Amon Munyaneza

Healthy Systems Create Healthy Companies

2010-03-28T23:43:00.000-07:00

“Do some exercise,” the doctor tells her patient. “It’s good for you.” The number one reason people exercise is so they can stay healthy. And how does physical exercise contribute to your health? Now I am no doctor but I have come to learn that physical inactivity is a major risk factor for developing coronary artery disease. It also contributes to other risk factors including obesity, high blood

Determining a Company's Health

2010-03-14T22:50:00.001-07:00

How much money do you make? Try asking any man and you will get all kinds of excuses. For some reason people don’t delight in talking about their salaries. But corporations do. Why? Because corporations are not people. Yes, corporations love to brag about their financial performance. Even the most private companies will jump to the opportunity of being mentioned in Forbes, Inc. 500, or anything

Processes vs Departments

2010-03-09T13:25:00.000-08:00

The marketing manager wants to mail a marketing piece to help the sales team with new leads. To do this, he needs the prospect list from the sales manager. And, oh, by the way, the finance manager has to approve the budget. And since the piece will be delivered over the internet, IT needs to come in. IT will only code what the design team has submitted. And it goes on and on. By the time a simple

Welcome to Economics 2.0

2010-02-12T05:29:00.000-08:00

Too bad Adam Smith is nolonger alive. He would be so shocked to discover that his world of economics has been turned upside down. In The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Smith critically examined the moral thinking of the time and suggested that conscience arises from social relationships. His aim in the work is to explain the source of mankind's ability to form moral judgments, in spite of man's

Why we Do not Drive a Flying Car Today

2010-02-06T08:40:00.000-08:00

Manufacturers are famous for wasting money. If you doubt me check out the millions of prototypes that never saw the light of day. Go, for example, to the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum. This place maintains the largest collection of historic air and spacecraft in the world. Here you will find the failed dreams of amazing engineers, including the various failures to bring

Aquisitions, Lemons, and Cash Cows

2010-01-25T19:47:00.000-08:00

Okay so if you did not know, I grew up on a farm. Not your typical farm, mind you. An open space where cattle graze free and the milk was as close to milk as it could get. That was long before milk started being manufactured in factories. And the cows have not complained since then. Oh, well. The cows don't really care. It's your life you are destroying. And plus, they will always be waiting for

Computer Tenants!! You are kidding, right?

2010-01-24T18:37:00.000-08:00

I must start with a confession- I am not a computer geek. Except, of course a few rumblings on this blog which happen to be hosted by Google somewhere in the corners of one of their googlistic computers laying around an entire city somewhere. Talking about Google, you can't really talk about computers these days without saying "Google". Which brings me to my subject. Cloud computing. I started by

Perspective

2009-09-24T19:20:00.001-07:00

Perspective is key. For instance, if you were told that you would receive $1,000,000 for jumping out of a plane without a parachute, would you do it?If you say "No," immediately, you would lose the opportunity for a million dollars. Why? Safety? No! Because you did not know the plane was on the ground with its emergency slide open, so you jumped -- but to the wrong conclusion.

How Many NOs Before a YES?

2009-09-24T18:20:00.001-07:00

When I was growing up, my father (God rest his soul in peace) made it so clear to us that his NO meant NO and not MAYBE or LATER. Later when I started my first business peddling goodies at age 11, I brought this attitude to business. The first customer I approached made it so clear to me that he was not interested. I could almost hear my father screaming in my ears, “I said NO and I mean NO.” One

Eliminating Options

2009-09-23T20:25:00.000-07:00

Wouldn’t it be beautiful if we all could see the end from the beginning? Oh may be just have a glimpse of a few miles ahead of us? The good news is that we can. Though God has hidden the future from us, He has provided a way for us to form a framework within which we can eliminate options. Some call it vision. Others call it purpose. I call it eliminating nonsense. The mind is full of

Increasing Your Business Profit

2009-07-29T07:20:00.000-07:00

In difficult economic times such as the ones we are living in today, every business owner is scrambling for a nickel of profit here and there. The honest truth on the other side is that some businesses are not really as concerned about profit as they are about staying afloat. Every day as I drive around my neighborhood I am surprised to find out that some of my favorite stores are closing. The

