Some took issue with 3Mice and the connection to Paul Kukubo, CEO ICT Board, I didnt care much who did it, the question was whether it functions or not. Will copy paste Paul’s response, after Dorcas Muthoni’s.

After all was said and done, 3Mice said the project was completed in 2007, that they can not speak about it now, that another company was given the tender or is in the process, etc.

Yes, the project was given in 2007, what was the use of giving search functionalities on the site, if the search doesn’t work? Dorcas posed the question:

Andrea Bohnstedt responded to Paul

Thanks for the clarification, Paul.

The online company registry struck me as a particularly useful idea, so I was baffled by the fact that a contract carried out in 2007 yielded such a seemingly useless website. So what I’d like to know – and maybe this is for more people than just Paul to answer since this wasn’t all done by the ICT Board, if I understand correctly:

If this ‘simple website’ was contracted out in 2007, was there any awareness that the company registry records would not be available in digital format (since the contract to digitise the content is only being worked on now)? I.e. was a website contracted that would have no content for …. well, for how long? Why is a project structured this way in the first place?

When you say that another process is taking place now to search and display content, then this is a complete duplication, no? Any idea when this very-useful-if-it-works website will be up and running?

Thanks, Andrea

The info on digitization made me think of the companies registry at the UK, not right to compare but I thought I would just show where we are headed http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/

For some people, its easier to say that the piece was not well researched, its shallow, etc, which I have heard before. It prompted me to think of a blog policy where I will clearly state that if I give you the right of reply and you give shoddy, incomplete or arrogant answers, you waive the right to say that the piece wasn’t researched. If you wanted readers to have better information, you would have supplied it.

Back to the point. The whole story started in late March, and was triggered by an offer from @roomthinker aka M to finalize or redo the search function of the companies registry. The tweet was sent to @pkukubo and I will show his response.

According to @roomthinker, the search function is doable and the registry doesnt have to charge the usual shs 100 because it will be just a query to the database. I thought the ICT Board would jump at the offer but was made aware that government doesn’t work like that. If you are not IBM, Accenture, HSBSEC or some hotshot global body, you can keep your free services.

My argument was that @roomthinker was part of the team that won $ 1 million at the Nokia challenge and that should demonstrate that he understood the challenge and had possible solutions. I am not sure he got a cut of the million bucks but with the experience, we could benefit and milk his services, after all, he had offered

After @roomthinker’s offer, there was debate whether a company should write officially, talk to the right people or do what.

I must say that I didnt understand Kukubo’s comment, I wasnt sure whether he meant that M should help private sector registries first, whether he should identify problems and help govt integrate and solve them, or what. Here is my tweet to Paul:

I never got any other response from Kukubo on whether local techies can volunteer and provide services or only international firms can.

Then I called Kukubo wanting to know if the actual contract cost was sh 62m, he told me he had no info and that I should look on the ICT board website, I bet he had no idea that such info was non-existent on the site.

But on the site, I found valuable info and for the sake of those who comment without reading fully, this is what the info said:

The work of digitizing records at the company registry is now complete.

• Customers shall have speedier searches and retrieval of their records.
• Registering companies and names look up is faster.
• Accuracy in records upped.
• Name search is now automated and real-time. The benefits is no time wasted in the names search.
• Elimination of potential duplication of records.

As a user of registry services, point no. 4 was more appealing, that search is now automated and real time and that I will not waste more time with manual search.

So, when you read the rejoinder, ask yourself, what is automation?

Dictionary.com defines automation as:

“the technique, method, or system of operating or controlling a process by highly automatic means, as by electronic devices, reducing human intervention to a minimum.”

Wikipedia defines it as:

Automation is the use of control systems and information technologies to reduce the need for human work in the production of goods and services. In the scope of industrialisation, automation is a step beyond mechanisation. Whereas mechanisation provides human operators with machinery to assist them with the muscular requirements of work, automation greatly decreases the need for human sensory and mental requirements as well. Automation plays an increasingly important role in the world economy and in daily experience.

If I still have to go to the companies registry, where is the automation? The article was merely informed by the ICT board definition of what completed digitization at the registry will allow me to do.

Part two, Kukubo’s response.

When I hear the word digitization, I think that the most basic functions will now be available at the click of a button. Well, if you go to the companies registry to incorporate a company, you have to search whether the name is already registered.

Lets search for one of the oldest company, Uchumi Limited, it is likely that there are several companies with the name Uchuni, like Uchumi chemicals etc…. see below what the site brings out.

