Oscar's Pleasure

some image — Having fun, writing about the stuff I like

Discovering Music

Oscar Foulkes December 13, 2013 Uncategorized No comments

My working life involves helping my clients operate effectively in a digital environment. So, their sales plans include ecommerce, their marketing involves websites and social media, and I help them makes sales pitches on email. It’s a shift I have embraced myself, by reading books and magazines on iPad, downloading music from iTunes and keeping in touch with people on social media.

Almost from left field, my 13-year-old son has leapt into the world of vinyl records. He used a collection of saved up gift vouchers, with a little assistance from his parents, and bought a turntable. He hooked this up to an old Nad amplifier that we had in storage in the garage (the poor thing was ditched in favour of a docking station!), and he now listens to music while parked on the couch, instead of being shut up in his bedroom.

Listening to music is not new behaviour for him. The difference is that everyone in the house can hear this music (i.e. there are no earphones involved), which turns it into something social. Yesterday, he came home with Pink Floyd’s The Wall, which I first heard when I was about his age. In the intervening years, I’ve heard parts of the album several times, with the schoolboy chant “We don’t need no education” featuring most often. There was magic to that moment, as the tracks followed sequentially, rather than in some shuffled format.

His growing collection includes Hendrix, The Stones, The Beatles (Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club, no less), and Queen, with The Doors waiting in the wings. The sources of these treasures are stores such as Mabu Vinyl, which featured in Searching for Sugarman. These establishments are staffed by passionate people, who take the time to chat to their customers (even if the customer is a 13-year-old newbie).

‘Sugar’ (of Mabu) was intrigued by what inspired his interest in this music. I believe the response went something along the lines of it being played at home. I wouldn’t say ‘old’ music gets played that often, but when you have an older sister who is as likely to listen to The Kinks as Rihanna, these things can happen.

My own musical preferences certainly include Rock, with what I would call Indie as a sub-set. However, I’ve noticed that iTunes refers to this as Alternative, which I wouldn’t regard as being that helpful a descriptor.

Digital – whether it’s music, ebooks, the Internet, online shopping, mobile apps, or cloud storage – offers many benefits. However, that doesn’t mean that digital is always better than analog. In fact, there is something about analog music that not only supports a voyage of discovery, but is also refreshing to come back to. In many respects, this musical world is better.

It would be a sad day if the might and convenience of the likes of iTunes and Amazon drove small music or book shops out of business.

This year also happens to be the first (perhaps only) that he is buying Christmas gifts for a small group of friends. These gifts all happen to be vinyl records, which means that in houses all around Cape Town, parents are being pressured to dust off old turntables.

Far from being an ironic hipster move, this adoption of retro is being done with massive amounts of enthusiasm. I love it!

Great Afrikaans Words

Oscar Foulkes November 8, 2013 Uncategorized 3 comments

I have been nagging my kids to learn a programming language. Whether it’s HTML, Javascript, Ruby or PHP, I really don’t care. I’ve even gone so far as to offer monetary rewards for completing Codecademy modules.

I’m not suggesting they become programmers – although they’d possibly earn more money spewing code than waiting tables – I just believe having a better understanding of the guts of the digital tools they’ll be using for the rest of their lives will empower them.

It’s a little like the languages we humans use to communicate with each other. Being able to communicate in additional languages is always an asset. Yes, English may be the world’s business language, but there are many places where it is not spoken, or used with great insecurity.

They are obliged to learn Afrikaans at school, which is not a language that is in universal use even in South Africa. I grew up speaking it (as second language). I’m not sure that the superficial experience of a school language will enable them to feel the descriptive power of Afrikaans.

My wife has never let the facts get in the way of a good story. Afrikaners never let the absence of words get in the way of a good story; in fact, where necessary they’ll make them up.

It’s a language that may have been based upon Dutch, but it has a tradition of borrowing words, and just generally improvising for the sake of conveying meaning.

This morning I watched a little rugby video from the 70s, in which Springbok Joggie Jansen floors All Black Wayne Cottrill so comprehensively that the Kiwi did not move for several minutes. The Afrikaans commentator used the word “plettervat” to describe the tackle. For someone who understands the language, it is one word that does the job of a whole paragraph.

