Ignore Us At Your Peril

  Last week I wrote about the multi-storey car park at MMA2 and used it as a point to express my concern about what could potentially be the beginning of decay at that airport. After writing that post, I went over to MMA2's website and submitted a complaint on their help page. In the week since, I have not been contacted by email.

A few weeks ago, I did a piece on MTN in which I criticised their mobile Internet service. Now I didn't send a link to them to them via email, instead I sent them a link on Twitter. I never got an response or a comment and shortly afterward @mtn_nigeria disappeared from Twitter.

One of Nigeria's greatest shames is the abysmal electricity situation. A movement called the Light Up Nigeria Movement (or LightUpNigeria) was started on Twitter and now has its home at www.lightupnigeria.org. LightUpNigeria is intent on using the Internet and other media to raise a groundswell of voices putting pressure on the Nigerian government to address the electricity problem. In fact several events are planned by LightUpNigeria to mark the upcoming Independence Day anniversary.  The movement has even drafted a Proclamation. I have not been able to find any indication that this effort has been acknowledged by the government.

These three examples, particularly the last one, show the ability to use the Internet and its technologies by Nigerians to engage service providers and governments. The problem is the service providers and government are not engaging us in return. Twitter and it’s home-grown clones like NaijaPulse and Kukurooku in particular are excellent tools that can be mined to find out what web-savvy Nigerians thinking and focusing on are and Facebook, is a great place to engage one on one with customers and constituents.

Aside from these tools, there is the Nigerian blogosphere where the more eloquent Nigerians engage in conversations in their blogs on politics, technology, faith, their loves and their pain points. The wealth of Nigeria’s brain trust is freely available on the internet for every business, institution, and government agency to harness for product development, process improvement, idea generation, crime prevention, technological advancement, and societal transformation.

However, they are not listening.

There are over ten million Nigerians – people living in Nigeria – on the Internet. Not to mention the vast number of Nigerians in the Diaspora who remain very relevant to the Nigerian story.  That may account for less than 10% of our population, but we are growing everyday. You can’t ignore us. And I don’t mean filling our inboxes with unsolicited email messages or taking over every whitespace on Facebook. Loy Okezie pointed out that more and more Nigerian businesses are engaging in the use of social media (Facebook, twitter et al), but I am unconvinced that they are using these tools the right way. The day of the one-way blast of adverts is at an end. Mashable recently did an article on how to use social media to collect feedback from customers. Our political and business organisations have to engage us. Hear what we have to say. That encourages us to listen to them in turn. When our voice finds its way into products or processes and we see evidence of that, it wins and keeps our loyalty.

It seems like Barack Obama has been US President forever, but it was only a year ago when he won the election by, amongst other things, engaging the minds and hearts of the Internet generation in the US, a strategy he is continuing as president. Assuming the Republicans were doomed to lose the elections, the other Democratic hopefuls lost out, in part, because they did not realise just how vital it was to capture this demographic. Instead Obama turned them into his army of volunteers. He used the Internet to tell them his vision for the country, and by listening to them, he made them his voice.

We know what Nigeria is now, we are no USA, we do not have the depth of internet penetration that the Americans have. However, a savvy governor or a smart brand can use the Internet to create a movement for unstoppable positive public action or to exponentially extend the power of their brand. LightUpNigeria is doing the reverse – letting the leaders know what we are agitating for, keeping the pressure on. It is extremely unwise for the government not to figure out some way to use this ready, willing, and eminently able movement, virtually presented on platter of gold, to tackle the electricity problem, to “crowd source” the solutions. Nigerians are the among scrappiest people on the planet. We have shown our ability to adapt to the worst and thrive. We can figure it out and show the world a solution that will amaze. The relevant government ministry should actually sponsor the conversation on www.LightUpNigeria.org, give regular updates on progress, highlight the various contractors doing specific projects and inform Nigerians of setbacks.
At the very least they should soothe the beast before it becomes savage.

This post is not about electricity or infrastructure problems. It is about the fact that the coming of the internet age to Nigeria is an end to the inability of the people to speak and be heard. We will speak with our tweets and our blogs and that will eventually become our speaking with our votes and with our money. Listen to us now and one day, when our voice is powerful enough, that will be the sound that will carry you in our high offices, or to the highest pinnacles of business success.

Ignore us and you do it to your peril.

Dej.

Photo Courtesy of mattinnigeria.wordpress.com/

Go From Consumer To Creator.

The billboard dominated the landscape drawing the eye to it. The image on it is forgettable. Some young hustler obviously making his bid for success. The words, however, are memorable: “Go do Something”. Right now I forget whether the message was from MTN or GLO, but I cannot forget the words. The message is not new, nor is the idea a foreign one to me. The thought was not initiated by the sight of the billboard, but the tall white text does crystallise it for me.

Today, the ordinary person is suddenly capable of impacting the world in a way that has never before been seen. The ability to make changes, for good or bad, was once within the ambit of nations or the traditionally wealthy. For the self-starter it often took many years to accomplish anything and even longer for the impact to be seen. Technology has changed all that. Death has been called the “Great Equaliser”, well the internet comes a close second. Which is why so many are trying to address the issue of the digital divide. If we can bring the internet and information technology to many of the world’s poorest and most deprived people, these same people can not only change their own lives, but can in turn reach out to the world and change it.