A search of Uchumi limited yields a blank page

Maybe Uchumi is too old, let us try a younger company, Innova Limited

Innova limited search yields another blank

And who got the tender to do the website? 3Mice, one of the oldest tech companies in Kenya, they have been doing this kind of stuff for long and I would have expected better.

3mice branded the website as their work....

When researching for more information on the extent of the digitization, I remember the debate going on on twitter and the ICT board referred me to this page, which has the forms for download, but I want to search and pay via Mpesa for name reservation!

When I asked Paul Kukubo, ICT board CEO, how much was paid, he referred me to the ict.go.ke tender page and I could not get the tender and the amount. I was however reliably informed that the site cost Ksh. 62 million to develop or maybe it was part of a wider digitization process of scanning and putting the forms up for access especially with slow speeds etc…

The announcement was in 2010, you would expect that even in the case of hitches, they would have been patched up by now.

Well, I still want to do that basic search online before I can even access the forms…..

Recently Tandaa awards were announced and you can read more from Techweez and in 2008, I wrote a story on the first Tandaa grants of $ 4.1 million.

What do PS Ndemo and Kukubo feel about content generation? Here is a response I got a month ago when doing research on local peering and internet cost reduction issues. I just copy pasted from the email.

From Dr. Ndemo:

Personally I am still disappointed with the speed at which we are developing local content.  By now we should be having local vernacular wikis as a strategy to preserve our cultures.  Universities are still sleeping withe several shareable research yet others cannot access such valuable information.  You cannot locate many places in Nairobi yet this is a good content proposition.  We cannot have these many opportunities with huge unemployment at the same time.  I am happy that GOK has taken lead with open data.

From Kukubo

I don’t know what the growth figures are as evidenced through bandwidth uploads, but I can suggest that  there is growing local content development.

From a user generated content perspective, Facebook would probably be a great driver. Institutional content continues to grow with open data, development of educational and health content.

————

I have not interpreted what it but I guess you can do it better.

Moving on……

If I remember well, part of the reasons we were excited about fiber was that it would lower latencies and better still, it would allow people to generate content and such content would be accessible to people.

Yes, Joe Mucheru of Google argued with significant force of reason that it doesnt matter if content is hosted locally or internationally, because the internet is global. Ali Husein, Kenic board member (or former) termed my post as simplistic, because the hosting business is international and Kenyan government has no business promoting local hosting companies. You can read it all in the comments section in this post and you can read another I have done on the disappointment of local hosting.

Back to the $114 million fund. I know I am simplistic but why invest all that money in content and applications then host it abroad? Yes, there are critical applications and websites that must go on the Amazon or whatever cloud because of SLAs and stuff but is this the case in all the content or majority of it.

So, is Kenya hosting that bad? Why haven’t the grants improved that? Maybe there should be a grant to help this…

For instance, today CCK launched this website, where is it hosted? You have guessed right, not in Kenya, maybe the CCK or the UPDK team could not get Safaricom, AccessKenya, Telkom Kenya or Wananchi group to host it free in their cloud. I am imagining at this rate, all that talk of big cloud content by 2015 is looking very bright.

Well, I just could not let this go….. here is a boring conclusion.  Here is the traceroute of the CCK sponsored site. Check how long it takes and the route it takes…… and we were trying to bring down latencies from 600ms…..

traceroute to www.kenyadisability.or.ke (50.6.2.81), 64 hops max, 40 byte packets

1  192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1)  1.184 ms  0.854 ms  0.654 ms

2  192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1)  4.720 ms  1.476 ms  1.442 ms

3  41-139-171-69.safaricombusiness.co.ke (41.139.171.69)  890.652 ms  1033.720 ms  915.801 ms

4  41-203.209-65.safaricombusiness.co.ke (41.203.209.65)  780.050 ms  975.362 ms  686.306 ms

5  41-139-255-18.safaricombusiness.co.ke (41.139.255.18)  948.681 ms  864.720 ms  836.259 ms

6  41.139.255.49 (41.139.255.49)  889.112 ms  909.568 ms  1014.824 ms

7  196.201.222.33 (196.201.222.33)  1051.909 ms  582.662 ms  565.692 ms

8  if-12-1-3.core4.LDN-London.as6453.net (80.231.76.37)  904.593 ms  1070.709 ms  1069.041 ms

