Sir, madam please take me home

Brad Smith,CEO, Intuit, said something INTERESTING that's part of his company's culture: Follow me home: “We’re not stalkers–we’re INVITED into their home or business. We observe them for a day, go through things, and we’ll observe the things that surprise us.”

It incited in my mind the annoyances that brands in Kenya, whether local or foreign, make Kenyan consumers experience daily: the unmanned teller booths at banks that result in long and winding queues, the matatu that ends its journey at Ngara instead of 'Kaka' when the driver and conductor spot passengers heading to Kiambu who can form a paying 'quorum' in their matatu (yes, I have experienced this a couple of times), all those ads that say 'best and then include a 'disclaimer' at the end, the shop attendant who looks at you like you're an illegal immigrant when you enter her shop, the SMSes from MOBILE PHONE companies that ask you to download songs that attack your prefered tastes, etc.

Now, if these brands could follow you home and observe how long it takes you to get there in the evening on a Nairobi weekday, how you have to ensure your child/children does her homework, how the electricity regularly takes unannounced short/long calls, how long the waiter takes to/bring your drink/return your change, etc; then perhaps, brands operating in the Kenyan MARKET would empathise with our personal lives and endeavour to spare us the B.S. they flood our way in our commercial interactions with them. Or, they wouldn't?

A weightlifter here, a javelin thrower there

For years, the Kenyan sporting brand has been known for one strength: the near monopolisation of the middle and long-distance races, thanks to greats like Kip Keino's exploits in the 1960s/1970s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kipchoge_Keino).
However, similar to the way South Korean automakers creeped up on their Japanese competitors and mugged them of some of the latter's global auto market, we didn't see it coming when Kenyan athletes, celebrated abroad but dissed at home, couldn't resist the financial allure of the Middle East and changed their citizenship (salaam, Saeef Saeed Shaheen of Qatar, for example, formerly Stephen Cherono); not to mention the Ethiopians and the Moroccans.
That's why it was exhilarating for Kenya to watch Joyce Njuguna win a bronze in the power lifting discipline, and Julius Yego, aka the YouTube Man, win a gold in javelin throwing in the just-concluded 2014 Commonwealth Games held in Glasgow. These wins should incite the government and corporations into financially supporting other disciplines in similar competitions and the contestants to practise diligently now that they have witnessed that success is achievable. Swimming and cycling are promising disciplines that could do with an overdose of support, exposure and patience.

Mwa, YouTube. Julius Yego won Kenya's first-ever gold medal in javelin at the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games. Pic courtesy of: http://www.athleticsweekly.com/featured/julius-yego-defies-injury-win-historic-javelin-gold-glasgow-8717/

If for no other reason other than increasing Kenya's chances of winning more medals in future international games away from the middle and log-distance races, a diversified Kenyan sporting brand will spare Kenyans the usual reply they get when they travel abroad: "Oh, so, you're from Kenya. So, you can run..."