Archives for November 2008

Mechanical Turks, and 9 Other Jobs

November 17, 2008 by Leave a Comment

While computing technology continues to improve, there are still many things that human beings can do much more effectively than computers, such as identifying objects in a photo or video, performing data de-duplication, transcribing audio recordings or researching data details. Traditionally, tasks like this have been accomplished by hiring a large temporary workforce (which is time consuming, expensive and difficult to scale) or have gone undone.

At Amazon Mechanical Turk, you get paid to do things such as transcribe audio, label pictures, write short (and long) essays among other things.  Some of the pay is pretty low but if you live in a country like Kenya and daily do an amount of work equivalent to a full working day, your monthly income should be a lot more than that of most people in this country.

Still not convinced?  One of the people who work at Mechanical Turk is "Kristy Milland, 27, a mother of one who runs an at-home day care in Toronto, as well as a Web site called RealityBBQ about the reality TV show "Big Brother." "I have a lot of free time basically sitting at the computer while the kids play," she says. Among the work she does is editing and quality assurance for CastingWords, but not transcription, because she has tendinitis. When Mturk.com first began, Milland would churn through 3-cent HITs. (That's "human intelligence tasks," Turker lingo for jobs.) Amazon was paying turkers to make sure that photos of businesses used on its A9 site, a local search engine, matched the actual businesses listed, a task a computer can't do. In an eight-hour day, when she didn't have the kids to watch, Milland could go through 1,000 photos, making a cool $30". (Read the rest of this review) That's 30 US dollars per day!!!

Amazon Mechanical Turk can help you make money, try it.

Other jobs you may want to check out:
Kids Blog Seeks Editorial/Administrative Assistant
Help English Language Learners Online
Seeking GAM writers
Write Short Blog Posts for Social Network Site
Writers Wanted – Custom Content Freelancers
Storytelling Magazine Is Looking For Submissions
Business Plan Writers Needed
Food Blog looking for writers
Pet lifestyle writers, bloggers, producers wanted!
Freelance web designer

Note: The positions above may be filled and therefore the links may cease to work after a while. Hurry!!

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Filed Under: Online Jobs

Of Flying Cars, Cyberbullies and Games That Make You Vomit

November 17, 2008 by 1 Comment

Where, exactly, can we draw the line between virtual and real?  Here's a round-up of some thought provoking news:

There's been a lot of talk about a new game: Mirror's Edge.  The game is really nice and is action packed as you would expect of a 1st person shooter but that's not why people are talking about it.  Apparently, the game is so realistic that all the jumping around and rapid motion can make you vomit. Whoa!  Read the review.

The US "Pentagon's mad science division Darpa is helping build thought-controlled robotic limbs, artificial pack mules, real-life laser guns, and "kill-proof" soldiers. So it comes as no surprise, really, that the agency is now getting into the flying car business, too". Read the rest of the story at Wired.

We end with a sad story of Loli Drew, a woman charged with creating a MySpace account that was allegedly used to harass a teenager.  "Drew is charged with one count of conspiracy and three counts of unauthorized access to computers after allegedly creating a MySpace account for a nonexistent 16-year-old boy named "Josh Evans."  Drew and two co-conspirators allegedly provided fake information to MySpace to set up and maintain the account in 2006. The Evans account was used to flirt with and befriend Meier, who'd had a falling-out with Drew's daughter.  The fake "Josh" ultimately turned on Meier and told the girl that the world would be a better place without her. Meier already suffered from clinical depression, and shortly after that final message she hanged herself in her bedroom." (Wired News) May she rest in peace.

(Cyber-bullying involves the use of information and communication technologies to support deliberate, repeated, and hostile behaviour by an individual or group, that is intended to harm others.)

Bonus: Read how a sex-offender set up a fake church.

Filed Under: Miscellaneous

Remember The Milk

November 16, 2008 by 4 Comments

Is there anyone else out there who simply forgets to do stuff (that are rather importnat)?  For example, I’ve been meaning to send an email to my friend in India for a few days now, but I just keep on forgetting to do this.  So last night I set out to find a solution.  I do spend a lot of time on the internet and, particularly, I check my email very often.  In fact, my gmail is almost always open in a tab on my browser.  If only there was a way to have some sort of to-do list integrated into my gmail – I’d be able to see what I needed done easily, and often. As it turns out, there’s something just like that:

“Managing tasks is generally not a fun way to spend your time. We created Remember The Milk so that you no longer have to write your to-do lists on sticky notes, whiteboards, random scraps of paper, or the back of your hand. Remember The Milk makes managing tasks an enjoyable experience.” – Remember The Milk.
Filed Under: Tips Hacking and Reviews

The Nation Media Group, Plagiarism, An Apology, and Customer Service – A Case Study

November 13, 2008 by 2 Comments

This follows the article that I wrote yesterday regarding plagiarism by the Nation Media Group (NMG): Shameless Plagiarism at The Nation Media Group. If you read that article, you will notice that I wrote it while I was pretty upset at the NMG.  I felt that they had been dishonest and, feeling that there was little I could do about it, I decided to tell the world (that part of the world that reads what I write) of my frustrations. After writing that post, sharing it with Bidii Africa members and putting it up at Let's Explore, I felt a little happier.  A got an email that essentially said, "Cool, let's slay this behemoth."  Word spread, and what I wrote was picked up by Irani Media where Stephanie added her thoughts and experiences with NMG and plagiarism.

