Charl Norman

I attended my first 27 Dinner amongst the Bentleys and gold diggers at Primi Melrose Arch last night and had an absolute blast. I rocked up quite early as I was anticipating bumper-2-bumper traffic coming from Sandton which was not the case. I cruised to the venue and walked into a half empty Primi with geeks scattered everywhere in their niche groups. Trying not to look totally lost I made my way to the bar and ordered my beer of choice, Millers. A few seconds later Ramon Thomas swooped on me (thank goodness - I knew someone) and we had a interesting chat about networking, seminars and hiring bloggers to write on your blogs.

Then suddenly the power went off - at first I thought Primi had a power trip but then realized we had been hit my Escum’s load shedding (log onto my site and complain). This resulted in me meeting the lovely Simone Puterman from Biz Com in the dark. We proceeded to walk outside for some light and bumped into Nic Haralambous - who link baited me a few weeks ago - and discovered he’s actually a rad guy. We had the fattest chat about blogging, social networking and SA broadband. Didn’t see that one coming.

At this point I had drank about five beers with Armand (he drinks like a fish) and Wezzo. A few minutes later the power came back on and we all grabbed our seats to get some chow and listen to the speakers. The first talk was by some dude from iMob (i think) talking about mobile technology with no presentation slides which ended up to be quite boring. Then next was Justin from Afrigator announcing their beta launch - tasty stuff. They’ve done a great job with the beta release which I’ve reviewed here.

At our table I was sitting next to Doug Vining from Blue Catalyst who was knocking back Storm Hoek wine like it was grape juice. Here’s a pic of our table:

From left - Doug, Simone - far right - Tyler (classic Tyler Bluesteel), Devon and Armand (rocking his Tech Crunch shirt)

More photies

Justin showing us the Afrigator beta interface

Myself (well tipsy) and Tyler looking gangster in our sponsored Cerebra gear

Two guys I’ve been wanting to meet forever - Vincent Maher (Bluesteel) and Mark Forrester

Armand

Justin Hartman and Nic Haralambous (SA Rocks and FM Campus)

Simone and Fulvia (Marketing Mix mag)

Other bloggers talking about the 27 Dinner

• Vincent Maher: Joburg 27 Dinner: Eskom, Afrigator, mussels, the tale of the long crack and waiting for cabs
• Paul Jacobson: Good to see everyone at the 27 Dinner
• Nic Haralambous: The Afrigator guys in one room
• Craig Nicholson: 27 dinner by candlelight
• Tyler Reed: 27 Dinner - Geeks Without Power
• Afrigator blog: Private Beta launched
• Mark Forrester: Jozi 27dinner
• Gregor Rohrig: Afrigator crack-whore
• Justin Hartman: 27dinner and Team Afrigator
• Deshanta’s (Who I also finally met) Flickr pics
• Simone: 27 Dinner, powered by Eskom
• Mike Stopforth: AfriBeta - Afrigator Steps It Up A Notch
• Stii: 27dinner - A room full of greatness and good times…

Recent Charl Norman dot com posts

• My Adsense earnings for the last month
• Startups article in Intelligence magazine
• My daily rss reads