Sri Lanka

Sri Lankans “consolidate the January 8 revolution” in landmark elections

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

Pardon for my dredging up the cliché about how “the people have spoken.”

As Sri Lanka sees the results of a peaceful general election today, the real revolution has been in the making for a few years.

We now take for granted that most journalists provide results and news in real-time. Even providing clarity today, amid the euphoria, and contradictory ‘reports’.

We aren’t surprised anymore that the Deputy Minister of Policy Planning and Economic Affairs, Harsha de Silva uses his Twitter handle, as if he was texting you personally (and bilingually, too).  He’s not alone in this digital democracy of 20.8 million people.

One of the 5 trends in Sri Lanka, as outlined by Anna Bruce-Lockhart at the World Economic Forum, is the gains in digitization. (The Full report is here.)

I welcome the maturity of an informed digital democracy in our Chat Republic.

Attack machines. Two elections, different priorities

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

It’s two days away from General Elections in Sri Lanka. And 15 months away from the US Presidential Elections. Comparing these could be a study in what has how personalities (and by this we mean character and reputation) and priorities differ.

Oh, and how the media conducts itself.

This week there has been a virtual political firing squad in the US, as presidential contestants attack each other as a way of differentiating themselves from the pack. And there is a pack, as far as Republicans go! Take this classic, if not representative battle between Rand Paul and Donald Trump. Rand calls out Trump for lack of political finesse in these words:

“He is devoid of ideas other than he likes the idea of power and getting attention for foolish statements and bluster.”

This was a comeback to Trump going out of his way to attack Rand, thus:

“You look at a guy like Rand Paul: He’s failing in the polls, he’s weak on the military — he’s pathetic on military…I actually think he’s a far better doctor than he is a senator.” 

Indeed, all this gets into play because there is media to cover every sound bite.

SWITCH TO A DIFFERENT CONTINENT, and attacks are less about personality and more about substance. Character comparisons are about political expedience or the controversy surrounding it past deeds. Amantha Perera just contributed to a balanced analysis about the two contenders, president Maithripala Sirisena, and his ousted predecessor, Mahinda Rajapaksa. Though it is a general election, the personality of the party leader is in play. But by comparison, despite digging through the past (a recent exhumation, for instance), there is a certain maturity in the political process that’s quite evident.

As Americans must put up with the tripe as Trump and Paul, or Clinton and Bush duke it out over golf games, business reputation, or emails (!), Sri Lankans must consider how its future party and its leader plays on an geo-political stage, with its allegiance to India and/or China.

Pros and Cons for Technology in the Classroom

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

Your child probably goes to school with a device in her backpack with more processing power than the rocket that took men to the moon, and this child wants to be… an astronaut?

You’ve forgotten how to log into your son’s school website to download his missed homework, but… he’s found a way to ‘jailbreak’ your cell phone?

Yes, teaching and learning is changing!

My July technology column was about tech in the classroom, which somewhat coincided with my talking to teachers in Sri Lanka about technology and STEM. Indeed, there are still those who want limited screens – parents of hi-tech execs, of all people. And those who think otherwise. Which side are you on?

Uncle Ben

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

It’s spring break for me. I’m taking time out here to talk about someone who defies everything we tend to believe about the Internet as a communications tool, and how social networks have become the quintessential (essential?) glue.

Uncle Ben just turned 78 today. You would not have seen it pop up on LinkedIn, you won’t see glowing wishes and purple prose about him on Facebook, WhatsApp, or for that matter an email thread. And yet I’m willing to bet that Uncle Ben has more friends than you. Lower-case friends, I mean.

People call on him every day to talk to him (not simply to ‘Like’ him); those who stop by his apartment don’t tale selfies with him because deep down they realize that a few hours spent together is all about him, not ‘all about me.’

When his sugar level goes up the whole world doesn’t know about it. When he’s spending a few weeks harvesting a bumper crop of beans in Bandarawela (his second home that he has freely opened out to anyone in the extended family) you don’t see close-ups of the pods in time-release photos. (Indeed they would make great Vine videos!) AS you may guess, Uncle Ben does not crave or entertain self-promotion. He’s a single man with dozens of nephews and nieces, and grand-nieces and grand nephews, and hundreds and hundreds of fans – down the street, at the market, the three-wheel taxi drivers, at the tennis clubs… I could go on.

