Leading in the Misinformation age

Victor Kiam once said that information is a negotiators greatest weapon. Then, Thomas Jefferson acknowledged that it is indeed the currency of democracy. Hunter Grass was quoted to have wit-fully affirmed that information networks literally straddle the world. But, it’s Ronald Reagan who crowned it all when he gazetted it the oxygen of the modern world.

I should naturally follow this with the declaration made decades ago, that we live in the 'information age'. True, it is the world of personal digital assistants, portable newspapers and virtual friends. While the libraries of yester-years prided themselves as being one-stop hubs of knowledge now they are just one among a list of secondary sources in a research methods handout.

It’s about celebrity mania, the trending, and the elusive fashionable, instant unrestricted file sharing and mass self-communication. A world where grammar is tortured everyday even by the very custodians ever so unwittingly that listing the comma splice as sloppy punctuation would be hardly grasped.

It’s a bare fact that access to information has exceeded even the wildest expectations of Gutenberg when he invented the printing press. Knowledge had been the preserve of the clergy and aristocrats, every other subject had to take their interpretation as truth. As such these ‘informed’ few would do as they pleased riding effortlessly on the ignorance of the majority. In fact, it is this very monopoly over information that made the church a monstrosity of an institution commanding sheer submissiveness for several centuries.

Current governments have tried to replicate the church’s methods but they have been abortive with democracy and ‘new media’.

So, with this backdrop you’d say that decisions that we make are more judicious and undoubtedly leading to the well-being of the individual.  But as we well might know, this is hardly the case. In fact, with all this arguably ubiquitous information flow, our choices are plummeting westwards, lost in the whirlwind of real-time communication. The reason is not the availability, it’s not even apathy. It lays solely in paying attention to the wrong information, or rather the wrong sources.

Lazarsfeld and Katz in the 40s suggested that information flows in a two-step process, first from the source (in their case the media), to opinion leaders. The second step is from the opinion leaders to the masses. Now, those with most access to media and having more literate understanding of media content, naturally become the opinion leaders consequently becoming the sources and diffusing their (mis)understating.

Not forgetting that raucous woman who sports the same headdress at every chief baraza, she has managed to head the local maendeleo ya wanawake for years. Her kind, pride in accumulating adversaries at the grassroots, since it has become an associated characteristic of achievement.

While their study was based on mediated information it provides in the retrospect, a plausible explanation of the consistent wrong use of information that the ‘developing’ world has been grappling with.

Every single village has that stout bearded man or that occasional bald-head with an unflattering moustache and is very sure to have a couple of pot-bellied grey-haired bimbos whose rudimentary baby-fat is pityingly mistaken for a sign of wealth, health or even insight. 

These are level one opinion leaders, it’s largely more than just media messages they are explaining and diffusing but rather all kinds of information that trickles down from government and all. Once they have taken a stand, local watering-holes and other informal places get abuzz. Am not suggesting a magic bullet here but the reality is that they hold considerable sway despite the information being available to all it’s the few who pay attention, know where to find and better still, know how to use it that thrive.

The urban or ‘educated’ or ‘informed’ fellow would view this as a scene lifted from some remote village. The tragedy is that the very opinion leaders impact the choices that the ‘educated’ (am tempted to add the suffix idiot) makes only that this time they wear different headdresses, have trimmed hair, rare pot-bellies and have refined English, occasional Italian suits, dine respectably and have some penchant oblique duplicity.

Even when this informed fellow eludes these two classes of opinion leaders, his greatest undoing will still rest in paying attention to the wrong information and passionately following the rugged, beaten path of mediocrity that I’d call masked ignorance. 

A communication skills lecture I had in my junior year proves perfect elucidation for this fellow’s condition. Its noise, that’s what you are paying attention to when all those opportunities fly past you (that is if you even noticed they did.)

PS did you see that comma splice?

Disambiguating Motherhood; Why it is earned.

