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Your audience will benefit from a better podcasting and live-streaming experience! Some of the new features include: A podcast scrubber that allows your listener to play, pause and scrub through a podcast. Improvements to the handling of audio-related interruptions e.g. pausing the playback of a podcast when a voice note message is played. The introduction of pre-roll audio advertisements which play before livestream and podcast playback. We've also completed the rollout of chat groups to all radio clients which means that your listeners will be able to engage with each other and the studio in interest groups - amongst other great new features! How are you using the Fabrik mobile apps? What would you like to see in Fabrik apps? Let us know!

We have a solution to a key strategic need for broadcast owners. The need to digitise your audience, at scale, as rapidly as possible with complete ownership of your databases and data. Behind that is the exhaust of Storytelling, Services and radio’s real-time choreography – all engaging a high-trust community. The most important ability of a media platform must be the ability to command engagement: ‘I will pause what I am doing and pay attention to YOU’. Such a platform can only be built by master craftspeople of the media trade and by master craftspeople of the digital trade collaborating in a shared quest. By a team that understands the difference between man and machine. That understands convergence. True convergence. Convergence that unleashes the superpower that only radio has: Trust. Radio has always been a high trust medium. It has always operated with a sense of community. It doesn’t have customers, it has an audience. An audience because you broadcast and they receive. The return path offers a very thin feedback loop but, thin as it is, radio has been able to build high-trust communities. What happens if you can massively increase your audience engagement feedback loop intimately to you? And do that within weeks? You would begin to build higher trust communities and, if trust is the commodity in increasingly scarce supply, it would imply that this offers you the chance to reprice this digital radio community. This is the strategic opportunity that Fabrik gives you: to begin digitising your audience while rapidly retooling your workflows within weeks, at costs that move from capex to opex and, as rapidly as you want, to revenue. Now that’s a feedback loop. Fabrik offers media owners the chance to focus on the main challenge ahead of them. How to retool your habits, workflows and operations to a serve a real time audience that is co creating and participatory with you.

It's now easier for you to send, filter and receive messages from your Smashboard engagement dashboard. Some of the new features include: An option enabling you to search for messages from a specific app member. An additional view of unsuccessfully sent messages. A URL preview when you're including links in your composed messages. The ability to see phone numbers of members when you download your chat message history to a CSV file. A weather widget appearing underneath the clock on your dashboard. And, as always, various other performance improvements and bug fixes that should make it possible for you to use Smashboard with more ease. How are you using Smashboard? What would you like to see in Smashboard? Let us know!

Phil Molefe addresses delegates at the Southern African Broadcasting Association (SABA) Broadcasters’ Convention and 26th Annual General Meeting (AGM) on 29 & 30 October 2018, in Cape Town.

Originally posted on the SBC Facebook page. In a major modernisation of its broadcast technology, the Seychelles Broadcasting Corporation (SBC) has launched two new apps for its radio services, bringing audiences for Radyo Sesel and Paradise FM into the digital and social revolution. Available on iOS and Android mobile devices, the apps allow audiences to stream the stations live, catch up on popular content via podcasts seconds after the live transmission and to engage with the stations with opinions, news and participation in real-time. “With the new technology we are deploying, audiences will become co-creators of our broadcasts with us, bringing them into the very heart of our broadcast personality and services,” commented Bérard Duprès, CEO of Seychelles Broadcasting Corporation. “Audiences will be able to participate in the conversation of the day by sending through their voice-notes, photographs or text messages instantly to the station, where producers can curate and mix this feedback into the on-air broadcast in seconds. At Paradise FM and Radyo Sesel, there is tangible excitement around the possibilities for reaching the Seychellois diaspora globally and to engage with them in real-time. The teams are equally enthused on being able to engage better with our local audience, keeping them informed on issues and events and enabling a whole new set of information and content services, all in the palm of their hands. “We invite our listeners to embark on this digital journey together with us as we grow our skills and understanding of what it takes to be a truly modern broadcaster in the 21st Century,” says Mr Duprès. “Not only does the platform ensure a direct and immediate connection with our audience, it will allow us to preserve our radio programmes into a cloud archive that can be available over time to all citizens of the Seychelles as part of our audio cultural heritage,” notes Duprès, referring to other features of the platform. The CEO further noted that this was part of the Corporation’s on-going efforts to ensure that the benefits of the 4th Industrial Revolution were tangible to all Seychellois, Radio and TV audiences alike, following the recent roll-out of DTT. This innovation of SBC’s radio services has been made possible through partnership with a South Africa-based technology firm, immedia. SBC and immedia collaboration started a year ago in Windhoek, Namibia at SABA’s (Southern African Broadcasting Association) annual conference and AGM. “We are particularly proud that this globally revolutionary platform is an African product developed in Durban, South Africa,” comments Mr Phil Molefe, Executive Head of Strategy at immedia, the development team responsible for the Fabrik platform. Mr Molefe, previously Vice-Chairman of the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association, Chairman of the National Film and Video Foundation of South Africa and past Editor-in-Chief of SABC Radio and Television News, is a broadcasting expert who sees the Fabrik platform as being transformative in Africa’s developing economies. “In my thirty years of broadcasting, I have never been more excited at the potential to invert the traditional “We transmit, you receive” model of broadcasting,” says an energised Molefe. The apps are now available live on Apple’s App Store and the Google Play Store respectively and SBC invites its audience to come closer to Paradise and Sesel with these pocket companions.

