Cross Roads

Incubators were created to provide shelter for pre-mature children. Born before their time. This means therefore, that the businesses that we deal with are alive and functioning enough to be recognizable. The challenge is to keep them alive...now that they have been born and to ensure that they are well equipped to be handed over to the next stage of development. The good incubator is therefore a facilitator . It is created to ensure that the business person has their needs met and that they are able to function at a new level. But weaning must take place and  development must be measured. We must ensure that clarity of objectives is established from the start.  The good incubator must therefore clearly define roles and manage contracts. It must be very clear what stage of development the start-up is operating at. People that are dealing with frustrations with collapsing systems must be allowed to find a safe shelter where their creativity can be harnessed. ...

A few days ago, i posed a comment about the Kenyan elections and stated that this was a return to independence...about 50 years ago. I do not wish to discourage those who would view this as a regression nor do i wish to present a pciture of tribe versus tribe. It is very difficult to escape the notion that troubles many of us when we ask those deep questions-where are you from. Kabila gani? While i have also made reference to the cyclical nature of history, my primary aim was to demonstrate to you that in scripture and in life, we will often find ourselves repeating the msitakes others have made in history, if we do not adequately learn from them. This is not always a bad thing. Some may take it as an opportunity from heaven to right the wrongs that were done in previous historic moments. The swearing in of a Kikuyu president and a Kalenjin vice is therefore an opprotunity to think about that key moment in history and to attempt to learn from it. What advise should we prepare fo...

One of Uganda's most vibrant economic sectors is that of Telecommunication. Split it up into several sections and you will be able to identify how best to beat your foe. The first is SMS . At about 150 UGX a pop, there is a lot of money to be made encouraging customers to send simple messages. No wonder the telecoms invest a lot of money in sms and win competitions. The Second is in phone calls . Even if the land line has been ignored, it is still by far the most effective way to manage an office as well as a home. There are a host of new technologies that have been created to help businesses manage clients with support platforms that can handle task formerly assigned to customer service representatives. Even if there has a risen a host of options for customer service such as the use of social media, there has been an unfair compromise with the formerly useful voice that used to exist on the other side of the line. While some companies prefer to use Business Process Outsourcin...

There is a major trend that is affecting Information Technology practitioners throughout the country and the continent at large. You could argue that the this trend is the result of the social media boom that has fueled the growth of many large companies and resulted in a change in the delivery  of services for many companies. The full effect of this trend is still to be realized but it has the potential to transform the manner in which we educate our children, the way in which we recruit new workers, the process by which we create and develop new platforms and the way in which we govern. Last Week I was privileged to attend an event hosted by the Outbox Hub at Soliz House in Kampala, Uganda. The organization that handled the workshop was called Pivot East . I learned much about the workshop from a group called Eventbrite  which keeps me updated on key events in the country and around the world. The group sought to deal with the complex subject of customer segmentation...