When I googled the word Mother this evening I expected to find at least a couple of pages, of the over two thousand results that came up, dedicated to the time-honoured meaning that we might have all experienced. Guess I have really been believing that google knows everything. 

But, maybe because google had a mother someday the first two searches revealed a natural understanding of the term. The rest of the links in the first page are… (you guessed it …) Businesses, you will be surprised by the number of businesses that bear the name mother; restaurants, advertising agencies, magazines, fashion, graphic designs; all very successful. Well, as much as I would love to chew google out for giving such little space for unmistakably the most fertile expression ever a very large number of small businesses down to every township have an almost default prefix ‘Mama__’ so and so salon, beverages, pub, designs and my personal favorite Mama_Mboga.

I must say I’m quite surprised to realize that ‘mama’ is not underlined… since when did it become English!! So I google it, and what comes up? A movie! This google today is quite unpredictable, so I refine the search and now it’s brings up an even more unanticipated definition, simply put as “daimmmmm! She is one hot mama!!” now I can’t tell if it’s English or something… some idiot (a compliment) in a WhatsApp group am in would say #peace! (I’ve never really known the motivation behind such wanton misuse of the word)

So I go back and type some variation that google was so kind to hit at me in my first search; ‘mom’. Am hopeful this time, but the search engine relentlessly disappoints, the first link is a certain ‘Ministry of Manpower!’ then several several links to a TV serial fill up the first page. At this juncture I am confident that google is anything but a mother. It might be the mother of all web searches but it has the mindset of a medieval African father who only sees the amount of dowry and anticipates perpetual respect to accrue from in-laws rather than think of his daughters’ well-being and freedom of choice.

So I went all manual, picked up oxford dictionary which staunchly tells ‘a female parent of a child or animal’ echoing only the natural inherent sense. Still infatuated with the scroll fell of the web I check the words that follow. And she doesn’t disappoint, we have mother-country, motherhood, motherland, motherlode, mother-nature, mother-tongue and the main circuit board of each and every single electronic device – the Motherboard! All these very loaded terms whose chi is undeniably ubiquitous.

I’d call my dictionary motherly, you will agree with me it’s quite principled, unrelenting in presenting fact as it knows best and very consistent in its intentions. Whoever seeks its help will be served the exact information the former received. It has no bias and as you well know it doesn’t pop-up adverts to your face or redirect to a company’s website or a TV serial you should watch! Now that’s a mother: no hidden agenda’s no bias, stereotypes or favorites (But she will tell you what all these selfish terms mean)

The mother am not talking about is the modern-day female who prefers lady to woman and became the dictionary’s definition of mother in all other places than a matrimonial bed, or worse is still hoping the child remains innocent and never gives her the laborious task of manufacturing a father or even deciding herself who it really was! (Trust me, there are such). I find it hard, to really call ‘mother’ alumnus of what Mukere calls Modern dating school who smitten by the promise of ‘unlimited freedom’ drown into an avalanche of flings that end up in unsightly baby bums and a certified disenchanted future. 

Definitely it’s not that ‘lady’ who had the gall to contemplate abortion but couldn’t because she’d miss clubbing so much if it was to go wrong, or because her parents wouldn’t hear of it. Not to mention the growing number of extraterrestrial women who would without warning can chop off a man’s manhood if and when they think the burden of motherhood is too heavy

The motherlode of our very existence is lies in the presence of exceptional women who have mostly by design, but also by accident, perfected the art of mothering. Oxford says ‘the act of caring for and protecting children or other people' this we could say transcends both genders (funny). 

My mama mboga is one ideal make-up of a mother, she is a provider and goes lengths to make sure her family is fed. Despite the heavy responsibility she will treat her customers (mostly campus students and broke bachelors) with respect and care to the extent of extending credit to them even after enduring repetitive chopping of the Sukuma Wiki (the hardest and most monotonous Kitchen work I know). 

The other day as I ran back home from my new job; tarmacking, in the middle of a downpour I found her standing in the rain clad in a makeshift polythene raincoat, the run-off water  had long swept away the stone she sits on. She knew her customer’s weren’t home yet. The mboga was cut already so I bought my usual, she even offered to add a little.

