Bramley Famli

June’s almost over. And what a month it’s been for us : )

School holidays in South Africa to accommodate the World Cup. Little to almost no business for me because of support of the World Cup : )

And so I accepted the no-work reality and worked from home, and played with our family. And play we did. I won’t go into detail on each event, simply point you to albums of pics that we took to record the events.

First Gautrain ride – we attempted to go on the first public Gautrain ride. We didn’t get onto the first one, but darn close

Bafana parade through Sandton – what a day. School closed a day early and we went to join the masses to celebrate and support our National Team

World Cup prep – Jordi and I went shopping for decorations. For our bodies, our cars and our home. We all supported Bafana, and then each picked a 2nd option. Carli took England. Jordi took Brazil. Leish and I took Spain.

World Cup game in Durban – I managed to secure tickets on the Friday morning, and we hit the road (by car) to catch the Japan v Netherlands Game the next afternoon. Home on Sunday

We still have two weeks of holiday to go – woop woop : )

We woke up at various points between 03h30 and 04h00 this morning. We were on our way to catch the first public Gautrain, running from Sandton to OR Tambo. The plan was to have breakfast at Wimpy, and then catch a train back in time for school.

There were a couple of hiccups and I offloaded (puked) them here, for those that are interested, but outside of that, it was one awesome experience.

The Gautrain is fantastic. It leaves Sandton underground and stays there until it ‘surfaces’ at Marlboro. It then stays above ground until the airport. The entire trip takes around 12 min which includes 2 stops. Pretty impressive. The technology is kewl, and you pay R10 for a smart card that you keep and re-charge as and when needed. This pays for the train, the bus and for parking.

Jordi’s friend Daisy stayed the night and joined us for our adventure. And the girls loved it. It was very kewl to see how easily they slotted into the vibe. As if they’d been traveling on high speed trains their entire life : )

It’s definitely something you should do with your kids. It was awesome for Leish and I, and several times more for the girls.

We got to school 15 minutes late this morning. Not because it wasn’t possible. Let’s just put it down to first day teething issues : )

If you’d like to see some pics click here.

Ted.com is one of the best internet resources I’ve ever come across for short, powerful and interesting inputs on a broad cross-section of topics that loosely fall into the categories of Technology, Environment and Design (TED). Most inputs have a future focus, and one of the themes I’ve often picked up on has to do with what we’ll need, as human beings, to compete in the future. Interestingly it’s not going to be only each other we have to compete against, it’s also going to be technology.

This is not unprecedented either. Over the last 200 years or so, many countries around the world have seen their workforce move from Industrial type activity to Service orientated activity. One statistic I’ve seen has the US population moving from a 98% industrial type workforce (1820) to just 2.5% (2000). There’s no doubt that technology’s new focus is in the service industry, as computers and machines take over roles people have filled. Call centers, processing departments, flying planes, medicine, education, tourism (think GPS and augmented reality), etc, etc.

So how do we compete? What will we do when technology replaces us once again? The response of many is that it will never happen, but it has before, and there’s no reason to think it wont again.

Dan Pink is a contributor at TED.com. If you’ve seen him on TED then you’ll know his talk on re-thinking rewards and motivation. I was recently alerted to another short input of his on YouTube, via a friend on Twitter (@MJH1004)

In this input, ‘Education and the Changing World of Work, Pink suggests that left brain activity has dominated the way in which we’ve worked up until now. Of course, those of us with dominant left brain abilities have succeeded in this particular paradigm. Technology, however, is stepping into left brain spaces, leaving a massive need for right brain abilities (it will be all that’s left for us to do). It’s our right brain that is creative, sees opportunities where our left brain doesn’t. People with dominant right brains are the most valuable in this new world of work, suggests Pink.

Dan Pink isn’t the only one suggesting this. Another great TED input (my favourite) is by Sir Ken Robinson (recently released his book, The Element) talking about whether Schools Kill Creativity. He makes similar points.

