Hierarchy, acceptance, self-motivation and joy! - Cultural learnings # 2:

Joy! Maybe the most important cultural learning for me so far. My life has changed a lot since I came to Uganda, and I believe the most obvious is that it is now filled with more joy. I have tried to think of what is it that has created this change. Life here is full of challenges and sometimes very frustrating. But still, somehow (as they say in Uganda), it is a lot better. Maybe it is because I learn and develop every day. I don’t have the exact answer, but I will try to share some of my thoughts around it. 

Since my last blog post “cultural learnings #1”, the list of learnings has been adjusted. In this post I will cover:

4. Hierarchy
5. Acceptance
6. Self-motivation
7. Joy

Going to Uganda = throwing myself into a lot of challenges!

4. HIERARCHY – Bragging about your expertise
From our home country we are used to company structures that are quite flat. If you are an expert with knowledge, you are heard and your opinions are considered important when making decisions. In Uganda, most company structures are quite hierarchical, means there is a huge distance between owners/managers and the other employees. Whether your opinion is considered or not, is much more depending on your position rather than your expertise. It is a system where it is much more difficult to be heard, even if you are an expert in your field, like I consider myself to be. 

Not being heard nor considered has been an important learning for me. It has made me more aware that in a context like this, you need to be very confident with who you are and what you know. You need to be more outgoing, more bragging and continuously using previous results to “prove” that you are someone to be counted on. I wasn’t good enough in that from the beginning. But, I am getting better. It is most probably a good thing for me, and also for ladies, and Norwegians in general. Neither ladies, Norwegians nor myself are any good at this. But, we need it! And I am sure it will be useful for me in the future. 

I am an expert! and I know what I am doing!

5. ACCEPTANCE - Things are not always available or they don’t always work
Technologically, Uganda is quite developed with several mobile networks, many 3G internet service providers and printers, scanners and projectors are available. But, the one thing all this technological devices are depending on, electricity, is unfortunately not always available. There are power cuts almost daily, lasting up to 36 hours. This creates lots of challenges and delays. Simple things like printing can take 2 working days: first the printer is not working, when the printer starts working, electricity is off, and so it continues. The internet speed is also inconsistent. It can take 8 hours to download a file, and you can struggle 3 hours to send an email with a small attachment.

Knowledge and capable skills is another thing that is not always available. It has been hard work to find the right designers and and other recourses for the project. Education quality and professional skills is just not the same here. Maybe the challenge again is to lower our expectations and accepting. Many things are just not the same here as at home, and I have to accept that that’s just the way it is. 

Sometimes you just have to accept and relax!

6. SELF-MOTIVATION – A solitary extrovert designer
Design is a new topic in Uganda. There is no education for industrial design and there are not many designers here. And generally, it is hard for other people to understand the design process. In the developed world, a designer would normally be surrounded by designers and other people who understands and works with design. In Uganda, this is not the case. And in a small company in Uganda, it is definitely not the case.

The people in the company who are a bit interested and have some knowledge are often too busy to discuss and involve themselves. There have been many moments where I have really been missing discussion partners for design related issues and felt quite lonely working with and promoting the design process.

The lack of network, discussion partners and sometimes also involvement from the company’s side, has demanded a lot of energy and self-motivation. Being an extreme extrovert designer, who normally gets lots of inspiration, motivation and energy from working together with other people, I didn’t know much about self-motivation. But, being the main “driving force” in the project for such a long time (10 months and still remaining 5 more months…) I have had to learn a lot. I am still learning, and still going on! 

No other designers in sight.

7. JOY - Making a difference and joy of seeing results
Despite all the challenges and learnings described above, working with this design project in Uganda is a great experience. The feeling of using design skills to make a small difference in a world development context is just amazing. When I have worked so hard, overcome so many challenges and I finally see results, it gives a satisfaction on a whole different level than at home. REAL JOY! 

I have overcome many challenges!