9  if-6-1504.tcore2.L78-London.as6453.net (80.231.131.37)  1190.310 ms  1078.289 ms *

10  if-20-2.tcore2.NYY-NewYork.as6453.net (216.6.99.13)  908.698 ms *  1350.263 ms

11  Vlan570.icore1.NTO-NewYork.as6453.net (209.58.26.142)  1177.123 ms Vlan569.icore1.NTO-NewYork.as6453.net (209.58.26.138)  880.283 ms Vlan582.icore1.NTO-NewYork.as6453.net (209.58.26.134)  1013.940 ms

12  pos-1-9-0-0-cr01.newyork.ny.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.86.41)  1174.197 ms *  998.332 ms

13  pos-0-5-0-0-cr01.350ecermak.il.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.88.150)  842.497 ms  864.748 ms Vlan581.icore1.NTO-NewYork.as6453.net (209.58.26.130)  1192.667 ms

14  pos-1-9-0-0-cr01.newyork.ny.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.86.41)  1387.871 ms pos-1-2-0-0-pe01.350ecermak.il.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.86.78)  1493.622 ms pos-1-9-0-0-cr01.newyork.ny.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.86.41)  1246.973 ms

15  66.208.228.150 (66.208.228.150)  1237.928 ms  1067.814 ms *

16  71.18.38.82 (71.18.38.82)  1100.651 ms * pos-1-2-0-0-pe01.350ecermak.il.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.86.78)  1349.609 ms

17  * 66.208.228.150 (66.208.228.150)  1428.182 ms *

18  71.18.38.82 (71.18.38.82)  1464.183 ms *  1434.943 ms

Well, apart from the modem and handset data bundles, Safaricom’s other data subscriptions are way high, the cheapest is 11,000 compared to Zuku, 1,500 and Access Kenya, 4,000. The others may fall in between. Most data services require fiber, whether its last mile, interconnecting Base stations or redundancy, fiber is critical.

Ever wondered why Safaricom hasn’t given Zuku a run for its money? Given the financial muscle, you would have expected Safaricom to be competing on the same level withZuku and Access Kenya.

Well, for starters, Zuku’s Wananchi Group owns most of its fiber to the home- but this is mainly in major towns and they have no extensive wimax network compared to Safaricom. On the other hand, Safaricom is dependent on Jamii Telecom, KDN, Telkom Kenya and National Fiber Optic Backbone (NOFBI) to deliver services. For Safaricom to make money, it will have to take into consideration the costs charged by other operators, then put their margin. This means that the costs may be higher than other operators like Telkom but it also depends on calculations.

To be clear, for the 3G network, Safaricom is in pole position because they have the extensive infrastructure courtesy of their base stations but for data, they are limping while consumers crave cheaper or affordable options. That is why when they introduced the unlimited bundle, individuals and small businesses came rushing in.

I was surprised that Safaricom gave an affordable 3G based option that seemed to suit SMEs and expected people not to misuse. Truth be told, I am not sure whether it is a marketing issue or not but Safaricom seemed to attract all the customers including those who misuse, while competition (read Orange) has similar unlimited offer but doesn’t complain of misuse.

As part of my conversation with Rita Okuthe, head of customer proposition at Safaricom, I had to ask the technical infrastructure and why cost to the end user isn’t falling. There is all the talk about fiber this and that and yet we cant seem to pay less. Read part 1 in the earlier post.

Back to the topic. What are the tech issues?

Late entry into laying fiber

Five years ago, companies were busy buying stake in TEAMS and EASSY and others laying terrestrial fiber. Safaricom has a stake in TEAMS but so is JTL. But you got to give it up to JTL because they went ahead and laid metro fiber in all major towns, then made sure that they signed with Safaricom as their anchor tenant.

That was a good idea because JTL did not seem to compete with Safaricom, they would just provide the infrastructure and maintain and Safaricom would pay rent. At some point Safaricom was on KDN but we all know the story with KDN deserves a blog post, not a paragraph.

Anyway, it all seemed to be working ok until Safaricom started getting a lot of clients and realised that the costs were high. After dislodging KDN, guys at JTL also grew horns that I am told a simple fiber survey to Safaricom takes a month and mostly because the guys at JTL have to do it. They move at their pace and there is probably nothing much you can do because options may be limited.

Safaricom may argue that they are still able to make money but late last year, the company invited tenders for laying of its national fiber infrastructure, which will give it more control and leverage to compete with the other players in the industry.

