Sexpo 2007 Workshop Schedule

DAY 3 (Saturday, 29 September)

  • 11:30 – 1:00 The Secret DVD viewing
  • 1:15 – 2:15 Learn How to Pole Dance presented by BodyMind Studios
  • 2:30 – 3:30 Sex Toys 101 presented by Lola Montez
  • 3:45 – 5:15 Tantric Workshop presented by Jonti Searll
  • 5:30 – 6:30 Datability: Would You Date You? presented by SMARTdate and Ramon Thomas
  • 6:45 – 8:15 Sensual Massage – Talk and Demo presented by Jonti Searll 8:30 – 9:30 Sex Toy Overview presented by Matildas
  • 9:45 – 10:45 Learn How to Lap Dance presented by BodyMind Studios

DAY 4 (Sunday, 30 September)

  • 11:30 – 1:00 The Secret DVD viewing
  • 1:15 – 2:15 Sex Toy Overview presented by Matildas
  • 2:30 – 3:30 G-spot and Female Ejaculation presented by Jonti Searll 3:45 – 4:45
  • Learn How to Pole Dance presented by BodyMind Studios 5:00 – 6:00 Awakening the Erotic Spirit presented by Jonti Searll 6:15 – 7:15
  • Sex Toys 101 presented by Lola Montez
  • 7:30 – 8:30 Datability: Would You Date You? presented by SMARTdate and Ramon Thomas

This is the first time in South Africa any of the dating agencies is teaming up with a dating expert to improve the results their clients obtain from using their services. Worldwide this is the great value being added by such relationships.

SMARTdate teams up with Dating Coach at Sexpo 2007

In a country just opening up to the culture of the dating scene it?s hard when you?re newly single to know what to do or where to go. SMARTdate owner Jenny Cereseto will present a number of workshops, with Ramon Thomas, a well known dating coach over the course of the controversial exhibition, Sexpo with intent to educate single people about the dating game.

“As an exhibitor I want to make the dating concept something people understand and remove any hesitation they may have had in the past,” says Jenny Cereseto, owner of SMARTdate. “Most of my clients find speed dating helps expand their social life and in that way meet new people for dating and relationships. Speed dating is a great way of improving confidence, developing social skills and finding a partner.”

Sexpo began in Australia, where the biggest public exhibition is held. Joburg’s version is expected to draw up to 30 000 visitors. The expo, being held from September 27 to 30th at Gallagher Estate, will host 100 exhibitors offering books, toys, gadgets, health, fashion, dating and lingerie.

“Most people today are overwhelmed by choice. Internet dating and cellphones make things easier and more difficult at the same time,” says Ramon Thomas, South Africa’s #1 Dating Coach. “My mission is to show people how to convey what they have to offer and meet better quality people.”

Some of what men will learn at the Sexpo:
- how to overcome social programming
- attraction vs romance vs love
- advanced body language
- eliciting women’s values
- setting up short, medium and long term relationships

An interesting dichotomy emerges in the dating industry with all online dating and SMS dating companies are run by men with majority of users being men. The opposite holds true for most speed dating and dinner dating companies. They are run by women and attract more women than men to their events. ?Men hide behind their computer or cellphone screens instead of going out and meeting woman,? says Thomas. ? I’m determined to show them how to do it.?

There are currently over 40 dating service providers operating in South Africa. This number excludes most SMS services who come and go and old fashioned social clubs, who advertise mostly in local classifieds. Most dating companies do not offer any advice to their clients. While the worldwide trends are that they partner with dating gurus or life coaches.

Thomas confirms the biggest problem in the dating industry is that there is no regulation. Users of online, speed or SMS dating services have no independent body to report any complaints to for investigation. And Thomas has become the unofficial industry ombudsman.

MEDIA CONTACTS

Ramon Thomas, Dating Coach
Cell. 074 124 1696

Jenny Cereseto, owner SMARTdate
Cell. 072 464-4253

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Change a woman’s emotional state instead of convincing her

On Monday evening I had a small dinner party at my place. It was a last minute episode and I invited a new female friend over to join us. At first she agreed and later some doubt set in. She called me while I was taking a shower and so I missed her call. The voice mail said she was on her way. However, a few minutes later I received an SMS saying she was tired and wanted to have an early night.

