Below recounts the day we became men, brewing our very own beer.

****

6.35am: Phone alarm goes off. Quietly curse Hillsy for booking us into the brewery for an early start.

6.36am: Kick toe on way to kitchen where phone is plugged in. Hop for a few minutes to wake up.

6.44am: Toast pops up, burnt. Turn dial down on toaster in preparation for next toasting tomorrow, which will inevitably simply warm up the bread, necessitating another toasting, which will almost certainly go for too long and burn it. Toasters… who can figure ‘em, eh?

7.15am: Kiss sleeping girlfriend goodbye. She’s sleeping with a faint smile on her face, because Bed is so damn comfortable. Silently curse Hillsy for the second time today.

7.32am: Get on train into the city.

7.33am: Why do kids insist on wearing those caps with the ruler-straight peaks, turned slightly to the side? Don’t the realise how silly they look?

10 seconds later: Realise I’m nearing 30. When did that happen? Damn those kids and their fashion.

7.52am: Pull into station. Walk down to meeting point, meeting Andrew and DT.

7.59am: See the Pajero careening around corner… Hillsy’s on time? Catch breath after shock.

7.59am: Russ walks up. Can’t believe the guy’s timing.

8.20am: Stop off at Macca’s drive through to ease Mini’s complaining stomach. Everyone gets coffee. Obviously they’re “Macca’s coffee” rookies.

8.27am: First complaint about coffee.

Classy... BRU4U

8.40am: Walk through BRU4U’s doors. See barrels and barrels of beers. Feel pang of jealousy, knowing that ours will still need to ferment for weeks after today.

8.44am: Hear more than I ever needed to about Canadian beers from our host.

8.46am: Am told that I can’t be from South Africa by host. Smile, but generations of Saffa ancestors rattle their bones in indignation in their graves.

8.59am: Finally agree on two types of beers: One, a “Corona-ish blend”, and Two, a “Asahi-ish blend”. My suggestion of a low-carb beer is met with shaking heads, projected derision and suspicious eyes.

9.10am: We’re off! Following our recipes, we begin pouring litres of light and dark lager malt mix into tubs.

9.12am: Fight first urge to simply dunk head in tub… malt. Is there anything better?

9.16am: Attempting to get measurements right to the very gram. This causes problem for those with a lack of patience, as the scale seems to take a second or two to catch up with what’s actually on it.

9.20am: Discussion about yeast and how it’s actually bacteria. Start daydreaming about dunking head in malt.

9.27am: Put in about 20g too much glucose. Isn’t it the glucose that makes the alcohol percentage increase in the end? Silently make mental note to take it slow when these beers are in hand.

Steam Kettles

9.30am: First lot (the Corona-ish mix) goes into the steam kettles.

9.35am: Repeat process with the Asahi-ish mix. Watch as DT measures grams like a surgeon. Watch Mini throw the ingredients into the bowl like it’s an all-you-can-eat.

9.43am: Second lot goes into another steam kettle. We’re seasoned professionals by now, and the mixing only took 8 minutes.

9.44am: Realise that we now have nothing to do while we wait until we need to add next ingredients. Sit down around barrel-bar table, which apparently could be ours for the low low price of $1750.

9.45am: Host brings us complimentary beer. It’s a dark ale, courtesy of someone named Ron.

9.46am: Thank Ron in his absence, begin downing drink.

9.47am: Smacking of lips and looks of approval. I’m not the biggest fan.

9.59am: Halfway through the drink, realise that I could get into this.

10.02am: Finish beer. Laugh at myself for questioning Ron. I mean, it’s Ron, right? Good beer that.

10.03am: Begin looking around, hoping that we’ll be offered more free beer.

10.04am: Curses. No free beer, just an alarm reminding us to add more barley.

10.06am: Watch a couple bring in their empties, clean them, and begin filling and sealing their bottles. Am reminded that we now need to find 288 empty beer bottles for our 12 cases. Sigh. Silently say sorry to my liver.

10.20am: Watch a father bring his two young daughters in. They’ve been trained well… the girls, who are probably 8 and 10 respectively, put the empties on the bottle cleaner like pros, and start the spinning. Horrified, yet impressed at the same time.

10.30am: We’re offered an “experimental” sarsaparilla. Watch DT fight his inner demons the whole way towards the tap.

10.31am: Watch DT drink said sarsaparilla, acknowledging that he can never turn down a free drink.