I wanted to tell her to go home, that it wasn’t worth it if she got sick, but I ended up telling her that she should mind the cold. She did this not for herself, that’s who a mother is. she does cry sometimes, but she will dry her tear's so quickly before her children sees them; their pillar.

It’s a title, as such it is earned.

Who are you?

I’m back people… and yes! You are right to think I am terribly rusty… after braving baptism by fire courtesy of some professional examiner, I have had this conviction to steer clear of any form of evaluation. 

Now, of all the goings-on there have been in the last few weeks, since I so delightedly exited the formal miseducation system, one event has sought to re-educate me on the inescapable reality that being subjected to judgement is an integral part of life. 

It made me realize that every day you wake up, close the door behind you and step into the world you are like that candidate sitting for an exam. You have no idea what kind of questions are waiting for you. Worse, even you can’t be really sure about the kind of responses the examiner would deem appropriate. How you dress, walk, speak and even eat! is under scrutiny by somebody whether consciously or subconsciously and is the basis with which people form an opinion about you. Whatever explaining you have about whatever you do, or who you are is quite secondary.

So like any other enthusiastic job seeker I started sending application letters to virtually any employer who is even remotely related to my industry. It’s interesting how certain things gain so much importance when they suddenly seem to offer a chance at solving your immediate problems. A few months ago I would have casually commented on how sites like brightermonday have become so popular with job seekers and most probably laughed off the idea. Today, I have subscribed to job feeds from several such sites and I have never been more punctual at checking my mail (in fact I have to refresh to make sure feeds are up to date).

Then came my very first invitation for an interview, quite unexpected and the hirer, a leading media company with promise of profound industry experience. I was excited and thankful (I had just beaten the wizard of tarmacking at her game, or so I thought). I did dress quite well on the material day that myself, I was surprised, all bespoke and sharp.

It’s the first question that I have been re-answering for a while now. ‘Tell us about yourself?’ Pretty simple and straightforward. A ready answer should be forthcoming even if you were to be woken in the middle of a dream. Funny enough, this was the hardest question I had to answer. I was prepared for all manner of questions related to the job offer, current affairs and the entire industry, even forecasts, but this one, didn’t cross my mind.

I considered several options; my skills, ambitions, passion, religion, education, strengths, weaknesses and pretty much what you can think of in the few seconds between the interviewer’s pause and your answering. Having no precedent to borrow from I just let words flow and gave the very response any Kamau, Njoroge or Kinuthia would think of; A short autobiography of me. It was over as fast as I had started. Frankly, I cant exactly remember how I described myself that day. 

Now after doing some bit of ‘research’ I realize how I massively undersold myself; apparently according to ‘experienced’ recruiters its being given an easy way into convincing the panel you are the right man for the job. Instead of pulling a classical autobiography they say I should have listed my achievements and any characteristic that aligns me with the job opening at hand.

That in mind, I’d say getting a solid definition of oneself is quite an elusive endeavor; the understanding of the self is more evolutionary and dynamic than we would want to acknowledge. Circumstances that we encounter every other day and experiences we have constructively create a new self in us that more often we discover at a future date. That may explain situations where people around us realize changes in our personality way before we become conscious of them. Some people have we say are living in denial (like some MP told Ruto) pointing at the possibility of them appreciating their apparent self rather than the real. But this then tends to suggest rather strongly that there is a yardstick against which to evaluate what someone is supposed to be.

So what really defines us? Is it our skills, competencies, aspirations, religion, friends we hang out with or places we hang out, education, talents, temperaments, of is it height? Tell me what is that perfect definition of self that would capture the whole essence of who you are, yet delivered in briefest sentence possible?

Obviously, you might have realized that I didn’t quite get the job. To this I’d like to think of myself of being too good for the job – as you well might know the flip side of it, is a thought inconceivable. It’s walking out of an interview knowing that the employer would have been lucky to have you.

