The Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture, hosted by one of Flow’s longest-standing clients, the Nelson Mandela Foundation (NMF), is an important event on the South African calendar – and on ours.
This year’s Annual Lecture, at the University of Johannesburg’s Soweto campus on Saturday 3 October, was no exception. In fact, it was bigger and better than ever, with NMF CEO Sello Hatang telling the 2 000-strong audience – many of whom had had to motivate in writing for their seat – that they were twice as many as at last year’s event.
The speaker for the 13th Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture was French economics professor Thomas Piketty, a man who’s frequently called the “rock star” of economics. Certainly, at 44 he’s the youngest-ever presenter of the Annual Lecture, and his 2013 tome, Capital in the 21st Century, is currently one of the hottest books in the economics space.
He was also a particularly relevant speaker in that he focuses on wealth and income inequality; it is well known that South Africa is the most economically unequal society in the world. Indeed, one of our country’s darkest moments – the Marikana massacre – features prominently in the first chapter of Piketty’s book.
Flow’s duties around the Annual Lecture encompass digital support for the NMF, creating solid, first-class content for its website and social media – and quickly. With a great deal of local and international focus on this event, it is critical for the NMF itself to present strong and timely Annual Lecture content on its own platforms.
So we put together a Flowstar Dream Team for the event: Stuart Dickinson, Richard Frank, Lee-Ann Collingridge, Daphney Mngomeni, Kolosa Vuso, Hayden Horner and myself. We were also very ably supported by other colleagues, including Thrishni Subramoney, Stephen Frank and our CEO, Tara Turkington.
Like all good ones, our plan for the Annual Lecture was simple, with everyone’s tasks clearly worked out beforehand, but also dynamic to deal with any unexpected turns of events.
So Lee-Ann and Hayden covered the content of Piketty’s address; Kolosa and Daphney worked on audience reflections; Tara (with assistance from Daphney) took over live tweeting during the lecture; Stuart, Richard, Stephen and Thrishni generated a verbatim, 14-page transcript of Piketty’s address; and I was the photographer and subeditor.
Like the proverbial well-oiled machine, the team quickly got going at the venue (but only after the sniffer dogs had been through it, of course), setting up our working space, checking where we were allowed – or not – and working out photographic angles and where we would buttonhole audience members for their comments.
VIP-spotting is always a rather fun game at the Annual Lecture, and this one was no different: we were constantly telling each other when we’d spotted another personage in the crowd, from musicians, academics and politicians to Mandela family members, struggle veterans and legal brains.
Piketty completed his address bang on time in 45 minutes, and then it was up to us to get all the content written, edited and curated, approved by the NMF and published on its website. And that’s where we sometimes hit snags, such as the one that bedevilled us this time: lousy connectivity. When you have lots of copy and images to upload on deadline, a good Internet connection is vital.
So after producing the copy and selecting our images, we decamped to the Flow offices in Dunkeld, where Stuart, Richard and Stephen had been transcribing Piketty’s address with assistance from Thrishni in Durban. By the time we settled down at the office, NMF communications and outreach director Neeran Naidoo had approved the copy and we set about uploading everything.
By 9pm, a little more than four hours after Piketty had concluded, it was all there: the main news article, the audience reflection article, Piketty’s speech and a 20-image photo gallery. Now we could afford to take our attention off the tasks at hand, and find out the score of the South Africa-Scotland crunch match at the Rugby World Cup ...
All told, everyone was happy with the coverage. Neeran, importantly, noted how quickly we’d turned things around, saying: “Thanks to Flow for all their work during the Annual Lecture, and for producing the stories and transcript in record time. Well done.”
Tara was also impressed, saying in an email to the team: “It was awesome to see the transcription and stories and pictures up so fast and done so professionally, and to see the official hashtag #PikettyinSA trending at number 1 in South Africa throughout the event.
“What a fabulous team effort it was. I am so proud to work with all of you.”
Here’s the NMF’s video of the entire Annual Lecture:
Stuart, who works closely with the NMF, spoke for the team when he said: “As always, it was a pleasure to cover the Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture. Flow was present with a full team of journalists, photographers and social media experts to help ensure the event was covered from all angles.
“Piketty’s talk was fascinating, and it gave us plenty to think about as we try to rectify the extreme levels of inequality in South Africa. We were proud to have been involved in this momentous dialogue.”