Putting the issue of plagiarism aside (I'll get to it later), I think this demonstrates the profound challenge facing organisations everywhere.   All it needs is one person dissatisfied with your product/service with a blog and suddenly your reputation and respectability could be facing a  big ugly challenge.  What is a company to do when there's a good number of its customers armed with blogs and ready to trash them at the slightest provocation?  Surely, there probably aren't any silver bullets out there; the solution(s) to this problem are probably wide and varied.  Yesterday, the NMG did something right.

One of the first people to email me following the post calling NMG on the plagiarism was Charles, a write I respect deeply, who is from the NMG.  His email was pleasant, but curt: He wanted me to point out instances of the plagiarism so that he could look into the matter.  I did that last night and today I got a response that was satisfactory to me.  Let's analyse this using Joel Spolsky's Approach to Remarkable Customer Service.  What did the NMG do right?

1. Take the blame.  When you're dealing with an angry customer, you have to take the blame.  The customer is always right, as they say. Take the blame and move on to the more important matter of solving the problem.  The NMG did this well.

2. Don't fight the customer.  "When an irate customer is complaining, or venting, it’s easy to get defensive.  You can never win these arguments, and if you take them personally, it’s going to be a million times worse. This is when you start to hear business owners saying, “I don’t want an asshole like you for a customer!” They get excited about their Pyrrhic victory. Wow, isn’t it great? When you’re a small business owner you get to fire your customers. Charming." (Source: Joel Spolsky's Approach to Remarkable Customer Service).  As Patrick McKenzie writes, you never win an argument with a customer.  NMG didn't fight the customer.

3. Fix everything two ways.  Every customer service problem has two solutions (and you have to use both): You solve the immediate, superficial problem and also make sure that particular problem doesn't happen again.  Charles not only calmed me down by explaining why they published Bidii Africa articles, he proceeded to tell me what the NMG did to make sure the problem didn't recur. So the NMG have this covered too.

4. Make customers into fans.  The trick here is to treat your customers so well that they talk about it.  This is the whole rationale behind remarkable customer service.  Yesterday, I was extremely disappointed by the NMG.  To see a paper that I love turn suddenly (in my eyes) into a dishonest behemoth got me sad, and angry.  I'm just one out of its thousands of readers but today I didn't buy a copy of the Daily Nation.  It was my way of solo, frustrated protest.  I was going to make sure that anyone who values my opinion thinks twice about buying The Nation.  I know what you are thinking – my 35bob and that of six of my friends won't do anything to hurt the NMG in any way. However, remarkable customer service isn't about being nice to most of your customers, it's about being nice to all of your customers.  Charles, and the NMG, got this right, very right.  I didn't buy the Nation today, but I'll buy it tomorrow. Why? Because Charles was pleasant and helpful.  He seemed sincere and made me believe that there are good, honest, respectable people at the NMG.  Yesterday, I was pretty hard on them.  I made a list of possible reasons why the NMG would plagiarise.  The list didn't have anything nice to say about the NMG.  I wrote that post and overlooked another possible reason for the plagiarism.  Dear readers, and everyone at the NMG, I wish to apologise for this.  The plagiarism that I wrote about yesterday could have been the result of an honest mistake, and I fully believe that it was.

Be sure to read the rest of Joel Sposky's article as I have only dealt with items that I feel apply well in online customer service and reputation management.  Also, Seth Godin has an interesting take on starting over with customer service.

What other lesson can be learnt from this experience?  As I wrote elsewhere, it is important to keep track of what is being said by you online and to respond super fast whenever there's a problem.  Notice how Charles' fast, sincere and helpful actions won back a customer and made a new fan.  One wonders where the Wananchi Online people are when their new product Zuku is getting a bad reputation. Welcome to Online Reputation Management.

—

Now, regarding NMG's plagiarism, I am convinced that the instance of plagiarism that I wrote of yesterday was an honest mistake, and a misunderstanding.  However, the very fact that this is not the first complaint of plagiarism by the NMG is a little worrying.  Other complaints are here and here.  Some people say that where there's smoke, there's fire.  Perhaps the NMG could do something to clear up all of these issues.  I don't know, though – maybe they already did.

