Virtual schools:  Is this one of those new trends that we are going to have to embrace? I ask myself.

Today as you log into any website you will have advert of online courses: APPLY NOW. Some of them are flash adverts,  others are very annoying Pop-Ups, but the reality is: they are there. They exist. You can actually study a full two year course on line without ever interacting with your lectures or fellow classmates face to face.

There is a growing demand for the next generation students and people to want  to study online. That is why these schools have been created. Today’s technology convenience is a major reason why people especially the young cones have become comfortable and are very reliant on it’s availability to get information and entertainment.

This meaning that a lot of the times Wikipedia and Google become the main information sources. Twitter becomes the main news source, apps for daily tasks and platforms range from Facebook to iTunes for interactive lessons and sometimes course material. Very strange I know, but true. Yesterday I met a virtual friend for the first time. I met them on Twitter and we have been sharing tweets back and forth for a while.  As we were talking, they highlighted the fact that they had never bought a television set because they got all their news from Twitter. So, he/she had to go shopping for one when the family that had been away for a while came home to visit. Yes the whole world is going Virtual.

Why:

Using virtual sources allows for greater flexibility in the day. You are able to stay at home, but still go to school, do your homework, visit the library and work as well.  There is also the ambience that one may not be able to achieve while at school but also while at the work place.

Virtual Schools can help students who are homebound, disabled or who have been withdrawn from school due to bullying. It is easier to stay home and study without necessarily meeting physically with your bullies. For the disabled , they have the luxury of being taken care of at home, something that would not be achieved while in schools. This is subject to a lot  of debate if the child has to go to a public school., the care received at home could be better than that received at home. Families that live far from their homes (read abroad ) are able to get an education like that at home without hustle, through Virtual studying online as well. Not very common, because of the availability of International Schools in various cities across the world, but reason enough as well.

However it poses many challenges as well:

School ceases to be about learning, it becomes mainly about passing exams. There is always the added advantage of learning of social skills in traditional schools. Public speaking, learning how to make eye  contact, learning how to interact with people from all different walks and backgrounds in life. Those are social and communication skills that computers do not teach.

Parents and Guardians lack the assurance that the content offered online is of great quality as is what is offered in traditional schools. Because the material is not as restricted, there may be cases of further fragmentation in learning environments. Teachers are paid to supervise pupils in the traditional schools but at home, there is no much supervision.  Parents can do the supervision, but it is minimal. Between work, household chores, there is barely time for school supervision.

Presence of High Internet: Now that may not be an issue outside Africa but in Africa, it still is. That may be an added expense, considering with Traditional schools, internet is not so much a necessity.

Online studying and Virtual Schools are becoming a thing that we can identify with. It provides an alternative learning system, and like everything that is new, adaption is key.

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Twitter has changed a few things about it. If you do not know that means that you are using the so many and readily available twitter apps. I was a fan of TweetDeck until Twitter bought it. Then I could not personalize my view of it, play around with colors, neither could I add a few more characters to my tweets, so the whole experience got boring. So I quit. In search of ‘greener’ pastures, I landed on HootSuite. I used one of my email accounts to open it, and then a few days into using it, it crashed as well. Now I am back to using twitter.com. Very blonde of me, you may say but it is as easy as it gets.

So the new UI changes on Twitter are definitely worth writing home about:

Expand, Collapse: and you can only see the interaction bar underneath the tweets when on mouse over. The retweets, replies and favorites are no longer automatically visible.  One is able to expand a tweet and see what conversation a person they follow was having with someone they do not follow.  If you are looking to network, this is one of those great features that you can get to enjoy! I cannot even remember what there was before. I remember though: hide conversation, Show conversation and Close. I hope I am right.

On 1^st of May, while some of us were resting and or celebrating Labour Day, Twitter also revealed the Discover Tab. This according to Twitter makes it easy to discover information that matters to you without having to follow additional accounts. So starting on the 1^st May 2012, the Discover tab was to start appearing with content that is even more personalized and with signals to select Discover stories including Tweets that are popular among people that follow you.

