Friday night played out a spectacular evening @TheWilFig filled with some really great minded individuals sharing creative ideas and expanding the Web2point”O” foo! I expected the geek get-together to be a really cool event and I was not disappointed. Dave Duarte has done a great job of organizing this exciting event and regarding the next 27th Dinner, I’m there no doubt!

Upon arrival, Devonne (my Super Brilliant minded programmer that will code you Ruby on Rails in Gibberish) and myself made our way to the Fig and there it was…. the Bar! First things first and keeping a low profile, I made direct eye contact with the barman and watched him mission across the bar towards us, waiting in anticipation for a well deserved Amstel.

The scene was set and everyone had their own little group going as we just stood there, I could barely hear myself think between all the networking buzz surrounding us. So with our Amstel in hand, we made our way over to the Blueworld gang and grouped ourselves with my good mate and BWCOM Operations Manager - Charl Norman.

I was greeted by J-Princess who introduced me to fellow “gang” member, Jason Bagley - which referred to me as “The New Kid on the blog (block)”.

The night leaped off to a great start as I nudged my way through the little crowd at the bar for round 2, where we were met by the Stirrer, - Rafiq Phillips and later by Ashley Shaw.

On our way up to the second floor where it was all about to go down, we were met by Ramon Thomas, the live blogger, Wine thief and networking guru! - Very nice oke that seems on top of his game. Not before long, Jade and myself grabbed a seat just in time for Dave Duarte briefing us on the events lined up for the night to follow.

All in all the night was set for networking fiesta and a piss up of note!

First up was Marcel the Magician combining his awesome skill of Magic with some motivational talk around business and networking. Digged his vibe as he awed the room with a mind blowing displays of magic and illusions! I mean this oke bends forks for fun, right in front of your eyes while you are holding the fork. The craziest thing ever! Only words that I could blab out of my lagging jaw was “That just happened!!!”

Next up was Jo Duxbury with a quick intro to the Flying Solo SA Unconference (think PodCamp for freelancers and soloists). Didn’t get the full speech as I had to leak out the first 2 rounds and grab a 3rd.

On returning we had Catherine Luckhoff from Mango OMC grabbing our attention about Rocking the Daisies music festival and the upcoming blog/online competition. Some really cool stuff planned for the fest and I’ll be sure not to miss out this event, so make a note as it’s rocking Cape Town @ the Cloof Wine Estate in Darling on the 3rd-5th of October!

Next up we had Rafiq “The Stirrer” briefing and discussing The Essence of Micro-Blogging. Again I missed a big part of this speech as round 4 was hanging for waaay to long, but from what I was told is Rafiq was on the ball and showing us how all the dots connect up. You can view the presentation slide here.

I hope I didnt leave anyone out, but by this time I think the night was over and so was the better half of me. Afterwards we had a blast discussing Blueworld functionalities with Charl and Jade @ the bar (again) and knocking back the jaggies like it was orange juice. Rafiq hit the road and so did the Blueworld duo.

Brandon Golding was the man of the night making sure 27th Dinner, June 2008 will never be forgotten and was all over the place with his immaculate photography skills. Here’s us snapping away at each other in a photography battle royale of note!

On my way up to go pay my bill and say goodbye to all the really cool people I have met the night, I found myself indulged in a conversation with Scott Hayes and Robynn Burls, 2 really awesome individuals to meet. Just before I decided to leave I felt myself compelled to connect with Jason elk, the brilliant minded individual behind Zoopy.

Wow, what a cool oke he is. We connected on some old school Marketing trends, the late Corey Rudl and IMC, before we dwelled into conversations regarding Vodacom’s acquisition of 40% stake in Zoopy and MyTrade’s Business model etc. I’m over the moon for Jason and his team, it’s been a long time coming and tough road up to where it is now. Wish them all the future success as they deserve it fully. Go Zoopy!

As some of you may know, we are launching MyTrade in the next couple of weeks, just tweaking some features and taking care of some legal work. So keep watching this space!

Many Thanks to Dave Duarte for making most of the necessary arrangements for us to have a great evening. Enjoyed it tremendously. Hope to see you all at the next 27th Dinner!