Priorities for an internet on the mobile platform for Africa’s prepaid economy
Something that Gustav Praekelt said in the news about access to no-cost information being a basic human right at the Mobile Web Africa caught my attention. There is still a gaping void in services accessible to and customized for the needs of the mass majority of mobile phone owners in the world. The next billion […]
Market Segmentation in the Informal Economy
This table is from “How to profit from Africa’s different consumer groups” and the research is from NKC Independent Economists group. There is something lacking in understanding the patterns of purchasing power when segmentation methodology from the formal economy are applied ad hoc to markets which are primarily informal. As mentioned at the end of […]
Sampling uncertainty
This drawing was made by Jeroen Meijer of JAM visual design, Amsterdam, earlier this week during the workshop we held on Monday, November 26th, 2012. Its a visualization of the chart I use to show how participants were sampled for the prepaid economy project. The axes represent the individual’s ability to accurately predict either timing […]
Takeaways from experiencing the human centered design process
Design adds greater value in the long term by being applied to the HOW of business (practices and process), whereas being applied to the WHAT of business (products) ends up having limited value as those products become commoditized. ~ paraphrasing Clement Mok, March 1st 2005 For an audience who will neither practise the design profession […]
Brave New World: Revisiting Theodore Levitt’s globalization of markets
Convergence of global markets and equalizing of purchasing power will finally offer the “global consumer” Theodore Levitt was seeking. ~ @nitibhan I found myself summing up a search with these words at the end of a series of articles I found while digging around online. Now I want to explore this potentially emerging future a […]
From Motorola to Samsung: Eras of global mobile leadership
A recent conversation on Twitter with Neelakantan on the topic of Apple and emerging markets led us down the rabbit hole of reminiscing on mobile phones and their history of leadership in the recent past. We’ve read, written and commented on mobile phones since 2006 or so, and today’s foray into the archives inspired me […]
Developing a user centered methodology for emerging markets and the bottom of the pyramid
When I first began strategic design planning and concept development specifically focusing on low income customers back in late 2007, it was a learning experience in more ways than expected. The key challenge, which I’d identified back then and tend to refer to as the “values gap” between mainstream consumer culture and what used to […]
Exploring the concept of user inspired policy planning
Getting up close and personal with Farmer Pedro at the Minbuza Since late September I’ve been collaborating with Bart Doorneweert on an exploratory project for the Dutch government, taking a closer look at the design process for policy and planning related to private sector development of sustainable agriculture value chains. We’ve been thinking a lot […]
“Life is Hard” – Original slides with written speech, BxD 2008
This is more or less the written version of my Life is Hard presentation (slides,video, reference) as first given in October 2008 in Providence, Rhode Island at the Better World by Design conference held at Brown University. Some of the details have become more nuanced since then, some parts have spun off into blogs, projects, […]
Minimizing risk: buyer behaviour among the BoP confirmed by Nielson
The South African Shopper Trends report by Nielson highlights some aspects of the township customer’s mindset and buyer behaviour, as demonstrated by the following snippet from this analysis: How we make purchasing decisions We make decisions based on what other people say, as well as how we experience a product. There is a major fear […]
