Improving Customer Experience with Marketing Analytics

Consider the plight of a marketing manager at a large or small corporation. They want to address a customer segment issue, track marketing analytics, or launch a campaign from the comfort of their office. The challenge they face is the need to analyze a significant amount of data and then contact a marketing agency to start the process of launching a campaign. After this drawn out process, the manager might not even answer their initial business questions. This is why we are introducing Moja Lami, a new inbuilt platform by Moja Business that lets that marketer answer all their business questions with marketing insights and analytics.

Why Moja Lami?

The more companies know about their customers in real time, the more likely they will be to make them happy. This is the idea behind Moja Lami, our new client interfacing tool. Fulfilling the vision of a customer-centric enterprise is what motivated Moja Business to start investing in a platform with detailed customer analytics.

With Moja Lami, a marketing manager can segment their customers based on needs, refine search criteria, and do simulations on the results. New ideas for marketing campaigns and new product offers can be discussed efficiently and based on facts. As a result, the marketing manager spends less money on non-effective initiatives, increases the success rate of their campaigns, and improves the top and bottom line.

In a world where managers are rarely at their desks, analytics tools need to present dashboards that are user friendly and timely. Most data analysis tools already have this feature, but they often don’t capture every key business metric. On Lami, we are building a customisable and flexible tool with the customer segmentation and demographic information that target marketing relies on.

Our current visualisation and data science tool is Domo. Unlike Domo, Lami can be customised to pull reports based on our clients’ needs. Lami also automates the process of sending reports. This enables customers to send reports on a regular basis at a specific time. 

As innovators race towards real-time data, a wise company embraces the fastest and most efficient means of analyzing that data. Lami provides a more strategic platform for solving marketers’ problems and improving marketing analytics for companies. 

How Moja Lami Works

Customer Login Page

Customer Analytics Dashboard

Moja Lami will be a customer analytics platform that promises dynamic dashboards and actionable data presentations for clients.

Campaign Metrics

As the platform evolves, more specific requirements will be added based on each customer’s needs.

Marketing Campaigns

Clients will be able to manage their digital marketing on the Moja platform by creating their own campaigns. Lami will improve marketers’ decision making, deliver richer insights, increase efficiency, and offer self-service.

Campaign Summary

At BRCK, we build connectivity solutions that solve hard problems. Global internet penetration continues to experience growth, with 4.38 billion people (roughly 57%) of the world’s population having access to internet services. While many African countries like Tanzania, Rwanda, and Djibouti have demonstrated impressive year-on-year growth in connectivity, internet penetration in Eastern Africa is only 32%. A large percentage of emerging market populations aren’t connected to the internet due to limited network availability and financial constraints.  To bridge these gaps, we’ve built a solution, called Moja. It is a content delivery network and free WiFi platform that is furthering BRCK’s mission to connect Africa to the internet. 

Here are 4 things you should know about Moja:

1. You can get connected without spending your hard-earned money

There is a great demand for connectivity in Africa, but the data costs are still a barrier for most. With Moja, as long as a user is within our extensive 3G and LTE network range, they can connect to our platform – and the internet – without spending a cent. While there, they will have the opportunity to engage in various digital activities, such as watching sponsored videos or taking a survey in exchange for internet sessions. Connectivity is paid for with attention, not money. 

2. How Moja works

The Moja ecosystem is run by points. Businesses purchase these Moja points in exchange for digital engagements that run on our platform. Users earn these points by participating in the sponsored content. They then redeem them for internet sessions or premium content subscriptions.

Moja users have lots of cool, free content to keep them engaged while on our platform. We currently offer videos, books, music, and podcasts. We will soon add even more types of digital content for the public to enjoy. 

Landing Page

When users connect to the Moja WiFi SSID, they’re redirected to our landing page, which is a gateway onto the Moja platform.

Intro Page – First-Time Users

If it’s a user’s first time, they are served a video from the landing page. This allows them to immediately earn a point and then go to the internet. 

Timeline – Recurring Users

Recurring Moja users are redirected to the trending page on the Moja platform. From here, they can decide either earn points, get online, or consume content served on the platform. 

