When we think of starting something, we are advised to “stand out” or “be different” but Hugh MacLeod suggests you should avoid crowds, instead of standing out from them. When Hugh MacLeod started his ‘Cartoons Drawn On The Back Of Business Cards’ project, the plan was to keep at it.

The publishing deal of Ignore Everybody followed long after he started, by then it was too late for competition to catch up. From not quitting your day job, as he didn’t, and following the dream as a side project. Hugh MacLeod gives all the ins and outs of doing your meaningful creative work and not squeezing every cent from it.

Worried about quality?

Like most of us, Hugh must have been concerned about meeting expected standards of quality and everything the new kid on the block is constantly worried about. Here is his solution for that:

A bit about culture

Whether you work in the creative industry or in accounting, there is an established culture, some unwritten laws to live by. Hugh MacLeod maintains that to get ahead of any culture, is to create it.

Ignore Everybody, released in 2009, tackles issues from suddenly being discovered to how to handle inspiration instead of for it. It’s a must-read for anyone working in the creative industry and everyone who wants to be more remarkable at they do.

How do you remain consistent at what you do and get better? Share your tips with us.

Many moons ago, when I started my first blog, the idea was to write about anything entrepreneurial I stumbled upon. That ranged from local innovative businesses, to starting a monthly business networking talk called the Netweb Event and later NetwebTV.

The idea behind these concepts was to work on every single one consistently whether I had earth-shattering ideas, or not. They were started as concepts that one could say were borne out of inspiration. They weren’t, in and of, themselves a guarantee that I would be inspired every week.

Simon says: Do It

Some of the top bloggers, authors, entrepreneurs, artists and speakers I follow have a simple formula and that is ‘Do It’. They all advise people to do it, and do it daily. Do it consistently.

So whether you are an entrepreneur, artist or a writer, the only way to summon more inspiration quicker is to stay on course. It seems we are all waiting for that one moment the clouds will part, and suddenly out nowhere we will take the world by storm.

Wikipedia describes inspiration as: Creative inspiration, sudden creativity when a new invention is created.

Enter consistency

The idea of doing something daily, or as often as possible, ensures that you (a) get better every time and (b) you get more innovative ideas to improve yourself at it. That enough to summon more inspiration, more often.

In my experience, you are more likely to get an earth shattering idea when you do something regularly. When I wrote daily, the ideas came more as and when I wrote more.

How do you summon inspiration? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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Image by: photosteve101

On Saturday evening, I had the privilege of being co-MC at Richard Branson’s Book Launch in Johannesburg – South Africa. As you expect with Sir Richard Branson, there were quite a lot of highlights at the event and here are some of the top ones for me. You also stand a chance to hang out with Richard Branson at his private game reserve in 2012.

The value of ideas

We had an onstage Q & A where I asked him – What is the value of ideas?

Sir Richard Branson: “Ideas by themselves have very little value, how they are executed determines how far you will go. A lot of people will tell you why it won’t work, focus on why it will.”

As a global entrepreneur, who is also passionate about entrepreneurship, he is constantly approached with many business ideas, some of which, are more innovative than others. It was eye-opening, for me, that even at his level the principles haven’t changed. That he still grapples with resistance and continues to question the status-quo to make a difference.

Screw Business As Usual is a book that I find questions how business views both, business growth and community development. In this book Richard Branson approaches the idea of developing communities, as everyone’s concern and in that sense challenges businesses both large and small.

He cites cases from how Danone and  Professor Muhammad Yunus of Grameen Bank pioneered a new way to provide nutritious food to communities, while making profits that grow both the community and the business. The book also makes mention of how a lot of startups changed how business is viewed and blazed a trail for how we can continue transform business models.

Get the latest updates on Twitter by following this hashtag: #SBAU

You get to write the next book

I have come to know Richard Branson as an entrepreneur who re-invents the rules, and he does things differently in Screw Business As Usual. He is already working on his next book, but this time you write the story.

Go to Screw Business As Usual here and share how you are screwing business from how it’s traditionally been done, and your story could be part of the next book. Richard Branson and the team are coming to South Africa in 2012, where people with the best ideas get to join them in the trip to SA and hang out at Richard Branson’s private game reserve.

Download the first chapter here. Upload your written idea or a video to stand a chance to win.

Will you be part of it?

It’s no secret that the advertising industry’s chunk of corporate budgets has decreased over the years. The rise of Web 2.0 and the dropping costs of starting a business, have created opportunities for the small guy.