The NMG did, however, clear every doubt in my mind regarding the instance of plagiarism that I had written of.  I cannot put it in better words so I shall put the email from Charles here:

"We have now established how Bidii articles ended up in Daily Nation. First, let us acknowledge that, indeed, the articles were published in DN and The East African.

How did this happen? Beginning from when it was KaziAfrica, Bidii material come to the email addresses of very many editors and journalists at Nation, even in many instances when they have not subscribed. Anyhow, every
one took it in good stride. However, someone got the email for Letters from the paper and added it on the Bidii list. Thus all Bidii correspondence ends in Nation's "Mailbox".

Everything that comes into the "Mailbox", as the name indeed does indicate, is for publication. The Letters editors, therefore, have on occasion published some of the letters that caught their fancy. They did it in good faith, in the understanding that they were sent to the "Mailbox" be considered for publication (because that is what the notice says).

They weren't aware that by doing so they would cause offence to Bidii members. They also say it is unfair to accuse them of plagiarism or stealing, because they attributed the letters correctly to the authors (although perhaps, one could argue that they should added Bidii too. However, there were no such instructions).

Going forward, instructions have been given that no material from Bidii should shall be used in Nation because the members don't intend that to happen. However, to absolutely ensure that no slip up happens, we are instructing the IT Department to block all Bidii material from the Mailbox and other general addresses at the Nation.

I hope that you can explain this to your members, and that you find this satisfactory. Finally, to say we are sorry that this happened and for the misunderstanding."

What do you think? Does the Bidii Africa group deserve an apology in print?

Filed Under: Case Study, Internet Culture

Reaching for the Cloud with OpenGoo

November 13, 2008 by 3 Comments

I really like Google documents.  I like the flexibility – I can access my information from anywhere in the world with an Internet connection.  Also, it feels good not having to buy the pricey Microsoft Office.  Actually, I'm one of those who is very excited about cloud computing so I pretty much use Google docs for everyday things. (I hear zoho is much better though).

I recently started a small web design 'business'. Basically, I build sites for small organisations and individuals.  I have a reseller account with Myriad Networks so I also host my client's sites.  When I ventured into this, I decided to try and store all the business documents online.  I chose Google docs as I perceive them to be stable and fair.  However, as my small business is progressing, I'm starting to worry about my important documents stored in the 'cloud'.  What if something happened to Google, or what if I somehow lost my Google account?  Questions such as these wore down my resolve to online-only document and spreadsheet processing. I made a local back-up last Tuesday.  Sadly, that's the main problem with computing in the cloud – you entrust your information to a third party.  I'm sure many individuals don't mind doing that – they already have their whole lives on facebook or myspace – but for corporations it is a big problem.  Not only is it worrying to store your company's private information on someone else's disk space bit in some cases, it is not even legal to share client information with third parties.

Guess what? Today I found a reason to go back to my online-only strategy.  OpenGoo is an open source web office solution for every organization to create, collaborate, share and publish external documents.  It offers:

Text documents
Spreadsheets (coming soon)
Presentations
Task lists
Email (very cool)
Calendars (very useful and feature-rich)
Weblinks
Contacts

Of course these are available elsewhere so how is open goo different? Well, 🙂 , OpenGoo is open in all ways.  It isn't hosted on someone's server like, say, Zoho.  You install it on your own disk space and run it from there.  The installation process is similar to WordPress' five minute installation.

Lifehacker has a wonderful review of OpenGoo.  Read it.

My take: OpenGoo provides a solution to many of the problems that plague cloud powered online office suites. Not only that but you don't even need the internet to install and run OpenGoo.  You can use XAMPP instead.

What do you think of OpenGoo?

Filed Under: Tips Hacking and Reviews

Shameless Plagiarism at The Nation Media Group

November 12, 2008 by 4 Comments

I’m a new and proud member of a google group: Bidii Africa.  It is a wonderful group made up of smart people – the kind of place where you learn new things everyday.  What we talk about is probably helpful to everyone that I, and you, know.  The Nation Media Group (NMG) thinks so too.  In fact, they recently printed some articles from Bidii Africa in The Daily Nation and The East African. Sadly, though, they stole what they printed out.  It is sad because I respect the NMG very much (or used to). 

But what is plagiarism, you may ask.  Did the NMG do anything wrong?  Plagiarism.org has this to say about plagiarism: 

” Many people think of plagiarism as copying another’s work, or borrowing someone else’s original ideas. But terms like “copying” and “borrowing” can disguise the seriousness of the offense:
According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, to “plagiarise” means

1. to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one’s own
2. to use (another’s production) without crediting the source
3. to commit literary theft
4. to present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source.

