27 Dinner

by Sarah Manners

So, it is with a mild ache situated directly behind my left eye, that I sit down to write this post about last night’s 27Dinner (yes, yes – I deviated from my no drinking on a school night policy *gasp*).

After managing to lose Heidi (who was following me) and then chastising myself for not putting everyone at the office’s number into my mobile, I eventually got to Relish. First priority a cold one, second priority, check out that view – proof that Cape Town in fact does not suck ;-)

After a bit of mingling Dave kicked off the evening with saying we were all there to “spark a conversation”, which I thought was quite fitting a day after the WebPR+ “Reviving the Conversation” conference. I’m not going to go into too much detail of who said what to who and how much wine they had consumed before doing so as the guys from Missing Link spent a fair bit of time filming for the podcasts. We’ll let you know when they’re on the scene. Quirk also had Daniel -film guru, resident Quirk cameraman and my baby brother- Manners come out and film the event. I think Dave’s the off the cuff interviews will be pretty interesting. We’ll keep you updated as to when the video will be available.

Graham Knox, the first speaker, talked about how a tiny wine farm in Wellington (Stormhoek) evolved into a multinational brand which won the 2006 Drinks business awards for the best consumer campaign and was voted as one of AdAge.com’s annual "Marketing 50" winners in 2006. With no marketing budget Stormhoek has experienced a five-fold increase in sales in less than two years by tapping into the blogosphere. Phenomenal stuff!

Rob was stoked (ha, ha) to be awarded one of the Stormhoek “High Class Hoeker” tees, he won this for what… I’m not sure and Stefano won the “cocky shit” award for his remarks on the WebPR+ conference.

Verity, the awesome South African artist and out of the box thinker was the highlight of the evening for most people. Verity, who started the Lucky Packet Project in order to raise the recording costs of her first album, has experienced a fair bit of success over the last few months. Now I wouldn’t normally say this but… leave GottaQuirk immediately – go to iamverity and pay your R150 to the cause (you’ll get the cd once it’s recorded). Not only does 10.6% of the money raised go to two excellent projects, POWA and the Live your dreams foundation, the rest of it goes towards getting this home grown talent. I became a future owner last night and got a demo album – damn Gina – she’s shit hot! Buy it, Buy it now!

Mike Stopforth (Cerebra), Shelly Levin (Traffic Synergy), Angus Robinson (Itouch) and Guy Lundy (on why Cape Town doesn’t suck) also spoke but I’ll let you catch the podcasts to find out more.

The QuirkStars would like to thank everyone who helped make last night the tremendous success that it was! You guys ROCK!
I see the wiki for the next one’s already up - 27-4 Cape Town 27th April 2007. Make sure to get in early to avoid disappointment.

P.s. Today is the last day to submit your logos for the SA Blog Awards logo design competition, so if you want to win the Apple TV get them to me by the end of the day. Check out the designs here.

2007/02/28 | permalink | comments (3) | trackbacks (0)

  Bookmark this on ... BlinkBits BlinkList Blogmarks Buddymarks CiteUlike Connotea del.icio.us Digg it FeedMarker feedmelinks Furl Give a Link Gravee igooi Lilisto Linkagogo Linkroll ma.gnolia Maple.nu Netvouz Onlywire RawSugar reddit Scuttle Shadows Simpy Sphinn Spurl tagtooga TalkDigger Wink Yahoo MyWeb