In the shuffling madness...

Some folk will not do business with you unless they can shake your hand and look you firmly in the eye. There is nothing wrong with that, but it is so limiting. As technology changes, the way we do business should change as well.

Before I talk about business, however, I must share a guilty secret. I have never been really interested in the concept of business per se. I'm far more interested in the people behind business. And I'm especially interested in those people who have the courage to take on the world in their own business.

There is nothing wrong with being a passenger in the business equivalent of a cruise liner. But the folk that I admire the most are those folk trying to cross the Atlantic in a dinghy, rowing like crazy. (This is the kind of thing you realise when you take a month off to think about your life.)

As I write this I am listening to CapeTalk 567 and laughing my head off. It's amazing how homesick you can get listening to South African humour when you are in a country where people your age grew up watching British TV, and you grew up watching American TV in Afrikaans because the Brits were boycotting us!

To top it all, they have just played one of my all time favourite songs (Locomotive Breath by Jethro Tull) while discussing how Nationwide Airlines is trying to cut fuel costs by eliminating extraneous engines from their aircraft. (Not politically correct this dark side of the Equator.)

Which brings me to the point of this email. No matter what you have to offer - there are enough people around the world who want it! CapeTalk inspired me to visit Amazon and buy 3 albums (about R200) from a band that - in music time - is from the Mesolithic age.

The concept is known as the Long Tail. And it allows me to run a business from the UK for South African business owners throughout the world. (It's not so much about the business as it is about the business owner.) Back in the day when you needed the handshake, you could meet 5 people a day - all of whom needed to be within driving range. (That was not far when we still drove horses.)

Today I spent 5 hours on the phone (actually inside a headset) talking to 10 business owners in SA and the UK, discussing their websites, debts, business partners, starting up plans, closing down plans, financing plans, as well as the weather. And it all happened at 3p/minute, without creating any carbon emissions.
Then connected with 2000 Warriors to offer a £100 discount on an Apple laptop because one of the Warriors had an order cancelled and wanted to move his stock.

It is a privilege to live in this time of technochaos where things happen faster and cheaper than ever before.

That same technochaos means that being South African does not mean that you need to be in South Africa. I still get asked why I am living in the UK right now: because it is easier to support my clients and friends from here than it is from Durban (which would be a lot warmer and far more sociable this time of year).

The next time one of your kids plays some music that involves fourteen banshees and a power drill, remember what we used to listen to back in 1975. Eish, those were the days. No CDs, no PCs, no DVDs, and Sundays that seemed to last forever because your Dad felt the need to share his Jim Reeves collection with you.