O:9:"MagpieRSS":19:{s:6:"parser";i:0;s:12:"current_item";a:0:{}s:5:"items";a:10:{i:0;a:12:{s:6:"author";s:17:"
			
						
					";s:11:"author_name";s:12:"Erik Hersman";s:10:"author_uri";s:27:"http://www.whiteafrican.com";s:5:"title";s:40:"Open Mobile Consortium Technical Meeting";s:4:"link";s:87:"http://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/2008/11/10/open-mobile-consortium-technical-meeting/";s:2:"id";s:30:"http://blog.ushahidi.com/?p=84";s:7:"updated";s:20:"2008-11-10T17:38:53Z";s:9:"published";s:20:"2008-11-10T16:32:12Z";s:7:"summary";s:339:"
(David Kobia, Director of development for Ushahidi, who is currently sitting next to me madly trying to get the French translation version of our DRC deployment going&#8230;)
Today and tomorrow, David and I are in New York at the UNICEF offices for the first technical working group meeting of the new Open Mobile Consortium (OMC).  [...]";s:12:"atom_content";s:2787:"<p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/whiteafrican/3018859519/" title="David at the Open Mobile Consortium meeting by whiteafrican, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3293/3018859519_59732f5f20.jpg" width="500" height="333" alt="David at the Open Mobile Consortium meeting" /></a><br />
(<em>David Kobia, Director of development for Ushahidi, who is currently sitting next to me madly trying to get the French translation version of our <a href="http://drc.ushahidi.com">DRC deployment</a> going&#8230;</em>)</p>
<p>Today and tomorrow, David and I are in New York at the UNICEF offices for the first technical working group meeting of the new Open Mobile Consortium (OMC).  The OMC is a group that came about just a month ago at the MobileActive conference in Johannesburg (<a href="http://whiteafrican.com/2008/10/15/open-mobile-consortium-launches-at-mobileactive-08/">more here on that</a>).</p>
<h3>Items we&#8217;re covering on day one:</h3>
<ul>
<li><em>Technology Demos</em>: Different organizations briefly describe current capabilities, limitations, and future directions.  Where are they working?  At what scale? Who are the partners?  A balance of strengths and weaknesses.</li>
<li><em>Pattern Mining</em>: Work towards collecting proven practices from the field.</li>
<li><em>Protocols, Capabilities, and Libraries</em>: Identify common needs and match to implementations.</li>
</ul>
<p>From the opening introductions, there are representatives from InSTEDD, Cell-Life, Open Rosa, Dimagi, UNICEF, Makarere Univ (Uganda), Southwest Univ (Senegal project), Univ of Southern Maine, Univ of Wash, Google Android, Inveneo and Digital Democracy.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/whiteafrican/3018859499/" title="Open Mobile Consortium meeting by whiteafrican, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3030/3018859499_8cb0ea7299.jpg" width="500" height="333" alt="Open Mobile Consortium meeting" /></a></p>
<h3>Thoughts</h3>
<p>What do you do when you don&#8217;t have internet connectivity with some of these devices?  Disconnected operations.  This applies to web (Ushahidi), and mobile (JavaRosa and Android).</p>
<p>SMS technology is not always sufficient to effectively gather information.  (lessons learned from RapidSMS in Northern Uganda outbreak of Hepatitis E)</p>
<p>Requiring users to use a special format for SMS text messaging is a big barrier to use.  </p>
<p>UNICEF techs have created the <a href="http://mobilehacking.org/index.php/Main_Page">Mobile Hacking wiki</a>, well worth getting into.</p>
<p><a href="http://mobilehacking.org" title="MobileHacking.org by whiteafrican, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3239/3019074055_100117b619.jpg" width="500" height="350" alt="MobileHacking.org" /></a></p>
";s:12:"link_replies";s:193:"http://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/2008/11/10/open-mobile-consortium-technical-meeting/#commentshttp://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/2008/11/10/open-mobile-consortium-technical-meeting/feed/atom/";s:3:"thr";a:1:{s:5:"total";s:1:"0";}}i:1;a:12:{s:6:"author";s:17:"
			