Coupon Junkie

2009-07-27T08:29:00.000-07:00

Yes I am a coupon junkie. I love saving money. Pay less for more sounds so attractive. So I save every coupon I can lay my hands on. At this one store, I found out that I had saved close to 40% of my cost just by using coupons. One may think that merchants make coupons to give free money to customers. That's not true. Coupons are actually made to increase profits for merchants. Yes. But they are

Cutting it short

2009-07-23T19:44:00.000-07:00

It’s been long since I last blogged. I have been busy undergoing a long and laborious training for my new business. I finally managed to get away from everything and concentrate on what I love doing. Since I started getting interested in payment systems back in 2001, I have never stopped to wonder what it would look like if a company existed with a mission to help merchants; to be on the

New Beginnings

2009-07-04T10:47:00.000-07:00

Hey y'all my friends. Just wanted to let you know that I will be blogging a lot these days about business, the economy, and cutting business costs. If this is not your piece of bread, then I suggest you reconsider your RSS. Otherwise, have fun.

The Prodigal Change

2009-06-12T21:09:00.000-07:00

A sad but gripping reality of all time is that more people than are expected spend their lives accepting apparent reality. They repel that which is new, different and uncommon. They spend their life looking for a certain kind of scripted living. In pursuit of a scripted life, they lose track of life itself because life is always hiding in the shadows, in the dark and ugly fumes of daily clouds;

Sacred Selfishness

2009-06-09T15:32:00.000-07:00

The calling of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost began to produce what 1 Peter calls a “race, priesthood, nation, and people” (1 Peter 2:9-10), a worldwide multicultural fellowship of witnesses. The people of God, in all their cultural diversity, may be understood as a universal community of communities. The particular church community is, in an essential sense, an expression of the universal church.

Building the Ark: Baruch Spinoza Vs. Noah No-last-name

2009-06-03T11:16:00.001-07:00

Naturalistic pantheist Baruch Spinoza would be upset with Noah. Oh God himself. Spinoza, a Dutch philosopher of Portuguese Jewish origin is considered one of the great rationalists of all time. Spinoza believed (and many of his followers still do) that the Universe, although unconscious and irresponsible as a whole, behaves as a single, interrelated, and solely natural substance. Accordingly,

Come With Me Along the Sweet Path of Doubt.

2009-06-02T12:26:00.001-07:00

They kept coming. For forty days; a constant flow like the oozing of an old wound. Their weight lifted it off the ground and gave it free float. Everything in it was safe. And the more they came the better it floated.But something beyond it was not happy. Thousands were perishing in them. The floods that saved the boat and the people in it were now destroying everyone outside it. The savior had

If the Population Goes Bad, Kill It!

2009-06-01T11:25:00.001-07:00

Is Genesis 6 outrageous? I don’t think so. Truthful? Certainly. God is fed up with people. Too much contamination. The sons of God are mixing with the daughters of men. There is no differentiation. People are living the way they want- no regard for God and what he wants. God is losing it. He is running out of patience. His heart starts pounding. His skin turns red. The veins on his throat start

If the Population Goes Bad, Kill It!

2009-06-01T11:25:00.000-07:00

When it comes to the Bible, Don’t Trust Number

2009-05-27T09:41:00.000-07:00

One of my Math teachers used to say, “Numbers don’t lie.” I agree but with an exception. As much as numbers don’t lie, I believe liars use numbers. Numbers are so powerful that they can intimidate the most powerful of warriors. One of the best old-time war strategies was finding out “how many they are”. Numbering the enemy gives the other side greater advantage. In old days, warriors used to

Favoritism: How Does God Play That Game?

2009-05-26T11:56:00.001-07:00

You would think of God as someone who treats everyone equally, right? Wrong. Matter of fact you shouldn’t be thinking about how God plays his favoritism game. He is God and it is His game. With this in mind, I have never stopped wondering why God plays unfair. At least in my human mind. And there is no better place to find God playing unfair than in Genesis 4. Two good guys Cain and Abel choose

Just Don’t Listen to Your Wife, Okay?

