Category Archives: housekeeping

Blogging in 2011

Last year was a very busy one, but which meant there were fewer blog posts. However, there was more collaboration and guest posting, as well as more travel tales, but with limits in what to write. While there were many more events to attend (sometimes two a day), there was some difficulty in finding what to write that was not better expressed on in short posts on twitter.

Fortunately, life as a consumer of goods, services, and information was an data source of posts – and here are the most read posts (published in 2011), some of which had links to others in the top 25.

1. Mututho a.k.a. the new Alcohol Law in Kenya was the most read post of the year.

2.Kenya bank rankings was a list of the top Kenyan banks for 2010.

3. Farewell Mars Group was written when this Kenya anti-corruption watchdog group suddenly shut down it’s website (but it’s now back online).

4. Prepaid Electricity meters were rolled out by the Kenya Power & Lighting Company and many people who were in the dark searched online for information about the new system.

5. A post about Overlappers and bad driving was the most popular motoring post.

6. Pepsi in Kenya was about their quiet re-entry to this market. Somewhat related was a link to my guest post about KFC in Kenya (No. 24) that was published in the UpNairobi magazine.

7. Banks introduced a new cheque design & clearance system. But did it flop? (No. 23)

8. Guide to Accra by @Coldtusker was the top in the series of African capital travel series write-ups.

9. Another of the travel series was the Guide to Addis Ababa by @Kahenya which proved very useful as it gave me a last minute reminder not to fly to Ethiopia without a yellow fever certificate. Other popular travel tales were from the Hague (No. 19), Gaborone Botswana (No. 22) by @MarvinTumbo and Asmara in rarely visited Eritrea (No. 25).

10. More driving tales rounded up the top ten – this one focused on Thika Road as did another a guest post wondering how Kenyans will maintain Thika Road (No. 13) when the Chinese contractors leave.

11. Unplanned Infrastructure in Nairobi was the most popular real estate one, along with other posts on sector developments (No. 14), Tatu City (No. 20), and other Golf Resorts (No. 21)

First World Problems in a Third World Country

Ory (@kenyanpundit) reigned some of us with a recent comment that people are complaining on twitter about a lack of parking at the Junction Mall in Nairobi, while there are people near there who don’t have enough food to eat.

I realized that it’s something that happens a lot. Today I spent the whole morning searching for cooking gas (LPG) which has been in short supply in Nairobi for about a month. Is that a superficial or a genuine subject worth ranting about?

Other common complaints on twitter include:
– Not having tap water or being caught in darkness when the electricity distributed by Kenya Power goes off (including both at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport – JKIA)
– MPesa downtime which are almost a weekly routine with Safaricom
– Bad service issues at the bank or with an internet service provider
– A delayed Kenya Airways flight
– Newly done roads that develop potholes within a few weeks
– Companies that don’t respond to email
– Satellite TV that cuts off when it starts raining
– The increasingly bad traffic (and bad driving styles) around Nairobi

These are hardly life altering situations to tweet or complain about – and seem like trivial first world problems in a third world country. But they are unnecessary inconveniences for busy people with plans and appointments who have become accustomed to things like having regular electricity & internet connectivity, the ability to send money by phone at any time to any corner of the country, the convenience of boarding a flight to Mombasa and arriving in time for a court case or business appointment & return to Nairobi the same day, not having to pay a bribe or tip to get good customer service from a government or private office etc.

They have expectations of service that, when not met cause a un-anticipated re-deployment of resources usually precious time e.g. six hours driving around town, burning (sometimes scarce) petrol in search of (LPG) cooking gas or having to call in a previous favour to accomplish a routine matter.

The sad thing about this is that (at least in Kenya) politics is the missing link, and people here become accustomed to have low expectations about political class (Sonko) and their decision making. This is a fatal assumption as the 2007 election period showed and as we grapple with unnecessary & expensive challenges of infrastructure, distribution, under-employment, inflation, corruption, taxation, the solutions require the adherence of the political class to leave the third world

Cutting the Big Deals

A guest post by Shiroh.

Many people ask me how to make money especially because I work in an institution that helps people make money. I don’t know the answer, as I have little wealth myself, but I can give a few tips that I have learnt from those who do.

