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This is a powerful tip from a book I just read called The Art of the Pitch by Peter Coughter: sell the idea before the execution.

I'll give you an example: suppose you're a graphics designer trying to sell a new business card design to a real estate agent. You want to do something different, so your design doesn't include the customary agent's picture.

If you show the agent your new designs up front, the first question she's probably going to ask is: where's my picture? You can try and explain why you didn't include it, but at that point it will sound more like damage control than a genuinely good idea.

If instead you first sell her on your theory that agents' pictures in business cards are ineffective, unoriginal and overdone, then it's just a matter of showing her your designs so she can pick one.

Our best ideas are usually the most controversial ones, so they need to be sold first. If we do that, selling the execution becomes easy.

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One of my pet peeves is hearing this conversation:

Waiter: what would you like to order?

Diner: uhhh, I don't know, what do you recommend?

People usually do this not because they're feeling adventurous, but because it's easier to burden someone else with the decision.

It wouldn't be a big deal if this happened only in a restaurant setting, in the context of ordering a meal. The problem is that small habits like this are often indicative of how we make more important decisions.

Making decisions (and acting on them) is hard work, that's why so many people just go through the motions, letting others decide for them.

If our default reaction when facing a decision is to ask others "what do you recommend?", then let's not complain if what we get is not what we were expecting.

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I am not a gregarious person, but at the same time I recognize the importance of networking. That’s why I’ve developed a few habits and tactics to make my networking efforts easier.

One of them is arriving early. Whenever I go to a meetup, I make it a point to be one of the first ones to arrive, usually when there's only a couple of people there. It's easier to strike a conversation with them and take it from there, than coming in late and trying to break into large groups where conversations have already started.

There is also an added benefit: if there is a presenter, he'll probably also arrive early (to set up the projector, size up the room, or meet the audience). You have a better chance of introducing yourself and have a quality conversation before the presentation than at the end, when everybody is trying to approach the presenter at the same time.

Image credits: Romina Santos

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Proclaiming yourself a guru can get you followers.

Trashing your competitors can get you votes.

Stirring controversy can get you traffic.

Management by fear can get you results.

Yes, behaving like an a**hole can be effective. That doesn't mean that you need to become one, or that there aren't other, better ways to be successful.

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One of the best things about working on web apps like Google Docs is that it gives us the flexibility to frequently bring you new features and improvements. Starting this month, we’re going to make some small changes to how we communicate what’s been happening in the world of Docs. Instead of writing blog posts for each and every minor update, we're going to try bundling them together monthly to give you a detailed overview of our favorite features and a short list of other notable changes to make sure you don't miss out on anything new.

On that note, we’ve got a bunch of new features that launched today, as well as some great things that improved over the month of January.

Customizable styles in documents
Giving your document consistent and beautiful formatting should be easy. Before today, if you wanted to update all the Subtitles in your document to look a particular way, you had to change each of them one at a time. That’s too many steps. Now you can restyle all your regular paragraphs, headings, or titles with just a couple clicks. For example, if you want to update all the Subtitles in your document to be a particular size, set one Subtitle to that size, select it, right click and choose Update Subtitle to match selection. This will change all the Subtitles already in your document and automatically update the style for any new Subtitles you create. Plus, with the new Options menu in the styles dropdown, you can set the current document’s styles as the default for new documents or you can load your default styles into the current document.

Sparklines in spreadsheets and more charting options
In Google spreadsheets, we’ve added more charting options and support for sparklines to make it easier to communicate data. The new options give you a bunch of tools to create more sophisticated charts including different Y-axes on either side of the chart, formatting options for the axis and title text, and all sorts of other customization for how your lines, bars, or pies are displayed. We’ve also added sparklines, which let you display line or bar charts inside of cells and are handy for presenting and comparing data in a simple, bite-sized way. In the example below, we’ve used sparklines to plot currency exchange rates over a 30-day period.


Sharing forms on Google+ 
Sharing the forms you create in Google Docs with the right people shouldn’t be a hassle. Today we added a Google+ share to the form editor so that you can share your forms directly with your circles with just a couple clicks.


And there’s more… 
On top of today’s new features, here are some changes from January that you may have missed:

• Adding images to your docs from a high quality stock photo gallery. Simply go to Insert > Image, select Stock photos, and then search for the images that you want.

