Last week the RLabs team went on a day retreat to plan for the future as well as looking at the Vision and Mission of this vibrant and growing movement. Below is the Vision and Mission of the Reconstructed Living Lab that captures the heart of what we stand for:

Vision:
To impact, empower and reconstruct local and global communities through innovation

Mission:
- To create an interaction space for collaborative design, creation, dissemination and application of knowledge
- To develop and empower champions in communities through innovation
- To give hope and make a difference
- To be leaders in innovation continuously adding value

This week was another exciting week for the RLabs family as we officially joined the Youth Research Partners Network. Youth Research Partners are a global partnership of youth research and marketing specialists in Africa, The Americas, Europe and Asia. We collaborate to share insights, best practices and better serve clients. We are really honoured to be part of this dynamic and excited partnership and looking forward sharing more about this collaboration that will change the future of youth marketing. For more information about Youth Research Partners at an upcoming Young Ideas Salon webinar and read the official RLabs announcement here.

“Introduction to Social Media for the Business Sector”
The “new web” has transformed the way people connect and social media platforms have become an essential part of the organizational and business strategies. These technologies can be useful for businesses as strategic tools for engagement, relationship building with stakeholders and communities, networking and fundraising. With millions of users on social media in South Africa alone and over a billion worldwide across various platforms (PCs, Mobile phones etc.) this is an opportunity for businesses to share with the masses using FREE tools available to support the vision of such businesses.

Content:
This one day training “hands-on” workshop will cover the following areas:
1. Background to Social Media and tools such as blogs, wikis, micro-blogs, wikis, and multimedia file-sharing sites
2. Provide guidelines to how your business can utilise and reap the benefits of social media
3. Practical opportunities for participants to engage with some of the Social Media tools
4. Social Media and mobile phones
5. Drafting a Social Media Policy for Businesses

Objectives:
• Understanding of Social Media and its context
• Identified tools that could be integrated into the business sector to support its vision and objectives
• Introductory level of hands-on experience using social media tools
• To use mobile phones as possible social media devices
• Understand the importance of Social media for Businesses
Workshop Details:
All required equipment will be provided for the workshop and this includes all refreshments for the day. The price of the workshop is R1, 500.00 for the day or RSVP your seat with the code RLABS by the 5 July 2010 and we will waver your fee by 33% (You Pay ONLY R1,000.00).

Workshop Details:
Date: Tuesday, 20 July 2010
Time: 9:00 – 13:30
Address: Impact Centre, 66 Tarentaal Road, Bridgetown,Athlone, 7764
Contact person: Clinton Liederman – Clinton@rlabs.org – 021 6991453

Celebrating the partnership between RLabs and MXit during the Drug Awareness Week, The Star newspaper featured the Angel project that was initiated by RLabs. This service is FREE to all MXit users and provides them the opportunity to access information and LIVE counselling in the area of substance abuse. Read more about the LIVE Counselling Service on Technology for Community Empowerment.

The collaboration platform Reconstructed Living Lab (RLabs) has created a live counselling portal, JamiiX, on mobile social network MXit called ‘Angel’. According to RLabs, the portal is for South African youth in need of substance abuse counselling, and is being released in conjunction with Drug Awareness Week (21 to 27 June). Currently Angel have over 40,000 subscribers with more than 1,000 of those subscribers accessing the LIVE Counselling services via their mobile phones. More about this collaboration can be read in the IT Web (22 June 2010) article.