The last two days we had a visitor in our office. Nadia Hamza, a student of TSiBA (The Tertiary School in Business Administration) which is a free-to-student tertiary level institution offering a Bachelor in Business Administration (BBA) programme, applied to come and shadow us and it was a pleasure to have had her here.

TSiBA’s website states that, “Applicants are drawn from impoverished communities and are selected as students upon proof of matriculation, completing a searching application form, attending a briefing session, passing a test for competency in Maths and English and displaying leadership ability during a rigorous interview.”

Nadia is in her first year, and I was impressed that even though we do get to meet and play with some pretty cool people, it wasn’t the music she was focused on. I think I would’ve been drooling all over my CD collection if she were me (damn that Multiple Character Disorder). Instead she was interested in what makes us tick, how we run our business, and about the manuals that Lenny created with Tracey Faulkes (Get Organised). She was into the business side of our business.

We have got students coming to visit us for the next three weeks, each one spending two days seeing how we do things. We aren’t the normal corporate (what’s normal? Sitting in an air-conditioned office with a tie on? Keep it!), and we do make sure that we enjoy what we do – but doing it in a professional way, and ending up with a happy client/happy artist/happy supplier.

Who cares that we sometimes swim when its hot? That we have rabbits and children and dogs that run around the garden, and occasionally through the office? Or that Didgeree the black cat sleeps on Denises desk, or has been known to knock a late-afternoon doppie over a keyboard? As long as the job gets done, and any problems along way, stay solved.

Getting students like Nadia to come and see that our business is what we made of it and that we can all build our dreams is important. That the effort and passion that we put into it, pays off; that to give back to the community is important; to love what you do, otherwise get out and do something else! We are entrepreneurs, but also just real people.

Nadia gave us a presentation in the afternoon, summarizing the meetings that she had with each of us, telling us about her take on how we do things, and how she saw us doing our ‘thang’. And it was good. She was nervous, but then we are a rowdy bunch.

Last night I put together a selection of clips of some of our artist for her to show her fellow classmates (not in a gloating kind of way; more like thumb-on-the-nose with fingers-waving-in-the-air kind of way), and I am sure she’s going to have a very cool little presentation after we edited it down today. And before dropping her off at the station we popped in at the Artscape Theatre to watch and film some scenes of the Embo Khonnexion performers that were having final run-through before tonight’s show – she’d never been there before, so it was doubly exciting. (That’s Dizu Plaatjies with Jasper)

Small things can have a lasting impact. I hope we gave Nadia something to take her forward, and that she will one day become the person she hopes to be – she’s already an asset to South Africa. She’s moving in the right direction.

UPDATE 080317: Nadia sent us a little note today, and she had this to say, “My presentation went, and wow it went so well with that piece you’ve made for me. I don’t know how to thank all of you for starting my year off so well. You will always hold a special place in my heart. Thank you.” It was out pleasure Nadia.