“Verpletter” means that something has been completely crushed or destroyed. The word “vat” means grab or hold, and is often conjugated:
laagvat – tackle low
vasvat – grab tight
So, “plettervat” denotes a tackle from which there is no coming back. Indeed, Cottrill may still be hurting from Jansen’s hit.

I need to start keeping a list of similarly descriptive words. Here are a few to get you going (please feel free to add more, via the comments section below):
Drinkstompie – the piece of wood (stompie) that gets added to a fire to extend the evening, or to delay the start of the braai
Spookasem – candy floss, directly translated as ghost breath
Abbawa – the trailer that is used to transport cars (i.e. a pantechnicon), literally carry (abba) wagon (wa). My sense is that ‘abba’ is a word that entered Afrikaans via Malay slaves, but googling ‘abba’ is not likely to be a rewarding exercise!
Loskop – absent-minded, but in a particularly descriptive manner. Directly translated as ‘loose head’.
Kitsbank – ATM (kits is the Afrikaans word for instant, as in instant coffee)
Vleisbom – Paratrooper (vleis is the Afrikaans word for meat, and bom is a bomb … so a soldier who jumps out of a plane is a ‘meat bomb’. Can’t get much more descriptive than that!)
Tuinslang – Garden hose (tuin is Afrikaans for garden, and slang is a snake … so a hose is a ‘garden snake’)
Verkleurmannetjie – Chameleon (verkleur references a change in colour, and mannetjie is a chap/fellow/character … so a chameleon is a chap who changes colour)

Over the past 24 hours I’ve had bit of a frustrating time with an Afrikaans client, who kept rejecting the English wine back label copy I wrote for her, on the basis that it was “missing beautiful descriptive words and a poetic flow of the words”. I’m not sure English has many words that pack as much meaning as Afrikaans does. So, with that background it’s no surprise that she wasn’t getting turned on by the words I’d crafted. Anyway, I went to my cliché cupboard and we seem to be making progress.

One of the features of modern programming languages is the way they build on previous languages, so that a simple reference calls a bunch of complex functionality. C led to C++, which in turn gave rise to Java, from which we get Groovy and Grails.

I can’t help thinking that Afrikaans is a little like one of the modern programming languages, in which one word does the work of many. Perhaps I should just trash the idea of Codecademy and get my kids to listen to a few Jan Spies or Gerhard Viviers recordings instead.

Digital Money Utopia

Oscar Foulkes September 24, 2013 Digital No comments

Frustration is the mother of invention. In my case, the frustration was caused by the friction (i.e. various charges, some overt and some hidden) in international currency transfers. On small transfers – under $1000 – the percentage cost can be enormous. In addition, the bank widens the bid-offer spread on the currency exchange, which adds a couple of extra percentage points to the cost.

I spent months evolving something I called MoneyWithWings, which was based upon a system of ‘vouchers’ purchased locally. These could be exchanged online, thereby facilitating cross-border transfers. The plan also relied upon the use of my vouchers (DollarWings, YenWings etc) in completing ecommerce transactions. This would be the Skype version of Visa, I told my friends.

I soon realised that there was a name for what I was proposing – electronic money – and that it was the subject of lengthy legislation by the EU. I soldiered on, but eventually I put the concept on ice. I was just too busy with other things at the time, the bureaucratic maze looked daunting, and the success of the venture would require achieving critical mass quickly.

I remain convinced that some form of digital money will enter the mainstream. However, achieving utopia – and digital money does represent a form of economic utopia – is going to require finding elegant solutions to the following critical issues:

Funds need to enter – and leave – the platform at little or no cost. There’s no point incurring the costs of processing credit card payments to credit user accounts.
Cross-border transactions need to happen without meddling from authorities that are paranoid about money laundering.

It goes without saying that there need to be sufficient ways of using the digital money.

There are several very successful examples of exchanges based upon something other than cash, but these are generally closed systems. Airtime is used as a form of currency in several countries across Africa. Loyalty or points systems that involve multiple retailers also approximate a kind of parallel economy.

Skype wasn’t – and probably could never have been – started by a telecom. Similarly, I’d be very surprised if a mainstream bank was behind the creation of the world’s first truly successful digital money.

Facebook could have been a likely candidate – giving itself an interesting revenue stream in the process – but its Facebook Credits were conceived for a different purpose, and possibly didn’t have a passionate advocate for disruptive digital money behind it.