In other words, plagiarism is an act of fraud. It involves both stealing someone else’s work and lying about it afterwards.” 

The NMG took articles from Bidii Africa and, without permission, printed them on their papers.  They also failed to, at the very least, acknowledge the source of those articles that they printed out.  This act is in extreme lack of any professional ethics and, in my mind, should be criminal. 
 
The recurring question is: why should a successful and respected newspaper plagiarise?   
 
 “Most often . . . the plagiarist has started out with good intentions but hasn’t left enough time to do the reading and thinking that the assignment requires, has become desperate, and just wants the whole thing done with. At this point, in one common scenario, the plagiarist gets careless while taking notes on a source or incorporating notes into a draft, so the source’s words and ideas blur into those of the plagiarist. 

The plagiarist’s standard defense-that he or she was misled by hastily taken and imperfect notes-is plausible only in the context of a wider tolerance of shoddy work. . . .” (Source: Mano Singham’s Web Journal) 
 
Apart from general lack of professionalism and honesty, I can come up with a few reasons why the NMG did this.  Feel free to add your own. They are: 
  • The people at the NMG don’t know what plagiarism is. 
  • The NMG writers and editors are plain lazy. 
  • Not only are they lazy, they are not creative enough to come up with something o
  • riginal.    
  • Or maybe the NMG writers and editors are too busy to do what they are paid to do. 
  • The NMG didn’t think they could get caught.
  • It was an honest mistake.

How do you tell if your work is plagiarised?  Here’s a link to plagiarism checking software: http://www.duplichecker.com/

— 
The bottom line is that the NMG should be ashamed of their actions.  The Bidii Africa group deserves an apology and, perhaps, some sort of compensation.
Update: Some Bidii Africa members raised the issue with people at NMG.  It seems that, in return, they got threats.  How deep does impunity run?
 
Update 2: Charles from the NMG handled this issue very well, prompting me to write a follow-up: The Nation Media Group, Plagiarism, An Apology and Customer Service – A Case Study.  Also added “Honest Mistake” to the list of reasons why the NMG would plagiarise anything.
Filed Under: Internet Culture

How to Kill a Nice Brand – The Business Daily Way

November 8, 2008 by 1 Comment

Do you remember back when The Business Daily Africa was launched?  I was happy to see that we finally had a good quality business newspaper and I bought it enthusiastically.  I especially loved that, from inception, they had a very strong online presence.  They did everything right, it seems.  In fact, I had predicted that it would grow into one of the best and most respected business papers in this part of the world.  Arguably, it already is.  They built the brand well. However, they’re now destroying their nice brand with equal zeal.

Two cases in point:
“My target of vitriol is the headline story on the Business Daily of October 7, 2008, titled “Internet theft hits a new high” Naturally I was attracted to this story because I am an avid Internet user and a promoter of its potential as a business tool. Considering the very serious nature of the paper’s allegation, I expected a fact-laden article with detailed testimonies, statistics, and warnings. Instead what I read was a vacuous, sensational, and rambling article that relied on unsubstantiated claims, wildly inaccurate headlines, false syllogisms, and a lack of understanding of the internet, internet banking and banking in general.” From Startups in Kenya: Literary hacks at Business Daily.
And,
“The Business Daily is not a well run paper. This particular article should never have been published unless they’re shedding their “Professionally done Business Paper” image. If you read the article carefully, you will notice subtle nuances that suggest the writer is not Kenyan, or at least doesn’t usually live here. Personally, I think he hails from the UK or thereabouts.

What does this mean? Two things:
1. The Business Daily sources articles from freelance writers. Nothing wrong with this, of course.
2. The article was a shameless cut-and-paste by some lazy editor who trusts this particular freelance writer so much that he didn’t bother to read the article fully.” From Kikulacho: Hating The Business Daily.
I don’t know when it started, but I think that The Business Daily is turning into something it never intended to become.  This, to me, demonstrates the easiest way to kill a good brand: negative publicity.  Negative publicity has always been a problem but in the age of the internet, it can mean a quick and vicious death fueled by the viral nature of the internet.  For example, one person writes pure hate about your product, another picks up on it, and before you know it anyone who googles you can see nothing but negative reviews and hate for your product.
When you’re hit with negative online publicity, the worst thing you can do is do nothing about it.  In publishing shoddy and suspect content, the Business Daily is contributing to its fall.  It makes it worse by doing nothing about it.  If you work for the Business Daily or you are simply interested in online reputation management, read this: “Customer Service and Reputation Management the Twitter Way: A Case Study.”  That article will give you an idea of how online reputation management should work: it should be fast, genuine and consistent.
Filed Under: Internet Culture, Tips Hacking and Reviews