Image Courtesy: crimzonblue on flickr

So this week, I have to say the same words to everyone out there who already have access to the internet - go do something. Use the technology you have access to to change the world around you. There are many things we use the internet for everyday. Entertainment, education, communication, acquisition. Yet much of what we do with the internet enriches no one but ourselves. That was the old internet where we went to consume the content that was out there. Usually, it was created by someone else, usually by some expert with specialised knowledge and some arcane capabilities to bring that information to the net. Today’s internet is one where every ordinary person can create something and put it out there for all the world to use.

There are many ways, with a little effort, that every Nigerian on the internet can do something that changes someone’s life for the better. It is almost frighteningly easy to do so. Many of the things you can do are free with the only cost to you the internet connection and computer (and if you can use someone else’s computer and connection even that is free). You can even use a phone. It is that easy. I should add that when I say “change the world” or “change someone’s life” I do not necessarily mean free services. Doing free stuff is very worthwhile and we also should find some way to give freely of ourselves. However those kinds of change are also what all great business enterprises are built on. The greatest business enterprise at the end of the 20th Century, Microsoft had the vision of putting a computer in every home. This vision took Microsoft to where it is today and is central to the worldwide computer revolution. So “go do something” could definitely mean go implement some great business idea that affects all of us positively.

Permit me to make a few suggestions.

Blogging

I’m blogging because it’s the easiest way for a writer to put his work out there for people to read. You can write short pieces that shares ideas, critiques systems, encourages people or shares news. You can crusade for the homeless, You can record your adventures in the business world or record your sorrows. You can even serialise a novel. Easy. One of the most popular sites to blog from is www.blogger.com – my host and it is free. It is even easier to use www.posterous.com. You don’t need to sign up for anything. Send an email containing your first blog post as text to Posterous and they will set up your blog for you. With just a little bit of effort you can even set up your blog with the potential to make money from Google AdSense (by the way, click on the occasional advert on this page if you please) or some other service. You don’t need a publisher or distribution mechanism. Write it, post it, share it and it’s out there.

Wikipedia

If you’ve used the internet for more than a day, you must have heard of Wikipedia. The free online encyclopaedia enables everybody create entries and edit existing entries. So you can contribute towards entries about Nigeria or about the Yoruba nation. You can add to the world body of knowledge on jurisprudence, or record the recipe for Zobo. This is still writing but unlike a personal blog, Wikipedia entries show up high in Google searches and a more likely place to be heard. More importantly, it is huge planet-spanning collaborative effort.

Become a Reporter

A few months ago, the brutal beating of young lady on the streets of Lagos caught the world’s (or at least the nation’s attention) because someone with a camera phone recorded the incident and posted to the web on CNN’s iReport. This incident, unfortunately not an uncommon one, was the subject of international outrage simply because someone spent a few minutes recording then uploading. Now if someone would mount a tiny camera on their car and capture the name tags of all the men in black collecting 20 naira…

YouTube

YouTube is the world’s most popular site for video posts and has developed a reputation for being a repository for utter rubbish. However, YouTube, like the internet itself is morally neutral – it takes on the character of the content providers. So, if you choose to, you can create a huge amount of quality content on YouTube. For instance, an auteur (budding or established) can create trailers or even short films and distribute then on the internet as means to introduce people to his or her work. A budding musician could showcase his or her talents with YouTube videos and get discovered this way. That is how the rapper called Soulja Boy was discovered. Recently, an entire orchestra was assembled via YouTube. Think of the millions that are spent for such shows like American Idol or DSTV’s Naija Sings. With less than a tenth of the same amount of money, much less complexity and with the potential for much more revenue, YouTube accomplished something very similar. Are there any Nigerian poets out there? How about if we start a spoken poetry channel on YouTube? Worth exploring.

Sell, Sell, Sell

EBay is an internationally renowned auction site. Ordinary people can sign up to buy and sell stuff. People have become millionaires by selling goods on EBay. We have our own Nigerian version called www.Tokunbo.com. The profit motive is pretty obvious, but there is an altruistic benefit too. To wit, you can pass on items you no longer have use for that are still perfectly serviceable to someone else who would value them. This goes a long way to reducing waste in the world. Of course, you could give it charity, but if you don’t want to do that, this is definitely a way to get something you don’t want anymore to someone else who may have been looking for it desperately. You are also not limited to used things. You can set up a business on EBay or Tokunbo.com selling new things.

Program It

All of the possibilities above require almost no technical skill. However for the technically inclined, there are an infinitely greater number of possibilities. With the website and web application creation tools out there today you can create completely new systems. You can also go in a simpler direction and assemble new things by pulling things together from bits and pieces of other people’s work. There are a huge amount of APIs (application programming interfaces) which are bits of functionality that someone else has created that other people can use. These are called mashups. For instance if you create a site that lists all the parishes of your church in a particular state, you can have a Google map embedded in your webpage that shows the location of each parish relative to some defined starting point. So Google has done all the heavy lifting, you just consume it. You don’t even need a lot of programming ability to do it. With the right skill set, the right team members and the right plan you can conquer the world.

Tweet it Sweetie

Lastly, even if you are absolutely unwilling to expend any effort, completely uncreative, or just downright uninspired you can sign up to www.twitter.com and spew out 140 characters into the ether. You don’t need to connect to friends, maintain relationships, invite people or listen to anyone if you don’t want to (but you can if you do). Surely you must have some useful thought that can take up 140 characters? Surely you can say something that brightens someone’s day? Can’t you?

Dej.

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What other ideas do you have for how people can go from being a consumer to a creator on the Internet? It’s great to share.

By the way my handle on Twitter is “the_dej”