Patterns of behaviour: trade offs made in time and money
This insight emerged from a conversation we had yesterday with Jane Mbithe, who manages EasySurf cyber at the Yaya Centre. Reflecting on patterns of behaviour among her high net worth customers who often already possessed the latest laptops and broadband modems, she said it boiled down to the elements of time and money with respect […]
Leveraging ignorance vs enabling knowledge
If someone were to purchase a mobile broadband modem but was unaware of data bundles, how quickly would 500 shillings worth of airtime disappear into cyberspace? I’ve been there – not knowing what ‘converting to data’ meant – and going through euros worth of airtime while surfing in Helsinki until the shop assistant gave me […]
Postcard from Kajiado: Cheap chinese phones and the internet
It wasn’t the first time we’d heard this from a cyber cafe operator, but apparently the biggest challenge to mobile phone users wishing to get online by using their spanking new phones was whether they were a cheap Chinese phone or a fake. Up and down Kenya, or right in the heart of Masai country […]
The increasing importance of user experience for cyber cafes
This idyllic garden paradise is our favourite hangout and interestingly enough, our cyber cafe, in the literal sense of the words, since it provides free wifi along with your coffee and butter cream cake. Given our recent single minded obsession with internet access and cyber cafes, it was only natural to fall into a conversation […]
Innovation at the small enterprise level
I’ve never been left with such a strong sense of enterprise and innovative thinking as I have now after this past week in Coastal Kenya. In fact I asked Muchiri if he’d been specifying some high standards for the introductions made to various cyber cafe owners or was it that we just happened upon the […]
Pondering the sustainability of the cyber cafe industry and its future
Jomo, who runs a traditional cyber cafe in an office building near Mombasa’s busy port district, gave us a well framed and articulate argument on the challenge of running a sustainable business given the costs involved. His key point was that the internet providers, particularly the mobile operators now actively competing with conventional ISPs, were […]
Inserting tones into your iPod
Inserting tones i.e. Ipod – just the choice of words used to describe the service offered, that of downloading from iTunes seems to imply the order and popularity of the technologies introduced in this market i.e. contextual knowledge of the customer base. I’m not articulating this as well as I’d like but we’re going back […]
VoIP centers in Old Mombasa
We saw this shopfront while following our friend Ahmed through the narrow gallis of Old Town. Wouldn’t you think it might be a cybercafe offering you a chance to go online? We did so too, but no, its a small room with a table top full of boxes and switches. He offers only VoIP based […]
Seeing the humour in marketing’s efforts to reach the rural
From the Chairman of Y&R Africa’s column, this amusing snippet on branding in rural Africa while making an insightful point: Wall painting is another tapeworm in the belly of the marketing budget. On a Continent dogged by marginal infrastructure, it’s a visual boon. Whole villages and trading centres can get spruced up overnight. They look […]
Communicating value across cultures
Reading about Cisco’s move to Bangalore in BW’s breathless prose, this interchange struck me forcibly. “It will give them some exposure and it’s a glamorous job … but it could create an Ivy League-type clique of expats who are richer than the locals,” Kay said. “I doubt that most of them will stay long enough […]
