For our future sons and datas.

I recently had the privilege of visiting the 52^nd floor of one of Africa’s tallest buildings – The Ponte. Standing 173 meters above ground, beneath the red glow of Vodacom’s crowning pledge to keep me connected, I couldn’t tear my eyes from the expanse before me. Studying the cityscape made me wonder about it’s parts, the apart’s and the apartments we’re all living in.

South Africa is ranked as the fifth largest mobile market in the world, making us Africa’s leaders in digital technology and social networking. It seems we’re all suckling on the giant tweets of the digital age – a mothership of information relentlessly spawning new media and devices designed to transform and enhance our daily acts of communication. Why is it then, that in a country renowned for its “connectivity” we’re still so disconnected from our national community? In our efforts to embrace diversity, we instead find ourselves clawing through the thickets of Diaspora, quasi culturists and tribal imperialists in search of solidarity.

The Rainbow Nation is a widely celebrated description of South African identity but it’s also a good description of its rarity. Our disconnection from man and country is painfully evident from the recent taunts of violence ravaging our fragile society. South Africans are in need of a pick-me-up and after receiving a phone call from the top of Ponte; I was reminded that people gravitate towards that “buzz” - that thing that makes people talk. What if the pick-me-up or solution to our disparity is currently vibrating right in the palm of our hands?

All modern forms of business, research and social strategy are designed around the precepts of digital communication and it’s focus on User experience.  Good UX design is responsive and interactive so that it enables you to access and view content wherever and on whatever digital device you use.

See, your popularity or brand exposure feeds off the efficiency and generosity of your online presence. It’s about how much you share, contribute and communicate with everyone in cyberspace.

The Stanford encyclopedia suggests the digital age is a form of higher evolution, a new path of social, cultural and political development based on the building wealth of online information. This evolution is not so much about survival of the fittest but rather survival of the fastest…internet connection.

The growth of your digital body is based on the speed at which you connect and the generosity of information you’re willing to share with the online community. The strength of our digital body depends upon how comfy our digital shoes are, how they make us feel, make us look and how they carry us well into the future by leaving behind digital footprints that are immortal.

At no other time in history has society been so blatantly confronted by the duality of our existence. Homo sapiens have entered a new age – a new irony age – where we expect to find our tools of development scattered across the vast shadowy plains of cyberspace.

Digital technology gives life to our existence through interaction. In other words, in the digital age, I am because we are….

Sound familiar?

“I am what I am because of who we all are” – that’s what the centuries old African philosophy known as Ubuntu believes.

Desmond Tutu sums it up well:

“Ubuntu is the essence of being human. Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can't exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness. You can't be human all by yourself, and when you have this quality – Ubuntu – you are known for your generosity. We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole World. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity.”

With regard to our national disconnectedness, perhaps this generosity, this “higher evolution”, this pervasive reliance on the digital realm, is just the inevitable return to Africa, to Ubuntu - to the cradle of humankind – to the DNA of real community. If this is true, it means South Africa has the potential to redefine human solidarity, which in the Digital Age is suitably ironic because the only thing this country seems to know about itself is its dangling presence off the bottom of Africa.

With Ubuntu in mind, here are two ways we can use digital technology to help us become better connected South Africans:

Be responsive:

You are always connected to someone somewhere who requires a response. It is your response- ability that determines the strength of your connectivity. The better you respond to your environment the better your community.

Be interactive:

We cannot exist alone. Our digital and social interconnectedness demands generous acts of communication in order for our online identity to survive and grow.

So next time you’re stuck staring out the window of your apartment at the hundreds of other apartments and their faceless occupants, try remember that your identity is mobile, it’s fluid and it’s connected to a community begging for your response ability – so stop staring, start sharing and get talking.