For a moment I considered replying to the SMS and then I remembered I know how to deal with this kind of situation. I’ve done it before. So I called her up and spoke to her directly instead of sending a text message. The first thing I did was teasing her about not knowing which highway to take to my place. It’s easily about 30 minutes drive to my place. And maybe it’s understandable that a woman would have doubts about driving around late at night if 7pm on a Monday evening can be considered late ;-)

Anyway as you may know Johannesburg has the worst traffic in all of South Africa. So peak hour is particularly bad here. And I weaved this into the story I was telling her, pointing out how few cars are on the road after 7pm and it would be a breeze driving to my place. She laughed. And proceeded to defended herself telling me she owns a GPS and it will direct her so she doesn’t need directions. This was a small commitment from her and I kept building on it. I talked for a while longer about her, her fancy GPS and how proud she must be to own one. She has to show me how it works one day. And then I reassured her that this dinner party was going to be fun. There’s no strings attached. In fact I would kick her ass out if she stayed to long.

She agreed to come over and that was it. I encouraged her to bring along her favourite drink. This is such a trivial thing but so crucial i.e. getting people to bring something over when they visit you, makes them invest in their decision even more. Now the moral of the story is that I didn’t do a sales job. What I mean is that I did not persuade her using logic. I did not give her a list of benefits for coming over. Instead I changed her emotional state – from being hesitant to being certain, from being afraid of making a bad decision (staying out late on a Monday night) to feeling she is making a good decision. And certainly from her behaviour and reactions afterwards she felt she had made a good decision.

One last thing I made sure my own internal state was light, fun and that I projected certainty. The key to a leading a woman is projecting certainty.

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Dr John Demartini interviewed by Alan Steinfeld

John Demartini is back in South Africa for a series of talks and seminars. Here’s some of the details:

Public Talks: Access Your Power

  • Johannesburg: Thursday, 22 September – Montecasino, Il Grande Theatre
  • Cape Town: Wednesday 26 September – Arabella Sheraton Hotel, Ballroom
  • Durban: 3 October – Elangeni Hotel, Great Elanga

Time: Registration 7pm; Talk 7h30pm-9pm.
Cost R90 @ Book through Computicket or R100 at the door. Seats limited.

You can read my own review of his 2-day Breakthrough Experience seminar I attended in December 2006.

Anyway here’s an awesome 30 minute interview with Alan Steinfeld, host of New Realities


Reflections on 2007 Digital Citizens Indaba

It’s been a week after the 2nd annual DCI event in Grahamstown. This event is a sidekick to the much larger and more established conference Highway Africa. As with all these types of events it’s layered with good intentions. However, the practical side of it sometimes leaves much room for improvement. The highlights were certainly the keynote by Ndesanjo Macha and my friend Daudie Were. During the later sessions Vincent Maher delivered the geekiest presentation I’ve ever seen at a conference. And he’s well on his way to becoming everyone’s favourite geek in South Africa.

There was some miscommunication between DCI organisers and Highway Africa as they initially asked me to conduct some workshop with DCI delegates. I could not track down anyone from Highway Africa to confirm it but based on the programme I realised it was not worth the effort. I had so much more to share with the delegates. My own talk was more aimed at inspiring bloggers to think beyond just writing and specifically how blogging can bolster their careers. Much of the investment is upfront and the pay-off is over the longer term. There are excellent online role models emerging in South Africa with the likes of Laurian Clemence, who spoke with me on the Moneytising and Marketing panel, launching her Wibble project recently.

What I would like to see more of in the future:

  1. Better planning of the sessions - there were some hiccups later in the day and the timing was consistent between breaks. Maybe the lunch venue can be in the same place as the conference venue because there was time lost walking to the lunch venue.
  2. Quality control on presentation – while most speakers were awesome there was not sufficient glue tying things together. I’ve noticed this is symptomatic of conferences i.e. the program directors are not checking the contents of the presentations or taking a few minutes to discuss with the speakers what exactly they will talk about. Just doing this one thing can take the quality of what delegates get out of this to the next level.
  3. Interaction between speakers – it would help if the speakers are able to have a dinner the evening before the event to discuss their topics and create more synergy.

Podcast – Jeremy Maggs interview on SAFM

This was one of the best interviews I’ve done on the topic of Facebook and MXit ever. Also interviewed with me was Lynne Cawood, director of Childline Gauteng and Steven Ambrose, director of World Wide Worx Strategy.