Channel

The Moja channel feature works just like a TV channel in many ways. Content from a particular media brand is curated for easy access by the user.

Discover

The discover page helps users see all the available content on our platform, segmented by category. 

3. About our Moja hotspots

Until recently, our focus has been on installing Moja on public vehicles. There are two primary reasons for this: 

1. In Nairobi, a large part of the population uses public transport (especially matatus) and, depending on the length of your commute and the volatility of Nairobi traffic,  it could take up a significant portion of your day. With access to WiFi in matatus, users have a more entertaining and productive commute.
2. For businesses sharing their content, this also means a captive audience. 

Keep an eye out for our Moja sticker to identify public transport vehicles and fixed locations where you can access the Moja platform.

Public transport was our starting point, and we have now expanded Moja’s footprint to fixed public locations as well. Our acquisition of the Surf network last year is one of the steps that allowed us to accomplish this.  

4. How it impacts our users

The cost of purchasing internet services in Kenya is quite high, which means people get to spend less time online. Moja provides a platform to access the internet for free, while also getting to enjoy amazing informative content. From students doing assignments to business people staying in touch with current trends, Moja has made a huge impact on the digital environment. The drivers are not left behind, as they get to enjoy the internet while also attracting passengers to their vehicles. 

We hope you enjoyed learning about the 4 things we think you should know about Moja. Do you want to know more? Do you or your business want to publish content on the Moja platform? Please get in touch!

The title of this blogpost was supposed to be “A Day at BRCK”. But there is no typical day at BRCK and it’s interesting to think about this at the end of the year and look back at what a culmination of days has looked like and meant to me.

As the COO of BRCK, my job is to take our company strategy and operationalize its execution. That often feels like rolling 10,000 marbles from one side of the table to the other. I’m constantly looking for ways to make “self-driving marbles”, always watching out for marbles that look like they’re about to fall off the table, or are going in the wrong or opposite direction, or moving too slowly, or have stopped altogether. 

I also have to pay attention to the bumps and failures that lead us to better, smoother, paths. A good tool we have for dealing with these are “blameless post mortems”: what can we learn from this failure, mistake, blooper, etc.? What can we do to avoid it ever happening again? Sometimes it’s filling the hole in the table, other times it requires all the marbles to go around that hole.

Either way, this year has taught me that small steps lead to big accomplishments. Interestingly, some of the most important work I’ve done in 2019 has not felt like the “work” itself. It’s been about untangling human conflicts, assumptions, and misunderstandings. It’s been about documenting crystal clear processes for people to follow, putting in writing objective expectations we have of one another. I’ve become hyper aware of the impact words and small actions can have on those around us. I see the snowballed negative impacts of people speaking and acting from spaces of insecurity, resentment, or self-righteousness. The negative impact these words and actions have on the people saying/doing them themselves and also on others. These words and actions, when we’re not careful, quickly become our habits and personalities. 

On the other side of that spectrum, seeing people speak and act from spaces of confidence, empathy, and a commitment to learning has brought about some of the biggest personal and organizational transformations. It’s in these examples that marbles became self-powered, self-directing drones!

The problem I’ve chosen to solve for this year is meaningful connectivity. Connectivity between people sharing ideas, thoughts, resources, experiences, etc. I’ve been thinking about this deeply on two levels:

1. How does the BRCK team connect with each other? How does communication between team members make or break our strategy? I’ve encouraged and created tools for team members to have respectful, meaningful meetings with people they don’t agree with or understand.
2. How does BRCK enable our end users to connect meaningfully? The internet is the largest, greatest network of knowledge and information. How can Moja users leverage their connectivity to meaningful change their lives? I’ve worked on a partnership to develop a digital literacy platform that helps users understand how technology affects our bodies and brains.

By executing against small tasks, I create a thread of “meaningful connections” to look back on. I have set the stage for what next year will look like for me – 2020, the year of clarity and focus. I have a clear intention to focus on being of service to the people and organizations we work for – the commuter on a matatu, the makanga, the driver, the marketing manager leading a campaign, the investor, the team member at BRCK.

