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WEDNESDAY, JULY 26, 2006

The Sodom & Gamorrah Show

We all have our favourite bands. Most come and go, replaced by others as musical trends - and our tastes - change over time. I've lost count of the number I've stumbled across, only for them to break up or vanish from the face of the planet after a second or, if lucky, third album. It's rare to be able to say that you've grown up with a band. Maybe I'm one of the lucky ones who can say I have...

Those who know me might be surprised that it's taken this long to give a mention to the Pet Shop Boys on my Blog, a pop duo who emerged in the mid-80's who, in the words of one of their own songs, have "both made such a little go a very long way".

There's a Pet Shop Boys song representing almost every phase of my teenage life (well, late teens, anyway) up to the present. I've played them on every one of my numerous Sony Walkman's, portable CD players and more recently iPod in every African country I've had the fortune to visit. The recent release of their highly acclaimed 'Fundamental' album has thrust them back into the public eye, and the BBC's use of their 'Numb' track to summarise the disappointment of England's recent exit from the football World Cup gave the track a surprising iTunes chart hit.

The recent revamp of their website (pictured - click to visit) has been long overdue. Best of all, however, has to be the 'Jukebox' where you get a random stream of classic PSB tunes, and the 'Product' section where tracks from all twenty-eight albums can be played online, in full. This includes the fantastic Battleship Potemkin, a soundtrack to the 1925 silent Russian revolutionary film of the same name. Give the site a visit, and check out 'Fundamental'.

Like an old friend, it's hard to imagine the musical world without our Neil and Chris. For now, I'll try not to.

"I want to to be numb..."

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TUESDAY, JULY 18, 2006

Time for specialisation?

If you cast your mind back a few years you'd remember whole batches of small IT start-ups developing and marketing bunches of IT-based tools and diagnostics utilities. Looking back now some of these seem a little silly - a utility to compress data or defrag your system, another to help undelete files, others to search for files across your hard drives. Now, of course, pretty much all of these have been swallowed up into Windows. The lucky companies got bought out. Others just went under.

The PC market is certainly big enough to support many, many companies of different shapes and sizes. It's sad to think, then, that so many of these pioneers have fallen by the wayside (although replaced, naturally, by newer outfits). If Microsoft hadn't liked their products so much and hadn't either made them an offer they couldn't refuse, or integrated their ideas into the continuing development of Windows, then quite possibly many more would still be around today. It would make for a healthier environment, I'm sure.

Now we hear that Apple may be under pressure (again) from the Seattle giant. Picture it. A couple of decades or so ago you develop a home computer, and the operating system, only for someone else to come in and steal your thunder (I won't go into any of the legal issues or court cases here). So, after a period of great uncertainty you decide to move into a new area - portable music devices - and make a huge success of that. Then what happens? Another giant - the same one as before, as a matter of fact - comes in and announces that they will also be entering the market.

Dubbed the "iPod killer" by some, Microsoft's 'Zune' portable media player will certainly be one to watch. But why does a company with the biggest pile of money ever assembled need to go and enter another market like this? Isn't the PC market enough to be getting on with?

Competition may be healthy, sure. Survival of the fittest, sure. But let's be careful how we go forward. I, for one, would rather see companies specialise and stick to what they do best. And leave the others to do the same.

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SUNDAY, JULY 09, 2006

ICTs: Prescribing the right medicine...

The argument that drugs widely available in Western countries (many at greatly reduced cost via public and national health programmes) should also be made available - at preferential rates - to other not-so-well-off developing countries is not new. Indeed, medicines such as those which block the transmission of HIV from mother to unborn child are widely used in Europe and the United States but, despite their huge success, aren't always available to the millions in developing countries who need them just as much. Perhaps even more.

You'd have thought that campaigning for life-saving drugs was a bit of a no-brainer. People here are unnecessarily dieing from a disease which has a cure there. Sadly, things are never that simple.

I've often wondered if the same concept could be applied to ICTs. Over the past two or three years the emergence of information and communication technologies as a means of enabling economic empowerment in third world communities has grown into something of a phenomenon. Report after report reveals the wide-ranging benefits of mobile telephony in particular, from improved communication between family members through to the creation of small businesses and the provision of valuable news and other information via SMS.

As with the pharmaceutical model, cost, for many, is something of a barrier. After all, getting hold of a phone is just the half of it - without a SIM and regular top-ups it's not much use to anyone. A mixture of entrepreneurial skills and outright resourcefulness often solves some, if not all, of these problems. But if the mobile is such an economic enabler, and if it is able to spread its influence across multiple disciplines such as health, education and communication (to name just three), then shouldn't we be looking to remove these cost barriers? As with the medicine model, shouldn't we be fighting for cheaper and wider access to mobile services?

