The Acquaintance Zone

I used to be a more serious writer but over the past three years I've been increasingly distracted by Drop Your Drink. However, I'll attempt to adopt a different tone for this piece. My recent alumni experience at the Brightest Young Minds (BYM) Summit has inspired me to write this piece and tackle why so few initiatives are started after the BYM Summit. Although this article centres around the BYM Summit and my thoughts from there, it's for everyone who wants to have a go at solving wicked problems.

What's the problem? 

People get selected to attend the BYM Summit because they already do so much stuff. The expectation is that bringing together all of these minds would create tons of great start-ups and projects but this rarely happens. There about 1500 bright young minds doing things. Why is it so difficult for us to work together to do more things?

I think two reasons apply. The first is related to a perception of time. Christiaan Pretorius, an alumni from 2014, accurately summed up part of this problem when he mentioned that we are busy because of all the stuff that we're already doing. When you get back to your regular life you just don't have time to add on extra projects. 

Time is a factor, but I don't think it's the main reason why so few projects are started after the Summit. I think our lack of personal connection is our main problem. At the Summit, we're too busy finding out who's who in the zoo because it's a networking fest. After the Summit, we stay in contact through Facebook status updates of our achievements. You connect with so few people that it's rare to want to know who they are and not what they do. Personally, if I don't know who you are then I won't ask for your help when I'm starting a project; I'll just look for someone in my existing friendship network. I won't have a brainstorming session with you over a few drinks because our conversation would be made up of ideas and awkward silences. The Acquaintance Zone sucks because social networking theory dictates that the more friends (not acquaintances) you have, the greater your innovation capability. It's a beautiful and positively linear curve.

A possible solution?

If we understand that friends trying to solve wicked problems together would equal a beautiful problem solving team then that's what we should aim for. It would be like the Avengers but 1500 times better if we all organised ourselves.

Here's what I propose:

• Monthly meetups that are both socials and brain blast sessions
• Each meetup would have a predetermined theme e.g. Captain Planet for Climate Resilience
• You will have homework, generation 10 - 15 ideas on how you would solve the problem underneath the theme
• The format of the meetup is games, drinks, group brainstorming, the selection of one of those ideas and maybe some dancing (if you're lucky)
• The selected idea will be turned into a business pitch presentation in the two weeks following the meetup 

Why should you join the team?

I'm setting up avenues for the completed business pitch presentations. The ideas will either go for further development or seed funding. You still win even if these ideas are rubbish. You get to practice skills I've observed that young people lack (including myself) like rapid prototyping (that's why we have the two-week time limit), revenue model creation and pitching.    

You think, "Oh wow! This sounds great! But dang ... I just don't have the time."
You do have the time.
Think, at the BYM Summit you were put into groups with strangers and given 24 hours to generate a feasible business proposal. Imagine what you could do with two weeks and a group that you call your friends?

Think yearly, that's 12 FUNdable ideas which can create 12 potential start-up businesses. That effect is just in Pretoria where I'm going to try pilot this idea. I don't know what you're going to do in your city. How many pockets of friends could we have around the country?

I read this quote on Twitter the other day. Crawford College Pretoria quoted Francis of Assisi with: "Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible." We're going to do this exactly. We're going to be friends, solve problems together and then we'll start doing the impossible.

What's next?

If you're in for this and wondering what happens next then I'll be: thinking of a name for this thing; looking at ways to extend our pitches beyond those two weeks; designing a Google Form for you to enter your details; creating a Doodle to schedule a date for our first event; and, setting up a Facebook Event. Contact me if you're interested, I will need your email addresses. Remember to invite your friends. I want anyone who wants to meet some great people and wrangle with wicked problems. 

My name is Yetunde Dada; as friends and future friends you can just call me Yetu.
You can reach me via: 

• Email: ye2nde@gmail.com
• Twitter: @yetudada

Your Dystopian Future - Bunker Theory

I think too much and have a functional imagination that has been choking on dystopian literature for the past four years. I came across a few books that focused on futures (in America, because all bad stuff happens in America) that had communities warring over resources. I believe in angry people, starvation, water shortages and gang mentalities as reasons why it’s a good idea to invest in a bunker. Humans are the common denominator in two scenarios that create the perfect conditions for you to wish you had a bunker.

The first scenario is climate change. We dump pollution into our rivers, chop down our earth lungs (the Amazon Rainforest and The Congo River Basin) for fun and pump carbon dioxide and methane into the air like it’s going out of fashion. We’re having the biggest party now but we're on the trajectory to experiencing the worst hangover possible. Can you imagine a future where droughts and severe storms are regular weather events? I would imagine that it’s rather difficult to grow food when there is no water or there is too much water. When food and drinking water shortages arrive you'll become the star of your own series of Survivor. It’s just that the other contestants might not play nicely if they have guns.