Although we are not an “impact-driven social enterprise”, somehow, with this narrative of meaningful connectivity, we have an inbuilt purpose in our organization. And I hope that the purpose will live beyond our time here by constantly ensuring we are doing right by our end-users, our customers, our partners, our investors, and most importantly, our team; by working towards making all these people truly feel like family. 

Rosslyn Academy is an international school in Nairobi. They have approximately 700 students who live in neighborhoods across the city, many of whom ride the Rosslyn school bus daily. Like many organizations that monitor a large fleet of vehicles, Rosslyn was having several challenges with these buses. Diesel was being stolen, vehicles were being misused, and drivers were sometimes driving too aggressively. It was almost impossible to monitor each of the buses and, therefore, incredibly difficult to solve their challenges. This is where BRCK’s vehicle tracking system project came in and created a solution.

The Rosslyn project uses the PicoBRCK Vehicle Tracking System (VTS) to monitor the movement of their vehicles. Through its innovative work in technology and IoT, BRCK was able to create devices that curb insecurity challenges in the most inconspicuous and effective way possible.  

PicoBRCK attached with an iButton reader and an iButton (yellow in colour)

The PicoBRCK and SupaBRCK have been used at Rosslyn to monitor school bus movement on their daily routes.  Management is able to see the location and live video recordings of the bus when it’s been stopped by police, in emergency situations, or in the case of an accident. The PicoBRCK uses an inbuilt GPS sensor and GSM communication that sends real-time locations of the buses every 30 seconds. This device is wired inside the bus and has the functionality to disable the bus ignition whenever an iButton key (a security feature) is not used.

The SupaBRCK is connected via WiFi to two cameras (front and rear) which are installed inside the bus. If necessary, the Rosslyn administration can log in to see a live feed from any bus. During normal usage, the vehicles simply upload the footage to a secure server via a local WiFi network when they arrive at the school. This functionality makes use of the SupaBRCK’s unique flexibility to be both a WiFi host and client.

The bus uploading footage live via cellular network.

BRCK’s vehicle tracking system has been installed in 11 buses, 5 vans, and 4 saloon cars at Rosslyn Academy and it has been a great success. For example, the combined data of video and location information from BRCK’s service recently caught someone siphoning fuel out of a bus. Additionally, drivers are now accountable to drive responsibly and ensure the safety of the students. The administration is now able to effectively address problems with accurate data, allowing them to make well-informed decisions. 

For every lock out there, someone is trying to pick it, but our system will definitely catch them! This system has worked well to address Rosslyn Academy’s needs, but it by no means captures the limits of its use. This same technology can be adapted and applied to various settings, including airports, security firms, industrial surveillance, and tracking. In the end, BRCK is happy to play a part in making the world a little safer.

I recently attended a workshop titled “The Curse of the Kenyan Startup.” It examined the challenges faced by new companies in Africa, especially in Kenya.  The chair and panelists focused on discussing the reasons that keep Kenyan startups from attaining global reach. These included (1) lack of funding, (2) poor execution by the founding and management teams, and (most importantly according to the panel) (3) the failure by Kenyan startups to develop services that can scale and be relevant to other markets.

This made me think about our team at BRCK and what some of us have been working on for the past five years. I thought the first two discussion points from the panel were valid, but had my doubts about the third. 

1. Funding is hard to come by for African startups.

The tolerance threshold investors require to develop a product or service and build a company around it is much lower than in other more mature startup ecosystems. This often requires founders to be in an everlasting fundraising cycle to ensure their ideas have a chance to scale. This is just a factor of the maturity of the market we operate in.  

2. Poor execution takes place in any market and undoubtedly leads to failure.

Perhaps a better support framework could help lower the failure rate and arm brilliant founders with the proper mentoring and management support they need to turn an idea into a sustainable business.

3. Developing for other markets? That is only part of the challenge.

The discussion topic that stood out the most for me was about how local startups develop and deliver their services. And, specifically, whether they are not only developing for their current market, but also for scale across multiple geographies. 