						
					";s:11:"author_name";s:12:"Erik Hersman";s:10:"author_uri";s:27:"http://www.whiteafrican.com";s:5:"title";s:35:"Ushahidi Deploys to the Congo (DRC)";s:4:"link";s:80:"http://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/2008/11/07/ushahidi-deploys-to-the-congo-drc/";s:2:"id";s:30:"http://blog.ushahidi.com/?p=82";s:7:"updated";s:20:"2008-11-07T15:39:54Z";s:9:"published";s:20:"2008-11-07T15:39:54Z";s:7:"summary";s:364:"In what is becoming typical Ushahidi fashion, we&#8217;re going into a hot zone with little warning and improve, yet only half-baked software&#8230;
Over the last week, while the world watched the US elections (as were we), we were also watching the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Since last Wednesday we&#8217;ve been quietly scrambling towards the [...]";s:12:"atom_content";s:4375:"<p>In what is becoming typical Ushahidi fashion, we&#8217;re going into a hot zone with little warning and improve, yet only half-baked software&#8230;</p>
<p>Over the last week, while the world watched the US elections (as were we), we were also watching the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Since last Wednesday we&#8217;ve been quietly scrambling towards the first deployment of the new Ushahidi Engine into a crisis zone.  Today, we&#8217;re announcing this instance to the world.  </p>
<p><strong>The DRC deployment can be found at <a href="http://drc.ushahidi.com">http://DRC.ushahidi.com</a></strong>, and the mobile number to send SMS reports to is <strong>+243992592111</strong>.</p>
<p><a href="http://drc.ushahidi.com" title="Ushahidi Deployed to the Congo (DRC) by whiteafrican, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3045/3009037091_57c00634a9.jpg" width="500" height="338" alt="Ushahidi Deployed to the Congo (DRC)" /></a></p>
<p>Note: <em>This is the <strong>alpha </strong>software for Ushahidi, so there are likely quite a few bugs and kinks that need to be worked out.  If you find any, <strong>please </strong>submit them to <a href="http://bugs.ushahidi.com">bugs.ushahidi.com</a>.</em></p>
<h3>Help get the word out</h3>
<p>We need to get the message to the people on the ground in the Eastern Congo that this tool is now available for them to report incidents in on.  If you have contacts there, or can help spread the word through some other means, it would be a great help if you did so - even if it&#8217;s just point them to the website or telling them about the SMS number.</p>
<h3>Setup and lessons learned</h3>
<p>We don&#8217;t believe in waiting for software to be perfect before a launch, so we&#8217;ve tidied it up as best we can, and are doing constant updates along the way.  This instance we&#8217;re running on our own servers for speed and ease of updates.  </p>
<div style="text-align: left; padding: 3px;">
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/whiteafrican/3006509452/" title="photo sharing"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3287/3006509452_f2b5864919.jpg"  alt="" /></a><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/whiteafrican/3006509452/">SMS Reporting Through Ushahidi</a>, originally uploaded by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/whiteafrican/">whiteafrican</a>.</span>
</div>
<p>We run what we&#8217;re calling our &#8220;tech hub&#8221;, which features a mobile phone with a DRC SIM card, tethered to a local PC running FrontlineSMS.  Whenever this computer connects to the internet, it auto syncs with Ushahidi.</p>
<p>David Kobia worked very hard through the weekend to get the SMS functionality right.  We&#8217;re using a combination here of <a href="http://www.frontlinesms.com">FrontlineSMS </a>to receive local SMS from anyone in the DRC at <strong>+243992592111</strong>, with a completing feedback loop from the admin area to the incident submitter that goes through Clickatell.  Ken Bank&#8217;s team at FrontlineSMS has been very quick on the ball to provide us updated code samples to get everything working in time (big thanks!).</p>
<p>At the same time, this isn&#8217;t Kenya, so none of the Ushahidi team is well positioned to manage any kind of approval or verification of reports that come into the system.  We&#8217;ve found a couple local groups that are willing to help us with this, including <a href="http://healafrica.org">HEAL Africa</a>.  Their members are helping to report incidents, as well as verify incoming reports.</p>
<p>The categories being used in the DRC are different.  One of the new ones is &#8220;verified reports&#8221; which only come from users who are known quantities by the groups managing the Ushahidi instance.  It&#8217;s a form of more &#8220;trusted&#8221; reports.  While we&#8217;re optimistic about gathering reports from people all over the Eastern Congo, we know that there is a certain amount of disinformation that goes on.  We are actively looking at ways to neutralize false reports and encourage factual ones.</p>
<p>We&#8217;re also working on the French translation, and we need to be proactive here in doing other major language translations <em>before </em>they&#8217;re needed.  If you&#8217;re an expert in a major global language, we&#8217;d love to hear from you.</p>
";s:12:"link_replies";s:179:"http://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/2008/11/07/ushahidi-deploys-to-the-congo-drc/#commentshttp://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/2008/11/07/ushahidi-deploys-to-the-congo-drc/feed/atom/";s:3:"thr";a:1:{s:5:"total";s:2:"17";}}i:2;a:12:{s:6:"author";s:17:"
			
