How To Live With Relationship Laws That Will Ever Remain Worrisome

by Benson Agoha | Opinion

Let me say from the outset that I am not gay and the use of the flag is not a sign of my support for same-sex relationships. I am not attracted to fellow men and doubt if I ever will.

The recent approval by the highest legislative body in the United States has ruffled, and perhaps will continue to ruffle feathers. But at least, like civil rights, every American is now aware, if ever they were in doubt, of the inclusive nature of their constitution.

The process of promulgating a new law in a democratic society is a rigorous one which often tasks the mental and moral state of the members of the legislature, who often find they would have to make concessions, accommodate desires, make counter demands and or resort to compromises in order for a bill to sail through the final stage.

So it is a little surprising that President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe would have reacted so emotionally over such bill when passed.

The line "EVEN SATAN WASN’T GAY" justified by its compliment .. "he approached naked Eve instead of naked Adam" was credited to the Zimbabwean President and appear very convincing - but only until you pay closer attention to the issue.

We now understand how subjective humanity often become when defending values to which they have clung so tenaciously over a long time.

Masturbation: the ashes of Vesuvius
caught and preserved a man in the
act of masturbation.
(Credit: via Wiki)

Meanwhile even before President Mugabe's marriage proposal, Linda Barnette, a US Marriage Licence Officer dignifyingly resigned because of the new law - perhaps to saturate her conscience over an issue she knew she could never reconcile with.

Even for Christians, it may not be lost on many that the world has never and may never agree on certain issues that bother on values, including religion and its by-subjects of which same-sex relationship is one.

But same sex relationships are not new. In fact, if there is one legacy from the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79AD, it is a reminder that some of the issues we would be faced with in years to come are not new, but have been embedded in society through culture and traditions that have survived the better of several thousand years - whether partially or generally embraced.

So when the Italian cities Pompeii and Herculaneum were eventually rediscovered, and later recovered from under the many tons of pumice and volcanic ashes of Vesuvius, archaeologists confirmed what existing scrolls already tell them about events from ancient times.

They discovered, for example, evidence of masturbation, bestiality and same-sex relationships. In fact, they discovered that all vices that we have in present day, date back to ancient times. And they discovered also that ancient rulers have always had to worry about the same issues, when searching for ways to exercise peaceful rule over their communities.

Bestiality: a man indulging himself
 with an animal was caught in the act
and preserved for posterity.
(Credit: via Wiki)

In Imperium, Robert Harris, masterfully told a story of Cicero (albeit fictional), through the narrator of his Secretary Tiro, who under the instruction of Cicero himself wrote down for the benefit of posterity, a semblance of true account of how men of politics and power grappled with the task of promulgating, adjudicating and implementing the law within an organised society.  Placed in perspective, anyone can soon see the reverberation of the same issues.

Men can't usually tell if a woman is sleeping with one or several men a day until she becomes, and perhaps chooses to keep her pregnancy. And the only difference between the attitude of ancient and present day societies towards issues such as same sex relationship is that of openness. In one, perpetrators were more discreet, in another, they are now more open.

Though a Christian, I have chosen not to argue this issue from the point of view of religion for personal reasons, but at the same time, I recognise that even if I do, it just might not be changing anything.

As it stands today, same-sex relationships will ever remain selectively worrisome and never generally acceptable because it is an issue strongly entrenched on `values'. Even in the United States, it seems it will remain debatable whether it makes the union more perfect, even though no one will contest the underlying reason for its promulgation.

Imagine that for thousands of years humanity never managed to solve the mystery behind one of the most common issues facing the family, yet everyone is affected by it. The declaration by the US Supreme Court that "love is love" is much like Einstein solving the mystery of Relativity - it was always with us but we never managed to understand why whatever goes up, comes crashing down.

See the progress we have made since Einstein's discovery? Now watch the progress we will make from now - but we must keep an open mind. In this regard, anyone inclined to same-sex relationship must be open, direct and honest about it when meeting new people so that people are neither offended nor taken advantage of.

If Love is Love, at least, it is not by any means blind. Therefore, every transgender person must, for the same purpose, reveal themselves before having sexual relationship with strangers.

Consider! Why tell a man who would never imagine bedding a fellow man, that you were a man before you changed to a woman, if that will come only after you have had sexual intercourse with him. It smirks of disrespect an amounts to fraudulent behaviour, and many a man would kill for such dubious conduct.