2009-05-25T08:38:00.000-07:00

I don’t know what to do with this kind of advice especially when it is coming from God himself. Adam actually got punished for it. God looks at Adam in Genesis 3:17 and says “Dude, you are in big trouble. You listened to your wife and now things are going wacky for her and for you”. “So Mr., because you listened to your wife, I am cursing the ground because of you.” “You are going to sweat it

Why a Snake of all Things?

2009-05-24T08:28:00.000-07:00

The movie “Snakes on a Plane” is one of those movies with a big title and not much content. The movie, starring the famous Samuel L. Jackson, gained a considerable amount of attention before its release, forming large fan bases online and becoming an Internet obsession, due to the film's title and presupposition. Despite the immense Internet buzz, the film's gross revenue did not live up to

Even God Gets Tired, Doesn't He?

2009-05-23T07:01:00.001-07:00

So here is the real deal. In Genesis 2, God is tired. Hilarious, isn’t it? No. Not in a hurry my friend. I am 5.8” and for a man, that is really short. And considering the fact that my father (God bless his cotton socks) was 6.2”, it makes me look like a disappointment standing beside him. And no man wants to be this short except me. I travel a lot so it helps to be portable. Sometimes I can

Did God Really Write the Bible?

2009-05-22T11:54:00.000-07:00

Did God really write the Bible? Oh wait a second. I think several people did. Inspired by God himself. Can we call them ghostwriters then? Only difference is that they do give us their names. Except Genesis of course. No one really knows who wrote this book. Moses? Ah I hear he actually wrote the first five books of the Bible. Surprised? You should be. He actually wrote about his death in

Rwanda 15

2009-04-29T16:24:00.000-07:00

Commemorating 15 Years Since the Rwandan GenocideApril 6, 2009 marked the beginning of 100 days of mourning for the people of Rwanda. Beginning on this date, 15 years ago, nearly 1 million lives were taken in the Rwandan Genocide. On each one of these 100 days, from April through July, approximately 10,000 people were brutally murdered and many more were injured, maimed, raped or traumatized by

Scared of your own failures?

2009-04-28T11:27:00.000-07:00

Too much editing? You are not alone. Every time I start writing a blog I get cold feet and so worried what the readers will think about it. In the process I lose my trend of thought and my motivation for sharing. I realize that this is not good if anyone is ever going to learn anything from anyone. I don't even want to mention the fear to spel wrods rwong. This fear to make mistakes keeps a lot

Asante Children's Choir

2009-04-23T09:55:00.001-07:00

DSC_0777Originally uploaded by Africa Mission Alliance

A New Bull's Eye

2009-03-26T06:22:00.000-07:00

I have this new bull’s eye and I am so happy about it. A friend of mine helped me pick it out. Actually my brother in-law. He is a great photographer. Some times I think he was taking mental pictures in his mother’s womb.A Nikon D60 is better than anything I have ever used. I call it the bull’s eye. I got a good deal on a 200mm lens which makes objects travel distances to come into your view. I

Intego

2009-03-20T17:47:00.000-07:00

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Intego

2009-03-20T17:33:00.000-07:00

Guhitamo

2009-03-19T11:42:00.000-07:00

Umurava

2009-03-19T10:11:00.000-07:00

Umurimo

2009-03-19T09:24:00.000-07:00

Rodrigue

2009-02-23T13:23:00.001-08:00

A lawyer's Journey with Orphans

2009-02-16T15:27:00.001-08:00

My Rwandan Experience

2009-02-13T11:21:00.000-08:00

Africa in Perspective

2009-02-13T11:20:00.000-08:00

American Idol- Rehearsal for living

2009-02-10T23:28:00.001-08:00

A few of my friends love to meet every Tuesday for American idol night. I am starting to realize that the girls enjoy more than the guys. The guys always drift off to some politics of some sort, stock performances, recent technology and stuff like that. But still feels good to meet as friends for something as useless as American idol. Can't say useless though coz I have learned a lesson or two