I am not convinced that Bitcoin is the solution, but what it does prove is how ready the people of the world are to transact in different ways.

I haven’t used Dwolla (it’s available in the US only), but it has the appearance of being very close to the system I envisaged. Funds are held in one bank account (Dwolla’s), and transactions between users simply re-assign the right to draw on the funds.

All fiat money, in effect, operates under a voucher system, in that it is backed by the reserves of the central bank, so Dwolla is like a central bank for its users (without printing money), disintermediating commercial banks.

Dwolla appears to have cracked domestic exchanges. If they can work out a way to do international money movements as easily, they’ll have achieved something close to utopia, as far as digital money is concerned.

Xoom is another service I’ve never used, but it’s website makes a big show of how quickly and inexpensively it handles international transfers. However, once again, this is available to US customers only.

Digital money is going to be very interesting space to watch, and even more interesting to be involved in.

Horse Racing’s HUGE opportunity

Oscar Foulkes September 20, 2013 Digital, Social media No comments

This piece was first published in Parade magazine.

Risks and hazards. Two apparently similar words, in that the outcomes are similar, but with substantially different meanings.

A risk is an event that is possible, but unpredictable, like the car that comes crashing off the street, through the large window, and into a restaurant, where it critically injures unsuspecting diners.

A hazard is the same restaurant, where uncooked ingredients are not kept in the cold chain and kitchen hygiene is poor, with the result that diners get food poisoning. Hazard is the rusty chain links on the playground swing, the faulty brakes on the bus transporting 80 passengers. You get the picture.

Horse racing is facing an uncertain future, which requires the assessment of a variety of risks. However, the industry also faces substantial hazards. The first, as raised by Brian Kantor at the Investec Summerhill conference, is one of insider trading. I’m not avoiding the issue, but I’d rather park that discussion for another time. The second, the subject under discussion here, involves the industry’s digital preparedness.

By digital, I mean all online activity, whether it is on websites, social media or apps. It includes communication, commercial transactions, and research.

By every measurement possible – and the beauty of digital is how measurable everything is – anything to do with digital is growing. Take your pick of online shopping, social media, or YouTube videos, not to mention the number of mobile phones with internet capability. Even if you aren’t on Twitter, Facebook, or buying your groceries online, you can be fairly certain that almost every person under the age of 30 is.

For the next waves of consumers, if it isn’t online, it doesn’t exist. Not being digitally active in a meaningful way is like making the decision that you’re getting ready to close your business.

It is a common lament that horse racing has suffered from diminished mainstream media coverage (i.e. newspapers, television and radio). Guess what, digital gives us the opportunity of delivering a richer experience for our customers, with a deeper level of engagement. Plus, it’s almost instant, and dissemination is effectively free, once the platform/channel has been established. The value of not just creating a good flow of information, but owning the media channel as well, is enormous.

Instead of a static list of races and runners, newspaper style, you can have a dynamic system that allows for deeper form study. You can have videos of past races, and people can bet directly off the platform. Plus, because the number of column inches allowed in the newspaper’s budget does not constrain you, there is hardly any limitation on the amount of information or interpretation you can deliver. With a little extra coding, you can write wizards that enable punters to implement their own strategies or models. And, this can all be delivered via a smart phone app.

Combine this with social media tools, like Twitter, and you have a very powerful, real-time communication platform. Every race gives opportunities for generating content for ‘the stream’. Other social media tools, like Facebook and Instagram, are tailor made for the ‘faces-at-the-races’, social and glamour components of a race day.

YouTube is already in its ninth year. Considering its relative maturity, its growth rate is extraordinary. The company announced recently that its users are now watching 6 billion hours of video every month, up from 4 billion a year ago. That is a 50% leap, which is probably part of the reason why YouTube has set up its own professional production studios in Los Angeles to enable content producers do an even better job. So, hard on the heels of the cable networks taking on Hollywood, YouTube is doing the same. The bottom line: people love consuming video.

