The Power of Community Documentary

The first Microsoft user group on the African continent was born. Fast forward to 2020 and things look very different. The reach of the Microsoft community has grown.

In 2016, the idea of a road trip was discussed. It would involve a team of MVPs travelling together over 2500kms, covering several events, and exploring the beautiful country of South Africa.

Last year’s road trip was the third time that Alistair Pugin had put together one of these roadshows to bring Microsoft to the smaller South African communities, introducing them to a group of experts who they usually wouldn’t have easy access to. The main objective of all of this was to point these people in the right direction and spread the love for Microsoft Productivity.

There is a real emphasis on community throughout the journey, from the moment that the group departs Johannesburg on the first day right up until they reach the shadow of Tabletop Mountain in Cape Town.

This is what Alistair told us about what he does. His vision for these trips has always been to show people the power of community when it comes to technology, and to illustrate how we can all help each other in some way or another.

This latest trip would be the first time that the trip was documented in full, which meant Incite Video had the pleasure of being included in the very select group of people to be bundled into a minibus for two weeks. This travelling troupe of industry experts included Heather Newman, Jethro Seghers, Darrell Webster, Tracy van der Schyff, Warren Marks and Alistair Pugin.

For fourteen consecutive days, the cameras hardly stopped rolling, capturing all of the work (and play) that you’d expect to see as a group of people who’ve never spent that much time together become almost like a family, and that is a word that definitely cannot be overused here. The Microsoft Community has all the aspects of a family, something we have become very used to on our travels with them over the past 18 months and beyond.

The idea behind this was to showcase that same community power that Alistair feels so strongly about to everyone, whether they could be there with us in person or not. You can feel the difference that these people have made to the audiences they spoke with. There is a sense of true impact. You know, deep-down, that these sessions have merely marked the very beginning of something far greater. That spirit has travelled beyond the road trip and the places it visited and has certainly stayed with everyone who was on that bus.

The video below is an introduction to the project. In it, you get to know what everyone has come together for, and even at this early stage, you cannot escape the passion that these people feel for what they have set out to do.

This was one of the biggest projects we’ve ever worked on at Incite Video, and we speak from the heart when we say that we feel truly privileged, not only to have been able to put this documentary together, but to have been allowed to share this extraordinary experience with such a truly wonderful group of people.

You can view the full documentary here.