editorial director, digital content strategist, journalist
Recently I spearheaded the launch of two new sites, the redesign of the Audacious Project website, and the first digital iteration of our annual report.
Collaborating on this project with the talented team at Whiteboard was such fun and it’s been a thrill to have a beautiful new home for the initiative to showcase stories about so many important issues I care about.
Check out Whiteboard’s case study on the project.
It’s been a busy few months at Girl Effect for me. I got promoted (yay me) and now lead content strategy across the organization. We also rolled out the first social campaign for the Nutrition International project and most exciting we launched my passion project for the last few months Big Sis, Girl Effect’s first ever chatbot!
Big Sis uses guided conversation to answer girls’ questions about sexual health. Girls are guided through entertaining, informative content with quizzes (you know I had to have quizzes), to test their knowledge on sex, sexuality, contraception, and relationships.
Learn more about the iterative User Centered Design process we employed to build Big Sis here.
We recently showcased our pioneering girl to experts at the Global Digital Health Forum in Washington DC. The forum is the leading networking event for global public and digital health experts from more than 100 countries.
Today, Girl Effect’s #Springster team showcased Big Sis – a chatbot answering girls’ questions about sexual health at the Global Digital Health Forum in Washington DC.
Learn more: https://t.co/dhX9Y2pbGc #GDHF2018 #DigitalHealth #ICT4D pic.twitter.com/buzajLk8Mx— Girl Effect (@girleffect) December 10, 2018
The secret to content that connects with girls? Listening to what they care about and creating platforms that move with them. I wrote this piece about how we at Girl Effect approach our content development process and the key to connecting with girls in authentic and impactful ways. Read more…
After 2 and half years as the digital content mama on Girl Effect Mobile (GEM) working with the amazing media non-profit Girl Effect, I’m excited to finally be able to reveal our new rebrand as global girls digital brand Springster!
We traveled to 5 countries to talk to girls about what they wanted from GEM and girls told us they wanted to be part of something, as well as support and celebrate each other. We listened and responded with Springster, a brand that aims to build a community-focused identity and attitude, celebrating the diverse, inspirational and convention-defying experiences of all girls.
The branding is beautiful and it was an amazing collaborating with the incredible team at Design Studio in London. But it’s not just our new illustrations (all done by an amazing female team we handpicked from almost every corner of the world) and fun UX that made this an amazing project for me, it was seeing how we’ve grown and evolved and learned with girls to bring them an even better version of our platforms. I have to give us all a pat on the back… we did good!
You can learn more about Springster in our factsheet
We hooked up with Youtube to create a ten-episode web series for Springster Indonesia!
The show adapted some of our most popular on-site content into a fun, conversational format covering everything from a takedown of catcalling culture to tips on preparing for job interviews, to a light-hearted deconstruction of harmful period myths.
The series was hosted by an inspiring group of young female influencers including actress and pop sensation Sheryl Sheinafia.
Thanks to our incredible Indonesian creative team Percolate Galatic we were able to secure some of Asia’s coolest creative talent including award-winning director and filmmaker Lucky Kuswandi, and we even scored a jingle by rising 18-year-old Indonesian singer-songwriter Heidi Nasution!
We wanted to adapt the successful Save the Children’s Skills to Success program curriculum into a fun mobile-friendly experience for girls.
Using User Centered Design we worked with girls to design a product and content that would help them save money and reach their financial goals.
Understanding the constraints of low-income girls for whom banks are inaccessible or untrusted, it made sense to create a personal money mentor. Dooit guides girls in setting financial goals and then helps them to track savings.
Plus, it wouldn’t be a Khwezi content strategy for girls without fun quizzes, and games. Dooit encourages and supports girls while helping them to shift behaviors and improve their financial literacy.
Under my editorship seventeen South Africa saw exciting growth and changes…this is the highlights package…
Awards
2010
WINNER: AdMag Award Best International Title: seventeen
SILVER: AdMag Award in the Youth Culture Category: seventeen
GOLD: AdMag Award Innovative Digital Publishing Category:
2009
WINNER: PICA Best Consumer Title International General Interest: seventeen
HIGHLY COMMENDED: PICA Consumer Publishing Excellence Online Solution: seventeen.co.za
HIGHLY COMMENDED: PICA Consumer Publishing Excellence Supplements: Deluxe in seventeen
2008
HIGHLY COMMENDED: PICA Best Consumer Title International General Interest: seventeen
Initiatives
17 Academy
In 2009 seventeen launched an innovative holiday internship programme, where a team of 12 readers is selected to guest-edit an issue of the magazine as part of the 17 Academy. This project was spearheaded by me to get girls real-world career experience while connecting with readers in an interactive way.
