#BBLive: Ten Minutes With CrackBerry’s Kevin Michaluk

Orlando, Florida | Thur May 16, 2013 (photo taken May 15)

So I got ten minutes with Kevin Michaluk, the founder of CrackBerry.com, the world’s leading BlackBerry site (and online community). And I asked him a few questions:

On Blogging (aka Kevin’s Tips for Tech Bloggers)

1. PASSION

You need to like the topic you’re writing on.

2. CONSISTENCY

It’s a lot of work to do, and it takes time. Lots of bloggers fall back on the easy things – rewriting news and hitting the Publish button. The best content is original and it takes a lot of time.

3. MEMORABILITY

Try to produce memorable content. Do/[Write] things that people will never forget. It doesn’t have to be serious – it can be funny.

4. COMMUNITY 

I never try to say I’ve got all the answers. I have opinions on everything, I like to be an expert, but I also acknowledge that I’ve got a community full of very knowledgeable people. It’s important to celebrate the knowledge of your community. It’s the community that matters.

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Q10 or Z10?

He declined to answer this question. Made me feel like I was asking him which of his twins does he prefer

(He says he’s been asked this so many times, and he’s working on a post to address it.)

But he still had some things to say about both phones:

The Z10, he says “showed that BlackBerry can [provide] a touchscreen experience.”

The Q10 is the one that “feels and looks like a BlackBerry; the most BlackBerry” and is “better than any BlackBerry we’ve had.” He adds that it’s “the phone most BlackBerry users want” – because of the keyboard.

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On the future of BlackBerry

He’s optimistic, and thinks the Q10 – which he calls BlackBerry’s “Cash cow device” – will buy the company enough time to “build everything on the consumer side.” – apps, new devices, etc.

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On mobile trends to follow

He thinks that now that all phones are getting “really good”, attention will be shifting towards “what you can connect the phone to, and how does [that] change your lifestyle.”

In other words, what’s going to be differentiating phones in the now and in the future will not be so much what the phones can do by themselves, but the kind of relationships that phones will be able to get into; the kinds of worlds a phone will be able to create for its user with itself at the center. 

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Finally, a question about what he does to stay abreast of news and info. He thinks that things have now changed so much that you don’t need to go searching for news; it’ll find you somehow, as long as you stay plugged in socially  - Twitter especially. He points out that three years ago he was heavily dependent on RSS feeds, but that today Twitter has largely replaced that. Summary of it all: Staying Plugged-in is now more important than Going Hunting

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Find and follow Kevin on Twitter, here. And find and follow me, here.

Attend the GOTNI Emerging Leaders Conference – Abuja, Nigeria (June 2013)

“There is no other time than now to invest in the leadership capital skills of Nigerians, if we must make progress as a nation.” 

LINUS OKORIE, President, Guardians of the Nation International (GOTNI)

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GOTNI invites application from young Nigerians for its Emerging Leaders Conference, with the theme LEADERSHIP FOR TRANSFORMATION: From Potential to Performance.

The conference, which will hold on the 14^th and 15^th June 2013, at the Congress Hall of the Transcorp  Hilton Abuja, will host over 1000 emerging young leaders who are making a difference in their communities, establishments, organization and states.

The gathering of these young leaders is aimed at setting an agenda for our nation and charting a new course for value orientation and attitudinal change in governance. As a non-profit Youth Leadership Capital Development Organisation, GOTNI has a passion to nurture various categories of young people less than forty years of age, into transformational leaders who will impact positively the various sectors of our society and economy.

The two day conference promises to inspire the emerging leaders through presentations and trainings by carefully selected leaders who have distinguished themselves in various areas of life endeavours. Leading the pack of resource persons will be Professor John Adair, the Chairman of The United Nations Leadership Systems and the First Professor Of Leadership in the world.

Breakout Sessions will include:

• A minister’s round table with federal Ministers
• A security roundtable with national security chiefs
• An emerging leaders roundtable with young CEOs

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Criteria for Participation:

• Must be under 40 years of age,
• Must be a Nigerian,
• Must believe in Nigeria and desire a transformed and better Nigeria,
• Must be self-employed or professionally engaged in a public or private institution,
• Must be already making recognizable positive impact in his/her area of endeavor,
• Must have achieved a name recognition in his/her place of work, State or the Nation,
• Must show achievements in his/her profile
• Must be nominated by self (if self-employed), institution, State, Local Government or Constituency,
• Must be a person of good conduct and integrity.