The second scenario involved an extended nationwide blackout. In one book, countries grouped together to detonate electromagnetic pulses that destroyed America’s major power stations. I occasionally had nightmares about this story but I allowed myself to believe that I'd never have to experience something like this in South Africa. We're so unlike America. Our earthquakes knock over chairs, our tornados can only carry sand and we have a different approach to foreign policy. We do have Eskom though. We also have worries that a single infrastructure failure at an Eskom power station could cause a nationwide blackout. We don't know how long it would take to fix a situation like that but if the blackout lasted for weeks then we could have a few problems. Imagine your life without electricity (obviously), cellular and internet connections (unless our service providers can power themselves using love), running water (our pumps won’t work) and fresh food (major farmers will not be able to irrigate their farms without electricity or running water).

Things will be okay for a while because everyone will expect power to return like it usually does. If the power doesn't come back you'll begin to experience panic over the lack of drinking water and food because someone will have already ransacked your local Spar. At this point you better be prepared to fight or flee because others will take whatever resources you have left by force.

The main characters of stories like these have survived because of three principles: preparedness, speed and location. Preparedness saw the characters learning how to fight, owning an arsenal of weapons and cramming survival skills. They also stored tinned food and learned how to grow food in different conditions. Speed was indicated by them high-tailing it out of major cities. They filled up their vehicles and didn't stop driving until they were far away from populated locations. They chose to settle in areas that were undesirable for human settlement because if they didn't want to live there then it was likely that others wouldn’t venture there.

I look at all of this and realised that two plans could be made from those principles. If the disaster hits your country, surrounding countries are fine and flights, ships or buses are still operational then I would vote with getting out of the country very quickly. If the problem is widespread like Mother Nature bitching all over the place then you better hope there is bunker waiting for you in a swamp, on top of a mountain or in a desert. 

It’s all so morbid, yeah?

Hello Ambassador 2014 Speech

Hello everyone. I am privileged to speak to you today as the editor of Drop Your Drink, a Pretoria-based music and photography blog and a music photographer. My name is Yetunde Dada, but as friends you may call me Yetu.

I’m going to tell you a bit about myself, Drop Your Drink, my photography and what it takes to do your own thing. The bit about doing your own thing is the main reason why I've called this presentation 2014: Your Space Odyssey, in reference to the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. I hope you will all be inspired to do your own thing and tackle the HAL 9000s out there.

I am half of the Dada siblings, my brother's name is Deji and I've lived in Pretoria for most of my life. I ended up studying mechanical engineering at the University of Pretoria. I spend most days stressing about my honours degree while working at the CSIR. Sometime during my 3rd year in my degree I had reached a bit of a stand-still. I didn't like my degree but couldn't see myself doing anything else. I even went as far as to check in with career guidance. The lady there told me to remember things what I loved at the time I had started my degree. There were two things that stood out for me, writing and a passion for combating climate change. 

When you get lost in the noise of the daily grind, it is important to remember where you started from and what you really love doing. And to have someone who can point you in the right direction. That, will keep you doing your own thing. 

Through my writing I started a blog called ‘Erase Nothing’ and it’s still on the internet somewhere. I wrote about nothing and everything: recipes, random bits of advice, saving the environment and my love for the growing electronic music scene in Pretoria. After about a month of this I realised that the content combination on the blog didn't make sense and this is how Drop Your Drink was born. 

Drop Your Drink took the party out of Erase Nothing and made it a more serious blog in December 2011. We will be three years old and going stronger December this year.

In Drop Your Drink we found a niche. We cover the alternative music scenes in Pretoria, Johannesburg, Cape Town and New York with event and concert photography. We like art and fashion too. The team is made up of 16 writers and photographers in those cities. We have growing readership and social media following and we've got many exciting plans ahead. 

You may ask how does a blog that looked like Microsoft Paint project go from looking like this to this?

It took a lot of time, discussions in a Facebook group and effort from an incredible team to make it happen. If I've learnt anything on this journey it’s that if you want to go fast you’ll go alone but if you want to go far you'll go in a team.

Trust your intuition when selecting a team to work with you on your idea because it's always right. The Drop Your Drink team, some of which are here, have a passion for doing things, dancing to the Cat Daddy, dropping drinks and living life to the fullest. This made them a perfect fit because we've made a culture out of being a family and being true to ourselves.

I will go into some of the strengths of Drop Your Drink.

