Given the immense power and control that corporations wield in present times, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has begun to be of the utmost importance in a world where more than two-thirds of humanity lives in developing countries. However, the discourse of CSR is far from value-free, and must be considered in terms of grossly unequal power relations, the so-called modernization paradigm of development, and the much-in-vogue rhetoric of sustainable development. Focusing on the case of India’s largest privately held company, Reliance Industries Limited, this paper critically analyzes the corporate social responsibility discourse revealed by Reliance in its web site and through its media releases, on its CSR work in HIV/AIDS intervention work in India. A new model of corporate social responsibility is suggested, focusing on participatory approaches, systematic and long-term commitment, recognition of political clout, regulation, and above all, social accountability to the diffused publics for every corporation.

Fidèles lectrices (ou lecteurs), HATC et ses colocataires de choc vous proposent de rejoindre leur dream team en participant à la rédaction d’articles sur les sujets qui vous inspireront le plus. Nos rubriques ne sont plus un mystère pour vous, libre à vous de choisir celles qui vous correspondent le plus. La multiplicité des interventions ne peut qu’enrichir notre blog et nous avons l’intime conviction que toutes celles qui nous lisent recèlent en elles les talents d’une rédactrice ou d’une écrivaine qui sait ?

Que vous soyez voilées ou non, brunes ou blondes, cheveux au vent ou avec des couettes, petites ou grandes, peu importe: TOUTES À VOS PLUMES!! (ou plutôt vos écrans)

Faites usage de votre matière grise, éclairez- nous, surprenez- nous, et bien sûr tous les sujets sont bons à prendre, du dernier livre que vous aurez lu en passant par la recette de cuisine ou les bons plans sorties.

Ce blog, c’est avant tout le vôtre et c’est no limits !

P.S : pour pouvoir nous transmettre vos posts ou pour des questions et suggestions, nous vous invitons à utiliser l’adresse suivante : hijab.and.the.city@gmail.com

The key is communication!! Continuous ongoing communication through participation.  They must be part of the process because they define what gets built. They define it as much as the user of the systems and engineers do. Participation is critical to project success. Some of the keys to success include:

• Inclusion of Stakeholders in more than Sprint Reviews is necessary.
• Stakeholders must represent and help define the goals and direction for each sprint, potentially for each backlog item as well.
• Engineers must clearly articulate both the feasibility of identified system capabilities and level of effort to the Stakeholders.
• Assigning a Stakeholder proxy to participate is a dubious approach. Adding an extra level in the communication channel usually doesn't help much.

Most times the Stakeholders are willing to participate when it's made clear they are needed.  If not, it should be made clear that what gets delivered and when it gets delivered is estimated strictly based on the direct input from the stakeholders.  It should also be made clear that without the communication and participation the project is essentially bottle-necked or on hold. Making well directed progress using good communication throughout the entire process applies to all members of the team.

Everyone on the  team, especially the Scrum Master, needs to insist (or force) that there is participation by all members to drive the project forward. It's not just for developers.

Je reprends ici les éléments proposés pour étendre et compléter cette définition.

Le mouvement vers l’Entreprise 2.0 est constitué de deux tendances majeures intimement liées:

• La première tendance est celle du web 2.0 où il s’agit, comme on s’en doute, de mettre du web 2.0 dans le système d’information de l’entreprise.
• La deuxième tendance est celle du “Software as a Service“, et plus généralement des infrastructures de services, qui constitue une autre façon de consommer les technologies de l’information, avec de nouvelles offres portées par de nouveaux acteurs dans le périmètre de l’entreprise.

L’approche web 2.0 des applications est caractérisée par 3 traits bien cernés par Christian :

• participation
• simplicité
• ouverture des données

C’est la face externe des applications de l’entreprise, celle visible de l’extérieur, ou la partie émergée de l’iceberg.

Intéressons-nous maintenant de plus près à la face interne des applications d’entreprise, celle des infrastructures à même de fournir les services. Elle est quant à elle caractérisée par les traits suivants, que nous allons ensuite développer :

• services virtualisés
• économies d’échelle
• rapidité

Les services virtualisés auxquels fait appel l’entreprise se découpent eux-mêmes en plusieurs catégories, dont la plupart peuvent être utilisées conjointement au sein d’un système.

