Why no progress?
It is devastating to see government failing to meet the public servants’ demands for a wage increase.
The strike has been going on for almost three weeks now and this is affecting our economy and the country’s credibility.
If we look at what the strikers are demanding, one won’t notice a difference between the 8,6% and R1 000 housing allowance the unions are demanding and the 7,6% and R800 housing allowance the state is offering.
What also needs to be taken into consideration is that if the unions and its members accept government’s offer, we will witness the same situation next year and even the year after.
My question is, why doesn’t government give government employees what they are demanding?
If those in charge were in the strikers’ shoes I bet they would strike too.
PSL ticket hike a rip-off
The 2010-11 Absa Premiership season kicked off on a high note, with most teams registering their first wins of the new season.
On Friday, the Premier Soccer League (PSL) chairman, Dr Irvin Khoza, officially announced that it has increased the ticket price for a PSL match from R20 to R40.
It didn’t come as a shock to me to see that almost three stadiums were half empty during some of the matches at the weekend as a result of the recently increased ticket price.
Being influenced by the support and the way South Africans purchased the World Cup tickets, the PSL thought it would be reasonable to increase the ticket price after eight years.
I am not sure this was a wise move by the PSL and it is proving not to be as ideal as they thought it would be.
I was watching the Wits and SuperSport United match down at Coca-Cola Park on Saturday, a match which Wits won 3-0.
For a moment it felt as though I was watching one of their training sessions because the stadium was so empty that you could call a player’s name and the player would hear you from the pitch.
The recent ticket price hike will prove costly to the PSL, as more and more supporters will stop purchasing match tickets.
This will affect the maintenance of some of the stadiums and could decrease the standard of our football because teams will be playing at empty stadiums, which may decrease the morale of players and dampen performance.
For an average South African soccer fanatic the match ticket hike is a total rip-off by the PSL. I think more needs to be done to improve our standard of football before we can start increasing ticket prices.
The PSL should come up with ways to generate support for the domestic leagues if they really want to compare our league with those abroad.
I am sure everybody is aware of the ongoing public servant strike; such incidents also have indirect effects on the way people spend their money — be it purchasing match tickets or spending it on other things.
I strongly feel the PSL rushed the decision to raise ticket prices because this may affect them in the long run.
Nigerian president is spot on
I read the article about Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan suspending the national team from international competition for two years following their poor performance in the Soccer World Cup in SA (Nigeria’s president suspends disgraced team, July 1). In support of Mr Jonathan, I strongly feel that he made a good decision.
It is really heartbreaking for Nigerian supporters, and the nation at large, to witness such a disappointing performance from a nation that was at the forefront of African football. Nigeria was ranked number one in Africa eight years ago.
They are the only African team to beat world number one Brazil.
With so much value and achievement in their history, Africa was looking up to them to produce some outstanding performances against the European teams — but they couldn’t. It was not only Nigeria that performed badly, but Cameroon as well. With almost the whole Cameroonian team playing in Europe we also expected some good football from our African brothers — yet again we were disappointed.
These players are role models to some people and are paid very well. As supporters of Africa, we were very disappointed.
I think the Cameroonian president should look at banning or fining the players — it was a disgrace to watch such people who are ranked higher than SA, Korea DPR, Australia, Honduras and Japan in the Fifa world rankings display such a poor performance in front of millions of South African and African supporters who had spent months budgeting for a World Cup ticket to support these teams, during the long winter nights of SA, blowing vuvuzelas, singing and screaming their lungs out for their nations.
I really feel these two nations should at least apologise to their respective nations and SA, because we prepared an outstanding tournament for them .
We were never biased when it came to support, the stadiums were always full — but they didn’t live up to our expectations, although when these players play for their teams abroad, they play like they will never play again. I hope Fifa considers the president’s decision and doesn’t interfere. http://twurl.nl/kpy1fj
Guerilla marketing made easy
FIFA and it’s long list of rules have been in the spotlight in the lead up to the World Cup, and now more so that the tournament is underway. They are known to be iron-fisted in their enforcement of their ‘rights’ and will sue anyone in their way. This behavior is predictable and provides an easy opportunity for brands with enough courage (and broad-shouldered lawyers) to execute simple and effective guerilla marketing campaigns.
Bavaria, a Dutch beer ambushed one of the World Cup fixtures where the Dutch were playing. The ambush wasn’t all that extravagant, 36 women in orange mini skirts in a crowd of 90,000 is cheeky and daring but definitely not devastating.
What made the campaign, and provided Bavaria with all the marketing returns it could have hoped for, was FIFA’s predictably litigious behavior. The campaign would have received a mention or two in the media and would have quickly buried itself under a heap of exciting football news, but FIFA just couldn’t help itself. FIFA announced it would sue Bavaria for the stunt, presumably to deter future guerillas. Instead, it gifted Bavaria a string of high-profile stories in the media and thrust a relatively small stunt into the global limelight.
Bavaria must have their feet up, sipping a refreshing beer and patting themselves on the backs for a job well done. Sure their lawyers will have to work a few late nights but just write it off as a marketing expense. The lesson: if you’re looking to get the most out of a guerilla campaign, pick a fight with the biggest, baddest and most litigious kid on the block.
By Craig Rodney
Vuvuzela Moment…Feel it, it’s already here!!!
At 12 noon … come out onto the streets, blow your vuvuzelas and show your support for Bafana Bafana.
Feel it, it’s already here.
Viva Bafana Bafana Viva!!!!
The official opening of Soccer City “The Callabash”
Soccer City "The Callabash"
Thousands of soccer fans from all over the country gathered on Saturday, 22 May 2010 for the official opening of Soccer City “The Callabash”.
Businesses embrace embedded unified communications
Traditional hardware-based phone systems including desktop phones and PBX will become history as business applications move towards embedded unified communications, this according to South African Microsoft Unified Communications specialists, Galdon Data.
More than 75% of new business applications will include embedded unified communications within the next three years, said Galdon Data’s CEO, Garry Ackermann.
“The reality is that plain business calls will become outdated with more than 50% of Voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) calls incorporating more than just voice”, he added.
Microsoft begun to change business communications technology three years ago, when it launched integrated software platforms, Microsoft Unified Communications (UC); adopted worldwide by millions of customers and including full enterprise telephony, instant messaging and a platform that allows customers to embed communications in applications such as Microsoft Office or Microsoft Exchange.
These services are available both on the software premises and in the cloud, using Microsoft Office Communications Online.
”With software at the centre, innovation in this industry has accelerated, leading to the introduction of new capabilities that leapfrog traditional hardware-bound communications systems”, he noted.
Ackermann said that unified communications platforms are preferred because “businesses are quickly seeing cost savings and productivity gains”.
According to Forrester Research, the market for unified communications software will grow to $14.5 billion (about R120-billion) by 2015.
Galdon Data is an IT services company that specializes in providing solutions for Business Process Automation and Unified Communications.
World’s tech gurus head to SA
Internet technology guru Clay Shirky together with leaders from Twitter, Mozilla, WordPress, and Yahoo are set to give presentations at the inaugural Tech4Africa event, being held in Johannesburg on 12 and 13 August.
