Another experiment in Storify-telling. I still find it an odd way to collect a story with the danger of becoming a lazy way of sourcing material and creating narrative. But it is fun, it is relevant – its serious use in the newsroom is still questionable though.

Part of my broader skywalk project.
Latitude: 26°12’11.52″S
Longitude: 28° 2’33.51″E

Still awaiting permission to get inside, or rather, screw the permission – I just want to get inside but this is an abandoned skywalk. For years already.

Yes, I could post the whole thing here, and I did so, but it just didn’t look very good so you can look at it in Storify, which is just pretty. And the embed code doesn’t seem to work for .com wordpress.

UJ Stampede in Storify

Send me your thoughts on Storify’s relevancy to journalism.

I didn’t walk to the Lister Building that night even though I live around 5 blocks west, just down Jeppe. Call me a pussy but the city was crazy that night, not to mention the rain also wanted some attention.

Excuse the bad cinematography – video is new to me and the videocam was very new. Whatever. First time is first time. Watch the next time.

Also – file size is about 15MB; probably a dash big. I haven’t got the hang of video compressions, pixels, codecs and all that jazz.

This means I must exclude bridges such as the one found on Nugget Street heading north up the hill into Hillbrow – a walking bridge over a road but not one that connects two buildings.  There is another one in the south just under the M2 on Trump street. But again, not strictly a skywalk but I does seem to connect two properties. Stay tuned for more research into that one.

Initially I was considering the skywalk to necessarily be one that overpasses a public road. But I think the building connector aspect of the definition is more significant so I must include the old studio walkway  I discovered down by Main Street Life, just east of Joe Slovo Drive. It is in a closed security complex but nevertheless it needs to be included.

I have included the GPS points below if you want to explore these skywalks on your own. If you know of who to contact concerning access points, please let me know.

I have confined the geography to central Johannesburg; roughly speaking from M2 in the south to Empire road in the north, to the edge of Newtown in the west and Joe Slovo in the east. I may spill over here and there but roughly, that’s it.

(For want of finding a proper embedding tool other than Scribd…)

View of a skywalk between the Parktonian Hotel, Braamfontein and its parking area.

This image is the first of a series of skywalks in central Johannesburg that will be released shortly with history, coordinates, maps and tours. I may even take a bash at some augmented reality for all the clever phones out there.

A broad data-set experiment, if you will.

Sometimes I love it, sometimes it’s just noisy but I could wake up to this every morning – and do.

From my little bedroom balcony taken just after an afternoon cloud burst.

On any day it is always a pleasure to be in the city, high up and taking in the skyline. But mix that up with some blazing summer sunshine, a cold beer, and some relaxed beats from Kid Fonque and you have a cocktail of simple pleasures of life.

Via Flickr:
Spinning a set in the sunshine at Main Street Life, Joburg

Just when you thought downtown Johannesburg had reached this point of relaxation where nothing more than a taxi driver leaning on his horn with perhaps an added rude gesture disturbed the hum of the city din – someone gets shot just under my balcony.

I don’t know who the shot individual was, and I don’t know who the shooting officer was. I didn’t go down to street level. Bad journalist I know. To be honest I was having quite a serious discussion with my partner and I considered this a rude interruption; but one that did warrant a quick distraction and a few snaps.

We watch the activity from my 15^th floor balcony overlooking Jeppe street. My flat mate said he heard the police officer shout, “Put it down” and two shots in quick succession into the ground.  A third shot followed soon afterwards. Once I could see the commotion the shot man was already on the ground and disarmed.

We watched the action for some time. Differences of perception are interesting. If someone gets shot after clear warning from police to put down your firearm it means you didn’t put down your firearm and probably deserved it, if only for stupidity. While getting shot in the leg must suck I can’t say I felt much sympathy. My partner however, felt leaving the guy on the street with a clear distance around him and no one helping him to be a crime. She wondered whether police have training in first aid, I shook my head. But the point was a valid one. Although a shot to the leg rarely leads to death, bleeding does. A long trail of blood made its way to the storm drain.

There is a 24-hour spar on the other side of the road. Shoppers could not resist the spectacle.

At the time of taking the photograph the man had been shot once in the leg and was fully conscious while speaking and moving around on the street.

A fire truck arrived to take the man away roughly 30 minutes later. At the time of going to bed shortly after midnight police were still there but the man was of course gone and the blood washed off the street.

Next time, when a police officer tells you to put your gun down and fires warning shots into the ground, the safe suggestion is to do it.

Especially on a relaxed Sunday evening after a springtime rain.

Read the piece on The New Age.

“To show you the future all I need is an internet connection.” Josh Spear

For someone that wonders for a living, Josh Spear is making a lot of people sit up, take notice, and think about just what the internet really is doing to humanity and how it is changing the world. For better or worse one can’t say but the inkling here is that it is for the better.

Speaking at the Tech4Africa conference taking place at The Forum, Bryanston, Johannesburg, Josh Spear (Twitter ID @joshspear) – a nomadic digital native, probably the youngest but certainly one of the brightest online strategy consultants today dissolves the old rules of thinking under the weight of the internet. What does it really consist of? The one billion collective people who can make things happen on their own.

Taking attendees of the conference on a seemingly disjointed journey through popular websites, this co-founder of the think tank Undercurrent, brings his point home that it is not about celebrity, it is not about fame and despite notions to the contrary, there are rules and one of the rules is that you have to earn your way to the top of the searches, you can’t buy it.

Do not underestimate the power of the anonymous to gather and self-organise. Taking the now infamous website 4chan.org which although has been banned from popular search engines is consistently one of the top websites in the world, and at one stage being in the #1 position. A photo posting and response through images website, he describes just what is going on while making it clear that no one really knows.

Spear seems to think that through networks, collectively we are trying to figure out who we are. And with the sheer volume of networking going on in all its forms, this seems almost an obvious point. There is no leader, there is no agenda, it is merely interactions, some serious, some not.

One of his careful points is that there is a clear changing of the guard, from the old to the new. Thomas Bevan, conference attendee says, “Josh makes us take a good step back from our assumed view of the internet and who influences it”.

The notion of the old guard being replaced by the new guard can be borrowed as a kind of nod to the growing influence of Africa as an entrepreneurial continent that is gaining access to the same technological platforms.

If there is one thing that Tech4Africa makes clear is that Africans are working very hard to improve their continent and this doesn’t just mean competing with Western companies but through their collective action over the tool of the internet, doing some deeply meaningful work in their societies.

Josh Spear says “The world has been pulled open” and now is the time to collectively figure out what we want and make it happen.

Spear breaks the internet into the points of what the internet is really good for:

• Awareness
• Persuasion
• Sharing
• Cooperation
• Collective action