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I’ve been at Mail & Guardian Online now for just over two weeks. I’d love to say that the first two week have been quiet, tame and took the form of an introduction to the business, it hasn’t. Not conventionally at least.

On my first day working with Matt and Vince I was thrown in to the deep end and tasked with setting up Sports Leader. At that point I didn’t know my arse from my elbow let alone how to call up top sports personalities, intellectuals and commentators and ask them to join a platform that hadn’t even launched yet. It was tough. I got bat. The success rate is very low on cold calling the sporting elite let me tell you.

I made many phone calls and sent out many emails. Eventually it started to pay off. I managed to get hold of some fantastic sports people and through the help of Mr Trapido we have some fantastic rugby names on the site. There are more to come, many of whom you will know, recognise and want to hear from but more on that in another post. We have tried to be as diverse as possible when it comes to the sports that are represented on Sports Leader, the big ones obviously being Soccer (Football), Rugby and Cricket. However we are proud to say that we have many alternative and extreme sports appearing on Sports Leader.

Within two weeks (or just under) we managed to sign up close on 30 sporting personalities and fans.

Speaking of fans I feel I need to mention that there are some fans contributing to Sports Leader. This was a very calculated move on our behalf. No one owns sports, not even the sports people and no one can ever claim to. The people who have the strongest opinions and often suffer and celebrate more than their teams are the fans. How can you have a sporting platform without having the fans on board? You can’t and we don’t. What we have done is create an interesting juxtaposition of fanatical opinion from armchair commentators and practical insight from industry players and professionals, an important balance when it comes to sport.

So with this blog post I mark the completion of my first project at Mail & Guardian Online.

Today is my last day working at Financial Mail and I can now announce that I am starting a new job at M&G Online on the 19th of May.

My official job title is business manager: mobile and recruitment. But I am sure that more regarding my actual day to day activities will come out as soon as I move in and get involved in the team.

Working with Matt and Vince is definitely going to be one of the great things about my new position. The job is innovative and in a market that is about to burst and is still fairly unconquered in the media sphere.

Obviously moving in to a new market and media house is a big leap for me and one that I am cautiously approaching (with some level of excitement). There are some nerves which should be expected but overall I can’t wait to sink my teeth in to the challenge.

Financial Mail was a phenomenal place to work and to gain some extremely valuable knowledge and experience. The people were sterling and I learned more than I thought I could in a year. But for my career, my brand and the moves I’m trying to make in the industry this is definitely the right move for me at the perfect time.

Things are hotting up in SA, the market is about to explode and I am itching to bury myself in it.

Career limiting moves are, basically, moves that could put you in a very awkward position at work. These Career Limiting Moves (CLM) could mean the end of your job, a dead-end in your job, a stagnation of growth, embarrassment with colleagues or senior management among many other potential problems.

Online makes it all the more simple to incur a CLM. Before you’d need to go to a club, do something stupid and risky, have someone from work see you with their own eyes, have that person bring it up at work and then on top of all of that, have your boss actually take their word over yours.

Today it’s much simpler to look like a fool and limit your career.

Here are ten potential CLMs that you might be making right now.

1. Updating your status

Facebook should actually be given more than one point. Facebook videos, photos, friends, walls, tagging, status updates and much, much more can all affect your colleagues opinion of you. Going out, getting drunk, partying, bunking work and recording all of this on Facebook is silly.

Updating your status telling the world that you are having coffee away from work when you told work that you were sick is a mistake. Don’t make it.

2. Secret office romances

Some companies don’t necessarily condone office relationships. So don’t go and put that sort of information on your Facebook page, blog or pictures on any other online profile that you have. Think about it, choose love, job or privacy. Simply put be discreet.

3. Recording your life one shot at a time

Photos are amazing but keep in mind they can be proof. The next time you add photos to your Flickr account remember that you’re not the only one who can see them, everyone else can. That is, unless you set the photo’s status to private. I suggest you do that with photos that might appear to be questionable. You know your company. Are they liberal, conservative, party animals or free thinkers? If they are extreme-conservatives take down that photo of you dressed up like Marilyn Monroe.

4. Speak your mind but be smart

Everyone who reads this blog knows that I have a big mouth and firm opinions but I know that I can blog about them because my company is fairly liberal. Some might not be. So think through your blog posts. Don’t simply blog the first thing that comes to mind. Think about the effects of your posts, I definitely consider most of the ramifications of every post that I write these days. I’ve learned my lesson, lawsuits and getting fired are not fun no matter what you might think.