						
					";s:11:"author_name";s:12:"Erik Hersman";s:10:"author_uri";s:27:"http://www.whiteafrican.com";s:5:"title";s:30:"SMS Reporting Through Ushahidi";s:4:"link";s:77:"http://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/2008/11/05/sms-reporting-through-ushahidi/";s:2:"id";s:77:"http://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/2008/11/05/sms-reporting-through-ushahidi/";s:7:"updated";s:20:"2008-11-05T22:01:32Z";s:9:"published";s:20:"2008-11-05T21:45:21Z";s:7:"summary";s:389:"


SMS Reporting Through Ushahidi, originally uploaded by whiteafrican.

This simplified graphic was created to show how SMS messaging moves through the Ushahidi system - it&#8217;s a 2-way communication cycle.

An SMS gets sent to a local number
It passes through FrontlineSMS
This syncs with Ushahidi
The message shows up on Ushahidi
Admins can decide to send a message back to the [...]";s:12:"atom_content";s:1374:"<div style="text-align: left; padding: 3px;">
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/whiteafrican/3006509452/" title="photo sharing"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3287/3006509452_f2b5864919.jpg"  alt="" /></a><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/whiteafrican/3006509452/">SMS Reporting Through Ushahidi</a>, originally uploaded by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/whiteafrican/">whiteafrican</a>.</span>
</div>
<p>This simplified graphic was created to show how SMS messaging moves through the Ushahidi system - it&#8217;s a 2-way communication cycle.</p>
<ol>
<li>An SMS gets sent to a local number</li>
<li>It passes through FrontlineSMS</li>
<li>This syncs with Ushahidi</li>
<li>The message shows up on Ushahidi</li>
<li>Admins can decide to send a message back to the original sender</li>
</ol>
<p>We use <a href="http://www.frontlinesms.com">FrontlineSMS</a> so that we can provide local numbers in areas where the larger SMS gateways don&#8217;t operate.  For instance, if you were to try to run this in Zambia, you&#8217;d probably get a UK phone number if you went through Clickatell.  However, we do use <a href="http://www.clickatell.com">Clickatell</a> for the messages that we route back to the original sender due to cost savings.  They also have a very nice, easy to use API.</p>
";s:12:"link_replies";s:173:"http://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/2008/11/05/sms-reporting-through-ushahidi/#commentshttp://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/2008/11/05/sms-reporting-through-ushahidi/feed/atom/";s:3:"thr";a:1:{s:5:"total";s:1:"0";}}i:3;a:13:{s:6:"author";s:17:"
			