This got me thinking about how the constraints we operate within shape our products and services. At BRCK, our goal is to enable a user base that is financially constrained to connect to the internet and access services and products with the same ease as people with financial means.  This has required that we develop a business model that removes the cost burden from the users while still being sustainable. By identifying opportunities and gaps in the market, we’ve matched an existing need with a source of value that is in surplus: people’s time and attention.

 The transactional nature of the internet can no longer be disputed, whether companies are trying to reach users to push product or users are looking to consume online services. But how does this happen in markets where a large percentage of the population cannot even afford to maintain a perpetual data connection? Even in countries like South Africa, which has one of the highest smartphone penetration rates on the content, up to 40% of users cannot maintain a constant connection.  Internet users are unable to benefit from access to connectivity and are forced to make hard choices when it comes to how they spend their money. Inversely, companies and brands, whose ad and platform budgets are ever-increasing, are unable to reach a large percentage of their potential consumers. 

However, consumers do own their time and have opinions and information they can share.  This of great value to the companies and brands trying to reach them. BRCK has developed the Moja platform, which allows users to monetize their time by enabling them to complete discrete pieces of digital work to obtain points.  These points can be redeemed for internet connectivity, empowering consumers to access the greatest source of knowledge the world has ever seen.  

But getting users online is not enough if they do not have the means to consume online services. How do we ensure that our users are able to participate in the 21st-century digital economy? BRCK is committed to extending the range of online services our users have the ability to consume. We want to do this by growing the Moja digital economy to include a variety of services, thus creating a channel for financial inclusion, digital literacy, and education. 

The challenges faced by new companies in Africa, such as BRCK, who operate in developing markets where consumers have very rigid wallets, is not just to solve the technology challenges that exist when trying to provide new services, but also to develop business models that identify and exploit untapped value.  

The latent demand that exists in African markets for services is not to be underestimated. The rapid growth of companies such as YOCO, who serve micro-enterprise and small businesses by providing them with affordable payment solutions, speaks to that demand and the necessity to package services in a way that are fit for consumption. As BRCK has rolled out Moja across access points that were formerly “pay for access” hotspots, we’ve seen tremendous growth in user engagement. This validates our assumption that not only the demand exists, but that the existing business models were the points of failure in addressing this demand.

Reflecting back on the panel discussion, the real challenges faced by new companies in Africa is not necessarily how to build products and services that can scale out of our original market. Rather, we need to figure out how to build services and products that address the constraints we operate within.

Providing connectivity in remote regions of Kenya is challenging. I would know. After staying in Dadaab Refugee Camp for well over six years, providing access to the internet to refugees and humanitarian workers, I imagined I had experienced the toughest connectivity scenario possible. Well, that was before I scaled the heights of the Lolldaiga Hills Wildlife Conservancy with BRCK.

BRCK started testing its LTE network in early 2019 and has built quite a few towers in both rural and peri-urban Laikipia County. Some of these locations are completely off the power grid, and all BRCK sites are fully solar-powered with battery backup. This is a data-only network, which is becoming increasingly popular in that part of the country.

As we drove north through Nanyuki township three hours after leaving Nairobi, I kept flipping through the Google driving app. I was trying to get a bearing on how far we were, as my other three colleagues chatted animatedly.  We eventually turned onto a dirt road leading up the north hill of the conservancy. From the top, there’s a beautiful view of Mount Kenya. This is where the civil works teams were putting the final touches on our very first BRCK LTE tower. It was going to be our main network distribution hub for this region. The site selection was calculated carefully, located at the vantage point right at the top of the hill.

To the southwest is a breathtaking view of Nanyuki, with its agricultural machinery showrooms and teeming with British soldiers donning military fatigues. Just behind the central business district of this township is our main fibre optic cable termination point. It sits at the foot of a 60-meter angular communication tower.