• A more streamlined format for document discussion notifications that batches multiple discussions into a single email.
• Quickly opening and selecting items from specific menus with keyboard accelerators. For example, when using Google Chrome, Ctrl+Option+E on a Mac and Alt+E on Windows or Linux will open the Edit menu.
• Copying and pasting via the context (right click) menu in documents when you have the Chrome App installed.
• Easily adding Google drawings or Google Groups discussions to a Google Site from the Insert menu.

• Progress bars while uploading files to Google Sites.
• Searching for text inside of PDFs in your documents list using Optical Character Recognition. 

If you’d like to learn more about what we’ve been up to in January, I’ll be doing a Hangout On Air later this week this to talk about these changes and listen to your feedback. Stop by our Community Manager Teresa’s Google+ page on Thursday, February 9 at 12 p.m. EST to tune in.

Posted by: Jeff Harris, Product Manager

En Français

(cross posted from The official Google blog)
Our business at Google is rooted in STEM and CS, so we’re passionate about supporting organizations that are expanding access to these fields, especially for students who might not have the opportunity otherwise. The annual Google Roots in Science and Engineering (RISE)program supports organizations running innovative STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) and CS (computer science) enrichment programs for K-12 and university students around the world.



This year, the Google in Education group received a record number of inspiring applications for RISE. We expanded the awards to include Sub-Saharan Africa, and in total, we’re awarding more than $340,000 in funding to 13 U.S., eight European and five African organizations.

Our recipients are diverse, ranging from girls robotics teams building high-tech machinery in Nairobi to after-school programs that have students configuring cluster computers in Salt Lake City. Below are just a few of the outstanding organizations receiving RISE awards this year for their efforts in advancing CS and STEM education:

United States

• Santa Clara Valley Society of Women Engineers, San Jose, California. GetSET is a program created for underrepresented ethnic minority girls in the San Francisco Bay Area to expose them to engineering while building self confidence through leadership workshops, tours of technology companies and participation in team-building exercises.
• Saturday Academy, Portland, Oregon. Saturday Academy serves 2nd-12th grade students from Oregon and SW Washington with high quality and creative learning opportunities taught by STEM experts, including hands-on, real world activities that create meaningful connections between academic content and practical application.

Europe

• Frauennetzwerk Informatik at Universität Passau, Passau, Germany. University students from Passau act as ambassadors for computer science, engineering and math by reaching out to juniors and seniors at their former high schools and running workshops on topics like robotics and mobile app development. Ambassadors go on to serve as mentors to the students throughout their high school and college careers.
• The Centre for Academic Achievement, Dublin, Ireland. This center runs free after school educational classes in a university setting for bright primary school students from disadvantaged areas. Each term, students from 32 local primary schools have the opportunity to study science, math and engineering subjects and are encouraged to pursue college degrees in the future.

Sub Saharan Africa

• Savana Signatures, Tamale, Ghana. Savana Signatures educates youth and women, building their capacity to access information for the benefit of Ghana’s social and economic development.
• Fundi Bots, Kampala, Uganda. Fundi Bots is a technology outreach program for students in high school and university that uses robotics to introduce young children to the endless possibilities of technology in both their day-to-day lives and potential careers.

Organizations interested in applying for 2013 funding can sign up for more information here. We look forward to hearing about all the great work being done in CS and STEM education.

Posted by Roxana Shirkhoda, K-12 Education Outreach

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Les lauréats 2012 des "Global Awards" se hissent au sommet

Notre métier chez Google est enraciné dans les sciences, la technologie, l'ingénierie et les mathématiques (STEM), d'une part, l'informatique (CS), d'autre part ; nous sommes donc particulièrement intéressés par les organisations qui développent l'accès à ces disciplines, notamment pour les étudiants qui, à défaut, n'en auraient pas l'opportunité. Le programme RISE (Google Roots in Science and Engineering) soutient les organisations proposant des programmes d'enrichissement innovants en STEM (science, technologie, ingénierie et maths) et CS (informatique), pour les élèves du primaire, du secondaire et du supérieur à travers le monde.

Cette année, le groupe Google dans l'enseignement a reçu un nombre record de candidatures intéressantes pour RISE. Nous avons augmenté le nombre de prix pour intégrer l'Afrique sub-saharienne, et nous versons au total plus de 340 000 $ à 13 organisations aux États-Unis, huit en Europe et cinq en Afrique.