						
					";s:11:"author_name";s:12:"Erik Hersman";s:10:"author_uri";s:27:"http://www.whiteafrican.com";s:5:"title";s:38:"Ushahidi&#8217;s Community is Ushahidi";s:4:"link";s:78:"http://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/2008/10/31/ushahidis-community-is-ushahidi/";s:2:"id";s:30:"http://blog.ushahidi.com/?p=80";s:7:"updated";s:20:"2008-10-31T20:14:18Z";s:9:"published";s:20:"2008-10-31T19:52:57Z";s:7:"summary";s:308:"There are times, like today, when I stand amazed at the number of people - hailing from so many different circles - that throw their support behind Ushahidi at every turn.  Today we heard that Ushahidi is a finalist in the 2009 WeMedia Gamechangers Awards.  A couple Twitter messages out to some people [...]";s:12:"atom_content";s:2845:"<p>There are times, like today, when I stand amazed at the number of people - hailing from so many different circles - that throw their support behind Ushahidi at every turn.  Today we heard that Ushahidi is a finalist in the <a href="http://gamechangers.wemedia.com/2008/10/ushahidi/">2009 WeMedia Gamechangers Awards</a>.  A couple Twitter messages out to some people we know and in about an hour there was already 25 votes and comments, leading all contenders.  Unreal!</p>
<p>The same applies for our proposal into the <a href="http://www.netsquared.org/projects/ushahidi-v2-global-crisis-tool">USAID mobile phone challenge</a> happening on NetSquared.  We submitted the new Ushahidi push into even more mobile work, and before you knew it we were topping the charts on stars and comments.  </p>
<p><center><img src="http://blog.ushahidi.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/ushahidi_community.jpg" alt="" title="The Ushahidi Community" width="400" height="349" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-81" /></center></p>
<h3>Community is Drives Ushahidi</h3>
<p>The takeaway from this for us is just a re-affirmation of what we already were aware of through beginning stages of building Ushahidi back in January and February in Kenya.  That is, the community support is what makes it move, sink or float.  </p>
<blockquote><p>
The <strong>developers</strong> are the part of the community that donate their time and brain power to solving some fairly difficult challenges and making the platform actually work.  They are experts in everything from Java to PHP, mapping to API development.</p>
<p>The <strong>designers</strong> make it look good, and ensure that the user experience is both simple and useful.</p>
<p>There are <strong>content</strong> and <strong>branding experts</strong> who help us write content, and force us to refine the message and branding.</p>
<p>Finally, there are the great number that I call our <strong>greater community of support</strong> that are fervent followers and champions of Ushahidi in their circles of influence.  They are the ones who open doors to conferences, meetings, partnerships, media and funding that we never could have done on our own.</p></blockquote>
<p>In truth, Ushahidi does not <em>belong</em> to me, Ory, David or Juliana - it belongs to you.  In a way, we&#8217;re just the curators.  There is a reason why it&#8217;s a free and open source project&#8230;  not just the software either.  <img src='http://blog.ushahidi.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
<h3>To YOU, the community, we say a heartfelt &#8220;thank you&#8221;.</h3>
<p>[Update: Just got word that a <a href="http://www.theworld.org/pod/tech/WTPpodcast216.mp3">podcast interview</a> that I did with Clark Boyd of The World/BBC is up.  My part starts about 1/3 of the way in.)</p>
";s:14:"link_enclosure";s:50:"http://www.theworld.org/pod/tech/WTPpodcast216.mp3";s:12:"link_replies";s:175:"http://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/2008/10/31/ushahidis-community-is-ushahidi/#commentshttp://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/2008/10/31/ushahidis-community-is-ushahidi/feed/atom/";s:3:"thr";a:1:{s:5:"total";s:1:"1";}}i:4;a:12:{s:6:"author";s:17:"
			
						
					";s:11:"author_name";s:12:"Erik Hersman";s:10:"author_uri";s:27:"http://www.whiteafrican.com";s:5:"title";s:29:"A 40-second Video on Ushahidi";s:4:"link";s:76:"http://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/2008/10/31/a-40-second-video-on-ushahidi/";s:2:"id";s:30:"http://blog.ushahidi.com/?p=76";s:7:"updated";s:20:"2008-10-31T14:39:34Z";s:9:"published";s:20:"2008-10-31T14:39:34Z";s:7:"summary";s:291:"Ich Gichuki and Njuguna Gathere, of The Ark in Nairobi, put together this short 40-second video for Ushahidi.  We asked them to help us put this together for the Google Project 10-100 application that needed to be in by today - and they did it with very short notice, so a BIG thanks!  [...]";s:12:"atom_content";s:984:"<p>Ich Gichuki and Njuguna Gathere, of <a href="http://theark.co.ke/">The Ark</a> in Nairobi, put together this short 40-second video for Ushahidi.  We asked them to help us put this together for the <a href="http://www.project10tothe100.com/">Google Project 10-100</a> application that needed to be in by today - and they did it with very short notice, so a BIG thanks!  </p>
<p>The questions they were trying to answer was, &#8220;<em>How can Ushahidi change the world by helping as many people as possible?</em>&#8221;</p>
<p><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/vJLbVAWWPMA&#038;hl=en&#038;fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/vJLbVAWWPMA&#038;hl=en&#038;fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object></p>
<p>If you have any suggestions, or you want to try making your own, we&#8217;d love to see it.</p>
";s:12:"link_replies";s:171:"http://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/2008/10/31/a-40-second-video-on-ushahidi/#commentshttp://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/2008/10/31/a-40-second-video-on-ushahidi/feed/atom/";s:3:"thr";a:1:{s:5:"total";s:1:"0";}}i:5;a:11:{s:6:"author";s:10:"
			