Russel pours in some barley. Hillsy supervises.

10.35am: Alarm goes off again, reminding us to do… well, something. I’m comfy on this chair though.

10.38am: Those two girls are helping bottle and seal the father’s beer now. Seriously, how long has he been bringing them here?

10.42am: Offered another free beer… this time, a cream ale. It’s not bad; fairly crisp, and quite a clean taste.

10.47am: The mixtures are done! Watch as they’re piped from the kettles to respective barrels. Good god, that looks good.

10.55am: Pay the friendly lady. After these beers, I’m prepared to forgive her the “you can’t be South African” remark. Lock in a date to come in for bottling: 14 August.

10.56am: Realise that the couple are still busy bottling their 6 cases. Realise that we have 12 cases between us. Mark down to keep the entire day on the 14th open.

10.59am: We’re out the door. We came in mere drinkers, we leave… well, slightly more educated beer drinkers.

****

And that’s it. Of course, on the way home we stopped off for various other adventures, but that’s a tale for another time…

Ok, so anyone who knows me knows my love for comics. So it should come as no surprise that this trailer excites me more than any other trailer I’ve seen in years.

Seriously people. Cannot. Wait.

Conversation Media... what's the deal?

I’m currently employed full-time as an SEO Executive for a fairly large online travel group. This is an in-house position, and from Monday – Friday, 8am – 5pm, I’m there. That’s my focus, and that hasn’t changed.

I feel that there’s a lot more that I can offer to SMBs though, and I’m really keen to share my knowledge with businesses looking to engage and communicate with their customers online. Which is where Conversation Media comes into it.

Conversation Media was really just a name that popped into my head one day. I’d been feeling slightly… well, unsettled. I knew that there was something more out there for me, something more that I could offer. I’ve been through this once before, when I launched Elite SEO.

The problem with Elite SEO, as I see it, is that SEO is changing.

While there will always be a need for good search engine optimisation, I feel that straight SEO as a standalone service is on its way out. Simply put, a lot of what most people would call “SEO” is now becoming a process that can mostly be automated. And I’m watching that happen, right in front of my eyes.

So I took a step back, and took another look at exactly what had got me interested in SEO in the first place. And from that objective distance, I managed to realise that it wasn’t strictly “SEO” that I’d fallen for, back in the day… it was the marketing side of things. Online Marketing. I mean, it’s right there in the name, isn’t it?

And the bit about marketing that I love? Communicating. Establishing that connection between a brand and its customers. Helping them grow closer together, and form a relationship.

Entering into conversations.

And there it was. Conversation Media.

So Conversation Media is now my freelance venture, where I offer my SEO copywriting and social media marketing services to SMBs, or – quite frankly – anyone who needs help engaging their customers online. And while I’d one day love for this to be my sole employment, for now it’s an additional source of income supplementing my current in-house SEO position. After all, there’s 24 hours in a day. I intend to use each and every one.

So, if this sounds like something you’d be interested in… why not get in touch?

Ok, enough is enough. Over the last few months, I’ve noticed this trend getting worse, and even – unthinkably – worse from there. Everyone on twitter these days seems to be a “social media expert” in their own heads. And I’m not only talking about the people that actually label themselves as “social media gurus” (hell, that’s such an easy target it’s not even fun anymore), but the average Joe Blow on twitter who now feels they know more about how companies should behave in this “new, social, community world” than the marketing managers’ of the companies themselves.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m as big a believer as the next guy that the world has changed, and that marketing has to change with it. And yes, communities are more important than ever. I get that. Hell, I’ll stand by your side when you say it.

But, while that may be true, that does NOT make you an expert on how businesses should conduct themselves.

Because twitter limits you to 140 characters, it’s easy to throw out sound bites that sound catchy and insightful, but then conveniently never have to elaborate on those sound bites. It’s nice to hide behind that character limit, isn’t it?

Yeah, you can ask a business, “Hey, why aren’t you building a community? Why aren’t you taking an active interest in what people out there are saying?”. It’s easy to ask those questions, without having to actually wait around to answer them.

Here’s a tip: if you haven’t been involved in marketing a particular business, don’t presume to know how they should get involved. Or if they should even get involved in the first place. The truth of the matter is that – while it would be nice if every business could communicate more, in an open forum – for some businesses, there simply might not be enough return for them to justify that outreach.

That’s the thing that gets to me. A lot of people think it costs nothing to be open, interactive and “transparent” . Let’s be clear here kids: it does. Whether you want to accept it or not, it does.