Twitter Mobile has also changed. Yesterday, some users were able to see for the first time the redesigned version of Twitter, which the company introduced last December. Thanks to this new mobile version, feature phone owners will now be able to see the Discover and Me tabs.

This new look helps Twitter users to tell a proper narrative about why something is in the news and in a way one is able to find out what different people have to say about it. It organizes conversation and helps one to put things into context.  The purpose of this new version is to cater to global audiences, especially in emerging countries where smartphones are still far from common. Twitter’s VP of Product Satya Patel: “We will continue to make Twitter the most accessible way to connect with the world, even with the weakest signals and the simplest devices.”

The personalization for Andriod, iphone amongst others will be rolled out soon as time goes by.  Twitpic just announced the release of its own iPhone app, complete with a photo editor and filters. But this is definitely 2012. And I cannot wait to see what else is in store. Enjoy the twitter.com experience y’all. It is a good one!

Credits: The Next Web

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Some of the participants of the Start Up:

A few days ago, designers, marketers, product managers and startup enthusiasts came together to share ideas, form teams, build products, and launch startups. They were given 54 hours in which they had to come up with ideas, develop them and see that they are ready for the market. It was NO TALK, ALL ACTION.

If you have no idea what this is all about; then here goes. It is called a Start Up Weekend organised by StartUp Weekend Organisation. Kampala, Uganda had its own. It started on Thursday 26^th and came to an end 54 hours later Sunday 28^th April 2012.

The first Start up event  in Uganda was in September 2011. I remember it bringing together some of the brightest and youngest guys in tech in Uganda. I witnessed it by Twitter, following what was going on. I voted and supported the groups that I thought were the best. I remember two of my friends were in separate groups and they were all requesting that I vote and share with my followers on facebook and Twitter.

There were teams like Ninja Kids, Zword, Myticket, Somesha , Mobvisa and Simbao.net amongst others. The winners were: Somesha which was the overall winner, Ninja Kids as the favorite of the audience, Zword as the funniest app and My ticket as the best mobile app.

Startup weekends are a global initiative. They take place around the globe. Kampala is following in the footsteps of South Africa, Kenya , Senegal, Ghana and Nigeria.

Everything starts somewhere: That is why the notion Start Up. The real challenge s however that Can the Product of these Start Ups, Hackathons and Developers Camps last? Are we going to be able to look back after say 5years and be proud that certain apps developed are our own ingredient? And that it not only won the competition but also is being used to bring a change to society?

YES ; But a lot has got to be put in.

RESEARCH:

One of the mentors for this Startup Weekend Kampala noted that; there were a lot of recycled ideas. The same ideas keep coming up. And according to him; this shows little or no research. To me, this  is a rather big issue. Why do we have no new, authentic, original ideas? Is it because we do not have the time to think through the presentations and ideas? Is it that there are no resources? Or is it that our system does not allow room for incubation and birthing of new ideas?

MENTORSHIP:

Who are our mentors? Because as we are who they are; what they speak into us, what they tell us, how they do it is how good our product is. Whoever comes to these camps is looking for a palce to belong. A family that understands them as they are, a family of geeks that speaks one language, where they will groomed and  be allowed to blossom. Elijah was one of the group members of Somesha group that won the Garage 48 competition last year. I have had him repair all my laptops and their issues right from Uni, which is well about 5 years ago. However he studied Business Administration. But for a 25 year old, he knows more about Computers, Programming and in my opinion a lot to do with computers.

RECOGNITION:

It is always good to consider those that have shown growth, a lot of interest or even those whose work is above average. Google seeks to do that. But we should be able to do so for our own. We should be able to honor the best amongst as without waiting for someone outside to come and spot the talent. That gives those who are bright amongst us a reason to be better and work harder. It encourages even those that have the interest. Then they know that there is something to look forward to.

So many questions that need to be answered right there. But not all is lost . We as Ugandans in technology are doing really great and are so far the most supportive community I know of. I was definitely proud to see so many people not just take part but also come to support their friends, colleagues, brothers and sisters.