The beauty is that it’s very easy for horse racing operators to be active in video, with their own ‘channels’. With all that action content being generated every day, it’s a no-brainer. The other opportunity is for short, sharp previews and reviews. I’m talking about 60 seconds, maximum, in which a race is discussed, or an insightful post-race interview is delivered. Apart from the fact that Tellytrack sits on a subscription service and is therefore limited in its reach, one has to watch it all day to catch the gems. A well-curated YouTube channel would enable people to remain in touch and informed by dipping into the source for just a few minutes per day.

Social media offers additional opportunities, beyond telling punters about last-minute jockey changes or overweight declarations. I’ll acknowledge that a Twitter account in the wrong hands can be a dangerous thing. But, what it could do is to enable ‘relationships’ to be formed with jockeys, who are a huge untapped opportunity for celebrity. Trainers fall into a similar bracket.

Yes, celebrity may well be superficial, but it’s a fact of life on the marketing landscape. Celebrity sells.

Horses can be celebrities – look at Frankel and Black Caviar – but they’re around for a couple of years and then they retire. Jockeys are superb athletes, who can perform at the highest level for decades (golfers do something similar, although they generally carry a lot more condition!).

Digital is clearly a solution I’m passionate about. Even if you think it is an exaggeration to say that failing to embrace digital would be hazardous for the future of the horse racing industry, surely you agree what huge opportunities it brings?

“The Doors of Learning and Culture Shall be Opened”

Oscar Foulkes September 13, 2013 Education No comments

Our domestic worker came to me to me on Monday with a request that we ‘print’ something for her daughter’s school project (she is in Grade 12 in Nyanga). I established that she meant that the content had to be typed.

Well, we have a computer standing idle, and a domestic team with some spare time, so the +-2400 word project on water purification was typed.

I asked her how this normally gets done, because I can’t imagine many of the kids have computers available. This is how it works:

some of the kids have smartphones (mostly Nokia running Windows)
parents have to buy airtime (i.e. data)
kids log onto Google Docs
they type their projects on phones

OK, so I know people who are only able to type with two fingers anyway, but Jeez, education is a basic right, and should kids really be typing their school projects on smartphones? What about kids who don’t have smart phones? What about low-cost access to internet?

I went to see the principal of the school in question, New Eisleben High. The buildings were completed less than a year ago, so everything is pristine. I also established that the school has had two donations of computers (they have about 30), which are housed in a fabulous lab, but in the principal’s own words the entire resource is a “white elephant”.

The reason for this is that the hardware may need refurbishing, and the RAM may need upgrading. However, the bigger issue is that there is no internet connection, the computers are not networked, and there are no printers. A further requirement would be some kind of system that allocates bandwidth to the learners.

It strikes me that this must be a challenge being faced by many other schools, especially the ones servicing low-income areas.

I am actively seeking solutions to the main requirements:

refurbishing or upgrading of hardware that has been donated
low-cost internet access
a means of allocating bandwidth (and printer resources) to learners
networking the devices
ongoing maintenance and support

Ideally, all learners would simply have a low-cost tablet, but even that would likely be out of reach of most parents.

South Africa’s education system is going to take decades to fix, but appropriate technology has the potential to empower learners in their quest for education, to open “the doors of learning and culture”.

Please feel free to contact me if you have are able to assist with any of the above.

Must attend: Voorkamerfest

Oscar Foulkes September 10, 2013 Festivals No comments

Admissions, especially shameful ones, are best got out of the way quickly. Here’s mine: I failed to attend the Voorkamerfest for all the years I worked in Darling (admittedly while not living there). Probably more shameful than my delayed attendance, though, is my response when Wim Visser (one of the event’s founders) approached me for support during my time at Cloof. I recall agreeing to some kind of support, but I am quite sure that I should have been much more generous (my sole defence is that I was being cautious with my Cloof marketing budget).

Applying the principle of better late than never, I attended the 10th Voorkamerfest over the weekend, and was totally blown away.

How it works is that performances (music, theatre, magic, poetry and more) are staged in Darling residents’ front rooms (‘voorkamers’), representing a complete cross-section from the grandest old houses to the smallest township dwellings. There are seven routes, with three stops on each. Attendees buy their tickets and are assigned to a route without having any knowledge of what performances they’ll see.

There are generally about 20 to 25 people watching each performance, which in some houses is a very tight squash indeed. The performances last about 20 to 25 minutes.