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Registration

Registration for participating in the conference is in progress. Send your profile to [gotning@gmail.com]

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And find out more about GOTNI and the ELC, here

US of America – Day 1: Lagos – Atlanta – Orlando

It’s almost midnight here in Orlando, Florida, so this will be a brief post (I’m sitting typing at the now-deserted CrackBerry stand, tired – hence the inability to think up a better title for this post)

Barely three weeks ago I boasted (while moderating the launch of Chimamanda Adichie’s latest novel, AMERICANAH) that I’d never been to America.

[Read my 2007 essay, GOING TO AMERICA: A Primer, here. In it I imagine my first trip to the US of A]

Now I’ll be spending the week at BlackBerry Live 2013, at the Marriott World Center, reporting and interviewing and blogging. 

My never-been-to-America boasting has now been rendered null and void. Meaning I can now only boast about having never been to South America and Asia (Australia doesn’t count – for you to boast about not having visited someplace there has to be a possibility that you could actually visit).

I came into the US via a Delta flight from Lagos. 13 hours across the Atlantic. I lost five hours in the process, a first for me (before now none of my trips – mostly to Europe – had exceeded the 2-hour-timezone mark.

I was tempted to tell C, the young Dept of Homeland Security officer whose duty it was to admit me, to check me out on Twitter. (He asked all those questions – why are you here, how long are you here for, etc.) It was a bit underwhelming – no barbed wire fences in sight, no sight of potential immigrants crying and screaming and tearing their hair in pleas to be admitted to God’s Own Country. Just crowds of well-behaved persons and well-behaved officials.

There was no ‘Beware of PickPockets’ sign to welcome me (many thanks to Stockholm’s Arlanda Airport for the heads-up). 

My connecting flight from Atlanta to Orlando pleasantly surprised me, with its offer of free inflight wifi. For the first time in my life I tweeted from an airborne plane, thousands of feet above the ground (It was actually faster than most of what Nigeria offers on the ground).

I didn’t quite manage to stay awake on the entire ride from Orlando Airport to the hotel. But while awake, and as we rolled into the sprawling (we passed Disney World on the way) Marriott World Center a sense of deja vu struck me. 

Orlando. I’d seen this before. In an instant Orlando struck me as the place where the source-code for Dubai comes from. The over-confident concrete blur of criss-crossing Highways, huge Hotels and Holiday-AddOns; everything designed for The Visitor. (A quick online search tells me that there are about 2m residents in the Orlando Metropolitan Area (Orlando the City itself has less than a quarter of a million), compared to more than 50m visitors annually. It is apparently “the most visited destination in the United States.” Great. 

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This evening there was a welcome reception for BlackBerry Live 2013! Delegates (More on that later).

Later tonight it’s Alicia Keys in concert. 

Goodnight. (Good morning to folks in Nigeria!)

Bloggers Training – Lagos, Nigeria – Tue May 7, 2013

I’m working on assembling a network of Nigerian bloggers who blog on issues and trends and ideas in/on economy/economics, banking/finance, energy, oil and gas, environment & climate change, agriculture, gender, Africa, politics, technology, media & journalism etc. 

 

I tweeted last week asking people to send me links to blogs focusing on those themes, I got very few responses. That perhaps says something about how uncommon that kind of blogging is. Celebrity/Fashion/Entertainment blogging is by far more popular. (I understand of course that many people blog on a variety of topics, so it’s important to say that I’d generally define a blog by the kind of content that most often appears on it).

I realise the importance of having more people blogging actively (and not necessarily commercially-driven), following up on stories traditional media is missing or ignoring, and even putting up fresh coverage of their own. 

The idea is to encourage more blogging along those lines, help develop interest and capacity, and build a network of Nigerian bloggers who understand their critical place in the larger media ecosystem. 

 

As a first step I’m inviting interested persons to a Blogging Seminar on Tuesday May 7, 2013 (9am to 2pm), in Lagos.

Topics will include: 

• Reporting, Sourcing & Following Up 
• Video Blogging & Citizen Journalism
• Social Media, Analytics & Web Tools for Bloggers 
• Opportunities & Resources for Bloggers

It’s free to attend, but by registration only. Spaces are limited (25 persons max). If you’re currently blogging on any of those issues, or would like to start blogging, send an email to wowe.media@gmail.com, with the following:

• Short biodata
• Brief summary (not more than 250 words) of your blogging experience (If you don’t have much of blogging experience then share something on your blogging ambitions/aspirations)
• The themes/topics that interest you.
• Your blog address
• Twitter handle (if you’ve got one)

 Send on or before Monday April 29, 2013

ABC Logo Design Contest – NGN 250,000 Prize

Hurry now, and Design an ABC Logo and win N250,000 cash prize!

