About three years ago, my house codeless phone got blown off by a bolt of lightening. The following six months I moved from company to company, and consulted several experts in an attempt to have it fixed but all efforts proved futile. One company I visited a well recognized telecom company (I will not mention the name) has a subsidiary company renowned for its technical capacity and expertise to fix all manner of telecom equipment. Well after several assurances, broken promises and really very frustrating visits, it became apparent to me that I was going nowhere with them and so decided just to withdraw my phone. It was a lovely phone of sentimental value I had acquired at huge cost and therefore the realization that the country’s best technicians have failed brought much despair.

But as is often the case when you really love something, you don’t give up so easily and often one is willing to search even in the unlikely place for answers. And that’s exactly what happened to me. Some taxi driver who had watched me agonizing over my phone offered to help. He suggested to me that he knew of some ‘young boy’ who could fix my phone. He sounded assuring and so I listened but when he finally told me where to find the same boy, I literally flipped back in my seat, because as far as I knew the place is haven for criminals and all sorts of misfits. Reality is I didn’t have a choice.

This is a true personal experience. I have decided to tell this story because it presents an intriguing relationship between innovation and legality which is irritably intricate as well as thought provoking. I do not really know exactly how and to what extent it may help you as a reader but I think those many young people working hard under very prohibitive conditions to run small businesses will be thrilled to know that their own circumstances, insignificant as they may be, are worth telling. The story highlights the life and struggles of enterprising youths born and breed in a community whose very origin and existence is shrouded in law. A story in which government neglect and marginalization motivates a community to 'innovate' in order to survive and the over zealous officials ready to characterize any change as illegal. A struggle to preserve the status quo, the status quo that is sure to condemn the community to perpetual poverty and dependence on big business. In fact back in my young days creativity and innovation was associated with actions outside the norm. In other words, unacceptable or illegal.

But there is also another reason for writing which is; Floss Communication, one of the modules in the Floss Business must recognize the vastness and complex nature of the subject. Floss Communication, in as far as it affects SMEs, is more than trading sweet-smelling messages with skeptics but really confronting , admitting the challenges and providing sufficient guidance to stir young SME away from potential litigations so many fellow young ICT innovators have fallen victim of. Later and briefly, i will dwell in the stores of Kazaa, Napster, Thepiratebay, Mplayer and others just to illustrate the extent to which big business with its financial muscle is willing to stretch the law in order to preserve the status quo.

The Next New – Potentially Illegal Thing
Is the legal system an enemy of Innovation? According to Larry Downes the author of The Laws of Disruption, ‘Once, technological innovation was embraced by early adopters, who were followed by the masses. Today, technological innovations are embraced by early adopters, who are followed by lawyers’ His advice is that fast-forwarding entrepreneurs should be cautious of the legal system’s approach to technological change. Call it cynical or witty. O’ but what does he really mean?

The term Innovation means a new way of doing something. It may refer to incremental, radical, and revolutionary changes in thinking, products, or organizations. While innovation typically adds value, innovation may also have a negative or destructive effect as new development tend to clear away or change old organizational forms and practices. Organizations that do not innovate effectively may be destroyed by those that do. Hence innovation typically involves risk. One of the greatest features of innovation in the digital age is that it is relatively cheap and simple to experiment. This same feature unfortunately leaves little room for thinking about the effects of your actions will have on existing businesses practices and therefore devoid one real opportunity to plan for possible litigation. However, as James Lewis writes on his Blog, Innovation and Cybersecurity Regulation, Regulations and Innovation are not at odds. Regulations can indeed inspire innovation to supply a public good.

I will return to this argument in turn but first my story. And interestingly enough it has both perspective.

Just about a three and half kilometers away from Lusaka, Zambia’s capital city, lays a sprawling and one of Lusaka’s oldest unplanned settlement. The place is home to over 100,000 people many of whom are young and unemployed. Like many unplanned settlements, everything here appears a bit less like what one finds in so-called planned areas. Here people live in makeshift houses built on undelineate piece of land. Roads were available are in bad state and unmarked and small unregistered businesses operate without proper trading licenses. The area is unserviced and by all means exist nowhere on the city radar. But residents here do everything for themselves which include, allocating land to new comers; setting rules, policing and providing all sorts of arbitration. The national legal system does not exist here but somehow residents believe harmony and justice exists. Agreements, not bound in written legal contracts but more informal social contracts, are properly enforced and adhered to. This is Chawama compound home to the ‘young boy’ I was referred to- a place I ultimately turned to when all my attempts to get established businesses fix my digital wireless home phone yielded nothing. As I came to discover, Chawama (meaning ‘much better’) is a place of mixed and much conflicting tales; a place where innovation and illegality are two sides of the same coin. Here legality stares innovation right in the face and the only thing that stands between them is politics.

The city planners call it illegal settlement because as far as they are concerned it does not appear anywhere on the city’s housing Plan. The settlers call it legal because as far as they are concerned the area falls within a politically recognized constituency in which some of the most historic election campaign rallies have been held. But also as I found out later, some of the most sought after services and skills are found here too.

Life in Chawama is fast and callous. But make no mistake- the locals definitely love it. They know what is good and what is bad for the community. Water and electricity is ‘illegally’ connected to the main water and power supply line that pass near the compound and many young boys here make a decent living going round providing plumbing services. Illegal drug stores operated by unqualified medical personnel are common place and they simply go about selling both prescriptive and none prescriptive drugs. Cable Television in homes where the occupants earn a fraction of what it costs is surprisingly available, and dotted all over the place are makeshift stalls for telephone, radio and television repairs. Banks as we know them are not there. Yet lending and borrowing do exist in a very rudimental ways. More affluent and benevolent members of the community often act as lenders. You can borrow to start a small business from a lender who wouldn’t even care to evaluate your business plan or ask for collateral except perhaps to ascertain that you are from a known and trusted linage. Most businesses are owned and ran by young people former employees of the nearby industries. From the industries, these young people learn the basics in welding, mechanics, electrical etc. And when they return home, they recreate workshops and improvise tools. They then organize themselves under unconstrained environments to perform some of the most complicated jobs.

The majority of young people living in Chawama are unemployed while a few are employed as casual laborers in nearby industries working under very hash conditions for very poor wages. Most industries near Chawama deal in electrical and mechanical services while others are in assembly and food processing. Most employ casual workers. Young people seem to be the preferred candidates perhaps because jobs themselves are demandingly physical but also because the level of education of these young people lends them to all sorts of exploitation. The young man I was coming to see is a former employee of Telecom company - the very one from where I got a raw deal. After one year of service, the company decided they no longer needed field workers like him whose job was simply to carry cables and hold ladders for technicians. So the young may set up a small business to repair phones. He proved himself well that the locals nicknamed him ‘Japan’.

To be continued..