Noordhoek south of Cape Town has a new website! Bianca Gubalke publishes her Noordhoek blog on YORGOO Media, profiting from the features available for community building. The Atahualpa Theme is a nice solution for the site and Bianca’s configuration results in a sober, attractive and professional site.

Let’s see what YORGOO Media can do for a community such as Noordhoek.

Noordhoek

Located at the foot of Chapman’s Peak Noordhoek and the Noordhoek Valley is one of the preferred destinations around Cape Town. Rural atmosphere, the famous beach, charming accommodation make it an ideal place to go.

I am sure Bianca will share with us what life in Noordhoek is all about.

Noordhoek Image

Click the image to see live size.

Noordhoek on Google

Checking out Noordhoek on Google I notice about just tourism related websites, an insignificant Wiki entry and a Real Estate site. It’s time for a publication by, about and for people from Noordhoek.

Working from home with YORGOO Media 

Noordhoek 

The YORGOO Media platform is an ideal place for communities to build an online network. First because the sites are tuned for high visibility, they are easy and quick to set up and best of all: they are FREE. Second because the personal sites are linked through the BuddyPress module which allows for the creation of a real social network. Setting up a Group called Noordhoek is a matter of 3 seconds. Inviting people from Noordhoek to join is an easy task – it’s enough to make it known that the facility exists.

Noordhoek Online Business

Let’s think about it:

You would like to launch a local online business but you don’t want to bother with technicalities, hosting, scripts and other distracting stuff. You neither want to spend a lot of money to start with, but you want to offer a real service to the community which can be financed by local and external advertisers.

Here is my plan:

1. Grab all Google top 10 positions on “Noordhoek” with Noordhoek related sub-domains on YORGOO Media plus use your own sites to get there as well. The point is: all these tourism and real estate sites need to buy advertising space either from you or from Google.

Examples:

noordhoek-realestate.yorgoomedia.com

noordhoek-tourism.yorgoomedia.com

noordhoek-accommodation.yorgoomedia.com

noordhoek-horsebackriding.yorgoomedia.com

2. Offer free websites to the whole population of Noordhoek and show them how they can use the social network as well as the blog.

3. Get a license from YORGOO Media to load a few themes for the users from Noordhoek; build local ads straight into these themes and adapt them as need arises. Make sure that on every site there is community news.

4. Get local contributors for the Noordhoek main site to make it THE authority site.

The nice thing about the plan: the population of Noordhoek shapes the online profile and image of their town instead of people from outside. This is all in line with our philosophy about: get in control of your name and brand. Why should Noodhoek not be master of its own destiny? Why should Noordhoek just remain in the hands of big brother Google and some smart agencies in Cape Town making the money on the brand name Noordhoek?

Hey guys and gals from Noordhoek: let’s bring the cash back home and let’s shape the Noordhoek Online Image together. YORGOO Media is ready to help and to support the project.

Working women

Kirby Cross, 29 April 2009 – by Zo Nicholas

Today is Equal Pay Day!

“..Today is Equal Pay Day, designated every April on a Tuesday as a reminder that Tuesday is the day on which women’s wages catch up to men’s wages from the preceding week. On average, female workers have to put in more than six days of paid work to earn what men earn in five.

Among those who usually worked full time during the first quarter of 2009, women’s median weekly earnings were 79 percent those of men. That implies that the catch-up clock for them rings at about 10:38 a.m. on Tuesdays (assuming a standard five-day week and eight-hour day starting at 8 a.m.)….” By Nancy Folbre
Women have come a long way to achieve equality with men but are not quite there yet.

Working from home

While browsing looking for some information I came across another interesting article, one from Learn direct, which draws attention to the fact that working women are very much on the increase, women want to work, and that working from home for women is certainly becoming more common place.

With all the technological advances it is no longer necessary for women in the IT industry to physically go to work as their IT jobs can be done remotely from home. When trying to juggle family commitments this is certainly an ideal situation as so much time is wasted in unneccessary travel, traffic jams, time that could be used better. Working away from home also incurs added costs to the family budget.

Training courses and Seminars

There are many courses available that encourage individuals to work from home with IT. Courses are not neccessarily expensive and most can be done at home at your own speed. They may also lead to higher qualifications which of course raise employment prospects and income. Employers are also encouraged to take a look at expanding their business by taking it online and exploring the numerous possibilities available to them to utilise women who wish to work from home.

Even starting your own business from home, or taking our home business online is not such a daunting affair. There are many opportunities to join courses and trainings online like Ycademy trainings and Seminars, that will teach you the basics aspects of running your own business, about ecommerce and marketing your business online. There has never been a better time to consider working for yourself online.

“..There will be 24.9 million new online shoppers by the end of the decade, accounting for 49% of the adult population.”
“..By 2012 online sales will be worth in excess of £60 billion per annum and represent almost 20% of all retail sales.
** Source: Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG), 2005

Take Brenda Baker from New Zealand, for example, a hard working from home mum with a large family, who learned how to take her home freesia growing business online and expand her market locally. There are many businesses like Brenda’s which could benefit from added exposure online. In todays economic climate one has to learn to expand and diversify to survive.

Zo Nicholas