I write this blog on the eve of Human Rights Day. In accordance with the Bill of Rights, everyone has the right to life, equality and human dignity. Protected rights include a healthy environment, housing, health care, food, water and social security. For those wonderful friends living outside of South Africa who kindly read my ramblings here’s the quick history on why we mark this day.

If your business, organisation, NPO, municipality, city or initiative does not have a well-defined community today, you’re missing multiple opportunities. Community is at the very core of the collaborative era and smart businesses are harnessing the power of community to co-create and crowd source.

Ninety-six percent of executives cite ineffective communication as the reason for workplace failures.  In addressing this, executives estimate that improved communication and collaboration through social technologies could raise productivity levels by as much as 20-25%.

When our grandchildren ask about what life was like, what will we tell them? Will we tell them that we were among the generations that learnt real lessons from the past, that we despised the vast disparities between people, that globally there was enough for all, that this was shared and that we embraced the collaborative era? That we shared ideas and solutions to major and minor challenges with communities that shared purpose?

FROM PECHA KUCHA JOHANNESBURG

27 JANUARY 2016 - the slides and the transcript

1. Collaboration is the new black and it’s changing the world, often in the most unexpected ways. Thanks to Pecha Kucha Johannesburg for being curious enough around the topic. The image was taken in Tahrir Square in Cairo at the height of the Arab Spring in 2011. People silenced for many years gathered in their thousands.