Les bénéficiaires sont divers, allant d'équipes féminines de robotique construisant des machines high-tech à Nairobi, à des programmes extra-scolaires avec des élèves configurant des ordinateurs en cluster à Salt Lake City. Voici quelques-unes des organisations remarquables ayant reçu des RISE Awards cette année pour leurs efforts en faveur de l'enseignement de l'informatique et des STEM :

États-Unis

• Santa Clara Valley Society of Women Engineers, San Jose, Californie. GetSET est un programme créé pour les femmes des minorités ethniques sous-représentées de la région de la baie de San Francisco, pour les initier à l'ingénierie tout en renforçant leur confiance en elles via des ateliers de leadership, des visites de sociétés de technologie et la participation à des exercices de construction d'équipes.
• Saturday Academy, Portland, Oregon. La Saturday Academy propose aux élèves des niveaux 2 à 12 de l'Oregon et de SW Washington des opportunités de formations créatives et de grande qualité, assurées par des experts en STEM, dont des activités pratiques, correspondant à des situations réelles qui créent des liens pertinents entre les contenus universitaires et leur application pratique.

Europe

• Frauennetzwerk Informatik à l'université de Passau, Passau, Allemagne Les étudiants de Passau jouent le rôle d'ambassadeurs pour l'informatique, l'ingénierie et les maths en contactant les juniors et les seniors de leur ancien collège ou lycée et en animant des ateliers sur des sujets tels que la robotique ou le développement d'applications mobiles. Les ambassadeurs servent de tuteurs aux élèves tout au long de leur parcours scolaire.
• The Centre for Academic Achievement, Dublin, Irlande. Ce centre propose des cours extra-scolaires gratuits dans un milieu universitaire, aux élèves les plus brillants des écoles primaires, issus des zones défavorisées. Chaque trimestre, les élèves de 32 écoles primaires locales ont l'opportunité d'étudier les sciences, les maths et l'ingénierie, et sont encouragés à poursuivre des études secondaires.

Afrique sub-saharienne

• Savana Signatures, Tamale, Ghana. Savana Signatures éduque les jeunes et les femmes, leur donnant les capacités d'accéder à l'information, au bénéfice du développement social et économique du Ghana.
• Fundi Bots, Kampala, Ouganda. Fundi Bots est un programme de sensibilisation à la technologie destiné aux élèves de l'enseignement secondaire et aux étudiants, qui utilise la robotique pour initier les enfants aux possibilités infinies qu'offre la technologie à la fois dans la vie quotidienne et pour leur future carrière.

Les organisations désireuses de postuler pour 2013 sont invitées à s'inscrire ici pour avoir toutes les informations utiles. Nous attendons avec impatience d'avoir de vos nouvelles sur les remarquables réalisations en matière d'enseignement des CS et des STEM.

Posté par Roxana Shirkhoda, K-12 Education Outreach

En Français

A new African country is set to be showcased to internet users around the world as we bring Street View to the beautiful southern African nation of Botswana.

In the coming weeks, our Google cars will start driving around this vast country. Images collected by our cars will be processed and carefully stitched together, a process that can take several months. They will be made available at a later date in Street View on Google Maps.

Once launched, Street View will allow users to view and navigate 360 degree street-level imagery of Botswana streets and sites. You can check out a restaurant before arriving, make travel plans, arrange meeting points, or get a helping hand with geography homework.
Botswana businesses can also benefit from the Street View technology by embedding Google Maps directly into their site for free, helping them to promote their hotel or increase awareness of a local store or restaurant.
Our initial Street View driving in Botswana will primarily be focused on the major urban areas of Gaborone and Francistown. Some of the country’s stunning destinations and wildlife reserves will also be photographed, with our cars set to drive around Chobe National Park, Moremi Game Reserve, Central Kalahari Game Reserve,  Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, and the Nxai salt pans.

Street View is a popular free feature of Google Maps which we launched in 2007 and is already available in more than 30 countries around the world. It is also available in Google Earth and on Google Maps for Mobile. Street View has put imagery of some of the world’s most interesting and significant destinations online for everyone to virtually explore.  
Following the launch of Street View in South Africa just before the 2010 FIFA World Cup, Botswana will become only the second African country to be on Street View.
Posted by Fortune Mgwili-Sibanda, Policy Manager, South Africa and Julie Taylor, Communications Manager, Sub Saharan Africa
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Les merveilles du Botswana bientôt sur Street View


Les internautes du monde entier pourront bientôt découvrir les paysages magnifiques du Botswana, situé dans le sud du continent africain, mis en valeur sur Street View.

