CREATE. DEFY. SLAY. What Every Business Can Learn From SA’s own LIRA and BEYONCÉ
AFRICA’S FAST CITIES Why Accra,
Nairobi, Lagos, Cape Town & others will shape our urban future
How Apple, Facebook and Google are infiltrating movies & TV
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August 2016
Contents
C OVE R F EATURE
CREATE. DEFY. FEEL GOOD.
Documentaries, worldwide tours, movies and property are all the pursuits that South African songbird Lira can count within her growing portfolio. The sophisticated musician-turnedbusinesswoman tells us what it takes to succeed in music, in business and in life. By Evans Manyonga
Page 28
THE BUSINESS OF BEYONCÉ
Even before the surprise release of her politically charged new album, Lemonade, Beyoncé’s every move dominated—and defined—pop culture. We take a closer look at key lessons that every business can learn from a master of modern branding. By JJ McCorvey
Page 38
2 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A AUGUST 2016
In tune with the times Lira is expanding her offering in many different ways “to make the whole career work. It’s now a lot harder to make a living from just selling music.” (page 28)
F EAT U RE S
50 Land of Tomorrow
Fast Company SA looks at the most exciting initiatives coming out of Africa’s top Fast Cities which are shaping our urban future
60 Revenge of The Nerds
In the race to woo audiences with original content, tech giants Apple, Facebook, Google and Alibaba are increasingly courting the A-list BY NICOLE LAPORTE
70 Big and Bold
Why the next great South African innovation could come from the country’s ambitious community of university students All hail the Queen Bey Beyoncé is not only redefining how artists market themselves but her successes are reverberating more broadly across the business landscape too. (page 38)
AUGUST 2016 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A 3
Contents
REG U LARS
08 From the Editor NE XT
18 Changing The Model
Online underwear startups are luring customers by de-emphasising sex appeal BY ELIZABETH SEGRAN
46 A Higher Calling
The leader in high-volume drone deliveries isn’t Amazon or DHL—it’s a startup delivering medical supplies in Rwanda BY ADELE PETERS
48 Smarter Medicine Five ways artificial intelligence is transforming healthcare BY CHRISTINA FARR
MAST ERC L ASS
14 The AdvoConsultant
Jess Weiner helps companies such as Dove and Mattel build a stronger connection with women BY SUNNY SEA GOLD
10 The Recommender 16 A Sound Design
A Johannesburg-based artisan is putting a new spin on an old favourite
17 Electric Feel
Musician St. Vincent has redesigned the six-string BY CHARLIE SORREL
74 Maverick of The Month
Conservationist and adventurer Braam Malherbe is the Glenfiddich Fast Company SA Maverick for August
78 The Great Innovation Frontier Why Africa should be moving determinedly away from fossil fuels and toward innovation in cleantech BY WALTER BAETS
80 Fast Bytes & Events 84 My Two Cents
C REAT I VE C ONVERSAT I O N
24 The Investigator
As millennial women shrink the pay gap, they have more money to spend—and will be attracting greater attention from marketers BY JON BIRGER
Oscar-winning documentarian Alex Gibney on the dark side of power BY KC IFEANYI
Pulling the strings Annie Clark aka St. Vincent had a beef with standard electric guitars—so she decided to create something more manageable. (page 17)
4 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A AUGUST 2016
PUBLISHER AND EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Robbie Stammers
robbie@fastcompany.co.za
ART DIRECTOR
EDITOR Evans Manyonga
evans@fastcompany.co.za
Stacey Storbeck-Nel
stacey@insightspublishing.co.za
Orka Collective, Ignus Gerber, Emily Berl Photography, I Love Dust, Jasper James, Ramona Ring
CHIEF SUB-EDITOR
DIGITAL PLATFORMS
Tania Griffin
ADVERTISING SALES DIRECTOR Keith Hill
keith@insightspublishing.co.za
ADVERTISING MANAGER Kyle Villet
OFFICE MANAGER Taryn Kershaw
taryn@insightspublishing.co.za
SOUTH AFRICAN EDITORIAL BOARD
Louise Marsland, Anneleigh Jacobsen, Prof. Walter Baets, Pepe Marais, Alistair King, Koo Govender, Abey Mokgwatsane, Kheepe Moremi, Herman Manson, Ellis Mnyandu, Thabang Skwambane
By Digital Publishing
Charles Burman, Catherine Crook
FINANCIAL MANAGER
Sarah Buluma
PRINTER
RSA Litho
DISTRIBUTION On The Dot
SUBSCRIPTIONS
taryn@insightspublishing.co.za
CHAIRMAN
Joe Mansueto, Mansueto Ventures
EDITOR
Robert Safian
DEPUTY EDITOR David Lidsky
EXECUTIVE EDITOR Noah Robischon
EDITORS-AT-LARGE
Jon Gertner, Rick Tetzeli
SENIOR ASSOCIATE EDITOR JJ McCorvey
PUBLISHED BY
EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Jill Bernstein
DIRECTOR, EDITORIAL STRATEGY Lori Hoffman
EDITORIAL CONTRIBUTORS
DIRECTOR, EDITORIAL & NEW BUSINESS ENTERPRISES
Sunny Sea Gold, Elizabeth Segran, KC Ifeanyi, Charlie Sorrel, JJ McCorvey, Adele Peters, Christina Farr, Nicole LaPorte, Jon Birger, Walter Baets, Chris Waldburger, Casey Roche, Evans Manyonga
Bill Shapiro
CREATIVE DIRECTOR Florian Bachleda
PHOTOGRAPHY DIRECTOR
ARTISTS
Sarah Filippi
Cover: Jurie Potgieter Djeneba Aduayom, Adobe Stock, Gallo Images/Getty Images/ Isaac Brekken/Kevin Mazur/WireImage/ Jon Kopaloff, Everett Collection, Magnolia Pictures, Issouf Sanogo, Frank Micelotta/Invision/AP, Duane Smith Photography, Indio Design, Celine Grouard, Maurizio Di Iorio, Zach Gross, Will Anderson, Jeff Lysgaard, Señor Salme, Martin Leon Barreto,
FAST COMPANY INTERNATIONAL TEAM
ART DIRECTOR Managing Director: Robbie Stammers
Alice Alves
Physical address: 176 Main Road, Claremont, 7700, Cape Town Postal address: PO Box 23692, Claremont, 7735 Telephone: +27 (0) 21 683 0005 Websites: www.fastcompany.com www.fastcompany.co.za www.insightspublishing.co.za
PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Carly Migliori
CHIEF DEVELOPMENT OFFICER Quentin Walz
CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER Mark Rosenberg
No article or any part of any article in Fast Company South Africa may be reproduced without the prior written consent of the publisher. The information provided and opinions expressed in this publication are provided in good faith, but do not necessarily represent the opinions of Mansueto Ventures in the USA, Insights Publishing or the editor. Neither this magazine, the publisher or Mansueto Ventures in the USA can be held legally liable in any way for damages of any kind whatsoever arising directly or indirectly from any facts or information provided or omitted in these pages, or from any statements made or withheld by this publication. Fast Company is a registered title under Mansueto Ventures and is licensed to Insights Publishing for use in southern Africa only. 6 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A AUGUST 2016
From the Editor
In the fast lane Our top African Fast Cities are advancing determinedly toward becoming stronger and more connected.
The future of living In this modern era, defining anything as ‘smart’ is not simple. Smartphones, smart watches, smart cars, smart geysers and even smart pens are among the myriad smart objects that have been introduced in recent times. This edition puts the spotlight on Africa’s Smart Cities, and five core aspects informed our definition and choice: smart environmental practices, smart governance, smart living, smart mobility and smart people. In essence, these urban centres are innovative and inclusive, with an integrated approach to improving the efficiency of city operations and the quality of life of their citizens, and are committed to growing their local economy. The main aim of building a smart city is to improve the residents’ quality of life by using technology to improve the efficacy of services and meet citizens’ needs. Transportation systems, hospitals, edutainment facilities, smart wastemanagement systems, stable power and water supply networks, and even order and the rule of law are some of the key aspects that aid in making cities more functional and, essentially, empowering. There’s no absolute definition of a smart city. It works progressively toward becoming a smart city, whether its rate of progress is gradual—or fast.
8 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A AUGUST 2016
Our top cities have been praiseworthy in the development of their urban areas. Though many challenges still lie ahead, the positives have outshone the negatives. These African metropolises are advancing determinedly toward becoming stronger, more connected cities that empower their citizens. This inaugural list of Fast Cities is an acknowledgement of these efforts, and a reiteration that Africa is no longer the Dark Continent it was once perceived to be. No, it’s not perfect. Yes, more can be done. On another note, we have not one but two cover personalities this edition: two talented, beautiful, business-savvy, single-named powerhouses. Beyoncé is wowing business execs, and we share 10 lessons every company can learn from her. After sitting for over two hours interviewing our South African songbird Lira, I was impressed by her vision and thoughts on business, music, and the future of Africa and its citizens. She had priceless advice for us. Netflix and Amazon have proven that ‘outside’ players can not only survive but also thrive in Hollywood. Their progress has been noted by the world’s tech giants Google, Facebook, Apple and Alibaba—which are now jostling to get in on the (lights, camera,) action. Our “Revenge of The Nerds” feature covers their TV and movie plans in more detail. As always, read and enjoy this month’s features but, above all, take something from them. Also remember: United we stand, divided we fall— as a country and a continent.
Evans Manyonga evans@fastcompany.co.za @Nyasha1e
MULTIFUNCTIONAL PRINTERS
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COPY / PRINT VOLUME
COPIER SPEED
WHAT WILL THE COPIER BE USED FOR?
The price of a copier increases with its ability to handle higher print volumes. Estimate your monthly print needs to select a copier that is able to keep up with the pace of your business without unnecessary expense.
Copier speed is measured in pages per minute. Your copier should be able to print efficiently without time being wasted waiting for print jobs. Consider what your daily print and copy requirements are and factor in the size of the documents being printed.
Copiers can have a number of productivityboosting features. You should determine if you need a colour or black & white device, and whether additional finishers are required to automate tasks like stapling, binding, folding or sorting.
CONSIDER MANAGED PRINT SERVICES Regardless of the size of your organisation, you can expect to save approximately 30% of your total print/copy costs by implementing an MPS solution. Contact Seartec for advice on choosing the correct copier for your business or ask us to do a print audit to help reduce your printing costs.
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The recommender What are you loving this month?
Cuthbert Ndlovu
Brand ambassador The Glenlivet
How to . . . . . . choose the best craft whisky: It’s best to
stick with a brand whose style you’re familiar with, as it will sit better with your palate. Rather avoid the top shelf, as a pricey whisky doesn’t always mean it’s of the best quality. If, for example, you already drink the classic range of your chosen whisky brand, chances are you’ll enjoy the stronger, more natural flavour of its craft offering. 10 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A AUGUST 2016
Favourite spot Mani Bains
Creator, director, Diva Jeans & Kings of Denim
PopInShop, Cape Town: For any designer, it’s a dream to create an amazing product that people love. But you also want people to see your product and give feedback—and, of course, to buy it. PopInShop, with its unique collaborative environment, enables this. You can interact with other brands to host events, or create PR and business networking opportunities.
The recommender
FAVOURITE BOOKS
Claire Winstanley
Food stylist & YouTube chef Good Looking and Cooking
Food and the City by Ina Yalof: A look at NYC’s food scene from the perspectives of chefs, restaurateurs and waiters driving the story of food in this inimitable city— tapping into their unique beginnings, fortunate circumstances, rocky roads and wildly unforgettable journeys..
Rob Christian Life enthusiast CN&CO
Favourite electronic device Huawei P9: This smartphone is the most advanced piece of tech I’ve used in a long time. Aside from all the functionality you’d expect (and get in spades) from the device, where it really shines is the camera. A partnership between Huawei and photography giant Leica
Favourite travel essential Doug Laburn
Executive manager of Partnerships Lombard Insurance
Asics GEL-Nimbus: These running shoes don’t take up much space in your luggage, and enable you to really feel the soul of a new destination: jogging through its streets, parks and beachfronts in the early morning. Whether an ever alive New York City or keeping it local on the Cape Town promenade, it’s only on foot that you can explore and immerse yourself in fresh sights, sounds and possibilities.
has seen the birth of an absolutely brilliant portable camera. I’m selective with the photos I take, especially when I travel—so when I need to capture a once-in-a-lifetime shot straight away, I know the P9 will deliver the best photo possible in a heartbeat.
Jared Louw
National marketing manager, MSC Education Group
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand: The only true ‘lifechanging’ book I’ve read, and ironically it’s a work of fiction. However, Rand’s philosophies live and breathe through her inspirational characters. It showed me that our successes and failures in life are solely down to ourselves and our attitudes.
AUGUST 2016 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A 11
The recommender
App Alley Blake Dyason
Founder, Love Our Trails
Google Earth:
Barry Tuck
MD, Paton Tupper Digital
Facet: An avid traveller, I’m constantly
looking for insight and recommendations from locals and other tourists. Facet is a gamified social network and videosharing platform that enables users to share 15-second geolocated videos
showcasing their travel experiences. I use it for both entertainment and inspiration, as telling a great story in 15 seconds requires much effort and talent. It’s gaining traction quickly and already has a great South African footprint.
As an outdoor enthusiast, I find myself looking for new trails—chasing snow, looking for waterfalls and connecting with nature. Google Earth opens my world to adventure, giving me the ability to track trails, farm roads and mountain ranges around the world to plan my next adventure. The world’s an amazing place, and this app allows me to dream and explore.
Tony De Barros Brian Wood
Cape Town regional manager, Graffiti
365Scores: It’s quite
challenging to find the time to watch games and keep abreast of results in a number of sporting codes— especially when you’re already juggling your work and family responsibilities. 365Scores offers live score updates, standings, news, videos and notifications of your favourite sport from around the world—so you don’t miss anything.
12 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A AUGUST 2016
Sales & marketing director Lamelle Research Laboratories
Business Banking: Since I’m
an entrepreneur running a business that’s expanding into Africa and beyond, my travels regularly take me outside the borders of South Africa. My Standard Bank business banking helps me keep a finger on the pulse of our financials, an eye on our cash flow, and offers the speed and efficiency I need to run the business remotely when required.
FREE AD SPACE UR BUSINESS SPACE FOR YO D A IS TH IN W R2 M A N D A SH A RE O F ES PR IZ E IN CL UD UR CE S SI N ES S RE SO BU O TH ER
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September 2016 Closing date: 5 T& Cs ap ply
N E X T
Masterclass Vote of confidence Weiner helps companies use their brand to encourage self-esteem.
THE ADVOCONSULTANT Jess Weiner turns good deeds into good business
BY SU NNY SEA GOLD Photograph by Chloe Aftel
14 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A AUGUST 2016
When Dove wanted to advocate for natural beauty, when Mattel needed to make Barbie more relatable, when the White House wanted to get more girls into STEM careers, they all called on Jess Weiner, founder of the multimillion-dollar consultancy Talk to Jess. Weiner, who is also an adjunct professor of personal branding and entrepreneurship at the University of Southern California, started the firm in 2006 as a way to help companies promote confidence among women and girls. “In the best case, what I do is advocacy,” she says. “But every business that I work with is a business first, and I never lose sight of that.” Here’s how she helps some of the country’s most influential companies create products and campaigns that empower women and girls—and turn a profit.
Find the real issue When a study about the relationship between beauty and well-being showed that only 2% of women worldwide considered themselves beautiful, it presented Dove, a beauty brand, with a challenge: How could it talk to the other 98% about its products in a way that would resonate? The study was the impetus for Dove’s now-iconic “Real Beauty” campaign, which kicked off in 2004 with billboard ads that featured non-models, and challenged viewers with prompts such as “Fat?” or “Fab?” and “Gray?” or “Gorgeous?” Shortly after the project launched, Dove hired Weiner as its Global Self-Esteem Ambassador to help extend the reach of the project. “When we started talking to women about the results of the study, what they said was, ‘Yes, I want to feel better about myself, but I also want to make sure my daughter doesn’t grow up with the same insecurities I have,’ ” says Weiner. The message was clear: For the campaign to reach its full potential, Dove had to address a demographic it didn’t sell products to—girls under age 18. The company asked Weiner to write the curriculum for a series of self-esteem workshops designed to reduce girls’ anxiety over their looks, then sent her around the world to teach hundreds of the workshops herself. Since then, more than 19 million girls have completed the hour-long selfesteem programmes.
Celine Grouard
Face your critics The ghoulish, edgy dolls that make up Mattel’s Monster High brand were immediately popular with young girls when they launched in 2010. But news stories about the release were rife with comments from angry moms, who called the dolls “hypersexualised” and “mean-looking”. Mattel brought in Weiner to repair the relationship. After gathering the Monster High team for internal
a line of more inclusive Barbies with varying body shapes, skin tones, and hair colours beginning in 2015.
Discover the power in play
Taking shape Mattel listened to its critics before giving Barbie a modern makeover.
workshops on the impact of media on girls, she asked them to meet with the brand’s most outspoken critics. “It’s never easy to sit across the table from someone who doesn’t like your product,” Weiner says. “But I was convinced that if parents could learn more about the creators’ intentions, there would be a better understanding.” The Monster High dolls are in the midst of a makeover intended to give them a friendlier appearance, and Mattel partnered with Lady Gaga and her Born This Way foundation to encourage fans to promote a more amiable world using the hashtag #KindMonsters. With the Monster High changes under way, Mattel asked Weiner to shift her focus to another brand that needed to rebuild its relationship with moms: Barbie. After decades
as the ultimate embodiment of unattainable beauty, the iconic doll’s sales were falling fast, and Mattel was facing a fresh wave of backlash after a blogger uncovered a Barbie book, published in 2010, that implied Computer Engineer Barbie needed boys to help her code a game. As part of the company’s effort to re-examine the doll, they tapped Weiner to organise a series of face-to-face meetings, this time between the Barbie executive team and child-development experts, coders and parents. The company ultimately rolled out
In April, Tina Tchen, chief of staff for Michelle Obama and executive director of the White House Council on Women and Girls, asked Weiner—in her capacity as a member of USC’s Media, Diversity and Social Change Initiative—to assemble a summit on gender stereotypes in girls’ toys and media. The goal: to use toys as a tool to encourage girls to enter maledominated fields. “Stereotypes impact the way boys and girls dream about their lives,” says Weiner. She convened executives from Disney, Mattel, Lego and Warner Brothers, as well as media companies and youth organisations, to talk about what their products say to girls. Following the summit, Netflix has commissioned two new seasons of Project Mc2, a scripted science web series for tween girls, while the US Toy Industry Association is including a session on gender stereotypes at PlayCon. At the gathering, Weiner urged attendees to think of today’s girl as a “yes, and . . . ” kid, meaning yes, she paints her nails and she’s interested in coding. Rather than discontinuing their more traditional products, Weiner says, brands should focus on representing a range of interests, images and abilities. “Girls love to imagine themselves as princesses, and we don’t want to take that away from them,” Weiner says. “But what else can they be and do at the same time?”
“In the best case, what I do is advocacy. But every business that I work with is a business first, and I never lose sight of that.” AUGUST 2016 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A 15
Next
A SOUND DESIGN A Johannesburg-based artisan is putting a new spin on an old favourite
From SA, with love “If it’s made by hand, it comes from the heart,” says Grove Audio founder, Tshepo Sedumo.
16 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A AUGUST 2016
Wanted striking designs and the ability to be played anywhere.” Tshepo Sedumo, founder of Grove Audio, creates modern boom boxes that work via Bluetooth technology. Built by hand, they are designed to deliver crisp, quality sound—any time, any place.
NOTES FROM THE PAST The boom boxes are “inspired by nostalgia”, says Sedumo. “Back in the day, boom boxes brought people together through the power of music, their
A MUSICAL ‘EXPERIENCE’ His product is made of wood—“for its great acoustic properties”— and covered with a leather-textured fabric. “I source all the components individually
and then bring them together to create an experience that sets my creations apart from the rest. I use the word ‘experience’, because I don’t view my work as simple music players.”
“I’ve always had an interest in woodwork and general DIY activities, and have been honing my skills ever since. A few years ago, I took an interest in audio equipment as well, and decided to merge the two.”
FINE-TUNING SKILLS
Order via email: groveaudio.btn@gmail.com or telephone 082 054 8503. The boom boxes will soon be available on Bidorbuy.co.za as well.
Although not formally trained in his field, Sedumo has taken a DIY approach to his career.
Next
ELECTRIC FEEL How singer St. Vincent redesigned the six-string BY C H A R LI E S O R R E L Photograph by Will Anderson
Wanted
Annie Clark, aka the Grammy-winning musician St. Vincent, had a beef with standard electric guitars: At nearly 1.2m long and about 4kg, they overpowered her slim frame. She decided to create something more manageable. Last year, Clark presented a sketch to Sterling Ball, CEO of Ernie Ball Music Man (the company behind the iconic StingRay bass, favoured by artists such as Queen’s John Deacon). In March, they released the 3kg, $1 900 (R27 150) St. Vincent guitar. Where a typical guitar’s waist is flat, hers has an angular body that slopes toward the guitarist. And the strap button, normally positioned on the centre of the guitar, is located higher on the body to more evenly distribute its weight. Clark also revised the wiring: A five-way switch lets the player mix and match the instrument’s three pickups (the magnetic ‘sensors’ that translate string movement into an electrical current) in new combinations. “I reconsidered every aspect of a standard electric,” Clark says. “I was looking for maximum tone flexibility.” Couple that with the guitar’s intricate angles, and the result is a small yet versatile instrument. “I play her guitar all the time—and I’m a big guy,” says Ball. “I think of it as a little rock machine.”
Axe to grind Clark rethought every element of a guitar to create her model for Ernie Ball.
AUGUST 2016 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A 17
Trendspotting
Betting on basics Online underwear startups are trading provocative pictures for more relatable messaging.