I Hated Christmas

2008-11-18T18:16:00.000-08:00

The meat was gone. Celestin was not willing to serve borrowers. We were doomed. Another painful Christmas. But, oh well, this was just another of those many Christmases. We we were getting used to them, or so we thought.As soon as I arrived home from the butcher's shop I started crying. Papa had talked to Celestin the night before. He had explained to him how he (Papa) had not been paid by the

The Naked Future of "ME"

2008-10-12T23:47:00.001-07:00

Integration. Systems. Collaboration. Synergy. Specialization. Jack of all trades is fired. Gone! Welcome global village. You can’t eat alone. The world is in my house- wirelessly. Real-time news SMSed from Africa. A riot on a Kenyan street is captured live on a street-side vendor’s Nokia and SMSed into BBC’s newsroom in 23.5 seconds. The rain is moving towards the next village and a neighbor

Social Entrepreneurship vs. Social Innovation - Social Innovators

2008-10-07T10:00:00.000-07:00

When did you first hear about social entrepreneurship or social enterprise? Not long ago. Now, according to Stanford’s Social Innovation Review, social entrepreneurship is old talk. What really matters today is social innovation. This really leaves me wondering if we are just playing around with words. But Stanford being Stanford, they almost got me convinced. If you have been following, I

Social Innovators

2008-10-06T20:23:00.000-07:00

Social Innovators

Enrich the Poor by Impoverishing the Rich?

2008-10-06T10:56:00.000-07:00

“The poor will always be with you”, a friend of mine quoted Jesus in my face when I told him I was turning down a lucrative job offer to work with the poor. His understanding is that the poor are necessary for the economies of the world to make sense. My friend is not alone. His opinion is shared by economist Thomas A. Garrett (see publication at http://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/re/

One Penny Per Tear

2008-10-05T23:46:00.001-07:00

A picture of a malnourished child in southern Sudan flashes across your fourteen inch screen. A soft voice in the background tells the story. A few more pictures, a couple of video clips, a tear here and there. We are done. That’s all. Our program is efficient, effective and necessary to change the world. Humans are emotional and caring beings. A picture of a suffering child somewhere in southern

Old Wolves in New Sheep Skin

2008-10-05T06:49:00.000-07:00

Corporate Social Responsibility Vs Social EntrepreneurshipI find it hard to justify the idea that social entrepreneurship should include for-profit businesses. I actually have a problem starting with the very definition of social entrepreneurship. Like it or not, Wiki is here to stay so I will borrow their definition of social entrepreneurship. “Social entrepreneurship is the work of a social

$154 Billion. Free Money for You, Come December 25

2008-10-04T12:01:00.000-07:00

One hundred and fifty four billion dollars can be yours to spend on the charity of your choice, come December 25. By sacrificing one day in a year, we could put enough money in the hands of all non profits in America to operate for six months without raising a penny. That includes all non profits that help orphans and widows, do disaster intervention, save dogs, cats and gorillas, protect the

How to Catch a Runaway Dog

2008-10-03T10:30:00.000-07:00

We had a very wayward dog when I was growing up. Twelve hours out of twenty four we had her tied up on a rope so she couldn’t bite people during the day. We let her loose at night. But once in a while she got off the hook during the day. Very hard to catch her when she did. But my mother knew how; get a bone, dry or not, and wave it in her (the dog’s) face. This is true not only for dogs.

The Communal Challange in Africa's Economic Development

2008-09-30T17:33:00.001-07:00

The African society is highly communal. This presents both an opportunity and a threat to economic development. Advantages of a highly communal society are many. Collective education and information sharing is possible by utilizing existing informal leadership structures. On the other hand, highly communal societies can become a liability especially where structural differentiation is not

French Electronic Music

2008-09-04T16:58:00.000-07:00

Justice, a French electronic music duo consisting of two friends, Gaspard and Xavier, warms up the crowd on a chilly French evening. French being my fifth language, I can hardly put two words together to understand what in the world these two are singing about. I don’t care as much for French music any ways as I do for French poetry. On this warm western evening though, watching Justice from my