The interview was for a almost an hour on the After 8 Debate, a segment of the morning show on SAFM, hosted by Jeremy Maggs.

Download the SAFM interview here (size 19MB, length 53 mins).

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How To Win Friends in the 21st century

How To Win Friends And Influence People classic book by Dale CarnegieThis section is based on the famous Dale Carnegie book, although I’m not going to give you the advice from his book because it is outdated when you consider the tremendous changes in society over the last 30 years, especially since the feminist revolution.

So many people who reach 30+ complain that all their friends are married or in long term relationships. And so they do not have anyone to hang out with or go out to party with. This leads to them exploring things like speed dating and other types of matchmaking services in an attempt to expand their social circle.

The fundamental thing that bonds people together is common interest. And in most cases you are friends with people who are more like you than unlike you. So this is where you would start to explore how to make new friends. What you have to start doing is to explore friendships with people based on the activities you participate in. So for example of you are a gym freak, and you spend 4 or more days per week at your local gym, it’s a good idea for you to start conversations with people who hang out at your gym. From there you can start building rapport over time.

Now how do you actually form friendships, especially if you have been single, for a long time. You simply start inviting people to join you out on other activities. You do not have to anything complicated but say for example you are having a braai at your place. This is the perfect time and place to invite new friends who can meet each other or existing friends. You have to remember that it does take some effort to get to know people. So you must be sure to make the barriers of entry as low as possible. So don’t even suggest a bring-n-braai instead buy everything and ask them to bring along their favourite drink.

One guy had this crazy way of making friends with women where he would invite them all out for drinks. They end up competing for his attention and this very healthy kind of attention is what creates rapport between people.

From Dale Carnergie here’s a few more specific tips:

Ways to Make People Like You:

  • Become genuinely interested in other people and smile
  • Remember that a man’s name is to him the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”
  • Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
  • Talk in the terms of the other person’s interest.
  • Make the other person feel important and do it sincerely.

Something else I like to do for my friends is to send them information about things they are interested in via email. And whenever I meet up with them we start sharing stories about what’s happened in our lives. I ensure that we speak more about what’s happened in their lives than my own. It’s impossible not to talk about myself because inevitably they will ask me the same questions I’ve asked them. You can also use websites like Facebook to connect with old friends and new ones.

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How to have No-strings sex with women

My friend Ross sent me this article, which come via another friend, from the Women24 website. What amuses me most about the comments on the original website is that several married women are bragging about having fuck buddies.

Now I ask you this…what is the point of getting married if you are going to have sex with other people?

Anyway here’s the article…

Men who enjoy casual sex have always been tolerated. So why are women labeled when they do it?

Fact of life number 20562: some women enjoy having sex without being in love. Unlike the girls conducting business after hours on the city’s street corners, here there’s no monetary exchange, no promise to leave wives, girlfriends or significant others, and no time wasted on wishy-washy declarations of love and unfulfilled proposals of marriage.

While men who enjoy casual sex have always been tolerated (“boys will sow their wild oats”), female sexuality has often been under the control of everyone but the woman herself.

The one-night stand
The amount of time between “girl meets boy” and “girl beds boy” may be weeks, months or many years for the patient, the pious or those who’ve picked a man who can’t raise the Rand for lobola. But in the case of lust at first sight, it’s only a matter of minutes, perhaps hours, before the law of the jungle takes over. In this kind of casual sex it’s understood (or it should be) that no phone numbers will be exchanged and that come daybreak, there’ll be no hard feelings.

The downside
Guilt may arise the morning after the night before. Says Johannesburg psychiatrist and sexologist, Dr Bernard Levinson: “I hate guilt! Take responsibility for your actions, and make sure you use a condom. Whatever you did, you did. It’s your baggage.”

The upside
Men adore being objects of lust. Says Brendan Cooper, UCM Editorial Director: “It’s so rare to have a straightforward, upfront come-on from a woman that I imagine most men are really chuffed by it.” But can a man look at a woman with respect after such a fling? “Why should women be looked at differently because they enjoy sex too?” he asks.

The hunter-gatherer
Whereas a one-night stand is often coincidental, or the result of spiked punch at a party, there are women who set out to count their conquests with as much relish as any man.

Yet there’s a huge difference between an unattached woman enjoying casual sex as and when circumstances permit, and a woman who requires sex continually in order to feel whole, no matter who she has it with.

The downside
Sex with no strings attached may sound idyllic, but it does have its drawbacks. Hunter-gatherers aren’t always happy.