We do social media really well. You know that they say that you become an expert at something when you have practised it for 10000 hours? A few members of the team have more than 10000 hours of social media time behind them. This has allowed us to create a big social media presence for such a young blog. 

We like original content. This is where that whole honesty thing comes in. We don't hide the truth in our pieces but at the same time we don't go out of our way to be nasty. Our readers really appreciate this. 

Some of us are really good at networking. I like to hang out in the background but when I say that I shoot for Drop Your Drink I get one of two responses: “Do you know Deji?” or “Do you know Henry?” I have never minded this because we're just playing at our strengths and it benefits the blog.

We haven't always had our ups. One specific post stands out. In 2013, Skrillex came to South Africa and performed a set of shows here. We covered his show at a waterless park in Boksburg, whose name I will not mention.

I won't reveal the extent of my dislike for that particular venue. I also won't go into detail about my experience trying organise media passes before the event because that too was a nightmare. I will say that at 12h30 on the Saturday of the concert I was left with no option but to give our fashion editor at the time my VIP ticket because I found out at the entrance that I did have media accreditation after all. Some of the highlights during the afternoon included being shouted by a bouncer because media people were apparently not allowed into the VIP section from his entrance, watching him shout at the ticketing officers who came to assist me and being barred from the photo pit for all acts. It was at this point that Lucy, my fellow team member, and I decided to focus on another aspect of that concert: the horror of the fashion at that concert.

I took photos of girls in bikinis, girls with their butts out and jocks in wife beaters. If I could have captured the essence of Snooki 101 Tanning Oil and smeared it on those photos then I would have done that too. Lucy collected notes and wrote. The post received very interesting and varied reactions. The first was what we intended, humour and lots of laughter. The second was responses from angry people featured in the post (I guess one has to be careful about people’s rights). We got the angriest comments from the person in charge of media for the venue. In our line of work relationships with concert organisers are important. We however value freedom of speech and honesty in our work. I could say that we had the last laugh in the end though. We were re-followed on all social media channels by the venue a few weeks ago. I guess some people hold grudges. I might have needed two or three tissues to stem the tears of laughter. 

One of the biggest sacrifices for growth in any field is time and hard work. How much time and hard work are you willing to put into making your ideas come to light? I can tell you that when it’s 3am, you’re writing an exam in 5 hours and you’re busy drafting interview questions for some local act that you don’t know then you have to consider that cost. You also have to make sure that you have a solid foundation that can remind you why you started your project in the first place. I've watched many good ideas fail because of this. People just gave up and the dream dies with them. We keep persevering as a blog and it’s allowed us to keep gaining traction and become better at what we do. 

I want to take a bit of time out and explain what I do in photography. I started photography because of Drop Your Drink. I wanted to take better photos for the blog. I’ve had to learn the very important lesson on making it a point to educate myself in whatever I do. Learning is a life-long process and it’s good to note that mistakes can be gifts if you decide to learn from them. Some of the cool stuff I’ve done in photography is being able to shoot music festivals abroad and work with amazing organisations like Griet, A Fashion Friend, GQ, MK and Amstel Lite.

I think the biggest developments for me have been based on competitions. I was a finalist in the British Design & Art Direction Decisive Moment brief for Nokia earlier on this year and also in the NME Music Photography competition for 2014. I have simple advice about this. You have nothing to lose by entering competitions, if anything you gain from the experience of creating the content. So why not enter?

Let’s take it back to Drop Your Drink before I close. Our future projects will see us becoming more DYD Film, taking over Pretoria and saving the world. DYD Film is a strategic move and it’s something that we've been working on this year already. We want to move from a photography base to having more video content. Our most recent illustration of this was the Oppikoppi 2014 after movie that we did with MK.

We’re also moving to take over Pretoria in the sense that we want to be part of the changes that we’re seeing in the city. It’s not enough for us to just fulfil the role of documenting the change, we want to do more and involve ourselves in projects. We keep asking ourselves how we’re going to do this but I'm sure we'll figure out a way and get it right.

Saving the world from the HAL 9000s that we see and experience around us is my last point. I want you to realise that you can always do more and complain less about problems that you see around you. For me, that means that my passion for combating climate change has Drop Your Drink as an established platform. It’s a bit of a weird combination but we’re trying to make recycling and climate change as cool as watching Crystal Fighters live.

You got to hear about my journey with Drop Your Drink, some bits of my life as a photographer and where we’re heading. It is my hope that your 2014 Space Odyssey has some fuel to get going after this. I will leave you with these wise words from Farrah Gray, “Build your own dreams or someone else will hire you to build theirs.”

Thank you for listening. 