Dans les semaines à venir, les voitures Google se mettront à arpenter et photographier ce vaste pays. Les images seront ensuite traitées et soigneusement recomposées, une tâche qui peut nécessiter plusieurs mois. Elles seront mises à disposition plus tard sur Street View dans Google Maps.

Une fois lancé, Street View permettra aux internautes de visualiser et de naviguer en vue 360 ° dans les rues et les sites du Botswana. Vous pouvez jeter un coup d'œil sur un restaurant avant d'y aller, élaborer des plans de voyage, organiser des points de rencontre ou obtenir quelques tuyaux pour vos devoirs de géographie.

Les entreprises du Botswana peuvent aussi tirer parti de la technologie Street View en intégrant directement Google Maps à leur site, sans frais. C’est un bon moyen pour un hôtel, une boutique ou un restaurant de se faire connaître.

Nos premiers trajets Street View au Botswana seront principalement axés sur les principales zones urbaines de Gaborone et de Francistown. Quelques-unes des destinations les plus étonnantes du pays et les réserves sauvages seront également photographiées, avec nos véhicules équipés pour circuler dans le parc national de Chobe, les réserve de Moremi Game et de Kalahari Game, le parc Kgalagadi Transfrontier et les marais salants de Nxai.

Street View est un module gratuit très populaire de Google Maps, lancé en 2007, et déjà disponible dans plus de 30 pays à travers le monde. Il est également disponible dans Google Earth et dans Google Maps for Mobile. Street View a mis en ligne les images de quelques-unes des destinations les plus intéressantes et les plus significatives, que chacun peut explorer à sa guise.  

Après le lancement de Street View en Afrique du Sud juste avant la Coupe du Monde de football 2010, Botswana sera maintenant le deuxième pays africain à être visible sur Street View.

Posté par Fortune Mgwili-Sibanda, responsable de la stratégie sud-africaine, et Julie Taylor, responsable des communications, Afrique sub-saharienne

I regularly visit Ramit Sethi's site. Ramit is a personal finance guru for the twentysomething set, and also a powerful personal brand who has mastered the art of defining, finding and serving only his ideal customers.

Ramit's ideal customers are those who take action as opposed to those who just talk or "think about it". To make sure he attracts the right people he has implemented a few hard rules and procedures, to which he adheres religiously.

For example, he doesn't record his teleclasses, even when they take place at odd hours. He firmly states that if you're really interested you'll find a way to make it. His most expensive courses feature a rigorous application process, through which he rejects most applicants for not having the right mindset.

Does this super selective strategy hurt him in the short term? Yes. I'm sure he's leaving some money on the table. Does it make his brand stronger, which brings him more money in the long run? Absolutely.

Most brands fail because they try to be all things to all people, instead of narrowly defining the kind of customer they're uniquely qualified to serve.

Think of it this way: our real job is not just to sell goods or provide services; it is to build an army of fans.

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Back in the day, when I was in college studying Industrial Engineering in Peru, my classmates and I would regularly wrestle with tough math and calculus problems.

Once in a while a sadistic professor would give us a problem that was impossible to solve. Of course, we didn't know...

Only after a long struggle the brightest guys in the class would suspect something was wrong, until finally one of them would muster enough courage to raise his hand and utter the words everybody was waiting for: we're missing data!

Ah, the beauty of exact sciences... For every problem there is only one solution, and all the other variables have to be given to you.

Only after I graduated and ventured into the real world did I learn (sometimes the hard way) that life's problems have more than one answer, and that you never have enough information. However, raising our hand and shouting: we're missing data! is not an option.

Life is about taking action in the face of uncertainty. If we wait until all the lights are green we'll end up with a nice repertoire of excuses, but we'll never accomplish anything.

Image credits: whateyesee13

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Voting is now open for the 2012 election of at large directors of the Drupal Association. Two directors will be elected from among the ten candidates.

About the Drupal Association elections

When we designed a new governance structure for the Drupal Association last year, we decided that most of the board is selected through a nominating committee with the goal to carefully balance many factors like needed skills and geographical and sector representation. However, it was also deemed important that we have directors chosen directly by the Drupal community to make sure that the community is always well-represented.

We're holding our first open community elections! Two community "at large" directors will be elected to the Drupal Association Board of Directors, and YOU can get to say who they are!