I once attempted to show him how to use text messaging (stupid me: I thought, since most of us nephews and nieces would love to stay in touch, he would dig this). He gave up. But he loves chatting – the authentic kind of chat –and always gives us a call whether we are 30 miles away of 10,000.

As some of you know, I often write about curious or marvelous technology trends, and big shifts in how people communicate, collaborate or become more productive. Today, I am so glad Uncle Ben never reads my column, or never does any of these things. He’s the happiest guy I know, who lives entirely offline.

Happy Birthday, Uncle Ben!

Curation of Mixed Media memorializes painful past in Sri Lanka

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

I never discuss openly the events we went through in July 1983, when an ethnic violence broke out across the country, part-sponsored by sections of the government at that time.

I’ve shared some details with my children, but have tended to focus on the positive — the people who spoke out against the madness, the safe houses I stayed in etc. Perhaps it is one’s way of compartmentalizing the horror; of forgetting…

This week, in Colombo is a series of events around the theme “Thirty Years Ago.” Two days of dialogue, art and memories.

Sanjana Hattotuwa, TED Fellow and new media entrepreneur who has made this happen, puts it this way:

The project is an attempt to remember and probe Sri Lanka’s epochal anti-Tamil pogrom of ’83 through perspectives rarely, if ever, featured before. The producers have used a wide range of media and methods – from a mixed media triptych to info-graphics, from audio podcasts to video, from photography to compelling write-ups.

That’s right, a way of putting this ‘pogrom’ in context, by capturing the “anxiety, fear, violence, courage, love, sacrifice, of opportunities lost as well as well-springs of hope.”

The Web now provides us with new ways of dealing with history, and not just in real-time. We have become accustomed to seeing how shiny new tools and apps can help raise money, provide relief, or report on events. Dealing with the past takes more thoughtfulness. This is a mixed media project that not only informs us of where we have been, but where we might go.

Do visit the site at ThirtyYearsAgo.Asia

In Sri Lanka, these are the upcoming events

Sat 24 August

10am – 11am:    Reflections of ’83: Plus change?

4:00 – 5:00 pm    Art and Memorialising
Looking at how art plays a role in memorialising violent events

Sun 25 August

10 am – 11 am   Frames
How do we see our past, and thereby choose to learn from or repeat that which gave rise to violence? In framing histories, what are the politics of selection and exclusion?

4 pm – 5 pm   Media Matters
How did the media cover 1983, and why is it so difficult to find archival material on Black July?

Google Street View in Sri Lanka, timely -as the ‘walls’ come down

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

I just wrote a bit of a cynical piece about Google Glass, but, as you may know, there is no shortage of parodies about this new, much-talked about product that will help people ‘augment’ the real world.

But my beef is not with Google, per se. It’s those whom I like to call ‘Shiny New OBject Syndrome’ types. You know, S-N-O-B-S 🙂

The point being, I question if we really need everything reduced to data, or meta data –basically data about data. Do we need an appendage that turns our analog lives that are inherently data-rich in human connections, just to bathe in digital?

In one of my presentations (when asked about Big Data in a Web 2.0 era) I referred to a person who told me how he was befriended on LinkedIn by an old school buddy. Great, he thought, and clicked the button! Then he bumped into the chap a day later, and the ‘friend’ ignored him. In other words, flesh-and-blood alums are so boring, huh? The data-based connection was what the person was after.

Oddly enough, I am planning an upcoming trip, and enjoying the data Google delivers – via Street View. It’s truly amazing how one company can basically index the world as we pass through it. One country at a time. So far Google, which began capturing Street Views in 2007, has 50 countries and counting. Included are Hong Kong, Thailand, Romania, Poland…

Sri Lanka will be soon in this group – reliable sources tell me. I could see why the tourism and leisure industry would want this. For businesses too. Imagine being able to drive through a bridge, walk up the steps of a temple, check out the neighborhood in an area you plan to set up a company etc..

