Anyone who knows me will know that my usual company consists of male developers and my mostly male circle of friends, so when I was invited to a conference about Women in Leadership I admit that I was somewhat intimidated by the idea of spending a day in a room full of women.
The agenda was a simple one – As our gracious host Debby Edelstein emphasized,it was NOT about talking heads – It was about the value of collective wisdom, the responsibility of leadership and about how to listen better, by becoming more comfortable with silence and respecting the views of those around us.
With speakers who had impressive CV’s and a wide range of expertise we were given a holistic view of how different women cope with the challenges we face in positions of responsibility. … Continue Reading

As a geek I quite welcome the idea of time travel. Some of my favorite sci-fi movies involve, in part, the idea of stepping into a rectangular box where time and relative dimensions in space make little to no sense at all and the overly-calculating hero battles household appliances and gets to be called a Doctor without the necessary qualifications. The concept of a time machine has had me fascinated since I first happened across HG Wells in those early infant years. I remember watching Back to the Future repeatedly so much so that my Dad would jokingly mention that he had returned from the future only to find me watching Back to the Future there as well. I remember developing entire science debates in high school around movies such as Twelve Monkeys, Planet of the Apes and The Terminator. My fascination with time travel became my crazy obsession and I would always wear two watches, set exactly two days apart but never really showing the actual time.
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With the Argus Cycle Tour around the corner and every avid cyclist frantically increasing their cadence to reach a fitness level that would possibly give them a chance of catching up to and getting a glimpse of the 7 time Tour De France winner, Lance Armstrong, it’s no surprise that SA roads will be dominated by cyclist during February and early March.

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You only get one shot at building your innovation into a successful business.You have to deliver something people want, need and love first time. And you have to deliver it fast.

Sketching makes that one shot really count. It adds a little time up front, but massively reduces the overall time, cost and risk of launching something new. … Continue Reading

A geek without gadgets is like a Jedi without a lightsaber, a Trekkie without a physics major or a Linux user without root access. Rather unashamedly, I am a sucker for gadgets. Many a late night would be spent huddled under the covers with my flashlight in hands, drooling over the latest Popular Mechanics centerfold spread. … Continue Reading

One thing the 20fourLabs team is great at is moaning, the other thing they are even better at is delivering results. So after much whining (Marian) and whingeing (Marquin) – five of our guys once again presented interesting and informative sites and applications and got the rest of us all fired up for another month of creating cool sh*t!
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Google Creative Lab have put together an awesome presentation of the 87 coolest web innovations. Its a great collection of digital creativity using the latest technologies. Some of the APIs used include YouTube, Google Maps, SketchUp, Android and Twitter. … Continue Reading

Its interesting to see how in the design industry we are always trying to create new trends based on all the latest existing trends that are buzzing around us.

The truth is that it has already been done before and we are simply re-creating them.
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in the next few months we’re going to be delivering on a really cool Project.
i am not going to mention the name or what we are doing etc, because i think it is still a “secret”.
part of the process for the Project is that we need to decide on a technology/technologies that will we use in delivering what the Business needs (aka wants).

the hard part about making such decisions is that they tend to be biased by your own experience or preferences. a very real example of this would be: “let’s use Python for the system because it is … (you can fill in your own reason here)”. … Continue Reading

Our objective in having these monthly hour long gatherings is to give a ’show and tell’ about an innovative site with technology or concepts that we have not used before and which we want to share.
We look at these sites in order to broaden our own minds and inspire us to create our own innovative sites and products and for us to think of new ways to use the idea or technology behind what we look at.
The added bonus is that each member of our team gets practice giving elevator presentations and starts feeling comfortable speaking to a group.
Read about what we discussed in today’s meeting and let us know what you think?
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