Out with the old ways… The future is beneath the surface

Here’s how our blogging has worked here at Techzim: we pick up news (we discover, are tipped, or our interest grows in some issue we think should be discussed) and we blog it. The news and our opinion of course. Usually these are quick on the surface updates. Every once in awhile we do in-depth, both in us understanding an issue and the report. It’s not often enough though because in-depth is expensive to do and unfortunately for everyone, such content is rarely popular with the crowd whose eyeballs pay the bills.

This means those of you readers looking for beneath the surface are starved. It’s been practical (business model wise) so far but it’s not the most impactful way to spread knowledge and contribute to a smarter Zimbabwe and Africa so we’d like to change this. When we focus on an issue and take adequate time to understand it, the result is richer information & perspectives for the entrepreneurs, investors and even for policy guys that depend on our work for strategy.

Starting this month we will do it differently: Every month we’ll pick an issue to focus on and we will work to find answers to the most important questions. We’ll focus especially on questions we don’t already have easy answers to. And even when we assume we have answers will question them too. We don’t want to just scratch the surface.

Once we pick an issue, 3 times a week (Mondays, Wednesday and Fridays) we will post an article of our findings. We’ll share the most important of our discoveries, unexpected new things, hopefully disconfirmed assumptions and any updates to our quest on that topic. Think of these as you being part of our discovery process as it happens. At the end of the month, we will work on a feature that ties together everything on the topic.

On what happens to our other posts we have provided in the past: They won’t go away, you’ll just be clear what we’re focused on and what we’re not. But even this stuff that we’re not focused on in a particular month will still get their chance in succeeding months.

We’re starting this month of April with “The Internet Video Economy in Zimbabwe“. We’ll share in a separate article today what questions we are working on.

We’re super excited about this because we have so much to discover and learn, which is what this is all about! Being able to share it with you, an existing engaged audience of influential readers is nothing short of a privilege we don’t take for granted.

Needless to say, being new, everything is experimental as we go. We’ll see what works and what doesn’t. Give us your feedback. Give us questions you’d like answered in our search. I should say though that you shouldn’t feel the handle us with kid gloves if we’re not doing this right. We all deserve usable knowledge already and there’s no time to waste.