So here’s what I have to say: Cut it out.

Unless you have actively been involved in putting together, and – more importantly, in my eyes – actually implementing a “social media plan” for a brand, AND unless you’ve pulled it off successfully, your word counts diddly squat.

Plenty of the people I’m speaking to in this post seem to have developed huge followings. And what worries me is that all they have to do is keep talking loudly until people believe them, without looking into what they have actually done. I’ll repeat this again, because it bears repeating: If you haven’t actually done anything, your word counts diddly squat. Talking does not equate doing.

So, in the end: sure, there’s no harm in putting your suggestions out there. If it makes sense to the business, they just might use it, and you can feel happy knowing that you’ve made the world a better place.
But please don’t harp on about how this company or that company “doesn’t get it”. How do you know they don’t get it? Are you employed by the company? Do you know the inner workings of how decisions are made in the company? Do you have access to their financial records? Do you know their main sources of revenue? Do you know exactly and unequivocally, down to the cent, that your suggestion would make them more money than would be spent to implement it?

I doubt it.

Cut it out.

Just watched the trailer for the “Lemonade” movie, and damned if the things doesn’t look inspiring. According to the official site:

“More than 130,000 advertising professionals have lost their jobs in this Great Recession. Lemonade is about what happens when people who were once paid to be creative in advertising are forced to be creative with their own lives.”

Yeah. It doesn’t read like much until you watch the trailer. Which is, as I say, totally inspiring. Oh, that, and there’s some seriously “Explosions in the Sky”-influenced music in the background. Which pretty much equals cool for me.

Trailer embedded below…

First 3 people who leave a comment on this post requesting one get ‘em… I have more than I know what to do with!

… and seeing as I want to test out the new, upgraded NextGen Gallery plugin for image showcasing, looks like you all will have to put up with the proverbial slideshow night!

 

So unless you’ve been living underneath a rock for the last few days, you’ll have heard that Twitter is rolling out its new retweet settings. If not, I really encourage you to read Ev’s post, as it gives a great rundown on the reasons behind the change, and some hints at what will come in the future.

However, one of the things that I personally found most interesting from the post was Ev’s discussion of the “redundancy of tweets”, and how this new format will tackle the problem. Ev states that:

Now, I think this will have more of an effect on promotions run through Twitter than most people realise. A bog-standard competition “format” that you often see floating around Twitter is the “Retweet this to go into the draw/win this fantastic prize”. Hardly original, it’s true, but I’d say 80% of the competitions I see run through Twitter have this in their requirements in some form.
With the new retweet format being rolled out, those competitions will hardly be as effective… the brand will get less exposure (instead of being broadcast multiple times, the tweet will only be broadcast once, with attribution to those who have retweeted it below) and it makes me wonder how the virality of certain tweets will be affected.

What do you think?

So Razorfish have just released their FEED ‘09 Report, and all I will say is: you should be reading it. If you’re at all interested in how consumers are engaging with brands in the new digital world, then this is for you.

The report has some great outtakes, but one I would like to highlight is this:

But, according to our study, consumers don’t want a conversation with brands—they want deals. Of those who follow a brand on Twitter, 44% say access to exclusive deals is the main reason. The same holds true for those who “friended” a brand on Facebook or MySpace, where 37% cite access to exclusive deals or offers as their main reason.

I think this is something that a lot of so-called “social media gurus” should pay attention to. It’s fine to say “It’s all about engagement. It’s all about conversations. It’s not about selling“, because often, it isn’t. But don’t repeat that mantra on blind rotation. Because sometimes, just sometimes, people are after deals. And that’s nothing to be ashamed of.
I’ve said this before in an unrelated discussion, but while we (people interested in social media) often harp on about how “this promotion” or “that promotion” misses “the point of social media”, I’ll say it again: generally speaking, we are not the average audience, people. We need to step back and see things from the eyes of the average consumer. Because, ultimately, that’s who the brand is going to be targeting.

Other points to take home from the FEED 09 Report? It’s all about the experience. But we always knew that, didn’t we? The technologies may come and go, but keep it about the experience, let consumers associate you with a positive mindframe… and everything just falls into place from there.

Anyway, go read it.

… to Oswald, aka Ozzie… the best dog in the world. Somewhere up in heaven tonight, a little sausage dog is chasing a large squeaky bone up and down endless fields.

You’ll be missed Oz.