Where to find out about candidates

• Review their nomination profiles.
• Read the notes from the two all candidates' meetings at http://groups.drupal.org/node/207398.

Who can vote?

Voting is open to all individuals who registered an account on drupal.org prior to January 18, 2012 and who have logged into that account at least once in the one-year period prior to February 3, 2012.

There is no need to register to vote. The voting system has been set up and prepopulated with the list of eligible voters.

How to vote

• Log in to this site.
• Visit the https://association.drupal.org/2012-vote page. After clicking through, you will be asked to rank each of the eligible voters, from 1st (top choice) to 10th (last choice). You also need to check a box confirming you're an eligible voter. Make your selections and save the form. That's it!

How does voting work?

The voting is done using the "Instant Runoff" voting method, powered by Decisions module. For more about this method of voting, please see this helpful YouTube video which explains it with post-it notes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wA3_t-08Vr0

Can I change my mind after I've voted?

Yes! Before the close of voting, you can return to the voting form, cancel your previous vote, and submit a new vote.

When will voting close?

Tuesday, February 7, 2012 is the last day of voting. Voting will close at 00:00 UTC on Wednesday, February 8, 2012.

How will results be determined and announced?

When voting closes, a four-member elections team will review the results and post them to this site (association.drupal.org). Results will then be forwarded to the Drupal Association board for ratification.

The election team includes Angela Byron, DA board member; Cary Gordon, DA board member; Nedjo Rogers, DA advisory board member; and Thomas Svenson, Drupal community member who participated in the community process of planning the elections.

Why was voting delayed?

We had focused a bit too much on organizing the elections and left finalizing the actual voting system till the last minute. After several community members and Drupal Association staff pitched in, we got the elections system up about 3 hours after the planned opening of voting.

Wait. Only XXX eligible voters? What gives?

Despite the fact that the voting form lists far fewer, there are actually 270K Drupal.org accounts that fit the voter eligibility criteria. Valid accounts are added to the electorate list when they visit the Association website. These shenanigans are due to the Bakery module, our single-sign on solution, and the requirement to reconcile peoples' Association.drupal.org user IDs and their Drupal.org user IDs.

Problems and solutions

If you believe you are eligible to vote and try to vote and cannot or encounter some error, please post an issue to the Drupal Association issue queue, selecting "elections" as the component.

More about the elections

• The nominations announcement.
• The elections plan.
• All elections posts.

We've all been told at some point to write our resume in one page, cut our PPT presentation to less than 10 slides, or limit our pitch to five minutes.

Taken literally, we need to keep it short. Reading between the lines, however, what does it really mean? Perhaps, that the expectations are so low when it comes to resumes, presentations and meetings that we want to limit the pain by going through them as fast as possible.

Yes, they're telling us to keep it short. But what they're really, really telling us is: don't be boring.

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Having an option feels safe. If plan A doesn't work, we can always count on plan B.

There is a problem, though: many times, plan B is the reason why plan A doesn't work. Plan B is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is the reason why we don't give plan A all our effort, attention and resources. Plan B is a temptation to settle.

I used to think that having a plan B was the sensible thing to do. I'm not so sure any more. A powerful force unleashes when we burn our boats behind us. We may succeed or not, but at least we can rest assured that we gave it our all. With a plan B, we will never know.

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There may be times when you don’t have an Internet connection on your Android device, but you still want access to a file you’ve saved in Google Docs. Now you can select any file in Google Docs to make it available offline. So regardless of whether you’re connected to the internet, you’re always connected to those files.

Even better, Google Docs automatically updates your offline files when you’re on Wi-Fi. You can also manually update files anytime you have a data connection by opening the file or tapping ‘Update’ from the Offline section of the app.

   Make file available offlineUpdate online file
Make file available offline Update offline file 
For those of you with Android tablets, we’ve also improved the Google Docs reading experience. Now, when you open a Google document on your tablet while online, you’ll get a high-resolution version of the document. Swipe left and right to flip between pages, or use the slider at the bottom to page ahead quickly.

New reading layout on Android tablet
You can learn more about offline capabilities and the new reading layout in our Help Center.

Whether you’re offline or online, these improvements will make it easier to be productive from anywhere.

Posted by: Freeman Liu, Software Engineer

Drupal 7.11 and 6.23, maintenance releases which fix security vulnerabilities are now available for download.

Drupal 7.12 and 6.24 also fix other issues reported through the bug tracking system.

