I have always had great respect for those who excelled in the small web space that we have come to call “The industry!”. Success stories of projects and individuals are still admirable and guys like Adii, Mike Stopforth, Chris M and the like are definitely worth respecting.
Sadly, of late, I have been very disappointed with the quality of service that I have received from Techleader. Managed by the Mail & Gaurdian, they have attempted at establishing themselves as a community based blog with contributors from a multitude of backgrounds, which is a noble deed.
Months ago, I approached Nic (the guy that champions SARocks) with a request to write for Techleader, the 16th of July in fact. He was mighty friendly and aptly requested that I send in my CV and a few articles that I have written. After a hassle with the file size being blocked by the M&G firewalls, I was informed on the 26th of July that all has been received and I will be contacted shortly. He had referenced my case to Riaan Wolmarans as per protocol and fulfilled his duty as best he could.
Nic has since left M&G and has taken up a pretty slick job at Zoopy as one of the GMs.
After a few follow up mails, I was referred to Jason Norwood-Young and Riaan Wolmarans with my query. I have since mailed them both 5 times asking for a response and have disappointingly received none of such kind. It is blatantly uncourteous and shatters my respect for the service and the people that run it.
Showing signs of bad management, lack of accountability and basic disregard for good business communication, Techleader, I say today publicly, “You have disappointed me and the people who have supported you and made you what you are today.”
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December 1st, 2008 at 6:43 pm
I too contacted Nic about this matter and he helpingly referred me to Jason Norwood-Young as well. I fired off an email to Jason (14 Nov) and have not heard back since.
It’s scary to think that the people being hired to take control over blog related initiatives either don’t know how to check email or thye don’t want to listen to the local bloggers – which would be the clever thing to do.
It’s really quite sad to watch some of the great blogsphere initiatives slowly fade away right before as eyes after watching it all grow so fantastically through the year :/
December 1st, 2008 at 11:03 pm
uncool!
December 2nd, 2008 at 12:16 am
I don’t know the guys involved particularly well so this comment is NOT directed specifically at them – An incident like this does prove the point around the value of good people within an organisation.
December 2nd, 2008 at 1:53 am
I must admit since the departure of the illuminati that 99% of the time either amatomu , sportsleader, techleader and thoughtleader have been unavailable or i get a database configuration message.
December 2nd, 2008 at 2:26 am
That’s what happens when you leave it up to big media companies. To them, projects like Amatomu/TL are basically sideline thingies, that can be ignored at will without any major repercussions to their bottom line.
What we really is something by bloggers, for bloggers. Is it any wonder Afrigator is taking off so well? It’s driven by people that actually care, doing something they probably enjoy.
~ Wogan
December 2nd, 2008 at 4:46 am
NOT ON! After Nic, Matt and Vince left it seems to be falling apart!
December 2nd, 2008 at 7:20 am
@ChrisM – I completely agree. These projects start off so well and as soon as thing are running smoothly, they forget about it and completely disregard it, leading to the death of a killer service.
@islandchic – It is! Really disappointing as well.
@Marc – Absolutely. But it boils down to bad management. All the IP and quality of service should not be kept in silos. Knowledge management is absolutely essential and if that is the excuse that Techleader wants to use, then shame on their management.
@gmk – I agree. This problem emanates across the stable. This is a case that I have had first hand experience with and will limit my judgment to this case only.
@Wogan – You are on the money there mate! The passion to maintain this project seems to have died and the entire service is being killed with it.
I really hope that someone from Techleader joins the conversation and clarifies this matter.
December 2nd, 2008 at 7:21 am
That’s exactly it, these things take maintenance and lots of it should they wish for it to succeed.
December 3rd, 2008 at 2:11 am
It’s this lack of courtesy that is slowly becoming a standard and it’s scary.
December 3rd, 2008 at 2:59 am
All comes down to the age-old issue of traditional mainstream media getting their fingers in the blog pie.
Blogging used to be an alternative to traditional media, and gave ordinary Joe Soaps the platform to share their views.
Now it’s an industry, and it’s about huge traffic and massive advertising and revenue, and traditional media channels have jumped on the bandwagon.
December 3rd, 2008 at 6:03 am
Riaan left the M&G in October… not sure where Jason is… Why don’t you give the M&G a call and find out who the right person is to speak to?
