What is it with politicians? How is it possible that they all forget so quickly they are only there to serve the people who elected them, and that the laws of the country apply equally to them, as to any citizen?
Now, it’s quite possible that your minds have defaulted to Fikile Mbalula and Bheki Cele, or possibly even The Madam herself. And that would not be unreasonable.
We all know that Minister Cele is hell bent on using this current #COVID-19 #LockdownSA crisis to recreate the glory days of prohibition in Chicago. I mean, he already has the gangster hat. But today I suspect that even he has crossed the Rubicon, if not the River Styx itself, by demanding that people in Mzansi should maintain social distancing in their own homes and refrain from “kissing”.
Oh yes. And drink lots of water. Lots of water. Seriously, you can’t make this stuff up.
Now, I’m not sure whether “kissing” is in itself problematic, but deep down inside I suspect that what the minister is really trying to do, as did the National Party before him, is to get us to refrain from dancing to pop music. Well good luck with that one minister. Especially once the pubs and clubs open up again.
Speaking of kissing, I see that Boris Johnson has his own problems to cope with right now. While I wish him a speedy recovery to full health, I can’t help reflecting on the manner in which he manoeuvred himself into Number 10 at the expense of friend and foe alike, and the resultant exposure to all sorts of new and interesting people. The story has more than a smack of old Lord Nelson’s Kiss me Hardy to it. Kismet indeed!
But no, I’m not talking about Cele, Mbalula or Zille. I’m talking about Catherine Calderwood and David Clark.
Who the hell are they you may ask? Well, they are both the ministers of health for their respective countries, Scotland and New Zealand, and they both drove themselves and their families (including the dogs) to a public beach for a walk. In the case of Ms Calderwood, she did it twice, the silly cow.
Well they’ve both been fired, so enough of that, but just saying, Minister Cele.
The rest of us soldier on as before, trying to make sense of the overwhelming tidal wave of newsletters and webinars all designed to get us to the mythical other side. It’s interesting to note that yesterday, Google itself experienced massive disruption and interruption of service in South Africa. Such has been the volume of traffic on the search engine. My Broadband reports that Downdetector showed a big increase in reports for problems experienced with YouTube, Gmail, and other Google services
But the show must go on, and today I’ve just done my first Flash Forum with GIBS Institute and attended the launch of PRC PAMS2019. Both well worth the time investment and, in the case of PAMS2019, I can’t wait to get my grubby little paws on the data when it is released on Thursday. Note to self: What’s the Lockdown2020 equivalent of grubby little paws?
The GIBS Institute Flash Forum on Strategy in an Era of Mass Disruption was really valuable. From a media perspective, there were a number of points which resonated with me, and which I will be using to map out new approaches to media strategy in the weeks ahead. Not least of all simultaneously managing the Now and the Next to ensure they are moving simultaneously on the same runway.
One of the challenges we face in disrupted media landscape is an oversupply of data and data-driven insights. In the disrupted media landscape the successful media strategist will display a high level of absorptive capacity and the cognitive ability to make effective media decision based on speed over excellence.
In fact, that’s also sound advice for all South Africans when it comes to kissing over the next few days. It’s probably better to go for speed over excellence if you want to avoid the wrath of Bheki Cele.
Gordon Muller is Africa’s oldest surviving media strategist. Author of Media Planning – Art or Science. Mostly harmless! Read his Khulumamedia Blog here.