					";s:11:"author_name";s:5:"David";s:5:"title";s:27:"Ushahidi Alpha Release v0.1";s:4:"link";s:73:"http://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/2008/10/27/ushahidi-alpha-release-v01/";s:2:"id";s:30:"http://blog.ushahidi.com/?p=78";s:7:"updated";s:20:"2008-10-27T19:51:37Z";s:9:"published";s:20:"2008-10-27T15:54:39Z";s:7:"summary";s:324:"The Ushahidi community is excited to announce the alpha release of the Ushahidi engine, that our developers have been hard at  work on these last few months. The release is a basis for the integration of powerful new technologies that will be included in Ushahidi v1. As this is a development-release, we do not claim [...]";s:12:"atom_content";s:2475:"<p>The Ushahidi community is excited to announce the <a title="Ushahidi Alpha Release" href="http://demo.ushahidi.com" target="_blank"><strong>alpha release</strong></a> of the Ushahidi engine, that our developers have been hard at  work on these last few months. The release is a basis for the integration of powerful new technologies that will be included in Ushahidi v1. As this is a development-release, we do not claim it to be perfect, and includes the following features:</p>
<ul>
<li>Creating new crisis reports tagged by location</li>
<li>Adding images, video and news links to reports also tagged by location</li>
<li>Visualizing reports using an interactive timeline and heatmaps</li>
<li>Allowing users to participate by adding information to reported events</li>
<li>Credibility/Ranking of reports</li>
<li>Subscribe to alerts via email or sms that alert you to reports within the proximity of a specific location</li>
</ul>
<div><a title="Ushahidi Alpha Release" href="http://demo.ushahidi.com" target="_blank"><img class="aligncenter" src="http://blog.ushahidi.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/ushahidi_alpha.jpg" alt="Ushahidi Alpha" border="0" /></a><br />&nbsp;</div>
<p>Mobile-based reporting will soon be introduced into the beta version of the platform along with several other useful features that we could not squeeze into the alpha release timeframe. There&#8217;s still plenty to do before the Ushahidi engine is ready for general release  but everything is going well and we’re extremely excited about it - so stay tuned!</p>
<p>In the demo, linked above, you will find data processed from the original Kenya install of Ushahidi.  The original version of ushahidi is found at <a href="http://legacy.ushahidi.com">Legacy.Ushahidi.com</a>.</p>
<p>The admin area looks a little different, below is a look at the dashboard. We&#8217;ll be opening up a full demo area for anyone to play with the backend of the system soon.  </p>
<p><a href='http://blog.ushahidi.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/ushahidiengine-dashboard.png'><img src="http://blog.ushahidi.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/ushahidiengine-dashboard-285x300.png" alt="" title="Admin Dashboard for Ushahidi" width="285" height="300" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-79" /></a> </p>
<p>If you&#8217;d like to get involved, head on over to the <a href="http://wiki.ushahididev.com/doku.php">Ushahidi dev wiki</a>, then get in <a href="http://ushahidi.com/contact">contact</a> with us.</p>
";s:12:"link_replies";s:165:"http://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/2008/10/27/ushahidi-alpha-release-v01/#commentshttp://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/2008/10/27/ushahidi-alpha-release-v01/feed/atom/";s:3:"thr";a:1:{s:5:"total";s:1:"8";}}i:6;a:12:{s:6:"author";s:17:"
			