One of the principles of art (using the word in a very general sense) is that we get tricked into seeing things from a new angle. Voorkamerfest is built on the premise that we hand over control of two hours of our lives, which makes it much easier for us to occupy new perceptual space. The underlying element of surprise does the rest of the work.

Most importantly, I think, is that this shift does not require that attendees are regular theatregoers.

I’m undecided whether it’s necessary to go into detail about each of the performances we saw. Possibly the most moving, in a troubled sort of way, was Nathan Trantraal’s recital of poetry in a tiny township house. He writes about growing up in his alcoholic grandfather’s Bishop Lavis house with an assortment of aunts, cousins and siblings. It was rough, tough and raw, recited in Cape Flats Afrikaans. He spoke quietly, barely looking up. Ironically, a wine estate sponsored the performance and the audience was given wine to drink.

Other performances covered the entire gamut from illuminating to insightful to uplifting to just plain fun.

When the dates for the 2014 Darling Voorkamerfest are announced, block your diary. Buy as many tickets as you can afford. Take everyone who means anything to you.

How well do you know your Facebook friends?

Oscar Foulkes September 5, 2013 Social media No comments

At an event this week, I noticed someone across the room whom I thought looked like one of my Facebook friends. Apologies for defining the relationship, but it is relevant, as you’ll soon see.

I could have said that I saw a person across the room whom I had not seen for close on 12 years. In that case, my faltering memory, combined with the small changes resulting from bodies getting older, would have been understandable. But this is someone I feel I know well enough to share not necessarily intimate, but certainly personal information or images. I’ve seen her cat pictures (true story), as well as the other snippets she has chosen to share with her Facebook friends (although clearly no selfies!).

My point is this: we are ‘friends’ with a bunch of people, about those who choose to post to Facebook we may know a great deal, but would we recognise them if we bumped into them unexpectedly?

I would classify myself as a cautious Facebook friender, but even I have over 300 ‘friends’. With very few exceptions – which I’ll get to in a moment – they are all people I’ve met, although not necessarily people with whom I may socialise. And, there are many people I see all the time – real life friends – who aren’t Facebook friends, but it would just seem weird at this stage of our friendship to send a friend request.

Right, people I haven’t met. The main one goes back to the early days of Facebook, when automatic friend requests were sent to entire email address books. One of these is so entertaining that I have never got around to unfriending her. And, this, I think is the crux. People who are actively posting interesting or entertaining content – the ones who contribute – are harder to let go of.

Facebook enables us to keep in touch with people on the other side of the globe, as I do with my New York friends Will and William, who are not only life partners, but also share a birthday (more a case of Will.we.are than Will.I.am). Seeing their Facebook updates isn’t the same as going for yum cha on a Sunday morning, but it’s better than being completely absent.

Spare a thought for Millennials, who not only have many more Facebook friends than their parents, but who made those friends when everyone was really youthful. Imagine a chance meeting of a few of those in 30 years’ time!

Guiding businesses in their social media strategies is part of what I do. I’d say that individuals need that kind of strategy as well. Choosing not to be part is a strategy, but once we get into the space we need to make choices about how we are going to use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Pinterest.

As powerful as these tools may be, there is nothing that beats face-to-face contact. If you can remember what your friends look like!

Uber hits South Africa

Oscar Foulkes August 29, 2013 Uncategorized No comments

It seems hard to believe that the word ‘uber’ has never been pressed into service as a brand name. Even less believable then, that it has now made an appearance in the world of websites and apps, where odd spelling and made-up words are de rigeur.

I read about Uber a few weeks ago, when Google Ventures had just invested $258 million in the company.

My assumption was that it would be years before they hit South Africa, but I discovered this morning that they’re already testing the service here. I immediately downloaded the app and signed up.

OK, so my comments are from someone who hasn’t yet used the service (i.e. who hasn’t waited in the rain for an hour because of a snafu). Based purely on the super-clear and easy-to-use app (not to mention the gorgeously beautiful home page on their website), I am seriously impressed.

The app makes use of the phone’s location-based functions to indicate my current position, and displays how long I’d have to wait to be picked up. I love this feature, because it saves me phoning three taxi companies to find out which one can get here in 25 instead of 45 minutes.