Inviting this kind of visibility, also trains citizens to expect greater transparency in surrounding areas. The new data we will have access to would (and should) inform a nation’s business leaders and public officials to plan for providing data beyond the ‘Street’ level.  We should be able to drive by, virtually, and pick up data, and meta-data: forms, policy papers, constitutional amendments, meeting notes, speeches, parliament bills and voting patterns etc. Will these come? Well, look at it this way. In Colombo, the government has been strident in tearing down the physical walls around public places. Cynics see this is as part of the post-war beautification strategy. But even as we will be able to peer into the windows of an un-walled town hall or government institution, (while Google,simultaneously, begins to provide virtual views) the expectation will be for greater access.

It’s an experiment that many will be watching. (No expensive Glasses required)

Coir brushes, smart phones – How a small rural community found a market

/ Angelo Fernando / 1 Comment

The human connection, and the grassroots involvement is a preamble to this story which was published this month in LMD Magazine.

A few months ago I interviewed a program manager at a major grass roots organization in Sri Lanka. Isura Silva’s story is fascinating. It’s about a pilot project involving smart phones in a very small village in Kurunegala, about 45 miles from Colombo.

The project, by Sarvodaya Fusion, put 21 Google Nexus phones in the hands of the entrepreneurs, because -despite a very high penetration of mobile phones in Sri Lanka –that village wanted education, and the ability to digitize the information they were generating.

The ‘information’ in this case was details about the coir brushes that they were making on very (very!) small scale. Tweaking the laws of demand and supply effects are not enough for a product to achieve scale. If no one knows you have an awesome product, no one wants to buy, and you could remain a small business forever.

Soon the producers were photographing their coir products and uploading it to a Facebook page, using the smart phones. Within a short time, a major marketing and distribution company, Hayleys Exports (which exports textiles, tea, construction material and coir products) had seen the product and began a conversation. They agreed to buy one million items a month.

Was it the power of a smart phone, or the power of conversations they enabled?

Smart phones are opening up a dialogue with those involved in much more than e-commerce.

In another town, Fusion holds blogging classes, and in another, they show young adults how to use a phone to teach themselves English.

Outside Sri Lanka this model is being tested by grassroots organizations using mobile technologies. UNESCO and Nokia held a Mobile Learning Week in Paris in 2011. Stanford and USAID has a program known as mobile 4 education 4 development.

While all this is going on, Silva is busy trying to find the next big thing for his organization,and how it could further mobilize the grassroots. He accidentally stumbled on Twitter, and has some ideas on that, but that’s a different story.

When PR gets muddied, the big mops come out

/ Angelo Fernando / 2 Comments

Let’s hope the PR industry cleans up its house 2012.

Two stories at the end of last year really hit home that it’s time to bring out the big mops to clean out the stables.

The British case of executives in a lobbying and PR firm, Bell Pottinger, bragging that they could influence politicians and ..Google search results through some ‘creative’ tactics. Hmmm! Here’s how The Independent newspaper in the UK reported on the sting operation:

“Reporters from the Bureau posed as agents for the government of Uzbekistan – a brutal dictatorship responsible for killings, human rights violations and child labour – and representatives of its cotton industry in a bid to discover what promises British lobbying and public relations firms were prepared to make when pitching to clients, what techniques they use, and how much of their work is open to public scrutiny.”*

The sting was conducted by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.

The claim that it could do some ‘image laundering’, and what they called ‘dark arts’ struck me as nothing new. Bell Pottinger is in good (bad) company.