Congratulations winners of StartUp Weekend Kampala: Be OTM that took the first place, MyZiki that took second place and Sonda that came in third.

The other groups include: Databud, 30 million Voices, Roho Foundation, Sky Link, Saving Mothers, @Deliveries, Sharehub and 2Chakale.

Salute Richard Zulu for organizing this, making sure there is enough food, and supplies for the teams. To UgoUganda, PC-Tech Magazine, SMS ONE , Brand Vision and MTN for morale boosting these young ones, and being there. This hackathon could not been the same with all your support.

And to all those that took part I borrow @debelzie‘s words: “Startups are hard work, but if you believe in the product you have no choice but to press on.”

For a recap via Twitter: Search for #swkla and get reading.

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At University I remember having an argument with a colleague over the future of the typewriter and to this day I can recall the despair I felt in the pit of my stomach over how much he believed that owning a typewriter after university was an important objective. I had been luckier – having learnt how to type proficiently in my senior four vacation, and even that after years of playing with various machines thanks to my mother’s profession.
By the time we began our first year course, I already owned a typewriter – an electronic one, at that. The university required us, however, to register and borrow typewriters from a basement troll who had obviously spent very many years at this job and treasured his charges.

He released typewriters to us with the same vigour a serious orphanage sanctioned an adoption, and woe unto you if you caused any damage whatsoever to his precious machines.

I tried not to borrow one, since I had my own, but some stupidity of bureaucracy had it that if I didn’t get my name registered as having taken a typewriter out then it would be believed that I had not taken enough of an interest in the course…and I would score an F or something.

The university had no clue and probably didn’t care that I had already done a computer course – word processing of the early days type though – in my senior four vacation, after learning how to type asdf round jul;.

I was so good, at my level, that I had been allowed into a newspaper office in senior six vacation to type out my own stories at a speed that had the senior journalists extremely worried about their own future at the paper. Better still, while the university issue typewriter decorated my drab room, I was spending time at a donor-funded project office doing data entry off a computer with a black screen and green lettering.

A couple of my colleagues in that room were proper adults and couldn’t keep up, which forced me to step up and type up some of their stuff just so the project could end as soon as possible so we could get paid and I could go drinking.

By that time, I had been typing out words, sentences, paragraphs and stories – not for publication – almost daily for about five years. Every time I got to my parents’ offices I was at the typewriter – and my mother’s office moreso because she had a sea of the machines, being a secretarial trainer.

Long story short, by second year I was hanging out at the Infocom offices every Saturday making free, unfettered use of the internet and got to cover much more ground than the rest of the group (which included the girl who eventually became my wife) because I typed faster than they all did.

And by then, I had already mastered a way of filing stories with the newspapers on a weekly basis without going through lots of white-out (that fluid or cream we used back then to correct typing errors), paper or time. I discovered quickly that editors liked a fellow who handed in clean copy within few minutes of having returned to the newsroom.

My advantage lead over the rest was widened with the introduction of a small computer that sat neglected in one corner of the newsroom and was reportedly reserved for some ‘expert’. I wasn’t having any of that and made full use of the thing, much to the chagrin of many older folk.

And I wasn’t alone in this. A couple of friends – Allen Mutono and Paul Busharizi – were in on the passion and acquired an old Macintosh that became our high value work plaything. When we first walked into the newsroom to simply “hand in” our stories instead of queuing up at typewriters to type them out, we were marveled at.

The Editor on hand didn’t quite know what to do with us, but after a few seconds made mind up to go with the flow and voila! We were being published hassle-free.

The story goes on to many lengths, but I know it all started with me being a young teenager encouraged to make use of the very best technologies available.

That’s why my seven-year-old has an iMac, and my two-year old is given the iPad (not mine, of course, my wife’s) whenever she asks for it.

Start them young and something good is bound to happen.

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For all of us who use LinkedIn to expand our professional networks, there is a new kid on the block named BranchOut whose membership, we hear, now numbers over ten million registered users. For quite a few weeks in the past, I was irritated by the number of BranchOut requests I was receiving via Facebook. The best way to understand my frustration, actually, is to rewind to 2007/8.

