Flow Communications is proud to announce its new partnership with Matsamo Global Investment Holdings, which has bought a 30% stake in the business.
Flow’s founding directors, Tara Turkington and Tiffany Turkington-Palmer, say the main reason Bheki Shongwe, chairman of Matsamo, clinched the partnership deal was because his personal and business philosophies were aligned with theirs.
Celebrating the partnership, Turkington-Palmer said: “Despite Bheki’s long and glorious list of accolades and positions, he’s a really nice person. About a year ago, Bheki said to us that he only does business with people that he likes - we are proud that he likes us, and we like him back - we have since adopted his philosophy as one of Flow’s important business philosophies.”
Shongwe has a mile-long list of qualifications and has held positions in blue chip companies such as South African Breweries, Sun International, Shell Oil South Africa, Sanlam and Transnet-Autonet.
Shongwe was also strategic executive director, divisional CEO of Sport and Ster Kinekor in the Primedia Group, and has considerable knowledge of the South African media and communications environment.
Says Turkington-Palmer: “Bheki has had a long career in the services sector, particularly media and logistics. He has been involved in the media industry since 1998, both in executive and non-executive roles. This gave him an edge over the other business suitors.”
Says Shongwe: “I was introduced to Flow when the business did branding work for Matsamo. The quality of the work Flow produced within a short period of time with an amazing sense of client care, planted a ‘love seed’ for the company and its team. Matsamo’s investment approach and philosophy is based on building long-term warm and constructive partnerships with the companies it invests in. I figured that if Matsamo invested in Flow, it would be a partnership made in heaven, as they say.”
“Matsamo” means ‘capacity’ in siSwati, and therefore growing people’s skills capacity and ultimately shareholder value, whilst having fun doing it, is the future strength of the Flow-Matsamo partnership.
Continues Shongwe, “The saying goes, ‘The future belongs to those who work hard, play hard and stay focused on the beauty of their dreams.’ The future is Flow Communications!”
May 9th, 2008
Flow Communications recently designed and handed over new websites to two of its clients, All About Love and the Ubuntu Institute.
All About Love is a romantic writing website whose aim is to nurture writers and share stories, advice and experiences about love and relationships and how to write about them.
The Ubuntu Institute is quite different: this is an international non-profit organisation that aims to empower young people all over the world to be agents of change, and engages them in governance and policy-making. It was founded by Prince Cedza Dlamini, an advocate for the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals, in Boston, Massachusetts, in 2005.
Flow journalist and web designer Kate Thompson, who worked on the Ubuntu Institute site, says: “This was an interesting website to create. They do such important work and I enjoyed feeling like I was contributing towards that. It was also challenging, as the site needs to cater to a more international audience.”
Flow media developer Richard Frank, who worked on All About Love, describes this website as three in one. “It’s a blog, an e-commerce site and an e-learning platform. Our challenge was to take these three very different technologies and present them in a consistent way.
“We believe the website branding and design reflects the joy of fiction writing,” he adds.
May 7th, 2008
Flow grows once again with the appointment of Ernesto (“Ernie”) Joseph, a graphic designer. Born and bred in Brackenfell, Cape Town, Ernie has a National Diploma in Graphic Design from the Cape Peninsula University of Technology.
He previously worked as a graphic designer at Design Logic, Advanced Design Group and M&B Design House. Ernie has excellent skills in Photoshop, photography, illustration, freehand drawing, conceptual design, and a strong print design background.
Flow welcomes Ernie into the family.
May 5th, 2008
Flow Communications has grown its relationship with the British Council in Africa by signing a contract to produce news stories for its website: www.britishcouncil.org/africa. Several news stories have already been published, and cover British Council events in countries such as Botswana, Tanzania, South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.
The British Council is an organisation which engenders cultural relations and promotes educational opportunities in the United Kingdom globally. Apart from assisting individuals who would like to work or study in the UK, the British Council also runs several arts, science and leadership initiatives. It operates in 109 countries worldwide, including 23 in Africa.
Flow is also involved in helping the British Council in Africa with website content development and information management.
Flow journalist Jackie Bischof says the relationship between British Council and Flow Communications is an exciting one. “The British Council runs the most amazing projects and initiatives, but this wasn’t reflected on their website to a large extent. Flow will be researching the stories, contacting the Africa offices and writing about the projects. In this way, the website can reflect the personality of the British Council, and the type of work it does in Africa,” she says.
“I love writing for the British Council because you get to interact with people from all walks of life, people who are making a difference in their communities,the African continent and globally, says Miliswa Sitshwele, another Flow journalist.
Kate Thompson also a Flow journalist, says, “Working on British Council news is exciting. You get to write positive, interesting stories about real people and the good that is happening in Africa today.”
