For the first time since October 2008, I’ve been in one place for more than 6 months. Long enough to get into a routine and start to feel like I’m living a normal’ish life. Long enough to feel like I can start building something more than airmiles. The simple benefits to this is that I’ve [...]

Africa to send troops, food parcels to UK as riots spread

Spare a thought…. ETHIOPIA. The African Union today adopted a unilateral resolution to deploy army troops and care packages to England as looting and violence spread from London to other major cities. Spokesperson Charity Khumalo said ?We can no longer stand by while these savages tear themselves apart.? The AU, meeting today in an emergency [...]

Overextending leads to self discovery

Seth wrote a really good blog post about Underextending, which got me thinking. Last year I took some very big financial, personal, emotional and reputational risks, in two countries. I completely overextended myself. It hurt like hell. There were times when I thought I’d never get through it all. There were many times when I [...]

Where are the meetups?

Last evening we had an informal meetup for BigData people in London, where we got to listen to some interesting talks from people working in BigData, and meet some cool people. Held at WhiteBearYard, where PassionCapital is based. That in itself is not the interesting for most people But what is, is that a bunch [...]

An open letter to African technologists

PASSION = BRAIN FUEL. DUMB BRAIN FULL OF GAS ALWAYS BEAT SMART BRAIN WITH EMPTY TANK. SMART BRAIN WITH FULL TANK BEAT EVERYONE. Dear African technologist, hacker, developer, geek, product guy, dreamer, thinker, tinkerer, manager, CEO, multi-national-organisation-in-Africa, We’re at the beginning of a shift in technology usage, where mobile adoption and usage is quickly going [...]

What are your values?

This week we sat down as a company to talk about what we valued the most, what we’d like to get across in each and every customer interactions, and what we wanted to live by. This is what we came up with, after 3 or 4 sessions: Love what you do. Be interesting, not perfect. [...]

Functional workout: ?Still Alive?

Today I wanted to see where I was and whether I’ve still got the strength to go back to using weights in workouts to get more out of the time spent. So in honour of the song by Pearl Jam, “Alive”, I decided to call this functional workout “Still alive”. So, splits were: 5 min [...]

Attention to detail

I’ve found myself obsessing over a few pixels for the better part of a few hours now, and while doing it I’ve been thinking how I can slim things down so just the most important is left behind, so the user see the attention to detail we’ve put in. Too often we pore over every [...]

Functional bodyweight workout: ?Falling over?

Did a functional bodyweight this afternoon, and fell over on the last pushups set. So in honor of that I’m naming this one “Falling over”. Aim was to get in a workout in under 35 mins, and do 400 to 500 Kcal. 5 min row for warmup. Squat to shoulder raise, using kettlebells for resistance [...]

Execution is everything

Some quick thoughts on execution, and speed: Sometimes the temptation to be perfect is overwhelming. We work towards perfection because we’re told that it’s worth aspiring and achieving. The problem for you and me is that perfection for some is rubbish for others, especially when your product reaches beyond the early adopter pool of people. [...]

Functional bodyweight workout: ?Back in the saddle?

In the spirit of Gym Jones, I’m going to start giving my workouts names, and posting them here both for myself and for others Today was functional bodyweight followed by medium low impact cardio, aiming to be done in around 30 mins: Warmup: 5 min bike ride to the gym 3 min row (need more [...]

Actions, projects, priority, benefits

One of the things I do most often, to my detriment, is grouping actions along with projects. So the result is that I end feeling overwhelmed and unable to accomplish everything. Ever done / found that yourself? I’ve been doing this for years, so it’s a really hard habit to break but I’m getting there [...]

Do you want it enough?

I’ve come across many people who talk a good game, who want the acclaim, who want to be the rockstar. Very few are prepared to do the work to get there. Even fewer are prepared to keep doing it when success isn’t immediate. So when you look at what you’re doing in your life, do [...]

From Africa to the world, with love

The landing of a series of undersea cables is going to solve an infrastructural problem that has long plagued Africa and will enable African technology developers to compete on a global stage. In order to properly realise the full potential of a global customer base, African technologists need to not only expose their work to the world, but to also expose themselves to the learnings and insights that the developed world has to offer. - Written for TECH4AFRICA