Working in Uganda has been the most challenging job ever, but it has also been the best job ever. Even with my 10 years of working experience, I have learned more than in any other job. Not only about design and project management in a development context, but also about culture and people. And most of all I have learned about myself: how I react to things and how I need to adjust my thoughts, expectations and behaviour. I keep on learning and improving, learning and improving: that how my days go by, with some frustration and a lot of joy.

REAL JOY!

Finally - pineapply!

Have you ever wondered what pineapples look like when they are not in the supermarket? Do they hang down from palm trees? Are they lying on the ground like watermelons? or are they under ground like carrots? I have wondered.... And, finally I got to visit a pineapple farm and see these wonderful sweet fruits in their "natural habitat".

Pineapples, pineapples and more pineapples
We drove about 75 km north of Kampala to a district called Luweero. And finally:... as far as our eye could see: lots of "cactus/aloe vera like" plants, about a 1 meter tall. In between the plants we found pineapples! and Musamba Tonny, the owner of the pineapple farm.

In the middle of the "cactus like" plants we found pineapples!... and pineapple farmer Musamba Tonny.

Pineapple farmer Musamba Tonny is proud of his farm and his pineapples. Most of his pineapples are exported to Europe.

This is the secret! This is how it looks like! One pineapple fruit standing up in the middle of a big "cactus/aloe vera like" plant.

Before becoming a pineapple, it starts as a "flower" in the middle of the plant. Nice!

And then grows into a small pineapple, but still looks quite like a flower.

What is better than fresh pineapple from the market? Fresh pineapple eaten directly in the pineapple farm!  Peter is cutting it for us.

Me! - super duper happy to finally have seen (and held and eaten)  pineapple in its "natural habitat".

But no mangoes...

Because of too much rain this autumn, the mango season was delayed. It was supposed to come in October. We waited up to December. When it finally came, it brought only few and low quality mangoes. Unsuitable for developing our new products based on mango. Very disappointing for the project and for us, but even more disappointing for the farmers. The consequences for them are so much worse. The long awaited income has failed to come, parents can not pay for the children to go to school and the situation for some of the poorest people in Uganda becomes even more difficult.

So, now, both the farmers and we are again back to waiting for mango season. Next is expected to come in March. Will it come? Will it be a good one? Hopefully it will be! And the farmers will get their income and their hard work will bear fruits...

... And we will get the mangoes we need to develop and produce our new products. If we could do with only the pineapples... Life would be much easier then. Pineapples here also have seasons, but still they are available all year round. Unlike mangoes. 

Phu! Mango is such a difficult fruit! But, so incredible sweet and so incredible popular! So, it can't bee overlooked. Our products need mango. So, we are still waiting.

Hopefully, in a few months, I will be able to bring you nice fruity pictures from a mango farm full of mangoes! Until then, let's enjoy the pineapples.

The world needs design for development # 2

UN Headquarters, New York, October 15th : the world has its eyes on design for development!

The exhibition "Design with the other 90%: Cities"

For the first time in history, the majority of the earth’s approximately seven billion inhabitants live in cities. Close to one billion people live in informal settlements, commonly known as slums or squatter settlements, and that number is projected to swell to two billion by 2030, pushing beyond the capacity of many local institutions to cope.

Lured to the city in search of work and greater social mobility or fleeing conflicts and natural disasters, many urban migrants suffer from insecure land tenure, limited access to basic services such as sanitation and clean water, and crowded living conditions. At the same time, these informal cities, full of culture and life, increase opportunities to create solutions to the problems they face.