The Advertising Standards Authority Of South Africa stumbled upon an article I wrote for Biz Community, and wanted to find out what I think.

Here’s the podcast below:

Have a listen and share your thoughts.

Imagine a hub for innovative companies, tech startups and international investors; all in the same part of town. In the UK it’s not just a dream, it’s a reality. It’s called Tech City and you’ll find it in East London, where it’s grown up around the old Silicon Roundabout.

As part of their efforts for Global Entrepreneurship Week, they are hosting the Tech City UK Entrepreneurs Festival, a  weeklong event with  over 300 companies from across the world, all meeting with over 50 Top Entrepreneurs and investors.

The first two days will be an intense boot camp with mentors and investors, where startups get empowered with pitching skills and product development. These are some of the top minds in business globally.

Following the sessions with investors, the Tech City UK Entrepreneurs Festival will also allow the Top 20 companies to pitch their ideas to investors and mentors. The opportunities are huge for those presenting, successful businesses have the change to gain new business, mentorship and investment.

You may also want to hear from the Top 20 Silicon Valley Entrepreneurs and Investors who’ll be sharing their experiences on Saturday the 19^th.

We take off for the Tech City UK Entrepreneurs Festival this Saturday, which will be held from 14-19 November on London’s East End.

Follow us at @Mongezi or @WordStarters and check out the Tweets of what’s happening and send some of your questions and ideas of what you’d be interested in.

Tech 4 Africa very quickly became part of the African, not just South African, technology calendar. In mid-2009 when I met Gareth Knight, the founder, Tech 4 Africa was still a concept. Although, I could tell back then it was a big idea. The kind whose growth you want to be part of.

In case you missed it, I interviewed Gareth Knight on NetwebTV about his experience in building and selling a technology startup. Tech 4 Africa aims to contextualize technology for the African continent, which is really oversimplifying it.

The first edition had insightful speakers ranging from developers to technology activists. Some of the most influential platforms online today had speakers at the conference. They came from; Ushahidi, Twitter, Yahoo and Mozilla.

We caught up with caught with some of the speakers, including Clay Shirky, and Gareth Knight after the conference. Here’s what they had to say:

This year it seems there are more African speakers than the first one, which looks promising. Most of them are familiar names in the South African tech community. It’s also exciting to see more South African entrepreneurs come to the fore and become a recognized part of the event, I think more than last year.

There are fewer speakers this year, most of whom are entrepreneurs, and this for me makes it more worthwhile. The last event was worth attending, and I’m guessing the team learned from last year and set out to create a different experience, as opposed to work off a formula.

Seedcamp was one of the partners last year, where technology entrepreneurs got an opportunity to attend Seedcamp Week in London. Some of those guys are speakers this year, which will be interesting to see.

The theme this year, seems to be more about business with speakers from Google and Simone Brunozzi of Amazon.

Have a look at what’s on offer this year at Tech 4 Africa this year and follow this hashtag #Tech4Africa on Twitter for updates.

In November, I made an announcement about WordStart finally taking off. If you’d like to know more, start here.

For now, we have a blog tour for Gareth Cliff’s new book and tons of give-aways. The tour will stop at different blogs this week and next week till 27 November. WordStart is giving away books on Facebook and Twitter. Follow WordStart here: @WordStarters for up to the minute updates.

If you would like to win yourself a copy of the book, send 3 Tweets telling us why you want one and include #CliffOnEverything. The bloggers will help you by flipping through the pages and writing their thoughts on the book.

Check these blogs for reviews and prizes this week:

1. Zahira Kharsany at 9:00am, on Tuesday 18 October 2011
2. Khadija Patel at 15:00pm, on Tuesday 18 October 2011
   
3. Nonkululeko Godana at 12:00pm, on Wednesday 19 October 2011
4. Ideate at 15:00pm,  on Wednesday 19 October 2011
   
5. Arthur Van Wyk at 12:00pm, on Thursday 20 October 2011
   
6. SA Rocks at 10:00am, on Friday 21 October 2011
7. Briget Ferguson at 12:00pm, on Friday 21 October 2011
8. Sheena Gates at 14:00, on Friday 21 October 2011

Follow #CliffOnEverything on Twitter for awesome prizes.

The Discovery Invest Leadership Summit happened this Wednesday and caused a lot of conversation both online, and among attendees at the Sandton Convention Centre (Johannesburg). Being my first one, I had really high expectations, and they raised the bar from the moment I arrived.

