By Hezron Ochiel
For three years, I was part of a team working on a deceptively simple question: How do you document nearly a century of institutional history without producing a book that reads like an archive?
The answer became The Journey to Greatness, a publication documenting the evolution of the Kenya Medical Training College (KMTC) since 1927.
The project brought together historical records, personal accounts and institutional milestones to explain how the College had evolved over time.
It also taught me something that goes beyond publishing a book: Institutional history can become a strategic communication asset when it is researched well, preserved carefully and connected to an organisation’s identity and future direction.
Why institutional history matters
Every institution accumulates stories over time.
Some are captured in official records, while others live in the memories of former employees, alumni and long-serving staff.
When those stories are not preserved, part of the institution’s identity can slowly disappear.
That became clear during the development of The Journey to Greatness.
We were trying to understand how the institution had evolved, what shaped it and how its contribution to health training had developed over time.
The final publication covered areas such as governance, training, research and KMTC’s contribution to the health sector.
It also included personal accounts that helped bring the history to life.
That balance mattered because a historical publication becomes more useful when readers can understand both what happened and why it mattered.
This is closely related to a wider challenge I explore in Bridging the Gap Between Research and the Public: A Practical Guide for Journalists and Communication Specialists: information becomes more valuable when it is organised, interpreted and communicated in a way people can understand.
Institutional storytelling begins with institutional memory
One of the strongest lessons from the project was the importance of preserving information before a writing assignment begins.
Historical writing becomes difficult when records are scattered, incomplete or inaccessible.
Some of our most useful breakthroughs came from combining written records with oral histories and alumni accounts.
These sources helped us fill gaps and understand periods that formal records could not fully explain.
The experience reinforced a principle I now consider important:
Institutional storytelling begins long before the writing stage. It depends on how well an organisation preserves its memory.
For communication teams, the lesson is practical.
Poor record-keeping eventually becomes a communication problem because future teams may struggle to explain how the organisation arrived where it is today.
What made the project work
Several factors helped sustain the project over its three-year development period.
1. A diverse team
The team brought together people with different professional backgrounds, including academia and public relations.
That combination strengthened both the research and storytelling dimensions of the publication.
Historical documentation requires accuracy, while institutional storytelling requires the ability to make that information meaningful to readers.
2. A clear purpose
A project of this length can easily lose direction.
Having a clear goal helped keep the team focused on producing a publication that documented KMTC’s history while remaining relevant to its present identity and strategic direction.
That clarity also helped when difficult editorial decisions had to be made about what to include, what to verify and how to organise the material.
3. Strong information-sourcing methods
Written records alone were not enough.
Oral histories, alumni accounts and archival materials provided context that helped explain important periods in the institution’s development.
That taught us to treat institutional history as a research process, not simply a writing exercise.
Where the process became difficult
The project also exposed some of the challenges organisations face when documenting their history.
Information was not always easy to locate, and some important knowledge existed mainly in the memories of people who had lived through particular periods.
Review processes also took time, while changes in project leadership occasionally affected continuity.
These experiences highlighted the importance of clear responsibilities, realistic timelines and systems that preserve progress when teams change.
What other institutions can learn
The project left me with several practical lessons for organisations that want to document their own history.
1. Preserve records systematically
Important institutional information should be stored in ways that make it easy to retrieve later.
A well-managed record today can become valuable evidence many years from now.
2. Capture knowledge before people leave
Some of the most valuable institutional knowledge sits with people who have spent years inside an organisation.
Oral histories and structured knowledge transfer can help preserve that experience before it disappears.
3. Review historical records regularly
Organisations should identify gaps in their records before a major writing project begins.
That makes it easier to recover missing information while people and documents are still accessible.
4. Digitise important records
Digitisation makes historical material easier to preserve, search and use.
It also helps organisations protect important information that might otherwise remain locked in fragile physical files.
5. Build an archiving strategy
Physical and digital records need clear systems for storage, security and access.
An archive becomes useful when people know what exists and can find it when needed.
Together, these practices create the foundation for stronger institutional storytelling.
The communication lesson behind the book
A historical publication can help an institution explain who it is, where it came from and what shaped its present identity.
For KMTC, The Journey to Greatness brought decades of institutional memory into one coherent narrative.
That made the publication more than a historical record. It became a way of connecting the institution’s past with its present and future.
This is where institutional storytelling becomes part of strategic communication.
Stories about origins, milestones, people and turning points help audiences understand what an organisation stands for and how its current position was built.
The same audience-centred principle runs through my article Stop Building Communication Strategies Around Platforms. Build Them Around Audience Behaviour. Institutional stories become more useful when they are shaped around what stakeholders need to understand, remember and act on.
A strong historical publication connects the past to the institution’s present identity and future direction.
From institutional memory to strategic value
The wider lesson from The Journey to Greatness is that institutional history becomes more useful when it can be interpreted and applied.
An archive preserves memory.
Strategic communication helps people understand what that memory means.
The project showed how historical material could be organised into a story that explained KMTC’s evolution, identity and contribution to the health sector.
That is the lesson I believe other institutions can carry forward.
In a digital environment, well-documented institutional knowledge can also strengthen the body of credible information that search engines and AI systems can discover about an organisation. I explore the broader connection among owned knowledge, reputation, and discoverability in The Ultimate Guide to AI Search, Brand Reputation, and Public Relations in Africa.
Do not wait until an anniversary or major milestone to start thinking about your history.
Preserve it as you go, because the quality of the story you tell later will depend heavily on the quality of the memory you preserve today.
Institutional memory becomes strategic value when organisations preserve it, interpret it and make it useful to the people who need to understand where they have come from and where they are going.
Hezron Ochiel is an award-winning strategic communications and public relations professional with over 15 years of experience in media, digital communication and reputation strategy. He serves as the Deputy Corporate Communications Manager at the government-owned Kenya Medical Training College (KMTC) and is the founder of Hezron Insights, where he writes about AI visibility, Digital PR, SEO, GEO and digital authority. His work has appeared on platforms including Reuters, The New Humanitarian and The Standard.