Download Drupal 7.12
Download Drupal 6.24

Upgrading your existing Drupal 7 and 6 sites is strongly recommended. There are no new features in these releases. For more information about the Drupal 7.x release series, consult the Drupal 7.0 release announcement, more information on the 6.x releases can be found in the Drupal 6.0 release announcement. Drupal 5 is no longer maintained, upgrading to Drupal 6 is recommended.

Security information

We have a security announcement mailing list, a history of all security advisories, and an RSS feed with the most recent security advisories. We strongly advise Drupal administrators to sign up for the list.

Drupal 7 and 6 include the built-in Update status module, which informs you about important updates to your modules and themes.

Bug reports

Both Drupal 7.x and 6.x branches are being maintained, so given enough bug fixes (not just bug reports) more maintenance releases will be made available, according to our monthly release cycle.

Changelog

Drupal 7.11 only includes fixes for security issues. Drupal 7.12 also includes bugfixes. The full list of changes between the 7.10 and 7.12 releases can be found by reading the 7.12 release notes. A complete list of all bug fixes in the stable 7.x branch can be found in the git commit log.

Drupal 6.23 only includes fixes for security issues. Drupal 6.24 also includes bugfixes. The full list of changes between the 6.22 and 6.24 releases can be found by reading the 6.24 release notes. A complete list of all bug fixes in the stable 6.x branch can be found at git commit log.

Security vulnerabilities

Drupal 7.11 and 6.23 were released in response to the discovery of security vulnerabilities. Details can be found in the official security advisory:

• SA-CORE-2012-001

To fix the security problem, please upgrade Drupal.

What is included with each release?

We made two versions of both Drupal 7 and 6 available, so you can choose to only include security fixes (Drupal 7.11 and 6.23 respectively) or security fixes and bugfixes (Drupal 7.12 and 6.24). You can choose your preferred version. We are trying to make it easier and quicker to roll out security updates by making security-only releases available as well as ones with bugfixes included. We hope this helps you roll out the fixes as soon as possible. Read more details in the handbook.

Update notes

The default.settings.php file was changed in Drupal 7.12, to add documentation about PDO attribute override capabilities that were added as a result of #1309278: Make PDO connection options configurable.

The robots.txt file was changed in Drupal 6.24 to block filter tips from search engines. The .htaccess and (default.)settings.php files were not changed in Drupal 6. Additionally, indexes were added to the node_comment_statistics and comment tables, for performance.

Known issues # Drupal 7

The Drupal 7.11 release is only an incremental release off of Drupal 7.9, instead of 7.10, so it is missing bug fixes introduced in 7.10. Discussion is ongoing at #1430404: Drupal 7.11 is missing all the bug fixes from Drupal 7.10.

Drupal 7.12 is also only compatible with Menu Block 7.x-2.3 and higher, and Internationalization (i18n) 7.x-1.4 and higher.

Drupal 6

In Drupal 6.24, if you have the contributed user_delete module enabled on your site, the update will fail with a Cannot redeclare user_delete_access() error. An update of user_delete module is being worked on.

In Drupal 6.24 if you had locale module enabled earlier, but it is not currently turned on, the update will fail with Call to undefined function locale_inc_callback(). A fix is being worked on for Drupal core.

In Drupal 6.24 if you run your updates with Drush, you might experience duplicate entry errors in your system table. See the ongoing discussion at http://drupal.org/node/1425868

Elections for at large Drupal Association elections are kicking into high gear with two all candidates meetings this week before voting opens Friday.

Election candidates will participate in all candidates meetings are scheduled over the next two days (Wed., Thurs. or Fri., depending on your location). The first meeting, intended to work for people in the Asia and the Pacific, is scheduled for 01:00 UTC on Thursday. That's 5 PM PST on Wednesday for those in the US and Canada.

The second all candidates meeting at 17:00 UTC Thursday is timed for participants in Europe, Africa, and the Americas.

Then on Friday voting will open. Details on voting will be posted to association.drupal.org.

See the elections announcement for more on how to learn about the candidates.

The repair shop I take my car to had a great slogan: Home of the Honest Mechanic.  In an industry not known for its integrity it was a powerful and differentiating claim.  They lived up to it, too. I can recall at least three occasions when they refused to charge me because the repair was just a minor tweak.

Today I took my car for maintenance and noticed that the building had been painted over with a new slogan: General Repair Specialists.