CHANGING THE MODEL Companies are downplaying sex appeal to sell customers on the experience of buying underwear online By Elizabeth Segran Photograph by Maurizio Di Iorio
When Michelle Grant started an Instagram account to promote Lively—the elegant, online-only brand of women’s underwear that she launched in April— she posted playful images (a woman dancing in a bra and a fur coat; another skipping down a deserted road) and captioned them with empowering messages championing “women with wild hearts and boss brains”. Between the Instagram promotion and a simultaneous email campaign, Lively’s website received more than
18 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A AUGUST 2016
700 000 page views in two days. The attention crashed its servers. As Grant had learnt in her five years as a senior merchant for Victoria’s Secret, the $110-billion (R1.5-trillion) US undergarment market is ruled by a handful of companies. Fruit of the Loom, Jockey and Hanes—each founded more than 100 years ago— command the lower end. On the higher side, shoppers turn to luxury brands such as La Perla and Agent Provocateur. And reigning over the middle is Victoria’s Secret, earning $7.2 billion (R102 billion) in revenue last fiscal year. “The [middle] market is dominated by one brand, with one point of view.” She saw room for a new line without the overt focus on sex appeal—and she wasn’t alone. When Lively launched in April, it joined a spate of online underwear startups that have emerged in the past five years, each targeting the customer who wants style and comfort at a moderate price (see sidebar, “In Brief”). But selling underwear online comes with an inherent challenge. Without the ability to see the product in person, consumers can’t get a sense of fit or fabric quality. Retailers such as Warby Parker have won over wary eyeglass shoppers with a sizing guide and an effortless return policy—but in this industry, fit and fabric are far more personal. For Lively and its online competitors, establishing an everywoman (or everyman) message that persuades shoppers to take a chance on a product is a matter of retail life or death. “Your underwear shouldn’t change your body, it should bring out your best elements,” Grant says. She built Lively around this idea. After leaving Victoria’s Secret, Grant studied activewear, swimwear and lingerie and adapted her favourite elements (the stretchy waistband on yoga pants; the femininity of lingerie) to create Lively’s versatile garments. The line, which features adjustable bras meant as much for the gym as
for the office, and a T-shirt bra with memory-foam pads, is modelled by women rocking goofy dance moves and toothy grins. Joanna Griffiths, founder of Knix Wear, which specialises in leakproof underwear for menstruating women, also began by experimenting with fabric. During her final year of business school, Griffiths realised there had been little innovation in period underwear since brands like Triumph International incorporated a layer of plastic into underpants in the 1970s. After testing every period product available, she isolated certain fabrics—those that were absorbent, moisture-wicking and comfortable—and bonded them together. The resulting material is the foundation for Knix’s underwear, which acts as a backup to a pad or tampon. (Unlike rival Thinx, which focuses exclusively on period underwear, Knix also sells products for everyday use.) To ease customers over the online shopping hurdle, Griffiths— who says Knix has sold 800 000 pairs of underwear since its 2013 launch—developed the site’s “Real Women in Knix” feature. Shoppers can scroll through a mini profile of each woman that includes her occupation, age, height and clothing size, along with unretouched photos of her in Knix. It’s not just women’s brands finding success online. In a 2015 video, Tom Patterson, founder of online men’s line Tommy John, identified what he saw as a common problem: Most men’s underwear doesn’t fit very well. The video, which showed awkward-looking men attempting to readjust their briefs and boxers in public, racked up 5 million views in five days. Patterson’s challenge was less about persuading customers to buy online, since men don’t typically try on underwear in stores, and more about simplifying the buying process. “For a guy to go into a department store and look
“ Your underwear shouldn’t change your body, it should bring out your best elements,” Grant says. at different boxers and briefs and try to find out the difference, it’s confusing, it’s intimidating and it isn’t relatable,” he says. Tommy John shoppers can sort products by occasion—gym, daily wear, travel—and by feature, like “stayput waistband” and “360 stretch”. Products are designed to be soft and moisture-wicking, and come with a “no-wedgie guarantee”. Some of the online-first brands, including Knix and Tommy John, are now sold in
brick-and-mortar stores. But the exposure hasn’t necessarily translated to surging sales. When the newer brands are positioned next to rows of competing products and distanced from their body-positive messaging, the allure doesn’t always translate. “You can’t out-Calvin Calvin [Klein]—they’ve been in stores too long,” says Patterson. “Newer brands can grow more quickly online, where you can control how your story is told.”
IN B RIE F An overview of the competing online underwear startups
MeUndies BESTSELLER
MicroModal boxer brief
Thinx BESTSELLER
Heavy days hip-hugger
True & Co. BESTSELLER
Unlined balconette bra
Negative BESTSELLER
Sieve balconette bra
Mack Weldon BESTSELLER
18-hour jersey boxer brief
To create “the most comfortable underwear in the world”, MeUndies (which sells both men’s and women’s garments) uses fibres from beech trees. For every pair of period underwear that Thinx sells, it donates money to AFRIpads, a company that trains Ugandan women to make reusable pads. In January, True & Co. launched a “try-on truck” that travels the country and offers individual brafitting appointments. In addition to bras and panties, Negative—a women’s line with a focus on minimalism—also sells T-shirts and bodysuits. To simplify the shopping process, men’s brand Mack Weldon sells packs such as “The Weekender”, which includes two pairs of briefs, socks and a travel bag.
AUGUST 2016 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A 19
Fast Company promotion
Winning the right way The Venture is Chi vas Regal’s global search to find and suppor t the mos t promising aspiring social entrepreneur s
Inspired by its founders, Scottish brothers James and John Chivas, who used the fledgling success of their whisky to uplift their community in Aberdeen, Chivas Regal is directly inspiring and motivating a new generation of social entrepreneurs. Chivas Regal is a truly global brand, selling almost 5 million cases of its acclaimed whisky annually in more than 150 countries across Europe, Africa, Asia-Pacific and the Americas. The range is the epitome of style, substance and exclusivity, and includes Chivas Regal 12-, 18and 25 Year Old, as well as The Chivas Brothers’ Blend. But the success of its whisky worldwide does not represent the entirety of the brand. As homage to the Chivas brothers—to share success while making a positive impact on the lives of others. In short, to ‘Win The Right Way’ is to embody an old-world set of values embracing success, elegance, style and, importantly, social impact. At the heart of the campaign is The Venture: Chivas Regal’s global search to find and support the most promising aspiring social
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Intensive learning The Venture finalists spent a week in an accelerator programme with the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, where they received leadership coaching.
entrepreneurs. With over $1 million (more than R14 million) in funding and resources, The Venture will enable social entrepreneurs from around the world to realise their potential and gain exposure for their business. With the disruptive abilities of new technology, it is no longer necessary to rely on massive corporate or political power to solve major social issues. Instead, nimble social entrepreneurs are stepping into the breach to find adroit ways to tackle new challenges. All they require is mentorship and seed capital. This is where Chivas Regal is stepping up to the plate. Last year’s search saw South African startup, Lumkani, win the South African leg of the contest and then go on to succeed in being one of the top five global finalists (out of
Life-saving app
more than a thousand applicants worldwide) to walk away with nearly R1 million to further their aim to radically reduce the scourge of shack fires in informal settlements (see sidebar on next page). Following the success of last year’s competition, Chivas Regal launched the second round of its search to support the most exciting social entrepreneurs around the world in the second half of 2015. This year’s competition welcomed entries from 27 countries. Each country selects one global finalist—and the South African finalist chosen to attend the Accelerator Week in Oxford, England and subsequently the finale in New York, was CrashDetech: a smartphone app that automatically detects a serious car crash, pinpoints the location, immediately dispatches
the nearest ambulance, and supplies paramedics with life-saving information. CrashDetech’s win was not easy, having faced tight competition from four other local innovative startups: I’m Not Plastic, Mama Mimi’s, Safe and Sound, and ConnectMed. Jaco Gerrits, founder and CEO of CrashDetech, received this honour from Chivas Regal’s head of marketing Sibusiso Shangase, and Ravi Naidoo, founder and MD of Design Indaba. “CrashDetech is an incredible creation that has the potential to save lives by reducing emergency response times by pinpointing a vehicle crash location in these potentially fatal incidences. We are confident that this innovative enterprise will represent South Africa exceptionally well in the global round of The Venture competition”, said Shangase. Every day, 47 South Africans lose their lives on our roads—many falling prey to accidents outside major centres and only receiving assistance after the ‘golden hour’ for life-saving treatment has expired. The result is a huge toll in human suffering and loss, with families left asking ‘why?’ and posing the eternal ‘if only…’. Fortunately, in this era of social entrepreneurship, the if-only’s are being addressed.
CrashDetech founder Jaco Gerrits was the 2016 South African finalist chosen to attend The Venture Final in New York City.
We have entered a new world where technology, a desire for independence and a drive to uplift society meet. And what better cause, asserts social entrepreneur Jaco Gerrits, than ensuring all can access help after being injured in a car accident. “In a global context, there are about 1.3 million people killed and about 50 million injured in car accidents every year,” he says. “Unfortunately, South Africa features highly on this index. The monetary cost is also sobering, with South Africa’s economy losing more than R300 billion annually.” CrashDetech is affordable, can be downloaded onto cellphones regardless of whether the user has insurance, and is backed by SA’s largest independent register of emergency services and personnel to ensure accident victims get help as soon as possible.
The Win The Right Way campaign aims to inspire a new generation— as homage to the Chivas brothers— to share success while making a positive impact on the lives of others.
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A force for good Host of The Venture Final, Trevor Noah, said it was “great to see such an impressive line-up of social entrepreneurs looking to make a difference.”
The device springs into action as soon as an impact is sensed: An automated voice begins an emergency countdown; if there is no response within 10 seconds, it notifies the CrashDetech emergency assistance centre, sends them the necessary medical information, and pinpoints the vehicle’s location. Immediately, emergency teams respond. Gerrits has been inspired by perhaps the two most innovative entrepreneurs of the current era, as well as by someone close to his heart: “Conceptualising groundbreaking innovations combined with the ability to commercialise, I truly have a great amount of respect for both Elon Musk and the late Steve Jobs. It’s amazing to see what they’ve been able to achieve in a relatively short period of time. Closer to home, I see
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my mum as an everyday hero; her positive attitude toward life is both inspiring and amazing.” Gerrits spent a week earlier this year in Oxford at the accelerator programme under the auspices of the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship. Embedded within the world-renowned Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford, the centre is dedicated to accelerating the impact of entrepreneurial activity that aims to transform unjust or unsatisfactory systems and practices. During an intensive five days of learning, the finalists from around the world received leadership coaching and support in preparing for the high-stakes pitch in July. A vote from the public determined how the first $250 000 in funding was split among the finalists. The remaining $750 000 in funding
was awarded at The Venture Final in July in New York City, after a pitch in front of The Venture judges, which was hosted by South Africa’s own worldfamous comedian, Trevor Noah. Only five of the 27 were selected to pitch at the finale in front of a live audience and a jury that included actress and philanthropist Eva Longoria, and Pernod Ricard chairperson and CEO, Alexandre Ricard. Honoured to host the event, Noah commented: “In a world where using business as a force for good is becoming increasingly important, it’s great to see such an impressive line-up of social entrepreneurs looking to make a difference.” The big winner was Conceptos Plásticos ($300K), a Colombiabased business that transforms plastic and rubber waste into an alternative construction foundation for permanent housing. Gerrits’s success once again points the country toward a creative and socially responsible future in which game-changing entrepreneurs can harness technology and business in solving some of our most pressing problems. “We are tremendously proud of Jaco, and know that South Africa is too,” says Shelley Reeves, marketing manager: Scotch Whiskey at Chivas Regal. “Being chosen to participate in an event of this prestige proves that South Africa has the talent, skill and drive to change society for the better.” And Chivas Regal remains at the cutting edge of this venture. The journey toward Winning The Right Way has begun. See www.TheVenture.com.
L U M K A N I : S A’S 2015 WINNER OF THE VENTURE Lumkani, co-founded by David Gluckman, is a social enterprise that seeks to address the challenge of shack fires in urban informal settlements in South Africa and across the globe. It has developed an early-warning system to reduce the damage and destruction caused by the spread of shack/slum fires in urban informal settlements. The devices have been specifically designed to use heat detection instead of smoke detection to sense fire. Many cooking, lighting and heating methods used by people living in informal settlements produce smoke. This is the reason Lumkani devices use rate-of-rise of temperature technology to accurately measure the incidence of dangerous fires and limit the occurrence of false alarms.
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RE AT E. EF Y. EEL OOD. South African songbird Lira on what it takes to succeed in music, in business and in life Interview By Evans Manyonga
FASHION ST YLIST: FERRISS MASON
Photographs by Djeneba Aduayom
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I T IS MORE THAN A M AG A ZINE, I T'S A MOV EMEN T
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“ SOMETIMES YOU FIND SECRET PASSAGEWAYS” Oscar-winning documentarian Alex Gibney explains what Scientology and the US government have in common, how to approach uncooperative subjects, and why you should never apologise for taking narrative liberties Interview by KC Ifeanyi Photographs by Zach Gross
Over the past year alone, you’ve shaken Scientology with the documentary Going Clear, profiled both Steve Jobs and Frank Sinatra, explored food culture for the Netflix series Cooked, and tackled cyberwarfare in your cur rent film Zero Days. With so many new outlets available to documentarians, non-fiction films have never felt more relevant—or prevalent. Why do audiences have such an appetite for them now? Documentaries have got better. They’re much more formally inventive. They’re engaged in stories that are really compelling. And they’ve borrowed some techniques from fiction filmmaking in terms of
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Truth and consequences “I’ve become interested in abuses of power and how that works,” says documentarian Gibney of his investigative films.
story. [Viewers] have also become a lot more adventurous. The world has become far more interconnected and globalised, and people are more curious and have a much more eclectic palate. When did you first notice that shift? I made a film [in 2002] with Eugene Jarecki called The Trials of Henry Kissinger. At the time, the TV universe was rigid. The thinking of the day was that each cable channel had to be immediately identified by its style. You click through the History Channel, A&E or whatever, and you’d instantly recognise the mandate of that channel. It had nothing to do with individual voices; it had to do with corporate branding. Within that context, our film couldn’t even be considered. [So] we got a small distributor to pick it up for theatrical release. It did well around the country, and then suddenly the TV channels agreed to put it on. Now [cable channels have] become much more interested in individual voices. You’re seeing big corporations distributing stuff that allows for individual expression— that’s impressive.
“The “ narration is not the voice of God. It’s the voice of Alex, which is a long way from God.”
Zero Days looks at how the highly sophisticated malware Stuxnet, which was secretly developed by the US and Israel to sabotage Iran’s nuclear programme, eventually spread worldwide to personal computers. Why did this interest you? Most of what we dealt with in Zero Days were cyber weapons wielded by nation-states that have enormous resources—which is what it takes to do the kind of coding involved and the kind of espionage work to get these weapons into the networks you want to penetrate. But the scary part is that code is malleable once it’s out and alive in the world. And that was the great danger of Stuxnet: This code got released to everybody. That’s like giving everybody the blueprint to atomic weapons. Now, you still need the fissile material in the case of atomic weapons. And [for
Public eye Gibney’s documentary subjects have included former Governor of New York Eliot Spitzer, top left, and former Enron chief financial officer Andrew Fastow, below. For Zero Days, right, he created a digital rendering of an NSA source.
cyberweapons] you still need to adapt the code and engage in some kind of espionage. But the code is available to bad, non-state actors. And that should be a huge concern. Do you ever worry that you’re doing harm by shining a light on a government project like Stuxnet? I do think about that. I think you have to take it seriously, because you don’t want to expose plans that, once leaked, allow people to be at risk. But sometimes [secrecy is] inappropriate. It’s the secrecy that puts us at risk—I think that’s the most important thing to reckon with. So not knowing what the capability of these weapons is puts us all at risk. And not knowing what the government is doing in our name puts us all at risk. Your films often explore the dark side of power, from Enron to Scientology to the US government in Zero Days. What have you learnt about human behaviour from making these films? They give you some idea of how difficult it is for people to adjust their thinking in the face of reality. What’s interesting about Zero Days is that the code at the heart of it is fascinating and
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brilliant, but the thinking about the use for the code is so deeply flawed. Nobody was really thinking about how or why it should be used and what were the ramifications of using it. Nobody asked the fundamental questions that should’ve been asked. It’s hard for people to change. That’s one of the things [I discovered] about Scientology: To admit that you’re part of an organisation that’s corrupt and brutal and cruel means you have to question your decision to have joined in the first place—and to unwind all that. “I’m “ a believer in
form following content. You try to find some essential truth and then figure out the best way of getting there.”
How do you get around all the roadblocks thrown up at you when you’re working on an investigative piece? One of the things I learnt early on— I think it was probably on Taxi to the Dark Side [about the CIA’s use of torture], but it went right on through to [We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks]—is that sometimes when you get blocked, the road around the block ends up being more interesting than things might have been if the doors in front of you had opened up. Sometimes you find secret passageways. You find workarounds.
With Zero Days, you had the issue of access: People just weren’t willing to speak to you on camera. How did you resolve that? When you make a fiction film, you’re very tied to the script and have a massive crew, so it’s much harder to improvise. With documentary, particularly in the cutting room, you have tremendous freedom. In Zero Days, nobody was talking, but at the end of the day, the code could talk—so why not let the code talk? The people who wanted to talk inside the NSA were too afraid [to speak on camera], so we found a way that allows Reality check Gibney’s Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine unpacked the myths surrounding the Apple co-founder.
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30-SECOND BIO
Alex Gibney HOMETOWN
New York City EDUCATION
Yale University; UCLA Film School MOST FORMIDABLE DOCUMENTARY SUBJECTS
The NSA (Zero Days, 2016); Church of Scientology (Going Clear, 2015); Steve Jobs (Steve Jobs, 2015); Julian Assange (We Steal Secrets, 2013); The Catholic Church (Mea Maxima Culpa, 2012); Eliot Spitzer (Client 9, 2010); the CIA (Taxi to the Dark Side, 2007); Kenn eth Lay (Enron, 2005) UPCOMING FORAYS INTO FICTION
Writing and directing an HBO drama series about death-row inm ates, starring Laura Dern; directing The Action, a featurelength film about first FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, and anti–Vietnam War activists
them to talk [by creating a digital rendering]. I’m a big believer in form following content. You try to find some essential truth and then figure out the best way of getting there. Do you ever get criticised for taking these kinds of narrative liberties? I get that from time to time. People say, I just want to see the facts. And I say, well, I’ll send an email. If you’re going to tell a story in visual terms, it should be exciting. And I don’t think anybody should have to apologise for that. If the real world is already so dramatic, why have you signed on to direct your first feature-length fiction film, The Action, about anti–Vietnam War activists? I’m more interested in documentaries, because you’re dealing with real people. I’m a huge admirer of Michael Mann, but his Ali film pales in comparison to [the documentary] When We Were Kings, because When We Were Kings had Muhammad Ali. Will Smith is a good actor, but he’s not Muhammad Ali. But you do have to ask yourself when you’re making a documentary film, What can I show? And sometimes you don’t have something to show, and in that context you turn to fiction. Speaking of having something to show audiences, you sometimes insert yourself into your films through voice-overs and images. Why is that? I’ve done that kind of reluctantly. There are other people who put themselves much more in their [documentaries] like Michael Moore, or I think of one of my favourite films [Ross McElwee’s 1986 travelogue] Sherman’s March, where it’s really firstperson cinema. I started doing it a little bit more, because I felt it was more honest—so that the narration, if there is one, is not the voice of God. It’s the voice of Alex, which is a long way from God.
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High impact
Insights, innovation, action
Summit chair Dr Audrey Verhaeghe says industry leaders’ thinking, brilliant ideas and efforts to innovate can make a difference.
The SA Innovation Summit lead-up event in Cape Tow n w ill focus on “Creating a Cit y of Oppor tunit y for A ll”
The SA Innovation Summit is a platform for nurturing, developing and showcasing South African innovation. The 2016 Summit offers numerous opportunities for entrepreneurs, innovators, thought leaders, policymakers, inventors and investors to drive innovation in the country and inspire sustained economic growth. There are various lead-up events from June until September, with the main event in September the highlight of the South African innovation calendar. This year’s SA Innovation Summit, which is taking place from 21 to 24 September in Ekurhuleni, is hosting a co-creation day in Cape Town as part of a lead-up event. All Capetonians with a thirst for innovation are invited to join the inspirational day-session focused on “Creating a City of Opportunity for All”. The event, called the High Impact Series, will take place on August 16 at Workshop17 in the V&A Waterfront. “We are thrilled to pay a visit to Cape Town before the main event in September. The aim of the High Impact Series is to bring together thought leaders, innovators, enablers and industry leaders to cocreate around how to move South Africa’s beautiful Mother City forward,” says SA Innovation Summit chair, Dr Audrey Verhaeghe. The jam-packed full-day programme promises to bring to the table sustainable and innovative solutions to build and grow the city. Two main topics up for discussion include: “How
could Cape Town become a real City of Opportunity?” and “What would it take to create a city (and region) that allows all its people to thrive?” The line-up of awe-inspiring speakers for the day include international and local industry leaders: Abbas Jamie, director of innovation and transformation at Aurecon Africa; Neil Jacobsohn, senior partner at FutureWorld International; Thomas Wittig, founder and CEO of WITTIGONIA; Martijn Aslander, founder of Permanent Beta; Aurelia Albert, manager of the Innovate Durban programme for the eThekwini Municipality; and Shannon RoydenTurner, visionary urban strategist and director at Actuality. “The revolutionary insights gained on the day will be shared with cities
“ The revolutionary insights gained on the day will be shared with cities across the globe”
We’d love you r in put!
across the globe with the help of our wonderful partner, the African Futures Institute. This will help co-create smart cities brimming with opportunity,” adds Verhaeghe. In addition to the cocreation session, the SA Innovation Summit will host a 24-hour Hackathon on 19 and 20 August at The Barn Khayelitsha at the Lookout Hill Centre. “With the Hackathon, we hope to see creative and effective ideas to support and grow the local community,” adds Verhaeghe. “We look forward to welcoming industry leaders. Your thinking, brilliant ideas and efforts to innovate can make a difference.”
If you can set aside the day of August 16 to help co-create a smart city brimming with opportunity, book your ticket now. (If you would like to attend the session, but absolutely cannot afford a ticket, please let us know.) If you are a coder or creative and would like to participate in the building of these applications, book your space. Then mark out 19 and 20 August in your diary; you’ll be sharing your brilliance at the Lookout Hill Centre in Khayelitsha.
To register, or for more information on the High Impact Series, visit innovationsummit.co.za/high-impactseries. For further details on the 2016 SA Innovation Summit, see www.innovationsummit.co.za, email info@innovationsummit.co.za or call 012 844 0674.