Billing is done to the credit card that is loaded on the account, and for shared rides the fare can be split between passengers. The base charge (flag rate) is R12 (instead of taxis’ R5), but the R9 per km charge is on par with the lowest around (the rates have subsequently increased, in line with the premium service, but remain within generally available pricing).

If you use this link to sign up you’ll get R90 off your first ride (disclosure: I get R90, too).

The kicker for people who travel a lot is that Uber is ‘global’, so there’s no need to scratch around for a local taxi service. Simply land, open the app, tap, and off you go.

I am über-impressed!

Planned Obsolescence

Oscar Foulkes August 22, 2013 Uncategorized No comments

Planned obsolescence may be the corporate world’s dirty little secret. Take light bulbs, for instance, which I seem to buy every second week. Whether old-fashioned incandescent, or newfangled CFLs, they just don’t last. Perhaps I should start documenting the date that each bulb goes into service, cross-referenced to the proof of purchase, so that I know which retailer to complain to when they give up the ghost.

I was at a house last night, which the current owners have inhabited for 33 years. They have two chandeliers that have had the same light bulbs for the entire time. It is not impossible that those bulbs could have been there for 20 years prior to them moving in. Extraordinary!

I asked my friend if there is any brand or imprint on the bulbs (there isn’t), with the thought that it could guide my future light bulb purchases. Upon reflection, this was very foolish of me. If this company makes light bulbs that last decades, how could it possibly still be in business?

The Grammar of Erections

Oscar Foulkes July 23, 2013 Uncategorized 1 comment

Verbs become nouns, and nouns can give rise to yet other nouns. It’s not exactly dog-eat-dog, but you’ve got to be on your toes in the word world. As a marketing person, one of my favourites is the word ‘brand’, my point being that it becomes a noun (i.e. a well-established marque) only after it has been a verb, implying that a whole lot of activity has taken place. Verbs are ‘doing’ words, after all.

So far, so good.

From the verb ‘to erect’ we get the noun ‘erection’. There’s certainly a great deal of ‘doing’ in the process of erecting a building (a noun which itself derives from a verb).

This is a nifty point to lead into the case of nouns multiplying. If we overlook the possibility of ‘building’ being a generic term, buildings can be cottages, houses, hotels, towers, and more. Whisk some eggs, cook them, and all of a sudden you’d call them an omelette.

All these examples – and I’m sure I could find dozens more – involve a significant change from one state of a noun to one so different that it requires a new word.

With this in mind, what is so special about a tumescent penis that it warrants being called an erection? Think about it, all that’s happened is that a bit of extra blood has been pumped into a confined space (admittedly some are more confined that others).

Compare this with the graft involved in building a house. This type of erection takes months of labour, vast quantities of building materials, not to mention architects’ drawings and more. That’s a lot of doing. In this context, describing an erect penis as an erection is a fairly substantial delusion of grandeur.

It can only be because a man came up with the idea of taking a perfectly good adjective (denoting that the penis is not flaccid) and turning it into a noun.

To call an erect penis an erection is to almost create an entirely new life form, a beast that gives more power to manhood. This being has needs different to the benign, conservatively dressed corporate man. It wants, craves, needs, DESERVES sex, and let no woman (or man) stand in its way. It is a loaded gun (dare I say “spear”?), which can be disarmed just as effectively by masturbation, but its brain calls for coupling, which may also involve a chase ending in conquest.

I have no doubt that some will read the previous paragraph with great delight, as proof of the feminist agenda. Please suspend the smugness for just a minute.

Consider the case of men in committed, loving relationships where the beast does not have equal appeal to both parties. Imagine the turmoil of living with the beast’s primal needs under these circumstances.

Considering that there is no ‘doing’ involved, it does not surprise me that there is no verb version of ‘celibate’.

The word is the basis for a sweet story involving one of the deceased Popes (in heaven, of course). Someone comes upon him in a library of ancient manuscripts, in a state of great distress. He is asked what the matter is, to which he replies: “The R, the R! The word is celebrate!”

Which brings us to another feature of the erection. Regardless of its rigidity, or the intensity that drives its actions, it is a very fragile construction. It is the hydraulic version of a house built on sand. Like all celebrations – however joyous – its lifespan is limited.

For an erection, ‘doing’ is its undoing, if you see what I mean.

Having fun, writing about the stuff I like