Sun-Kissed

2008-08-29T17:27:00.000-07:00

I have been sun-kissed. I am talking about a pre-birth tan. And that gives me a foot forward to complain about my fellow sun-kissed friends especially in the west-most part of the sun. And without measuring melanin content, I believe I am a few ancestors away from big foot in Zimbabwe. So when he hurts I hurt. When he hurts others I cry. And he has been making me cry non-stop. And then he

Dogs and Sheep

2008-08-29T00:18:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine once asked me if carrots grew on trees. Which reminds me; some time back I was driving through a local town in Hawaii and came across a herd of sheep. A friend of mine who was riding with me wondered why some one would keep all those dogs in their backyard. But that was not far from a good friend of mine that has just returned from a mission trip to Rwanda who was asked if he saw

Tell Me Today About Tomorrow

2008-04-09T15:14:00.000-07:00

One of the most widely read Christian books is “Purpose Driven Life” by Rick Warren. Why is this book so popular? Is it because people really want to know what plan God has for their lives? May be. May be not. Knowing the future has been the fascination of many generations. In Africa we have fortune tellers who use all kinds of tricks to prove that they can foretell your future. Horoscopes are

How Lessons Learned from Culturally Relevant Marketing Can Transform Evangelism Patterns

2008-02-27T16:02:00.000-08:00

Here in the city of Portland, one of the largest American crusade evangelists is organizing a mega citywide outreach to win souls for Christ. His present campaign beats the marketing strategies of fortune 500 companies. He has people. He has money. He has volunteers. Everything is free, it is non-profit money. Everything is donated so star evangelist can afford to put on such an expensive show

Are You Available?

2008-02-21T14:15:00.000-08:00

One of the biggest catastrophes of our time is that no body is available. Fathers are not available for their sons. They are busy trading stocks on Wall Street from their high ceiling offices downtown. Mothers are not available for their daughters. They are busy working 12 hour jobs and shopping for the next fashion trend. Husbands are not available for their wives. Wives are not available for

Desiring God: Desiring Goods

2008-01-11T11:12:00.000-08:00

In our last discussions we labored to show that branding is about differentiation, competition, and segmentation. Marketing is about satisfying desires and needs of a target audience. The mission of the church is to build a universal community of believers characterized by unity, fellowship, mission, and an overriding desire to build the kingdom of God here on earth. Thus Godly desire should be

Consuming Sacred Bread at Individual Tables

2008-01-03T16:53:00.000-08:00

Consuming God at more than Market Value

2007-12-29T19:25:00.000-08:00

We have already seen that branding aims at creating a unique product that will satisfy the desires of the consumer. But can this be said of both consumer goods and religious desires? Can we market the church the same way we market consumer goods and services? In his book “Marketing the Church,” Barna defines church marketing as the performance of both business and ministry activities that impact

Coming Closer to Consumer-driven Christianity

2007-12-26T16:34:00.000-08:00

Last week we started off by discussing Church growth specialists. These good friends are emphasizing the importance of a Church's uniqueness in attracting a certain class or type of members. We said that in their minds of business, Churches are religious brands in the market economy of religious goods and services. But if denominations can be treated as brands, how does this branding contribute

Auctioning Silent Night: Why more people would rather buy Junk than Jesus

2007-12-21T08:38:00.000-08:00

A man stared at me from a distance. I thought I had met him before. I later found out I hadn’t. He was holding five shopping bags in his two muscular arms. His two boys were sitting on Santa’s lap for a memorable picture of the year. I stopped and asked the man if we had met before. He looked at me in the eyes and said, “Never mind young man; at this time of year I normally lose my mind. My wife

Marketing the Church: What is Wrong or Right With the Brand?