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REATE. EFY. EEL OOD. South African songbird Lira on what it takes to succeed in music, in business and in life Interview By Evans Manyonga
Fashion Stylist: Ferriss Mason
Photographs by Djeneba Aduayom
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“ I A M A N E N T E R T A I N E R . I LOVE MAKING P E O P L E H A P P Y, I LOVE INSPIRING PEOPLE. AT THE END OF EVERY SHOW, I ALWAYS ASK PEOPLE HOW THEY FEEL. IF T H E Y A R E H A P P Y, I A M H A P P Y.”
Elegant, soulful, radiant and talented. These are but a few words that describe South Africa’s pre-eminent female vocalist of the 21st century. Widely regarded as one of our top adult contemporary artists, Lira (meaning “love” in Sesotho) has racked up an impressive series of achievements since launching her musical career nearly a decade ago. She was the first African to be appointed as brand influencer for Bobbi Brown Cosmetics—and the first African to formally collaborate with this cosmetic house in a campaign titled, “Bobbi x LIRA”— as well as the first African woman to front for Johnnie Walker as a #JoyWalker in its “Joy will take you further” drive. Lira also maintains the largest social media following of any South African singer—with 700 000 Facebook fans and 350 000 Twitter followers. Her footprint has expanded abroad and her ventures have diversified. Documentaries, worldwide tours, movies and property are all the pursuits that the sophisticated musicianturned-businesswoman can count within her growing portfolio. Born in Daveyton, east of Joburg, Lerato Molapo grew up listening to Stevie Wonder, Miriam Makeba, Aretha Franklin and Nina Simone, and began writing songs and performing at age 16 before she was discovered in 2000 and signed to 999 Music, which released her debut album All My Love in 2003. The title track surpassed Beyoncé’s “Dangerously In Love” on its run to the top of the SA charts. Five more studio albums have followed, as well as an autobiography, Making Herstory. Her flawless dossier boasts a multitude of accolades from the SA Music Awards, MTV Africa Music Awards, Channel O African Music Awards and others—leaving an indelible impression on the continent at large. The qualified chartered accountant, who quit her job to pursue her dreams in the music industry, sat down with Fast Company SA to relate her story and how she has been able to succeed in the business of music and in life. Fast Company SA: How has the history of South Africa shaped your music? Music has always been historically a platform to comment on important social issues. With which aspects do you identify? Lira: My music is informed by the entire experience of growing up during apartheid. I’ve realised that I’m one of the millions of young people who feel that way, who have
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GUTTER CREDIT TK
Working blue Handler looks forward to being free from traditionalnetwork restrictions.
Art credit teekay
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whatever I want, whenever I want, and however I want. I’ve had to travel that journey. Freedom is not only a state of mind but also a responsibility. It’s something that’s there only if your mind is open to it.
been conditioned into thinking they are disempowered and thus become angry and blameful—believing it’s the best way to deal with what has been thrown at us, ultimately disempowering ourselves. So the only way to turn it around is to look at what you can do to adjust your thinking, and then your life can start. I was able to build what is now a multimillion-rand company based in South Africa and in New York, and I’m completely responsible for it. How did you manage to get to that point because, as you mentioned, it’s not an easy process? It was essentially based on my decision to take back power. Interestingly, my latest album is called Born Free and it touches essentially on that. I’m now free and I can do
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You have collaborated with US record label Shanachie Entertainment and toured 12 American states in two weeks. What are your thoughts on collaboration in music and business in general, especially in the global village? Collaboration is of great value, because different brands can leverage each other for exposure; in a way it’s what I’d term an ‘expansion mechanism’. Due to this, I’m very picky about with whom I collaborate, but with Shanachie Entertainment I needed somebody who understood the American market to help me launch my album in the States. It would’ve been difficult to do it as an independent on that side of the world, because I don’t operate in that market. The reason I formed Ultra-music was so that I’d have a company, a corporate entity that could help me handle my finances while I’m over there. My service providers in the US can get paid there while the ones in South Africa can also get paid here. Ultimately, Ultra-music is there as an entity to hold that side of my business. Shanachie Entertainment was our distributor and they helped organise the tour as well. And that was great, because they got some key people to come to the shows and in a few high-profile venues too. A good example is The Howard Theatre in Washington, DC, which I simply loved. I looked at the whole experience as developmental, and essentially my making a mark in the US. I also used that opportunity to shoot my documentary series [LIRA, Dream Chaser], which was subsequently sold to Fox Global. The way I view the business is that I can’t focus on each project making money: Everything feeds into the marketing of the entire brand, and everything I do creates a profit for the company at the end of the year. Some make money, some break even, and maybe some are not so great. However, my experience in the US was brilliant—in terms of building my brand— and that year alone I appeared on 20 magazine covers all over the world, which was just phenomenal. I’m a great believer in collaboration, as I feel collaboration stretches any individual’s talent; it also fuels creativity and expands your scope as an artist. I love Nigerian music, and I just collaborated with a Nigerian artist, Waje. I also enjoy dancing, and the Nigerian style of dancing in particular. The partnership will benefit both of us, as she will be introduced to the South African audience, and I was recently featured on The Voice Nigeria as a result of that collaboration. How does your music reflect your past experiences? What principles are mirrored in what you sing about? I have three fundamental principles within my music. These are selfacceptance, which is easily understandable; self-love and self-expression.
All of us go through all kinds of things, but I think ultimately we are looking to be happy. And we’ll find happiness when we accept who we are; when we learn to love who we are, and when we are given an opportunity to express it. It could even be through creative expression in business, music or any other area. Creativity actually exists everywhere, but for me those principles are very much embodied in my music and I realise the music is deliberately positive, because I’ve learnt that it’s just how you perceive everything that you’re going through that makes the key difference. In essence, all my music is positive. In the midst of all this, what are the key lessons you have learnt? I’ve learnt that marketing and brand awareness are key. I remember being in South Carolina in this massive house. I was a guest of a very wealthy couple we had met on holiday in South Africa. They didn’t know who Beyoncé was and I thought it was surprising, but it outlined the importance of marketing. A few years ago, Coca-Cola stopped marketing in South Africa and the sales went down. Everybody knows Coca-Cola, but because they stopped marketing, the market also started moving on. In that sense, as a musician it’s also important to realise you are a brand. So I watch global trends and see what works, and try to implement different aspects of doing business. Ultimately, marketing is always important, so for me every experience is different and I strive to work hard in every new market I enter, the same way I work hard in all my old markets. People may know me here and there, but I have to work so much harder to make an impact in a territory like the US, which is 50 times bigger than South Africa. I’ve also learnt that I don’t have to be a brand that pleases or connects with everybody. I believe it’s about catering to people who know what I do in every corner of the planet. There are people for whom [my music] will resonate and who enjoy what I do everywhere around the world, and it’s about getting to those people. My ultimate goal now is to tour everywhere around the globe. Recently we’ve been to about 15 new countries. I was in Beirut, Dubai, Sweden, Seychelles, Kenya and the Virgin Islands, among others. I love reaching new places, because music is a beautiful, universal language and resonates with what I seek to express, which is the human condition and the human experience. My perceptions are informed by my experiences as a South African, but the principles I’ve learnt are aspects that anyone, anywhere, can relate to. It’s about just finding places and spaces around the world to express that. 2010 was a special year for you. Do you feel it elevated your status in music and perhaps opened new dimensions in TV and film? Absolutely! For instance, I was invited to be an opening act for Hugh Masekela on his Virgin Island tour, and that came directly as a result of the Soccer World Cup in 2010. I was also featured twice on Fox News and on CNN. During the interview, they spoke about the World Cup. So 2010 in a way gave me clout and certain credentials that the media felt were worth talking about. That’s how I ended up on so many magazine covers— simply because there was something interesting to talk about. I always say that talent alone is nothing, it’s not enough; you can’t get far just based on talent. You need to do so much more to enhance it and add elements that make you stand out. Some of the little things we do make us more interesting to the world. You are the first Bobbi Brown cosmetic influencer in Africa. How does that feel? I’m very excited about that. The year has been very exciting, because I keep aligning with brands that like what I like, and share my way of thinking. So I don’t have to adjust myself, thinking, ‘Oh, God, I have to be
this’—no, it just falls into line; this is me on my path and things just fall into line. Bobbie Brown is a brand I love and identify with. I generally love makeup, but I also love makeup to enhance natural beauty. That’s why I’m a firm believer in self-acceptance, just honouring everything. Bobbi Brown’s values are the same as mine, and I know and love her as a human being. Her company is not just some corporate entity and group filled with directors etc. I’ve spoken to her personally. We resonated as two women who are breaking down barriers and doing our bit to make our dreams come true, to cause a change in any way we can. I love her brand as a makeup, and also admire her values. And what does that mean for Africa as a continent? I’ll give you a classic example. People ask me if I used to steal my mom’s makeup. Well, unfortunately, they didn’t make makeup for black people back then. There was no such thing. You could wear red lipstick and use [hair] clips, but that was it, basically. However, as time has moved on, there are now more tones for dark women. And, again, makeup is just to enhance your beauty and to highlight certain things. It does wonders for your self-esteem. So I like makeup from that perspective. Last Christmas I gave all my girlfriends makeup starter kits, and that was even before I got signed to Bobbi Brown. I would also do things like that to help young girls understand how to apply it just enough to enhance their natural beauty.
“I’m a great believer in collaboration, as I feel collaboration stretches any individual’s talent; it also fuels creativity and expands your scope as an artist.”
Well done on your new album, Born Free. What influenced the direction you took? Again, a desire for creative freedom—I never want to conform. Actually, that’s like a death sentence for me. I feel like I’m wasting my life if you ask me to conform. Not conforming obviously involves a lot of risk taking from me, but once I make up my mind and something makes sense to me, then I will go full force. I also realise that there are many artists who do crazy things in the world, but when you do something with conviction, people resonate with it or at least understand it. And following my last US tour, the subject of freedom kept coming up and I found it worth pursuing. I’ve also been to Germany and Sweden. While I was there, curious people engaged me on an intellectual level and wanted to know what it’s like to be a woman in music who’s running her own business in this day and age on the African continent, and making a success out of it. They wanted to know how it all works, so we engaged on those topics. I was invited to the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls to engage the learners, who asked what being “born free” was. The radio stations continuously asked me about the same subject, and when I was speaking to university
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students, the subject just kept coming up. So it was something that was continually on my mind. Also thinking, perhaps the day I quit my job, I was defining my freedom. So I decided it was a good time to discuss it in a way that’s non-political, because that’s not what it is. I was just really introducing my understanding and perception of freedom. The album is very different, as I was very experimental— which is reflective of every experience that I’ve had with travelling the world and all the people I’ve engaged with, all the different cultures. I wanted it to be an album that wasn’t about me, but about a global subject. Freedom to us in South Africa is different to what freedom is to somebody in Beirut, somebody in Dubai or somebody in the US, for that matter. However, freedom is still an issue all around the world, and that was interesting to me, so it became a subject that was just so ripe for exploration. On the album I present my understanding of freedom, but I’ve interwoven comments from fans and people whom I respect. Within all the songs, there are some statements on freedom. On the artwork there are quotes from people around the world: famous politicians, artists and even inventors. Ultimately, it was freedom as perceived by so many, and I took artwork from fans sent to me via social media, because that’s also a freedom of expression. I just said, “Let’s blow it up! Let’s check what freedom is.” People are always trying to conform. And I’m like, pause! Who are you, what makes your soul sparkle, what makes you tick? Your only business on this planet is to discover who you are and go about the business of doing that and being happy in the process. And, ultimately, you begin to be happy. At times, we require courage to go against the grain. I look at life in a practical manner, because we’re really looking to be happy—and to be happy you need to accept yourself even if you’re the weirdest thing that ever set foot on this planet. You have no choice but to be that weird thing; that’s your thing and that’s what you’re here to do. That’s who you are. So the question is, how do you want people to identify you and your type of music? Is it R&B or soul? It’s soul, and the reason one would call it soul is because the intention is to connect
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30 SECONDS WITH LIRA Favourite quote? Do what you can, with what you have, where you are right now.
Favourite book? I read inspirational books. I think my fave is The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Sharma.
Favourite destination? Maldives. Actually, it’s my favourite because it’s so amazing, but my most frequent destination is Mauritius, simply because if I have only five to six days, I don’t want to spend two days travelling—so Mauritius is a quick flight then I’m in paradise.
Favourite city? Rome! Great hotels, great people, great service. I’ve been there 12 times. I’m like a queen in Rome. The shopping is wonderful, the food is lovely; I walk everywhere there. Out of all the European countries, Rome is the best.
Favourite tech gadget? My cellphones: I have an iPhone and a Samsung. The
combination of both is perfect for me.
The ideal day? Great weather, lots of food and great company. Just enough work and play.
How do you unwind and relax? I like to stay at home. I like food. I have a husband who likes to feed me. He likes to cook, bless him. I’m a sucker for food; when there’s food, Champagne and a great view, I’m happy.
Your biggest inspiration? I’d say my grandmother. She had Standard 1 [Grade 3] education, but she was a businesswoman in the sense that she was a street vendor, but built the biggest house in our neighbourhood. Physically I look like my grandmother: I’m the only one in my family who’s dark with slim, long limbs.
On the meaning of life: To express who you are, using your unique talents and abilities. To serve and add value to the world through what you do. To be happy!
with you spiritually and also cause you to think. The aim is to make you reflect, so it’s inspirational soul music. You have mentioned that you see yourself as an ambassador for the New Africa. What does that mean, and what does it entail for you personally? It means everything to me. I grew up in a world that dictated to me what Africa is. So before I could even make up my mind on what I felt by being African, the world was already telling me I was a charity case. Everything had negative connotations, and I prefer to share the success stories and beauty of Africa. Today I’m wearing African clothes, except for my German-designed jeans. I love wearing African brands that are globally competitive, and also love African fabric in a very couture way. One of my favourite quotes is, ‘Be the change you want to see in the world.’ Stop complaining about things if you’re not actively making an effort. African couture is trending now, so I think it’ll take more people like me and many others to make it trendy. That’s my mission, really, and in doing so I allow any African child to start perceiving themselves differently. They don’t have to struggle with the things that I struggled with as a child. They can start off on a totally new platform and hopefully they will elevate evenly—and that’s what it’s about for me. If I don’t embrace my African heritage with pride, how is a child born in Africa supposed to feel about themselves? This year has been quite busy! Especially due to your participation on SA’s version of the hit music reality TV show, The Voice. How have you been balancing work and personal time? I travel with my sense of home. I live, work and play with my husband [Robin Kohl], who is also my manager. That makes things a bit easier. My family is incredibly understanding and we go for a family holiday once every year. We spend every major holiday together, we spend birthdays together, Mother’s and Father’s Day . . . we try to keep it balanced. I live accordingly to a schedule and I can’t live without it. I need it! Even when my mom’s looking for me, she calls my PA and books time. And then on the day I’m like, “Oh, we’re doing a session with mom
today.” But it’s the only way I can fit in everything. I have a nice rhythm going. One could always improve, but I’m generally uncomfortable with being comfortable. How has been your experience on The Voice? The experience has been superb. In my view, it’s about more than teaching the future artists how to sing. I always tell them I’m not there to teach them how to sing. There are voice coaches etc. So I’m not really interested in any of that. My ultimate mission is to make sure that when they leave, they’re able to create a sustainable career. I like working on the mindset, because that’s very essential to me—the mindset is everything. Often an artist could be so hard-working but also sabotage themselves through the way they think. To me, an artist’s mentality is the most fundamental space and starting point of how to create a successful career as a musician. For instance, everyone believes the music industry is difficult to work through. However, if I’d thought like that, I would never have been able to leave my job and start my career. I needed to write a plan that made it seem possible this thing could happen. We could use lights, cameras and everything to make it glamorous, but if you don’t believe in it inside, then you’re going to sabotage yourself—and ultimately what we do or don’t do won’t matter. When a lot of South Africans have expectations of you, then you have to decide who you are and what you want to be remembered for; write that down and work toward it. You can’t be floating like a piece of paper—I blow you this way, off you go; that person blows you that way, off you go. You have to become the anchor of your own dream and use everything at your disposal while aligning with things you identify with. What gets your creative juices flowing? Life, people and travelling. I love people; they are a great source of inspiration. At times when I travel, I have the best conversations, because generally when I’m in South Africa I rarely have genuine conversations due to my work. So it’s so refreshing when I meet someone I don’t know and we’re just people. Juicy conversations . . . yummy, I love that! (laughs) I like to understand different aspects about people. To me,
the human mind is just a brilliant thing to decipher, so when I travel I’m always sitting next to someone and I’ll strike a conversation—that’s amazing to me. What can we expect from you going forward, particularly in terms of the business side of music? The business side of music is getting more and more complex all the time, so we have to think completely out of the box. There are so many things I do to diversify my offering. The biggest grossing South African movie this year, Happiness Is a Four-Letter Word, was executively produced by me and my husband. It turned a massive profit, and I was so proud. I’m also producing a documentary series of my work. I’ve shot three concert films as opposed to just music DVDs, so in other words I’m expanding my offering in many different ways to make the whole career work. It’s now a lot harder to make a living from just selling music. Actually, I’ve always viewed music as an invitation to a show. That’s how I see it. So you make music that’s good enough to make people want to come see your show, and that’s where the tours and concerts kick in. Diversifying is also about getting into more markets. We have the States active, we have Japan active, quite a bit of Europe . . . so for me, I’d like to work in much more of the world and expand. I shot an interesting documentary with Fox Primetime, following my US tour. It was very aligned with my values, in that it’s inspiring and gives you a taste of what it takes if you want to make your dream come true. Roll up your sleeves and go do something about it. It also captures some of the challenges we faced. I think for me it also adds to what my brand is about, and is a different way of telling the story. It was shown in 52 countries around the globe, so it feeds the mission of infiltrating the world. Another challenge is using our rand to get resources for marketing in other countries. That’s why I ended up opening a functional company in the US to ease this burden. It makes more sense to work with the resources there.
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Fast Company promotion
Talking business In addition to the diversity of speakers, Levi’s Pioneer Nation offered a carefully curated line-up of workshops tailored to build young businesses.
Let’s get this party started! Can a fes ti val change a generation? Lev i’s Pioneer Nation thinks the answer is a de finite Y ES
The 850 young entrepreneurs (and soon-to-be entrepreneurs) knew something was very different when they walked into the Sci-Bono Discovery Centre in Johannesburg last September. It started with 10-metre high portraits of several of the 40 young entrepreneur speakers gracing the main room. In fact, everywhere one looked there were portraits of South Africa’s amazing young entrepreneurs running businesses today. This definitely wasn’t the science museum they remembered from school trips! Unlike the recent explosion of events that feature similar line-ups of expert speakers, Levi’s Pioneer Nation offered a fresh slate of backstories and business lessons from a diverse variety of today’s young entrepreneurs. Building on the brand’s own entrepreneurial backstory—the inventor of jeans who saw the gap no one else noticed in the California gold rush of the mid 1800s—Levi’s served as the ideal catalyst for the event. Thanks to Levi Strauss’s entrepreneurial nose, today’s entrepreneurs in every
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Each one of the 2015 Pioneer Nation speakers inspired audiences with insights and truths about what it takes to persevere and succeed in running one’s own show.
industry “Live in Levi’s”. Pioneer Nation 2015 started with an unexpected headliner: musical artist, producer and entrepreneur, Riky Rick. He related the long journey behind his “overnight success”, and was candid about the role of preparation, patience and perseverance in his life. And in a surprise twist, he built a new business in five minutes—live on stage. It started when a young audience member used the Q&A period to pitch a Riky Rick merchandise business idea. While pointing out that the guy could not produce a business plan immediately, nor did he seem to have the requisite expertise to deliver on this idea (reinforcing Riky’s message of always being prepared), the rapper called on those in the audience who could fill the expertise gaps to meet with him and the guy backstage. Riky’s closing remark was: “Let’s get this party started!”, which summarised the theme of the day.
Inspired by the impact of TED talks, Pioneer Nation’s young presenters shared their very personal startup and stay-up business journeys. From farmers building their own brands to online fashion retailers, from app designers to inner-city tour guides, from inventors to educators . . . each one of the 2015 Pioneer speakers inspired audiences with insights and truths about what it takes to persevere and succeed in running one’s own show. Audience members barely got a rest as they scurried between the three stages all-day long, trying to get the most from the 40-deep line-up of speakers. And for those who wanted some face time, Pioneer Nation offered “Sofa Sessions” in a purpose-built room in the venue, where speakers held ‘office hours’ to answer specific questions and give personal mentorship advice. The magic of Pioneer Nation is that audiences and speakers are more or less the same age, so this is peer-to-peer stuff—the ideal recipe for learning and networking. In addition to the diversity of speakers, Levi’s Pioneer Nation offered a carefully curated line-up of workshops tailored to build young businesses. Sessions hosted by
Facebook, Fast Company SA, the Red Bull Amaphiko Social Entrepreneurs Academy, storyteller Nthato Molefe and Afri-entrepreneur Shaka Sisulu were packed out with eager minds. The session with angel investors and venture capitalists painted a clear picture of the financing landscape for those proven businesses looking to scale up. Somehow the event also managed to squeeze in the finals of the THUD (The Hookup Dinner) & Pioneer Nation University Business Pitch Battles. One lucky lady walked away with R10 000 in startup funding and a new “wardrobe for the entrepreneur”, courtesy of Levi’s. The closing speaker, Soweto Gold’s Ndumiso Mdlala, shared why he decided to jump ship as SAB’s top brewer to risk it as the founder and
owner of the country’s only blackowned beer company. But ever true to the beer-guy spirit, he invited everyone in the crowd to share one of his finest, and network to a beautiful Jozi sunset as Pioneer Nation 2015 wound to a close. We’re assured 2016’s event will be bigger and better; big news is that it will now be a two-day event on October 14 and 15, again hosted by the Sci-Bono Discovery Centre. Most of the 2016 Pioneer speakers will be new to the stage, made possible because of the exploding growth of young people starting and building businesses even in tough economic conditions. And there’ll be some new surprises on offer as well. Don’t miss out! To book one of the 1 500 limited-edition tickets, preregister on www.PioneerNation.biz.