5. Bad mouthing people

Being opinionated and being arrogant and foolish are very different approaches that have different outcomes.

Opinionated people tend to not to be frowned upon. They tend to be taken notice of and you could benefit from this greatly. If you are nervous at the office and have strong opinions on your blog about people, politicians and situations it might pay dividends for you at work. However if you are arrogant and aimlessly, recklessly target individuals on your blog or another platform prepare for a firefight.

6. Bad Spelling

I kan like to make for sure that spalling is okai somtimes.

But let’s be honest this blog isn’t perfect when it comes to grammar and spelling. I am well aware of this and I’ve been lucky that my dearest readers often check up on me and point out the errs of my ways!

You need to be very careful because some people are very picky about language. It’s an integral part of many, many jobs. Remember, ‘i’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c’…or something like that.

photo credit: massdistraction

In fact, it’s been a long year so far and it’s only February. I hate this feeling.

But things are coming right, work doesn’t suck, people are settling down and becoming easier to work with at the moment, which is great. People are gathering focus. Blogging is going well (not on here) in general although if I thought that running two blogs was tough work, three is incomprehensible. I work late, really late, blog every night and on weekends and am constantly looking for now content on three different levels.

But however you look at it, I have little to bitch about, so I wont bitch.

No, wait, I lie, I can’t not bitch. I’m tired. Was at work today before 7am. That is really early for me. Maybe not for everyone, but for me it. I feel like it’s early for me because I am always working lately.

Initially I really loved blogging - I still do - but now it has become work, a job, a mechanism to express opinion, earn revenue and generate hype. This is work in a nutshell. So I work a full-time job (roughly 10 hours a day) and then go home and work more. Managing three blogs is tough work, but at least I love it!

Take it from me, if you are thinking about filling your empty plate, think twice before you over fill it.

It’s really tough to do alot of things. Why? Because there are only so many hours in the day and there are only so many things you are allowed to do at work!

Things go on and time gets made use of in the end.

I’m Having a bad week. Everything seems to be beyond my control, nothing is really within my grasp and I feel properly bleak about things.

Being sick over the past while I’ve learned a few things that I think are worth sharing:

1. I am not indispensable - so take more time for myself.

7. Giving your employees more responsibility:
I left work and my colleague was lumped with a load of my work. I did work from home but he was pushed to work on things that were outside of his job description. This has seemingly provided him with some insight in to my job and me with some insight in to his. He now works ten times harder and takes pride in knowing that he can do my job if he needs to and know that I can rely on him to do more important things for me.

8. Listen to your mates, sometimes they have a pearl of wisdom even if they are swines.

I really think that the things I have listed above are important if you take note of them. If you don’t think about them it might seem that they are irrelevant and don’t apply to you, but I suggest you pick one and try it. Some are easier to implement than others so maybe start with something that is less taxing on your time.

Maybe try blogging a bit more. Take Saturdays and Sundays and write 5 blog post over these two days. Then set their timestamps and post them one a day throughout the week. This way if you want to blog more as topical issues come up you will be showing a minimum of one post a day and a maximum of however many posts you can manage in the week.

Humans are strange. Whether we are brilliant at what we do or not we all like to feel indispensable. I like to feel that way and in fact I thought that I was indispensable in every aspect of my life.

This feeling keeps me going, it keeps me driven and alive and I am insistent that no one can do what I do they way that I do it. But then you get ill (as I am) and you are forced to lie down at home with your email from work as your only tool. It is in this state of incapacitated illness that I have realised that no one is indispensable. Absolutely no one. There are many people who can do my job even though they might be unhappy at the prospect of doing my job, they still do it.

My point is this: Take time off when you want to because life is not about becoming indispensable.

Becoming indispensable is impossible and that is reality. Everyone is replaceable in any job even the president, hell, especially the president should be, can be and is replaceable. I also think that it is necessary for companies to occasionally remind their employees that they need to perform consistently well because if they don’t there is someone else who can do the same job for less pay.

…when you wake up and you’ve slept through your alarm by just enough time to warrant not eating breakfast. When you get in your car and realise your almost out of petrol. When you get to the first petrol station and it is full (now you are running late). When you get to the next petrol station and it is on a go slow. When you need to clean your windscreens, check the water and oil, fill up and there is only one gent who seems to not hear your requests for service. When the full tank seems to take an age to take…in…that…last…drop.

When you leave the petrol station and the robot stops working. When you try to get on the highway there is a big, fat, ugly BMW X-whatever pushing in to your lane after sitting for 20 minutes and waiting your turn. When you get on the highway it rolls smoothly, up until your turn off. When you take the turn off you find roadworks.