2007-12-19T16:36:00.000-08:00

A few days ago I began collecting my thoughts about church and church marketing. Some people think the church is a business which should be marketed with techniques from Wall Street and God knows where. Others think the church is from a different mother altogether and what works for business works against the church. Just how much business should there be in church practice and how much church

Examining our Motivations for Giving

2007-11-28T18:23:00.000-08:00

I have just returned from a long weekend in Winnipeg, Manitoba. I call it long because I am an African who grew up on a 75 degree temperature diet 24/7. And guess what we were consuming in Winnipeg; Minus 10. If freezing doesn’t mean anything to you, it means a world to me. I could literally feel my face turn into ice. And it didn’t matter how many layers of thick wool I threw on my

Why I Give My Hard- earned Cash

2007-11-24T16:10:00.000-08:00

If you haven’t been asked to give money to one cause or another, consider yourself living on another planet. From starving children in Africa to dog lovers’ associations in blue-hill neighborhoods, the list is endless. Some research shows that Christians get asked to give more than any other social group. From televangelists to humble local pastors serving on less than a dollar a day, the

The Chief End of Man

2007-11-17T10:30:00.000-08:00

Every time we children at home decided to do something new, my mother always pulled out her black dust-kissed Bible and quoted a milliard of verses explaining why we should or shouldn’t do this or that. One of those things involved this one day when I wanted to uproot a mango tree behind our kitchen because that was a cool spot for my new house. I was 12 and very excited about building my first

Psychology or Astrology?

2007-11-15T00:52:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago I was asked to write and present a paper on the proper response to the thought that personality tests and other psychological testing have pagan astrology as their basis. I had to think twice. I knew I had taken many of these tests myself without thinking twice. And now I was supposed to defend or ditch them. So before I made my input, my first stop was at the library to examine

A Prophet of Doom?

2007-11-09T09:17:00.000-08:00

No. That’s not what you would call a learned man like Federal Reserve chairman , Ben Bernanke. So what do you call him? A realist? I think so. Uncle Ben’s comments on the downwardly moving American economy are frightening. Ben Bernanke speaking on behalf of the Federal Reserve on Thursday told Congress that the American economy was going to get worse. What will a powerful country like America do

Who Needs Help?

2007-11-06T00:26:00.000-08:00

I will lift up my eyes to the mountains; from where shall my help come.My help comes from the LORD, Who made heaven and earth.He will not allow your foot to slip; He who keeps you will not slumber.Psalm 121:1-2 We need help; help when everything around us seems to be going against us. We need help great help, stable help, and constant help. Where does our help come from? In whom have we placed

Walking the Road to Humility

2007-11-04T09:12:00.000-08:00

Walking the Road through Serving Christ has commanded that he who is chief among the brethren should be as he that serves (Luke 22:26), for the one that serves is greater than the one that reclines at the table (Luke 22:27). Christ modeled this example by serving his disciples. On that Passover feast before he could face his hour of trial, Jesus laid aside his garments, girded himself with a

The Road to Humility

2007-11-02T11:21:00.000-07:00

"In reality there is perhaps no one of our natural Passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself...For even if I could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility." - Benjamin Franklinan Can we achieve

"I am Humble; Am I Not?"

2007-11-01T12:42:00.000-07:00

Proude of My HumilityPaul warns against a certain type of false humility (Colossians 2:18-23). This kind of humility is a self-seeking, voluntary kind which has to be guarded against. It is not genuine humility to humble ourselves with the feeling that we are greater than others, but only when we do not think of self at all. It is possible to be proud of our humility. The question then is what is

Jesus on Humility

2007-10-29T08:45:00.000-07:00

The Poor in SpiritJesus not only strongly impressed his disciples with the need for humility, but was himself its supreme example. He described himself as meek and lowly in heart (Matthew 11:19). The first of the beatitudes was to “the poor in spirit” (Matthew 5:3), and it was “the meek” who should “inherit the earth.”Who is greater?Humility, according to Jesus, is the way to true greatness: he

What Humility Is and Is Not

2007-10-28T16:49:00.000-07:00

Graces of the SoulHumility, according to Unger’s Bible Dictionary, is an inwrought grace of the soul that allows one to think of himself no more highly than he ought to think (Ephesians. 4:1-2; Colossians 3:12-13; Romans 12:3). The exercise of humility is first and foremost toward God (Matthew 11:29; James 1:21).Humility- not Self-depreciationHumility requires us to feel that in God’s sight we