The Cape Town Talent Exchange is not an isolated island down at the bottom of Africa; it is just one exchange in a global network of hundreds of CES exchanges. Soon there will be even more than that as CES connects with other networks around the world.

While it is true that many offerings only make sense in the local context (e.g. you can’t receive a massage from someone in Australia), there are many offerings that do make sense from wherever they are offered (e.g. editing, graphic design, programming, accommodation).

You may need a website, for example, but not find anything satisfactory in CTTE. Don’t give up and turn to the Rand economy to get it. Do a global search and see what you come up with. The chances are that you will find someone who can provide what you require. And as it is the provider (seller) who enters the transaction you don’t need to worry about how to ‘pay’ for it. When the job is done, the provider enters the details of what was provided and you will be debited in Talents.

To search other exchanges, log into your account and then hover your mouse pointer over the [Offerings] button at the top and select ‘Offerings’ from the drop-down menu. That will take you to the Offerings Index page. You will see a search box after Search for offerings in:. In front of it select ‘South Africa’ or ‘All’, depending on how far you want to search. Simply enter your search text and click the button. Hopefully you will find what you are looking for. Remember that many exchanges are not English, so you could enter search words in the language of the country you are targetting (e.g. accommodation).

The Australian exchanges are on a completely separate server but even those are searchable. On the Offerings Index page, select ‘Australia’ from the Remote servers drop down. Then enter what you are searching for in the search bar. If you are searching for accommodation, for example, you will be pleasantly surprised.