I remember asking Bob sometimes back whether it means Safaricom was getting a raw deal from JTL and whether they will migrate all the capacity. He said the they were just increasing the options because they were also using other providers but if you have your stable infrastructure most of the traffic will go there and others will provide redundancy.

A major challenge of having no fiber is carrying their capacity between Nairobi and Mombasa for onward transmission by global carriers. Two weeks ago during a press conference, I recall Nzioka Waita, Corporate affairs director at Safaricom saying that the high cost of a link between Nairobi and Mombasa was contributing to the high costs of internet access.

Just to put it into perspective, KDN charges $300 per Mb between Nairobi and Mombasa, $420 for Nairobi London, and $420 for Mombasa and London. I couldn’t get any figures from Safaricom because its the closed period but I guess the figures are indicative that the others may not be far off. Just like in any other sector with few players, the prices may not vary on the routes.

The National Fiber Optic Backbone(NOFBI) is different because companies pay $50 for a kilometer of dark fiber then they have to light it. In areas where JTL has proper coverage, I am not sure if Safaricom is opting to light or just go with JTL.

On the last mile, Safaricom may own the infrastructure but in between there are other costs to other infrastructure providers. Compare this with Telkom Kenya which owns its fiber and has terrestrial network and in other areas it is served by the NOFBI, which it operates on behalf of the government.

Because all the base stations are linked with fiber, in some cases microwave, which attracts license fees, you can now see how the cost calculation gets higher for Safaricom.

We discussed 3G technology evolution and how software upgrades allow Safaricom to push more capacity within the same spectrum e.g recently launched HSPA+ but the question of lower costs is a thorny one; if you are pushing more capacity within the same spectrum, shouldn’t that mean lower costs? Well, Safaricom just like other operators will say that they are investing in this technology and the benefits are yet to come.

Growing international content vs. local content exchange

I have been asking this question and I am yet to get someone to give me an idiot centric answer. Make me understand and you can assume or believe I am an idiot, that way, you can start far and drive or walk the point home.

Safaricom says that it doesnt matter whether the content being accessed is local or international, it will still affect the network on the end user or access part and if anything, the costs incurred on setting up and maintaining the network do not equate to any savings that may be saved by local peering (exchange of content between ISPs).

My argument is that you pay $300 per Mb on the international transit, if 1,000 of us can save the company that by hosting locally (assuming it works), then you can reduce maintenance costs and pass them down to end users. I keep giving examples of South Africa where locally hosted content is relatively cheaper because its lesser cost on the ISP.

Even though Safaricom owned up that most of the content accessed on the unlimited offer was international, it was argued that there was no way for a consumer to know whether the site is hosted locally or not, and therefore the cost may not be an issue for the customer.

My argument was that I may be an idiot but I will notice that on month one the bill was lower and the other was higher and if the reason is that I was playing games hosted locally vs hosted abroad, then I will have a choice. Again, I may be an idiot but I surely know the sites I visit.

Yes, infrastructure has grown locally and some of the content like Youtube videos may be available locally through its global cache shared at KIXP, but is this it? Does it mean local content has no role to play in lowering connectivity costs in the country?

Safaricom has invested more that $ 2.4 million (sh. 2 billion) in their cloud service. Let us see how the marketing exercise unfolds.

So, it may not be a proper explanation for Safaricom data costs, but looking at it from their side, you may understand why. But I may be wrong.

Collymore announced that Safaricom was amending its policies to provide data limits (commonly known as caps) and put in place a fair use policy, that can allow them to limit the speeds if a user is seen to be flouting the rules.

The announcement received a lot of criticism against Safaricom for not considering; the falling cost of connectivity, that users crave cheaper bandwidth and that there were some people who were hooked on the system and had to hog the bandwidth, while others thought that Safaricom was maximizing on the profits and that it was making lots of money on the data end.

For those who are not aware, Safaricom was offering unlimited connectivity at speeds of 512 kilobits per second at a cost of sh. 200 per day, sh.500 for three days, sh. 1000 per week and sh. 3000 per month.

Assume the internet link is a pipe of water, running at a permanent speed of 512, meaning that you do not expect the speed to go down because it is unlimited. The word unlimited is also interpreted that that pipe can be opened and left running for whatever time.