Background: ABC Transport’s logo Four Reindeer and abc written across the body is a unique brand that has been in used since 1993 when the company started operations. Now, ABC Transport needs a new logo that best captures its identity in the 21st century, while still reflecting the spirit and success of ABC Transport as the most innovative road transport and logistics service provider. 

Logo Description: 

• The designer should redesign our iconic Reindeer logo and develop his or her own variation. 
• The designer’s logo should be able to brand ABC Transport as the coach operator of choice for millions of Nigerians in modern times. 

The designer’s logo should communicate values such as: 
• Resilience 
• Modern
• Subtle
• Quiet
There is no preferred logo text/script

Colour preferences:
• Green
• Red
• White
• Black 

Logo to be used on:
• Print, TV/Screen, Online, Merchandise, Signs and Multimedia. 

Submission Requirements: 
• Submissions should be in either PDF or jpeg 
• Submissions should be in both Black & White and Colour:
• Submissions should be designer’s name and contact information

Submission Process:
Submit entries to abclogo@abctransport.com

Deadline: April 30, 2013

Notification of Winner: The winning designer will be notified by June 23, 2013

Cash Prize: N250,000 only will be awarded to the designer with the winning submission.

Consolation Prizes: 5 runners-up will each receive a return ticket to Accra, Ghana.

Payment Methods: The winner will be paid directly by ABC Transport for the full prize amount.

Notes:
• Entries will be judged on their originality, creativity, significance and the ability for the logo to work in both colour and black & white.
• The designer will have to explain the meaning/symbol behind his entry/design, if it is adjudged the winning submission. 
• The winning submission becomes property of ABC Transport 
• The winning designer will be asked to provide designs in additional file types.
• ABC Transport reserves the right not to select a design from the entries submitted.

For further questions, please contact abclogo@abctransport.com

[Statement] Farafina Announces Nigerian Edition of AMERICANAH, by Chimamanda Adichie

 Farafina is proud to announce the Nigerian edition of AMERICANAH, the highly anticipated novel by award-winning author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

 Release date is April 21, 2013 in Lagos. In the months following the release, the author will go on a national book tour with stops in major cities across Nigeria.

 ABOUT THE BOOK

AMERICANAH is a fearless novel set in Nigeria, England and America. It boldly takes on issues both big and small: love, race, home, hair, Obama, immigration, and self-invention. In the early 1990s, under Abacha’s government, Ifemelu and Obinze fall in love. People are leaving the country if they can and Ifemelu leaves for America, where alongside defeats and triumphs, she confronts the inevitable question of race. Obinze, unable to join her in America, goes on to live as an illegal immigrant in London. After several years they have both achieved success — Ifemelu as a popular blogger about race, and Obinze as a wealthy man in the now democratic Nigeria. When Ifemelu decides to return to Nigeria, she and Obinze must both make the biggest decision of their lives.

REVIEWS

From Binyavanga Wainaina, Caine Prize winner and author of ONE DAY I WILL WRITE ABOUT THIS PLACE:

“Fearless. A towering achievement…From the place of Africans in the race politics in America, to love across continents, AMERICANAH dares to bring us a world of a confident and self-made woman making her way in these complicated times. This is the Africa of our future. Sublime,

powerful and the most political of Chimamanda’s novels. She continues to blaze the way forward.”

From Booklist, a publication of the American Library Association:

“Adichie is a word-by-word virtuoso with a sure grasp of social conundrums in Nigeria, East Coast America, and England; an omnivorous eye for resonant detail; a gift for authentic characters; pyrotechnic wit; and deep humanitarianism. AMERICANAH is a courageous, world-class novel about independence, integrity, community, and love—and what it takes to become a ‘full human being.’”

 From Dave Eggers, Pulitzer prize finalist, and author of WHAT IS THE WHAT:

“As she did so masterfully with Half of a Yellow Sun, Adichie paints on a grand canvas, boldly and confidently…This is a very funny, very warm and moving intergenerational epic that confirms Adiche’s virtuosity, boundless empathy and searing social acuity.”

 From Colum McCann, IMPAC award winner and author of LET THE GREAT WORLD SPIN:

“Adichie’s great gift is that she has always brought us into the territory of the previously unexplored. She writes about that which others have kept silent. AMERICANAH is no exception. This is not just a story that unfolds across three different continents, it is also a keenly observed examination of race, identity and belonging in the global landscapes of Africans and Americans.”

