West Rand TBDZA Details

First off, I want to say a quick thanks to @MelanieMinnaar for giving me the butt-kick that I needed, and for saving the West Rand event.

To all my friends in the Wild West, come and drop your blankets off here:

• Date: 26 May 2012
• Time: 6pm to 9pm
• Venue: Rhythm Café, Heritage Square, Cnr Cecil Knight and Viljoen Street, Krugersdorp North.

We’ll be sharing the rooftop with the Rhythm Within Us dance school, so bring a blanket, have a drink at the bar and see some spectacular dancing. It’s for a good cause!

 

#TBDZA

If you live in South Africa and spend a bit of time on Twitter; you’ve probably heard about the Twitter Blanket Drive.

It’s easy to forget, when we’re sipping on a big cup of hot chocolate in front of our big gas heaters, that a large portion of the South African population barely have the luxury of snuggling into a warm blanket.

It was with this very thought that, @MelanieMinnaar started the Twitter Blanket Drive, just over 2 years ago.

The aim is to collect as many blankets as possible, using social media to rally support.  The main event will be held as a national tweet-up on 26 May 2012, with supporters getting together at 6pm at venues all across South Africa (and even over the border in Zimbabwe).

This year, I am proud to be hosting the #TBDZA West Rand event, with my good friend and awesome rockstar @PappaG100 as co-host.  He and his band, Die Kat se Snor will be treating us to a free performance on the day, so bring your blankets and watch this awesome band live!

For more info and to RSVP, follow this link: http://twtvite.com/TBDZAWestRand

We hope to see you there!

You’re an expert now?

So I have this friend (a term I use loosely, as I don’t quite consider her a friend anymore) who is selling herself as a social media expert.   She’s literally made that her title **

First off, let’s just make things clear.  I’m not proclaiming to be an expert either,  I lurk around on Twitter, reading what other people say and looking for interesting links to follow.  Occasionally I’ll post a comment, but mostly I’m there to gather info and  I’m sure anyone who has spent any amount of time on Twitter will realise what an amazing source of info it is 🙂

However, it took me a while to figure out who to follow to get the type of info I wanted.   I had to trawl through a lot of profiles to find people who are interesting and news sites that won’t spam my feed but will keep me entertained and intrigued.  I also realised that I could make friends on Twitter, however platonic, and that meant that I could get even more info from their sources.  (Can you tell that I’m a bit of a news-whore)  It also meant that I had a whole new support system.  People who watch the same shows that I do, go to the same places, buy the same things and they all had an opinion to share.  Many times I’ve decided not to buy something because of the advice I’ve received from Twitter.  There is one snag though….to get advice and support, you need to interact.  Give advice as much as you receive it, support the people who support you, share links that you thought are newsworthy.

Which brings me back to my “expert friend”.  She’s been on Twitter for all of 9 months now, and that is in her capacity as “Online Community Manager” for the radio station that she works for.  She’s been on Twitter in her personal capacity since May, sometimes only posting once every few months or so.

All of this wouldn’t bother me at all, if she didn’t have the audacity to sell herself as an expert in the field.   Dictionary.com defines an expert as the following:

ex·pert

–adjective

3. possessing special skill or knowledge; trained by practice; skillful or skilled (often fol. by in  or at ): an expert driver; to be expert at driving a car.

4. pertaining to, coming from, or characteristic of an expert: expert work; expert advice.

I specifically want to draw the attention to the highlighted bit: “trained by practice”, because this is the bit that annoys me the most.  How can you claim to be an expert when you’ve barely scraped the surface of your field of “expertise”??  Is there a crash course I’m unaware of, or do people learn by osmosis now?

Do me a favour, before you claim to be an expert in anything, show me the results of your expertise.  Show me what makes you so knowledgeable.  Show me you’ve actually sat down and studied the ins and outs of your chosen field and how you’ve applied them.  Show me people who believe in you.

If you can’t do that, your nothing more than a wannabe chancer to me, and you’ve succeeded only in losing my respect.

**I may be annoyed, but I’m not an asshole.  Name and details omitted to give her a chance to prove herself.