Without going into too much detail about all the talks, the speakers who stood out for me were Dan Ariely and Chris Anderson. It is not the things I hear or see for the first time that make sense, it’s realizing I’ve overlooked them in all of their simplicity.

Note from Chris Anderson’s talk

He spoke about concepts from his book ‘FREE – The Future Of A Radical Price’. Here are some highlights:

• Zero as a price, is not a price, yet drives economic behaviour.
•  The internet created the new form of FREE, which is really free.
• Things are too cheap to meter when you can treat them as though they were free.
• “In a competitive market, price falls to the marginal cost.” – Joseph Bertrand 1883.
•  This era is the end of physical media, as all media goes digital, it is moving to a marginal cost of zero.
• Younger people have more time than money, older people more money than time. As a result young people can consume free, yet problematic media that has formatting issues, with advertising. But the older audience would rather pay for a better service.
• We created the internet, with our content, our ideas and our time.

In closing: As you offer your service or product for ‘free’, what will you sell that people will need to use with your product?

Dan Ariely

His talk was about irrational behaviour, its importance in our business and personal lives. Here are some key points:

• “As decisions get bigger, we don’t know what to do and leave it to someone else to make that decision for us.” He was referring to how we make choices and decisions when using online platforms and deciding on courses of action.
• We need to evaluate things in relative terms, rather than absolute terms.
• “How is it possible that people working in a particular field are always wrong based on their intuition and legacy?” Because things have always been done a certain way, we continue to do them that way without questioning.
• Opportunities exist for us to constantly improve ourselves.  How often does intuition fail us? It is time we tried something else, doubt your intuition and try something else.

Without taking away from all the other speakers, these are some of the many highlights from the conference. For snippets of all the other talks, have a look at the conference blog here.

Image by PopTech on Flickr

So a friend, Philén Naidu (aka. The topless host) and his wife Kim Naidu, hosted a group of friends (and me) for potjiekos. Among the many thrilling stories shared, were the undertones of resistance.

For our non-South African readers: Potjiekos -  is a stew prepared outdoors in a traditional round, cast iron, three-legged pot (the potjie). From Wikipedia.

Since its inception in 2009, the Discovery Invest Leadership Summit  has consistently challenged leadership issues of the day. This summit was the first to bring Malcolm Gladwell to our shores, and continues to engage and inspire audiences with the help of high-calibre international thought leaders as speakers. It is definitely a conference worth marking on your calendar. This year it happens on the 21^st of September.

Raising the bar

The inaugural 2009 summit featured Sir Richard Branson, Malcolm Gladwell and Wendy Luhabe amongst others. In 2010, they outdid themselves again with insights from Adrian Gore, Nassim Taleb and Tokyo Sexwale. This summit transforms our ideas of what a “headline speaker” is and who to look out for.

This year, they’ll have me – in the audience – not as a speaker. (Well, for this year at least.)

This year’s draw-card speakers include Al Gore, Graça Marcel and Chris Anderson (Editor-In-Chief at Wired – not to be confused with curator of TED). It is expected to shift paradigms. And I have high expectations that it will. The idea that Chris Anderson will be there, is enough for me to go.

In addition to his role at Wired, Chris Anderson is also the author of “The Long Tail” and “Free”, both of which change your perspective after reading them. His thinking is current. He writes the kind of material that is for this time – for the ever-transforming digital age. In both books, he creates a vivid image of how any thriving business model became profitable online.

In “The Long Tail”, Chris Anderson delves into what creates a niche and how the blockbuster culture was eradicated. It demonstrates, through research analysis, why the future of business is selling less of more. He goes into how the lowest selling songs on iTunes create niche categories in themselves. How having 1000 True Fans (as first written by Kevin Kelly at Technium) is the way to go and why niche has eliminated traditional business theories of creating and developing for the masses.

That leads me to how the rules of leadership have transformed over the ages. These interesting times we live in demand that leaders focus on building communities (“tribes”) and on creating a compelling story that connects people. I look forward to hearing what he proposes the new way of leadership for niche audiences, is.

This conference comes at a time when my search for leadership ability has reached levels of obsessions. It became evident to me, that leadership is a significant way to coordinate change and create a community of people for a cause. So, they have a lot of high expectations to measure up to.

If you would like to get an idea of how Chris Anderson thinks – have a look here.

If you would like to follow the conference, search for #DILS11 on Twitter.

To become involved in the search for leadership, take a quick look at their blog or book your tickets here. The conference is on the 21^st of September at the Sandton Convention Centre.

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Photo of The Long Tail by: topgold on Flickr