We weren’t as many people on Facebook those days. You could almost think the apps on Facebook were more than the users. But because of the limited connections (now I know they are Friends), it was easy to accommodate lots of Apps information on one’s Wall, including quizes, contests of sorts, e.t.c. There were even Chatrooms for unconnected users!

But as the numbers grew, the spam from these apps became more and more substantial, and Facebook became increasingly neater without them. It is also safe to assume that some of these Apps didn’t really cut it so they got trashed.

The other significant problem was Facebook email. If you’ve been using Facebook for some time now, you’ve probably noticed it is as active (in its growth) as a living organism. So before Email Notifications Settings became what they are today, managing what emails Facebook sends/doesn’t send to your email wasn’t that straightforward. I soon found a way to minimize these emails anyway, and luckily, Facebook implemented another update that stopped most of the actions that originally triggered email messages from doing so.

Screenshot of BranchOut's app homescreen

Coming back to my point: BranchOut is a professional networking app built on Facebook, which takes advantage of Facebook’s social network effect to reach hundreds of millions of users and, according to its CEO Rick Marini, double the number of users reached through LinkedIn. Over the last 6 months or so, I think it’s been the only thing from Facebook that sends me mail. I hated it; but unfortunately, there was no way to completely block all BranchOut requests. Having no choice left, I decided to just accept one of the invitations and see what this branch-out was all about.

I was impressed!

BranchOut’s app leverages the power of Facebook in the following manner: users signed up to BranchOut automatically have all of their Facebook friends placed into the BranchOut app’s database. This expanded network base has allowed BranchOut members and recruiters access to the connections of the registered users’ 300 million Facebook friends of its registered 10million.

There’s certain brilliance attached to BranchOut’s model.  Instead of building its audience from nothing, it has bypassed the problem altogether by piggy-backing onto Facebook’s 845 million users to quickly build its professional network.  Zynga, the social game maker, has used a similar approach to building its membership.

Big quetion: Does Facebook care about the success of companies like BranchOut? It sure does. Just look at Facebook’s much bally-hooed IPO. In its IPO documents, Facebook promoted the idea that it can serve as a successful platform for other companies. As just one example, Facebook takes 30% off of what Zynga makes using Facebook. That amounts to 12% of Facebook’s total revenue.  For a company the size of Facebook, that is not exactly chump change.

So, where does this leave LinkedIn? Of course, for now, this does not mean that LinkedIn should be counted out just yet. The number of recruiters using LinkedIn to find job applicants jumped approximately 9% last year alone (sorry, I misplaced the link).  LinkedIn believes that it will continue to be a driving force in the professional networking arena because, it believes, most people want to keep their social and professional lives separate.  In other words, there is plenty of room for both Facebook and LinkedIn.

Too Many Networks?

The first time I developed a website that required users to create accounts, I was asked countless times why they needed to create new accounts and remember new passwords. It didn’t seem so important at the time. These days of course, that has changed. Almost every website needs to collect information from its users. It’s a way to obtain a baseline for refining the specs of the content supplied.

Facebook has of course eased the work of remembering passwords, as many websites now allow users to create accounts using their Facebook accounts.

But in all honesty, I’m having a hard time believing that I’ll soon be looking for BranchOut links of names listed in my competitors’ websites – or potential employees/partners for that matter.

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Technology is taking over.

Recently,  a group of people from church came together to do a course called Mizizi, a Swahili word for Roots. The course is based on a book. Everyone buys a copy of the book and is expected to read at least chapter everyday so that when we meet once a week, we can get to discuss what stood out for us as individuals.

Well, after the course we went through a kind of evaluation. What would we like to see change, what can be done to make the Mizizi experience better. And one of the issues that came up was: Produce or rather avail a soft copy version of the book. 

Today, that is one of the biggest challenges and upgrades that publishers and book readers are making decisions about. To have or not to have digital version of the books that you put out to publish…Or to buy a paper book or a digital book for the readers.

Obviously for the readers the decision comes with thoughts like, how do I purchase this, and from where? Is the book available for downloading or do I have a disc shipped to my location?