 

So I’ve been considering this cliché mainstream mis-educators have been flaunting all over about churning ‘job-creators’ rather that ‘-seeker’ and soon I might be giving Mwaniki a call. He’s the one person I know who can get a buyer for anything that is up for sale and I realize pretty much anything is a potential sale given the right persuasion; even that phone you are holding!

Give this a try: Describe yourself in one sentence (149 characters!)

8-4-4, The Salient Tragedy; A Mockery

Heeeey…. Think this is a bit early? Well, Yeah… Let’s say I’m trynna make up for last week or just maybe, actually to say the truth… its excitement! So I’m going to say this once, because I’m not so proud of it but I enjoyed every single second of it… If anybody is just about near 4^th street, kindly call 911 or is it 999? Coz I just hit 8-4-4 in the nuts! And she collapsed…. That quite really got me surprised!

Yes, you guessed right, I just finished school…you can imagine, 20 years of my life has been spent in school! You could say my happiest, sour and bitterest moments have been in these years. And Hell yeah, I will treasure them, remember them… I fell in love, broke hearts, antagonized, worshipped even, impressed, got disappointed, regretted but also got a shot at self-discovery within these two decades.

I think High school was the epitome, there was this ‘game’ we had christened ‘Kuchek Logo’, (I must seriously attribute this legendary term to some dude called Chura or ‘Frog’). You see, where I went to school, there were endless funkys ranging from sports and drama to musicals, which spanned the better part of the weekend. As such almost every other weekend the school was throngs of oestrogen-hoarding beings, this augured well with the testosterone-infested mortals whose default impulse was to ascertain the logos of their presumably picturesque patrons were in place. You realize where the school logo is usually placed right? Good, now you get it? Oh boy, those were real good times.

Some older friend even told me that it was the best period in my life! And I would agree, I have made a great deal of friends in the last two decades that I think making better friends than they would be utopian, dreamy even.  

They’ve been good times, aren’t they? If you still at it I bet you might be highly inclined to lash out at me… like this last exam I casually handed back at my don. Man, I thought first class was a possibility… I had this overwhelming feeling that I’d be crowned, (I know what you’re thinking, like

this overly ambitious idiot! It’s an illusion boy) but you can’t really convince me that you’ve never thought of yourself as the best in something! As in, that time you couldn’t shake off that feeling that you are so good at it, or rather have put so much effort at it, or it comes naturally to you, or like Mwangi, whose ego screams at him “you must be the best”. All am saying is that, it’s perfectly normal to want that shining crown of perfection even if it’s in the most obvious thing or undervalued skill, like playing a game of draughts!

How one exam can change things? Spending virtually a whole day summarizing a thousand pages of pdfs, benchmarking with several ‘mobile revisions’ from classmates and sending the vital good luck prayer from above only to walk into the exam room and find the quick-witted, self-proclaimed Aristotle fellow lifted questions from a space fate-probability prototyping lecture from Mars. I was screwed from the offing.

“8-4-4 is no joke” some common purported infallible wisdom has it. Quite agreeable to the casual onlooker this is. To the student drowned in the murk that it presents, this is a grim reality that is inevitable and source of untold disquiet and to quite a number, terror. I remember some friends in high school who had perfected the art of doctoring their result slips. Man, the creativity that goes on in that level, is astounding, or should I call it bravely, or maybe ‘daredevilness’, well, clearly there isn’t such a word. 

One managed to sneak into a teacher’s office and plucked a couple of pages from the results register, the other easily got a rubber stamp of the institution made and the most valuable was the calligrapher (and they were quite many), he almost effortlessly duplicated the lecturer’s handwritings and signatures producing exact replica of result slips save for elevated performance of the clever would-be-scholars! Wait, I forgot they also did the same with the permission chits, allowing unlimited number of outings into town. Problem arose when the enthusiastic careers master introduced an academic ‘clinic day’ for teachers, parent and students to review progress. But that’s a story for another day.