After assessing the final works at Lolldaiga Hills, we reviewed our plan for the following day.  After confirming all was done to our satisfaction, we embarked on the journey back to our hotel in Nanyuki. As we got to the foot of the hill, just as the sun descended behind a few dark clouds, we encountered another beautiful sight. A herd of about six young jumbos were sinking their trunks into a browning pool of water, under the watchful eyes of two senior elephants on higher ground across the water.

BRCK delivers high throughput internet traffic to the Lolldaiga tower via AirFibre radio technology wirelessly from the Nanyuki tower. On installation day, the four of us formed two strong teams stationed at each end of this link. With vast experience in radio aiming and antenna alignment, the climbing duo was prepared for the challenging task at the top of the two towers. At that distance (about 18-19 kilometers) there’s an emphasis on precision in order to have a consistent and reliable point-to-point link between the two radios on the towers.

Notwithstanding the wealth of experience we had at our disposal, the task still took some doing. We also had plenty of remote input and support from the Network Operating and Monitoring teams back in Nairobi. And even as we finalized the link, my mind was already at work thinking about the next steps. I drew diagrams on how to arrange the numerous pieces of equipment we expected to set up at the Lolldaiga relay site, both on the ground and on the tower. Well, it always looks so neat on paper, until you get to the site.

With abundant, consistent and reliable internet bandwidth available at the Lolldaiga relay site, we now needed to figure out how to distribute it to the LTE endpoints and subsequently to end user equipment. This was going to occupy most of the next few months, with plenty of traveling back and forth and involvement from different teams. These include RF engineers, network design and deployment, site selection/negotiation and acquisition, electrical engineers, civil works, structural designers and many others in the periphery.

BRCK has managed to set up quite a few LTE cells in rural Laikipia County. Some radio links span almost 40 kilometers. Beneficiaries of this service include places like Daraja High School, the peri-urban Timau township, Akorino trading centre, Dipatas, and some far-flung locations like Kimanjo near Samburu.

It has not exactly gone like clockwork. Similar to my experience working in Dadaab, providing connectivity in remote regions of this country is not always straightforward. In Laikipia there has been a lot of rescheduling and delays. This is mostly due to lengthy and complex negotiations for tower site acquisitions with the communities that own the land . The outcome, however, is worth it. The silver lining of all this hard work is the figures we’ve started seeing from our usage metrics. We can already observe that these communities are taking advantage of their newly accessible and affordable connectivity.

BRCK has always been committed to innovating in emerging markets. Regardless of what we’ve accomplished in the past, we aren’t going to be complacent about the future. And BRCK Labs is how we plan on ensuring that. 

At BRCK, we understand that the technology paradigms that work in other parts of the world do not necessarily apply in Kenya. The hardware needs to be more rugged with power and data backup. The feature set needs to be tweaked.  The costs likely need to be spread out. The user interaction will be from a different understanding, on a different device, and for different reasons than what is presented at CES in Las Vegas.

And over the last five years, BRCK has developed several products specifically designed for the East African context. This includes the original BRCK V1, Kio Kit, PicoBRCK, Magma (LTE), SupaBRCK, and now the Moja Free WiFi platform. This is an incredible achievement, especially considering that many startups in North America develop on a single product over several years.

The Moja platform continues to gain traction with users and advertisers alike. We are now at over half a million monthly users, and those numbers are climbing steadily. We are currently pushing to double the number of Moja buses and are actively expanding into other countries.

BRCK has just finished restructuring internally to position the business so we can handle this network expansion. And, as the platform matures, we are also asking ourselves, “Okay – what’s next?”

We are BRCK Labs; we make cool shit!

Emerging markets such as Kenya present countless opportunities and the challenge is often around deciding which one to pursue And so, as most of BRCK continues to grow the Moja platform, the BRCK Labs team is now tasked to come up with answers that question and pursue those possibilities.

What is cooler than a complete educational solution in a box, you ask?

Or a ruggedized edge computing router providing free WiFi to average Kenyans?

I admit it – those are going to be hard to beat.