Why would they do that?  I asked the lady in the front desk, but she said she didn't know, that the owner just decided to change it.

This small business had a great slogan that concisely and effectively communicated its brand essence (something companies pay branding agencies fortunes to unveil) and changed it for a lame, generic description: General Repair Specialists.  What a wasted opportunity.

Your slogan is not just empty words.  It's a brand asset that adds value to your business.  If you find one that works don't just change it for the sake of change.

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En Français

Ever imagined remotely controlling a camera and a laser using a Google+ Hangout? Or hanging out with friends online to listen to and rate music together? It almost seems like something from the future, but these are actually some of the applications that African developers created at two G+ Hackathons held in Johannesburg and Nairobi late last year.

The G+ South Africa Hackathon was held on November 2 at the Wits Professional Development Hub in partnership with the Johannesburg Google Technology User Group (JHB-GTUG) around G|South Africa. The G+ Kenya Hackathon was held in partnership with the iHub in Nairobi on December 10.


Googler helping Kenyan developers work on their applications

Googlers presented the Google+ API and joined via Hangout from Zurich to answer questions. The developers mainly worked on incorporating +1 buttons, and various Google+ features like Hangouts into websites and web apps. The Johannesburg GTUG/House4Hack project utilized a previously assembled laser system. The winning team made up of Schalk Heunis, Yusuf Kaka, Anthony Isaakidis and Hans Christian von Stockhausen walked away with a Samsung Galaxy S phone which would be utilized by the House 4 Hack community in Johannesburg. The winning team in Kenya developed a Last.fm music listening app.

You can find out more about the Hackathon with pictures and thoughts tagged #gzahackathon and #hackgplus on Google+. Google Technology User Groups (GTUGs) support users of Google Technology all over the world with over 40  groups across Sub-Saharan Africa. As more developers in the region adopt the G+ API, there will be more hackathons organized in conjunction with various GTUGs and local technology hubs. Stay tuned to your local GTUG for the next one!


Posted by Ato Ulzen-Appiah, Program Manager for Sub-Saharan Africa

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Les développeurs africains améliorent leurs compétences avec Google et Hangouts

Avez-vous déjà imaginé télécommander une caméra et un laser avec un Hangout Google+ ? Ou encore rencontrer des amis en ligne pour écouter de la musique ensemble et donner votre avis ? Voilà qui a l'air de sortir d'un film de science-fiction mais c'est pourtant bien l'une des applications que des développeurs africains ont créées au cours des deux Hackathons G+ qui se sont tenus en fin d'année dernière à Johannesburg et Nairobi.

Le Hackathon G+ d'Afrique du Sud s'est déroulé le 2 novembre au Wits Professional Development Hub en partenariat avec le JHB-GTUG (Johannesburg Google Technology User Group) à G|Afrique du Sud. Le Hackathon G+ Kenya a été organisé en partenariat avec le iHub de Nairobi le 10 décembre.

Les Googlers ont tout d'abord présenté l'API Google+ et rejoint le groupe via Hangout depuis Zurich pour répondre à leurs questions. Le travail des développeurs a essentiellement consisté à incorporer des boutons +1, et diverses fonctions Google+ telles que des Hangouts dans des sites et des applis Web. Le projet Johannesburg GTUG/House4Hack a utilisé un système laser déjà monté. L'équipe gagnante, composée de Schalk Heunis, Yusuf Kaka, Anthony Isaakidis et Hans Christian von Stockhausen a remporté un téléphone Samsung Galaxy S, qui servira à la communauté House 4 Hack de Johannesburg. L'équipe gagnante du Kenya a développé une application pour écouter de la musique Last.fm.

Venez découvrir l’Hackathon en images et les commentaires sous le libellé #gzahackathon et #hackgplus sur Google+. Les groupes GTUG (Google Technology User Groups) apportent leur soutien aux utilisateurs de la technologie Google dans le monde entier. Une quarantaine d'entre eux se trouvent en Afrique sub-saharienne. De plus en plus de développeurs de la région choisissent l'API G+. Il y aura donc de plus en plus de Hackathons organisés en collaboration avec des GTUG et des hubs technologiques locaux. Restez en contact avec votre GTUG local pour ne pas manquer le prochain !

