How to Conduct Successful Campaigns
In the words of Patrick Healy, an authority in project management theory and research, 'no one really knows when a project idea is conceived.'
It may, like in the case of Facebook, be a fantasy that goes viral.
The fb site, reportedly, used photos compiled from the online facebooks of nine houses at Harvard, placing two next to each other at a time, and asking users to choose the 'hotter' person".
Many other successful projects have come from reactions to adverse situations of life. There was the case of the former CNN reporter, Jeff Koinange, who after losing his job, seized the opportunity to participate in a media revolution in his home country.
Patrick Healy, however, warns that, the further a project moves beyond conception, the more it takes a life of its own. This, if not well taken in to perspective, can be disastrous.
Industrialization has, for instance, been associated with increased pollution, congested cities and increased stress and so on.
The European Union has discovered that disposing off Greece is easier said than done.
The US and NATO in Afghanistan have discovered that withdrawal is another project in itself.
Rwanda genocide happened when Annan, an African, was head of UN.
Constitution writing in Kenya, left deep wounds – deaths and ethnic passions – in the Kenyan psyche. The development of new highways has, likewise, led to increase in road accidents.
The development of internet has led to increase in frauds, including, identity thefts.
It is therefore important for innovators to look in to post implementation, with the same enthusiasm, probably even more seriously, as all other project phases.
Election campaigns are however, a class of their own. It is an only opportunity for the governed to have a say. Make headlines. Fulfil an innate human desire of self esteem.
Add this to the vested interests, and you can smell it in the atmosphere. This calls for tight regulation and adherence to constitutional principles.
An assurance to all, both would be winners and losers, that whatever happens, there will be a sane person at the helm is always important card for strategists.
Only democracy has, so far, proved capable of this. Benevolence, alone, has failed; otherwise the Arab spring was no good lesson.