Pedal faster.

It’s generally accepted that South Africa is – technologically speaking – a little behind the curve than the rest of the world. Yesterday however, it was made abundantly clear to me just how far off the mark we are. And all it took were 2 separate conversations.

The first was with the programming manager of a well-known local commercial radio station. We were discussing the state of the industry and future developments. At length, the topic of digital radio came up in the conversation. It lasted all of 7 seconds, long enough for this chap to tell me “Digital radio is dead. It’s not a threat.“

The second conversation was actually the nth of its kind I’d had this week but it was the conversation that brought the others into sharp focus; the “A-HA” moment as Oprah would have it. Over this week, I’ve chatted to various local marketing and advertising professionals, informally – and one question has raised its head more than once in those conversations: “What is Twitter?” Usually this is followed by “How do you blog?”

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not mocking these people. I’m simply pointing out that in a world where businesses are moving so rapidly to ensuring that social media marketing channels are part of their marketing strategy – and where the old ways of doing things just aren’t cutting it anymore (neither operationally nor financially) –  South Africa is struggling to keep up. And 2009 looks like 100 miles of bad road – all uphill.

We need to start pedalling faster.

A little something extra: I didn’t think Microsoft could sink lower than  “I’m a PC”. I was wrong. Here is the bottom of the barrel.

Someone please pass me a fork so I can gouge out my eardrums. I don’t want them anymore.