For the Publisher there are questions like: Will the readers like to buy the digital version of the book, or do we have to work with just the paper books. For the record I can maybe in a way identify with the readers but with the publishers I am just assuming that maybe those are the questions they would grapple with. I have just a handful of people that take time to read and even order books that are not available from outside the country, just so that they can get to read them.

Now I know that like books, there are so many things that are being replaced today. Things that made more sense to be traditionally done are today available but with alternatives. Take for example; washing clothes, doing dishes and fireplaces. I remember the smell of wood as we light the fireplace at home as we were growing up. Today I see [especially in the movies] remote controlled fireplaces. That is why I say that nothing beats the smell of paper and the feel of its texture and the bulkiness of a book in one’s hand. It is definitely something that you do not want to easily do away with. It has with it memories especially for me from when I was growing up.

So can  I tread these sentiments  that come with reading a book with a book on my computer, kindle or iPad? NO:

Here is why:

• I would not be able to show off. You know how someone walks into your one bedroomed house and sees that you have a collection of books? They may be lying around everywhere or put into a bookshelf somewhere in the corner of your room [depending on your reading habits] but they can be seen. So how does one show off their digital book collection? Well, I am an African and for me seeing is believing. I am not saying that it cannot be done but being able to underline my favourite passages in a book and also straighten out book dog ears once in a while. Nothing beats that.

• Signing digital books: I have received a few books, and I have given away a few too. I know that once in a while a book makes a great present/gift. So how again do I sign a digital book? On the Disk that it has been copied onto? Or get my soft copy of my sign inserted into the book with the message. How about the authenticity that comes with one’s handwriting…And what if I want an autograph from an author, how easy can that happen? See my point?

• People love to borrow, share and lend books. So how does one do that with digital books? What happens to book libraries? I guess with digital books, the prices will be higher and it will not be borrowing. It will be something else that I cannot quite get a word for at the moment.

That said, the world is going digital that is for sure and digital books are here to stay. They are going to be available but I think more expensive, which is reasonable considering what goes into actually having one. But one thing is for sure I cannot wait to see what creativity comes with their being available and easily affordable.

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Texting and Tweeting: could the combination of these be affecting your children’s grammar? And no not only your children but also you, and adult that is reading this. Could you be guilty?

Research in Canada has shown that little or no grammar teaching, cell phone texting; social networking sites are all being blamed for an increasingly unacceptable number of post-secondary students who cannot write. Now this is not only in Canada. I know for a fact that even my country is affected. I sent out a call for CV’s for interested persons a few days ago. I gave the interested persons my email address. Days later I was reading: “Attached is ma CV” .  Well, it could have gotten worse. But the truth is there are lots of spelling errors in our written grammar these days. 

Punctuation is another area where mistakes are so visible. There are people that have no idea that capital letters start sentences and  that full stops and commas exist. In one of my emails I got this:

 Morning Ruth

attached is my cv

best regards

The use of emoticons and such abbreviations are okay when writing to friends, but a clear line has got to be drawn when it comes to writing proposals, emails to colleagues et al. And more than wanting to write quickly: we must be careful to note that it is important that the other party clearly understands what we mean.

Interesting to note though is a story that the Daily Mail run last year in February.   http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1353658/Children-regularly-text-message-BETTER-English-dont-thy-use-txt-spk.html  According to it Children that are fluent in text messaging have better literacy skills than those that do not have any exposure to mobile phones. These findings are based on a 10 year research.  The study also showed that children were subconsciously practicing their spelling by regularly sending text messages. Now that is a very big surprise by all standards.

However after all has been said and done:  This is for the young children that are still being groomed or rather that are still growing up. How about the majority of the adults who were before text messaging came and twitter was available; What is our excuse for writing wrong grammar?

A lot of effort has got to be put into communication. Sometime it is very hard to fit all your emotions and the words that come with them into 140 characters and thus a need to use short hand. However when this rubs onto the official and right communication: then there is a problem. You create a rather unserious image for others. You sell yourself short and that may work against you in the near future. It is not about saving time as we sometimes think, it has more to do with the writing ethic.  Practice your writing and let it be really good.

