computer Engineering from the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. She is a recipient of the London Business School Global Women’s Scholarship, and at Cambridge University she received two scholarly awards – Selwyn College Scholar and Malaysian commonwealth Scholar. She is a Fellow of the Cambridge Commonwealth Society.

Garage48 debuts in Lagos, Nigeria on the 6th - 8th of May 2011

For the first time in its existence, the Garage48 event series is coming to Lagos. Together with two world companies, Google and Nokia, it will take place from the 6th to the 8th of May 2011 at the Lagos Resource Centre, Victoria Island. Originally developed in Europe, Estonia and expanded to other countries, the purpose of the event is to build new web and mobile services in one single weekend - 48 hours.

The event starts at 12pm on Friday with the presentation of various product ideas. The teams are formed and derived organically. By the end of weekend, the teams will have a working products or prototypes. On Sunday evening, starting at 5:00pm, every team will showcase their product with live demo on stage in front of other participants and big audience. The jury and the audience will choose their favorite team or service.

For more info:
Garage48 Lagos: http://garage48.org/lagos

Ragnar Sass
Garage48 Africa project manager
ragnar@garage48.org

Francis Onwumere
Garage48 Lagos organizer
fran@digitalcraftstudios.com
+234 807 665 2206

Antonie Roux takes over from Cobus Stofberg as the new CEO of MIH Holdings Limited

Cobus Stofberg, chief executive of the MIH group, Naspers’s internet and pay-television operations, will stand down on 1 April 2011 and Antonie Roux, currently head of MIH’s internet division, will take over as chief executive and director of MIH Holdings Limited. 

Antonie Roux

Antonie Roux joined the Naspers group in 1979 and was a founding member of M-Net in 1985. In 1997, Mr. Roux was appointed chief executive officer of M-Web South Africa and in 2002 as chief executive officer of the Naspers internet operations. 

Mr Stofberg will, however, remain in a  full-time position as senior executive and corporate advisor to MIH.

Naspers is a leading multinational media group, incorporated in 1915 as a public limited liability company and listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) in September 1994. The company also has an ADR listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE).

Over the past two decades the group has evolved from a traditional print media business in one country, to a broad-based e-media company in multiple markets.

The group’s principal operations are in internet platforms (focussing on commerce, communities, content, communication and games), pay-television and the provision of related technologies and print media (including publishing, distribution and printing of magazines, newspapers and books). Most of Naspers’s businesses hold leading market positions.

The group’s most significant operations are located in emerging markets. This includes South Africa and the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa, China, Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe, Russia and India.

MIH/Naspers entities in Nigeria include Multichoice Nigeria (Nigeria's premier pay-tv company), Kalahari.com.ng (Nigeria's leading online store)and Dealfish.com.ng, the trusted online marketplace.

Telkom S.A finally relinquishes its Multilinks’ CDMA operations to Visafone.

South African fixed line operator, Telkom recently sold off its ailing wireless Multilinks’ CDMA operations to Visafone for $52 million.

Multi-Links' operating revenue for the six months ended September 2010 decreased 9% to R744 million and operating expenses declined 15.4% to R1.008 billion. The loss from operating activities narrowed by 29.4% to a loss of R262 million, Telkom said.

Jeffrey Hedberg, outgoing acting CEO of Telkom, said: "We are pleased to announce the successful conclusion of realigning our business model to focus on our core competencies. Telkom management is of the opinion that the sale of the Multi-Links' CDMA business to Visafone represents the best option available to our shareholders and Multi-Links' customers."

The transaction was conditional on, among other things, regulatory approvals. However, Telkom would still retain Multi-Links' fibre network and fixed-line operations in Nigeria.

Jim Ovia, founder and chairman of Visafone, said: "Visafone recognises that this deal will solidify its position in the Nigerian marketplace and is committed to offering world-class voice and data solutions to existing Multi-Links customers."

The combined entity of Visafone and Multilinks would create an active subscriber base of about 4.2 million 

G-Nigeria 2011 (May 3rd - 4th 2011)

G-Nigeria 2011 - May 3, 4 2011

Google will be meeting with Nigeria's software developers, tech businesses and digital marketeers at this event. There will be a demonstration of the Google web and mobile tools that are driving technological and business innovation here in Africa and across the globe.

Day 1: For Software Developers

May 3rd

Day 1 will focus on using Google developer tools to push the boundaries of web applications. Google engineers and web development leaders will guide people through a full day of in-depth sessions, including hands-on code labs dedicated to cutting edge web and mobile technologies. 

The day will include intermediate and advanced Mobile Web / Android, Cloud Computing, and Geo/Maps sessions.

Day 2: For Technology Entrepreneurs & Marketing Professionals

May 4th

Day 2 will be chock-full of Google product demonstrations aimed at tech entrepreneurs and marketers. The goal is to help spur innovation and business growth in Nigeria and across the region. 

Sessions will help people understand how to:

• Driving customers
• Marketing with web and mobile 
• Tracking and measure results
• Manage business presence online

It will close with an entrepreneur panel where panelists will share their expertise in funding and launching technology ventures.

The registration and event attendance is free but selection is rigorous. Register here

Don't miss it