Of course all the right brained people smile a little at this thought. They’re the ones who struggled at school and university. They’re the one’s who’ve battled to get ahead in traditional business models. They’ve been on the fringe for a long time. Labeled as outsiders, the weirdoes, the dreamers, the impractical, the nice-to-haves when you’re smoking a doobee, but the not-so-nice-to-haves when you’re trying to run the world. The idea of an about turn on who’s valuable into the future is an attractive fantasy for right brain dominated people. Let’s hope they dream less about that day, and instead work out how they’re going to capitalise on it : )

Here’s Dan Pink on Education and the Future World of Work.

On Saturday Carli and Jordi competed in the Bryanston Gymnastics Club annual competition. It’s goal is really, I think, to prepare the gymnasts for the regional competition that’s held a few weeks later. So they compete using the same routine as the regional comp, and a selection of gymnasts get selected to go to the regional comp. I posted something about last years regional comp last year.

This year was Carli’s first competition. She’s not competed before. She’s on level 1 and is in the under 6 age group. She was nervous, we (Leish and I) were nervous, and Jordi was amazing. On the way from picking up Wimpy Coffee and toasted sandwiches, Jordi told me she hoped that there wasn’t any thunder while Carli was on the beam. She’d hate Carli to fall. And she’d be prepared to fall 5 times if it meant that Carli didn’t have to fall once. What a beautiful and caring wish for her sister. I just wanted to give her a great big hug. I couldn’t. I was driving : )

Carli was a star. She ended up 2nd overall, and won her floor and bar routines. She placed in the top 3 for beam and vault. She ended up with 5 medals, and while they were presenting to other age groups and levels, Leish and I watched her count those medals 6 or 7 times. Not sure if she was checking just how many, or if they were all still there? But she certainly seemed very proud. Rightly so.

Jordi’s level and age group was hotly contested. There was no clear ‘super-star’ amongst them. Many of the girls got medals for the different disciplines. Jordi ended up 5th overall and came home with 3 medals. She was disappointed as she loves gymnastics, works really hard, and was hoping to have finished higher up in the rankings. A hard lesson about competition, not getting what you hoped for, and not finishing as high up as she did least year, to watch her learn. She wasn’t interested in us trying to console her. It was a tough afternoon of emotion here at home.

All in all, it was a great day for the two of them. This morning everyone was back to counting medals, talking of the regional competition, and practicing their various routines on the furniture around the house. They do spend more time on their hands than on their feet : )

I’ve posted some pics of the competition here.

Carli turned 7 in April. A big day for her. In many ways. She got older. Both physically, and I think in her self as well. It was a different birthday for her. It felt like the first time she’d ‘owned’ the day. Until this one, she’s always seemed fairly neither-here-nor-there about the day and everything that went into it. But this year she planned, plotted, dreamed, asked for, expected from, etc, etc. We worked hard to make it the celebration she wanted. And reflecting back on it, I think she might say it met her image of what her birthday needed to be.

For those with children that cliche about children growing up so quickly was brought home once again for Leish and I. No more 6 year olds in the house. While Jordi pushes the boundaries on the older end, Carli represents the end of each era for us as a family. So there’s always a hint of sadness as she moves into her next world, but it doesn’t take away from the exciting adventures that she allows us to share with her.

She is an amazing human being in our family. She brings so much that we don’t have, and teaches us things we’d not learn easily if she wasn’t here. Her confidence, imagination, sense of humour, adventure, laugh, need for her own space, her skill with any sport of activity that involves a round objective (ball), her gentle spirit and her loving cuddles. The list is long…

I’ve posted some pics of a little piece of her day. Her ‘big’ present was a drum kit for Guitar Hero (Nintendo Wii) and you’ll see us all playing in the pics.

2 Saturday mornings ago I took Carli, Jordi, Brad and Jason (friends) to Peter Bee Pets. I’ve posted about a visit to Pete before. It’s always fun, simply because Pete has some of the kewlest animals in his shop.

If you’ve not been there, and you don’t mind a trek out to Krugersdorp, then load up your kids and take a visit.

The kids got to touch, play with, feel, watch and experience all sorts of things. From Bearded Dragons, to Water Lizards being fed, to Ball Pythons, to a stunning Cockateel, and of course the 3 alligators in their enclosure.

I’ve posted some pics on my Picasa site. Click here if you’d like a look.