If you look closely at lobby firms, they seem to dabble in this pseudo science. Why? because dictators and bad governments are gullible enough to believe that their record could be scrubbed clean with a bit of good

The Livingston Group, which is a lobbying firm offering PR, proudly lists the foreign ministry of Libya as a client; other clients include universities corporations and other countries –such as the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Republic of Turkey. Here’s a short list:

  • Muammar Qadaffi had a PR agency back in 2008, called Brown Lloyd James. It specializes in Government Relations.
  • During the first Gulf war, the government of Kuwait was known to have used about 20 PR, law and lobby firms. One of them, with a strong reputation for Government Relations, was The Rendon Group. It practically stage-managed stories around the ‘liberation’ of the country.
  • China uses a PR agency for what it calls calls “external propaganda work and culture exchange.”
  • The Podesta Group was an influential lobby for Hosni Mubarak’s regime. It calls itself “a bipartisan government relations and public affairs firm with a reputation for employing creative strategies to achieve results.”

Fortunately, regarding the Bell Pottinger PR scandal, the most reputable organizations, including the CIPR (the UK PR bocy) and the PRSA (the US equivalent)  have come out and condemned this practice. They rightfully call their claims idiotic or unethical.

And the other story?

A minor skirmish, but it involved the world’s largest agency, Edelman. The agency parted ways with its client, Twitter after a few months. But the fall out was not so much about PR practice but how they handled the break-up. Edelman was in the news last year when it took on Rupert Murdock’s News Corp.

As for the PR industry, there is an interesting move worth following. The PRSA is in the process of updating the definition of PR. This was the definition, in place since 1982:

“Public relations helps an organization and its publics adapt mutually to each other.”

The new definitions, being voted on are here: worth reading, and watching out for!

Two interesting sidebars to the Bell Pottinger story, above:

* Bell Pottinger also mentions representing the government of Sri Lanka as one of its clients. The transcript speaks for itself.

* The chairman of Bell Pottinger, Lord Tim Bell, was the former media adviser to Margaret Thatcher, and chairman of Saatchi and Saatchi. As you know, the movie The Iron Lady is now showing.

Universities in Sri Lanka Explore Blogging

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

Guest post by – ​Indulekha Nanayakkara​

When I was invited to conduct a presentation on New Media for a group of students who are studying journalism at a local University, the University of Colombo, I was both flattered and overwhelmed at first.

Yes, it’s true that I’ve been reading a lot and working on social media for the past few years, taken every opportunity that came my way to get deeper into social media. However, the fact that I will be speaking to university students itself was in a way, overwhelming. I was expecting myself to be bombarded with questions after the presentation so I read up on extra areas as well.

At the beginning of the presentation I was curious to find out who was on what social networking sites. So I asked them to raise their hands. Facebook – almost everyone. Twitter – Just one girl and she said she wasn’t that active. Blogs – none.

To be honest, I was a little shocked to see the response with regard to Twitter and Blogging. The presentation being on the importance of blogging, in addition to social media; I had to change my stance a little bit and go slightly more basic.

The response was mixed. Some had a sparkle in their eyes, while others had a blank expression. The majority were curious I guess. The back story here is that, out of the whole group of about thirty or so students that were present at the conference, five of them had been to the U.S. earlier this year for a one-and-a-half month long program called “Global Perspectives on Democracy – New Media” along with some students from India and Bangladesh. This was conducted at the University of Virginia. So, it was the same five students who organized the conference I was speaking at – “Youth Leadership Conference on New Media 2010”.

After the conference however, about seven or eight students stayed back and just chit-chatted with me. I tried my best to make them see the importance of blogging as a tool in citizen journalism, as well as the importance of networking through Twitter. As I was leaving, I promised them that I would follow up and help them to start a blog and I think it was an important start.

From what I gathered from the students that I met that day, they are keen on writing. But they are not quite sure where and how to begin. They also had a vague idea of creating a blog that would act as a bulletin board for the students.

This got me thinking. If the situation in universities is such, what about schools? I know for a fact that at least in international schools, the children know their way around chatting and facebook usage. But what about serious networking? Would they think of chatting with their potential future university lecturers or senior colleagues? Would they like to read blogs of students of their age but from various global communities? Do they know that they can collaborate with their friends on class projects once they go home, in order to complete them? And do they also know that they can do research and not necessarily surfing the web just for fun!

Apart from all of this, the good news is, that the students are geared to do their own blog. Once it is live, I hope to share it with your here.