December 3rd, 2008 at 6:13 am
@Janine – That’s not a bad idea at all, I just think it’ll be a little funny to call them up and want to talk about an online service like Thought Leader, most of the people will probably have no clue what a blog aggregator is
December 3rd, 2008 at 6:25 am
Hi Dee
Sorry we’ve disappointed you. I’m afraid for some reason your mails fell through the holes – probably due to hyperactive spam filters – and I didn’t receive them. Now that we’re aware of your request the editorial team will consider it – I can’t speak for them in terms of approving you as I’m on the technical side of things.
Please drop a mail to Keith Nicholls – KeithN@mg.co.za – he’s expecting to hear from you. I’m currently overseas on leave but will check up that he got the mail. You can copy me in – jasonn@mg.co.za.
Other peeps who wanted to get onto Tech Leader but haven’t managed to get hold of us, please drop Keith a mail.
Unfortunately with Matt, Vince, Riaan and one of the two developers leaving, we’re really short-staffed at the moment, and are having to build up a new team. Please don’t take this as an excuse – we do need to lift our game and you guys do need to call us out when we mess up, but I’d appeal to the blogging community to be patient with things like requests for getting on to the Leaders.
Thought Leader, Tech Leader, Sports Leader, Amatomu and Amagama are all very important platforms to us, and we do throw a large percentage of resources at it. We even hire freelancers just to moderate comments on the Leaders. Sure, we’d like to make money on the Leaders, but at the moment that’s not our goal: in M&G tradition what we really want is to publish the best content out there, spark debate, put pressure on our leaders, and make a positive change in our country.
Love the new site Dee!
Jason
December 3rd, 2008 at 6:34 am
Jason, is that really you? You’re online? I guess my emails also slipped through the holes, seems like your mailserver must be quite wasted
Ok, enough of that. I’m sure you guys are having a tough time getting a strong team together and we can all appreciate that, so as far as my opinion goes, that’s a decent excuse. However, surely you have someone who’s actively watching the blogsphere, which is where you’ve decided to place quite a lot of your ventures in?
Have you seen the latest blogger cry about Amatomu yet?
Let’s rock things Jason, Thought Leader and Amatomu are fantastic platforms, don’t let them slip away and pull us bloggers down with them, we’re proudly South African and love bloging and systems that support blogging!
December 3rd, 2008 at 6:51 am
@Chris M Yeah I’m online on holiday at 1am local time, so we do work quite hard at M&G – really!
Watching the Amatomu debate at http://imod.co.za/2008/12/03/who-should-be-listed-on-amatomu/ – not sure if that’s the one you mean. About to reply.
J
December 3rd, 2008 at 6:53 am
Ah, good to know that you’re as addicted as all of us
Yup, that’s the one, looking forward to your comment.
December 3rd, 2008 at 8:29 am
@Jason – Thank you for your response. I appreciate your transparency and your dignified response. I will certainly email Keith and I hope that your spam filters take a less aggressive stance towards me.
I truly hope that you guys manage to clean up things and improve your systems. You have a few great initiatives and it is very sad to see that it has been reduced to this state.
I trust that this matter will be solved appropriately and hope that this will be my last blog post about the inefficiencies of your organisation’s projects. I have a lot of respect for the effort gone into these projects and truly appreciate it.
Have a good holiday!
@ ChrisM – Thanks for your comments. I do agree with your largely and fully support all efforts to clean up these social aggregation platforms.
I would however appreciate a less sarcastic tone in your comments. As you can imagine, in order to maintain a level of respect for all those who visit my blog, I need to be fairly stern about this. I’m sure you understand.
@Goblin & Rox – I completely agree with your comments!
@Janine – That is the exact procedure that I followed. Riaan was emailed about this matter in July all the way through to October as well. With him resigning, it is no excuse that this matter was not handled before he left as I feel that within the three 3 months that he had received my mails, a simple response saying that he is busy/overworked/poorly-managed would have sufficed. Sadly that was not the case. Jason has proven that they are listening now though.
@EVERYONE – I appreciate all your comments and look forward to having you on my blog again.
December 3rd, 2008 at 8:30 am
Your blog will never reach the level you want it at without the sarcastic and humourous communication between commenters. Although, I don’t have any experience, so I could be wrong
I emailed Keith and he reverted within the hour, which is fantastic!