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AMERICANAH can be pre-ordered by emailing orders@kachifo.com, calling +2348077364217 or tweeting at us: @farafinabooks

Price: Hardback N5000, Paperback N2500.

Upon release, AMERICANAH will be available in all major bookstores across the country.

Details of national book tour will be announced later.

Tiger’s Nineteenth Hole

Originally published, under a different headline, in NEXT (December 2009)

By Tolu Ogunlesi

Someday in the near future, we shall look back to the events of Tigergate, and rank this period as one of the defining moments of the decade.

The chain of events that started with an early morning car crash, and ended in a cryptic online apology by one of the greatest sportsmen the world has ever seen, has set the internet on fire. Not since the death of Michael Jackson has the web gone this wild with commentary, speculation and outright rumour. Tigergate marks the end of an age, and the beginning of another, for him and for us as well – this scandal will again bring the issue of celebrity privacy to the fore of public debate as well as raise questions about the wisdom – or necessity – of the global billion-dollar corporate endorsement machine.

Let’s take privacy first. The jury’s still out on whether Woods owes the media and the public any explanations or apologies. Does he actually? There is the camp of those who insist that whatever’s happened, in or out of his driveway, is the business of none other than his wife.

“Why on earth should we be informed about any transgressions in his personal life? … He is a great sportsman… He has no need to apologise to us; what he does with his own family is another matter. I will make no further comment about it,” a commentator on the UK Guardian website said.

But then there’s another camp that believes that as a public figure, Woods cannot possibly succeed with any argument that he should be left alone. Another commentator says: “Woods has made unfathomable amounts of money selling his image – that carefully constructed, dentless corporate persona. However much we think the millions of dollars his endorsement of Accenture is actually worth: that’s exactly how much responsibility he has to the people who’ve made him rich. He can’t have it both ways.”

Endorsements. Mr. Woods is the world’s most endorsed sportsperson, earning more than a hundred million dollars in 2008 from corporate endorsement deals with companies like Nike, Accenture, Tag Heuer and Gillette. That amount is about 15 times his annual earnings from actually playing golf. Accenture has for years hitched their brand to him, so that in a sense all of their clubs are in a bag marked ‘Tiger.’

Accenture’s website itself says it best: “Since 2003, Tiger Woods has been the centerpiece of Accenture advertising. As perhaps the world’s ultimate symbol of high performance, he serves as a metaphor for our commitment to helping companies become high-performance businesses.”

Now, with the rate at which women are emerging to detail intimate liaisons with Mr. Woods, won’t Accenture’s “high performance” metaphor inevitably take on new meaning?

Having said that, when this scandal blows over, what many people will miss is the wicked sense of humour that being unleashed in this laugh-averse (read recession-wracked) period. One Guardian UK commentator said: “This whole story of what happened outside his house is clearly complete fiction. Everyone knows Tiger Woods always drives further than 300 yards.” But nothing beats this one, in cruelty and profundity: “Once you get used to playing 18 holes, I guess it’s kinda hard to kick the habit.”

The Accenture adverts are sure to catch the attention of subversion-addicted souls around the world. Already there are people who think that the Nike tagline (“Just do it”) played a part in leading Woods into the hole he is now. Read Marina Hyde’s fictional construction (in the UK Guardian) of a phone conversation between Wood’s manager and his various endorsing firms to get an idea of the infinite possibilities for word play.

Finally, this scandal again highlights the differences in cultural perceptions about infidelity around the world. Tongue-in-cheekily captured by yet another Guardian UK commentator: “Maybe Tiger’s great mistake, was … marrying a Scandinavian. Women of other nationalities seem quite capable of dealing with these sorts of things without causing international scandals and endangering highly lucrative endorsement contracts. (Couldn’t the foolish woman, just have lit a cigarette in her shaking hand and poured herself a stiff gin)”

For a second imagine if Woods’ wife had been Nigerian. There would certainly have been no chasing-my-husband-around-the-house-with-a-golf-club drama, and therefore no driving-into-fire-hydrant. And, by implication, no scandal. What she’d have done was to call her mother back home in a well appointed villa back in a dusty village in Nigeria. And her mother would have asked her: “Is he beating you?” “Has he stopped taking care of his children?” “Is he bringing those useless women into the house?” To which Mrs. Woods would have answered: No. No. No. And  a perplexed mother would have said: “So you want to abandon your home? Ewooooo! Over my dead body! You are staying there!”

Case closed.

I will end with advice for Tiger. At the end of the day, the way forward, in my opinion, lies in another of Woods’ Accenture’s ads. “It’s what you do next that counts.” That’s it Tiger. “Go on. Be a Tiger. Again.”