Nous pouvons historiquement trouver d’abord la virtualisation du stockage des données avec les solutions de type SAN, NAS, voire DAS (du RAID donc). On ne sait plus dire a priori sur quel disque réside une donnée précise. Ces solutions comportent une forte composante hardware, à la différence de celles qui suivent.

Rapidement a émergé la virtualisation au niveau de l’OS du serveur, dont VMWare et XenSource se sont faits les champions depuis déjà plusieurs années. Ici on ne sait plus dire a priori quel OS est en train de s'exécuter sur un serveur.

Ce marché logiciel est loin d'être figé puisque Microsoft tente dernièrement une initiative dans ce domaine avec la solution Hyper-V et la participation au standard Open Virtual Machine Format (OVF), en collaboration avec Citrix (Xen).

Cette facette se prolonge désormais jusqu’à la virtualisation au niveau de l’OS du poste client. Ici on ne sait plus dire a priori sur quel OS tourne le poste client.

Plus récemment est apparue la virtualisation au niveau des serveurs d’applications, avec des solutions comme Oracle WebLogic Server Virtual Edition, HP Virtual Server Environment ou IBM WebSphere Virtual Enterprise. Dans ce cas on ne sait plus dire a priori sur quelle instance de serveur d’application s’exécute le traitement.

Enfin on peut citer dans la lignée la virtualisation de la localisation du traitement, par les technologies de type grille de calcul (grid computing). Cette fois on ne sait plus dire a priori sur quelle machine physique s’exécute le traitement.

Cette virtualisation s’est accompagnée en parrallèle de la montée en puissance de protocoles suffisamment efficaces et ouverts pour permettre à la fois leur diffusion massive dans les équipements et logiciels, mais également leur utilisation concurrente massive sur ses couches matérielles. Je veux parler bien sur ici des protocoles du W3C, http en particulier.

Cette capacité à dépasser les limites du réseau local, alliée aux investissements en infrastructures publiques et privées pour augmenter la bande passante, ont permis la mise en œuvre d’une force économique bien connue : l’économie d’échelle, qui est notre deuxième caractéristique.

En quelques petites années, ce qui pouvait être réalisé localement au sein d’une entreprise devenait brusquement accessibles pour plusieurs entreprises qui accédaient à ce service à distance, désormais externalisé. L’effet de volume entraîne très vite une mutualisation des coûts d’infrastructure et donc un service moins coûteux pour l’entreprise qui le consomme. Les acteurs de ce marché ont donc logiquement pris le chemin du marché de masse, en privilégiant les pratiques hautement industrielles.

La combinaison des solutions de virtualisation a donné l’image du service externalisé non-localisable a priori par l’utilisateur : c’est le cloud computing. Cette tendance du marché est lourde et soulève par essence des enjeux de concentration des acteurs pouvant prétendre à entrer sur ce marché (proposer une infrastructure mondiale sinon rien) et donc de potentiel de contrôle rapide des revenus par rente de situation (oserais-je parler de constitution de monopôle ?).

Pour réussir son adhésion auprès du grand public, les services déployés doivent tous obéir à des impératifs industriels, et qui tous se fédèrent autour du concept de rapidité, notre troisième caractéristique.

Tout d’abord c’est la rapidité à accéder au service et à son usage, pour les utilisateurs.

Aucune installation de composants dédiés sur le poste de travail n’est de plus nécessaire. Tout passe par le navigateur et ses plugins (y compris Flash et Gears).

Le plus souvent le fournisseur de services permet de s’affranchir de tout délai d’installation dans le système d’information de l'entreprise, bien que de la configuration puisse être nécessaire pour la mise en place d'un accès sécurisé. L’entreprise cliente bénéficie également d’une rapidité accrue du fait de l’intégration entre services externes qui serait déjà mise à disposition par les fournisseurs. Citons par exemple la récente intégration de Salesforce CRM avec Google Apps.

La rapidité c'est aussi maintenir dans la durée les excellents temps de réponse perçus de l'application, signes de sa performance.

Puis le service obéit à une logique sans faille de Mutualisation : c’est la rapidité à accepter de nouveaux clients, pour la production. Pour rentabiliser les infrastructures au plus vite, il fallait rassembler un très grand nombre d’utilisateurs, donc s’attaquer en priorité au marché grand public. C’est ainsi que naturellement sont conçues des solutions supportant en une instance de multiples contextes d’utilisation (multi-tenants en anglais), qui étaient la seule façon de répondre à très bas coût à la mise en service et à la maintenance de ces applications. C’est la facette du SaaS la plus structurante par rapport aux offres d’hébergement dédiées du service par les Application Service Providers.