At the NGO level, those with the vision and will to embrace the mobile revolution regularly stumble across the same barrier. Hitting a few hundred phones with a targeted health message is not only technically challenging for some of these organisations, but it can also be costly. Again, if the benefits are so clear then why don't we campaign for cheaper, more open access to the networks?

The mobile revolution has not only empowered many third world citizens and communities. It's also making some people very, very rich. It's the perfect business model. Wouldn't it be great if a provider could set up a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) for exclusive use by the NGO community - conservation and development organisations alike working for the greater good? The infrastructure is already there. I don't think it would be too much work. But it would reduce their bottom line a little. Maybe that's the problem...

I can't somehow see this happening anytime soon, but an NGO mobile network throughout continents such as Africa? Now, wouldn't that be something?

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TUESDAY, JUNE 06, 2006

The flight of human capital

During a recent flight to Zimbabwe I got chatting to a young lady (who happened to be carrying with her - as hand luggage, naturally - a very young child). I was put in the 'big' aisle seats. You know, the ones with no-one in front of you, just that big space before you hit the white screen and those first- and business-class paying passengers. At first I thought I'd got a bit of a result until I realised she had that six month old baby with her. She was breast feeding and the whole operation – baby included – was expertly hidden. She was obviously a seasoned traveller and well used to the whole exercise. (It turned out that this was her child's third international flight, pretty impressive for someone so young). The thought of all those hours with a screaming child didn't fill me with great joy, I must be honest.

But to be fair the child was very well behaved, and the on-off chat with the mother during the ten hour flight was interesting for a number of reasons. As we slowly got to know more about each other, it was clear that she'd had a fairly privileged upbringing. She was born in Zimbabwe but, as seems to be the norm with many Zimbabweans that I know, she was educated outside the country and had finally settled abroad. As a 'local' I listened intently at the things she had to say about the government, how I shouldn't change my foreign exchange on the black market, where I shouldn't go, how the hotel I was staying in was infamous and had bullet-proof glass around reception, how I shouldn't pay a visit to this 'Portugal Bar' place in Harare, how things had got quite dangerous everywhere. It sounded like I was going to need my fair share of luck if I was to have any chance of getting out of this place alive...

I didn't really get thinking until after I arrived and had been there for a couple of days. Was this really the same country she was talking about?

You know, this lady now lives in the Caribbean and flies 'home' (that's the subject for another blog entry, for sure) once or twice a year. She's met by her family at the airport and is driven to one of the posher parts of Harare. There she stays in a big house, venturing out to the better shopping areas when she feels like it, all well away for what life is really like for a large percentage of the city's population. (And she actually told me all this, in case you were wondering. Well, all of it except the last bit).

She seemed as detached from the reality of Zimbabwean life as I was before I got there.

I've often wondered what it would be like to leave your country of birth, lose touch with its reality, see it crumble and struggle, but just carry on regardless. Sure, while things aren't going quite so well you can understand those lucky people who have an option exercising the one which gets them as far away as possible. But, to me, losing their reality as well as their residency is much more of a worry.

Eventually, when things turn around, how many of these educated, well trained, talented people are going to return to help re-build their country? Will enough of them still feel a spiritual need to return 'home' and help make the land of their birth a better place?

Or will they be so detached that, ultimately, they have little to offer the people that had no choice but to stay?

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FRIDAY, MAY 19, 2006

Can we have our island back?

There's something very interesting going on in South America at the moment. It doesn't seem to be getting a huge amount of attention, but if it catches on it could have far and wide implications for all of us.

Indigenous communities there have lived off their tribal lands for generations. While many still do, others lost theirs long ago as natural resources were discovered, large-scale farmers and loggers moved in, and national parks were created. Few, if any, got compensated or received any stake in the financial riches that often followed their expulsion.

Indeed, kicking people off their land has been a bit of a pastime for many governments over the course of the last century or so. There didn't seem to be anything wrong with it at the time. Why, the British government expelled an entire population from an island in order to help out the Americans with Diego Garcia. Doesn't seem right, somehow.

But things seem to be changing. Indigenous and local groups, backed up by a growing band of (brave) new leaders have begun wrestling back what many people see as rightfully theirs. Assets are being transferred back into state control, but not just any old assets. Oil and gas fields, as it happens.

Bolivia recently declared it was nationalising foreign energy companies, and Ecuador recently seized the assets of American giant Occidental (although this was part of a specific dispute - oil companies in general have nothing to fear, or so they're telling them). Hugo Chavez (who seems to hold two jobs - one President of Venezuela and the other to annoy the hell out of George Bush) was behind recent moves to bring Venezuela's oil assets under the control of the state oil company. This hasn't gone down too well with the Bush administration generally, nor Exxon Mobil, Chevron or ConocoPhillips who run some of the fields.