If I Was A Housewife

If I was a housewife at home I would do drugs or get an alcohol addiction, get admitted to rehab, repeat, overdose, die. I'd never be happy just staying at home for a time period without end. 

Soul Mates

I believe in soul mates, a few people in this world that you'll have this weird/amazing/terrifying connection to.
I've also been thinking about what it means to break up with a soul mate.

Is it possible to get over them?

Do you ever stop thinking about them?

I'm tired of bringing up a list of reasons to remind myself why it wasn't working.

New-school Xenophobia

I haven't posted anything on Erase Nothing in the longest time because I've been busy with Drop Your Drink and being busy there doesn't require me to think about uncomfortable things. Something has been bothering me for a while now and it's related to being a 'foreign' black person in South Africa. I say foreign with inverted commas because technically I'm South African, I've lived here for 90.9% of my life but my parents are from other countries. You might have picked up things were heading this way because of the interracial dating and identity posts I did a long while ago. This post is about being a black foreign person in South Africa and why it sucks.

Things I have to deal with:
- Black South Africans greeting me in anything but English and not only expecting me to reply in that language but also being disappointed when I don't. The common line, "I only speak English," is normally greeted with sneer or confusion.
- Knowing that certain terms like "Economic Refugee" refer to me.


Let's start with the language problem. What grates me is that it's not like this in other African countries. If English is a main official language then the first language call is English. People don't assume you speak their language just because you're black. They are 11 official languages in South Africa, 9 of which are African languages, why do you assume that I'm Zulu and greet me accordingly? I could be Venda and not know what you're saying. I say, 'Hello', and you should be able to pick up immediately that I don't quite sound right but you choose to ignore the slight accent and the fact that I'm using English then things have to get awkward.

In recent times I have witnessed a new form of xenophobia and it doesn't come from townships fed up with foreigners 'stealing' their business, possessions and livelihoods. It comes from educated professionals and students. Somehow it's okay to jokingly say things like, "You people ran away from your countries," "You've lived here for so long, why haven't you learnt anything but Afrikaans?" or "Go back to where you came from". Apparently I'm supposed to laugh at jokes like this.

Most of the time I find I just don't fit in anywhere. I'm labelled as a coconut because I speak English and learnt Afrikaans, not a black South African language. Therefore I'm not black enough, white enough, South African enough or foreign enough because I've lived here for so long. So the only option is to "go back to your country" but when you've lived here for so long you're kind of not from there anymore. South Africa might be the only home you know, and by going back you're different, kind of foreign again. What a lovely life this is. I don't know why there is such such division or why it's okay for things to be like this. I guess there is no hope, except to move to countries where it's okay to be different. Anyone heading to the UK or US? 

"Hey, I Just Met You!" Jokes

You're going to hate me because this song is going to get stuck in your head. However, I've been suffering for two hours now and you might as well burn with me. These are my favourite "Hey, I Just Met You!" jokes based on Carly Rae Jepsen's Call Me Maybe hit song. If you have been living under a rock then please watch this video. It has a funny ending.

The jokes:

- Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy. I took some bath salts, your face looks tasty.


- Hey, I just met you, your tan is crazy. What race are you? Carrot, maybe?


- [Darth Vader] Hey I just met you, and this is crazy! But I'm your father, so join me maybe!


- Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy. But I'm on my period so I might eat all your bread & kill you if you 
look at me wrong. Call me, maybe?

- Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy. Are you winking at me, or is your eye just lazy?


- Stalker: Hey, I just met you. 
Me: ... 
Stalker: And this is crazy. 
Me: -.- 
Stalker: I have your number... 
Me: O_O 
Stalker: I'll call you daily!


- Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy. But here's my name, number, social security number, Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, room number, so stalk me baby.


- Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy. But I'm your Fuhrer, so Heil me maybe?


The biggest joke:

Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy! But here's my number, so call me maybe. 

Free Advice - Forgetting People's Names

There was a time in human existance when Hi5, Myspace and Bebo ruled the world. In that time I had an amazing sense of name and birthday recall. I could meet you once, remember your name, and tons of random facts about you. That was a time before Facebook. Two years into having a Facebook profile I found that I had lost my ability to recall people's birthdays.

Imagine this scenario: I arrived at school early and met a friend at the gate. We talked for 30 minutes then walked to class. The first set of people that saw us immediately said, "Happy Birthday [Insert Name]!". I was so horrified that I had forgotten it because I had looked at it that morning on Facebook that I stalked off  instead of going through that, "Oh my gosh [Insert Name]! I'm so sorry I forgot your birthday! Happy birthday!". My shame was so great that I didn't even wish him a happy birthday when I got home.