17 Academy gives readers a chance to co-edit an issue of seventeen working alongside editors in the fashion; features; and marketing departments, gaining invaluable job skills. This also allows seventeen a first-hand opportunity to interact with and learn more about its core target market.
Read about it straight from the girls on http://17intern.blogspot.com/
Camp 17
In 2010 seventeen launched Camp seventeen: the ULTIMATE SEVENTEEN EXPERIENCE
The 6-day camp was conceptualized by seventeen’s marketing team and myself as a fun learning and growth experience…the camp was sponsored by Lentheric Hoity Toity in association with Code Teen
Top Teen Achiever Awards
Launched in 2005 as a drive to highlight and reward the incredible accomplishments and contributions of the country’s teen girls, the competition has been hailed as one of the best youth initiatives of its time that focus on great role models whilst encouraging teen girls to look at success as more than just being top of your class, or how much money you earn. Read more here
During my time we also introduced some innovative brand extensions and editorial initiatives including:
seventeen dance
The first 17 Dance supplement, bagged as part of the July/August 2011 issue featured 50 pages of dance-specific articles including features to find the perfect dress, hairdo, makeup looks and more for the Matric dance.
Seventeen Cover Look
seventeen launched the Cover Look competition in 2009 where one lucky girl could win the chance to be on the cover of their favourite magazine. In year one the prize sponsor Maybelline cosmetics, gave away a prize package including a R100 000 modeling contract.
Reader Panels
seventeen launched it’s first reader panels with the style counsel in 2008 where readers are selected to be an expert advisory board to the editorial team, giving advice to their fellow readers and keeping the editorial team on the pulse of the latest youth trends. Style counsel grew into a yearly Super Stylist contest where retailer Edgars gave away a seat on the counsel for a styling reader. Seventeen also launched the Varsity 5 in 2010 and Beauty Smarties in 2011.
I love working on projects that raise the game in innovation so I couldn’t be prouder of the online team’s contribution to Primedia’s groundbreaking coverage of the Oscar Pistorius trial, #OscarExtra, an online pop-up radio station running for the duration of the trial.
The idea came to us a way to run trial audio within all 4 of our station’s radio station apps and thanks to our team’s creative powers it quickly turned into an amazing full-service 12hr radio station. Sounds simple right? You optimize on the biggest media event of the year by providing dedicated coverage without cannibalizing on your regular radio programming, well yes… and no.
The operation of a live feed from the courtroom, a board operator, and a great radio presenter who did call-ins and commentary was pretty standard by radio standards and the online side of setting up a dedicated stream and quick turn around podcasts was one we already had waxed. However, convincing all the station heads that it was better to do this cool groundbreaking content thing online only turned out to be the most challenging task of all.
You have to understand this in an environment where podcasts are still relatively new to our audience it looked like this massive risk…
It’s a good thing I’m charming because our ‘launch it now and apologise later’ strategy… well, it could have gone sideways. But it didn’t because as it turned out radio listeners like to listen to things online too, especially when at work and the internet is easily accessible. Oscar Extra was one of our most popular online projects of the year with streams surpassing any of the numbers we had ever done in online audio before!
It was also really exciting to see the attention it got from the industry who thought it was groundbreaking too.
UPDATE: #OscarExtra nominated for Bookmarks in the Integrated Multi-platform campaign category
I love it when a calculated risk pays off!
Some new developments on the career front…
I’ve been working on digital strategy for Primedia Broadcasting over the last few months. They are the amazing media company behind brands like Radio 702, EWN, 94.7 Highveld Stereo, 567 CapeTalk, and LeadSA.
My portfolio of work spans all the brands at this stage which has been pretty intense but it’s also been some of the most fulfilling work of my career particularly because of the freedom I’ve been given to push boundaries!
One of my highlights has to be the live stream I produced for 94.7’s annual Joburg Day Concert.
My role was managing all the content elements which included, the website, social media and a 12 hour live stream.
Hosted on the Joburg Day site it broadcast the concert, behind the scenes live footage and prepackaged inserts to over 50 000 viewers!
The show was one of the most watched streams of the day on livestream.com globally, and the most viewed of the week on live music portal irocke.com. 
Being the no. 1 trending topic on twitter in Johannesburg on the day was a cherry on top!
UPDATE: This is a great analysis of Joburg Day 2014…. which was a huge success!
Another momentous media moment I forgot to post!
I recently oversaw africa.com’s coverage and social marketing of Barack Obama’s historic round trip of three African countries last year collated under the banner Obama in Africa. Africa.com CEO Teresa Clarke was in the press corp, a massive honor for a small online publisher!
I was so happy that even with all the crazy coordinating of writers, planning stories, working on video and liaising with the Whitehouse I was able to cover some events and do some writing. My pieces are below.
Covering Michelle Obama’s round table with youth leaders hosted by MTV Base
Obama Africa visit first on Instagram
khwezi magwaza 