The Friday Shoutout: Nova Economics

On Friday we submitted the report we’ve been working on for the last 4 months. It was around 170 pages and contained 70 000 words. We’d worked until 3 in the morning, putting the finishing touches on the doc.

It was a really intense process, but it was really enjoyable and I was able to learn so much. And that’s mostly because of the amazing company that I do my work with, Nova Economics.

Nova Economics was founded by Kay Walsh three years ago as a niche economics and strategy consulting firm. She previously worked at Monitor Deloitte and RMB as a consultant and economist, and has done work from consulting to big government firms to small education NGOs.

The reason Nova (and Kay and Sam) are my Friday Shoutout is that I am so so lucky to have a work environment and colleagues like these. Here are just some of the things that make it so special:

Complete flexibility: we get to our work wherever and whenever we want. It could be in a coffee shop on a Tuesday morning or at 3am on a Thursday
Understanding of mental health: within our little team of three, we communicate openly about mental health issues. And there is a lot of space that’s allowed when things aren’t going so well
Lots of responsibility: at Nova we get work that is challenging and given significant amounts of responsibility. We’ve been given the chance to present at big meetings and hold important interviews.
Great learning: because we get given lots of responsibility, we’re able to learn a significant amount on a day to day basis.
Great pay: speaks for itself 😉
Wonderful chats and lunches: our discussions range from politics to economics, genetics to green industrial policy. And every lunch is spent in full conversation.
Awesome projects: I’ve worked on three projects so far. The first for a listed company in manufacturing. Then for a government agency doing work on beef genomics. And most recently for the provincial government on a green economic development project.

I’ve loved the work I’ve done with Nova. And my colleagues, Kay and Sam have been incredible.

So a shoutout to the team, thanks for being so awesome!

Image was taken at our work lunch on a wine estate in Stellies 🙂

Blog: 256/365

Song of the day: Zedd and Elley Duhe – Happy Now

Published by rspazzoli on July 22, 2018 | Permalink

Marathon Training Begins!

So… I signed up for the Cape Town Marathon again.

Despite looking like this at the end of the last one:

I think that the reason I’ve done it is that I really enjoy having a goal to work towards. It motivates me to get out there and train even if I don’t want to.

Last year’s marathon destroyed me. I cried at the finish line.

But I was also in a terrible space emotionally. I had struggled to get myself to train. And it was before I had started seeing my therapist and psychiatrist.

So I’m going to do it again this year, and do it even better. I’m aiming to train 4 times a week, and include the details of the training at the end of the blog.

The route this year is also much better, so I’m excited to run it 🙂

My Goal

My time last year was a decent 4hrs 55min.

But this year I want to do it in under 4hr 30min

And I know I’ll do it.

74 days to go… Let the countdown begin

Image was taken while running down Long Street 🙂

Song of the day: Dig Down – Muse (check this video out, it’s really great)

Blog: 244/365

Training update : Light 6.6km to the prom and back 🙂 7.18/km but stopped to chat to Holly (TR1)

Published by rspazzoli on July 9, 2018 | Permalink

Captured

This afternoon I sat at “Miradouro de Santa Luzia”, which is a beautiful plaza that overlooks Lisbon and the river. I found a shady patch and let myself soak up the view. And I managed to get some “people watching” in.

I noticed that most people would arrive at the viewpoint, look briefly and then whip out their phones and snap pics… of the view, their travel buddies and themselves.

And then they would rapidly move on.

I recon that most people didn´t spend more than 15seconds looking at the view, despite being there for around 5min on average.

And those pictures will look nice, but you can probably get better ones off google anyway

I´ve noticed this at concerts too. People will spend entire songs watching the concert through their screens.

And those videos will probably never be watched

Capturing the moment

I love taking pictures… they capture a moment that you can remenisce over later.

The problem is if you spend the time only taking photos, you don´t actually get to be in that moment at all.

What I like to do is take one or two pictures, usually with me in them. And then I´ll put my phone away and sit in the moment.

Experience it

Be mindful of it

So by all means, we can capture the moments on our phone

But try not to let your phones capture you.

Image was taken at Miradouro de Santa Luzia 🙂 pretty isn´t it?