Human society may have evolved, but it has always been multi-dichotomous and poly-autonomous and in the end, thrives in ambiguity of perspectives. The only perfect glue holding the world together appears to be the acknowledgement that we will always disagree to agree or vice versa.

So the future belongs to societies that understand the principles of inclusiveness in diversity.

What do you think?

Using humour to uncover consumer insights: the new way to gather intelligence?

by Benson Agoha | Business

Ever wondered what lay hidden in humour?

We may not know it, but there is an element of truth in things that make us laugh. At least if Tom Yortom's claim that "Things are funny when they are true" and that "we find this is a great way to get to those kernels of truth, of what people really reel about different topics.  It engages the brain differently." holds true.

In his latest article, Nigel Hollis disclosed how Firefy Millward Brown (Brand intelligence provider) teamed up with a comedy troupe called Second City to produce a "Consumer Theater" that monitors theatre goers reaction to what they heard and analysis it further.

This radical new way, ignores the formal creative process, to unearth consumer insights using just humour and its derivative feedback. "Sometimes, a little humour is all you need to transform your understanding", he says.

The collaboration Nigel Hollis said is designed to apply the philosophy of improvisation to generating and developing consumer-generated ideas and works by ideas being gathered from real life consumers that are recruited to take part in a consumer theater session.

So based on what they hear, members of the Second City cast then create and improvise skits in response to the consumer feedback. When the consumers are quizzed on their reactions, the feedback is used to develop the new program further.

Immediately afterwards, a final phase builds in the observations and reactions from client and agency team members who attended the Theater session.

According to the developers, the system uses empathy, humor and the power of improvisation to uncover deeper insights more quickly for idea creation and development.

And it is a highly engaging experience that includes client and agency stakeholders, creative consumers, a strategic Firefly moderator and improvisational actors from The Second City.

It can be employed very early in the creative development process– after brand positioning is established, the say.

It isn't a very simple method but it is still in development. And of course, its adoption will depend on the consistency of its results. Otherwise technology and big data may yet have to carry on.

What do you think?

See also: Millward Brown uses humor to uncover consumer insights by Nigel Hollis.

Self-driving car trials move over to real road conditions as Google roll out driverless cars

by Benson Agoha | Technology

With the Royal Borough of Greenwich being an approved trial borough for self-driving cars, it may not be too long before we begin to see the likes of the Google Car on our roads.

The Google Self-driving Car.
(Credit: Google).

This is because Google has given the green light that its self-driving cars may be a reality far sooner than the public expect.

And Chris Urmson, Google's Director of the self-driving car project is excited to see the actual project has moved to something that is starting to come to being realise, saying the goal is to actually see people using it.

Releasing the video on youtube on Friday, Google said "We started designing the world’s first fully self-driving vehicle to transform mobility, making it easier, safer and more enjoyable for everyone to get around."

"Now we're ready for the next step of our project: this summer, our prototype vehicles will leave the test track and hit the familiar roads of Mountain View, California, with our safety drivers aboard.

And according to Google's System Engineer for the self driving car project, Jaime Waydo, google said "..every moment has been building towards putting these cars on the goad where we can even start learning more from them."

In a blog release on titled "Green lights for our self-driving vehicle prototypes", google said the auto-driving cars are being released unto the roads so that the 2023 target date will begin to feel real.

"We've made the car hard, we've made the car cold, we've durability testing, we've driven through reliability bump track." Waydo said.

Google said, it is also advisable for the car to leave their Californian trial base, where it has been confined, so that researchers can monitor its performance on the roads, in the real world.

Urmson said the car they rolled out in December had everything integrated into it, making it their first real push to making the car usable in real conditions.

He said getting the cars out will allow people to react to them and for google engineers to keep watch and monitor it's performance - at junctions, when people cross the road, or traffic lights and so on. "Most importantly, it is a necessary step to get them to try it themselves". 

"When we think about safety, when we think about giving people mobility, and when you start to think in longer term about the impact on cities, and reliability and reclaimed space, and to reduce congestion and freer parking - this is something that will have a huge impact."

See this video:

Three remarkable moves that contributed to the Tory win

by Benson Agoha

The election has come and gone, but it was one in which the parties played all their cards and by the evening of May 8th, the winner had taken it all.

