Changing the world one Tuesday at a time

I will remember today for the rest of my life. As I sit here 30 000ft above the Northern African desert, cocooned in the metal and plastic of an Alitalia 747, I know that I will never be the same again. Maybe it`s a culmination of small things; maybe it`s a chain of events that have lead me to this... I`m not sure of the exact rhyme or reason, but I know that I`m a different person returning to my native shores than left here in a rush on Friday night.

I suppose you could see this with the religious undertone of being reborn. It`s not that I didn`t believe before, its just that now I believe with every bone in my body. Reborn may be too serious an analogy, but it gets the message across.

First Tuesday is really a cocktail party on steroids.

Michael Wright, MD, E-mail Corporation

You can believe something, you can know it to be true, you can live it, preach it and evangelise... but when you immerse yourself in it, drink it, drown in it and come out energised beyond understanding - that`s when you know it`s something special.

That`s when you have more that an unshakable belief, you just know. You know that what you`ve been doing has been the right thing. That the puzzled looks and raised eyebrows can be put to rest... and that you can see the future.

Sound altogether a bit too weird? Like I may have had some chemicals assisting lateral thought, that the evangelist has bought his own rhetoric? Wondering about what this is all about?

Well, I`ve just spent the last 72 hours immersed in the new economy, the wired world, the Internet. I`m not talking about being "online" for 72 hours, I`m talking about a physical Internet networking organisation, I`m talking about a group of Internet people; I`m talking about FirstTuesday.com.

If I look at how I got involved in First Tuesday it would easily be akin to a religious organisation or one of those brainwashing cults. Right now I can`t think of anything else; I flew half way across the world on my own budget, to meet with other people hitherto unknown and to talk about a fledgling organisation. I`m flying back home to spread the message, recruit people to our ranks and start satellite outposts in the other major cities of Southern Africa.

I`m out to change the world one Tuesday at a time.

I`m not going to be dropping my day job. In fact, First Tuesday is all about making the connections that help a day job. The other people I met were bankers, lawyers, accountants, entrepreneurs... and all sucked in by the Internet and the promise it brings.

First Tuesday is really a cocktail party on steroids. It`s a physical matching event which brings together bankers, venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and Net service providers.

It`s the energy that heats the wafer that lets the silicon flow. From London to Budapest, Sydney to Johannesburg, it`s going to change the world... one Tuesday at a time.

On closer analysis, First Tuesday is not the base reason for my catharsis. I`ve been an Internet crusader for a while. In fact, in Internet years, I`m an old-timer. But this weekend was an immersion.

I booked my ticket via e-mail and my accommodation on the Web. My virtual travel agent persuaded the Dutch embassy to accept a printed e-mail confirmation as proof for my visa. We met in the "Theatrum Atonomicum" in Amsterdam in which 18th century post-mortems were publicly performed. Next to a 150-year-old wall hanging was an Ethernet CAT 5 data point connected to a 10MB optic fibre cable into the Internet.

Maybe part of this out-pouring is due to a lack of sleep, of being exposed to rampant Internet entrepreneurial ideas and people, of starting a global company in six months that will have representation in 100 cities by the end of the year... of going to a party organised by a guy in Budapest, sponsored by a company in America, attended by people who previously only knew each other as e-mail addresses. Of sitting in a randomly selected pub at 2am in the morning coming up with mind-blowing idea after idea only to have the only other people in the bar overhear us mention First Tuesday and come up to introduce themselves to us as converts (changing the world one Tuesday at a time).

I grabbed a copy of the World Street Journal Europe as I got on the plane. It`s just launched a new section called Networking Today; eight pages of Net news, venture capital, funding start-ups and new media. But that`s not all of it. I only found two pages of the rest of the 36 news pages that didn`t have a story about a new Web site, Web company, strategy or idea. Is it a blip on the screen? I think not. I think people are starting to get it... starting to see how a wired world will change everything.

There is not an industry left untouched by the Internet. A work associate of mine went across to New York to join a company called e-Steel. It`s building a business as a virtual clearinghouse for steel traders - a $750 billion industry worldwide. Its goal is 1% market share. Do the maths - still an astronomical amount, and steel is a long way away from bits and bytes.

You can be sure that the Internet will affect your business, whatever the industry, whatever the size, whether it is CRM, SCM or ERP, it`s going to be wired and its going to have a dotcom at the end of it.

So where does this leave you? SA has had its Internet success stories. There is no reason that the next one shouldn`t be you.

What should you do? Come along to a First Tuesday meeting - be forward, give your pitch, listen to what`s happening around you and when you can`t go through a single day without encountering a dotcom, Net, Web or e-mail address, convert - for you will have seen the light and been saved, one Tuesday at a time...