Blog: 241 /365

Song of the day: Where is the love – Black Eyed Peas

Published by rspazzoli on July 7, 2018 | Permalink

The Friday Shoutout: Bookdash

Today’s Friday Shoutout goes to Bookdash, one of my favourite social organisations. Bookdash brings together creatives from across the country to write, design and illustrate culturally relevant, open source, African story books for children. (*see the picture description at the bottom of this post for my favourite Bookdash book)

Their website describes them as follows:

Children in South Africa need more books, but they cost too much purchased from publishers. The cheapest books have no publisher – then the only cost is printing. So our participants do the work of publishers in a single day. After that, anyone can get print runs sponsored and put finished books into the hands of children.

We believe every child should own a hundred books by the age of five. In South Africa, that means giving 600 million free books to children who could never afford to buy them. Every day we lose, more children grow up unable to read and write well, and to enjoy the worlds that books open up.

Their books are distributed are developed in 12 hour sprints (known as a bookdash) and then published on their app, website and printed for distribution. They’ve been able to distribute hundreds of thousands across the country in just the two or three years they’ve been around. And they have over 100 titles available.

A close friend of mine, Julia, runs Bookdash (almost singlehandedly) and has done the most phenomenal job. She’s too humble to ever take credit for it, but thanks to her this organisation has become a major game changer for child literacy in South Africa.

If you’d like to check out or support Bookdash, you can do so in the following ways:

Donate to them directly
Sign up for the Woolworths MySchool program and add them as a beneficiary
Join a Bookdash or their mailing list here
Find them on Facebook or Twitter

Keep up the great work Julia and Team 🙂

Image was taken off the Bookdash Facebook page. I was going to use their logo but then saw this pic. Specifically, the child at the back, in front of the lady with the stripey red jersey, is holding my favourite Bookdash book. It’s called “My Dream in the Drawer” and I had exactly the same reaction as the child when I read the book for the first time 🙂

Blog: 221/365

Song of the day: Came here for love – Sigala

Published by rspazzoli on June 15, 2018 | Permalink

Stifling Bureaucracy

I hate bureaucracy.

And many other people do too.

It results in situations like the one I experienced today.

But where did it come from? And why do we just accept it?

The Rise of Scientific Management

During the industrial revolution, the world witnessed machines take the place of manual work. Where there once once a horse drawn cart, there was the steam train. Where there had been hand weaving, the spinning jenny took its place.

People began applying scientific process to improve almost any set of processes. And this permeated into the processes of organisations. Hierarchical and scientific management was born.

This type of management was often called Taylorism, named after one of the early writers on management, Fredrick Taylor. The basic principle was to run organisations like machines. Design them with structure , make the parts (i.e. people) work to their maximum, give them as little inputs as possible and replace parts when they get worn out.

This worked…. depending on who you ask.

Henry Ford adopted this technique. Every person on his assembly line had one job that would take between 30 and 60 seconds. They could be trained on the same day they were hired. And they were only tasked with doing that single job.

And Ford was lauded for their productivity. BUT… they also had a staff turnover rate of between 3 and 5. That meant that, effectively, the entire production plant was replaced every 2-4 months.

People saw that Taylorism worked to increase productivity. And so it spread like wildfire

Same tool, different challenges

The problem is that Taylorism works in a very specific setting. It requires a fairly routine set of tasks, with consistent inputs and outputs as well as an ability to replace the components when needed.

So this hierarchical approach might work for some things nowadays. Maybe some factories have high labour input. Accounting and law firms use a similar process with their interns.

But the reality is that even in places where this system currently applies, it is rapidly fading. Manufacturing jobs are falling away to machines, accounting and law are both becoming more automated, meaning that people themselves need to be more differentiated.

So basically, this method doesn’t work in any role that values creativity, individualism, self-motivation, autonomy, strategic thinking, critical analysis etc. The parts are no longer as interchangeable. You can’t be innovative on a production line when you only do one tiny task.

Yet, the same Taylorist approach to managing organisations is applied from top to bottom.

