The greatest trick Steve Jobs ever pulled was getting us to use his phone as the benchmark for all phones. They make a good benchmark of course: best experience, best industrial design and best ecosystem. Best for developed nations (and the developed nation pockets that exist in the developing world) perhaps? But best for Africa? […]
Andy Hadfield
Andy Hadfield is a digital native (can’t remember life without the Internet) and is fascinated with the impact it is having on our lives and businesses. An entertaining and compelling personality, Andy speaks with authority and insight about the new shape of life, work and play in the digital world.
Importantly though, he’s not a “techie”! Andy understands the hard realities of business, and delivers pragmatic, realistic lessons from the future, which every business will find valuable. His intensive front-line experience underpins these viewpoints.
He has played in every corner of the digital industry, launching his first startup at age 19 - getALife (gAL) was a social network before the word was even invented. The site was a political and community mouthpiece for South African students between 1997 and 2005 and was covered on every major media platform, including Time Magazine. It also has the dubious honour of being sued by Robert Mugabe.
He then spent the next 7 years honing his strategic skills across a range of industries, including finance, professional services, construction and media. With The Virtual Works, this included building the digital platform that underpins “The Deloitte Way”, a real time strategic assessment, staff engagement and reward programme. He was also involved in creating Africa’s first monetised niche social network (www.designmind.co.za) which drives communication and collaboration across the construction industry.
At First National Bank, Andy helped develop a team to manage digital strategy across the consumer banking segment. This included projects such as corporate crowdsourcing, the bank's first official FaceBook presence, a major overhaul of www.fnb.co.za and a world-class “Amazon-style” online sales system for financial products.
Since 2010, he founded and operates www.OneBigWidget.com, a boutique strategic consultancy and stable of pioneering digital projects. You can find him on www.andyhadfield.com or tweeting his love for cricket, wine and the new style of business on www.twitter.com/andyhadfield.
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Samsung Omnia 7: I like it, really like it
You’re going to hear a lot of talk about “ecosystems” as Windows Phone 7 (Microsoft’s new SmartPhone Operating System) starts to gain momentum. An ecosystem is a pretty critical element of the modern technology landscape, worth getting to grips with. Software Ecosystems has a very broad, strategic definition of ecosystems: “A human ecosystem consists of […]
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Nokia E7 — getting dirty.
Ok, I’ll admit it. I’m biased against the current crop of Nokia smartphones. I just think they’re crap — and maybe that’s because I’m a “power user” (although sometimes I think my levels of frustration exceed the everyday consumer). Or maybe it’s just because I’m getting grumpy in my old age. Symbian has simply ceased […]
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Outsurance, broken brand promises and the social media effect…
BROKEN BRAND PROMISE #1: With claims service so fast, it’ll be as if it never happened. BROKEN BRAND PROMISE #2: We care about you, and we protect you. I actually like Outsurance’s new set of TV campaigns (see below). They’re catchy, witty and speak to one of the critical parts of the insurance relationship — […]
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Are we returning to a mom-and-pop business culture?
Reading an extract of Gary Vaynerchuk’s new book, The Thank You Economy. You can grab the same extract here. First thoughts, it looks a lot better written than the first. More mature. Excited. Here’s a paragraph: At its core, social media requires that business leaders start thinking like small-town shop owners. They’re going to have […]
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Nokia N8 review
I so badly wanted to like this phone. In my world, Nokia just hasn’t cracked it since the E71. That phone rocked my world. Nothing has since, and it seems that until Symbian has been rudely shoved aside, this situation will remain. Here’s a quick hit summary of the Nokia N8, with my fairly simple […]
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A regular consumer view of the Nokia Ovi Store experience…
Nokia was kind enough to send me some rad bluetooth headphones, and more importantly, a R200 gift voucher for the Nokia Ovi Store (the artist formerly known as The Nokia Music Store). I did a quick interview with Jake Larsen when the store launched a couple of years ago, so I was keen to take […]
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Clarins SA and their Foursquare pilot…
Disclosure: Tim Britz, the brand manager at Clarins who kindly gave me this interview is a personal friend, and is probably on Foursquare because of my incessant hounding. I have no current commercial ties to Clarins South Africa. Congrats on getting a Foursquare pilot going. You’re probably about the fifth company in SA to reach […]
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The thank you economy
I had a very strange experience today. It was a warm winter’s day, and we had a fire going outside. Glass of wine in hand, I was fiddling around with my iPhone (as one does — usually to one’s wife’s discontent) — specifically a cult favourite app of mine: Mood Agent. As I launched the […]
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Selling online: An FNB case study and some thoughts about the future…
“The great thing in the world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes Writing this post has taken a long time (and it’s a long post). It’s one of those opinion pieces that moves dangerously between industry comment and personal insight. Add to that […]
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SXSW South Africa Series #6 – Banking, banking, banking (and the web)
The Banking 2.0 panel was so good, I thought I’d pull all the thoughts together into a post. This is more a list of trends and themes, but it’s well worth a read. Banking, gambling and porn are going to be the dominant industries on the internet (you laugh — but it’s true). And banking […]
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SXSW South Africa Series #5 – Lynette Kloppers and Andy Hadfield chat Banking 2.0
Just attended the Banking 2.0 panel with my colleague from FNB, head of digital strategy in the personal banking segment at FNB. The following is an interview style summary of some of the amazing content that was discussed. The Panel comprised of CEOs from Mint.com, SmartyPig, LendingClub.com and Credit Karma. Andy: So with all the […]