It’s only been since the start of the year that I have experienced Australian/Kiwi (antipodean) coffee culture in London. Since a friend introduced me to Flat White (flat-white.co.uk) in Soho, and really enjoying the coffee there, I’ve been intrigued as to why antipodeans make such nice coffee, and happy that some of them have decided to bring it to these shores. I’ve also recently discovered Fernandez & Wells (Beak St and also Lexington St, also in Soho – fernandezandwells.com), which was voted the best coffee retailer in London by TimeOut magazine, and has also featured in various other publications. I started going last month, and have been back as often as I can over the last few weeks. The coffee is expensive at £2.50 for a latte (there’s no sizing, just the regular size), but the quality is unsurpassed. If you’re in town, and if you want to taste genuine coffee instead of the Starbucks bucket of hot milk/Pret burnt coffee, do go and try it.

I’m yet to visit the ubiquitous Monmouth, but I’m sure it won’t be long now. That’s the company which provides the coffee beans to all of the other Aussie/Kiwi cafes in Soho. The quality is excellent, and there’s also something to be said for the milk, machinery and of course the human expertise that you find in these places. I don’t know what the antipodean secret is, but anybody who runs a coffee store anyway should pay attention. I certainly wish my local cafes did!

For a while now, my company Red Narrative has been working on behalf of the Ashraf Ghani campaign to become president of Afghanistan in this August’s elections there. I always get raised eyebrows when I tell people about this, because not many people think that Afghanistan is an ideal country to test out e-campaigning principles and modern technology to get people engaged in a campaign. They’re wrong though. Actually, online campaigning, and the use of new media, can help any organisation or political campaign, anywhere on Earth. You just have to find the key, and develop a decent strategy. They key to making the Internet work for Ashraf Ghani, and probably any other major politician running for office in a developing country is the potential of an un-tapped global diaspora, and an incoming generation of young Afghans who are already technology-proficient.

Even in a country like Afghanistan, which is right near the bottom of the human development index, and practically any other index which measures a nation’s development, people are keen to see that even the best technology is not out of reach. So it makes Afghans proud that their leading politicians can put on a campaign as modern as anywhere else. The local language version of Ashraf Ghani’s campaign website have attracted a lot of local traffic, and have enabled an online discussion, and exchange of comments to happen, around the policy issues and the personalities of the candidates.

The international component of the campaign has been successful in attracting tens of thousands of dollars, mainly in small donations from Afghans living abroad, primarily in the United States, Britain, Germany and other Western countries. The English-language website also acts as a focus point for Western journalists and civil servants who are keen to follow the campaign and find out about the candidate.

Nowadays there is no excuse for any serious politician, particularly in countries with more than 50% Internet penetration (like the UK for instance) to not have a serious e-campaign strategy alongside other campaign plans. If they can benefit from using the web in Afghanistan, for campaigning, organising and fund-raising, then it’s almost embarrassing to think that politicians in the West still haven’t understood that the ground has shifted, and those who do not succeed online, in the future won’t succeed at all. Remember the first televised political debate between John F. Kennedy and Robert Nixon; JFK was a natural on TV, and Nixon appeared uncomfortable and aloof – this was an important turning point in political communication, and frames the point about e-campaigning perfectly.

ashrafghani.af

rednarrative.com