Oh yeah, and stop blaming auto correct. Learn your vowels.

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At this point, I might add that I don’t intend for this blog to exist only online – PC Tech will email this to every seemingly trendy restaurant, bar, coffee shop and hotel lounge in Kampala, and I will personally make printouts that I will hand to the managers of these places.
For many of us in this age of information, work no longer revolves around the Office Desk and Filing Cabinets.

I, personally, have created a work environment that relies heavily on the use of email and cloud computing.

I try to talk to work colleagues using IMs such as Skype, Gtalk and aggregation sites like imo.im (which collates a great many range of IM clients onto one portal) rather than mobile phone. First of all, it allows me to say and hear (read) much more since I can multi-task this way, and it also gives us the leeway to share much clearer instructions than a phone conversation does.

Plus, using IMs for work conversations allows details to be stored in written form for quick reference later on. And this is not to mention how much easier it is to conference than making a conference call is.

And it’s cheaper.

So, if I am caught up in a fairly boring meeting somewhere involving more people than necessary, there is nothing that stops me from checking out a conversation on my iPad while taking meeting notes using Evernote as somebody else in the meeting talks on and on about something or the other.

On the other hand, I find that I spend perhaps 70% of my time in office simply responding to or originating emails to dispense with ‘work’. The rest of the time is spent in internal meetings, calling out questions and instructions to co-workers, and receiving the same. As well as signing the odd cheque and trying to do away quickly with the occasional unwanted “I just dropped by” visitor.

Rather than do this within the confines of the monotonous office, therefore, I like to transfer that 70% of office-bound time sending emails to a different, more cosy place that provides such additional perks as good coffee, nice snacks and people to keep wiping dust off the table every so often.

Many years ago, I thought this up as a possible alternative to renting office space, and did the maths to show that a one-room office (which I needed at the time) cost about the same in rent as it would to drink coffee and eat at the Speke Hotel every working day.

Back then, my favourite chill-out hotel was the Speke, when the Rock Garden Cafe had just opened up and the food was the absolute best and dirt cheap. They didn’t even have internet access anywhere nearby.

When internet access became more widespread, I re-did the maths and it made even more sense if a place had reliable and free wi-fi.

Of course, with my own dongle or Android phone today, this need is not as great but I could still do with a pretty fast and fearless connection to use for in-cafe-work. And I would certainly appreciate being pampered by an establishment that respects my existential need for internet access enough to provide it in exchange for my money being paid for food and coffee!

So, down with all those places that have signs reading ‘Hotspot available’ but where the waiting staff tell you, “Internet is finished.” or “It is not working.” and the even more nonsensical, “The only socket is in the kitchen”!

So, people: please suggest places that should receive this rant/piece of advice, and we will make sure they get it. Better still, email it to your favourite restaurant, hotel, coffee shop and bar, or print them a copy yourself.

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One perfect example is Public Relations commonly referred to as PR. Public Relations has a lot t do with image. My online dictionary defines it as:  The state of the relationship between the public and a company or other organization or a famous person.

However I simply like to think of it how a company, person, or organization is perceived.  As you may have always heard:  Image is everything. And Public Relations has the power to create that. While it is important for the company to market its image internally, the  external image is of paramount importance as well – obviously after the internal has been consolidated.

Social Media is one of the tools that can be used by any PR agency and or Company’s PR Personnel. Twitter, Facebook, Blogging et al: these are forums that can be used to asses and even change the the attitudes and concerns of consumers, employees, public interest groups, and the community in order to establish and maintain cooperative working relationships. They are very essential: however how can Public Relations Publicists, Personnel and Firms/Agencies   maximize  the Social Media experience:

Here is how:

• Alter the foundations of the practice. Explore broader and diversify as far as practice your Public Relations is concerned. Go out of the norm. The fundamentals that were put in place were done way before social media was present. Therefore learn to tell stories as eloquently as possible in 140 characters for Twitter and with photos for Facebook. Learn to have short and precise update on what is coming, what is available. Be creative with your organization’s framework or the Person whose image you are promoting. Create suspense with your followers and friends, and reward them as well. It pays.