						
					";s:11:"author_name";s:12:"Erik Hersman";s:10:"author_uri";s:27:"http://www.whiteafrican.com";s:5:"title";s:38:"An Empirical Study Using Ushahidi Data";s:4:"link";s:85:"http://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/2008/10/23/an-empirical-study-using-ushahidi-data/";s:2:"id";s:30:"http://blog.ushahidi.com/?p=77";s:7:"updated";s:20:"2008-10-23T11:57:12Z";s:9:"published";s:20:"2008-10-23T11:57:12Z";s:7:"summary";s:360:"An event data analysis study of the post-election violence in Kenya earlier this year was just completed by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative.  They compared mainstream news media, with citizen journalism and Ushahidi data.  Below is the time-lapsed video of that data overlaying a map:

Read about the methodology and find the report here.
Yellow icon [...]";s:12:"atom_content";s:1069:"<p>An event data analysis study of the post-election violence in Kenya earlier this year was just completed by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative.  They compared mainstream news media, with citizen journalism and Ushahidi data.  Below is the time-lapsed video of that data overlaying a map:</p>
<p><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/aBiCK-ybYpw&#038;rel=0&#038;color1=0xb1b1b1&#038;color2=0xcfcfcf&#038;fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/aBiCK-ybYpw&#038;rel=0&#038;color1=0xb1b1b1&#038;color2=0xcfcfcf&#038;fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object></p>
<p>Read about the <a href="http://irevolution.wordpress.com/2008/10/23/mapping-kenyas-election-violence/">methodology and find the report</a> here.</p>
<p>Yellow icon = <strong>mainstream news</strong> reports;<br />
Blue icon = <strong>citizen journalism</strong> blogs;<br />
Green icon = <strong>Ushahidi</strong> reports.</p>
";s:12:"link_replies";s:189:"http://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/2008/10/23/an-empirical-study-using-ushahidi-data/#commentshttp://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/2008/10/23/an-empirical-study-using-ushahidi-data/feed/atom/";s:3:"thr";a:1:{s:5:"total";s:1:"0";}}i:7;a:12:{s:6:"author";s:17:"
			
						
					";s:11:"author_name";s:7:"juliana";s:10:"author_uri";s:30:"http://www.afromusing.com/blog";s:5:"title";s:23:"Ushahidi Blog on AllTop";s:4:"link";s:70:"http://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/2008/10/20/ushahidi-blog-on-alltop/";s:2:"id";s:30:"http://blog.ushahidi.com/?p=75";s:7:"updated";s:20:"2008-10-20T15:31:12Z";s:9:"published";s:20:"2008-10-20T15:31:10Z";s:7:"summary";s:273:"Ushahidi is honored that our blog is now part of the Human Rights section of Alltop aggregator. If you check out the other interesting sites that bring you current information about Human rights and crisis information, you will see why this is sort of a big deal for us. 

";s:12:"atom_content";s:481:"<p>Ushahidi is honored that our blog is now part of the <a href="http://humanrights.alltop.com/">Human Rights section of Alltop aggregator</a>. If you check out the other interesting sites that bring you current information about Human rights and crisis information, you will see why this is sort of a big deal for us. </p>
<p><a href="http://alltop.com/"><img src="http://badges.alltop.com/images/f_alltop_250x250.jpg" width="250" height="250" alt="Featured in Alltop" /></a></p>
";s:12:"link_replies";s:159:"http://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/2008/10/20/ushahidi-blog-on-alltop/#commentshttp://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/2008/10/20/ushahidi-blog-on-alltop/feed/atom/";s:3:"thr";a:1:{s:5:"total";s:1:"0";}}i:8;a:12:{s:6:"author";s:17:"
			