Ensuite le service subit un constant Monitoring : c’est la rapidité à analyser les dysfonctionnements, pour l’exploitation. Une solution hébergée n’est viable que si elle dispose de puissants outils d’analyse et de reporting pour détecter les tendances d’utilisation et de comportement des clients. Grâce à çà, les évolutions seront plus en phase avec les pratiques des utilisateurs. Le vrai métier d’un acteur SaaS c’est de “tâter le pouls” de ses utilisateurs en quasi temps réel.

Enfin, le service s’accompagne d’Agilité : c’est la rapidité à évoluer et s’adapter au marché, pour le marketing. La conséquence de plusieurs des points précédents est qu’une solution SaaS doit faire preuve d’agilité dans l’évolution de la solution. Les développements sont incrémentaux, c’est le règne du Béta, de l’essai et de l’expérimentation permanents pour coller au plus prêt du marché et générer le plus d’innovations possibles.

Dans nos prochains billets nous explorerons, dans la continuité de ces caractéristiques proposées, les avantages et limites de cette mutation pour les applications d’entreprise. D’ici là vous pouvez lire mon billet sur Conscience Sociale à propos des enjeux concurrentiels sur la maîtrise de ces nouvelles plates-formes.

For those of us interested in using digital communications to open up participation in local democracy this is a welcome response to the consultation.  It would be wonderful if this was to lead to more councils starting their own petition sites, like Bristol have done.

You can view the consultation document here (PDF - opens in a new window)

 Based on my field research on mine action programs in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Sudan and extensive interviews with people with experience in other countries, I believe that in order to truly secure people from the threat of mines and UXO, demining programs must be guided by clear principles.  Based on, but expanded from, the 'Bad Honnef Framework', I believe mine action programs should be based upon:

1. Doing no harm
2. Protecting the vulnerable
3. Participation
4. Stewardship
5. Building peace

To read my discussion paper about this, click here.

A parody on capitalistic democracies’ elections

To remind ourselves what presidential candidates, political parties and their public speeches were thought for:

Liberal democracy is autonomous, sovereignty of the citizens to lay down the law on their own. And we refer here to concretely existing citizens, to one and to all, not to an abstract, unfindable "general will", bordering on the totalitarian. Paolo Flores d’Arcais: 11 Theses against Habermas

Standing for the ideal of democracy we would expect a representative to highly accept both, autonomy as well as the sovereignty of the citizens.

I wasn’t surprised to hear Obama ask for more troups to be sent to Afghanistan. I don’t appreciate on using every global topic to possibility to lay into some other country…

But I don’t want to get into a German’s reception of the topics for a possible position, try Victor Grossman.

Not only, that we found Obama using such obvious strategies to manipulate the crowd, as trying to create a joint concept on the enemy by underling the evil of communism(?), which by the way may not have been a great idea talking in front of Germans, who by now do better and better in becoming one nation and accepting the different ideas which influenced the once devided parts of our nation. He wasn’t even afraid of playing in fake applause over the speakers.

But what hurt me worst, and what I call every Germans’ duty to think about is the following:

Germany’s basic law sets the following Article:

Article 5

[Freedom of expression]

(1) Every person shall have the right freely to express and disseminate his opinions in speech, writing, and pictures and to inform himself without hindrance from generally accessible sources. Freedom of the press and freedom of reporting by means of broadcasts and films shall be guaranteed.There shall be no censorship.

So we allowed a US-Senator and presidential candidate to talk in our country.

To talk about freedom, about democracy…
And while he talks, a great example of how empty such words are today, takes place.

As Obama entered the stage and started his small play on “people of one world”,
a fellow citizen of our world, trying to express his opinion,
was carried away by the security-guard.

And that’s how it works.

Having them talk, as convincing as possible, not at all respecting the autonomy nor the sovereignty of the citizens, but being proud on the ability to manipulate the crowd.

Disrespecting every single human in the crowd, by not talking our power serious, makes them go the easy way: Telling us, whatever we want to hear and even at the same moment, right in front of our eyes: acting the other way around.