No one thought things would end the way it did, not least Lib Dem’s Nick Clegg, who said on the night of March 27, during his opening speech at the Leaders Debate that:

“I think it is pretty obvious that no one standing here tonight is going to win this election outright, so you will have to choose, like you did last time who is going to work with whom…”

Analysts from the Labour camp are working hard to isolate what went wrong and to right it before the game is on again.

Some of the factors that contributed to the decisive win of the Conservative Party, against all expectations include:

A) Effective Use of Noise: By insisting on the 7-Party Leaders’ Debate, the conservative party ensured that all the major parties had a chance of being heard. But was the information too much for an electorate that has been used to focusing on two leaders from two major parties?

Effective use of noise helped because the deluge of party policies, many of which are similar but being presented with bogus descriptive words designed to make it unique, became just too much for them to process.

When the brain has too much information, it will either reject some, reject all or decide to maintain the statusquo. And the fact that good news continued to emerge from official statistics about the economy was enough to make a decision.

Take for example the first question asked by a student of politics by name Jonny Tudor during the Leaders Debate:

“How will each of the party leaders believe they will be able to keep their promises of eliminating the deficit without raising certain taxes or making vast cuts to vital services?”

All 7 party leaders had to answer this question in one minute, but how many of what was said by each of the seven leaders would you remember after 7 minutes, if you had not been taking note? So how much of that would you remember the next day?

B) That New Memorable Phrase: Whereas Ed Miliband was relishing his growing #Milifandom base, David Cameron’s `I am pumped-up for this election’ arrived in the nick of time to reverse this.  It has already a phrase of choice and a new vocabulary that is enjoying increasing patronage from writers.

“Taking a risk, having a pun, having a go – that pumps me up.” He told city workers that, with 10 days to go “If you think I’m gonna let Ed Miliband and Alex Salmond wreck that, you've got another thought coming.” David Cameron energetically told a group of City workers just a week before the election.

 C) Video Message: the short video Message made by David Cameron in which he asked the electorate to “vote for the Conservative Party” if they wanted him to remain in office. Was very effective. He said “Don’t vote for others and hope that I will win.”

Direct video messages never to fail to appeal, especially if it is correctly handled. And the short but direct message employed, helped to work the magic.

So with data about rising local auto manufacturing, increasing foreign direct Investment, rising profile for London as well as decreasing unemployment figures, strong indices that any government should be proud of, the Tories milked it for all its worth.

This goes to show that strategic deployment of noise, can swing the pendulum to your favour. It’s a matter of how.

As Ed Miliband quit, who Leads the Labour Party?

by Benson Agoha | Politics

Ed Miliband resigned within one hour of the announcement of the Conservative Party victory in the May 7 General Elections. A strong showing by the Scottish National Party (SNP), diluted Labour's strength and resulted in a major loss for the Party that hoped to wrest Number 10 from David Cameron.

Ed Miliband resigned within one hour of announcement of Torry win.
 (Credit: via Yahoo!)

Miliband who took his role as Labour Leader seriously send out a `Thank you' email to Labour members saying, he had hoped to send them a different email, and, apologizing `profoundly' for the defeat, he said he was more grateful than he could express for their support throughout the campaign.

Ed Miliband told Labour members he was taking full responsibility for the result of the election and was stepping down as the leader immediately because it was the `right' thing.
He said even though the defeat would be hard to take, `we are a party that will never stop fighting for the working people of this country.' and that `Britain needs a strong Labour Party and it is the responsibility of each of us to continue the fight.'

"The stakes are too high to wait for others to lead," he said, adding "It isn’t simply leaders who achieve change, it is people that make change happen."

He said "I will never give up on that idea, I will never give up on our cause and I will never give up on our fight."
Miliband urged members to keep on fighting because "The course of progress and social justice is never simple or straightforward, and change happens because people like us don’t give up."
Meanwhile, Miliband's exit has thrown the door open for a leadership contest in the Labour Party. And, according to the Press Association (PA), names being mentioned include Andy Burnham; Yvette Cooper whose husband Ed Balls lost his constituency seat; Chuka Umunna; Liz Kendall; Dan Jarvis; Alan Johnson;  John McDonnell/Diane Abbott.

But as important as who emerges to lead the Labour Party will be finding a way to convince Scotts that votes of their believed SNP members should be broken up, and shared.