Here are some new features that make it easier for operators to receive, search for and respond to messages from your Smashboard engagement dashboard. Some of the new features we've added include: An option allowing you to search for messages using an exact search term. A consolidated, historical view and message count for all sent and received messages associated with a particular app member. Messages are now automatically scrolled into view once selected. We've also improved the look and feel of your dashboard in the following ways: We've reworked the look and feel of the elements that display on the Trending section. We've added seconds to the clock that displays at the top of your Smashboard screen. The blue text we were using for the titles of selected side-menu items has been removed. And we fixed a bug preventing the 'Reply Message' option from showing when all engagements were clicked. How are you using Smashboard? What would you like to see in Smashboard? Let us know!

Some new features to the Campaigns functionality in Smashboard. New Features Added option to export messages to CSV Improvements Replaced action buttons with popup menu Winner Selection Reworked winners selection to pull message from elasticsearch Hidden previous winners title when there is no previous winner Bug Fixes Fixed the broken css for winner's selection modal Positioned the title of the previous winner below the unconfirmed winner Fixed the incorrect engagements count for each campaign

Phil Molefe addresses attendees of the Durban International Film Festival on embracing modern technology to stay relevant and produce better content.

It’s no longer appropriate to see customers as transient or meta-data or transactional. We have to be of service and of value to customers and we need to see them as a co-creator of products and services. We have to engage them with intimacy, service and value. Fabrik allows you to leverage the learned behaviour of digital tools and workflows (the entire social revolution) and accelerate your workplace transition with a quickened pace of human activity, focus and intimacy. It broadens accountability, builds compliance and increases transparency with your community and within your community. The previous era of technology reduced people to a “number”, to a “resource”, to a “demographic” – which is all well and good in aggregate but absolute disaster for Mrs Singh, Sowazi or Smith in specific. Today, we know we can do better. We know it in our hearts and souls even if we do not know exactly how. How can we do better when I have no voice to change? It’s time to empower your people to be able to be “of service” to your community without the layers of middlemen and friction that currently exist. For example, why do you need a call centre with minimum paid workers who have no connection to you or your brand? Outsourcing many functions and workflows in a business is fine, but you cannot outsource service. Instead of treating your customers anonymously like “everyone is the same”, how do you filter for trust, integrity etc. A Fabrik-powered community allows you to leverage the speed and intimacy of social but in your own private space. This means that your storytelling can be more conversational, real-time and intimate than it would normally be for the more manufactured and curated public social edge. This is a challenge that is hard for many communities because it means being a bit more expressive digitally in a broader space than would traditionally be the case (your team, your department). It’s harder because you can’t outsource your voice and you shouldn’t be “manufacturing” the content. Think of it as telemetry – and being a reliable and engaging transponder. Think of it as being of “service”. What amplifies the “SHARED CONTEXT” What adds to the “SHARED CONVERSATION” Around which goal are we “CHOREOGRAPHING”

Originally posted in the Sunday Tribune. To promote and support technological innovation, Innovate Durban, has launched a cloud-first app that allows key stakeholders and the public to collaborate, connect and celebrate in a private, secure space. Developed by a local tech company, immedia, the Innovate Durban app provides innovators with a platform on which to find and share information, said Aurelia Albert, chief executive of Innovate Durban, a non-profit company set up by the eThekwini Municipality and other key stakeholders. The app also facilitates direct engagement with Innovate Durban, fellow innovators and their partner ecosystem within private programme-related messaging groups or on public channels. The black MAMBA1! fully electronic vehicle created by a group of five students from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, including Calvin Vanwieringen and Mathew Darko from Ghana, in 2016, is just one of the technological innovations you can access if you download the Innovate Durban app. “This private cloud-first platform truly revolutionises the way in which people securely and confidentially communicate within their communities and collaborate with each other – allowing for relevant, real-time information to be shared without the spam, noise and data-harvesting practices we consistently encounter in other forms of communication,” said Albert. “Innovate Durban has partnered with immedia on a number of exciting and cutting-edge projects for many years and we feel that this platform created by immedia’s proudly-Durban team will really set it apart,” added Albert. Albert said the app would advance their mission to ensure that all projects and programmes create sustainable impact.