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Gallo Images/Getty Images/ Isaac Brekken
L E M O N A 10 LESSONS EVERY BUSINESS CAN LEARN FROM BEYONCÉ By JJ McCorvey Photo illustration by Jeff Lysgaard
D T H E
E
E F F E C T
A THUNDEROUS BANG QUIETS T H E R O U G H LY 40 000 FANS WHO HAVE G AT H E R E D AT HOUSTON’S NRG S TA D I U M . T H E LIGHTS CLICK O F F, P L U N G I N G THE VENUE INTO DARKNESS. A SPOTLIGHT APPEARS, SILHOUETTING A FIGURE ON T H E S TA G E . BEYONCÉ, SPORTING A WIDE-BRIMMED B L A C K H AT A N D CLAD IN A SHIMMERING, ROSE- COLOURED B O D Y S U I T, I S FLANKED BY A DOZEN DANCERS.
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She starts bobbing her head along to the now-familiar twanging noise that opens her politically charged single, “Formation”. It takes a few moments to notice that the sparkly image displayed across her chest is a black panther, baring white teeth through its roaring red mouth. “If you came to slay tonight, say, ‘I slay!’ ” she shouts. Her acolytes obey, screaming the words in unison as the music soars. It’s around 9 p.m. on a Saturday night, and Beyoncé’s latest album Lemonade has been out for two weeks— almost to the hour. Unveiled during an April 23 HBO special that had been advertised as a “world premiere event” (with no further details), the 12-song collection was streamed 115 million times in the first six days alone. Each song has a unique music video, and together they make up a 65-minute film that weaves evocative imagery, wrenching poetry and a rumoured-tobe-autobiographical storyline about infidelity. Lemonade debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart, making Beyoncé the first artist in history to hit the top spot—and also the first to debut at No. 1—with her first six albums. Yes, Beyoncé knows how to slay. And her impact is much greater than even these statistics imply. She has become one of the world’s most distinctive brands, a single-name powerhouse. She’s not only redefining how artists market themselves, building an uncommonly loyal customer base known as the Beyhive, but her successes are reverberating more broadly across the business landscape too—prompting a re-evaluation of rules, tactics and strategies as enterprises large and small consider the pros and cons of cultivating their own Lemonade moment. Beyoncé’s career has both closely tracked the rise of the digital age (her first solo album, 2003’s Dangerously in Love, came out five weeks before the launch of MySpace) and encouraged its evolution. No pop star has better navigated the tectonic shifts in the music industry, from iTunes to YouTube, Facebook to Spotify. What’s more, she has traversed the ever-more-complex tendrils of global culture with cleverness, discipline and sophistication.
Gallo Images/Getty Images/Kevin Mazur
“KR A-KO O M! ”
Beyoncé, onstage in Atlanta, is inspiring brands far beyond the music world.
“As a product, she is incredibly consistent— every album, stage performance, video, interview and marketing deal,” says Jonathan Mildenhall, chief marketing officer at Airbnb. “On top of that, she has something that not a lot of contemporary artists have, and that’s an understanding of how to evolve the brand. The brand of Beyoncé shapes and leads pop culture.” Beyoncé is unique. (It helps to be one of the world’s great singers and performers.) But that doesn’t mean we all can’t learn from her moves. Not unlike Steve Jobs during his triumphant stewardship of Apple, Beyoncé
offers a window into a new, more modern way of approaching the marketplace.
FIND YOUR LEVER AGE The core of Beyoncé’s business is Parkwood Entertainment, a relatively small operation perched on an upper floor of an unremarkable office tower in an unglamorous neighbourhood just south of Times Square. Parkwood’s employees quietly guide an enterprise that has an enormous impact: from music to film to ancillary businesses such as the exercise clothing line, Ivy Park, that she recently
debuted in collaboration with British retailer, Topshop. Beyoncé is the CEO and has been known to sit in on meetings and walk from office to office to query her deputies on details of upcoming projects. “There’s nothing that happens in that organisation, either businesswise or artistically, that Beyoncé doesn’t fully sit on top of,” says former HBO president of programming Michael Lombardo, who helped negotiate the Lemonade TV special. (Beyoncé and her team declined to speak on the record.) Though Beyoncé’s label, Columbia Records (a subsidiary of Sony Music), is a partner in Parkwood, the company
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still approaches business like a startup, leveraging its scale in all kinds of ways. One of Beyoncé’s key vehicles is video. As digital culture has become ever more fixated on moving images—at a conference last year, Facebook ad exec Ted Zagat said he thinks in less than two years the platform will be mostly video—Beyoncé has intuitively grasped the form’s power. “I see music; it’s more than just what I hear,” she once said. “When I’m connected to something, I immediately see a visual or a series of images that are tied to a feeling or an emotion, a memory from my childhood, thoughts about life, my dreams, or my fantasies.” When Beyoncé released the “Formation” single in February, the accompanying music video made powerful use of imagery nodding to issues of police brutality and black pride, including a particularly pointed shot of a young, hoodied black boy dancing in front of cops who have their hands raised. “[It’s] clearly reminiscent of ‘Hands up, don’t shoot,’ and instantly strikes a chord in us that generates emotion,” says Sophie Lebrecht, whose company, Neon Labs, analyses images and predicts their virality. When people react emotionally to something, Lebrecht says, especially something visual, their instinct is to share it. And they did: A search for “Beyoncé Formation” on the GIF-indexing site Giphy yields more than 14 000 results. Beyoncé has long experimented with ways to amplify video’s impact. With her second solo effort, 2006’s B’Day, she released an alternate “visual album” version that included a separate video for each track—something she would repeat with her self-titled 2013 album. In hindsight, it’s clear that Beyoncé was testing video’s potential, getting comfortable with the format in a post-MTV digital world as a way to expand her artistic vision and marketing muscle. Her 2008 song “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)”, with its Bob Fosse–inspired blackand-white video, is among the earliest—and biggest—examples of music-video-as-Internet meme, transforming the song from a hit into a phenomenon. Lemonade is the next turn in this evolution, tapping name-brand music-video directors such as Mark Romanek and Jonas Åkerlund and collaborators like Serena Williams. “The role of video in pop culture is just going to get increasingly valuable for brands and content creators,” contends Airbnb’s Mildenhall, who increasingly relies on video to help promote prospective rentals and offer information
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about neighbourhood amenities. “Video is the most important form of content for any brand that has a narrative they want to share. [When there’s] a visual narrative, it goes deeper and deeper into your own psychology.”
O W N YO U R N A R R AT I V E Two years ago, Beyoncé appeared in another video. This one, however, she would have preferred nobody ever watched. Securitycamera footage from inside an elevator at the Standard Hotel in New York, obtained by TMZ, caught Beyoncé’s younger sister, Solange Knowles, punching and kicking brother-inlaw Jay Z as Beyoncé stood in the corner. Much of the ensuing speculation about the incident focused on the possibility that Jay Z might have cheated on Beyoncé, prompting Solange’s fury. The incident was an ultra-rare breach in the famously guarded couple’s personal life. Most successful brands deal with public blowback at some point. Recently, Chipotle has been scrambling to overcome fallout from a series of food-poisoning incidents, while Facebook is battling the perception that its news-feed system privileges liberal content over conservative posts. There are lots of ways to deal with these kinds of PR debacles, of course—crisis management is an entire public-relations sub-industry. But Beyoncé’s response to the elevator video has been a fascinating experiment in PR disaster– as-opportunity narrative redefinition—a transformation of lemons into Lemonade. Though she hasn’t explained the genesis of Lemonade or how much of it is truly autobiographical, many Beyoncé fans have read it as an album-length exploration of whatever led up to the elevator incident (and its aftermath). A big reason Lemonade has connected is that it makes fans feel closer to Beyoncé—like they’re part of her struggles rather than outside observers. Sure, she’s made a great piece of confessional art, but she’s also, by opening up her life (or at least appearing to), changed the story: No longer are fans gawking at gossip; they’re now emotionally invested themselves. The effect has been to reclaim all that bad press and retroactively use it as part of the album’s narrative. “The marketing for Lemonade started back in that elevator,” says Kelly Schoeffel, director of brand innovation at advertising agency, 72andSunny. “I don’t think we’ll ever know the truth [about what happened], and that’s part of the excitement
of it all.” What’s more, Lemonade has made Beyoncé—not previously known for selfrevelation—more human, strengthening the bond with her audience. Beyoncé’s example illuminates the potential of redefining the narrative, as well as the deftness it takes to make it work.
DON’T BE AFRAID TO FIRE (SOME OF) YOUR FANS In the process of repairing one PR problem, Lemonade ended up generating a whole new controversy. Beyoncé has always been a strong voice for female empowerment, but she’s generally avoided political topics in her songs. With “Formation” and Lemonade—as well as her February Super Bowl performance, during which she appeared with dancers in Black Panther–inspired garb who formed a giant X and raised their fists, Black Power–style— the singer embraced stickier subject matter, wading into the Black Lives Matter movement, police shootings of unarmed black men (the mothers of Trayvon Martin, Mike Brown and Eric Garner appear in the video for “Freedom”, Lemonade’s galvanising, modern-day Negro spiritual), and other subjects. The backlash was immediate. Police groups organised protests and called for a boycott, and the US Federal Communications Commission received a deluge of complaints, which the agency released online. “Up until last night, I was a fan of Beyoncé,” wrote one typical disgruntled viewer. Beyoncé didn’t retreat, which made sense from an artistic standpoint—but also, counterintuitively, from a business one. “Don’t alienate your customers” seems like one of business’s givens. But sometimes taking a stand is the right move. Sure, Beyoncé might have lost some fans over her political statements, but she also no doubt earned new ones. And the loyalists who remain feel even more bonded to her. “The thing she does really well is understand the importance of true movement-building,” says Hugh Evans, cofounder and CEO of the Global Poverty Project, at whose Global Citizen Festival Beyoncé has performed for the past two years. Target is going through something similar with its stand against transgender discrimination (the retailer announced in April that its customers could choose which bathroom to use based on their gender identity, a rebuke to the recent law in North Carolina). The ensuing outcry may hurt temporarily, but it is also likely to endear the
Q UEEN BE Y A by-the-numbers look at Beyoncé’s impact on everything from Red Lobster to lemon emojis—not to mention the Billboard charts
34 153 000 Albums sold in the US, including with Destiny’s Child
59 Hits on Billboard’s Hot 100 singles chart, including with Destiny’s Child
450 000 Lemon emojis used on Twitter the day after Lemonade came out—up from about 40 000 the day before the album’s release
6 Solo albums that hit the top spot on the Billboard 200, making her the only artist to reach No. 1 with their first six albums
197 072 994 Total plays of her track “Drunk in Love” on Spotify (as of May 27)
$1 500 / R21 000 Average price for a Formation tour package that provides front-row seats and a pre-show reception—but no meet-and-greet
1.8 MILLION People who attended the 126 concerts on her 2013–2014 The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour, generating R3 billion
268 000 Peak tweets-per-minute during her 2013 Super Bowl half-time show
33% Spike in weekend sales at Red Lobster following the release of “Formation”, which mentions the chain restaurant
115 MILLION Streams Lemonade racked up in its first six days; the album was also purchased 485 000 times
company to customers who strongly support LGBT rights, contributing to a general sense that Target is a progressive brand worth patronising. Harry Román-Torres, co-head of strategy at Droga5—which recently produced a campaign for Honey Maid that celebrated families of diverse ethnicities and sexual orientations— cautions that brands should only tackle polarising issues if they have good reason to do so. “[Brands should] ask themselves, What’s my credibility in this space?” Román-Torres says. “What’s the currency we have in this, and what is my relevancy? If you don’t have those questions answered, then you shouldn’t touch these things.” Beyoncé wasn’t just diving into a hot-button topic to get attention. She and Jay Z have demonstrated interest in these issues, joining a crowd of hundreds in New York for a 2013 “Justice for Trayvon” protest and reportedly spending tens of thousands of dollars bailing protestors out of jail during uprisings in Baltimore and Ferguson, Missouri. At Beyoncé’s May 7 Houston concert, a police group protested nearby. Though a few news organisations picked up the protest story, it barely registered in the sold-out venue. The only visible sign of controversy was a quintessentially Beyoncéan reclaiming of the narrative: At the venue’s official merch tables— where fans scooped up posters and phone cases—the superstar was offering $45 (around R630) T-shirts that screamed, in red all-caps block letters: boycott beyoncé. That ironic embrace of her detractors’ outrage might have been the loudest statement of the night.
MARKETING IS A P R O D U C T— A N D A PRODUCT IS MARKETING Traditionally, the promotion around a product release has existed on a separate plane from the product itself. With Lemonade, Beyoncé blurred the lines between them—to the advantage of both. For Lemonade, Beyoncé orchestrated a clever strategy that combined the HBO special, the surprise album release, and the
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conversation-sparking music videos as a cohesive string of smaller parts that added up to something much bigger. “She developed a concept,” says Wieden+Kennedy MD, Neal Arthur. “Storyline and concept become really important, because it can play across different media. It played out on television. It plays out in video form. It plays out in social. It plays out in editorial.” (It even plays out on the red carpet: At this year’s Met Ball in May, Beyoncé wore a dress that, according to much Twitter speculation, might have contained subtle references to Lemonade’s now-infamous villain, “Becky”.) As a result, Lemonade’s imagery, ideas and sensibility have developed into its own brand—a shorthand for a certain emotional and cultural mindset. In early May, Candice Benbow, a young doctoral student, made a free downloadable syllabus that lists hundreds of black and feminist authors and literary works to be used as a companion to Lemonade. Soon #LemonadeSyllabus was trending on Twitter, and 40 000 people downloaded it in less than a week. Lemonade is bigger than a mere product: It’s a cultural space that fans feel a part of. That approach has proven highly successful for other brands, Apple being perhaps the most prominent example. Eyeglass purveyor Warby Parker, another practitioner, has created a recognisable sensibility— young, smart, design-driven—that defines everything it does. “We’re experience-focused but medium-agnostic, from the moment somebody thinks about the brand: their decision to shop, waiting on the frames to arrive, understanding that [if you buy a pair] another pair goes to somebody in need,” says Neil Blumenthal, Warby’s co-founder and co-CEO. “Similarly, Beyoncé thinks about the entirety of the experience.”
C R E AT E U R G E N C Y “Surprise!” With that single word—posted to her Instagram account at midnight on December 13, 2013—Beyoncé changed the music business. Accompanying the text was a video clip promoting the singer’s self-titled fifth album, which she’d just secretly dropped on iTunes. It was a bold move for a superstar artist. No pre-release hype, no late-night TV appearances, no magazine covers, no advertising, no fanfare whatsoever. And yet this unusual approach was brilliantly tailored to the new realities of how information
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gets disseminated online. With hype-weary consumers increasingly wary of pre-release marketing, Beyoncé circumvented buildup fatigue by ditching it altogether. In the days before the album came out, the singer’s team visited Facebook’s headquarters to negotiate a deal for the platform to alert users as soon as the album hit iTunes. The ensuing excitement felt like something new. “She’s changed the way superstar artists have looked at dropping music,” says Steve Stoute, founder and CEO of brand marketing firm, Translation, and a former record-company executive who once worked at Columbia Records, Beyoncé’s label. “That element of surprise and getting it all at once—she found a way for artists to do that digitally.” In the first 12 hours after the album came out, it was the subject of roughly 1.2 million tweets, and it became iTunes’ fastest-selling album of all time. Soon other big stars—including Drake and Kendrick Lamar—adopted the surprisealbum model. Of course, that sort of release works best for well-established brands—and it certainly helps if what you’re hawking is a genuinely great product. But the concept is really about something much broader: creating urgency. To make consumers covet a new product, brands need to convince them they’ll be missing out on a cultural moment if they don’t participate. It’s all about shared experience: Most people want to be part of the conversation. Stoute points to Nike as a master of this strategy. The shoe company has learnt how to build buzz by producing high-end, limitededition sneakers that have fans queuing up for hours. Sales from these connoisseur offerings are less the point than the excitement that trickles down to the company’s mass-produced wares. In January, customers braved neararctic temperatures in cities like Chicago and Philadelphia, forming blocks-long lines just to snag a pair of Air Jordan Retro 2 “Just Don” sneakers (retail price: $650, about R9 200). Nike limits production to ensure the sneakers sell out fast—and get huge attention on Instagram. With Lemonade, Beyoncé again created must-have excitement. Rather than repeating her previous album’s surprise release, she tweaked the formula, finding a new tactic by partnering with HBO for the special. As Jobs proved, the best way to keep your brand relevant is to continually intrigue your customers. She even connected her high-wire project to cultural hotbed Game of Thrones, which had its season premiere on HBO the same weekend. Notes 72andSunny’s Schoeffel:
“It is so hard to surprise people these days, you know?” But that’s exactly what happened.
TA K E R I S K S — W I T H DISCIPLINE When disruption hits, some businesses cling to the old, hoping to ride things out. Others race to the new without fully comprehending the implications. Beyoncé straddles both approaches. The music business has been in a state of disruptive chaos for years, and lately, confusion has only accelerated as listeners have rushed to adopt streaming—leaving artists, labels and music-download retailers struggling to adjust. In the same way Facebook and Apple use their clout to influence behaviour, some music superstars have tried to push the industry in new directions. Taylor Swift yanked all her content from Spotify in protest of its free-tier model, which she believes deprives artists of income. Other artists have signed exclusive deals that limit highly sought-after albums to a single outlet (such as Drake and Radiohead, whose recent albums were initially only available on Apple Music). Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo, which came out in February, was originally intended as an exclusive on the streaming service, Tidal. West tweeted that Pablo “will never never never be on Apple. And it will never be for sale,” which drove new users to sign up for Tidal. Six weeks later, West reneged on both promises, prompting a class-action lawsuit. “In the model of exclusivity, the fans get lost in the process,” Stoute says. “Big companies are fighting for market share, forcing fans to make a decision by holding their favourite artists hostage.” Because she is married to Tidal’s primary owner and is herself an investor in the business, Beyoncé easily could have fallen into the Kanye West hole. But with Lemonade, she forged a smarter strategy. No one would have been surprised if the album had been a pure Tidal exclusive. But she realised that you don’t have to disrupt everything to be disruptive, and as aggressive as she’s been taking risks with her marketing, she’s also recognised that if you go too far, you’re more likely to cause problems than to reap rewards. Beyoncé’s fan-friendly compromise: Though Tidal was the only place to stream Lemonade, it was widely available a short time later as a download on iTunes, Amazon and elsewhere. And unlike most HBO content, the Lemonade TV special wasn’t
walled off from non-subscribers either. That weekend’s programming was open to every cable subscriber, and Lemonade was also available via a 30-day free trial on HBO Now. The strategy worked. Beyoncé steered fans to Tidal, which attracted 1.2 million new users (including free trials) in the week after Lemonade’s debut; the album and its songs became iTunes bestsellers.
OPPORTUNITY COMES FROM WITHIN Beyoncé’s career has had several inflection points where she’s boosted herself to a new level of popularity and cultural clout. Surprisingly, those moments haven’t always come when she’s reached out to the mainstream. Instead, she’s often defined herself by making unconventional choices. Her first solo album, after Destiny’s Child had evolved into a pop-chart juggernaut, was a return to hip-hop and R&B, which both distinguished her from her group’s recent work and helped define the kind of solo artist she wanted to be. Lemonade, similarly, is not just a personal album in terms of subject matter; it also explores sounds and themes that are less targeted at broad audiences. She’s emphasised a distinctive artistic vision— not what focus groups and big data may predict—and it’s worked: People are talking about Lemonade not because Beyoncé is reaching out, but because she’s looking within. It’s an approach that applies beyond the music world. GE vice chair Beth Comstock has recently grappled with a tension between her brand’s heritage and a desire to reach the broadest possible audience. The result has been a series of clever (and much-discussed) ads in which the company gently tweaks its own fuddy-duddy image—and in the process makes itself seem cooler. “For us it’s being comfortable with who you are,” says Comstock. “We decided that at this stage as a company and brand, we’re just geeks. That’s who we are. I like the word vulnerable. You don’t think of that in terms of branding because everybody thinks brands have to be perfect: so packaged, so produced. And in some ways, Beyoncé got that right—she’s so well-packaged. At the same time, she exposed herself to some criticism. She’s opened herself up to a lot of scrutiny. Brands have to be more open—there’s a vulnerability. You’re saying to people, ‘Come with me, I’m going to go figure it out.’ People want to know you’re not perfect.”
“We’re asking ourselves, ‘So what’s our Lemonade?’ ” says Airbnb chief marketing officer Jonathan Mildenhall. “Because we don’t ever want to become predictable.”
C O U R AG E TA K E S P L A N N I N G Multiplatform triumphs like Lemonade aren’t just rare for creative reasons: They’re also expensive. Creating an epic 65-minute film along with an album requires major front-end investment with no guarantee it will ever pay off. It’s a situation companies often face: Do we have enough faith in this vision to accept the risk involved? Taking big leaps isn’t just about guts; it also requires careful planning. Beyoncé’s 2012 endorsement deal with Pepsi is a powerful example. She had worked with Pepsi previously, but this time broadened the partnership to include a multimilliondollar “creative development fund” that she could tap for various projects—Pepsi-related or otherwise. Neither Beyoncé nor Parkwood have confirmed that money from this fund went toward Lemonade, but what’s important is less the specifics of the Pepsi deal than the foresight it indicates. As a business, you need to build the likely necessity of future risktaking into your strategy from the start.
P L AY T H E LO N G G A M E Beyoncé has avoided the kind of slapyour-name-on-it partnerships that many celebrities favour. Instead, she responds to opportunities where her marketing and cultural know-how can add legitimate value. Ivy Park, the line of stylish performance wear that she launched with Topshop in April, could have been a one-off collaboration, but Beyoncé opted to form a joint company, Parkwood Topshop Athletic—and she reportedly tried on each one of the 220 items herself during the design process. “It would have been easy for Beyoncé to jump on the athleisure bandwagon, quickly bang a collection out, and ride the hype,” says Clare Varga, active director at UKbased fashion consultancy, WGSN. “But they took their time finding the right designers
from performance-sport backgrounds and invested in design and R&D. She’s playing a longer game.” Her discipline has prompted Beyoncé to walk away from deals, too. In late 2010, the singer pulled out of a planned video game called Starpower: Beyoncé because, she claimed, the developer had not secured the level of financing that she’d expected. That precipitated a lawsuit (which was settled out of court). She chose to deal with the controversy rather than attach her name to what she feared would be an inferior product.
