This thing is not going away; gas stations (filing stations as we say in Nigeria) are expanding payment options and the latest innovation is Bitcoin. I took this picture as the station flashes Bitcoin. Yes, spend your Bitcoin on cookies, candies and gas (fuel). Nigeria needs to publish its Cryptocurrency and Blockchain-Based Commerce Framework tomorrow. Anything less is an own-goal.
An interesting post appeared in my feed today from a company called M-sense.
Until the post appeared, I had never heard of M-sense. I do get migraine from time to time.. but not with such regularity or intensity that I would seek a special solution or it. On a purely superficial basis, the idea of an ‘app’ somehow solving a killer pain in my head is something I don’t instinctively get, and I’m not motivated enough to dig deeper to find out how it works.
To be honest, it was the pivot to ‘Meta’ that caught my eye, without which, I would have surely cruised past the post.
Excepting those that have been hiding under a rock since before internet existed, there is nobody that hasn’t heard of Facebook.
Even in Nigeria, where less than 1% of the population are ‘sustained’ members of the ‘Connected Community’ people in outlying rural areas with irregular or no access and who have not had the chance of using it themselves have been ‘gisted’. They learn about the ‘Connected Community’ through university students returning on holiday, or their Diaspora (both national and international) returning for ceremonies and cultural events.
About two months ago I saw a short drama video covering a ‘millennial’ being interviewed by a mature leader.
Interviewer: .. Exactly what areas of technology are you proficient?
Candidate: .. Snapchat, Pinterest Instragram, Vine, Twitter…. You know… the big ones!’
Interviewer: I’m surprised you didn’t say Facebook.
Candidate: (laughs) .. That’s for old people… like my parents!
While the overall message of the video is something different, I am focusing on the perception of Facebook here.
There is a mathematical relationship here… as technologies have been shown to ramp up exponentially over time, brand resilience in the space is proving to be inversely proportional to rate of technological change.
Facebook has been the dominant brand in the space for a long time, but new technologies bring new UX that disrupts its market.
Even in Nigeria, where brands often come to dominate, and persist long beyond their shelf life in North America or Europe, that does not always translate to revenue and profit.
‘Yahoo Boy’ is a permanent fixture in the colloquial lexicon for an ‘Advance Fee Fraud’ aka ‘419’ perpetrator, but it’s probably been close to twenty years since any ‘Yahoo Boy’ actually used Yahoo Chat as part of the victim grooming toolbox.
With the longevity of product brands in the space continuing to collapse with time, it makes prefect sense instead of an SM technology group building a brand around its flagship product, to build it around a virtual container in which products with shifting fortunes reside.
It seems to me that ‘Meta’ serves to be such a container.
Oculus VR is probably notionally the closest businesses unit within the new ‘Meta’ to the logo concept.
As Anne Quito said on Quartz : ‘Many also note its resemblance to virtual reality goggles, which would be a fitting nod to the company’s foray in immersive virtual realms or “metaverse,” as Zuckerberg calls it.’
Facebook web page ‘designing-our-new-company-brand-meta’ says: (The Meta symbol) ‘is designed to be experienced from different perspectives and interacted with. It can resemble an M for “Meta,” and also at times an infinity sign, symbolizing infinite horizons in the metaverse.’
But to me, that seems to be a lot of esoteric twaddle from a bunch of people who slap a few lines and curves together, get a graphics designer to get a bit ‘photoshoppie’ with it and then try to justify their six figure (dollar) salary. My daughter was really good at squiggles when she was 2. Nothing specifically against Meta, because this prevails everywhere right now.
Quito’s article goes on to say: It’s futile to judge a logo’s efficacy at first glance, but early reactions are predictably snarky. Critics are fixated on the infinity symbol, complaining that it’s derivate and unoriginal.
My own take is that the minimalist abstract fad we have in the current logo design ‘moment’ actually heightens the likelihood of unintentional overlap between different design teams who independently come up with the same thing or very similar. There is only a certain number of ways you can put a few lines and curves together.
Until logos go back to actually looking like what they want to represent instead of vaguely implying it, this will continue.
Hats off though to M-sense for how they played this.
We need to be careful about defining things as a ‘tech’ industry. In the original Guinness brewery in Dublin, Ireland, draught horses were used to haul Guinness casks around the city. Technology evolved. In Nigeria, Diageo has a fleet of vehicles of all shapes and sizes that transport Guinness near and far from breweries, one of the biggest ones being at Ikeja.
Up to around 35 years ago, architects plans and drawings were done on a draftsman’s board. Then came the computer program, AUTOCAD. However an AUTOCAD user is still an Architect, not an ‘AUTOCAD Practitioner’.
As tools become normalized and generic across professions and sectors, they fade into the background. The ‘app’ may be considered the modern equivalent of the pencil. The sector and profession isn’t defined by the pencil. It is defined by what is done with it.
As apps become more generic, saying apps development is a tech business may be akin to saying Diageo’s core business is not brewing at all.. it is road haulage! So the concept of app as technology moves on is fluid as we shift away from the development of the app itself taking a back seat to what it is intended to be used for.
Is a ‘migraine app’ currently part of ‘Meta’? – no, but could it conceivably be? On the basis of Zuckerberg ‘s aspirations for Meta – for sure. This creates the basis for Intellectual Property litigation.
Meta obviously has deeper pockets than M-Sense, who has decided to turn this into a free publicity triumph.