Design with the Other 90%: CITIES features sixty projects, proposals, and solutions that address the complex issues arising from the unprecedented rise of informal settlements in emerging and developing economies. Divided into six themes—Exchange, Reveal, Adapt, Include, Prosper and Access—to help orient the visitor, the exhibition shines the spotlight on communities, designers, architects, and private, civic, and public organizations that are working together to formulate innovative approaches to urban planning, affordable housing, entrepreneurship, nonformal education, public health, and more. The United Nations offers an ideal setting to examine these complex issues and connect with stakeholders who can impart real change. (Text copied from the official exhibition website)

Projects from Uganda

4 projects from Uganda are represented and 2 of them are Design without Borders' projects:

Design without Borders: bePRO motor taxi helmet (link)

Unicef Uganda and Design without Borders: Digital drum - information access for all (link)

Text to change (link)

Interlocking-stabilized-soil-blocks (link)

The exhibition is on thru 9th of January, 2012. For those of you near New York, make sure you visit it!

This is too important to be missed. If you are not able to see the exhibition in New York, spend some minutes on the website to update yourself on this important issue:

Design with the other 90% Cities website

All photos: Design with the other 90% Cities.

The world needs design - the world needs design for development

Working with design for developement, i get inspired to see others doing the same. Right now, the World Challenge is going on, and there are many good examples of design being used to solve "the real needs" of the people, and our mother earth. One of the finalists is from Uganda, and I hope you will all go to the website and vote for them!


Ugastoves - finalist in the World Challenge 2011-2012

Nine out of every ten (90%) Ugandans rely on charcoal or firewood for energy - putting heavy pressure on the country's remaining forest cover. Designed by a Ugandan entrepreneur, UgaStoves have a layer of clay insulation that greatly improves fuel efficiency. By mass-producing the stoves for domestic and commercial use, the company is reducing both deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions, with a claimed annual saving of one ton of carbon emissions for every stove. Less need for charcoal also means more money for poor households to spend on other necessities. Ugastoves is already getting international carbon credit finance to sell its stoves to subsidies sales.


Please vote here:
Ugastoves in the World Challenge


Plastic bag waste being transformed into wonderful new products

Another good example of design for development - and also taking care of environmental challenges. 


Although the UN estimates that over a quarter of the population in Cambodia still live under the international poverty line of US $1.25 a day, with an average economic growth rate of 6.5 percent over the last ten years the country has seen millions of people lifted out of poverty. One side effect of this turbo-charged growth has been a huge increase in the amount of rubbish produced by industry and households. The infrastructure to deal with it has not developed at the same pace. A husband and wife team running an ecotourism venture saw at first hand how plastic bags were choking the countryside. No plastic bag recycling facility existed in Cambodia so they started their own. Now, 'Funky Junk' makes fashion accessories and home goods out of woven plastic bags, in the process earning a decent income for poor rural communities.


Read more here:
IN THE BAG


Think about this when you are buying your next bag: where does it come from? where does it go after you don't need it anymore? Is Louis Vuitton really the right option?

Ugandan brands #1 - Good African Coffee

I love coffee! and I now love African coffee! I know it is African coffe, because it is named "Good African": it tastes wonderful, looks great and it is Ugandan. It makes me proud of Uganda when I drink it.

My favorite coffee, espresso roast.

Everything a brand needs
Good African Coffee has, according to me, "everything a brand needs":

• a clear name that speak for it self
• nice simple logo
• great packaging design with clear communication about qualities and use
• it is based on "good values", and use this in their communication ("trade not aid", "profit shared 50-50 with the farmers etc. ) 
• a strong story (the teacher who became an entrepreneur)
• a nice looking website, http://goodafrican.com/
• and of course, a really nice taste! (you can't build any brand on something that is not good...)

Nice, simple logo.

Good values: "trade not aid".

Good values: "50% back to the farmers" = Corporate Social Responsibility.

Their own Brand Cafe - giving good advertisement and selling coffee.

The "extras", nice commercial merchandise and promotion articles.

Is "Pearl's" a brand?

In my project I am now doing a market research to find out if Ugandan people know Reco's brand "Pearl's" and what they feel about it. I am so excited to get the results in the end of this month. 

Pearl's peanut butter. Is it a brand?