Stop yourself being fooled by “your” representatives. Use your freedom of expression.

And most important: NEVER accept [sic!]

Our mission is to give you more time, more power and greater opportunity for success through the use of an offshore professional doing time consuming tasks for you, while you sleep, to achieve your goals.

Friday the 18th of July 2008 was day one for our journey when we first had a full-time employee in the USA. By the end of this journey, in the year 2020, we should have created more than three million jobs. These include a million jobs for the offshore professional living in Vietnam, a million jobs for the American mom, and an additional one million jobs for professionals, which include executives, managers, programmers, designers and other positions.

An Ideal job for a stay-at-home mom should not cause more stress than already produced, and should also be a hobby that creates wealth. Yes, the best job for stay-at-home mom is the one that can put more bacon on the table in addition to what dad can, and maybe even more than him. How could this be? Read on.

Bacon is a cut of meat taken from the sides, belly, or back of a pig that has been cured, smoked, or both. One way to put bacon on the table is in fact working as a pig farmer. For modern moms, try velgie farming!

Outsourcing is contracting with another company or person to do a particular function. Offshoring is to do outsourcing overseas or in a separate country. At ownacoder.com, owning an elgi is having a lifetime relationship with an offshore worker, especially before college graduation. An elgi who lives in Vietnam is called a velgie. Raising a velgie means getting a college student in Vietnam to trust his future in the hands of his holder in the west, and, through ownacoder.com, allow his skills to be sold and thus owned in the open market across the globe.

A farmer is someone with an ownership interest in crops or livestock, and who provides land or management in their production. Someone who has ownership interest, and provides facilities or management in the production of velgies is also called a farmer. However this 'farmer' does not produce crops nor livestock, but rather human capital, specifically, in Vietnam. Velgie farming does not require land but a computer with internet connection.

Velgie farming should not be a job in the traditional sense of the word. A velgie farmer does not answer to any boss. Velgies are the employees and velgie farmers are the employers. Velgie farming is not a job. It is a hobby that generates cash, possibly a lot of it. Velgies are cash crops. How is it so? Read on.

It takes a village to raise a child. To raise a velgie, it takes more than just a village. To enable velgie farming you must first have a velgie homestead, which is a piece of real estate on the web where a velgie places his career portfolio. The person who owns this real estate is called a velgie landowner.

Velgies must be able to read and write English, however, in the earliest years of their career, they do not speak English well. Most velgies would prefer to be brought up by an American mom, herein referred to as a velgie mom. A velgie mom may raise several velgies. Without an agent such as a velgie mom, the velgie is not worth as much to a velgie user. A velgie mom can represent and speak out for the velgie, especially to the end velgie user.

The person who brings a velgie to the market is called a velgie provider. This person may be the one who just manages other providers.

The person who pays for a permanent use of a velgie is called a velgie holder. A velgie holder may own several velgies. You must carry a document called velgie title in order to prove that you own a velgie. All velgie titles are listed in the velgie registry. A velgie title goes with one and only one velgie.

The person or company that employs velgies is called a velgie user. The velgie holder has the right to decide who may be in control of the velgie for which duration of time. The person who manages velgies and velgie users is called a velgie manager. This person should preferably have experience doing project management.

The person or company that places an ad at a velgie homestead is called a velgie advertiser. Advertisers love to place their ads on velgie homesteads because the target audience includes all types of people with serious income: velgie landowners, velgie holders, velgie providers, velgie users, and last but not least, velgie moms.

In general, velgie landowners, velgie moms, and such people are collectively called velgie farmers. Anyone who has an ownership interest in velgies and provides land or management in their production is called a velgie farmer. Velgie users and velgie managers are not velgie farmers.

Velgie moms do not have added stress because they only speak for their velgies; they are not blamed for the lack of a quality product produced by the velgie, should the situation exist. Velgie farming is a good job for stay-at-home moms because it is a job free of stress.

What are velgies good for? Velgies are offshore people who are trained to carry out activities such as computer programming, web design, system analysis, software testing, research, etc. but, are generally, five to ten times less expensive than their counterparts in the USA.

Pairing up the American mom with the velgie is a great way double their value in the marketplace. Such a journey of two is an expression of social network.