Epilogue

No room to move

(NB: this is a bit of a rant, so brace yourself)

(more…)

Published by rspazzoli on June 12, 2018 | Permalink

6 years, 1 year

Today I got a notification from WordPress that I’d been on the platform for 6 years. I remember setting up my first blog in my second year, just after exams. I had so much I wanted to write but never got to doing it

And yesterday I got a notification from my internet provider that my website (rowanspazzoli.com) is 1 years old. I kept it hidden from the world for 5 months. I was so scared people would judge.

But here I am. I’ve started consistently writing, which I set out to do 6 years ago. And my momentum keeps pushing me past the worry of judgement.

And I keep on going, one blog in front of the other.

Image was from some research I was doing today. Definitely my favourite tag line ever.

Blog: 217/365

Song of the day: Blur – Song 2

Published by rspazzoli on June 11, 2018 | Permalink

Searching for adventure

In just over a week, Jared and I will be leaving on an incredible adventure. We’ve visiting Portugal, with 4 nights in Lisbon and 3 nights in Faro. Depending on whether the planning works out, we may do 3 nights in Ibiza too (yes, we’re going to Ibiza XD).

We’ve been on so many different sites looking for accommodation, flights and other arrangements. Tonight we successfully booked our Lisbon backpackers, but we often come out empty handed.

But part of the joy of the trip comes in the planning. Imagining it, thinking about it, exploring the various options. You get a taste of what’s to come, and get to get excited about it as you search.

I’ll post more updates closer to the time. I cannot wait for this adventure 🙂

Image was taken…. on the prom…. I think you know this by now 😀

Blog: 216/365

Song of the day: Flaws – Bastille

Published by rspazzoli on June 10, 2018 | Permalink

The Friday Shoutout: Pineapple

Warning: this is a blog about an amazing experience with an insurance company🍍. I know that sounds weird, but bear with me. You’re about to be blown away

On Tuesday this week my phone fell off the table and the screen smashed. It looked like this:

Not such a happy looking phone. I took it down to the WeFix at the Waterfront at about 1pm and they had it fixed by 4pm. And the replacement cost was R750

When I got home, I opened up my Pineapple app. And within 15min I had already been paid my insurance claim. It blew my mind.

What’s a Pineapple?

So for context, Pineapple is a tech startup that’s aimed at disrupting the insurance industry. I’ve been following them online for about a year, but got much closer to the team when my brother joined the company as a programmer last month. And a friend of mine, Sizwe, is also working there.

Pineapple’s story goes like this:

The Pineapple founding team (Matthew Elan Smith, Ndabenhle Junior Ngulube and Marnus van Heerden) got together as part of an innovation competition run by Hannover-Re, during 2016, in an effort to find disruptive models to the reinsurance/insurance space. The competition ran for 6 months and it was out of our little innovation spot in Rosebank, Johannesburg where the Pineapple story begins.

They set out to reinvent the way insurance is done with an entirely new business model that aims to achieve affinity, fairness and simplicity to decrease costs, cap profits and deter fraud in an effort to create more value from an insurance policy than the traditional model.

(For more of the story, visit the Pineapple site)

So they’ve recently started doing demos of their app and I’ve been fortunate enough to be one of the testers. And it has been awesome.

To set up insurance on any item (I’ve insured my headphones, iPad and iPhone), all you do is take a picture of it and state the insured amount. The app detects what kind of device it is, gives you an insurance quote and then BAM… you’re covered.

And the insurance claim process was just as simple. I uploaded a picture of my phone on the app, sent a voice note to describe what happened, ticked a few boxes and next thing I’d been paid out.

The entire process of setting up my insurance was nearly instant. And my claim was paid out in 15min without having to sit on the phone once.

#FirstClaimSwag

I also now hold the title of first claimant on the Pineapple system. Which is like being the best clumsy kid. It’s a title I hold with pride.

I don’t think I’ve ever said this, but I really really love my insurance. And this team are going to completely revolutionize the industry.

The app is set to launch in the next few months, and I’ll be sure to write a blog about it when it does. For now, you can follow them on social media (Facebook, Instagram)

Thanks again to Pineapple, you’re all so awesome 🍍

#Number1Fan

Image is of the team, taken on my brother’s first day 🙂

Song of the day: Freedom - Akon

Blog: 214/365. Read more about my #365of25 journey here

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Published by rspazzoli on June 8, 2018 | Permalink