Nation.Africa: A dream unfolds
The Nation Centre building in Nairobi.
What you need to know:
- But there really is no choice: the world is in your phone, we have to follow it there.
- We have been drip feeding it for 25 days and we are of course very far from done.
When Johnny English Reborn opens, the blundering British spy has just emerged from hiding where he has been since he blew an operation in Mozambique.
The monk in charge of a monastery promised him that he will make him a warrior again. Of course that depends on whether you have ever considered Mr English a warrior, given that he is a walking disaster.
A memorable opening scene is the great spy dragging a rock from a string tied between his legs in training to give the mind mastery over his body. He is suddenly recalled to MI7 HQ in London to confront a cabal of international assassins targeting the Chinese premier in a bid to plunge the world into chaos.
“Master, am I ready?” English asks the head monk with pathetic, tremulous hope.
“No,” the monk answers with compassionate brutality. (They write them well, these English movies, and Rowan Atkinson is a master of rare accomplishment. If you watched Johnny English Strikes Again you will remember the bar scene:
Bombshell: “I am not quite sure I have ever met a man like you.”
Mr Spy: “Let me clear up the uncertainty for you: You haven’t.”)
Of course, struck by her beauty the bumbling spy finds an explanation for the three passports and weapons in her room. His illogic, as always, is part of the reason why these movies are entertainment gold.
News portal
But the dialogue that so neatly applies to us at Nation is the first one. Yesterday, we put in the market the last piece of our Nation.Africa MVP — a pared down version of our news portal. We have been drip feeding it for 25 days and we are of course very far from done. Were we ready? No.
But that’s the way the world works these days. Previously, we would develop something in full and then put it in the market. Now, you develop a small bit, put it in the market and then these computers would collect and analyse the data about how you are behaving towards it. Also, you will be invited to comment, and these very clever nerds sitting half a world away would worry about what you said and go back and tweak and tweak until the thing is perfect.
Nation.Africa is an expression of massive ambitions, on a global scale. It will take many years to realise those dreams. We are like cathedral builders who knew that neither they nor their sons would live to see the completed work, but so strong was their dream that, with stout hearts, they built anyway.
When you embark on something at this level, you need to dream crazy, and you need to be oak strong to withstand the inevitable failures and disappointments.
When the last stone is laid, what will be standing is Africa’s leading mobile content provider, a centre of technological innovation and customer excellence. To get there will take a series of revolutions: in quality of our content, in user experience and in customer focus.
Great dreams are achieved not by ability or money — although you must have these, but there are many people with talent and capital who achieve nothing of note — but by faith; an unshakeable belief in a grand vision. Sceptical, cynical, clever people never build anything because they are assailed by doubt, vacillation, uncertainty and calculations of loss and gain.
Even acts of great evil, perversely and unfortunately, spring from the same unflinching self-belief. It is frightening to remember that even as Adolf Hitler gassed, shot and electrocuted a race nearly out of existence, inside his rotten soul, he believed with a mad tenacity that he was right and the rational, sane world was wrong. You may remember the disturbing quote: “I follow my course with the precision and security of a sleepwalker.”
Astounding feats
I use the quote merely to illustrate that a human being with a dream in his heart is capable of the most astounding feats of achievement. One of my favourite quotes from Ronald Reagan, a delightful speaker is: “It’s true hard work never killed anybody, but I figure, why take the chance?”
And for us on this journey, we don’t have the luxury of avoiding the hard, long slog ahead. But there really is no choice: the world is in your phone, we have to follow it there. And it is true, master. We are not ready, but we are good to go.
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Maj-Gen Mohamed Badi, please fix Murang’a Road. We appreciate all the cabro work, clean up and the work happening in the informal settlements. Entry into the city is a nightmare and a millstone around all our necks because of two things: one is a design problem with the Pangani flyover and the shocking narrowing of the road there. Take an F5 out, put a missile in it and rebuild.
The second is the entrance into Kirinyaga Road or ‘Grogon’ or whatever at Globe Cinema Roundabout, mainly by upcountry drivers who think driving badly gives them some sort of street cred.
It would be rude to move Kirinyaga Road back to Murang’a and save those bad drivers the trip. But we can certainly build a separate access to that popular district.