						
					";s:11:"author_name";s:12:"Erik Hersman";s:10:"author_uri";s:27:"http://www.whiteafrican.com";s:5:"title";s:37:"Thinking About Ushahidi&#8217;s Brand";s:4:"link";s:77:"http://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/2008/10/19/thinking-about-ushahidis-brand/";s:2:"id";s:30:"http://blog.ushahidi.com/?p=74";s:7:"updated";s:20:"2008-10-19T21:47:14Z";s:9:"published";s:20:"2008-10-19T21:47:14Z";s:7:"summary";s:345:"Cheryl Heller, from Heller Communication Design, is spending the morning with us at the Pop!Tech Fellows program.  We&#8217;re getting a crash course in branding and, &#8220;creating a brand promise&#8221;.  Branding is more than a pretty logo or a nice website, it&#8217;s everything that you say, do or are perceived as.  It&#8217;s what [...]";s:12:"atom_content";s:3838:"<p>Cheryl Heller, from <a href="http://www.hellercd.com/">Heller Communication Design</a>, is spending the morning with us at the Pop!Tech Fellows program.  We&#8217;re getting a crash course in branding and, &#8220;creating a brand promise&#8221;.  Branding is more than a pretty logo or a nice website, it&#8217;s everything that you say, do or are perceived as.  It&#8217;s what makes up the organization and it&#8217;s what people understand of you.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/whiteafrican/2954112401/" title="Cheryl Heller and Heather Fleming talking about &quot;Brand Promises&quot; by whiteafrican, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3156/2954112401_c40cde66fb.jpg" width="500" height="333" alt="Cheryl Heller and Heather Fleming talking about &quot;Brand Promises&quot;" /></a></p>
<p>I try to pay attention to the <a href="http://www.ushahidi.com">Ushahidi</a> brand, but I got a rude awakening as Cheryl asked us to each stand up and give an elevator pitch on our organization.  Embarrassingly, I had to stand up and stutter through some half-baked pitch on Ushahidi.  Needless to say, I&#8217;m already working hard at getting this whole brand a lot tighter - all the more important as we have a growing community that needs to easily speak about the brand as well.</p>
<h3>Brand Promise</h3>
<p>It&#8217;s what you promise to deliver.  It&#8217;s not your mission, vision and values.  It is the commitment that the business makes to each of the people who interact with it. It works two-ways - they first capture what is unique and valuable about an organization, and then inform the actions necessary to make it true. An Example:</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;Ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen.&#8221;<br />
- Ritz-Carleton Hotels</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/riggenransom/2954035839/"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3213/2954035839_3ec84878d5.jpg" alt="Erik working on branding at Pop!Tech" /></a></p>
<h3>Ushahidi&#8217;s Elevator Pitch and Brand Promise</h3>
<p>I was paired with Heather Fleming, of <a href="http://www.catapultdesign.org">Catapult Design</a>, to help each other figure out our brand promise.  Cheryl came by to help us boil down some of these thoughts and channel them towards what it should really be.</p>
<p>When I boiled down the <strong>Ushahidi elevator pitch</strong>  (and I&#8217;m still working on it), I came up with this:</p>
<blockquote><p>In a crisis or disaster, ordinary people have deeper insight into what&#8217;s going on around them than either the government or the news media.  When you gather that information in aggregate, you start to see the bigger picture much more clearly.  </p>
<p>Ushahidi is a platform that allows you to crowdsource crisis information by SMS, email and the web.  We believe that gathering that information is key to saving lives and speeding recovery during an emergency.  </p>
<p>It&#8217;s free and open source software, which means that anyone, anywhere in the world can use this platform.</p></blockquote>
<p>After much iteration, and something I&#8217;m still working on, is the following for <strong>Ushahidi&#8217;s brand promise</strong>:</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;We open a window to the world. Making the invisible visible by providing simple tools, used by ordinary people in extraordinary times so that others can act on it.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<h3>Takeaways</h3>
<p>An invaluable exercise is to really learn to listen to others talk about your organization and brand.  Hearing Heather and Cheryl talk about what their perceptions of Ushahidi is was more valuable that me endlessly talking about what <em>I think</em> it is.  </p>
<p><strong>What is Ushahidi to you?  How do you see it, and what&#8217;s the promise that you hear/see in us?</strong></p>
";s:12:"link_replies";s:173:"http://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/2008/10/19/thinking-about-ushahidis-brand/#commentshttp://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/2008/10/19/thinking-about-ushahidis-brand/feed/atom/";s:3:"thr";a:1:{s:5:"total";s:1:"3";}}i:9;a:12:{s:6:"author";s:17:"
			
						
					";s:11:"author_name";s:12:"Erik Hersman";s:10:"author_uri";s:27:"http://www.whiteafrican.com";s:5:"title";s:42:"Mobile Journalism Toolkit at Pop!Tech 2008";s:4:"link";s:88:"http://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/2008/10/18/mobile-journalism-toolkit-at-poptech-2008/";s:2:"id";s:88:"http://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/2008/10/18/mobile-journalism-toolkit-at-poptech-2008/";s:7:"updated";s:20:"2008-10-19T04:30:14Z";s:9:"published";s:20:"2008-10-19T03:48:22Z";s:7:"summary";s:357:"


Mobile Journalism Toolkit for Pop!Tech Fellows (unboxed), originally uploaded by whiteafrican.