Says Dr Levinson: “They’re seeking orgasms that evade them, a sense of completion that fails every time. It’s a deep-seated problem that doesn’t do well in talking therapy and may need medication of sorts.”

The upside
Being able to express one’s sexuality outside a relationship is certainly a plus if love remains elusive for a long time. If you fancy a guy and long to see him naked in your bed, behaving like a hunter-gatherer is a fast track to passion. Is there a tried and trusted method of doing this?

“Yep,” says Cooper. “All a woman has to say is: ‘Get your jacket, buddy ? you just pulled.”

The shag buddy
It’s an intriguing idea to have a man on call in the event of horniness, someone who’ll kiss and not tell ? but how easy is it to separate the performance from the performer?

Pillowbook by Dr Eve aka Marlene WassermanSays Dr Eve: “You can bet on things getting confusing the morning after. Sharing yourself physically with someone is intensely personal and intimate. Expect to feel your body shift a little as it integrates this new person into itself.”

There’s a strong chance of feeling empty or used if the only post-sex pillow talk is about when you’ll meet again for a repeat session. Perhaps one of the partners is secretly wanting something more. “In my experience, there are few women who don’t have a measure of hope that this one will be the Prince,” says Dr Eve. “Casual sex is hard on the heart.”

The shag buddy system has the advantage of tiding one over until better days. Says Dr Eve: “Many women find it easier to be sexually satisfied with a near-stranger than in a relationship. When there’s no relationship pressure on them, they have less to lose and can risk asking for what they want sexually ? so they feel more assertive and powerful.”

What do men think?
The opinions of men are varied on this count. Some are happy to have sex served on a platter without having to buy flowers, dinner or diamonds. Some blatantly apply double standards. After all, it’s good for them to find a woman who’s up for it without too much persuasion, but would they really want a relationship with her?

Dr Eve feels that casual sex can be fun if it’s a phase ? not a lifestyle. “This is a choice adults have a right to make,” says Dr Eve, “but it carries the need to take responsibility for protecting your body and mind.”

You may be interested in purchasing Dr Eve’s new book: The Pillowbook from Kalahari.net

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'No Mobile Phones for Teens at Home, Campus' – Minister

The Indian government is reflecting a real threat to long term cognitive abilities of children growing up in a world whee there has always been cellphones, computers and the Internet. If you are serious about doing something talk to your counsellor or politicians about similar legislation. Technology companies will freak out about this because they are in some warped way the new tobacco companies. And we all know what happened with them. Here’s the story…

Bangalore, Sep 12: After banning sale of soft drinks on school and college premises, the State Government is now all set to ban use of mobile phones by children up to 16 years of age. While teachers and heads of educational institutions would be authorised to confiscate mobile phones if students from primary to pre-university education were found using it, the onus would be on parents to enforce it at home.

The decision had been taken on the basis of suggestions from medical experts on adverse impact of using mobile phones on children, Primary and Secondary Education Minister Basavaraj Horatti and Health Minister R Ashok told media persons at a joint media conference here on Tuesday.

Use of mobile phones by growing children for long durations have an adverse impact on brain, nervous system and ear. We have taken this decision on the advice from paediatricians. A circular will be issued in this regard within a few days. Parents play an important role in enforcing this ban in the interest of their own children,?? the ministers said.

Comprehensive guidelines for the ban would be formulated in consultation with law department. Action would be taken against even mobile phone dealers who sell the instruments to children below 16 years of age. All the special packages of mobile service providers would be scrapped, Ashok declared.

As for enforcement of the ban outside the educational institutions, the ministers said, We will examine whether to authorise the police department to enforce it.

Apart from the health perspective, the action would also help in ensuring a more congenial atmosphere for learning in class rooms, especially in urban areas, they said. An extensive campaign through posters and other media would be launched to bring awareness about the harmful effects of mobile phones on children?s health, they added.

source: DaijiWorld.

Podcast – Ramon Thomas DCI 2007 talk

This will be my first podcast of many to come. And this one is a real gem. It’s my presentation / talk on on how to blog your way to becoming an expert from the recent Digital Citizens Indaba. So go ahead and download this podcast (3MB, 13 mins).

Contact Info

Head Office Cell. 074 124 1696

Email: faye@ramonthomas.com

Hours: Monday-Thursday 08h00 - 18h00

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