Protests against foreign ownership and control of national assets are nothing new. The key difference here, though, is that they're government-led. We're not talking about a bunch of armed rebels such as those working for the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta in Nigeria (MEND). These guys just blow up the odd pipeline or kidnap the odd oil worker, and then retreat back to the bush. (MEND may be new on the scene, but this battle has been going on for some time).

It's hard to argue why a country shouldn't have control of its natural resources. Maybe the tide is beginning to turn against the global corporate machine, and oil and gas could just be the start.
 

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TUESDAY, MAY 16, 2006

Motorola (RED) - the new 'wristband'?

The Independent is one of my favourite newspapers. Often a little different, always daring, up front and in your face, and not afraid to tell it how it is. Tuesday, May 16th's edition is no different.
 

Dedicated to Africa (not entirely, but pretty close) - and in particular the continent's battle with HIV/AIDS - even the adverts have a philanthropic, humanitarian feel. Ads for credit cards which donate money 'as-you-spend' to HIV/AIDS research, and a mobile phone (I'll leave you guess the colour) from Motorola which pledges a percentage of its sale price. 'Pay-as-you-go' becomes 'give-as-you-go' with UK operators donating 5% of your call spend to the cause (but only if you use one of these Africa-friendly mobiles). Getting that bunch to agree to that is an achievement in itself, let's not be mistaken.

Even the story about Prince Harry's girlfriend has a nice African touch - she's from Zimbabwe, apparently (and very nice, too).

Helped along by Bono of U2 fame (who stars as the Editor for the day) and his Product RED charity, Africa is back on the agenda big time. Let's hope today's Independent sticks around in bars, cafe's, doctors surgeries and hairdressers long enough for people to take notice. The very fact that it's there, and it's high profile (and it's in red) is good enough for me.

Now, where did I leave that white wristband?

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WEDNESDAY, MAY 03, 2006

Building the Olympic 'dream'

I've tended to shy away from reproducing other people's work on my blog. After all, it's a bit lazy, isn't it? But today I'm making an exception. Conservation is often accused of being too negative, always looking for the worst in everything. Although this isn't strictly true, the people working behind the scenes often remain up-beat, plugging away in even the darkest hours. Perhaps it is because of this that I found this article so moving. Taken from the Rainforest Portal:

"A month ago I made the audacious statement that the rainforest movement had achieved a victory in protecting Indonesia's rainforests and orangutans from a huge oil palm plantation. I made this statement fully aware that Indonesia's rainforests were in frenzied crisis and hoping that supporting those in government working to conserve rainforests from such atrocities could make a positive difference. This hope has proven fleeting.

I now realise I was wrong, am retracting the victory claim, and have realised there is little or no hope for Indonesia's large and intact ancient rainforests. I apologise for my error.

The latest news is that a Chinese company intends to set-up a massive timber plant in Indonesian Papua to process rare rainforest timbers for Olympic construction. This will set the stage for the final destruction of these relatively intact rainforests. The second story details the ongoing power struggle between various Indonesian factions for and against the massive oil palm project. These actions - which are so grossly unjust and unsustainable, and our inability to stop them - show just how impotent the rainforest movement has become.

Together with the nearly four million hectares of deforestation already occurring annually in Indonesia's rainforests, the new forces of rainforest destruction arrayed against Indonesia's rainforest ecosystems are simply too great. Nothing can stand against a billion Chinese consumers all aspiring to the wasteful and deadly living standards of Americans and Europeans.

Ecological Internet will continue our campaign to support those in the Indonesian government that oppose these projects. But frankly, there is little hope that anything but the smallest little fragmented bits of Indonesia's rainforests will ever be protected, and perhaps I was crazy for saying there was. Let's keep on trying nonetheless..."

Dr. Glen Barry
www.ecologicalinternet.org

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SATURDAY, APRIL 29, 2006

Blogging: A time and a place?

Funny, isn't it. Not so long ago I'd never have considered publishing personal thoughts in any shape or form. That scruffy notebook under the bed was the place for them. For a start, there wasn't an instantly accessible medium (as such), but even if there was who'd be remotely interested in what I had to say? Or not say, as the case may be. Remember, many blogs are transcripts of what people think - based on a never-ending internal dialogue - and not necessarily what people would actually ever say. And therein, perhaps, lies the magic of blogging.