Whoever came up with this gobbledygook idea that administering a sitting examination is the best way to determine who asses the internalization of taught skill must have been high on some seriously illegal stuff. Why should a two-hour engagement be used to declare me excellent, good, fair or poor at something I have something I have been learning for over three months? Or in the case of lower levels eight years and four years respectively? If the aim was to test memory they our brainy educators have tremendously succeeded. But then, really, where does memory count in execution of real tasks, save for stage plays and recitations? Even best-selling movies involve several rehearsals, dry runs and multiple takes. Hell, even newscasters read from auto-cues (some haters actually call them run-of-the-mill screen-reading bimbos!)

I hate average, I seriously detest that term. And to think that some average (pun) mortal would label me as such, more even in a document that is supposed to assure my survival in this twisted, unfair and super-competitive world of job seeking is seriously sickening. That the very system that is used to tag me such is based on a flawed assumption of the normal curve and the more appreciable notion that hierarchy is inevitable is so very unwelcome in my world. Media talks of the average citizen (mwananchi), we talk of the average girl (in terms of beauty), average height, wealth, health and even the cliché preposterous average life! An defective concept that continues to serve the egotistic interests of a few effectively playing off our capabilities, egos, aspirations and our cherished albeit subtle needs for recognition and self-achievement.

Even more depressing is the fact that we have fallen four-fold for this indoctrination to the extent of becoming hapless tools of its legitimation. Whoever said that you are an average citizen just because you do not a position of power and influence in government? Or because your bank statement reads far below $100? You are actually exceptional, incomparable and outstanding (never mind that these words might actually mean the same thing!) but the point is, you have influence, among peers or even your kids, you have achieved quite a lot that nobody has cared to document and even those instances that you feel like shouting ‘Serikali saidia’ you still muffle it up and find a way out. Ooh, not to mention you’re unpredictable! The difference between you and the glorified ‘extra-ordinary’ pseudo-leaders and tycoons is that you chose to remain incorruptible and honorable (we actually call them that!!), or they had some situational advantage that didn’t come your way. Calling you average is sheer insult.

I won’t talk about average beauty, the unjustifiability is too obvious.

So, 8-4-4 dear, I hope (honestly I don’t) you are safely recuperating at the asylum I recommended, that is if they got my message. Don’t worry, they will patch you up just fine. Kindly, don’t take this personal, don’t you try to get emotional, it’s not your fault, blame your very implementer (FYI, he was high!).

It is such a pity that after attaining sovereignty, our so respectable forefathers chose to adopt the colonizer’s education system and in some way hoped that it would work for us, as if we had no history! Before they came we had formal teaching system of soft skills and apprenticeship for blacksmiths, iron smelters and other specialized skills like wine-making that was actually more relevant to our needs.

You see, when Europeans introduced formal education in Kenya, or generally in Africa it wasn’t really that they were generous. It was a means to achieving their selfish end of training Africans in manning local administration at the lowest ranks and to staff private firms owned by Europeans. Not only do we continue to train our youthful population in largely literary professions that do not reflect our economic needs but our very ‘learned’ people continue to scramble for employment opportunities in foreign owned firms like Deloitte and PWC (Yeah, I too have applied for internship). At this, I must regrettably say Europeans are quite a clever people!

The tragedy is that Europeans and other Continents for that matter (and from wherever this insane system was borrowed from) don’t train there students in a style even remotely similar to ours. Their children abilities and interests are matched with their training such that one can become a successful athlete or football without giving a heck about what hydrocarbons mean. It is unheard of that one is prevented from pursuing an engineering course because some Agricultural course, history or religious education course lowered his mean grade!!

Indeed the colonial afterbirth is what we are grappling with.

Oops! I realize I have said too much…..but then I confessed I’m wordy here (click)

I’ll be sending you the E_vites to my Screw8-4-4 bash soonest (how we always find reasons to party)…. Just follow this blog via email… I could just book reserve for you that VIP seat!

Don’t forget to leave your reactions here