When I see what Good African Coffe has done with Ugandan coffee, I think it is possible to do something similar with Reco's food products. I am really gonna try my best!

Will keep you posted. Good weekend! and enjoy your coffee. I wish you could taste the Good African. Until it arrives in a shop or restaurant/café near you: enjoy the website of a great Ugandan brand: http://goodafrican.com/

Plastic bottles - a source of life for someone

I jumped off the taxi (the local mini bus) in "the middle of nowhere" on the way to work in the morning the other day. Why? Because I saw a man sitting on the side of the street with 3 big bags full of plastic bottles besides him...

These bags of empty plastic bottles made me jump of the taxi.

My project partner Reco has a small factory to produce plastic bottles, and the project also involves looking into how they can use more plastic packaging for their products. They are now using imported glass containers, both expensive to buy (and getting more and more expensive as the Ugandan shilling is loosing value), not very environmentally friendly when you have to transport it from South Africa to and delivery times are long.

My first thought was: oh no! plastic is bad. There can't be any recycling options in Uganda. Plastic waste must be floating everywhere. But, actually, it isn't. You hardly see any plastic bottle waste on the streets even though the use of them is extensive (my self for example, I use more than 10 in a week, for my drinking water). Searching around I have not found any organized refund system with collection point in the supermarket, like we are used to from Europe. Where do the bottles go? Asking around, nobody seemed to know either.

Well, thats why I jumped off the taxi: I needed to know the story of the bottles in the big bags, - and the story of the man besides them.

Mr. Vorld Obadda, lives on the street in Kampala, and makes a living out of empty plastic bottles.

Mr. Vorld Obadda is a young man who is born in Kampala and grew up living with his mother. He is lightly disabled: he limps. Still he has gone to school, he can read and write and speaks good english. When his mother died he continued to live in the house. One day, some people came and said they had a machine that could "copy" his money and make him rich. He went with them, they robbed him and took everything he owned. Since then he has been living on the streets. Actually, he had just taken his morning "shower" when I surprised him there on the side of the road. 

Mr. Obadda, my guide and teacher for the day.

So, what about the bottles? Well, Mr. Obadda has spent the whole yesterday afternoon, evening and night walking up and down the streets to collect them from the ground and from trash cans around the city. Now, he is soon going to deliver them and collect his daily source of income, his source of life. I asked him kindly if I could follow him and see where the bottles go. He was surprised of this interest for his "work", but he took me along.

A view of the river in Kisenyi.

A lot of garbage floating in Kisenyi, but no bottles.

He took me to an area of town called "Kisenyi". Not many foreigners (or muzungus - as they call white people like me) comes here. It is near to being a slum, or maybe it is a slum. I am not quite sure of the definition. There were children playing and running around even though it was time for school. Many kids here don't go to school, some of them don't have a home. They are street kids struggling to make a living, in the same way as my guide and "teacher" for the day, Mr. Obadda. 

A street boy sitting in the garbage, looking for things to use, sell or play with.

So, he took me to the "recycling plant", which turns out to be a station for washing and reselling the bottles for re-use. He delivers the bottles there, and gets 100 Uganda Shillings (about 0,04 USD) for 7 bottles. The recycling plant sells the "clean" bottles to street vendors: 3 bottles for 100 Uganda Shillings. Street vendors fills them with "juice" or other drinks and then sells them to customers on the street. 

The "recycling plant".

Bottles are washed with soap, and made "ready" for re-use.

Is it environmentally friendly? Yes. But, is it safe and healthy? No. There must be other options for recycling. It still needs more research. 

Some bottles are re-used, but what happens to the broken bottles?

I also asked Mr. Obadda about broken bottles that can not be taken to the "recycling plant" and be re-used. He says they are also collected, mostly by the street children. A truck comes and collects them. Mr. Obadda doesn't pick the broken bottles, he says the payment is too low, it is not worth it. The truck that comes belongs to a big Ugandan plastic company who pay 200 Uganda Shillings per kilogram (about 0,08 USD). Imagine how many kilos you would have to collect in a day to make a living! 