One of the challenges the internet has created is an unthinkable number of channels through which to broadcast. Of course none of us make use of every channel, but there is always someone using a channel we’re not. And so if you want to communicate to them the days of taking the attitude of ‘you just come to us’ is over. Chances are, because they’re not engaging with your channel is that they don’t even know about you. And so if you want to find them, you’ve got to insert yourself into their space. It doesn’t end there, because each channel requires a different format for your content. You don’t just write an article or record a podcast and hope it translates easily into each space. No! You’ve got to take whatever you start with and continually adjust it to whatever context you’re going to post it to.

And if you’re like me, then you’ve got a headache just thinking about the ‘how’ of taking your message to as many platforms as possible. What I have learned is that the ability to do this is getting easier and easier (in terms of tools available), and the more I learn about new channels the more competent I feel and become in my distribution efforts.

With that as a pre-amble, let me tell you about my latest adventure….

I took the e-zine article (Five Practical Steps to Retain Talent) that I produce for TomorrowToday each month (it gets sent to around 11 000 people via e-mail), posted it onto our blog, built a short presentation and built a video PodCast. The video file was then uploaded to iTunes and YouTube.

I don’t know if this sounds like a lot to you? It exhausted me. Took me 1.5 days to work it all out, learn new skills and get it all to a place I was reasonably happy with. Of course next time around it’ll take far less time and in my experience always better quality.

Here’s the video below from YouTube.

Here’s an article (DotBall gets recognition) from The Times of India dated 10 Feb 2003. Brought back some nice memories as I read it. Of course doesn’t hurt that my name is mentioned : )

The dot ball development is the brainchild of two South African cricket fans from Durban, Roger Scholtz and Barrie Bramley, who latched on to its importance last year and shared their idea with CWC 2003.

You can learn more about DotBall from at least these few spots:

• DotBall Official Website – www.dotball.com
• Follow DotBall on Twitter – www.twitter.com/dotballt20
• Visit DotBall on FaceBook – www.facebook.com/DotballT20
• Download DotBall Mobile Phone game – www.dotball.com

Every now and then I get an opportunity to stretch my writing into a more personal and family space by writing something for Jozi Kids’ Blog. There are times I get asked to put something forward around a theme they’re working on, and then there are times I end up writing something that I submit in case it works for them.

Merle who acts as many things at Jozi Kids is a great resource to me in my writing. I often babble on saying way to little with way too many words (you can ask Leish to verify that). Merle helps with that : )

My latest post was around an expeirence I had with myself while driving my mother home from a Grannie’s day at our daughter’s school.

Click here if you’d like to have a read.

It’s no secret in our home at the moment, that Carli’s gymnastics future is hanging in the balance. She’s bored, or not into it, or over it, or something? But she’s certainly thinking about whether she wants to continue to do it or not. Leish got her to commit to the end of the term, and the end of the term, she is here.

If I’m honest I’m hoping this opens a little opportunity for Carli and I to ride bikes together. She certainly enjoys it more than Jordi, and I’m standing in the wings plotting and planning, that should she throw in her gymnastics towel, that I can offer her 2 attractive slots each week to go down to the MTN/Toyota Cycle Park in Bryanston to ride together. Of course it works for me because of my own BMX history, and the thought of having 2 or 3 hours each week focused on riding with one of our daughters, and maybe both from time to time, gets all the right bells and whistles sounding off in me : )

Of course I’ve got to tread carefully here. Nothing worse than living out your parent’s dreams and fantasies when actually you’d rather be doing something else. So I’m trying not to be too enthusiastic, doing less selling of the idea, and jumping at each opportunity Carli gives when she says anything close to, ‘Hey dad, can we go to the bike park?’. Rain, hail, snow or shine, I’m there : )

Last Monday we went together. Carli on her bike, and me on a rented BMX from the park. Wish I could take a camera with us, but I’m still not sure I’m not going to destroy myself in some over-zealous manoeuvre. So the pic included is in the parking lot before we headed out.

Click here for 2 larger pics.

• May 17 : Right Brain people will be a-head in the future
• May 5 : The Bramley girls shine at their Gymnastics Club Comp
• May 2 : Carli turns 7
• Apr 19 : Another visit to Peter Bee Pets
• Apr 16 : The challenge of multiple communication channels