1. Read widely: Most people get information when it is no longer useful. Information is power, so the adage goes. Get information when it is hot. Don’t buy a share when the owners have already issued a good dividend – instead monitor the activities of that particular company for a period of time. Read the financial statements and its notes. The likelihood of making money when the dividend is announced is almost zero. Instead, read about the acquisitions/mergers the company is making. For example, what is the impact of Kenya Airways buying new planes? What is the effect of the international debt that Kengen and Safaricom keep taking periodically, on the company’s future profits? In short, do your research, and stay extremely informed.

Also read personal finance books and blogs. If there is one book I thank the heavens for, it is Rich Dad, Poor Dad. This is the book that introduced me to personal finance. These books are available everywhere, and have a look at them as ignorance is not bliss.

2. Have the money ready: If you are like any other Nairobian, you live from one pay slip to another, or you are on the verge of taking a credit card because the money is no longer enough to last a whole month. When deals come, it is your ability to pay for it, mostly in cash that counts. If you’re considering taking a loan, interest rates are quite high, so the returns will be wiped out.

You have put money away so that when an opportunity strikes, you will be in a position to take advantage of it, so Save! Save! Save! . If you cannot save Kshs. 2,000 ($24) per month, then you are unlikely to be able to Kshs. 20,000. Also consider:

– Joining a SACCO (Savings & Credit Society) if you don’t have the discipline to save.
– Have standing orders with your bank that automatically place money in savings accounts (which are not easily accessible).
– Resist the urge to spend on things you don’t immediately need.

3. Diversify your income: There is always something you can do outside of your job that could give you the extra money. You can read more on this here.

4. Use Professional advice: Many people think they can do everything without professional advice. Get a good lawyer, accountant, and financial advisor to before embarking on major steps. Just like you go to a doctor when you are sick, or a lawyer when you are making deals, also visit a financial advisor if you need to know how to invest.

5. Network: The big deals are made in small smoky bars. This means that you need to align yourself with the right people who know where the deals are. If this means joining your local rotary so that you can get the right introductions, do it. If it means doing more social work, do it. In short, the world is unfair to those who don’t know the rules of the game.

Corporate Blogging: from scarcity to abundance

Looking at the evolution of this blog over the last few years, and it has been one of transition from scarcity to abundance of events and subjects.

A few years ago it was rare to find events to write about. I was shareholder of less than half a dozen companies and was attending as many AGM’s as possible, and I was able to reach out to family and friends like @coldtusker for proxies to attend a dozen more AGM’s or investor briefings of companies with small registers.

Requests to company registrars for access to attend briefings were often stone walled and rejected with various answers like ‘what is a blog?’ ‘We only allow media’ i.e. TV radio newspaper. The distinction between blogger and journalists is not new and is not going away.

The scarcity largely changed around 2010 as a new gatekeeper emerged, in the form of branding and PR agencies that handled ‘media’ relations for many listed and unlisted companies. This was common at those with budgets to push out their products from new tariffs, new shares & IPO’s, new products, but also to re-brand old or existing products & services. They PR people were about awareness, and creating attention, buzz, and conversation about the brands they oversaw, and recognized that online space – blogs, and lately twitter were ways to reach a diverse audience.

The agency that brands the company, and does PR recognize the online presence of an event or story for what it can do – better search placement, better archiving & retrieval for years to come) – and so the more press the better.

A recent article this week point out to a trend in the US where, to some extent, PR is replacing news as the gatekeepers of corporate world. This also partly happens here where many newspaper stories are actually repackaged press releases, readily disseminated by PR teams and summarized from complex to simple phrases to be instantly re-broadcast in a variety of channels.

The Probulica article lists the positives and negative of the PR vs. journalist trend, but for me, it means more opportunities than I can take up, several press releases, and invitations to events (sometimes 2 or 3 in a day) with the expectation that there will be some reciprocal coverage. I may not use everything, but I try and give feedback to the agency that monitors the brand or to the company itself. With the press releases, it may soon be a good idea to dedicate a blog area for press releases like Ratio magazine has done.

Payoff? Nah: Corporate blogging does not pay the bills in this part of the world, but it does get access that can be vital. In addition, new (online only) platforms have emerged like Rich.co.ke and Ratio Magazine which demonstrate that well structured analytic platforms can attract audiences, advertising, and funding.