Now, the speeds have been limited to 128 kilobits per second once you reach the limit- this is commonly known as throttling. That means that the cost remains the same but daily you are limited to 250Mb of data, 700Mb in three days, 1.5Gb per week and 4.5Gb per month. After you reach the limit, the speeds fall from 512 to 128 for the remainder of the subscribed period. You can read more about bits and bytes conversion here.

Generally, what does unlimited mean? According to the dictionary definition: “having no restrictions or control” or “having or seeming to have no boundaries”. But in telecommunication terms, this word seems to have elastic meaning.

Most global providers who have tried to provide the unlimited connection have had to cap it after a few bandwidth hoggers, usually 10% or less, prove too much. Comcast in the US ran into trouble after capping its home monthly data at 250gigabits per second.

And Safaricom folks wondered why people were busy on twitter asking for wifi gadgets with 3G capabilities and others that had a USB or modem port, can you see what I am seeing? Well, I can see why I should be paying more attention to prepaid offers. This was an insanely ambitious offer

Its easier to speculate but I thought it was better to get it from Safaricom, after all, they were the architects of the unlimited offer and they must have anticipated the uses. Much of the info I got from Rita Okuthe, head of consumer proposition and her team of experts.

Enter tech savvy business people in Nairobi and other areas….

So, what did people do with the unlimited offer?

1. Start a cyber cafe

With the wifi, it is easy to get wifi enabled PCs and laptops and in the neighborhoods with limited connectivity, people will surf and you can make some money, and they did.

2. Open a DVD shop

According to Safaricom, the modems were feasting on the internet while the handsets were merely snacking on the net. In their network, 85% of users were on the mobile phones, on facebook, Gmail and other websites that in most cases are optimized for developing countries while 15% were modem users who were running bandwidth hungry applications and downloading movies, commonly known as torrents.

Indeed, Rita says that the modems were sucking all the internet because the torrents were running for 24 hours, and it is now understandable why its now easier to open a DVD shop.

And of course I suggested that throttling the internet would lead to fewer businesses and the price of bootleg copies may go up. If a guy pays 3,000 for internet and downloads porn, movies, games, series, and music, you can understand why people are furious with Safaricom.

3. Share internet in the office

With this connection, I am sure many small offices were running on the wifi enabled gadget and that meant that offices can now afford cheaper internet. This meant that other Safaricom packages were not selling as much as they should.

4. The simplest was to just tether the phone to your computer and browse

You can add other possible uses here

So, does Safaricom give you a meter to measure when you exceed your limit? I am not sure who will be the judge, some people say they leave 1gb only to find 500mb next time they switch modem on. But again, some people leave websites and applications running on the back end, not knowing that data is running.

With all the infrastructure, should Safaricom be charging better? Read part two in a day or two.

For a regulator like the Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK), you would expect them to be promoting services if the whole talk of how infrastructure has improved and how it is getting better.

I decided to check out where a bunch of sites are hosted, while doing research on an article on the value of local exchange of content. Ideally, it brings costs down if locally hosted content is exchanged locally. You can read how KIXP saved ISPs $1.5 million in this article.

So, where is CCK website hosted? In the US

How long will it take for CCK website to resolve? See the hops it goes through below: Marseille, Newark…. etc

Should CCK be expected to show some support for the local industry?

To be fair, I talked to Christopher Wambua about it and he told me that they gave the tender to a local company and as it happens, the company hosts abroad.

My argument was that if a CCK supplier, whether Kenyan or not, decided to supply eggs or milk from Malawi, would they say yes just because the company is Kenyan? I thought there are ethics or what do you call those? Where a company says that we have faith in this industry so we prefer if you procured services locally.

I know people will say its cost but don’t tell me that CCK can’t pay 12, 20, or 30k local hosting just to set the pace. I know we have no faith in Kenya Power but when there is a fiber outage, it means site till accessible.

I know its the prerogative of the CCK but I thought that it was odd, whatever the reason, I hope its all worth it

After overseeing the establishment and growth of Google in Africa, from single staff to 80, from one country to eight, Mucheru will now be concentrating his efforts on Kenya.

“This was my decision, I have been spending one in four weeks in Kenya; it’s good for my family and great for the country,” said Mucheru.

Mucheru is probably the most experienced in Kenya’s tech industry, having started around 1990, co-founded Wananchi Online to the position where an international firm could buy in, after managing to bring the cost of connectivity down. I still remember Wananchi adverts for a dial up for 12k and that was a real bargain.

Sub Saharan Africa will be taken over by Meir Brand, Google Managing Director based in Israel. Brand will be overseeing staff in Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Senegal and Nigeria?