I a day, Mr. Obadda makes about 5000-6000 Uganda shillings (about 2 USD) from his bottles. Just enough to give him the food he needs, - and the energy to go on picking bottles day after day. 

About the project "Food packaging development"

The project I will be working on in Uganda is called "Food packaging development". Through this project Design without Borders wants to contribute in promoting Ugandan finished goods production.

Fruits and vegetables are “growing like weeds" and tastes great in Uganda! Nevertheless, the country produces few finished products based on these commodities. The country is exporting fruits and vegetables as raw materials with low profit and is buying expensive imported finished products back.

Design without Borders co-operats with Reco Industries Ltd, a local manufacturer of food products, in developing new products, packaging and brand strategy. The goal is to create products that are competitive at an international level and can show the potential of Ugandan food processing.

Some facts

- Uganda is a very rich agricultural country. There is a large supply of fruits and vegetables, including pineapple, mango, papaya, passion fruit, melon, tomatoes, avocado and more.

- 66% of the workforce belongs to the agricultural sector. Nevertheless, food processing accounts for only 8% of the country's manufacturings.

- Most of the fruits and vegetables consumed locally without processing or exported as they are, with low profit.

Reco Industries website: Reco Industries Ltd

PS: as my first assignment, I am now working on improving the Reco website. I will keep you posted when we launch the improved one!

It's all about U

So, finally I have arrived in Uganda. The african adventure, - and hard work, is about to start. I have been very well received, got my own office and am getting to know my new colleagues. It is all very exciting.

In this blog I will mainly focus on the project I am doing "Food packaging development": the process, progress and results. But, I will also write about my general observations from Uganda related to product development and design, marketing and branding and the business culture. I hope you will enjoy it.

In my first two weeks I have been able to go on two long trips: one to the west and one to the north. Going by car, I have been able to see a lot of Uganda, at least how it looks like from the road side. And I have been able to do my first observations on marketing and branding.

Strong brands - strong colours
The most visible thing when moving along the Ugandan roads are the houses painted in very strong, bright colours with big logos and slogans. The "branded" houses are mostly shops and restaurants, and most probably they also sell products from the same company. And the big majority of them represent the mobile phone companies operating in Uganda. There are (at least according to what I have observed along the road) 5 or 6 companies offering mobile services. The competition is very strong (advantage for me since both domestic and international calls are quite cheap) and advertisement seems to be an important tool to reach the customers. The idea of branding houses along the roads seems to be an efficient advertising channel. A few pictures to give you the impression:

Uganda Telecom - Blue

MTN - Yellow

Orange - Orange (even stronger when the name and colour are the same)

Zain - Pink

Airtel - Red

Warid - Red/white (were there no attractive colours left?)

Colour ownership
This is how it looks like. How they do it? I believe the mobile phone companies strike a deal with the house owners: they paint it for free? That remains to find out. Anyway, it seems to be a win-win deal: the house/shop owner gets the house painted frequently and it all looks a lot nicer. The mobile phone company gets the wanted attention. And, finally, they take ownership to the colour they have chosen for their brand. It ramains to see if a "green" or "purple" mobile phone company will pop up, since those colours are still "available". A few more pictures with some observations:

It doesn't have to be a house either, it could be a container.

Maybe this one gets new paint tomorrow?

Side by side we stand. Competing!

Even in the remote areas they are present. Side by side with traditional huts/bandas. 

If you cant get one company to paint your house, you might as well do marketing all of them.

All of them, only missing Warid.

The more remote, the less the colours and branding.

The "U" logo.

It's all about U

It might seem like I am favoring Uganda Telecom, but I just think the slogan is very good and strong. Do you agree? Leave a comment.

So, that was my first impression of branding and advertising in Uganda... There will be more to come. 

Now it is all about U! Hope you would like to follow my blog :-)