MAKE YOUR OWN LEMONADE As Beyoncé’s first stadium-only headlining tour continues across the country until October—with her perfectionism on glorious display—it’s not a stretch to wonder what her restless mind is planning to do next. How do you top Lemonade? What will be as electrifying, as unexpected and gamechanging and awe-inspiring? She isn’t the only one wrestling with those kinds of questions. Throughout the business world, marketers are looking at Lemonade’s success and wondering how to concoct something similarly effective and iconic. “We’re asking ourselves, ‘So what’s our Lemonade?’ ” says Airbnb’s Mildenhall. “Because we don’t ever want to become predictable. Every time we engage with our consumers, our target audience, our community, we want to surprise them, to inspire them, to delight them. And we want to do it in a way that then drives a disproportionate share of popular conversation.” And that’s really what it all comes down to—owning the moment. Beyoncé’s vision and business acumen are inspiring people far outside the music world, challenging executives to up their game and offering an example of how they can better cut through the overwhelming information roar of our ever noisier culture. “Since it came out, pretty much every creative presentation I’ve seen has had some reference to it,” says 72andSunny’s Schoeffel. “It’s really interesting to see—overnight— a work of art just rock the way creative minds think. It gets your competitive and creative juices fired up. It’s made a lot of us pick our heads up and be like, ‘We have to try harder.’ ” jmccorvey@fastcompany.com
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Next
World-changing idea
A HIGHER CALLING How an American startup is using drones to distribute life-saving supplies in rural Rwanda BY AD ELE PETERS
Illustration by Señor Salme
The first company to start making drone deliveries at a high volume won’t be Amazon or DHL, but a startup sending medical supplies to hospitals throughout Rwanda. San Francisco–based Zipline International plans to begin using its new airplane-style drones in late July to fly blood to rural Rwandan clinics hampered by impassable roadways and limited storage facilities while trying to keep up with an acute need for emergency transfusions, particularly during childbirth. With the country’s blood banks struggling to forecast demand, Zipline offers a simple solution: Centralise the system into two distribution hubs that place every health clinic in the small African nation only a 15- to 45-minute drone-delivery flight away. “We’ve been trying to solve this problem for 50 years, using traditional forms of technology like trucks and motorcycles in environments that don’t have the necessary infrastructure for those vehicles to work,” says
F RIE NDLY S K IES Five more organisations finding humanitarian uses for drones
FLIRTEY
AIR SHEPHERD
LOON COPTER
SKYCATCH RELIEF
LINN AEROSPACE
The first company to receive FAA approval for drone delivery in the US, Flirtey is testing delivery of emergency kits in the Nevada desert with its fully autonomous drone.
With backing from conservationists and philanthropists, Air Shepherd deploys anti-poaching drones with night-vision and infrared cameras to protect South African wildlife.
This multifunctional drone can fly, move atop water, and even dive to survey subaquatic scenes—useful for both marine biologists and search-and-rescue efforts.
The Silicon Valley–based Skycatch Relief used its fleet of drones to survey the damage caused by the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that devastated Nepal last year.
Linn’s drones offered a bird’s-eye view of 145 000 hectares of Peru’s Los Amigos conservancy in 2015—an effort to prevent deforestation of the Amazonian rainforest.
Keller Rinaudo, Zipline’s cofounder. So why not take to the skies instead? In the last half-decade, a flurry of startups and nonprofit organisations have been exploring how drones may aid in everything from environmental conservation to disaster relief (see “Friendly Skies”, above), but few are ready to deploy drones on a large scale. That’s where Zipline stands apart. Working in concert with the Rwandan Ministry of Health and with the backing of Silicon Valley heavy hitters such as Sequoia Capital and Google Ventures (in addition to logistical advice from UPS), the two-yearold company will be the first to operate a national fleet. The key to Zipline’s power lies in its novel approach to drone design. Early on, Rinaudo decided to avoid off-the-shelf quadcopters, which can land with precision but are typically unable to fly for more than about 15 minutes and farther than 9.5km. In other words, they’re not suited to matters of life and death. “Quadcopters are famously inefficient,” says Todd Humphreys, an aerospace
Illustrations by Orka Collective
engineering professor from the University of Texas, Austin. So Rinaudo, who spun off Zipline from a robotics company that he founded in 2011, set out to make a drone from scratch. To create something that can reliably fly longer distances—over obstacles, and in the worst wind and rain—the Zipline team, which consists of aerospace engineers from companies such as SpaceX and Boeing, looked to the sturdy yet lightweight construction of standard airplanes. Though the Zip drone can’t set a package down (supplies are instead parachuted in), its design allows it to fly with stunning speed (up to 100km/h for this model; the next-generation one will be faster) and carry as much as 1.5kg of medical supplies as far as 150km on a single charge— 15 times farther than a standard drone. Meanwhile, internal redundancies, including a backup engine and computer, ensure the Zip safely arrives at its destination. “This [type of construction] has been done at a commercial-airliner scale,” says Rinaudo. “We’re basically
figuring out, ‘How do we do this using much more affordable components, at a much smaller scale, so it can actually service these kinds of use cases where human lives are at risk?’ ” In Rwanda, a team of five American and local engineers will run one base of drones, covering half of the Massachusetts-size country. (The second base will open in 2017.) After clinics send in their orders for blood via text, military-grade GPS will guide drones to local delivery drop sites. Each base will have 15 drones and be responsible for as many as 150 flights to rural clinics each day. Rwanda’s embrace of Zipline is in contrast to the situation in the US, where Federal Aviation Administration regulations have made drone-delivery networks impossible so far. The African country, which recently launched a $100-million (R1.4-billion) venture fund in an effort to create 100 tech companies valued at more than $50 million (R714.5 million) by 2030, is burnishing its credentials as a startup-friendly hub. And if the new Zipline system works, every one of Rwanda’s 11
million citizens could soon be a short drone flight away from any essential medical product. The Zipline team believes this kind of medical delivery system will become a normal part of life in Rwanda and elsewhere. The company plans to expand its deliveries to include vaccines and medication for malaria, HIV/ Aids and other diseases. It’s also hoping to expand into other African countries later this year. “The idea may look a little out there, on its face,” says Rinaudo. “But I actually think it won’t take very long for health workers, hospitals and the population at large to say, ‘Yeah, that’s how we should be solving that problem.’ ” Zipline has already received requests from other companies interested in using its technology for more mundane tasks such as delivering snacks. But the company isn’t interested. “We’re 100% focused on serving healthcare systems, because it’s so obvious that is where the need is the highest,” Rinaudo says. “Every delivery you make is potentially saving a human life.”
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Mind and medicine
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SMARTER MEDICINE
D rug c reation Developing pharmaceuticals can take decades. Silicon Valley’s Atomwise speeds things up with supercomputers that root out therapies from a database of molecular structures. Meanwhile, Berg Health also mines data for clues about why some people survive diseases— insights that can inform new therapies.
How artificial intelligence is changing healthcare BY CHRI STINA FARR
Illustration by Martin Leon Barreto
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D iag nosing d isea se Silicon Valley–based Enlitic is ingesting thousands of medical images, from x-rays to CT scans, to help radiol ogists spot things like tiny fractures and small tumours. Cardiogram, an Apple Watch app, uses an algorithm to detect when changes in a user’s heart rate may signal a serious health disorder. 3
Med ication m a nag ement The National Institutes of Health–funded AiCure app uses a smartphone’s webcam and AI to autonomously confirm that patients are adhering to their prescriptions: critical for people with serious ailments and participants in clinical trials. 4
Hea lt h a ssi sta nce San Francisco–based startup Sense.ly has a slew of customers, from the National Health Service to UC San Francisco, for its virtual nurse, Molly. The interface uses machine learning to support patients with chronic conditions between doctor’s visits. 5
We are using intelligent machines for everything from self-driving cars to online searches. But how about leveraging artificial intelligence, or AI, to save lives? “A momentous change in healthcare is under way,” says Suchi Saria, an associate professor in computational biology at
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Johns Hopkins, with startups harnessing the recent explosion of electronic health data to help doctors make critical decisions and extend care to patients between appointments. Here are five ways that machine learning is poised to bring new rigor to medicine.
Preci sion m ed icine Part of a larger effort to offer individuals targeted diagnoses and treatments, Toronto startup Deep Genomics identifies patterns in huge data sets of genetic information, looking for mutations and linkages to disease.
LAND OF TOMORROW How developments in Africa’s fast cities are shaping the continent’s urban future
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More than half of the world’s population lives in cities—and the process of urbanisation continues at a rapid pace. The UN forecasts that, by 2050, two-thirds of the globe will live in metropolitan areas. Cities will have to get smarter about improving neighbourhoods, building better infrastructure, developing their economy and, ultimately, transforming lives— faster. To get a sense of where our continent is headed, Fast Company SA looked at the most exciting initiatives coming out of Africa’s top cities. AUGUST 2016 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A 51
ACCRA, GHANA
Population: 4.145 million
“There is no absolute definition of a smart city, no end point, but rather a process, or series of steps, by which cities become more ‘liveable’ and resilient and, hence, able to respond quicker to new challenges. Thus, a smart city should enable every citizen to engage with all the services on offer, public as well as private, in a way best suited to his or her needs.” This explanation of a smart city by the UK’s Department for Business Innovation and Skills is one of many. Global management consulting firm, A. T. Kearney, describes it as a city with “an engaged network of information sharing, specialised talent, a vibrant economy and policies that enable technology adoption and experimentation”. It seems the key aspects that determine the progress of a city are smart environmental practices, smart governance, smart living, smart mobility and smart people. In this article, we look at African cities that are progressively working toward success in these five focus areas. These cities are innovative and inclusive, with an integrated approach to improving the efficiency of city operations and the quality of life of their citizens, and are committed to growing their local economy.
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Holding the highest potential for inclusive growth back in 2014, Accra is increasingly making inroads on a global scale. Its potential was highlighted by the MasterCard African Cities Growth Index (ACGI). Dr Yuwa Hedrick-Wong, co-author of the index and chief economist at the MasterCard Centre for Inclusive Growth, explains: “We believe that inclusive urbanisation is a prerequisite for inclusive growth, and so the ACGI is a lens through which African cities can be assessed as future investment destinations.” He adds that, “Inclusive growth occurs when the benefits of an expanding economy are widely shared with the population.” Labelled as the only African city with high inclusive growth potential, Accra is contributing largely to Ghana’s economic development. The city has implemented legislation, policy and resources to increase and sustain economic activity among its citizens. Power to the people “We have achieved the fastest mobilisation of power in the history of Ghana,” said President Mahama, with about 800MW having been added in the shortest period of time.
Accra was the first city in Ghana to launch Uber. Alon Lits, GM for Uber Sub-Saharan Africa, said at a press conference: “Our platform contributes to a broader evolution in global transportation where riders are empowered to access transport on their terms, in a way that is useful to them and sustainable for our cities. We are excited to add the vibrant, growing economy of Accra to our global network.” Offering free rides for a few days after its launch on June 11 this year, the transport giant has also adapted its payment methods to allow for cash transactions in African cities. Catering for the creatives in the city, Accra launched the third Impact Hub Africa. Hosting 82 hubs spanning five continents, it aims to promote entrepreneurship to create an innovation workspace that enables Africans to improve and nurture their ideas. Impact Hub assists in running development programmes, provides access to capital, and connects
Wild at heart Kenya promotes sustainable tourism practices. Nairobi National Park is just a short drive out of the CBD.
entrepreneurs. The organisation in Ghana focuses on creating sustainable solutions to a number of challenges in the country, including agriculture, education, health, employment and financial inclusion. Holding four spheres of focus, the hub intends to innovate, curate, connect and make an impact in the region. It has successfully partnered with many players on a global scale, in collaboration with the likes of Apps4Africa, Global Entrepreneurship Week, Startup Weekend, Sandbox Network and many others. A number of new innovative and economy-boosting projects are making headway in the country, including the Ghana Centre for Entrepreneurship, Employment & Innovation, which provides business startup support services, entrepreneur development services, coaching services for small businesses as well as consultancy services. Earlier this year, the World Bank Group announced the launch of a new Ghana Climate Innovation Centre in the capital, which aims to support the country’s green growth strategy by supporting
environmentally friendly companies across the region. The Ghana office of the Innovations for Poverty Action, one of the largest, is also based in Accra. This programme includes key studies in education, finance, health and agriculture, and is currently leading one that aims to understand how to help farmers cost-effectively produce better crops and increase their earnings. Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama, in his State of the Nation Address in February this year, highlighted a few of the latest successes of the country. “A year ago, I stood before this august House and promised to fix the power sector deficit that, at the time, had become a significant constraint to economic growth and was a major disruption in the lives of Ghanaians—both at home and at work,” he said. “It has been a year of hard work and negotiations. We have achieved the fastest mobilisation of power in the history of Ghana. About 800 megawatts of power have been added to our generation within the shortest period of time.” Ghana was commended by the United Nations for meeting the Millennium Development Goal of achieving universal primary education with gender parity, the president added. Also in education: Over a thousand jobs were obtained for local printers in the typesetting of textbooks; 12 400 high-school students benefited from scholarships; and following the abolishment of the quota system, colleges obtained a 63% increase in admissions. Life expectancy has increased while the infant mortality rate has decreased. The country also saw a 70% fall in oil prices, and a Youth Employment Agency assisting in the employment of 100 000 young people in 2015 and 2016. “This is Ghana . . . This is the process of transformation. We are changing lives, one individual at a time,” President Mahama concluded.
NAIROBI, KENYA Population: 4.738 million
In a report released last year by the Intelligent Community Forum, Nairobi was crowned the “most intelligent city in Africa” for the second year in a row. ICF co-founder Robert Bell said: “We see a strong foundation being put into place [in Nairobi]: sensible, pro-growth government policy; a more diversified economy; and an innovation ecosystem of startups, international companies and universities. Nairobi certainly has the opportunity to build an exciting future for its citizens, businesses and institutions.” Kenya is currently witnessing the single largest private investment in the country’s history with the Lake Turkana Wind Power Project that is currently undergoing construction. Upon completion, the wind farm will house 365 turbines, each with a capacity of 850kW. In addition to relieving energy constraints, the project has anticipated approximately 2 500 temporary jobs during construction and another 200 on a permanent basis once the wind farm is in operation. IBM Research Africa is the tech corporation’s 12th global research lab and the first industrial research facility on the continent. Its two facilities are in Nairobi and Johannesburg, South Africa—developing commercially viable solutions to transform lives and spark new business opportunities in key areas such as water, agriculture, transportation, healthcare, financial inclusion, education, energy, security and e-government. Nairobi has the most subscribers of mobile money and has nearly 70% mobile phone penetration. The mobile-money ecosystem has led to related enterprises and products being set up. This is partly thanks to the Kenyan government’s emphasis on ICT and making it one of the central pillars in the country’s Vision 2030 development plan. It has also been one of the key factors leading to tech multinationals setting up base in Nairobi. Huawei, Intel, Microsoft, SAP, Oracle, Google and Samsung are partnering with universities in Nairobi to equip students with practical skills.
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Entry hub to Africa A new site being constructed in Dakar is being dubbed “Diamniadio Valley”, as it has already started attracting big multinationals.
DAKAR, SENEGAL Population: 3.52 million
Senegal is predicted to be the third-fastest growing economy in Africa in 2016, according to the latest International Monetary Fund World Economic Outlook report—with projected growth in gross domestic product of 6.6%. The rising economy of its capital city Dakar is witnessing innovation while it maintains its rich cultural roots and identity in transforming into a modern, smart city. One of five winners in the second cycle of the Guangzhou International Award for Urban Innovation, Dakar was rewarded for finding an alternative financing tool to meet its long-term development goals. Due to the city’s economy being largely dominated by the informal sector, innovative solutions were needed to accommodate street vendors. Headed by the city’s Municipal Council, the Dakar Municipal Finance Programme was created to assist in obtaining access to
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capital markets for the required investments—the first sub-Saharan African city outside of South Africa to do so. The project will see the construction of a central marketplace, with financial and technical support being provided by various organisations such as the World Bank, Cities Alliance, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The move has opened the door for other African cities to explore the benefits of lower transaction costs and lower credit terms while gaining mainstream financial sources for capital projects. While Senegal aims to become an emerging country by 2035, Dakar will play an integral role in the years to come. Situated a short distance from the heart of the capital, a new industrial platform is being planned with amenities including hospitals, shops, universities and offices, and space for 3 000 homes to house 15 000
inhabitants. The site, named Diamniadio, is a future urban growth pole and a key element in Senegal’s development strategy. Dakar’s new international convention centre has already been built here, in less than a year, and is in close proximity to the Blaise Diagne International Airport that is still under construction. The airport will be connected to Dakar by an express rail link and a motorway, the first 25km stretch of which has been open for two years. “Why Senegal?” says ATOS project manager for the country, Momadou Ndoye. “Political stability, which is very important for investors. Senegal’s well-educated engineers, the good infrastructure and communications networks, and production costs that are lower than most other countries.” ATOS is one of the companies planning to set up a digital platform in “Diamniadio Valley”, as it has been dubbed.
Boulevard of dreams Eko Atlantic City’s infrastructure network makes it the most technically advanced in Lagos and Nigeria.
LAGOS, NIGERIA
Population: 13.123 million
The vibrant city of Lagos values innovation. Its online portal, Lagos Innovation Hotspots (LagosInnovation.com), maps out clusters of emerging competitive and high-growth businesses in fashion, photography, financial services and technology across the capital, while providing useful information on each. The site is an initiative of Innovate Lagos and the Co-creation Hub. Through these hot spots, innovators are able to reach platforms where they can promote their business and their talents on a huge scale. The Co-creation Hub allows for a meeting point of like-minded entrepreneurs to share knowledge, encourage learning, collaborate on various projects, and improve their ideas in a nurturing environment. It also connects young entrepreneurs with a resource base to connect to the technical expertise they may need. Boasting various big-name partners such as MTN, Microsoft and Google, the Co-creation Hub is just one of the fast-moving innovations in the city. The construction of Eko Atlantic City—a self-sufficient, sustainable, state-of-the-art urban development on the coast of Lagos—has reached advanced stages. It not only has independent power and water supplies and a seamless communications network but also a citywide road grid: a first of its kind in Lagos and Nigeria. Divided into eight districts, Eko Atlantic City is planned for mixed-use with commercial, residential,
entertainment and leisure activities to make it a 24/7 lively environment. City amenities and services will include an international school and hospital as well as the largest shopping mall in sub-Saharan Africa. The city’s road design and construction are according to world best practice—guaranteeing free-flowing traffic. The eight-lane, 1.5km long Eko Boulevard is the focal point of the business district. “This futuristic city is not just for residential and commercial activities but a tourist attraction,” says Ronald Chagoury, Jr, vice chair of South Energyx Nigeria Limited, the developer and city planner. “We strongly believe the new boulevard will enhance business activities and be the ideal location for company headquarters, luxury and business hotels, residential elements as well as attracting tourists from all over Africa.”
ABIDJAN, CÔTE D’IVOIRE Population: 4.8 million
Côte d’Ivoire, after a decade of political instability, is booming. A growing number of foreign travellers are once again flocking to the capital city, attracted by the country’s economic performance: It was ranked second (after Nigeria) on Nielsen’s 2016 Africa Prospects Indicators report. President Alassane Ouattara has vowed to develop Côte d’Ivoire into an emerging country by 2020, prioritising national Back in business Abidjan is rebuilding dozens of construction sites across the city.
reconciliation and economic recovery. His government is already upgrading longneglected infrastructure in Abidjan, with the new Henri Konan Bédié Bridge easing traffic congestion, the power grid stabilised, and large-scale investments implemented to upgrade the international harbour. Babi, as residents affectionately call their city, is getting back its shine. The capital is well connected with more than 22 million mobile- and close to 6 million Internet users. Its growth is driven by public and private infrastructure investment, as well as coffee and cocoa bean exports. A growing number of international events and summits are being held in Abidjan. Last year was the first time the Africa CEO Forum took place on the African continent. Very fittingly, in December this year Abidjan will host Smart City Africa: a new annual trade show dedicated to connected cities and sustainable urban management solutions. And the African Development Bank is in the process of moving its headquarters back to Abidjan.
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SOUTH AFRICA Economic freedom The Union Buildings in Pretoria house the Presidency. Government-related businesses play an important role in the local economy of Tshwane.
TSHWANE Population: 2.9 million
The City of Tshwane is among the five largest metropolitan municipalities in South Africa, and the second largest in Gauteng as measured by GDP. It has a vibrant and diverse economy, with Pretoria (Tshwane) as the administrative capital of the country and home to the Union Buildings. Governmentrelated businesses play an important role in the local economy. It was voted the most innovative city/ government programme to bridge the digital divide at the World Wi-Fi Day Awards held in Liverpool, England in July. The awards celebrate success stories across the world that are connecting the unconnected and
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contributing to global socio-economic development. The City of Tshwane was recognised as successfully implementing comprehensive Wi-Fi solutions that innovatively overcome the challenges and complexities associated with these large-scale deployments. The Tshwane free Wi-Fi programme, TshWi-Fi, has brought 1.8 million citizens online in the biggest deployment of municipal free wireless Internet on the African continent. The rollout was made possible through the City’s collaborative partnership with Project Isizwe. Tshwane executive mayor Kgosientso Ramokgopa said, “Our free Wi-Fi project has radically undermined the adverse effects of unaffordable Internet access by narrowing the hitherto glaring digital divide. We will continue to be a shining example of what it means to employ the use of technology to lead the way toward a South Africa that is
democratic, inclusive, united and prosperous; ours will be the global cybercapital.” After a year of consultation and analysis, in 2013 the municipality approved its Vision 2055 plan. Over the next four decades, it aims to create a resilient, inclusive and liveable City through the implementation of various programmes such as: free Wi-Fi to all government educational institutions; the A Re Yeng affordable, high-quality bus rapid transit system including services such as free Wi-Fi, air conditioning and security cameras; smart prepaid electricity meters to assist residents in managing their electricity consumption; the e-Tshwane Service through which residents can pay all municipal accounts from anywhere, electronically; as well as a clean city campaign, support for informal traders, empowering the youth economically, promoting safe and secure communities, while striving for a green economy.