This week I&#8217;m at the Pop!Tech Fellows Accelerator in Camden, Maine along with about 15 other individuals who are doing some even more amazing work in the social entrepreneur space.  Today I was floored - as a gift, the Pop!Tech team has given us [...]";s:12:"atom_content";s:2089:"<div style="text-align: left; padding: 3px;">
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/whiteafrican/2953564034/" title="photo sharing"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3064/2953564034_3c36164167.jpg" alt="" /></a><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/whiteafrican/2953564034/">Mobile Journalism Toolkit for Pop!Tech Fellows (unboxed)</a>, originally uploaded by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/whiteafrican/">whiteafrican</a>.</span>
</div>
<p>
This week I&#8217;m at the <a href="http://poptech.com/fellows2008/">Pop!Tech Fellows Accelerator</a> in Camden, Maine along with about 15 other individuals who are doing some even more amazing work in the social entrepreneur space.  Today I was floored - as a gift, the Pop!Tech team has given us the Reuters mobile journalism toolkit.  There really isn&#8217;t a much better package for creating video, photo and text reports on the go.</p>
<p>One of the more interesting thoughts around Ushahidi is how there is a convergence between citizen and traditional journalism taking place.  We cluster news with everyday citizen reports.  I wonder how this will look in a situation where we get even more data than in Kenya - what patterns will emerge?  Who reports things first - who is more accurate?  What about images and video?  </p>
<p>Fortuitously, Ken Banks of <a href="http://www.frontlinesms.com">FrontlineSMS</a> was billeted with me in one of the cabins that we&#8217;re staying in for the Fellows program in Camden, Maine.  As FrontlineSMS is an important local-connection component for Ushahidi, we&#8217;ve already had some interesting conversations around the collaboration between our two platforms.  On top of that, he&#8217;s just a great (funny) guy:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/whiteafrican/2952523734/" title="WhiteAfrican and Kiwanja at PopTech 2008 by whiteafrican, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3036/2952523734_1b1bd7cd36.jpg" width="500" height="333" alt="WhiteAfrican and Kiwanja at PopTech 2008" /></a></p>
";s:12:"link_replies";s:195:"http://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/2008/10/18/mobile-journalism-toolkit-at-poptech-2008/#commentshttp://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/2008/10/18/mobile-journalism-toolkit-at-poptech-2008/feed/atom/";s:3:"thr";a:1:{s:5:"total";s:1:"1";}}}s:7:"channel";a:7:{s:5:"title";s:17:"The Ushahidi Blog";s:8:"subtitle";s:56:"Thoughts and Lessons from an African Open-Source Project";s:7:"updated";s:20:"2008-11-10T17:38:53Z";s:9:"generator";s:9:"WordPress";s:4:"link";s:24:"http://blog.ushahidi.com";s:2:"id";s:45:"http://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/feed/atom/";s:9:"link_self";s:45:"http://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/feed/atom/";}s:9:"textinput";a:0:{}s:5:"image";a:0:{}s:9:"feed_type";s:4:"Atom";s:12:"feed_version";N;s:5:"stack";a:0:{}s:9:"inchannel";b:0;s:6:"initem";b:0;s:9:"incontent";b:0;s:11:"intextinput";b:0;s:7:"inimage";b:0;s:13:"current_field";s:0:"";s:17:"current_namespace";b:0;s:19:"_CONTENT_CONSTRUCTS";a:6:{i:0;s:7:"content";i:1;s:7:"summary";i:2;s:4:"info";i:3;s:5:"title";i:4;s:7:"tagline";i:5;s:9:"copyright";}s:13:"last_modified";s:31:"Mon, 10 Nov 2008 17:38:53 GMT
";s:4:"etag";s:36:""59f756d14a3e5af12ade83d7bf7bb8a3"
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