Earning their trust and making them accept that a block vote from SNP is not the best for England as part of the Union.

Tories win Majority in the House of Commons, cruise home with 331 seats

Job Well Done: Prime Minister David Cameron gives the thumbs up.
(Credit: via GooglePlus)

by Benson Agoha | Politics

Prime Minister David Cameron-led Conservative Party, has won a Majority in yesterday's elections. The Tories won 331 seats of the 650 Parliamentary seats contested.

He got more than the required minimum number of 326 seats. 326 seats are required to be won in order to form a government without coalition.

The win of the 331 seats for the House of Commons is the first time the Conservative party has won a parliamentary majority since 1992.

Reacting to the news David Cameron said it was the sweetest of all wins, and posted a photo of himself giving his wife a well deserved peck with the title "Here's to a brighter future for everyone."

It means, he does not need the Liberal Democrats to govern and should find it easier to pass bills in the house. It will also mean he will find it easier to implement policy, without wrangling from any coalition.

The rise of the Scottish National Party which picked an almost block vote in Scotland affected the chances of the Labour party and the other parties.

Even UKIP lost ground, with leader Nigel Farage losing his South Thanet constituency. He said of the loss: "I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders."

Other party biggies that also lost out include Labour's Ed Balls who lost his  Morley and Outwood constituency in West Yorkshire by 422 votes.

Liberal Democrates Leader, Nick Clegg also lost his Sheffield Hallam constituency, as did his party faithful, Simon Hughes in Bermondsey and Old Southwark after 32 years.

Many people did not think this outcome would be possible especially with the litany of polls results showing a close call between labour and the conservatives.

But just a week to the election, PM David Cameron responded to allegations that he was not seemingly looking forward to the election, saying "I am pumped up for this election, lets do it".

Now it has been done and he has proved his mettle.

Nigeria's democracy mature as Jonathan concedes to cool Buhari

What was suspected in the final stages of the vote counting of results of Saturday's General election, was confirmed less than two hours later as, now former, President Goodluck Jonathan, conceded to his rival, Muhammadu Buhari, with a phone call congratulating him and wishing him all the best.

The call brought the five year Presidency of Jonathan, who inherited power following ill-health of the former President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. He was sworn in to served out Yar'Adua's term before winning an election on his own ticket, which ended yesterday, with Saturday's elections.

On his part, Nigerian election winner and President-elect, Muhammadu Buhari congratulated outgoing President Goodluck Jonathan, for peacefully relinquishing power.

The events in Nigeria have been remarkable in several ways: Buhari's victory at the polls remains the first time an aspiring politician will unseat a sitting president ballot box. It is also the first time, an opposition political party has won power from the ruling party.

It marks a turning point in Nigerian politics because, the event effectively sets back the dark years during which a peaceful transition was unimaginable and the incumbent never dreamed of relinquishing power.

The failure of Goodluck Jonathan's PDP to win this around at the ballot box shows the disenchantment with which Nigerians viewed his presidency, especially as the Boko Haram saga unfolded, and insecurity became a common word on the lips of the citizens.

Equally unforgettable is the fact that over 200 schools girls abducted from Chibok by the terror group remain unaccounted for, nearly one year after the incident. Nigerian's say they can't imagine a President that would be forgiven for not showing as much concern over the girls as a father would to his own children.

The decisive win, across much of Nigeria's 36 states, plus the Federal Capital Territory Abuja, show how determined the generality of Nigerians were at making sure they effected a change at the Aso Rock.

Even as it became clear he had coasted to victory, Muhammadu Buhari remained calm, as some people around him rejoiced.

30 years ago, as Military Head of State, General Muhammadu Buhari introduced the War Against Indiscipline that saw Nigerians begin to learn about order and patience in their daily lives in public. There were queues at banks, petrol stations, bus-stops and indeed anywhere that, for some reason a delay may be necessary to serve everyone.

That popular war was truncated when he too was overthrown in another military coup that Brought former President Ibrahim Babangida to power.

In an exemplary speech from a newly elected president of a country that is home to the World's most populated black nation, Buhari showed the kind of leadership he brings when he advised his supported to celebrate without violence and to not disrespect the PDP. How very mature.

Now that he is back in power through popular will of the people, will the truncated war now be completed?