But what about a country-wide weather station network that can help farmers across Kenya understand weather patterns? (Currently, Kenya only has 4 or 5 official weather stations and the data is not public.) Or a sensor that can report from extremely remote locations whether a motorcycle (a possible poacher) has driven by? Smart houses are all the rage in North America, maybe BRCK should pursue a device that adds smarts to shelters in refugee camps and slums.  How about a device that allows people to provide energy PAYG services? Or a device that interconnects solar home systems to create a resilient mesh grid owned by the community? Clinic in-a-box, micro-generator, community-based blockchain micro-insurance, the first African array of micro-satellites – the opportunities are incredible!

It is both a dream come true and a fairly big responsibility to head BRCK Labs.  To be a part of the next disruptive technology that will once again get BRCK on the cover of National Geographic or ranked in Time’s Top 50 Genius Companies.  Five years ago, no one would have ever predicted that BRCK would be rolling out free WiFi and innovative LTE services; who can imagine what technology we will develop in the next five years!

Camping, outdoor fun, and keeping fit are part of an undocumented culture within BRCK. You see, more than half our team is always very excited when there is an outdoor activity. The Lewa Marathon is a significant activity on our calendar and BRCK has taken part for the past four years. This experience is purely about spending time in the wild. From running the 21km marathon to spectating, it’s a wonderful three-day period. We got to bond with workmates, kids, partners, and friends, all with the goal of conserving our wildlife.

I have been to Lewa twice, the first time in 2018 as a spectator, cheering on my teammates. Little did I know that it would be me the next year. In 2019, I went as a runner, determined to race in the marathon. Yes, you read that right; I did 21km, and I survived!

The trip to Lewa involves several stops, but as Izaak Walton once said, “Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter.” After a long drive, our team gathers at the campsite to set up camp. When we arrive, some members prefer going for game drives to enjoy seeing the beautiful wildlife. The Big 5 tend to come out in the evening so we had to take advantage. We saw a lion, elephants, buffaloes, and rhinos, among others.  We were lucky to have our colleague Cyrus capture the amazing scenes and moments. The first night is usually relaxed and quiet compared to Saturday evening. This is because the runners need a good rest in readiness for the morning task. We usually have a bonfire set up as it gets dark. 

Doing 21km is not an easy task and takes a lot of preparation. We started practicing in March, with monthly runs in Karura as a team. We encouraged each other on how to go the extra mile each time we ran. The first time we did a 10km run was my wake up call. I ended up walking for 9kms… Things had to change, so I started exercising three times a week. I would also run 10kms every two weeks to keep fit. It got easier with time and by June I was somewhat ready for the task that lay ahead.

My main goal was to finish, because those who had done it before told scary stories about the experience. We were up early on the chilly Saturday morning. I was super excited and nervous at the same time. We got to the starting point as a team and, of course, we had to capture the moment, which in the true sense turned into a mini photoshoot. Those who know me know my love for pictures runs deep. The warm-up dance at the starting line was so exciting and I had to keep reminding myself that I could do it.

Our motto at BRCK is “You Can Do Hard Things.” This was an arduous task, but I was determined to crush this milestone. I love project management, so I always end up dividing my tasks into smaller bits. The gun to start the race went off and I remember having a meeting with myself to affirm that I was competing with no one. I was running for a cause and all I had to do was to get a medal at the finish line. I didn’t start in a rush, I kept my pace for the first 12km and it was amazing. The hills from 14km were not easy, but I was determined to finish, so I kept going.

The organizers took great care of the runners. We had water points every 2km that also had energy drinks, fruits, and a cheering squad and, to be honest, this made the pain a little more bearable. I expected our team to be at every water point, but I was being too ambitious. But when I got to 10km, there they were. When I saw them, I think my energy levels tripled. 

My legs decided to take a break when we got to 18km. 3km at Lewa is like 10km in Karura. I struggled to get to the finish line, it was the longest stretch I’ve ever run. I was tired and drained. The water and the fruits helped, but could only do so much. I did all I could to keep encouraging myself in the last phase, and I walked and jogged concurrently. I kept reminding myself that it would get better and before I knew it… I was at the FINISH LINE, having finished on my two feet and without dying in the process. The most exciting thing at the finish line is that you get a medal, a Safaricom gift hamper, a deep tissue massage and the pride of knowing you finished the race.  