The jibe ‘Where they go low, we go high’ followed by hashtag ‘data privacy’ implies M-sense is distinguishing themselves from Meta in the data protection stakes.
The use of green, a colour associated with environmental protection, conservation, integrity, approval and ethics is impactful (though the blue of Meta isn’t necessarily a contrast).
M-sense has decided to Flow like water rather than trying to command the (Meta) tide not to come in.
Nigeria’s former President, Goodluck Jonathan, just dodged the PDP National Convention on the excuse that he was attending an African Union retreat. That was a weak excuse as the party could afford to charter a plane for his trip, post his appearance. Largely, he had enough time looking at the schedules. For his absence, these two things come to mind:
(1) the ex-President does not see the party which elevated him to the highest office in the land as a viable party for national politics
(2) Mr. Jonathan will compete against Senator Tinubu for APC’s presidential ticket for 2023 elections as I have noted in Dec 2020.
This game is going to injury time with Obasanjo and Jonathan not showing up in PDP National Convention. Possibly OBJ and GEJ can attend Ndubuisi Ekekwe LinkedIn convention.
As Nigerians as a people are ostensibly determined to nurture their nascent democratic terrain, it’s expected of them to keenly and extensively look inwards toward discovering the encumbrances surrounding the said process with a candid view to holistically addressing them.
It isn’t anymore news that every electioneering era across the global community, particularly on the African continent, invariably begets a set of peculiar stories that ordinarily aren’t meant to be harboured in nature’s womb let alone seeing the light of the day.
If your thought is as good as mine, then you would agree with me that as regards financing, Nigeria’s political system is presently characterized by nauseous happenings, thereby causing the innocent polity and its teeming watchers ceaseless nightmares.
This unabated and seemingly acceptable activity is cut across all elective posts, hence isn’t peculiar to when one is vying for a particular position. For example, someone who’s aspiring for the post of the executive chairman of a certain local government council may end up spending millions of naira in the process and might not even secure the anticipated position afterwards.
One may ask, what exactly are these aspirants really financing? Officially, they are expected to finance the purchase of their nomination and expression of interest forms. The forms as being sold by various political parties to their respective members are reportedly exorbitant that the prospective office holders or aspirants, in most cases, have to borrow to foot the bills.
Aside purchase of forms and other allied matters, the campaign process that usually succeeds the primary elections – thus preceding the main elections – is another avenue where the aspirants resort to indulging in money politics.
If you are well informed, then you wouldn’t hesitate to concur with the survey that indicates that in contemporary Nigerian society, for instance, the citizenry have been compelled to boldly and proudly sell their birthright for a mere pot of porridge yam. This show of shame cannot be unconnected with ignorance and/or poverty.
It’s noteworthy that whatever uncalled practice being showcased by the electorate is arguably attributable to the liberty granted to the teeming politicians to ‘mess around’ while canvassing for a given political office. It can’t be argued that every practising politician in Nigeria that’s seeking for any position of authority has the ‘right’ to spend any sum of money in the process.
It’s worth noting that, in this case, not just the electorate are at the receiving side. The so-called political gladiators are equally lavished with bags of money by the aspirants in order to buy their consent. This very act often precedes the primary election of a given party.
These are the cogent reasons an aspirant who’s not financially buoyant would be left with no choice than to accept the lending hand of a godfather, a step that in the long run might bastardize his/her political career. Sometimes, it’s even the aspirants that go about seeking for who would sponsor their ambitions.
Since politics has regrettably been considered as an investment or business venture, rather than an avenue to render selfless service, what else would you expect from an average politician who eventually clinched victory at the polls? Such a person, if assumed duty, wouldn’t fail to please the desires of the political mafia.
In view of the above, most of the funds budgeted for various infrastructural/development projects in the concerned locality might be siphoned into the private purse of a godfather, thereby relegating governance to the background. This singular act has overtime crippled our god-sent nascent democracy. In a situation where the demands of the bigwig aren’t met, the society may be plunged into shambles.
Apart from the financial implications of godfatherism, a certain godfather might at anytime decide to unseat his beneficiary. This kind of case was recently sighted in Lagos State in the melodrama that ensued between the immediate past governor, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode and the erstwhile governor of the State, Chief Bola Tinubu. Likewise issues have been, and are still, occurring ubiquitously not just in Nigeria but on the entire African continent.
What’s the way out of this quagmire? First, we must completely silence the ongoing high rate of nomination form introduced by the various parties. This can be made possible by specifying in the Electoral Act the maximum price any party should charge for each of the forms to be purchased by their members aspiring for different offices.
More so, any aspirant ought to be mandated by law to declare his/her assets. Hence, after the elections, the electoral umpire would be required to crosscheck the affected assets towards ascertaining how much the aspirant actually ‘invested’ in the campaign activity. The aspirants must be mandated not to exceed a certain threshold in regard to expenditure in accordance with the position he’s bidding for.
If he’s found culpable after the thorough investigations, he ought to be charged to court for onward prosecution. If found guilty, such a politician should not just pay a fine but be jailed. This would strongly help to eradicate godfatherism from the system.
The electorate must, on their part, be reasonable. It’s unequivocally the only insane person that could freely mortgage his or her future merely for peanut’s sake. They must comprehend fully that their respective futures lie in their palms, hence are imbued with the power to decide how it would appear.
It’s therefore needless to assert that it all centres on amending our existing individual and collective policies.
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