That was just birthdays. Now I make a point of checking to see if anyone around me is having a birthday and I write it on my hand so I don't forget. Five years into having my Facebook profile and I have discovered that I have a problem with name recollection. It's gone from a simple, "I think his name is Ben... No... Umm...Adam? Maybe, no Chester? No! I got it! It's Tom!" to "What? His name is Tarzan? I never thought that, oh, he's told me twice? Oh..."

This is what happens when I meet someone.
- Hello's are exchanged

- I give my name
- My mind temporarily switches off
- I miss the person's name
- Brain switches on
- Carry on conversation not knowing who I'm talking to


It's bad, it's really bad, so I've come up with a few methods to work around forgetting people's names (in certain situations) and a few tips to help improve name recollection.

4) You ask for a nickname
This doesn't always work but you could say, "Oh dude, don't have you a nickname that would be easier to remember?" I stopped using this tactic when a girl replied, "My name is Mary." Well, with a name of "Mary" she could have used a nickname of, "Virgin"?

3) Ask them to put their number on your phone
This requires you to hand them your phone so that they can put in the details. This works only if they want to give you a number. Otherwise you're screwed because they could give you a wrong name.

2) You have to make sure you have friends with you for the rest of your life
You meet someone when you're with a friend and you've forgotten that person's name. At first you will momentarily panic because you might have to do one-sided introductions or perhaps not introduce them at all. Now you can approach this in three different ways: 
- Use "Ah! Everyone is friends here! You guys introduce yourselves!"
- Duck and run away
- Warn your friend that you have forgotten that person's name and ask them to introduce themselves

This only works if you have kind, understanding friends. You get friends that would want you to burn because you have forgotten names.

1) You could actually try remembering their names
This is done in a few steps:
- Try your best to pay attention to their name. In other words, actually listen, instead of just hearing it
- Repeat their name a few times while carrying on the conversation
- Add them on Facebook or BBM

The last step is important because I'd like to believe the first two work but they don't in my case. The third step is just the final safety method. I do still wake up in the mornings and say, "Who the f is this?" before I remember.

Free Advice - So You're a Facebook Stalker

Mark Zuckerberg and friends, that they always fail to mention, gave us many things when they launched Facebook in 2004. They gave us one of the world's most recognised websites, the ability to remember people's birthdays, be tagged in horrendous photos and facestalking capabilities.
You facestalk.
It is the the mindless activity that has you going through Facebook profiles while looking at photos, status updates, wall posts, links and random comments.You can Facestalk all sorts of people: friends, people you don't know, your mom and yourself.

Become a better facestalker. A better facestalker in the sense that you will be skilled at covering your tracks. There is nothing more disconcerting than someone accidentally hinting that they were facestalking you. The feeling could be compared to being stabbed in the butt by the serial butt stabber in northern Virginia. Pay attention, this information could save you from being a total freak and having no friends to facestalk - yes, it can reach that point, statistics indicate that 1 in 2 people* will end up this way.  

*99% of statistics are made up on the spot.

4. Don't like anything!

Mistake: You were on a friend's profile and you liked a profile picture from months/years ago. There is no way you could use the, "It was on my news feed" excuse, and you've evidently shown yourself as a facestalker. 

Repercussions: Your victim just felt like they've been pinched by the butt stabber, you.

Plan of action: Don't unlike the photo! It makes things worse because then your victim is certain they have been stalked and you're trying to cover it up. There is no way to move forward in this except to ignore it and never keep your mouse cursor by the like button.

3. Don't refer to anything you haven't spoken about!

Mistake: This one requires an example dialogue.

You: "Do you still support Chelsea?"

[Victim's eyes enlarge and facial expression settles into a mask of controlled panic]

Victim: "No...  I stopped supporting them after Mourinho buggered off in 2007. I support Man United now. Wait, how did you know that?"

Repercussions: Your victim's pants have a hole and there is a mild scratch because of your prowess with wielding the butt stabbing knife.

Plan of action: Pretend a friend told you. Oh! The victim doesn't have any friends you know? Then run, and never make this mistake again. 

2. Don't drink around facestalked victims

Mistake: You facestalked a friend's friend's friend and now you're drunk (and feeling confident, cause you're the shit) and you think you know them. So you decide to go greet them with a hug and "Hi [insert name], how are you?"

Repercussions: Your victim is going to press charges for assault, intimidation and harassment. 

Plan of action: This shouldn't have happened in the first place. Why did you friends let you go and say hi? Oh wait, you don't have any friends anymore. You could try not drinking at all?

1. Don't Facestalk

You didn't consider this?

If not possible repeat instructions 2-4.