Posté par Ato Ulzen-Appiah, directeur de programme pour l'Afrique sub-saharienne

If you watch soccer regularly you've probably witnessed this situation many times: the referee calls a penalty kick against one of the teams. Immediately, the players of the affected team surround the referee, yelling and gesturing in protest, keeping at it for enough time to make the referee uncomfortable.

Now, if you watch soccer you also probably know that a referee never takes back a penalty call. So, why do players bother to protest if the outcome is not going to change? Because they're trying to condition the referee to be more lenient on future calls. They're not thinking about now. They're thinking about the next time.

If somebody you do business with on a regular basis screws up and there's nothing they can do to fix it, you still need to complain. Not to vent or try to change what can't be changed, but because you're already negotiating for a better deal next time.

Image credits: Tony Austin

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Posted by Adam Dawes, Product Manager

Email phishing, in which someone tries to trick you into revealing personal information by sending fake emails that look legitimate, remains one of the biggest online threats. One of the most popular methods that scammers employ is something called domain spoofing. With this technique, someone sends a message that seems legitimate when you look at the “From” line even though it’s actually a fake. Email phishing is costing regular people and companies millions of dollars each year, if not more, and in response, Google and other companies have been talking about how we can move beyond the solutions we’ve developed individually over the years to make a real difference for the whole email industry.

Industry groups come and go, and it’s not always easy to tell at the beginning which ones are actually going to generate good solutions. When the right contributors come together to solve real problems, though, real things happen. That’s why we’re particularly optimistic about today’s announcement of DMARC.org, a passionate collection of companies focused on significantly cutting down on email phishing and other malicious mail.

Building upon the work of previous mail authentication standards like SPF and DKIM, DMARC is responding to domain spoofing and other phishing methods by creating a standard protocol by which we’ll be able to measure and enforce the authenticity of emails. With DMARC, large email senders can ensure that the email they send is being recognized by mail providers like Gmail as legitimate, as well as set policies so that mail providers can reject messages that try to spoof the senders’ addresses.

We’ve been active in the leadership of the DMARC group for almost two years, and now that Gmail and several other large mail senders and providers — namely Facebook, LinkedIn, and PayPal — are actively using the DMARC specification, the road is paved for more members of the email ecosystem to start getting a handle on phishing. Our recent data indicates that roughly 15% of non-spam messages in Gmail are already coming from domains protected by DMARC, which means Gmail users like you don’t need to worry about spoofed messages from these senders. The phishing potential plummets when the system just works, and that’s what DMARC provides.

If you’re a large email sender and you want to try out the DMARC specification, you can learn more at the DMARC website. Even if you’re not ready to take on the challenge of authenticating all your outbound mail just yet, there’s no reason to not sign up to start receiving reports of mail that fraudulently claims to originate from your address. With further adoption of DMARC, we can all look forward to a more trustworthy overall experience with email.

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Back in November we launched a new, cleaner, and simpler look for the web version of Google Trader.  We know how important mobile phones are for accessing information in Africa, so we’ve worked hard to bring the new design to the mobile version too.


Today we’re announcing a new mobile version of Google Trader in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and Uganda . We’ve reorganized the mobile site to reduce clutter and emphasize the most important information. And we haven’t forgotten those users with smaller phones either.  We believe that Google Trader should be accessible and easy to use, no matter what phone you’re using, so we’ve tried to bring a great experience even on phones with narrower screens.




Check it out and let us know what you think!

Posted by Mina Razaghpour, Software Engineer

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Google Trader : un nouveau design pour les téléphones portables

En novembre dernier, nous avons lancé un nouveau designe, plus net et plus simple de la version web de Google Trader.  Nous savons l'importance des téléphones portables pour accéder à l'information en Afrique, et nous avons donc travaillé dur pour adapter le nouveau design à la version mobile.

Aujourd'hui, nous annonçons le nouvelle version mobile de Google Trader. Nous avons réorganisé le site mobile pour réduire l'encombrement et mettre en valeur les informations les plus importantes. Et nous n'avons pas oublié les détenteurs de téléphones de petite taille. Nous sommes persuadés que Google Trader doit être accessible et facile à utiliser, quel que soit le téléphone que vous utilisez. Nous avons donc tenté d'offrir une belle expérience même sur les téléphones dotés d'un petit écran.
Jetez un coup d'oeil sur le nouveau Google Trader sur téléphone portable pour votre pays : Ghana, Kenya, Nigéria et Ouganda, et dites-nous ce que vous en pensez !

Posté par Mina Razaghpour, ingénieur logiciel