CAPE TOWN Population: 3.812 million
The Mother City has just clinched the No. 10 spot on the 2016 Travel + Leisure Best Cities in the World list, plus top honours as the Best City in Africa and the Middle East. Attracting scores of both international and domestic visitors, Cape Town has been one of the fastest growing cities in South Africa and Africa. Well-developed transport routes consist of train lines, highways and the MyCiTi bus rapid transit system that enables easy travel to and from work in the city on a daily basis. The City of Cape Town is researching biofuels to determine how alternative energy sources can provide a cleaner and more fuel-efficient MyCiTi bus service. It has also recently advertised a multimillion-rand tender for the procurement of electric buses to lower Cape Town’s carbon emissions. Seen as the biggest startup hub on the continent, Cape Town hosts endless opportunities for growth. New innovations and startups are the norm, with the city filled to the brim with creatives and entrepreneurs who aspire to break boundaries by creating solutions to multiple problems, often using sustainable and environmentally friendly methods. The Cape Innovation and Technology Initiative is developing Cape Town and the region as a global technology cluster and a
Techs and the city A number of initiatives are developing Cape Town as a global technology cluster and a vibrant hub of innovation.
vibrant hub of innovation—significantly contributing to economic growth. In the same vein, the Silicon Cape Initiative is a community of tech entrepreneurs, developers, creatives, angel investors and venture capitalists aiming to improve the business environment in the Western Cape to create more and better startups as well as increase access to capital. The city’s new multi-use innovation hub at the V&A Waterfront opened late last year. Workshop17 enables solutions to South African and African opportunities—supporting startups and experienced companies, for-profit
DURBAN Population: 3.421 million
Harbour master The Port of Durban is the largest and busiest shipping terminal in sub-Saharan Africa.
Home to one of Africa’s busiest ports, Durban is a hub of activity. Apart from developing the new Dig-Out Port, Transnet National Ports Authority is commencing with two more projects to expand container capacity. Durban is a place of great adventure for tourists, with many exciting wonders of nature to explore, such as uShaka Marine World, the Botanic Gardens and Umgeni River Bird Park. Now it is also being transformed into a “film city”. According to news sources, the spot along the beachfront— previously known as the SA Army’s Natal Command site—is being developed into a film studio with
and non-profit entities, as well as big and small initiatives in their efforts to create a better future. The tenants—including mLab, Silicon Cape and codeX—share a collaborative working environment as they strive to develop their businesses, products and ideas in the long term. According to a 2015 study by the Southern African Venture Capital & Private Equity Association, the Western Cape now has the most VC activity in South Africa, having recently surpassed Gauteng. This is due to the number of entrepreneurs, angel investors and independent fund managers in the province.
a difference. The project, estimated at around R7.5 billion, expects to bring a Hollywood-style Walk of Fame with local and international celebrities’ stars on a special street; Markets of the World, with traditional Indian, African and Chinese cuisine plus a variety of exhibitions and demonstrations; a South African film industry museum; a luxury hotel and serviced apartments; and a vast park for picnicking, music concerts and a big screen to broadcast large sporting events. Plus, it will offer interactive tours inside the studio.
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Growth on the horizon According to The Megacity State report by Allianz, Joburg will become a megacity by 2030.
JOHANNESBURG Population: 8.432 million
Labelled one of the three upand-coming African megacities, Johannesburg will be the first that’s not near a large river or on the coast. This year it was ranked at No. 60 on A.T. Kearney’s Global Cities Index that assesses the global engagement of 125 of the world’s largest and most
influential cities today, and those that will make an impact in the future. (Cape Town ranked at No. 70.) In June, multinational General Electric opened its first innovation centre in Africa, in northern Johannesburg. Valued at R500 million, the GE Africa Innovation Centre is its 10th innovation hub in the world. Boasting ‘green’ status, it was built to show the commitment of GE to the African continent and to help Africans find solutions to continental problems such as infrastructure and healthcare.
Providing the new headquarters for GE Healthcare, the centre will bring in the group’s technologies from the US to assist hospitals in all areas. City of Joburg executive mayor Mpho Parks Tau, in his 2016 State of the City Address, highlighted a number of initiatives by the City to develop “the best possible Joburg” by 2040. The City is: installing highcapacity fibre networks to bridge the digital divide; expanding Rea Vaya (the first bus rapid transit system in Africa); taking deliberate action against climate change; reducing food insecurity (it has just launched the low-cost “Joburg bread”, made using mango flour); combating street crime in the CBD through smart policing; rolling out the most ambitious youth empowerment programme in the country, partnered with over 250 companies; improving almost 30 000 informal homes in the largest informal settlement upgrade programme in South Africa; enabling small business in general and the township economy in particular; and pushing access to basic services, including electricity, to unprecedented levels.
In plane view
EKURHULENI
Billed as the “Gateway of the African Continent”, OR Tambo International Airport is ideally situated in the heart of SA’s commercial and industrial hub.
Population: 3.1 million
Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality, the local government of the former East Rand region of Gauteng, has made the move to digital: A free online platform called e-Siyakhokha enables residents to receive municipal statements and pay their accounts online (through a number of options including debit/credit cards and Standard Bank’s MyBills), and ask for assistance 24/7. It was recently named second runner-up in the metro category of the Greenest Municipality Competition. The recognition was an endorsement of Ekurhuleni’s various initiatives on water and energy solutions, waste management, as well as social and health services. According to the Gauteng City-Region Observatory’s Quality
of Life survey for 2015, the majority of Ekurhuleni residents are satisfied with the delivery of services such as sanitation, energy, water, health services and roads.
Population statistics: World Atlas, last updated March 2016 (Tshwane and Ekurhuleni, Statistics South Africa, last updated 2011)
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Fast Company promotion
In pursuit of eminence Out sourcedCFO turns companies’ financial sys tems from a burden into an engine for grow th
For many in-house CFOs, a lot of time and energy is spent on recording financials, invoicing, measuring and remeasuring cash flow, and balancing the books. Comparably little time is spent envisioning the future, analysing and synthesising information, assessing performance and, all importantly, creating and driving growth strategies. This is clearly not an optimisation of the skill set a highly trained CFO can bring to the table. Many growing companies simply do not have the resources to appoint CFOs to navigate best financial practice—but such companies cannot afford to go without the technical and financial skills a good CFO can bring. Even if a business does have an experienced CFO, he or she is usually able only to draw from own experience and skills. In order to solve these problems concomitantly, an innovative and exciting South African financial management boutique, OutsourcedCFO, takes on the work of managing the financial structures of growing smallto medium-size enterprises, thereby freeing up businesses to use successful recording and financial practice as a base upon which they can work with OCFO to scale up toward true business innovation and growth. In other words, OCFO is a service provider that is scaling up the skills and experience of a team of financial professionals to multiply their intellectual capacity across the wider market, thereby unlocking more value and innovation across a wide range of industries. In a nutshell, OCFO renders a technical and visionary financial function service in which a talented and passionate team of purpose-driven chartered accountants and financial professionals help
The best team for the job OCFO’s purpose-driven CAs and financial professionals help entrepreneurs to rethink, automate and scale their companies.
entrepreneurs to rethink, automate and scale their companies in the pursuit of business eminence. The business model involves hiring one of three packages of a team of CFOs, in terms of time allocation and the level of thought leadership input, namely: performance (in which insightful CFOs work with businesses to accomplish quality performance); growth (in which heavyweight CFOs plan innovation and growth); and eminence (in which visionary CFOs look to explore, unlock and accelerate reputable and distinctive business eminence). With local and global perspectives and understanding, OCFO helps to build a strong and controlled internal financial structure for companies which minimises risk and increases efficiency. OCFO has been in, has access to, and has started building its own support networks of advisers, mentors, investors, incubators and specialists— locally and abroad. In a competitive and fast-evolving market, a CFO assists in the smooth and efficient operation of a company using streamlined cloud systems and dashboards that account for everything from
In an economy in which knowledge is key, the value of having experts upscale financial practices is a massive boon to any business.
invoicing to expense claims to compliance—creating room for heavyweight CFOs to help strategically plan the profitable innovation and growth of a business. The entire process of transitioning toward a higher scale of growth and innovation comes in three steps: The first is rethinking current practice, with honesty and integrity, considering what has been and what should be. With the intention of ensuring the company is performing optimally, a best possible business practice is identified. Secondly, this practice is automated using a variety of processes and technology, so as to streamline operations and create clever, measurable, effective and efficient financial performance. The third step is to scale up the scope of the business in order to achieve true potential: competitive, flexible and value-driven business eminence. In an economy in which knowledge is key, the value of having experts upscale financial practices is a massive boon to any business. OCFO provides a kind of sophisticated and exclusive crowd-sourcing to its clients via the cross-pollination of best practices in a variety of industries. By turning financial systems from a burden and a weight into an engine for growth, OCFO gives entrepreneurs the time, space and collaborative expertise that allow for growing businesses to do the work for which they were originally founded: the seizing of opportunity.
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Now that Netflix and Amazon have proved that outsiders can thrive in Hollywood, the world’s largest tech companies— Alibaba, Apple, Facebook and Google— are launching their own plans to get in on the act By Nicole LaPorte
Illustration by I Love Dust
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REVENGE OF TH E NERDS
THE IMPERIAL HOTEL HAS BEEN A FIXTURE ON PARK CITY IN U T A H’ S M A I N STR EET S I N CE IT O P E N E D I N 1 9 0 4. O RI G I NALLY A SPOT FOR W EARY M I N E R S, I T CAPTURED THE IMAGINATION O F HO LLYWO O D
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Sibyl Goldman, Facebook’s head of entertainment partnerships, is seeking edgy celebrities willing to riff with their fans live.
when an independent film festival came to town and its central location helped make it a hub for 10 days each January. It’s reputedly home to Park City’s most famous ghost, Lizzy, a prostitute who was killed by her husband. Legend has it that Lizzy still flirts with men there. During this year’s Sundance Film Festival, though, the Imperial was haunted by a different spectral presence: Apple. While other tech companies craved visibility at the annual indie-cinema jamboree— Samsung set up a virtual-reality storytelling village, Airbnb staged a painstakingly curated artist’s retreat called Airbnb Haus, and Uber offered helicopter rides from Salt Lake City— Apple slipped into Sundance practically unnoticed. It set up shop in the Imperial, which was recently converted into a condoslash–event space. Behind the now unmarked door at 221 Main, Apple hosted private, invitation-only events. On one evening, a group of young filmmakers were treated to cocktails and a farm-to-table dinner put on by the chefs from Eveleigh, one of Los Angeles’s hottest restaurants. The space was as sleek and understated as an iPhone 6S; one attendee described the decor to me as “very beige”. Unlike most Sundance brand-sponsored events, there were no press releases. There
Photograph by Emily Berl
were no party pictures. There wasn’t any swag. The iTunes Lounge, as it was known to invitees, was as real to most festival-goers as Lizzy. Says one guest who was in attendance, “They were definitely talking to the talent.” The iTunes Lounge was, in fact, part of a stealth effort by Apple to establish a new, more active role in delivering entertainment. In the weeks that followed, Apple execs were in LA hearing pitches for original TV series that it plans to launch on an “exclusives” app on Apple TV and within iTunes. Apple wants to work with “triple A-list” talent, according to a source, and build up a roster of must-see shows available only on its platform. Naturally, the talks have been veiled in the utmost secrecy. Producers who have met with Apple will refer to it only as the United Fruit Company. Apple isn’t the only tech giant zeroing in on the entertainment industry. In recent months, three of the company’s largest rivals— Google, Facebook and Alibaba—have also amped up investment in Hollywood content, each in different ways and with somewhat different goals. Google’s YouTube has launched a new “originals” division that is pairing its homegrown talent with mainstream TV producers and filmmakers as a way to upgrade its typical fare. Facebook is urging—and even compensating—celebrities to live-stream video on its platform. And the Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba is licensing, co-financing and developing feature films. The tech world’s most important players have suddenly embraced Hollywood for two reasons. First, they can no longer ignore the massive success that Netflix and Amazon have enjoyed by producing exclusive, high-quality programming. Since transforming from a DVD–by-mail service into a purveyor of buzzy series like Jessica Jones and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Netflix has morphed into a $40-billion (R602-billion) business, amassed 75 million subscribers, and won Golden Globes and Emmys. Amazon’s forays into original video have helped Amazon Prime add tens of millions of new customers, according to analyst estimates, and awards of its own. This has stoked the competitive landscape. “They are in awe of the clout Netflix carries with both consumers and media companies,” says Blair Westlake, the former chairperson of Universal Television and head of media and entertainment for Microsoft. “None of the tech companies have anything that even comes close.” Second, they see a growing opportunity. The slow but inevitable fraying of the cable TV bundle has sparked a newly intense battle to win
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over audiences who have never been more in play. “If I stop paying $200 [R3 000] a month for cable and I’m willing to parse out my $200 a month in a more à la carte fashion, is Verizon [American broadband and telecoms provider] going to get some of that? Is YouTube Red?” says Jeremy Zimmer, co-founder and CEO of United Talent Agency. “Who’s gonna get it?” Alibaba, Apple, Facebook and Google each want a piece of that action. They are among the richest companies in the world, with a combined market cap of $1.5 trillion (R22.6 trillion)—almost four times the size of the five largest media conglomerates. Apple alone, with its $216 billion (R3.2 trillion) in cash, could acquire Netflix, Paramount Pictures, HBO and Warner Bros. (all of which observers have suggested CEO Tim Cook actually purchase) and still have plenty left over. So far, none of the tech firms seems interested in buying their “People are way into Hollywood. They gonna do it want to establish their own presence. “The goal anyway, because isn’t: ‘We’re going to build it’s Apple,” says Netflix,’ ” says Michael one manager, Yanover, head of business development at Creative batting down Artists Agency. “It’s: ‘We’re unresolved going to build our own questions about thing, based on our own strengths.’ ” its originalAt Sundance, Amazon content strategy. and Netflix, which rely on subscriber growth “Who wouldn’t rather than advertising or want to take individual sales to drive that flier?” profitability, waved around their chequebooks, buying more films at higher prices than the usual players, according to Variety. They stoked bidding wars for festival darlings such as Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester by the Sea (which Amazon purchased for a rumoured $10 million [R150 billion]) and The Birth of a Nation, a slavery drama (which Fox Searchlight bought for $17.5 million [R263 million]— a Sundance record—even after Netflix reportedly bid $20 million [R301 million]). As four of the biggest companies on Earth join the competition in an effort to cement their hold on their audiences of more than a billion people each, Hollywood may never be the same. Here’s how their tactics are shaping up—and the implications for the entertainment industry, the tech world, and consumers around the globe.
A PPLE: TH E STAR C HAM B ER Apple has been in the entertainment business for a long time—even if the public hasn’t realised it. Eddy Cue, the amiable Apple lifer who oversees the company’s Internet software and services, is a well-known face in Hollywood: He’s been negotiating licensing deals with the studios and networks since the birth of iTunes in the early 2000s, gaining access to content for Apple customers. In Apple’s 2015 annual report, the company revealed $19.9 billion
(just under R300 billion) in revenue for its services business, which includes sales from the iTunes Store (as well as the App Store, Apple Music, AppleCare and Apple Pay). Company executives have signalled that it sees these services—notably “apps, movies and TV shows”— as an important part of the company’s growth strategy moving forward. CFO Luca Maestri explained why during Apple’s quarterly earnings call in January, saying that they’re “tied to our installed base of devices, rather than to current quarter sales.” Translation: Stop obsessing over new iPhone sales and look at how much quarterly revenue Apple can get out of its more than 1 billion users. The company went on to share that sales of these services are growing at a healthy 24%. Moving into original content, then, is a logical next step for Apple. Two weeks after Apple’s earnings call, The Hollywood Reporter ran with an exclusive: dr. dre filming apple’s first scripted television series. The story described a raunchy, six-episode programme called Vital Signs, created by and starring the rapper turned entrepreneur, who sold his company Beats Electronics to Apple for $3 billion (around R45 billion) in 2014. According to five different sources who have been briefed on Apple’s plans or spoken directly to Apple executives, the company
Photograph by Emily Berl
Susanne Daniels, global head of original content for YouTube, wants to pair home grown stars with Hollywood talent for the video giant’s Red subscription service.
is still a bit “disorganised”, and these Hollywood principals complain that Apple hasn’t presented a coherent strategy. That said, Apple appears to be taking a “two-lane approach” to original programming. The first, which Vital Signs falls under, is a slate of short films, music videos and documentaries that will be built around musicians and friends of Dr. Dre and his Beats partner, Jimmy Iovine, a former record executive. The idea is to use this content (such as the two-hour Taylor Swift concert movie that Apple released last December and the Vice documentary The Score in late March) to promote Apple Music, the subscription streaming service that launched last year. These originals are seen as essential in goosing Apple Music’s subscriber totals. Apple says it’s happy with the 13 million people it’s attracted thus far, but industry analyst Horace Dediu notes: “They have 860 million iTunes accounts. Thirteen million out of 860 million is not a big number. They still have some way to go.” The second lane—which for now is more deeply undercover—is an effort to do what Amazon and Netflix have done for their tens of millions of users: offer its own original TV-style entertainment. Apple being Apple, though, it not only wants to find its own House of Cards, but it wants several of them at once. This daunting effort is being led by Robert Kondrk, Apple’s VP of iTunes content and Cue’s lieutenant. Kondrk, who looks like a buttoned-up Moby, is a low-profile Apple veteran who has mostly been associated with overseeing music on iTunes. (In Hollywood, Kondrk’s name can elicit the response, “Who?”) Among Kondrk’s challenges is how to square Apple’s aspiration— for several massive hits at once—with the risk required. Whereas Amazon made a $250-million (R3.7-billion) deal for a new series with the Top Gear stars and HBO scooped up the popular sports-and-culture maven Bill Simmons, who could have helped Apple with both original series and podcasts, Apple is “definitely more cautious”, says Eric Jackson, managing director of SpringOwl Asset Management. “They probably see that as a strength, but I think it could hurt them if they end up being too slow. By all accounts, [Amazon and Netflix] are going to keep pressing on the gas in terms of making investments in this space.” Another concern, asserts industry analyst Dediu, is “the way Apple operates; they’re very closed.” He explains: “If they work on media, they will want to have control over every aspect of it.” In Hollywood, people from various fields
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G O O G LE: T H E FORCE AWAKENS One afternoon in early February, Jim Berkus, the chairperson of United Talent Agency, sent out a company-wide email. Berkus had just listened to Susanne Daniels, the former programming chief at MTV who
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decamped to YouTube last July, talk to a group of UTA agents about YouTube Red Originals. Daniels laid out her vision for the video giant’s lineup of exclusive TV shows, movies and music available only through YouTube Red, its new $9.99 (R150) a month, ad-free subscription service. “It felt like a new day in Hollywood, and [YouTube] is a big part of our future,” Berkus wrote. “We always ask, ‘When will Google buy into Hollywood and acquire a studio or network?’ The answer is they already have by their ambitious plans for YouTube.” Berkus was worked up, in part because Daniels is arguably the most impressive TV executive to segue to digital in this era. Her career spans stints at MTV, the WB and Lifetime. (Her husband, Greg Daniels, is part of the Hollywood in-crowd as well, as the co-creator of the American version of The Office, Parks and Recreation and King of the Hill.) Coming from her, the message that YouTube is serious about high-quality professional content resonated in a way that Google had struggled to convey to the Hollywood establishment in the past. Though one of Red’s first efforts was Scare PewDiePie, a scripted YouTube’s series built around YouTube’s biggest star, new originals Daniels’s ambition goes strategy is in far beyond short videos of Swedish millennials part a bid to fend playing video games. off Facebook. She says that, as with her As one source previous network jobs, she’s working with talent says, Facebook to “arc out and develop is “internally, characters over a season” the biggest and understand the “art of showrunning”. She’s existential threat starting with YouTubers at YouTube.” but, beginning in 2017, she plans to “sprinkle in a couple more high-profile shows with more highprofile industry talent.” Does this mean that YouTube, which has more than 1 billion monthly users, would eventually produce shows that had no YouTuber affiliation whatsoever? “Maybe,” she says. “As we grow and we find our brand and our niche . . . I wouldn’t say no.” Talent wranglers are excited, because Daniels and YouTube are offering real money—a stark contrast from smaller digital players that “pay you $10 000 [R150 000] a script,” as one manager gripes. “YouTube has absolutely stepped up their price point to where they can more closely compete with TV,” says Chris Jacquemin, partner and head of digital content at WME. “They’re not necessarily going after Game of Thrones–level budgets. But they’re very competitive, certainly with the basic-cable tier.” The money may help Daniels overcome YouTube’s long-standing perception among traditional creators. “In the past, they’ve looked at [YouTube] as a pretty effective marketing tool,” says Jonathan Perelman, a former Google and BuzzFeed executive who’s now head of digital at ICM Partners, “but not necessarily the place to go when you want to create something.” While one agent predicts that some film and TV directors may resist the idea of collaborating with YouTube stars, whom they consider
Jasper James
come together on a project basis and then separate, but Dediu notes: “Apple doesn’t work that way. They are more in line with the oldfashioned studio system. How do you cross over?” For projects like the Dr. Dre series, that closed approach may be more realistic, but even then, word leaked out and infuriated Apple executives. In late March, Eddy Cue quietly announced Apple’s first original, an unscripted documentary series celebrating apps and starring Will.i.am (curiously, Apple chose not to make it part of its new product announcement event a few days earlier). “This doesn’t mean that we are going into a huge amount of movie production or TV production or anything like that,” Cue told The New York Times, but then reportedly left open the possibility that Apple would look for more exclusives. Hollywood sources believe Cue is merely tamping down expectations—an instance of Apple’s caution limiting the splash it wants and perhaps needs to make. As Apple moves forward into originals, it has leverage that neither Netflix nor Amazon had when they began making original shows: a strong, positive reputation among creators. Years of cultivating celebrities to be brand ambassadors has established Apple as an artist-friendly shop. Indeed, word that Apple is buying content has spawned a frenzy of interest among Hollywood cognoscenti. Some creators are so excited by the possibility of working with Apple, one agent tells me, “people are throwing shit against the wall with them, to every extent possible.” Although there are plenty of unresolved questions—Will Apple use its massive resources to finance shows or build its own team of development executives to shepherd projects? What’s the business model for making money from the content?—no one is too bothered by the lack of specifics. Why? “Because it’s Apple,” one manager says. “Who wouldn’t want to take that flier? Especially artists, on a creative level, are saying, ‘Yeah! Let’s stick it on Apple!’ ”
“schlocky”, Perelman contends that “there’s a real opportunity to get talent to look at YouTube in a different way.” YouTube’s new strategy is in part a bid to fend off Facebook, which over the past year has seen exploding video use and now boasts 8 billion video views a day. (As one source tells me, Facebook is “internally, the biggest existential threat at YouTube”.) It is also a defence against Netflix, which has poached homegrown YouTube star Miranda Sings to create an original series. Perhaps most important, though, it is an effort to diversify YouTube’s revenue stream—to add consumer revenue to the advertising base—in hopes of improving its reportedly break-even financial performance. Daniels won’t reveal how YouTube Red has done in the first four months since it was launched, except to say that it is “meeting goals that were ambitious”. YouTube is also exploring other ways to boost profitability. According to a source with knowledge of the plans, it has been quietly developing a direct-toconsumer streaming platform that it has been shopping to media companies, much like the MLB Advanced Media technology that powers HBO Now. (YouTube declined to comment.) Daniels says that ever since she arrived at YouTube less than a year ago, she’s been thinking a lot about the simultaneous power and fragility of YouTube’s brand. “Our core audience sees YouTube as a really positive force,” she says. “They see influencers as having social capital, and themselves as having social capital for being associated with these influencers. It’s an essential, positive community.” She’ll be programming Red with those principles guiding her.