The main reason is that Google is moving to the commercialize ton stage, having invested much and when they looks around, Brand provided the best opportunity.

“in terms of commercialization, Israel has been bringing Google the highest income compared to other markets, of course we want the best and Brand provided the best option,” added Mucheru.

But why take a position as a country lead while he headed the region?
Mucheru was inspired by John Michuki, the late environment minister, who was eulogized by many for the reforms he brought while at the helm of the transport ministry.

As the regional lead, Mucheru could not interfere with the country operations because that would step in many toes. That brings to mind the recent Mocality debacle that led to Olga’s departure.

“I listened and witnessed what Michuki had done and how people thought of him, I want to leave a legacy and the market I understand better is Kenya, I may head the region but I will never be Ghanian or Senegalese, I will always be Kenyan and that is where I want to bring change,” He added.

So if you are wondering whether its a demotion or not, I guess he will say, there comes a time when decisions have to be made.

What do you think of the move?

David Wambua, the fourth CEO in five years has left, quit, fired and any other term you can fix there, depending on who you believe. Former CEOs are; Michuki Mwangi, Vincent Ngundi, Joe Kiragu and now David Wambua.

Word is that the guy was incompetent; the board hired a marketing guy to do a technical job. However, I spoke to someone who understands the organization and its politics and told me that being a marketing guy was not the issue; it was his unwillingness to understand the organization and how it works.

I am told that the board hired him from Brand Kenya, believing that he was the guy to take the organization to the next level, a year later, the board felt that the level was down and they expected it to be up.

Picture this; .co.za has 700k domains, .0rg.za has 20k and the whole of .ke has 21k as at march 2012. With all the bragging that Kenya is taking off in tech, you would expect the domain to dance around 300k

The failure to understand KENIC and its history probably manifested itself in the case of Rwanda and its efforts to revive .rw. You see, Kenya is considered a tech power house in the region, so, when Rwanda thought about setting up its .rw registry, it approached Kenic for help.

Kenic adopted the system from the Christmas islands and locally made some enhancements to suit the market and started using it in 2010 or there about. The system has an Mpesa interface for registrars to pay and also an alert system for the end users, alerting you when your domain is about to expire. The system is open source and has been used by a number of African registries, you can read more here.

When David went to Rwanda, he told the .rw guys that the best he could do, is giving them the contacts of the company that customized it for .ke. If David understood Kenic, he probably would have looked for a way to help.

Kenic through the help of Brazil registry for .br, they trained Michuki Mwangi free and gave Kenya their registry system to customize, the only challenge was that the manuals were in Portuguese. Tanzania also benefitted from the same training and you can read the 2006 post here.

When they could not get help from Kenya, Rwanda got help from Tanzania, which is great but doesn’t make a good showing for Kenya. I am not privy to the details of the contract with the .ke system developers but with the history, I am sure it must say somewhere that Kenic can take the system and offer it to someone else for customization or something like that. With the level of underdevelopment of many registries, you would expect others to ask for help and give it, the way you got it from Brazil.

Then there is the problem of board interference.  The micro management at Kenic is just something else. I am told its only one board member who doesn’t like to let things run smoothly. I can not name him without being accused of malice

Its basic business knowledge that having five CEOs in five years means that there is a problem with the organization; either the employees or the board.

Kenic is a multistakeholder body, owned by the tech community. Board members are:

Sammy Buruchara – Telecommunication Service Providers Association of Kenya (TESPOK) 
• Alice Munyua – Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANET) – Chairperson
• Michael Katundu – Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK)
• Lucky Waindi – Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK)
• Charles Njoroge -Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK)
• Ali Hussein – Domain Registrars Association of Kenya (DRAKE) – Vice-Chairperson
• Moses Kemibaro – Kenya Internet Marketing Association (KIMA)
• Prof. Jimmy Macharia – Kenya Education Network (KENET)
• Charles Nduati – Kenya ICT Federation (KIF)
• J.N Muiruri – e-Government

I don’t know Gina and have never met her, only heard of stories of how the account rose from a retainer of shs 1 m a month to 7 or 8m, depending on who you believe. There is so much said about Gina Din CC but I will dwell on the few business lessons I have learnt.

1. The power of networks

Many people in journalism and PR circles know that Gina was a good friend to Michael Joseph, former Safaricom CEO and without watering down her PR prowess, Michael supported her in ensuring survival after five years. I am sure when Safaricom started paying her shs 3m a month, other international or more recognizable firms started angling for business but she managed to hold on to it.