What people say in public, and what they're comfortable saying, is in certain cases a very fine line. You wouldn't necessarily expect much from the author of a blog about Eggs, Bacon, Chips and Beans other than information about, well... ummm... eggs, bacon, chips and beans. What you see is what you get. But just imagine reading Kofi Annan's personal blog, and I mean his personal blog. What on earth would it say - what does Kofi really think about the state of the planet? What worries him - guard down and politics aside? I doubt I'll ever know, unless I manage a drunken 4am fireside drink with the guy after a conference somewhere...

One of the earliest comments I received about my kiwanja website was that it was incredibly personal, just as much a site about me as it was about my work. Not good, they said. But this was always my intention. People that know me will realise that I am my work. But despite this, three months ago (when I decided to give blogging a try) my first instinct was to create a new site, an anonymous one, where I could say whatever I wanted and then somehow distance myself from what I had written. What nonsense that was, and I realise it now.

So I added a blog to my kiwanja site (you're here now!) and began brain dumping there. As a 'business' site - well, one advertising my wares at the very least - my logic was simple. If people didn't like what I thought then I wouldn't want to work with them anyway. Risky, but at the end of the day why pretend to be someone we're not for the sake of getting the gig? I'm passed that now.

One thing that blogging has re-inforced for me is this. It allows me to be myself, something that many people in the higher reaches of corporate and company life - Kofi included - perhaps cannot. And that's a real shame.

Unless, of course, he's blogging anonymously somewhere... Now, wouldn't that be a find?
 

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THURSDAY, APRIL 20, 2006

Battle at the bottom of the pyramid

You can imagine the headlines.

"Western giants battle over the hearts, minds (and wallets?) of Africa's rural poor"

I'm talking about the battle currently raging right under our noses between MIT and Microsoft, or Nicholas Negroponte and Bill Gates, or the $100 laptop and a Windows/mobile device (as yet unnamed since it's not even in existence). Or all three if you like.
 

(For those of you who might not know, the $100 laptop is a product of One Laptop per Child (OLPC), a non-profit association dedicated to researching and developing a laptop to revolutionise ICT access for the 'rural poor' in developing countries. The idea was announced by Nicholas Negroponte at the World Economic Forum in January 2005).

The laptop itself is a rather bright little green thing, its most striking feature being a crank handle which gives it the power it needs to run. As is traditional in such cases, the idea has caused jubilation and alarm in equal measure, not least from Bill Gates himself who, not surprisingly perhaps, is a little miffed that the laptop designers have opted to use open source software, shunning his beloved Windows operating system. Maybe for this reason alone Mr. Gates has gone on the warpath, slamming the $100 laptop and claiming that some Windows-powered mobile device plugged into a keyboard and TV is the answer. All very interesting stuff, even if it doesn't exist yet (or does it?!).

All of this strikes me as yet another example of top-down interventionism. Are these projects (or visions in Bill's case) needs-driven, or big business agenda-driven? And whose needs? If it's the 'rural poor' then are their needs real or perceived? Who's representing the 'rural poor' in all of this? What do they think (not that they can all collectively respond, naturally)? I imagine it's like being in a hospital bed with two doctors standing over you arguing about how you're feeling and what's best for you. As the patient, surely you have some say? In a similar way, the 'rural poor' should not be treated as passive recipients of whichever ICT becomes dominant, based on battles of ideas, money and ideologies far, far away. Is it really for us to say what they really need?

"African women who do most of the work in the countryside don't have time to sit with their children and research what crops they should be planting. What is needed is clean water and real schools". How many would agree with that?

Don't get me wrong - I'm not particularly for or against initiatives like the $100 laptop. It's just the process that I'm having a little difficulty with.
 

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FRIDAY, APRIL 7, 2006

The keyword cloud that paints a 1000 words

And so it goes... You get the picture. If you want to see all 1000 words, click here.

Want your own cloud?

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SUNDAY, APRIL 2, 2006

Stranger in their midst

From a handwritten note - quite literally on the back of an envelope - from my university anthropology days. It reads:

"The reader must imagine to himself the privilege of making contact with primitive societies which were more or less intact and had never been studied seriously. Just how recently - as luck would have it - the whites had set out to destroy them will be clear from the following story.

The Californian tribes had still been quite wild at the time of their extermination, and it happened that one Indian escaped, as if by a miracle, from the holocaust. For years he lived unknown and unobserved only a dozen miles from the great centres of population, and kept himself alive with his bow and sharp-pointed arrows whose stone heads he carved himself.

Gradually there was less and less for him to shoot, and finally he was found, naked and starving on the outskirts of a city suburb. He ended his days in peace as a college porter at the University of California."

I can see why I wrote it down, why I wanted to keep a record of it. It quite wonderfully catches the whole essence of disappearing peoples and cultures, and does so beautifully and concisely. I don't know who the tribe were, or who the porter was. Maybe I'd prefer to keep it that way.

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