Maneno is moving off cloud, so this blog has moved to
Click on links below for recent blog posts:
Asking Samasource the difficult questions - Is it disempowering to pay people a few cents for a job?
Ushahidi – packing a powerful (and honest) punch
The knowledge economy is the kitchen of ideas
Content, conversation, community – Social media is about people, not brands
We need to talk about content, not infrastructure
Kenyan's voted, peacefully, for reform of the Constitution, which will introduce a new Bill of Rights and also curb the President's power.
See the BBC video here.
After the violence of 2007, it is a victory for Kenyans that the referendum poll this week was peaceful. The Standard online has an intriguing article on the impact of using technology for voter registration for this referendum.
For more on the implications of the yes vote, see Reuters Alert.
Many people who are new to blogging find it a rather daunting concept.
Stop thinking about blogging like you do about other writing. Blogging is different. You don’t need to develop a thesis. You don’t even have to write an article. Blog posts are supposed to be short and to the point. If you treat your blog posts like a rambling monologue then you will have less, rather than more readers.
In a world where people are overloaded with information, if you don’t get them in the first 8 seconds with a hook that keeps them there, then you’ve lost them for good. That’s why first impressions count so very much. In my industry, people are used to writing long reports for donors, full of incomprehensible jargon. Getting them to think about writing so that somebody actually reads it is a difficult sell.
In fact, lots of people don’t really like writing at all.
That’s ok. Use video or audio instead. Try ipadio.
Africa has seen massive growth in mobile use in the last year, according to the stats coming out of Opera (mobile web browser). Coming off a low base, Sudan tops the charts with a whopping 4645% growth (page views). Ghana also has an admirable 916% growth (page views). Kenya leads viewer growth – each user browsing an average of 639 pages every month. That's a lot of viewing!
Facebook and Google are the top ranked sites in the top twelve countries in Africa - South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt, Ghana, Sudan, Libya, Tanzania, Ivory Coast, Namibia, Mozambique and Mauritius.
Overall page views in Africa increased by 182%; the number of unique users increased by 124% and the amount of data transferred increased by 160%, in the last year.
These stats speak volumes about the massive uptake of mobile browsing in Africa over the last year.
See more details about South Africa
More details about Nigeria
More details about Kenya
Latest about Opera's research here.
More useful data about African countries mobile profiles can be found at http://mobileactive.org/mobiledata
This week, facebook announced that "500 million people all around the world are actively using Facebook to stay connected with their friends and the people around them".
Where do these 500 million live?
Are you surprised to find out they're not all in the US?
The top 6 countries showing most recent facebook growth are African: Angola, DRC, Nigeria, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Tanzania ... See more
Pic source: oreilly
necessity is the mother of invention...
The world cup has given us some confidence that when the tacky hits the tar, South Africa really can get its act together. As Steven Friedman says in his Business Day article, “the myth of government incapacity has been exploded”. Perhaps if government valued citizen’s opinions as much as FIFA’s, then we’d have hope for better service delivery. Perhaps it’s time to make that a reality.
How much exactly did the world cup bring to SA? Estimates said the economic impact of the world cup would translate into R93billion in income for SA. And then FIFA will give us a couple of million for soccer support; and then there are the legacy projects (a great example here - www.youthzones.co.za). And of course the month of feel good factor and positive marketing is difficult to quantify. I think it’s all worth it, fabulous and I’m not complaining.
Let’s compare it to what citizens might deserve, given how much we bring in. As citizens, we paid R598billion in taxes in 2009/10. So if we are bringing in that much, perhaps we have the right to demand that government works for us too, and responds to our demands as they responded to FIFA’s.
Yes I am over-simplifying the complicated nature of governance. But it’s worth a thought.
Also worth a thought is that government didn’t do this alone. Businesses chipped in, citizens got involved, volunteers gave up hours and hours of time, tourists came and had fun. It was an effort by every player on and off the field. It’s amazing what can be done when we all have the same goal in mind.
Ten years ago, the Economist called Africa “the hopeless continent”, but this year we have earned a different title - “the Economic Lion”. South Africa has just shown the world what a fabulous stage we provide for a world event … how we can muster the resources to build appropriate infrastructure; manage an efficient mini-justice system ; keep crime at bay; build social solidarity and so much more ...
Imagine if we demanded accountable, transparent governance and delivery. Imagine if we worked together to make our society a better place. Imagine if we all volunteered a bit of our time and got excited about making a small difference.
Just imagine what we could do.
For the last few weeks, we've been flying flags to show the nations we support in the World Cup 2010. Here's a great initiative to keep the flag flying ...
Keep flying our flag. It’s a symbol of us ...and a reminder, that with one spirit, we can achieve anything.
Stay positive. Stay upbeat. Buy local. Celebrate local. Greet a stranger – a local one. Say “howzit” or “heita”. Get involved. Locally. Wear a flag. Respect the flag. Just love it. All of it, and all of us. Remember all we’ve done. And never forget, it’s nothing as yet.
what a time!
We've had our heady days of optimism and excitement in the last month. Truly it has been glorious. South Africans were at first disappointed when Bafana Bafana lost, but moved swiftly on to support Ghana, as the last African team. As someone wrote on twitter (I forget who, sorry for the non-mention!) - if Germany lost their next match, the rest of Europe wouldn't get behind Holland now would they?
But Africans have a way of hanging out - perhaps we've been the underdog of the world for so long that we know how to stick together.
Ke nako - now is our time - South Africa needs to use the feelgood momentum of the world cup to address our problems of inequality and poverty.
Source: Boston.Com
Of course this is a whole lot more difficult than just throwing money at a party for a month. But we do have what it takes. We have the energy, the commitment, the tolerance, the ability to cope with shit, the neighbourliness, the warmth, the stickability, the optimism, and the skills. We have it all, come on SA, let's make this a better place.
Try a random act of kindness, try reaching out to people around you, at the traffic lights, in your kitchen, on the roadside, in the next door house, pushing a trolley down the road, walking their dog, in the office next door. Come on SA, get out there and make it work.