When you make the decision to go lane-hopping instead of trusting your choice of lane. When every lane you hop in to seems to slow down or miraculously contain a massive truck almost reversing down Corlette Drive.

When you get in to your parkade at work, there are no parking because you are late.

When you eventually get to work in such a tizz because you think that everyone will be waiting for you tapping their watches in disdain and there is almost no one there yet.

I love flexihours. I love mornings and I love the media industry.

It’s hard to work from home. There are distractions all over and reasons not to work keep popping up. Is it wrong to watch a movie when you should be working? Is it? I think it is but sometimes I just can’t help myself.

I overcame the early mornings (I am now awake at about 7:30am every morning) and have overcome the breakfast issues (I now eat breakfast). The next hill to climb is gym.

I think the best alternative is to get offices. WiredWorks is going to need offices, soon. I think that it is important, not the most important, part of a new company, offices. The corporate identity and brand that offices offer are invaluable. In spite of being an online media company I think that real world organisations like to see some sort of professionalism in small to medium size enterprises and start up companies. Offices, in my opinion are a helpful way to create this identity.

There are others ways to achieve this of course, but I think that for me right now, I need to get out of the house.
[techtags: corporate identity, startups, branding, marketing, image]

This post serves as an update and apology: You know it’s busy when your most recent posts are from del.icio.us.

So here goes:

Digspot is launching soon. It is up and it is active. South Africa’s soon to be student social network #1 is making its way through campuses around SA as of May 2007. I am in the process of organising a massive marketing spree nation wide. This alone is eating my time. Would love to have some feedback if anyone has time to join and try out the Digspot network!

Company update: I am in the process of formalizing my new company here is JHB South Africa with Courts. This is a laborious process that is time sapping and energy destroying. Registering a CC, finding clients (I have just confirmed the first of hopefully many to come), getting advertisers on board, finishing website development on many, many sites and blogs and managing my personal blog and SA Rocks. Killer time destroyer. Also designing the site/blog for the company is time consuming as I am using it as a platform to experiment with Wordpress and its capabilities as well as how I can manage myself with regard to design.

I still have a girlfriend (this is a job on its own). Having an understanding GF is a very NB NB part of being an entrepreneur. Without said supportive GF I would be in deep trouble. She is lovely and she is still around (heaven knows why).

SA Rocks is cruising along swimmingly. The contributors to the site do a sterling job and the support has been incredible.

My design skills and programming are coming along slowly but nicely (any assistance welcome and encouraged here).

I have just started contributing to the University of Kwazulu Natal’s media blog. So far (one post down) it is proving to be thought provoking and challenging.

I am also trying to consolidate a plan of action in terms of what sites/blogs to drop, produce, promote, develop and design. This is a tough process with many new ideas coming up and presenting themselves in all genres.

RSS feeds have become the bane of my existence, I can’t keep up with all of you bloggers blogging. So much interesting stuff to get through, so little time.

Finally I am still trying to remain a human being in touch with the real world and real people. This involves a bit of a social life on the weekends, catching up on my TV and some movies as well as meeting up with bloggers and media people in the real world over a real meal.

Phew. That’s kinda it for now I think.

Fill in the blanks. For me on this lovely Monday it is: Too Much Work, Too Little Time.

What would you fill in?

Most people crave long weekends. Most people think of it as a bit of respite. But then there are the others. The people who reckon that they have worked so hard during the last few months/weeks that they deserve to go out every night of the long weekend and recover.

I have been a combination of the two above. I think I deserve some rest, I do. But then my mates will phone me, we’ll make plans that turn in to more plans that get you drunk and end up with you jamming at 4am at some club somewhere with someone. What a mission. Then Monday comes round again and you are trying to recover from the long weekend as well as the week prior to that when you were working.

Sometimes being sociable feels like a job too.

Right now I feel like my life consists of none of the above things. I have ducks, plenty of them, but none of them are walking a nice neat row. I need to sit down, prioritize and streamline my business endeavors. This might take some time, but it is something that must be done.

I also feel the need to minimize the effect of negativity in my life. There are some things that happen that need to happen and somethings that happen that don’t need to. The latter needs to be minimized and ultimately extinguished completely!

At the moment I am one person dealing with multiple business opportunities and offers as an individual, companies need to be registered, bank accounts opened and business deals closed. Partnerships need to be formed and consolidated. All of this needs to be a part of a great transformation in my life currently.

Lets hope. Watch this space, streamlining coming soon!