FAC E B O O K: FR I EN D S W ITH BENEFITS “So we’re on our way to the Oscars,” Whoopi Goldberg says, speaking directly to the camera. “My daughter and I, between us, have on 40 pounds [18kg] of Spanx. Sixty-five, like, corsets. And we couldn’t . . . we had to have help getting in the car. Who knows what’s going to happen when we get out of the car!” Goldberg isn’t delivering this monologue during the red-carpet proceedings or the morning after on The View. She’s live-streaming video on Facebook from the comfort of her limo on the afternoon of last February’s Academy Awards. The video received more than 2 million views, as part of a behind-the-scenes
Zhang Wei, president of Alibaba Pictures, intends to use data to find movies that can be huge in China and around the world.
Oscars diary series that made use of Facebook’s new Live product, which allows users to create video streams that upload directly to the platform. Unlike Snapchat Stories, they don’t disappear after 24 hours, but remain on people’s news feeds. The next morning, Facebook’s head of entertainment partnerships, Sibyl Goldman—a gregarious entertainment junkie who’s done stints at Ryan Seacrest Productions and Yahoo—was pleased with the star’s efforts. Goldman says that Goldberg, whose post-limo experience, as it turned out, involved being misidentified by a fashion website as Oprah Winfrey, gave “this really nice, wellrounded view of what’s happening at an event like that”. Facebook is giving live video a huge push. CEO Mark Zuckerberg is reportedly “obsessed” with it, and the company has been rapidly finessing its rollout. The company is also in talks with the NFL and is negotiating with TV programmers about streaming live shows. Already, E! is shooting a live gossip show exclusively for Facebook. Live video suggests the kind of urgency and engagement that advertisers love. And Facebook is eagerly enlisting professional entertainers to deliver it. After the Oscars, Facebook deployed COO Sheryl Sandberg to pay a visit to all the major Hollywood talent agencies. Her mission was to urge agents to get their clients using Live, with an added bonus: Facebook would pay a select number of them. In particular, the company is after young, edgy stars—a distinction from Goldberg, Vin Diesel and its other early adopters—who are “comfortable being unscripted and unfiltered”, Goldman tells me when we chat after news of Sandberg’s visit leaked. “People who like to riff really enjoy Live.” Whether it’s comedians, chefs, athletes, musicians, politicians or
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journalists, Facebook hopes to turn them into Live “stars” akin to YouTube celebs, and will pay them based on how many times a week they broadcast. (In late March, reports surfaced that YouTube was creating its own live-streaming product called Connect.) Eventually, this could evolve into a revenue-sharing model based on ads that are served within the stream. Goldman stresses that everything is still very much in testing mode. “We’re trying to encourage partners to experiment with this new format,” she says. “Part of that is working with some partners to offer some shortterm financial support.” Like YouTube Red Originals, Live is Facebook’s latest significant push to get A-listers, and Hollywood in general, to view the platform as more than just a promotional tool. Because of its unparalleled reach, data, analytics and targeting capabilities, Facebook has been hugely successful in getting studios and networks to make it a launch pad for trailers, sneak-peek content for event movies such as Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and even entire episodes of shows such as Showtime’s Billions last January (though the non-exclusive deal meant YouTube and others also had the pilot). Now, though, as Facebook turns to original content created exclusively for its 1.6 billion monthly users, that very success has spawned a challenge: The entertainment industry doesn’t generally see the social network as a creative venue. The unevolved financial model doesn’t help: “The conversations that I have with our content creators is, ‘Yeah, I can do something. I can put that content on Facebook and get huge numbers,’ ” one agent says. “ ‘But what’s the monetisation going to be?’ ” Another challenge is endemic to how Facebook works. The feed, an algorithmically derived stream of content customised to each user, remains a confusing concept for programmers still getting used to the idea of releasing an entire season of a show at once. “It’s not a destination,” says one source. “YouTube made a deliberate decision five years ago to be channel-based. There’s a reason for that. The [Facebook] feed is very transient. It’s tough.” In early April, the company added a new Live updates tab to make the feature more prominent inside the Facebook app—one way it is trying to address this concern. When I ask Goldman about this, she talks about how more than half of Facebook content is shared friend-to-friend, meaning that not only is stuff on the site highly trafficked, it travels with the valuable imprimatur of someone you know. Nowhere is this more true than in the
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entertainment category, she says, “whether it’s this movie trailer or this funny post.” Facebook is betting that deep engagement can help draw creators, in the same way it has drawn both audiences and advertisers.
ALIBABA: LORD OF THE RINGS Last September, Tom Cruise stood onstage at the Shanghai Film Center with Jack Ma, chairperson of the Alibaba Group, at the gala for the Chinese premiere of Mission: Impossible—Rogue Nation. Alibaba had invested in the film and promoted it across its digital properties. “How can a man be that handsome?” asked Ma as he looked affectionately at the movie star. Ma, who is worth $22 billion (more than R330 billion), was dressed simply, in a white button-down and black pants. “You know, I’m considered the most ugly and unique-looking man in China. That’s why when I meet a handsome man, I’m always jealous.” With Alibaba behind the film, M:I 5 chalked up a dashing $86-million (R1.2-billion) opening weekend in China—the biggest ever for both Cruise and the Mission: Impossible franchise. A self-described film buff who cites Forrest Gump as his favourite movie, Ma has said he wants Alibaba to become “the world’s biggest entertainment company”. Since raising $25 billion (R376 billion) in a record-setting US IPO in 2014, and with China galloping to surpass the North American box office next year, Ma has been looking to expand Whether it’s into entertainment and comedians, is hungry for Hollywoodchefs, athletes, quality content to drive purchases on Alibaba’s musicians, variety of e-commerce politicians or platforms including journalists, Taobao Movies, its filmticketing service. Facebook hopes Unlike the other tech to turn them into CEOs, Ma has created his Live “stars” akin own movie production arm. Alibaba Pictures to YouTube recently set up a 2 000m2 celebs office in an art deco–style building in Pasadena, California, and Ma installed Zhang Wei as his Hollywood liaison and president. An elegant Harvard MBA who started out as a TV talkshow host and once said she wanted to be China’s Oprah Winfrey, Zhang, along with Ma and other Alibaba delegates, has been very active in courting studios about producing, co-producing and acquiring movies for Alibaba. (In October 2014, fresh off his US IPO, Ma even scored that most coveted of Hollywood experiences: attending a Lakers game with WME co–CEOs Ari Emanuel and Patrick Whitesell, along with the actor Jet Li.) Alibaba has made deals with Lionsgate and Disney to bring
their shows and movies to China via Alibaba’s subscription streaming services. As of mid-March, Alibaba Pictures has yet to release its first project. While Wanda Group, the Chinese real estate conglomerate, bought the AMC theatre chain in 2012 and recently acquired Thomas Tull’s Legendary Pictures for $3.5 billion (R52.7 billion), Alibaba is currently more interested in being involved in individual films. That hasn’t prevented Hollywood wags from including Alibaba in its rumour mill. After Viacom stated it would be interested in selling a minority stake in Paramount, which released M:I 5, Alibaba has been mentioned as a likely acquirer. “Huayi Brothers has put money into STX Entertainment and other companies. Hunan TV is putting money into Lionsgate,” says Janet Yang, the Joy Luck Club producer who is working on a feature film about Ma, citing two other Chinese entertainment firms that have bought into Hollywood. “[Alibaba] wants to feel like they can effect change.” Alibaba’s ideas about how to disrupt entertainment production may prove highly unpopular. Last year, a company executive said that it would not hire screenwriters, choosing instead to find movie ideas from fan-fiction authors. Alibaba then expected them to cobble together scripts in an online forum. The Chinese creative community was outraged, and the company quickly walked back the comments. Coincidentally, the gambit was reminiscent of Amazon’s initial efforts to enter Hollywood via a crowdsourced script platform before it got serious and started writing big cheques. Ultimately, Alibaba may end up acting more like Netflix, which relies on a combination of algorithms and personal taste when it comes to green-lighting projects. At the outset, Alibaba’s emphasis is more on data than anyone’s golden gut. All of the information it has amassed about its customers’ buying habits and entertainment choices will inform which movies it’ll make. “[Alibaba’s] vision of what they are going to do quite precisely calibrates to what they know will also perform well in China,” says one person who has met with Alibaba Pictures executives. “They’re very focused on fanboy, a lot of fantasy, children-related content and not a lot of other stuff.” Ma is very much an Old Hollywood–style showman. He throws group weddings for Alibaba employees and has serenaded his company with a rendition of “Can You Feel The Love Tonight?” while wearing a long, white wig and red-and-black leather biker jacket. As Ma
finds his way in the entertainment business, “Give ’em what they want” may become more than the mantra of a quant jock but also the populist cry of someone whose prime interest is keeping his customers happy. Before Ma attains movie moguldom, though, his company has to overcome cultural hurdles as it tries to negotiate film deals. Unaccustomed to Hollywood’s highly specific way of packaging projects, Alibaba has frustrated some of its potential partners. “They don’t really get it yet,” says one. “They’ll draw a line in the sand on something that All of the they shouldn’t. Then they will be very flexible on information something they shouldn’t [Alibaba] has be. It’s a little backward, amassed about but they’re learning.” As with other tech its customers’ outsiders acclimating buying habits and to the entertainment entertainment industry, the question of how well that process choices will goes may come down to inform which how badly Hollywood feels it needs Alibaba. movies it’ll make. The company represents access to the fastestgrowing movie market. While the US box office is seeing modest singledigit improvement, China’s thriving with a 50% increase in 2015. The Chinese film business is notoriously unfriendly to foreigners given its censorship laws, not to mention marketing challenges (trailers do not usually play before movies in theatres there) and the fact that studios have no control over release dates. By partnering with Alibaba, American studios would have a trusted partner with e-commerce and social media prowess. “People want muscle in China,” says Schuyler Moore, a partner at Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, who worked on a $500-million (R7.5-billion) deal between China’s Perfect World Pictures and Universal to fund a slate of films. “Alibaba certainly provides it.” As the tech titans bring their rivalry from commerce and community to original content, their attempts to best one another mean the unintended beneficiary is anyone who can create or package entertainment. Not only does the industry get even more serious buyers—in addition to Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Alibaba, Facebook and Google, don’t forget about Verizon, AT&T, Snapchat and Twitter— but it also has a surprising set of new collaborators. For decades, the tech and entertainment industries have not trusted each other, insisting that the other offered far lesser value. While Hollywood hollered, “Content is king,” Silicon Valley countered with “Platform rules.” Now the two worlds are more co-operative. “Fresno’s the halfway point between Silicon Valley and Hollywood,” says ICM’s Perelman. “And while neither I nor anyone else in this business is looking to move to Fresno, conceptually there’s this understanding, like, you need us and we need you; let’s find the best ways to work together.” laporte@fastcompany.com
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BIG AND WHY THE NEXT GREAT SOUTH AFRICAN INNOVATION COULD COME FROM THE COUNTRY’S AMBITIOUS COMMUNITY OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS
BOLD
Making their moves BeBold COO Tshitso Mosolodi says the trustees expect great things from the students; “they are our country’s future, after all.”
Entrepreneurship and innovation must rise! This is the motto of the strong-minded students from university campuses across South Africa. Possibly the fastest growing— and certainly the most vibrant and dynamic—student-led movement in the country, it has an impressive 53 000 members who have formed 143 entrepreneurship societies across 40 campuses nationally, in under three years.
This entrepreneurial movement is the brainchild of the BeBold Trust, a non-profit organisation with a simple mandate: Provide the spark of encouraging, fostering and growing a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship at university level, and let the students do the rest. With the boundless enthusiasm and energy of dynamic universitygoers across South Africa, BeBold believes this is only the tip of the iceberg. Charles Maisel (founder and CEO) and Tshitso Mosolodi (COO), together with a board of trustees (Mish-al Magiet, Charmaine Groves and Taygan Govinden), are responsible for administering the trust, and their bet is that the next big South African innovation and serial entrepreneur will come from the country’s ambitious community of university students. “If you’re going to approach entrepreneurship as a means to solve the youth unemployment problem, and take it to the next level, then you have to start with the 600 000 people already at university,” says Maisel. While BeBold spearheaded the movement,
one of the key pillars of its philosophy is to let the students define and drive their own movement and take ownership of their entrepreneurial spirit. This has led to the staggering growth and success of the initiative in such a short space of time. Three years ago, BeBold approached universities across South Africa with a proposal for an informal “Popcorn and Pitch” concept: an open invitation to any university student to an informal pitch event where they could grab a box of popcorn and pitch their innovative idea to an audience of their peers in any format they choose. Popcorn and Pitch provides a relaxed and informal environment, with the added objective of providing positive feedback to each pitching student with the purpose of fostering and encouraging a culture of entrepreneurship and innovation among the student body. “There is no format,” says Maisel. “You can pitch with a beer in your hand if you want to. You can use a PowerPoint presentation. There are no rules. But we only want original ideas. You can’t go there with ideas for food trucks, hair salons or event management companies.” Although BeBold has assisted the students in forming their respective entrepreneurial societies and co-ordinated and funded the
pitch events, everything is entirely student-led. Those who run the societies at the various campuses across the country host the regular informal pitch events throughout the year at which students can present their innovative ideas, concepts or businesses. The pitches may take the form of a casual discussion with the audience, or a presentation with slides and videos—after which the audience members can pose questions about the ideas. Many of the products and services pitched are for students to use themselves, as they understand their market better than anyone else. “Plus,” adds Maisel, “if you have a hundred people attending a pitch event, you’re going to get a lot more feedback.” The person with the best idea, as voted for by his or her peers, is awarded a monetary prize and the opportunity to present at the
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national Intervarsity Pitch Event. Unlike, say, intervarsity sporting events, this pitching session is not a competition to beat one’s opponents, but instead is a coming together of like-minded individuals who share the entrepreneurial spirit. The competition is split into two divisions: Rural and Urban. The Rural challenge focuses on social innovation, and is sponsored by the SAB Foundation; the Urban challenge, sponsored by Bank of America Merrill Lynch, seeks any business or social business innovation. The Intervarsity Pitch Event is held annually in Johannesburg, where the top students pitch their ideas to a panel of judges—this time around in a more formal presentation format. Again, the focus is on providing positive feedback, with the best idea as voted for by the panel of judges being awarded R1 million to be invested in the business, and bragging rights as the year’s Intervarsity Pitch Champion. The competition focuses on the target group of 17- to 28-yearolds, of which 75% are representative of the black youth demographic. These intervarsity pitching sessions have seen some exciting and incredibly innovative business concepts come to the fore. Some of these are currently negotiating funding, while others have already received financial support or have partnered with larger corporations. But the BeBold trustees feel people are often too quick to judge the programme purely on the number of ideas or concepts put into
development and going on to operate as startups—missing the point that there is a critical step before that stage. “There are plenty of institutions doing an excellent job of assisting budding entrepreneurs develop and implement their innovative ideas and concepts, and providing them with funding. The role of BeBold is one or two steps before that stage: It is to encourage and foster the entrepreneurial spirit in university students across the country and ensure the growth of a culture of entrepreneurship among these students,” explains Magiet. At present, there are five entrepreneurial societies that BeBold has introduced at campuses: general, fashion (in Cape Town alone, there are already eight different fashion brands that have been started), publishing (two student writers have had their books published), biomimicry, as well as media in collaboration with Snake Nation, a multiplatform network for creatives that allows anyone to share their creative works and get exposure in the US market. BeBold’s shortterm focus is on assisting students to grow these existing societies and form new ones at more campuses across South Africa. BeBold also provides basic workshops at a number of varsities, called “Seeing the Leaves”, which are run by Maisel—a serial entrepreneur in his own right. These workshops help students see everyday problems in society and gaps in the market from a solutions-orientated and entrepreneurial perspective. The trust further aims to expand the workshops and possibly partner with an existing institution that can assist the students with the next phase of their development, should they wish to take their concepts to market. Thus far, the BeBold Trust has been incredibly fortunate to have received generous funding and support from Merrill Lynch, which is equally inspired by the students. BeBold is now engaging with other funders and sponsors who have shown tremendous interest in the initiative. More than anything else, the trustees are excited to see where the students will take the movement and how they will shape and form it in the coming years. “We expect great things from the students; they are our country’s future, after all,” says BeBold’s Mosolodi.
“ YOU CAN PITCH WITH A BEER IN YOUR HAND IF YOU WANT TO. YOU CAN USE A POWERPOINT PRESENTATION. THERE ARE NO RULES. BUT WE ONLY WANT ORIGINAL IDEAS.” 72 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A AUGUST 2016
PITCH PERFECT SOME OF THE BEBOLD SUCCESS STORIES FROM THE 2015 I N T E R VA R S I T Y E V E N T
NUBRIX (Winner) ELIJAH DJAN, UNIVERSITY OF PRETORIA
Manufactures bricks from recycled paper, which can be used to build RDP houses and schools, as well as pave driveways and sidewalks. The bricks are rain- and fireresistant and can withstand 10.2MPa—meeting compression requirements.
RIKATEC (Runner-up) RIVONINGO MHLARI AND JESSE MATHERI, UNIVERSITY OF CAPE TOWN
Produces a digital device enabling cars made prior to 1996 to communicate efficiently and effectively with the driver and roadside-assistance call centre during engine failure and breakdowns.
TAILOR KLINIC SNEAKERS (Runner-up) MUIMELELI MUTANGWA, WITS
Cleans white and black footwear as a drop-off and pick-up service on campus and in shopping malls, using uniquely developed chemicals.
KYNETIC (Winner – SAB Social Innovation) KWASI YINKAH, UNIVERSITY OF THE FREE STATE
A device that uses the principles of electromagnetic induction to convert mechanical energy— from opening and closing a house’s doors—into electricity that is stored in a battery, which can be used during loadshedding or for powering a small energyefficient light bulb.
DAPS (Winner – SAB Social Innovation) MNQANQENI & THABO LINAKE, UNIVERSITY OF FORT HARE
A web-based application used by academic support centres at tertiary institutions to monitor the progress of students. It allows for profiling of facilitators, datacapturing of activities by both students and lecturers, and helps students with course management and consultation bookings. For more information, visit www.bebold.org.
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Maverick of the month
EARTH CHAMPION Braam Malherbe is the Glenfiddich Fast Company SA Maverick for August
Every month, Glenfiddich and Fast Company SA identify and honour a visionary thought leader in South Africa: a pioneering man who has shown relentless determination in his path to success. International motivational speaker, MC, extreme adventurer, conservationist, youth developer, TV presenter and author of the bestseller The Great Run . . . Braam Malherbe has an infectious energy fed by his lifelong passion to protect the environment and inspire change. He places great emphasis on the importance of leadership in society, and how to move from a culture of blame and entitlement to one of personal growth. Among many other challenges, Malherbe—with fellow adventurer and inspirational speaker, David Grier—accomplished two worldfirsts by running the entire length of the Great Wall of China in a single attempt, and running the entire coastline of South Africa; these expeditions raised over R2.5 million for Operation Smile, providing corrective surgery for children with cleft lip and cleft palate. In 2011 Malherbe and Peter van Kets represented South Africa in an unassisted race to the South Pole. In January 2017, Malherbe and Van Kets will row the Cape to Rio Yacht Race over a distance of 6 700km, unassisted. The journey will take about three months and will be another world-first. It will be televised to connect millions around the globe to ‘Do One Thing’ for the planet. “A maverick is someone who refuses to play by the rules, someone who is not scared to cross the line of conformity and whose unorthodox tactics reap the results.” Would you say you’re a maverick? I believe I would, even though it’s
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not very humble to say so. I’ve never played by the rules; even as a kid I always thought out of the box and followed my passion rather than prescribed logic. I believe orthodox methods are adopted by followers, not leaders. A leader is someone who has three distinct abilities: the ability to have a huge vision or dream; the ability to communicate this dream to others in such a way that they want to embrace and be an integral part of the dream; and the ability to implement the dream through personal action. People who believe in limitations will always be limited. Those who see opportunities in tough times are true mavericks. What piqued your interest in saving the environment? When I was 17, I attended a Wilderness Leadership School in the iMfolozi Game Reserve in KZN—it changed my life. One day, our ranger sat us down in the shade of an acacia tree and gave us each a hard-boiled egg as part of our lunch ration. He asked us not to break the egg, but just to hold it and look at it. He held up his egg and asked: “If this egg is our Earth, what part of it would be the air that surrounds us?” We all said “the shell”. He cracked the egg on his head and carefully peeled the shell away, exposing the delicate membrane beneath. Lifting a piece of the opaque skin away from the egg, he said: “This is how fragile our planet is. What are you going to do to make a positive difference to our planet when you get back home?” Which experiences have contributed to your success in life? Much of my success was born from lessons learnt from failure. I never felt good enough until I
found a significant purpose. Success is generally defined by materialistic things (and there’s nothing wrong with that), but being significant defines you: What is the legacy you’ll leave behind? The more I give, the more I get back. Give without expectation— except of positive change! These are the two rules I strive to live by. How does it feel to go back home after successfully completing an expedition? It’s always good to come back home. In both my expeditions, money was raised for Operation Smile. To see all the kids who got to smile for the first time was humbling beyond words. The pain I experienced during those expeditions was forgotten when seeing the results of our efforts. Are you excited about the upcoming Cape to Rio Row? Very much so. I do believe this expedition can change the world and the way we think. It ties in with my #DOT (Do One Thing) initiative, which encourages everyone to perform at least one positive action to help save the planet. Part of the expedition will be the launch of the DOT app, harnessing social media to encourage more people to protect the planet. If we’re not part of the solution, then we’re part of the problem. My ultimate dream is to be the greatest asset I can be to the planet, and these expeditions are one of my ways to do so. During any of your expeditions, have you ever felt you couldn’t carry on? I take it one day at a time. Every night I ask myself, ‘Can I do just another day?’ I don’t think about the distance left to cover. The answer every night is: ‘Yes!’ But, of course,
there were difficulties times, like when I lost all my toenails, or when I was caught in the middle of a storm. In those moments, my mind played a huge role in driving me to complete the task. How can people make their own contributions to your cause? By Doing One Thing—DOT—and by making ethical choices in their daily lives. In nature, each species is dependent on so many other species for their own survival. We humans should be part of that system but, instead, we exploit the natural elements to such an extent that it may very well end up to our own ruin. You don’t have to solve all problems, but by doing many small acts we can collectively change our planet’s destiny. What shapes a person to become an advocate of change? People don’t like change, and they resist it at their peril. In my view, there are two reasons people want to change: when they’re forced to (for example, when there’s no water and they have to find some); and for a moral issue. When the problem is too big, we feel overwhelmed and become emotionally impotent and avoid the problem—like climate change. I believe that by giving people ideas and showing them how, through many small actions, we can change the world, then they become more responsible citizens. The DOT app will give all these opportunities, and the new expedition will be the vehicle to drive it. Join Braam Malherbe to Do One Thing to make a positive difference to the sustainability of our one and only Planet Earth. Go to www.braammalherbe.com/dotdo-one-thing
FPP12030
Auric Auto
www.bmw-auricauto .co.za
WE HAVE ALL THE ANSWERS. MEET A BMW GENIUS.