Read some of the stories Flow has written so far on the British Council’s climate security strategy for Africa, the Power in the Voice campaign and the Global Xchange volunteer programme in the website’s News in Africa Section.
April 24th, 2008
One of the services Flow Communications offers clients is creating good-looking electronic newsletters and monitoring their impact.
By combining the talents of our graphic designers and the functionality of an internet-based mailing package, Flow creates unique and fully customisable newsletters to distribute to a mailing database.
The mailing package then provides data which Flow compiles into a comprehensive report. The report allows clients to gauge the success of their email campaign, by seeing the percentage of opened emails, the number of bounced emails, people who unsubscribed from the mailing list, and so on.
Clients who have already used this service include Clico Guesthouse, Earth-Touch.com, and FX Africa.
April 17th, 2008
Two Flow Communications staff members represented our nominated blogs at the 2008 SA Blog Awards in Cape Town last week.
Kate Thompson, who has worked extensively on the Earth-Touch blog (nominated for Best SA Podcast,
Best Green Blog, and Best Group Blog), went as a representative of our client, Earth-Touch.
Jackie Bischof, whose personal blog was nominated (for Best Original Writing on a South African Blog, Best New Blog, Best Undiscovered Blog and Best South African Personal Blog), attended in a personal capacity and as a Flow staff member.
Unfortunately, neither claimed any awards on the night, but did rank highly as runners up across the categories, and had the invaluable opportunity to meet many people in the New Media industry in South Africa.
April 8th, 2008
Flow designer Lorraine Gumede recently co-ordinated the production of an apron for the Soweto Cardiovascular Research Unit (Socru), which runs healthy-cooking classes for people affected by heart disease.
Socru dietician, Sandra Pretorius, says the idea for the aprons came about when they started having cooking demonstrations for people living with this disease at the unit. “We thought it would be nice for everyone involved to have aprons during this demonstration,” says Pretorius. The unit requires people to wear aprons at the monthly cooking demonstrations, which show how to make dietary requirements more practical.
Pretorius says the aprons form part of a self-management programme Socru has launched. This programme includes the cooking demonstration and the “Living with heart failure in Soweto” booklet that Flow designed and printed for Socru recently. “We also give lectures and exercise tips to help patients cope with heart failure,” she says.
“I’ve worn mine and it’s very nice, people are impressed with it,” she adds.
Socru is based at Chris Baragwanath Hospital and its aim is to co-ordinate research into cardiovascular disease in Soweto, South Africa, and promote research collaboration. To learn more about its projects visit the Socru website, which was one of Flow’s very first web design projects.
April 7th, 2008
This morning Earth-Touch, one of Flow Communication’s clients, launched its first ever TV offering, a wildlife programme called Wild-Touch, on South African television station SABC2.
The programme will air Monday to Friday at 10.30am, and strives to bring viewers beautiful footage of wildlife in its natural environment in Southern Africa and around the world, within 48 hours of it being filmed.
Flow Communications has been involved in the creation of the programme, in both script development and research. In fact, two Flow staff members (Itumeleng Makgobathe and Christine Marot) are permanently based in Earth-Touch headquarters in Durban, South Africa.
The programme went live after SABC2’s morning news programme, Morning Live, broadcast live from the Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Game Reserve in KwaZulu-Natal, in honour of the launch. World-renowned conservationist, Dr Ian Player, who was a guest on the show, said of Wild-Touch, “This is one of the most important programmes the SABC will ever do.” Player said the programme would help to inspire people to visit national parks and to preserve their natural heritage.
The footage is derived largely from the wildlife footage that the Earth-Touch film crews send in to us daily. This morning’s show featured buffalo in Botswana, geometric and honeycomb moray eels, clownfish and anemones in the Indian Ocean, chacma baboons in Hluhluwe-Imfolozi, and a tarantula spider in Ecuador, South America, among other species.
Flow staff watching Wild-Touch live on SABC2
April 7th, 2008
The Soweto Cardiovascular Research Unit (Socru), based at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital, co-ordinates a range of research into cardiovascular disease in Soweto, South Africa, and promotes research collaboration in this area.
Socru has just published a booklet, Living with heart failure in Soweto, a guide to living positively with heart failure, which Flow Communications designed and printed. Flow also contributed to the writing of the booklet.
The unit works hand-in-hand with the Cardiac Department at the hospital, researching heart disease in patients that visit the hospital’s Cardiac Clinic. The clinic sees approximately 9000 patients per year.
April 4th, 2008
One of the sites we maintain and produce content for, the Earth-Touch blog, has been nominated in three categories of the South African Blog Awards 2008 – best SA podcast, best group blog and best green blog.
Please check out the site and consider voting for us. There are just two days left for you to vote.
Click on the Vote button above or go directly to the voting page.
March 17th, 2008
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