On 14 May 2018, our comments from a Deloitte Risk Advisory panel on Data Analytics on the place of analytics in driving business decision-making were published in a Deloitte.co.za blog post, republished here for your reading convenience: The practice of using data and analytics to deliver relevant and timely information to drive business decisions is still not pervasive enough in South Africa – why is this? Is it a lack of understanding of what is possible, weak leadership, poor data, legacy systems or simply a lack of strategy? Perhaps all of the above contribute. Perhaps leaders have become sceptical about investing in data and IT without experiencing the promised financial returns. Essentially, analytics professionals are simply not demonstrating tangible business value! Increasingly analytics, specifically Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, is discussed in numerous mainstream publications and platforms with stories relating to the remarkable achievements in the world of innovation and new business models such as those of Uber and Airbnb. It would be inspiring to have a South African example. While discussions around analytics have become pervasive in boardrooms, actions speak louder than words, and there is a lack of evidence of insights driving decisions in day-to-day business. At Deloitte Risk Advisory’s first Data Analytics gathering titled “Analytics in conversation”, we discussed and debated what it takes to become an insight driven organisation in South Africa. The objective of this new forum is for business leaders and analytics practitioners to unpack and debate the issues that we face locally around data and analytics in business. Deloitte Data Analytics will host future gatherings and leaders from all industries and areas of specialisation are welcome to join. The goal is to solve our challenges here in South Africa, while at the same time building a collaborative professional network of people with complementary expertise, experience and most importantly passion. The participants of the first Data Analytics gathering offered a number of reasons as to why we might be falling behind in South Africa: Fear: While analytics terminology is increasingly common, people are intimidated by their minimal knowledge. They lack an understanding of how the insights are derived and how the output can be utilised in their daily businesses. If something seems like magic then it is difficult to trust. In addition, there is a perception that sophisticated analytical solutions might replace jobs, which only adds to their apprehension. Communication and skills: Analytics is a team sport; it requires business, IT, data, mathematics, statistics and storytelling skills. In the absence of the context of the business problem, the technical skills to develop the data and analytics solution, as well as the adaptation of business processes to consume the output, the financial benefits of analytics will never be recognised. While there are often pockets of analytics excellence within an organisation, the output is not imbedded into a process where it can be used and acted upon in a timely manner. Analytics and operations currently are two separate functions, which means that business problems are not resolved with data and information. Culture: In our current economic environment in South Africa, people often feel vulnerable which can lead to resistance in experimenting with new ways of working. We gain comfort in operating in the “traditional business as usual” model rather than running the risk of an unsuccessful new initiative. This culture inhibits change and innovative thinking. Expectations: In our personal lives, we expect instant and relevant responses; if our social media does not update within seconds then we become disgruntled; if we receive an offer that is not relevant to us then we lose interest. We manage our exercise schedule by the instructions from our fitness device! However, in our professional lives, we are satisfied with manual and lengthy processes that deliver old and irrelevant information. Data and IT: Often the data and IT systems prohibit the timely delivery of insights. Poor quality data that is stored in silos across the organisation coupled with inadequate data management tools make the analytics process long and frustrating. Strategy and Leadership: The executives do not formulate and drive the analytics strategy; hence, there is a lack of focus, investment and commitment. The solutions to these challenges are multi-faceted but the Data Analytics discussion suggested four fundamentals that are required for change: Data needs to be treated as the lifeblood of the organisation. Employees at all levels require education around what analytics is, why it is important, how it can drive competitive advantage and most importantly how it benefits each employee. Analytics teams must demonstrate and deliver tangible value by solving relevant business issues. It is vital to empower cross-functional teams to collaborate and experiment. Executives must create the vision as to what is possible and then drive a strategy to become insights driven. The focus must be on investment, change management and people to make it happen. This will create communication, imagination and innovation. Analytics is an enabler to capturing institutional knowledge in a country that is short of skills. Analytics, in the right business environment, can track consumer sentiment, build customer loyalty, gain competitive advantages and make more effective business decisions. While Deloitte’s first Data Analytics forum raised more questions than answers, there was one overarching message – analytics is already part of business and those who it do properly will survive, compete and thrive. The Data Analytics forum is the beginning of a constructive discussion in the South African context around data and analytics that will help business start talking the same language across functional barriers of Business, IT, Finance and Analytics, to knowledge for the benefit of all employees, consumers and businesses. We need to become fanatical about developing solutions that are applicable, digestible and useable. Writer: Dr Tracy Dunbar Associate Director at Data Analytics Deloitte South Africa trdunbar@deloitte.co.za Contributors: Anice Hassim, Carl Wocke, Danny Saksenberg, Selene Shah and Phil Molefe.

From 6 to 9 May, Phil Molefe addresses delegates at the 13th World Media Economic Management Conference along the theme of “Media Management in the Age of Tech Giants”. In case you missed it, here is some of the coverage on Phil’s talk: