Monday, January 19, 2009

Difficult Communications

A communications peer working in the financial sector recently confided to her pal that she had had it and wanted out. The reason? Being a communications manager in a transnational financial institution, every innovation, strategy, intervention or activity she has suggested to her fellow managers has been met with unified resistance. Everybody around the management table is an pseudo-expert in communications; they each know a better way of writing, saying, connecting to their target audience better, faster, cheaper and sexier than the in-house expert!
That to me sounds like the story of every PR practitioner working in any organization outside a media, advertising/PR Agency, religious or terrorist organization! Communicating is not that easy after all-otherwise can someone explain to me all these failed organizations, gaffe-prone CEOs, politicians, scientists, etc. Who will explain to me why half the world has earned such horrible reputations? Why are so many individuals and organizations spending millions to undo negative images?
It’s a fact that the PR trade in Kenya is looked down upon. Lately a new demeaning trend has emerged where public organizations are seeking to recruit a corporate & regulatory affairs manager with a purely legal background? Legal experts are the anti-thesis of PR experts. You cannot ask a legal advisor in an organization to double up as the image and reputation advisor helping the organization navigate a myriad of stakeholders with varying needs! A lawyer’s orientation is to sue, to threaten and to use the existing law to defend the organization. Who will stand up for the profession?

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

My Village MP Insults His Voters

During last year's Kenyatta Day holiday, my village MP decided to give every Location in his constituency a bull to slaughter. A white settler doing this for his farmhands in the 1950s would have received accolades. But this is 2008 in independent Kenya. One Location in this part of Kenya has a population of about 200,000 people. How can you live with yourself? How can you go home sleep soundly with the knowledge that you have made your subjects happy! Is a morsel of meat what these people want, nay need? Who are your advisors, mheshimiwa? Are you in touch with reality? Your constituency is only 40 kms from Nairobi, but many parts are not accessible in wet weather! You have grinding poverty, poor health facilities, kids out of school, insecurity, etc. What are your priorities?

The Year Is Gone And So Is Kenya's Innocence

2008 is by far the most horrible year that the motherland has had in the recent history. We started off with the post election mayhem that cost over 1000 lives and millions in lost property and business opportunities. In the course of the year our healing was delayed by the greedy MPs, high cost of living, drought, fuel shortages, political bickering and brinkmanship that had the country drunk and directionless when resolve and leadership post-Waki and Kriegler Reports was all that we prayed for. The healing was somewhat accelerated by the best Olympic performance and our cousin Obama’s win in America. This our annus horibillis was a year during which our politics lost the veneer of respectability, our decades-old communal hatred came to the fore unhindered by pretences of civility and the collective innocence was forever lost. As we usher in the new year, the initial signs are that we have not learnt any lessons and our politicians are already engaged in sparring fights over which way to go with the new constitution, taking differing positions on the new ICT Law (media bill) and all the posturing in readiness of 2012 that is going on amid all the mwananchi problems that no one seems to care about. Thousands of IDPs are still in transitional camps waiting for their leadership to sort out their problems. It is no wonder Kofi Annan, Kenya's nanny and chaperone has had to cajole and reprimand us with his "Op-ed on Kenya" now running in all the dailies. He says that "in my view, while the progress has been remarkable, the pace of the reforms should move faster. That is because the window of opportunity for serious reform will start to close sooner than we might wish. I am already concerned that a premature focus on the 2012 elections could distract the country from the more pressing priorities-pursuing the IREC and CIPEV reforms and tackling the other long-term issues identified in Agenda Item Four of the National Dialogue. I appreciate why some have dubbed Agenda Item Four the "mwananchi agenda", as it deals with those deep-seated problems that most directly affect the lives and livelihoods of most Kenyans-whether its poverty and inequity, youth unemployment, land grievances, ethnic discord, stalled judicial and other institutional reforms, or lack of action to counter corruption. Kenyans are demanding more effective-and more expeditious-action on the "mwananchi agenda". They are eager to reap some benefit from the National Dialogue agreements. And their growing impatience is exacerbated by rising cost of living and a perception that their elected representatives-the "ruling elite"- are paying insufficient attention to their daily plight. Moving quickly to fully implement the tasks agreed in the National Dialogue talks would go a long way towards changing that perception" . I doubt if anyone is listening out there, but I am willing to be proved wrong.