I have been writing for about half my life – the second half. I got going in Kenya, where I started publishing articles on management and IT topics almost a soon as I arrived in the late seventies. Then, through Rotary, the Kenya Institute of Management, KEPSA, AIESEC… opportunities arose for me to speak and write about various other topics. Three years ago, my arm was twisted into becoming a columnist for Business Daily, as a result of which I have since then delivered nearly a hundred articles, on a wide variety of subjects.
Early last year I decided it would be nice to pull some of my speeches and writing together in book form, and happily Jacaranda Designs were up for working with me as publisher. But how to select which pieces to include? As my wife and I were browsing through the material, she spotted that what bound much of it together was a spirit of hopefulness. And that’s what led her to proposing the title, Kenyans, yes we can! It also rather easily enabled me to select which articles were aligned with that message. Close to eighty made it into the book, which I divided into five sections, each representing a theme:
- Leading Kenya – Yes, we can!
- Making good use of technology
- Developing vibrant future generations
- Putting management on the national agenda
- Mobilising volunteerism
Note that the book is not titled ‘Kenyans, yes we will!’ For while I have no doubt that we can reach that middle income status by 2030, I’m not sure enough that enough of us have yt set their minds to doing so.