When it was all over, I felt extremely accomplished. I set a goal and I accomplished it, finishing the race in under three hours. Although I would have been happy to just finish, I also had a secondary motivation during the race… to finish before Paul Obwaka. You see, Paul is one of my colleagues and he made fun of me, saying how he could finish before me even if he ran in reverse. But as the saying goes, “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.” I ended up finishing two minutes before him and best believe I am enjoying the feeling of this moment.    

If someone had told me in January 2019 that I would train and run a half marathon, I would have thought they were crazy. But now, a few weeks later, I know I am addicted to that feeling of accomplishment. 

The hardest part is signing up, but BRCK made that process easy for us. So at BRCK, the thing that can keep you from succeeding is if you don’t show up and put in the hard work. Running and competing in the marathon offers so many benefits, so I will definitely do it again next year. It’s a habit I have added to my list. And if I can run a half-marathon, anyone can.

WHAT ARE PERSONAS?

Personas are fictional, generalized characters that encompass the various needs, goals, and observed behavior patterns among your real and potential customers. Personas should be informed by research, ideally qualitative and quantitative. Personas should be used as a tool to summarize and communicate research results. Building personas can help improve the way you solve problems and speak to your customers. Understanding your customer and the pain you’re solving will allow you to create a better user journey and product for them.

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF PERSONAS?

The purpose of personas is to create reliable and realistic representations of your key audience segments for reference. These representations should be based on qualitative and some quantitative studies.

Your personas are only as good as the research behind them.

WHAT DO PERSONAS DO?

• Represents a major user group for your product/service
• Expresses and focuses on the major needs and expectations of the most important user groups
• Helps put you in the mind of the customer you want to attract
• Gives a clear picture of the user’s expectations and how they’re likely to use the product/service
• Clearly articulates your customer’s challenges and pain points
• Aids in uncovering universal features and functionality
• Describes real people with backgrounds, goals, and values

BENEFITS OF PERSONAS

• They help add a real-world layer to conversations and decision making
• They offer a quick and inexpensive way to prioritize feature decisions
• They help stakeholders and leadership evaluate feature ideas
• They focus information architecture and interaction design
• Visual designers can focus their initial design rationale on the personas
• Based on user behavior, the system development/engineers team can begin to approach the challenge
• Copywriters can also tailor their content to the appropriate audience
• They can help uncover gaps and misalignments between a solution and user needs
• They can synchronize your team’s efforts and get everyone on the same page

BEST PRACTICES

It is good to focus on only the main audiences you are targeting.
The aim of personas is to highlight major needs and give enough insight for action.
3-4 key personas are enough per project.

HOW

1. CONDUCT USER RESEARCH

This should help you answer the following questions as a bare minimum:

• Who are your users?
• Why would they use the system?
• How are they solving that problem now?
• What behavior, assumptions, and expectations would influence their view of the product/service?

2. ANALYZE THE RESEARCH

Identify themes and characteristic that are specific to them, relevant, and universal to the system.

3. BRAINSTORM

Organize elements into persona groups that represent your target users.

4. REFINE

See if any of the rough personas can merge. Organize the personas into primary and secondary personas.  Aim to have 3-4 personas and their identified characteristics.

5. MAKE THEM REALISTIC

Describe background, expectations, and motivations. Avoid making it too personal. Include only relevant information.

ELEMENTS OF A PERSONA

A persona should generally have the following information:

• Persona group (e.g. system engineer)
• Name (fictional)
• Demographic info (age, education, family status)
• Job title
• Main responsibilities for the job
• Their social environment
• Their physical environment
• Their technological environment
• A quote that sums up what matters most to this persona
• Casual photo representative of this persona group

PERSONA TYPES

Narrative

This is suitable for stakeholders who are not particularly interested in the technical details of the user needs.

Tabular

This is particularly useful for designers who want an easy way to compare user needs with their design work.

Hustler Quick and dirty

This is normally when there isn’t enough research to create a persona.

