From Megaphones to Headphones: Prof. Jim Macnamara

enekesa — Wed, 13 Nov 2019 12:29:15 +0000

Communication expert, Prof. Jim Macnamara shared insights on new technologies for communication with PR Practitioners, staff and students at the University on Tuesday November 12, 2019.

Prof. Jim Macnamara, Sydney University of Technology speaking at UoN on Tue Nov 12, 2019

Prof, Macnamara started by demystifying the practices that have long worked for the communication managers in the market place. He underscored, “Communication is two-way; communication is creation of a community and not transmission of information. Communicators do not only have to be megaphones for their organizations, amplifying the message of the company to the clients, but that they should also be the headphones, listening to what the stakeholders are saying to the company.”

The Lecturer at Sydney University of Technology took the audience through research output that shows 80-95% of communicative resources are developed to disseminating messages whereas only 5-15% of communicative resources are focused on listening to stakeholders.

He emphasized that when listening is done, it is primarily instrumental.

When the stakeholders feel the company is not listening to them, there is collapse of trust, in extreme cases, people die, decline in stakeholder satisfaction and loyalty, disengagement, opposition and dissent and rise of alternatives.

Prof. Macnamara gave the benefits of listening as: company will get insights to inform adaptive and emergent strategy, understanding empathy or design thinking, the organization will learn, true engagement, gain trust, healthy relationship, feedback on policies, products, services etc.

He urged communicators to take up leadership and advise the public and the organization management that communication is a two-way process. He underscored the importance of advising/ counseling management using evidence. This evidence should be gathered using all the technological tools available. Prof. Macnamara highlighted tools such as social and market research, stakeholder engagement, social media monitoring and analysis, text analysis of open end comments, voice to text, data analytics, behavioural insights and natural language processing.

He concluded by challenging the communicators to look beyond stakeholders and publics as ‘targets’ and ‘audience’.

Kentice Tikolo, FPRSK Managing Director, Impact Africa moderated the panel discussion where UoN’s School of Journalism lecturer, Anne Gichuhi, Dean School of Information Rongo University, Dr. John Oluoch, and CIPR Member Chris, took turns to react to the lecture by Prof. Jim Macnamara. Artificial Intelligence, ethics and transparency in today’s communication were highlighted and discussed at length.

Public Lecture, Discourse, Jim Macnamara, UoN

US Policy in Africa remains unchanged, says Policy Expert

enekesa — Tue, 05 Nov 2019 14:08:15 +0000

“US policy in Sub -Saharan Africa has not changed but there are challenges like corruption and bad governance that need to be addressed by African states. Key areas of cooperation remain governance, health, trade and security.”

This is one of the highlights that Policy Expert Judd Devermont underscored during his public lecture at the �� on Friday November 1, 2019.

The director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) emphasized that the US should increase its investments in Africa without worrying about Chinese and Russian exploits. “The US should provide financially sound alternatives to state-led initiatives from countries like China and Russia.” He remarked. “The US should help African countries to sustainably develop as opposed to being trapped in opaque debts.”

He noted that Unlike Chinese, the US policy does not entertain government to government projects. However, the government may encourage American companies/ business enterprises to invest in Africa. Trade between US and Africa is still insignificant accounting for a meager 2%. There are a lot of opportunities for growth that could be exploited.

He agreed with his audience that the US politics is currently polarised but the policy making and objectives for Africa are still consistent. The trade wars between China and US are going to create negative impact on Africa.

Evidently there is an increasing scramble for Africa. As Wade Shopard states in his article in the Forbes, “Africa has become the fastest urbanizing region of the world, with rural migrants moving into cities a clip that has even surpassed that of China and India, as the continent becomes one of the final frontiers of the forth industrial revolution.” This rapid transformation has presented big opportunities for countries willing to invest in Africa and no country has seized the opportunity like China. According to the China Investment Global Tracker Chinese investments in the sub-Saharan Africa total $299 billion from 2005 to 2018. And 39 of 54 African nations have now signed on to Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative – a trillion-dollar plan to link infrastructure and trade via a vast new network of roads, rail lines, ports, and pipelines across Eurasia, the Middle East, and Africa.

He admitted that there are many good things and bad things emanating from China-Africa Relations, but is up to Africa to evaluate their policy priorities.

Judd Devermont was speaking in a public lecture organized by the US embassy in Kenya and department of Political science at the ��. He is currently a Professor at George Washington University.

Discourse, Political Science, Public Lecture

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From Megaphones to Headphones: Prof. Jim Macnamara

US Policy in Africa remains unchanged, says Policy Expert

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