Whether Gina knew Michael, was introduced to him or just pitched, got it right the first time and Safaricom liked her work from the word go, I am sure she is happy to have had such a network.

You see, in business, I have learnt that you may be great at what you do but people will choose who they do business with because they know their work, somebody else has spoken highly of them or in some cases, you are just lucky and in your pitch you impress and nail it. Either way, if you have the right people supporting you, the sky is not even the limit.

Of course there is no comparison between my networks and Gina’s while she will hang out in the high joints, where she is likely to mingle with the CEOs while the joints south of Tom Mboya street cannot do me any favors. You can imagine joints with names like “Reke Marie”, “Njugima”, “mboco-ini”, Mutigwo iganjo” etc…

Michael is also said to have helped and inspired many journalists, opening their eyes to opportunities, putting in a word where possible, some were able to take advantage while others could not be helped, opted just to pursue hand outs.

So, taking que from Gina, I am optimistic that soon I will get one influential person who believes in my abilities and it may be the end of my association with poverty

2. Knowing when to call it time

For those who come from coffee growing areas, you know that by 3pm, the coffee must be on the way to the factory. So, in my family, we used to tell each other, “umira na karia ugethete” loosely translated to mean that when time comes, you get of the farm with the coffee you had picked. In most cases, whether commercial or family, we would be paid for what we pick, young and old.

For me, I think Gina decided to get off with what she had. The money she had made after 10 years seemed enough and hey, she bagged a contract from Orange, how cool is that?

We have seen cases of people trying to hang on to something that is past its time and in the process, make enemies and say things that could have been avoided. I wish many people, especially politicians can learn how to call it time.

I am sure when that tender was sent out, GDCC must have know their time was up and as you can see, they jumped ship.

3. Hiring former journalists

There are many companies that would like to have the level of media presence that Safaricom has. I was speaking to a PR rep the other day who was laughing at how they went for a pitch and a client was complaining that they have not been getting coverage like Safaricom and that is why they moved from the previous agency. That is great for GDCC.

For journalists, I think its easier to pitch a story to another and in some cases they will tell you that you need to write because the client needs to see something, and given the history, you have to. Which reminds me of sometime last year when a former colleague, now in PR had Nokia Siemens top global guys in town and he needed tech journos to ask questions, and he sort of insisted that I must be there. Well, the traffic situation meant that I had to get off a mat in Ngara and by the time I got to KICC, I was late and you can imagine the sweat, all because a former colleague had insisted it was important. Well, of course there are others who you cannot go to such lengths.

So, hiring journos has worked well for GDCC and media coverage, even though some will argue that there is nothing in media coverage and that corporate communications entails more.

Then there is the thorny issue of salaries. There are also other people who will tell you that GDCC doesnt pay well and that is why they hire journalists from certain media houses and not others.

Well, if a journalist is not well paid and GDCC pays them a bit higher, then they can use it as the audition to get to the well paying PR company that will only poach them after proving themselves at GDCC. By the way, some of the so called PR gurus have passed through GDCC and I must say I have never heard any of them talking badly of the pay at GDCC. Maybe its because in our earlier years we worked as correspondents, the pay was poor and delayed, but don’t ask how we survived

If you look at it, much of the success at GDCC has been acheived by journalists who do not boast of masters degree, MBA and other papers, that shows the level of quality in the newsrooms.

I digressed so much, now I am not even sure of the point- I guess, its make as much money and use readily available cheap labor .

Conclusion

We can say all we want but for a local company, GDCC has made a very good showing; help on the way but a very good showing nonetheless.

There are companies that are not focussed on delivery, they want pitches that show how the office is well equipped with employees with masters and ability to spin theories but not delivering. I am told pitches nowadays are about photocopiers that also make tea, air conditioned offices, nice locations etc.. so, if your office is in one of those based at Mageso chambers, mugoiri house etc… you may not go far.

So, the pitch is up, GDCC snapped Orange from Ogilvy, lets see if Safaricom goes to Ogilvy, or Hill & Knowlton, also part of Ogilvy East Africa. On another note, Safaricom may just decide to promote another up and coming local agency.

Ten years ago, Gina Din may have been small but today, its big. Can you imagine going for a pitch with 10 years at Safaricom under your belt?

Well, enough with all the PR talk.