Wednesday, October 27, 2010

SABC celebrating UNESCO World Day for Audiovisual Heritage in the regions as well

Meshack Chili
PRETORIA REGION, 27 October 2010
Meshack Chili, the RBF Music Librarian in SABC Tshwane Region, Hatfield, prepared a small exhibition of UNESCO World Day for Audiovisual Heritage.
Posters of AVH are being put in the Reception area. The exhibition consists of television coverage pictures of September 11, 2001 attack of US World Trade Centre, the Tsunami Indian Ocean earthquake of 26 December 2004 in Indonesia, the first moonwalk that took place on the 20th of July 1969 by a commander Neil Alden Armstrong and the two pilots Michael Collins and Edwin Eugene Aldrin Jr. using a rocket call Apollo 11.
The exhibition also consists of old SABC audio recording tapes, beta cam tapes, VHS, Cassettes, lps and seven singles.

He explained the meaning of World Day for audiovisual Heritage and why it is important to us.

Monday, October 25, 2010

Bob Courtney passes away

Bob Courtney, best known as the quiz-master of Springbok Radio for programs like “Pick-a-box”, regrettably passed away on 23 October 2010. He also composed the signature tune for “Hospitaaltyd”. He has been interviewed by the SABC Radio Archives in 2001, as well as by Frans Erasmus, chairman of the Springbok Radio Preservation Society. His memories will be kept intact by us. Rest in peace, Uncle Bob, and thank you for helping to keep the airwaves alive and well.

Unesco World Day for Audiovisual Heritage 27-28 OCTOBER 2010

 WORLD DAY FOR AUDIOVISUAL HERITAGE
THEME: Save Our Audiovisual Heritage – NOW!
EXHIBITION: Southern African Traditional Music
VENUE: SABC RADIO PARK FOYER
DATE: 27-28 OCTOBER 2010
UNESCO declared October 27 as the World Day for AV Heritage to raise awareness of the significance of AV documents and to draw attention to the need to safeguard them.
The SABC Media Libraries and the SABC TV News Archives have joined forces to exhibit their audio and visual collections of traditional music and culture.  In addition, the Drum CafĂ©, the African Heritage Trust, as well as SABA (Southern African Broadcasting Association) will join the SABC in its awareness campaign this year to showcase a fascinating collection of musical instruments and old recording formats will be on display to view.

Special highlights:
·         A short video about the 1976 riots from the TV News Archives
·         27 October:- the exhibition will feature legendary South African musician Lemme “Special” Mabusa. Lemmy started playing pennywhistle on the streets at age 10. He was discovered by talent scouts and in 1961 he performed in South Africa’s first international hit musical “King Kong” at London’s West End Princes Theatre for an entire year.
·         28 October:- The Drum Cafe will give a lunch hour performance in the SABC Ground Floor Auditorium.  “Voices Only” will feature Basabi Le Meropa, a group of young South African women, who tell the stories of their lives through marimba, song, drums, dance and the spoken word. Basadi Le Meropa have toured Netherlands for the Festival Mundial as well as Belgium.  Basadi Le Meropa ladies recently performed on stage with Shakira and K’naan at the FIFA World Cup Kick Off Concert

Friday, October 1, 2010

The collaboration side of Knowledge Management - seminar by Sharon van Biljon

We had the privilege to attend a seminar hosted by the Department of Information and Knowledge Management at the University of Johannesburg. Sharon van Biljon, Knowledge Manager of Global Business Services at IBM South Africa presented “The collaboration side of Knowledge Management”
 We found the seminar very thought-provoking, especially the fact that collaboration is seen as part of the employees’ role within the organisation. IBM has an Intranet that encourages collaboration with vast sets of tools, such as blogging, and IM (Instant Messaging). The use of social media such as Twitter and Facebook were not really discussed, and there seems to be an area where they can still improve their collaboration.
No business can survive without collaboration. No matter how you look at it, socializing has become a means by which corporations conduct their business. The more employees collaborate, the more connections are made which leads to an increased number of insights or knowledge - exactly what companies are looking for. The sheer value of connecting to knowledge sources is coming into its own after a shaky start in the early nineties. The overly formal business style of the time stifled a natural inclination among employees to find like-minded people, whether peers or mentors.   The days of doing only what you are given to do, is long past. Today, you need to fulfil given tasks, but in such a way that it will render you unique when it comes to quality and adding value to your company or organisation. Who other than your friends to help you socially and in business terms, who other than your peers, mentors and colleagues to render the same type of assistance when you need it?  Businesses are enabling business socialization as never before and reap the benefits in a number of ways, among them, financial, of course. Employees stand to gain from this, but moreover, they derive a deep satisfaction in branding themselves as experts within a collaborative network of like-minded experts. It remains a win-win all round. And who would have thought that collaboration could be fun, as well?
The following pointers were also very valid. Change is essential for progress. Only businesses that respond and change themselves through reinvention have survived. The need is there to effectively respond to social changes.

Collaboration is crafted with a governance framework, where there is
  • No need to ask approval
  • Self-regulatory
  • Openness is crucial.
It extrapolates back to the SABC Media Libraries which has embarked on a Web 2.0 campaign to effectively collaborate with our colleagues as well as our audience and users of our services. We started on the project last year when no clear mandate was available of how to proceed. A year later and the directive were only now released to become more socially visible on Facebook and Twitter. We have been moving in the right direction, it seems.

The challenge now is to get everybody involved and excited as well. How do you get you personnel involved?