RESOURCES

Some persona resources to check out include:

1. 21 Best User Persona Template To Achieve Business Goals
2. 7 Free Online Persona Templates
3. Identify Your Ideal Marketing Personas

There are many ways to approach personas. It will normally depend on the context. Personas are living documents and should be reviewed occasionally to respond to any changes in the organization and its target population. With continuous engagement, the value proposition should be refined based on experience and engagement with users.

This week at Mobile World Congress Barcelona, Facebook and BRCK are announcing the open sourcing of Magma, a software platform that contains the tools needed to deploy and extend LTE mobile networks in under-connected and unconnected areas of the world. This includes software powering the mobile packet core and network automation and management tools. The reason this is important is that it allows rapid deployment and software development on a technology assumed to be available only to the incumbent MNO’s, and only with software and networks provided by a few behemoth suppliers (Huawei, ZTE, Nokia, etc.).

BRCK’s 2,700 WiFi hotspots in Kenya and Rwanda confine Moja users to a radius of 50-100m, a fundamental limitation of WiFi networks. To give users wider coverage, BRCK has been piloting a low cost, solar-powered, data-only LTE deployment that extends the Moja network with blanket coverage across kilometers, with the potential to cover thousands of people per tower.

Our Moja platform is the answer for affordable internet where people can’t pay to get online.  The business model allows consumers to connect to the internet for free, leveraging their digital engagement to ensure that the bandwidth is paid for. LTE allows that signal to not just work when you are within range of a Moja WiFi hotspot in a restaurant, shop, or bus, but works to keep you connected wherever you are – at home, as you hustle, or on the go.

As we continue to expand the Moja network, WiFi continues to be the tip of the spear.  It’s a great technology with lots of bandwidth, an easy connection model, and a very low cost of entry. We are continuing to invest in our work providing WiFI in public transit and have recently invested in fixed access, having acquired the Surf network with over 1,200 existing sites..  However, LTE has one great advantage: a larger footprint of coverage. LTE operates on licensed frequencies (although there is work being done to change this) and this allows us to use high power LTE radios to transmit a continuous Moja signal over kilometers, not meters, direct to a user’s device, connecting many thousands of people who otherwise don’t have access to affordable internet.

BRCK has embraced Magma as the backbone of our LTE network. The technology is similar to a lot of the work done in the early days of BRCK, building high reliability networks in resource-poor settings. It distributes the compute load to the edge, allowing for better performance despite the lack of resources. It uses modern web-compatible APIs and communication protocols that allow us to integrate seamlessly into our existing platforms and, most importantly, it breaks the reliance on legacy systems that have put scaleable LTE out of the reach of most.  And it’s built on software defined networking, so our upgrade path to 5G isn’t limited by hardware or vendor lock in, just a small matter of programming.

We’ve done a lot of work internally to Magma and shared this back into the open source effort. We’ve built out an MEC (Mobile Edge Compute) platform, localising the Moja platform and increasing the speed to the consumer. We’ve built a network monitoring stack for our wireless backhaul links, and we’ve integrated the platform seamlessly into our WiFi offerings and mesh networks that we run. We’ve also been integrating radios from multiple vendors for different deployment scenarios, as well as making Magma work with our own SupaBRCK microserver.

BRCK’s LTE stack is built using the SupaBRCK at its core. SupaBRCK is a rugged, outdoor-ready microserver powered by an Intel x86 processor, with 8GB of RAM, and up to 5TB of storage. Using SupaBRCK and the Magma gateway on the tower lowers the capex and opex of the site significantly by providing a managed all-in-one hardware solution, and by moving all the critical control traffic off the backhaul network. Innovations like this allow for reliable connectivity even in last mile situations with a lower cost of backhaul than is achievable with other solutions.

Moving forward, we are actively piloting more sites with LTE. Deploying Moja on a low-cost solar LTE platform allows us to increase our coverage into underserved areas that traditional operators typically don’t see financial viability in. We are excited about solving the Last Mile Connectivity challenge for Africa and other emerging markets.