Innovation has always been a cornerstone for BMW. It’s not just the models in our showroom that set the trend, but the showroom itself. We are proud to introduce the BMW Genius – an expert who will assist with any queries you may have, deliver product demonstrations and even take you on a virtual test-drive. Whether you’d like to know which features are available in your dream BMW or how to use them, the BMW Genius will have the answer. Speak to the BMW Genius at Auric Auto: Reinhardt Salie 021 670 1113 Reinhardt.Salie@bmwdealer.co.za
Auric Auto
215 Main Rd, Claremont, Cape Town Tel. 021 670 1100 www.bmw-auricauto.co.za
Sheer Driving Pleasure
Fast Company event
Glenfiddich, Auric Auto and Fast Company S A held their third Maverick experience at Le Franschhoek Hotel & Spa in the Cape Winelands—with extreme adventurer and conservationist Braam Malherbe honoured as Maverick on the occasion. Guests were driven to the venue in style, courtesy of Auric Auto, for a lavish afternoon of food, whisky tasting and networking.
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Photographs by Duane Smith Photography
Fast Company event
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• 1. Guests enjoy welcome drinks • 2. Arriving in style in the new BMW 7 Series • 3. Group shot • 4. Liezel van der Westhuizen and Braam Malherbe • 5. Keith Hill, Braam Malherbe and Evans Manyonga • 6. Luthando Tibini and Braam Malherbe • 7. Adriano Folsch and Braam Malherbe • 8. Glenfiddich 12- and 18 Year Old whiskies
AUGUST 2016 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A 77
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The Great Innovation Frontier
Walter Baets
UNIQUE NEEDS Why Africa should be moving determinedly away from fossil fuels and toward innovation in cleantech
RECENTLY, A PRESIDENT OF an African country remarked that—in the interests of industrial revolution— the continent should not concern itself too much with its carbon footprint. If you did a double take upon reading that, you’re not alone. In July, Xinhua News Agency reported that African governments were anticipating a major new innovation take-off on the continent, in view of September’s G20 meeting under the chairmanship of China. The latest industrial initiatives in Africa added up to a continent ready for industrial revolution, Senegalese President Macky Sall said at the opening of the 35th New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) Heads of State and Government Orientation Committee Meeting at the 27th African Union Summit in Kigali, Rwanda. So far, so good. And then Sall argued that African governments should not concern themselves overmuch with minimising the impact of fossil fuels, since the continent’s carbon footprint was “minimal”. The key was to “balance the mix in developing clean energy and at the same time [using] fossil fuel”, he added. Wait, what? Certainly, fossil fuels have not yet been eradicated from African industry, but there are several reasons the continent should be moving determinedly away from them. Firstly, Africa’s needs are unique. Since 75% of the population lives directly off the land, it is paramount to safeguard the environment in order to ensure both food security and the livelihoods of a large portion of the continent’s citizens. Secondly, it is a blatant misconception that Africa need not worry about its carbon footprint. Although the continent’s emissions are still significantly lower than China, the US, India, Russia and Japan, its carbon footprint has increased twelvefold since 1950. Libya and South Africa’s carbon emissions, per capita, are more than double the global average of 1.3 metric tonnes per year. But there is more at stake here. There is such a massive opportunity for innovation that it would be a pity to miss out on it by going the fossil fuel route. Africa has increasingly distinguished itself as a clean-energy superpower, as well as leaping ahead in the innovation stakes. Just recently in June, global renewable energy
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It is a blatant misconception that Africa need not worry about its carbon footprint . . . it has increased twelvefold since 1950.
producer Mainstream Renewable Power signed a $117.5-million (R1.68-billion) equity investment from multiple investors to accelerate the buildout of megawatts of wind and solar plants across Africa. South Africa, meanwhile, has been a game changer and a trendsetter in terms of its Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme model, which has resulted in cost-effective and successful renewable energy plants across the country. Research from the Managing Infrastructure Reform and Regulation initiative at the UCT Graduate School of Business has also shown that this is more than replicable across the continent. And it’s not just green energy initiatives in Africa that are setting the continent apart. A leading business publication last year reported on Africa’s top five cleantech startups, one of which is the South African company Freedom Won—founded to drive the continent’s clean energy and electric vehicle developments. The other four are Kenya’s M-Kopa, which started a pay-as-you-go solar revolution, capitalising on the high mobile penetration; Quaint Global Energy Solutions, which aims to bring 50MW of clean energy to Nigeria; African Clean Energy in Lesotho, which developed the ACE 1 Ultra-Clean Biomass Cookstove to help combat the pollution caused by openfire cooking; and iCoal Concept Ltd (also in Kenya), which turns the waste from charcoal into modern energy. On a smaller scale, other companies are setting trends too: Interwaste, for example, has created the first refuse-derived fuel plant in South Africa—aiming to reduce waste-to-landfill and pioneer turning general, industrial and municipal waste into alternative fuels. So why, one wonders, is there still a misconception that Africa’s impending industrialisation, and urbanisation, must necessarily involve an ongoing dependence on fossil fuels? Technology, as the MerriamWebster Dictionary would have it, is “the use of science in industry, engineering etc., to invent useful things or to solve problems.” Solve problems, not create them. And industrialisation will not be advancement if we take a step backward. It is time for our leaders to break out of binary thinking; the Watership Down narrative of progress versus sustainability. Today, sustainability is the very definition of progress. Anything less should not be acceptable to us. Walter Baets is the director of the UCT Graduate School of Business and holds the Allan Gray Chair in Values-Based Leadership at the school. Formerly a professor of complexity, knowledge and innovation as well as associate dean for innovation and social responsibility at Euromed Management—School of Management and Business, he is passionate about building a business school for ‘business that matters’.
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Subscribe to Fast Company SA and stand a chance to win the book, And For All These Reasons … I’M IN, authored by the Dragons’ Den SA judges Fast Company South Africa is available in selected Pick n Pay and Exclusive Books stores. An annual subscription is for 10 print issues of Fast Company SA magazine (March/April and December/January double up as one issue each), at a cost of R240 (including 14% VAT and postage). Full payment must be made before the subscription is valid. This offer is for South Africa ONLY. If you would like to subscribe, email Taryn Kershaw for more details: taryn@insightspublishing.co.za. I’M IN isn’t a how-to-build-your-business book, but rather one that offers insights into the thinking and experiences of people who have built businesses, have witnessed them fail, and have seen them rise again. Gil Oved, Lebo Gunguluza, Polo Leteka, Vinny Lingham and Vusi Thembekwayo—judges on the first SA season of reality TV show Dragons’ Den— were once in the same position in which all entrepreneurs find themselves before they take that leap. They know how it feels: the excitement, the passion, the sense of making a difference through offering something original, complex or simple. They know the disappointments when things don’t go according to plan. But they persevered. I’M IN is essential advice for all entrepreneurs. Visit iminbook.co.za for more information. AUGUST 2016 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A 79
Fast Bytes Fast Company SA takes a look at the innovative new ideas, services, research and news currently making waves in South Africa and abroad
INVISIBILITY CLOAK CLOSER TO REALITY? Scientists at Queen Mary University of London have made an object disappear by using a material with nano-size particles that can enhance specific properties on the object’s surface. Professor Yang Hao from QMUL’s School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science said: “The design is based upon transformation optics, a concept behind the idea of the invisibility cloak [made famous in JK Rowling’s Harry Potter novels] . . . [W]e can demonstrate that it works at a greater range of frequencies— making it more useful for other engineering applications such as nano-antennas and the aerospace industry.”
CAUGHT IN THE WEB Norton by Symantec claims that up to 8.8 million South Africans were victims of some form of cybercrime in the past year. The findings are part of the 2016 Norton Cybersecurity Insights Report that surveyed 1 000 South Africans in addition to 17 000 other consumers across 18 countries. Social networks are being targeted at a growing rate, the company found.
THE SURVEY ALSO REVEALED SOME INTERESTING THOUGHTS ABOUT CYBERCRIME IN GENERAL: 76% of South Africans believe identity theft is more likely than ever before. Two in three (67%) feel it is more difficult to control their personal information as a result of smartphones and the Internet. South Africans are engaged with the topic of security (78% acknowledge the need to actively protect their information), but there is still some notion that security is an inconvenience. 58% would rather cancel dinner plans with their best friend than have to cancel their credit/debit cards after their account has been compromised. 58% would rather endure a terrible date than deal with credit/debit card customer service after a breach or hack.
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DRONES, M&M S AND ENDANGERED FERRETS Black-footed ferrets in the American Plains have been considered one of North America’s rarest mammals since the 1960s, and now the remaining 300 are suffering from a plague epidemic. So in order to deliver a vaccine to them, the US Fish and Wildlife Service will enlist the help of drones to drop vaccine-laced M&Ms on them in their habitat in Montana. The use of unmanned aircraft systems will allow the FWS to cover a wider area more effectively. According to Randy Machett, a biologist with the FWS, ferrets find M&Ms “delicious”; for the treatment, the sweets will be smeared in vaccine-laden peanut butter.
Fast Bytes
THE FUTURE OF JOURNALISM The Johannesburg Centre for Software Excellence and Wits University are teaming up with the Toronto-based Ryerson School of Journalism and the NGO, Journalists for Human Rights, to launch a new startup incubator aimed at entrepreneurs trying to find sustainable models for media in Africa in the digital age. The Future of Journalism Lab, or J-Lab, will be based on Ryerson’s Transmedia Zone programme, which provides an entrepreneurial experience for students and alumni, and an opportunity to connect with those in the community who push the boundaries of content and storytelling.
INNOVATION IN TELECOMS Airtel Africa, in collaboration with Nokia, has won the 2016 Global Telecoms Business Innovation Award in the category Business Service Innovation, for its digital backbone that is driving the mobile economy on the African continent. Bharti Airtel also emerged the winner in the category Consumer Service Innovation, for its VoiP App with Exceptional Emerging Market Focus (collaborating with vendor Genband). “The new network implementation and management . . . continues to do an excellent job of enabling us to capture expansion opportunities with a wide range of intelligent services across our markets,” said Christian de Faria, executive chairperson of Airtel Africa.
BIG MONEY IN e WALLETS The number of people making use of mobile or electronic payment options is steadily on the rise in South Africa. FNB has revealed that R1.2 billion is being moved through eWallet, its mobile money service, every month—amounting to R33 billion having been transferred since the service started. “The ability to send money to any South African [cell] number has undoubtedly contributed to the success of eWallet, with the convenience of the facility and the ease of use being at the essence of its ever growing popularity in South Africa as well as other African regions,” said Lytania Johnson, CEO of eWallet Solutions.
BANKING BY THE NUMBER 5 million – people who have used FNB’s eWallet since its inception. 3.5 million – active users on eWallet.
R27.8 billion – sent through the traditional consumer eWallet service. R5.2 billion – transferred through the eWallet Pro business solution.
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Fast Events Local conferences, talks and meetups we think are worth attending
Leaderex Date: 24 August Time: 10h00–18h00 Location: Sandton Convention Centre, Johannesburg Cost: Free before 19 August; R100 upon entry www.leaderex.com Leaderex will bring together the country’s TOP EXECUTIVES, TOP EXECUTIVES AND ENTREPRENEURS for one day to S H A R E K N O W L E D G E and insights, O F F E R A D V I C E to the N E X T G E N E R AT I O N , N E T W O R K and C O L L A B O R AT E . It is as much about M O V I N G S O U T H A F R I C A F O R WA R D as it is about the P O O L O F L E A D E R S navigating the way. Come C H A L L E N G E C O N V E N T I O N A L T H I N K I N G and learn from the country’s T H O U G H T LEADERS.
Power Messaging: Stand Out in a Crowded Market Date: 24 August Time: 08h30–12h30 Location: Chamber Square Conference Centre, Durban Cost: R350 for members; R550 for non-members durbanchamber.co.za The D U R B A N C H A M B E R O F C O M M E R C E A N D I N D U S T RY , in partnership with B M G I , will host this seminar on P O W E R M E S S A G I N G . Imagine if you had the power to influence people’s S U B C O N S C I O U S M I N D ; imagine if you could do it by using S I M P L E T R I G G E R W O R D S —in W R I T I N G and in S P E E C H . People are D R O W N I N G I N I N F O R M AT I O N ; decision makers struggle to C U T T H R O U G H T H E C L U T T E R . Power messaging provides the T O O L S A N D T E C H N I Q U E S you need to S TA N D O U T F R O M T H E C R O W D .
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thinksales Sales Leadership Convention Date: 24 & 25 August Time: 08h00–17h00 (Wed); 07h50–13h30 (Thurs) Location: Sandton Convention Centre, Johannesburg Cost: depends on number of delegates convention.thinksales.co.za E X T E R N A L M A R K E T F O R C E S are impacting every industry and almost every company— defining R E V E N U E A N D M A R G I N S . Winning today requires I N S P I R AT I O N A L L E A D E R S H I P , a differentiated R E V E N U E G R O W T H S T R AT E GY , and a clear C U S T O M E R E N G A G E M E N T P R O C E S S . Three globally renowned speakers (including J O H N M AT T O N E , the man Steve Jobs hired for P E R S O N A L C O A C H I N G ) and seven local sales & strategy experts will share F R A M E W O R K S , C A S E S T U D I E S A N D I N S I G H T S .
My Business Expo SA Date: 25 August Time: 09h00–17h00 Location: Cape Town International Convention Centre Cost: Preregister for free www.mybizexpo.co.za My Business Expo is A I M E D AT E N T R E P R E N E U R S S TA R T I N G O U T O R G R O W I N G T H E I R O W N B U S I N E S S — boasting 5 0 0 E X H I B I T O R S and sponsors, and bringing together numerous delegates at events such as the B U S I N E S S S TA R T U P E X P O , T H E F R A N C H I S E S H O W , and B U I L D A B U S I N E S S L I V E . Visitors will get the chance to see C U T T I N G - E D G E S O L U T I O N S , new trends and ideas, as well as attend W O R L D - C L A S S S E M I N A R S that provide practical information to be applied to F U T U R E O R C U R R E N T LY GROWING BUSINESSES.
Fast Events
#TechTalkCPT: CRISPR Gene Editing—The Future is Now Date: 7 September Time: 18h00–20h00 Location: 22seven offices, Hout Street, Cape Town Cost: R100 per person Though G E N O M E E N G I N E E R I N G has been around for some time, the development of C R I S P R T E C H N O L O GY has propelled it to the forefront of M O L E C U L A R B I O L O GY and into the willing hands of almost any L A B S C I E N T I S T in the world. In addition to its almost B O U N D L E S S U S E S as a M O L E C U L A R T O O L , one can envisage C O R R E C T I N G M U TAT E D G E N E S for several until-now-incurable diseases. However, such advances often come with E T H I C A L A N D M O R A L D I L E M M A S . Our speaker, D R J A N I N E S C H O L E F I E L D from the C S I R , will share her expertise.
Pathways to Funding Do-ference Date: 7 & 8 September (Durban), 12 & 13 September (Joburg), 15 & 16 September (Cape Town) Time: 09h00–17h00 Locations: Smart Space, Durban; Awethu Project, Braamfontein; Bandwidth Barn, Cape Town Cost: R300–R500 (discounts and scholarships available upon request) path2fund2016.topi.com The Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship (UCT Graduate School of Business) is PA R T N E R I N G W I T H T H E AW E T H U P R O J E C T, L I F E C O U N LT D S A , B A N D W I D T H B A R N and S M A R T S PA C E to bring this T W O - D AY E V E N T designed to D E L I V E R P R A C T I C A L K N O W L E D G E and tools through interactive workshops, S P E C I A L I S E D O N E - O N - O N E S E S S I O N S and T E D - S T Y L E TA L K S around raising E A R LYS TA G E F I N A N C E to help you take Y O U R ( S O C I A L ) B U S I N E S S to the N E X T L E V E L .
Small Business Expo Date: 8–10 September Time: 09h00–17h00 Location: Ticketpro Dome, North Riding, Johannesburg Cost: free online; R60 upon entry www.thebereed.co.za/smallbizexpo The S M A L L B U S I N E S S E X P O is devoted to the development of S M A L L A N D M E D I U M - S I Z E E N T E R P R I S E S , exposing attendees to a wide range of B U S I N E S S M O D E L S , I N C U B AT I O N P R O G R A M M E S , B U S I N E S S C O N TA C T S , S P E A K E R S and O T H E R E N T R E P R E N E U R S . Running alongside will be the # B U YA B U S I N E S S E X P O , connecting E N T R E P R E N E U R S A N D I N V E S T O R S looking to G R O W, D I V E R S I F Y or E N T E R I N T O B U S I N E S S O W N E R S H I P with one of the many opportunities
available at the show.
Levi’s Pioneer Nation Date: 14 & 15 October Time: TBC Location: Sci-Bono Discovery Centre, Newtown, Johannesburg Cost: TBC www.pioneernation.biz Levi’s Pioneer Nation will see an I N T E R A C T I V E D AY T I M E P R O G R A M M E B R I N G I N G T O G E T H E R M O R E T H A N 3 0 Y O U N G E N T R E P R E N E U R S who will share their diverse backstories in 1 5 - M I N U T E P R E S E N TAT I O N S across
three stages. Each of these speakers has been selected because of their P R O V E N A B I L I T Y T O
I D E N T I F Y A G A P I N T H E M A R K E T and align their passion into realising the future they want, R E G A R D L E S S O F T H E H U R D L E S A L O N G T H E WAY . Combine this line-up with the variety of I N T E R A C T I V E B U S I N E S S - B U I L D I N G W O R K S H O P S on offer and you’ll walk out of this day turned on, T U N E D I N , A N D H O O K E D U P I N A C O M M U N I T Y O F YOUNG SUCCESSFUL PIONEERS.
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My Two Cents
A DRIVING FORCE Data shows that millennial women are on track to close the gender pay gap— smart marketers are taking note By Jon Birger
Illustration by Ramona Ring
W
OMEN EARN 79 cents for every dollar pocketed by men.
Brands know this, and often channel marketing spending accordingly. Think of pretty much every luxury-car commercial you’ve seen, every ad for a mutual fund or titanium golf club. If a woman appears, she’s the mom, wife or girlfriend—not a corporate high-flyer.
That couldn’t last. The strides being made by millennial women point to a future in which women, not men, are the target demographic for pricey goods and services. Since 2000, one-third more women than men have graduated from university, and more women are earning graduate degrees, too. Even once-male bastions such as law school are seeing the change. Millennial women are so outpacing men in higher education that it’s inevitable they will become their generation’s top earners. With greater education comes greater wealth. Between 1980 and 2012, wages for men age 25 to 34 fell 20%, while those for women rose 13%. At this rate, young women’s wages will overtake men’s by 2020. The data comes from a 2013 Pew Research report, which notes today’s young women “are the first in modern history” to start their work lives at near parity with men. The bottom line is that there’s now a huge population of young women with the means to buy luxury goods once marketed almost exclusively to men. The smart marketers are realising this. Take Acura: A commercial for the brand’s RDX model opens with a young woman driving solo down a winding highway, singing along to Blondie’s “Rapture” even after accepting a speakerphone call from three male underlings in a conference room. “Does she know we can hear her?” whispers one of the men.
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“Oh yeah,” replies another— hence the gender-bending slogan: “Drive Like a Boss.” “I love it,” says Kristina Durante, professor of marketing at Rutgers Business School. Acura’s angle is interesting, because “it promotes a world that only kind of exists right now but is definitely coming, where women can be unapologetically badass,” says Durante. The new OppenheimerFunds “Bossy Is Beautiful” ad takes a less subtle approach, targeting women who have already achieved a high level of success. It aims to debunk stale stereotypes about female entrepreneurs—embodied by terms like “pushy”, “controlling” and “bossy”—by pairing these words with appealing women who look as unflappable as Hillary Clinton at a Benghazi hearing. The on-screen message: “Women start up new businesses at twice the rate of men. So there.” “Today’s women are not waiting to have a husband make financial decisions
for them,” says Stephen Tisdalle, OppenheimerFunds head of marketing. “They’re investing now, and we have to tap into that.” Marketers who don’t adapt risk obsolescence. Consider fine jewellery: For generations, it was purchased by men for women, usually in connection with courtship and marriage. But the US marriage rate fell 16% between 2000 and 2014. Jewellery-store closings were up 11% in 2015. Initially, insiders thought male spending would rebound once the Great Recession ended. It didn’t. For jewellery-industry consultant Phillip Bosen, the “aha” moment came after he read an article (written, as it happens, by me) about the varsity gender gap. Male grads have less incentive to settle down because dates are so plentiful. So Bosen now tells clients to focus on “the female self-purchaser”. Yes, the same woman Acura wants to buy the RDX. “She’s becoming our most profitable demographic,” he says. Jon Birger is the author of Date-onomics: How Dating Became a Lopsided Numbers Game.
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