Google

One of the objectives of the Silicon Valley Human Rights Conference is the creation of a Silicon Valley Standard (SVS). This is a principled statement incorporating the issues discussed at the 2011 Silicon Valley Human Rights Conference. The document includes 15 principles based on the 15 workshop topics covered at the conference.

The document is designed to complement other existing frameworks and uses the international human rights framework as its foundation. These principles served as a useful basis for discussion during the panels and represent a standard, which we hope the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector will use after the conference.

Thanks to @info_activism I learned about this excellent infographic from PPC Learning that explains it in a nutshell. I very much like this approach to providing resources for self-learning. This knowledge might help organizations understand how to present their information so that google prioritizes it the way the organizations want it to. 

What do you think? Have you got tips or suggestions on how to help Google to understand your organization and the content you are making available online?  

As a tech enthusiast, one of the things I like about Google mail is the ongoing tweaking and innovating with the service. Sometimes changes are annoying at first (the user interface was "streamlined" a few weeks ago and I didn't like it), sometimes changes don't help that much (Google Buzz certainly did not revolutionize the way I connect and engage with my friends and associates) but sometimes the improvements are hugely beneficial. Since Priority Inbox was announced last week I have been waiting eagerly for it to be activated in my accounts so I can try it out and share my learnings with the Kabissa community. New services tend to be rolled out slowly as Google looks for and irons out bugs, and it took a week this time for Priority Inbox to finallyarrive in my Kabissa mailboxes (though not yet in my gmail.com mailbox). 

At first glance I like Priority Inbox very much - it adds a new label above the Inbox which presents your incoming email in three categories: important and unread, starred, and everything else. It uses the same automatic algorithms it uses for spam filtering to decide what is important ("based on what you read") and lets you train it by indicating whether it was right or not. Time will tell how well it actually works, and part of the idea is that it will in fact get better with time as it "learns" your priorities.

I think Priority Inbox is a great idea and will be very useful, especially for those in Africa who struggle to make maximum use of the limited time they have in front of Internet connected computers to get their work done. On the other hand, as usual this raises questions about Google and privacy, and how much we can afford to allow corporations like Google to know so much about what we are corresponding about and with whom. For African activists and journalists, keeping certain activities and relationships secret can be a matter of life and death. Perhaps they should not be using gmail. I've already talked about the risks of Facebook for activists - now do we also have to worry about our email? What are the alternatives? 

What do you think?

Below is a copy of the email I received in my inbox explaining the new service and linking to an introductory video with quite the peppy sound track. 

After about a year of tweeting @kabissa about Kabissa, African civil society and technology issues, the biggest frustration for me has been an inability to go back later to review what I and others were tweeting and sharing about a certain topic at a certain point in time. Sure, it's possible via http://search.twitter.com and other websites and twitter apps, but the sheer volume of tweets makes most of these interfaces unwieldy. Too often I return from a conference and am unable to find a certain tweet shared on a certain day that I wanted to look into. 

I managed to miss this, but it looks like Google launched a new feature in April that addresses just this issue. (Thank you Guardian Technology News Bucket for the reminder). To try it yourself, go to http://www.google.com and select "Updates" on the left side before typing in your search terms. You can then choose the year and month to browse, and then specific time periods on a given day. 

UPDATE: Click here to watch a screencast I made walking you through Google's twitter search. Thanks @bonniekoenig for pointing out that it was needed!  

Dear Kabissa members! I have made a handful of improvements to the Kabissa website, all minor but which I expect will make it easier for people to find Kabissa via search engines and get engaged more quickly once they arrive on our site.

We want everyone working in Africa to be able to join Kabissa to showcase their organizations and share their news, insights and opportunities, and everyone - even those just interested in Africa - to be able to find and connect with each other and with African organizations to engage on issues crucial to Africa's development.

I welcome your feedback and suggestions on how to improve the site further. 

Do you use gmail? If so, be aware that it exposes you to a potentially serious privacy flaw - if you work in human rights or otherwise don't want to share who you email with to the public, you need to read this post for an explanation.

The following article from LifeHacker.com is targeted to travelers, not African activists or organizations, but still contains a wealth of essential tips for everyone working in countries "where privacy isn't respected". This includes tactics as well as specific references to tools that we should all be using. If you are not thinking about privacy yet, now is a good time to tackle it. 

Two of my favorite blogs are Google Maps Mania and Google  Lat Long Blog.  Ever since I was a child I have been loved perusing over paper maps.  Though I still love paper maps, online maps such as Google Maps and Google Earth allow you customize your maps in ways you never previously dreamed of. 

Google's expansion into Africa continues with today's announcement they have teamed up with media baron, John Malone and UK banking group HSBC to bring low cost  broadband internet to 3 billion people in the global south.