:: Mtandariko with Safaricom
24 August, 2006

It had to have been the longest day of the year as far as I was concerned. Thus when I checked into the Mtandariko at the Panafric at the valley road I was pretty worn-out. But as soon as I checked in the sight of all those marketers perked me right up. This month the Mtandariko was sponsored by Safaricom. I was suddenly pleased that I had not come wearing my bright red and yellow "talk and win a Porsche" Celtel T-shirt as I had done at Dadahood on Saturday. Word on the street was that there a large contingent of Safaricomers in that room. I suspect that they would have beaten to me to a pulp and then kicked me out of that room, dragged me down the stairs and thrown me out of the Panafric if I had dared come thus dressed.

Talking of a room... I don't know if it’s the success of the Mtandarikos but we were no longer at the Panafric Balcony. Thus the bitter Nairobi cold was avoided as we operated in the Simba room - capacity 300. This time I tried not to run away but started networking as usual. But just as I was getting my groove on, they started the presentation part of the evening. This time the MC was Fred Simiyu the Moody Awori of marketing at the Sarova Group. Dude is also in charge of events at the MSK council. His initial brief was to introduce Ole Narikae the Kibaki of MSK. Narikae first introduced some of the council members present. This month he had prepared a PowerPoint presentation on what the MSK had been up to. The main thing of note that was new to me was that the MSK Gala was set for December 1. And that they are planning for an event that has never been seen in Kenya. I hope he hasn’t unduly hyped the event but with the positive trend of events at the MSK these days, I have a feeling this council won't disappoint.

After Narikae came a presentation by a corporate account manager at Safaricom. He didn't want to take too much of our time and was straight to the point on the three products they wanted marketers to consider. They include their 888 VOIP service, GPRS with EDGE and Safaricom Advantage. He then asked us to come to the Safaricom table at the back where there was more information as well as some goodies.

The 888 service is pretty cool from what I understood. Dial 888 then the country code then the number. The rates are not too bad - considering that one is doing it from one's cell phone. Europe, the US, Japan and some other countries would have you charged at Ksh30 a minute. So if I call Danilo in Italy I can talk to a dude relaxed like for close to 10 minutes if I put in a bamba250 (I bet it’s on the way). Interesting.

Safaricom Advantage was not too interesting to me. It’s basically a low cost phone service. What piqued my interest was the Internet service with EDGE. The speaker had explained that the advantage of the service is that you can have your internet connection anywhere in that republic of Kenya. The nice lady at the Safcom stand later explained to me that the GPRS service was already all over the country. However the new EDGE technology was only available at the country's major urban areas - Nairobi, Kisumu, Mombasa, Nakuru. The service seems excellent.

The entry phone for me was sad. My little Motorola phone could not take advantage of the service. It didn't have Bluetooth or infrared. Thus to enjoy the EDGE service, I had to buy another phone that either had Bluetooth or IR. I have no problem with replacing my phone. Motorola said goodbye to my services when they used David Beckam that Man U/Real Madrid dude to sell their brand. I will probably buy me a Nokia. That chick in the Nokia ad for "Fashion: Africa Style" Vs David "Man U" Beckam. A no brainer!

If I don’t want to buy such a phone which will probably cost me more that 5K (sob) I could always buy a network card that I can use on my laptop. Either that a USB based card that can be used on a desktop or laptop. That gadget would take back 15k. Ouch! That’s 150 hooters tuskers. Is it really worth it? Maybe.

After presentations the real networking begun. With the likes of Bosire of Oakland Media in the house and June of Kwani things were looking up. There was also Rene Kiamba a former MSK chair. And William Kalombo of Marketing Africa and Marketing nights fame. And Francis Wachira of Bridge. And Chris Amimo coordinator of the Tusker malt quiz nights. And many more.

As I left I passed by the table to collect my goodies from Safaricom. It was a free t-shirt and baseball cap selling the 888 service. Nice!

>> Related Links
:: Mtandariko with Popote Wireless - July
:: Networking at MSK's Mtandariko -June

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