• Participate. Get involved. Do not create a Facebook page and walk away from it after asking people to like it. Interact with them. While we cannot be there present all the time to react to what people have to say: Public Relations is about relating. The image created is supposed to be one that people can believe is available. We have to find time to try the tools, analyze and critique them and then advise our clients on the best course of action.

• Learn; Very many a time we think that we know. But by adapting Social Media one is already learning what is new and what is vogue.  Do not let your experience [projects and things done and what you were a part of ] get in the way of getting stuff done and trying of new things. We need a wakeup call of open-mindedness and a student like spirit to excel. So learn how to use Pinterest for example, and LinkedIn- Amazing Social Media Forums for business. different from the norm.

• Listen:  This is the most important and crucial of them all. And it does not happen only online but also offline. It involves monitoring of conversations, and paying attention to what everyone is saying. Suppliers, Employees, Employers, Different Stakeholders , Board Members …They all need to be listened to.

Relating with people is one of those things hat can be very taxing and time consuming. However they are a necessity for every company  person or organisation that wants to have an image that is well perceived and one that speaks for itself: That has got to be done.

And like one of the many media practitioners  Martin Waxman says: “ Social media is not an add-on. It’s the new normal. And if we fail to adapt, we may find ourselves relegated to being publicists to the blogosphere and little else.”

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I called up a newsroom last week to speak with a journalist and was rudely hit with this realisation. Even the phone operator, who must have been the receptionist aka Front-Desk-Operator-or-something, seemed unwilling to take calls on the landline even though it is her core job.

It took many unanswered phone calls and then a complaint to a Senior Manager on his mobile phone before I got someone to answer the landline. Even the Senior Manager was confused by my phone call.

“Who do you want to speak to?”

“A reporter I shall not name.”

“Don’t you have his mobile phone number?”

“I probably don’t. But if he is in the newsroom, I want to talk to him using the landline.”

“But why?”

We went round in circles for a while before he remembered the way in which we used to operate. Back in the day, we got anonymous tip-offs that we had to go and verify as proper journalists are supposed to. We went to the field and when we got back we found messages written out with cryptic stuff in them that told us which source had called over what issue.

And even if it wasn’t a cryptically inclined government source with a job to protect, it was always nice to get back to office and find the receptionist or phone operator had left a note stating that a friend or acquaintance had called and left a message.

Last week I recalled all this with nostalgia after I finally got through to this media house and got transferred to the newsroom.

“Who?” the lady who took the call asked, rudely, before looking round quickly and barking, “He’s not in.”

“Could I please leave him a message?”

“Why don’t you call his mobile?”

The tone of her voice could not have been clearer as to the expression on her face as she asked this, and I really didn’t want to be irritating but I couldn’t call the fellow using his mobile phone.

I also knew that if I asked her for his number she would be reluctant to give it to me.

This may appear confusing, but that’s how it is. We have no directories to select numbers from, most people don’t willingly share mobile phone numbers, and many others don’t like taking calls on the landline. Even when the provision
Its for voice mail is activated, you will find many callers declining to make use of it!

And back in the day, it was important for the person taking the call to handle it well because they knew that if they were rude in any way, their colleague would certainly get to know about it.

Which reminds me of the time many years ago when our newsroom phone rang and the journalist sitting closest to it, now an honourable member of parliament, snatched it up and barked a rude, “What?” into it.

The caller apparently wasn’t speaking fast enough, so the journalist hung up and went back to deadline-beating. Two similar phonecalls later, the journalist took the phone off the hook and finalised work.

The next day, we were scooped by the rival newspaper leading with a Cabinet reshuffle!

It turned out that the caller was the official leak of the news of the Cabinet reshuffle.

The gentleman later on called the Editor-in-Chief and recounted his story to my utmost joy, as I abhor bad phone etiquette.

So tell your front desk people: if I’ve got your landline number, I’m probably the one calling.

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