The website that has all the functionality required to manage roles and responsibilities as suggested above is called a velgie system. Through financial incentives and otherwise, a good velgie system must always promote greater participation by everyone. Those who are outside want to join. Those who are inside want to do more.

The key difference between the velgie system and many other social networking system is that our social network does not just pay the bills, but also helps create family wealth. Wealth is what others want to pay for and most people would love to pay for it in order to control the least expensive offshore workforce.

Velgie users do not need to speak the Vietnamese language in order to take full advantage of an offshore professional doing time consuming tasks for you, while you sleep, to achieve your goals. Requirements for work, specified in the form of user stories, can be written in English, and the velgie system will translate them to help the velgie quickly understand what the customer expects.

A velgie mom may be able to put more bacon on the table than what can be provided by dad. That is because there is no limit as to how many velgies a mom can raise. Moreover, the mom may also use one of these velgies to raise even more velgies. In velgie farming, your crops are capable of handling other crops for you. This is what makes velgie farming more fruitful than other types of farming, and more rewarding than working in a traditional job, which is normally stressful.

A parent is now considering buying a velgie for his daughter who is a junior in high school. A high school student who owns a velgie will look at the world in a totally different light (must be 18 to own). As jobs move out of the country at an alarming rate, college students must now learn how to manage workers from faraway places. Owning a velgie provides an amazing educational experience.

If you decide that you do not want to deal with a velgie anymore, you can always put that velgie up for rent or even for sale. If a velgie is no longer able to work for you, the website ownacoder.com will provide the holder with another velgie. This is the difference between offshoring through ownacoder.com and other offshoring options such as India and Russia.

How should you raise a velgie? How should you raise your child? Answers to both questions are quite similar. The difference between a velgie and a child is that the child is not required to share the revenue created through business, and the social network, but a velgie is.

V123X2020: Our vision of one website, two countries and three million jobs by the year 2020 means a million jobs for Vietnam, a million jobs for the American mom, and a million new jobs for various professionals. Our mission is to give you more time, more power and greater opportunity for success through the use of an offshore professional doing time consuming tasks for you, while you sleep, to achieve your goals. Manage or be employed, you decide.

For my final project in Digital Campaigns, I have chosen to develop a social media strategy for COP15 in Copenhagen, Denmark in November/December 2009. For another assignment, I stumbled upon Cop15.dk/eng, the temporary Website for COP15. It is built on the Web 1.0 design that the Danish Foreign Service has used for 5-6 years. And to their defense, the new Website, they are developing, will hopefully include more Web 2.0 platforms than just the current RSS-feed.

The following is an excerpt but somewhat re-written version of my paper:

World leaders will assemble in Copenhagen and attempt to write the succeeding agreement to the Kyoto Protocol. It is a unique opportunity for Denmark to brand its progressive climate agenda and regain its reputation after the Cartoon Crisis in 2006.

However, it is a challenge to build an efficient organization and communications platform handling delegates from the 192 partnering countries, thousands of media outlets, NGOs, and other interested actors. It will be chaotic.  But a social media strategy will provide the tools and the directions to succeed in this chaos.

Exploring Social Media in Political Processes

Employing Web 2.0 platforms will represent a courageous and experimental strategy. Governments around the world have not yet embraced social media as businesses and NGOs have. It is also the case in Denmark, but a social media strategy should fit well in with the management skills of the Danish Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, and with Denmark’s tradition of being a progressive and pioneering country. Furthermore, UN in general has wide experience in using social media in the political process, which Denmark could build on (Garrett Graff, lecture, Summer 2008).

However, the question is how do ordinary citizens (or green influentials) get access to relevant information about COP15 and engage in the negotiations?

The Internet can be a “platform for informed, interactive politics, stimulating political participation and opening up possible avenues for enlarging decision making beyond the closed doors of political institutions” (Sey & Castells, 2008, p.225). On the other hand, the Internet, especially open source projects, is user-generated, and the actual influence or participation is by no means obvious.

Taken to an extreme, this would be direct democracy - eroding the current representative democracy in the Western world as many politicians probably fear. Dean’s campaign in 2003 and 2004 tapped into the Perfect Storm[1] and is the perfect example of an “extreme” social media strategy. Politicians have also been cautious about opening up the political process because it is time consuming, and it requires giving up some control. 

The challenge for COP15 and for political processes in general is “to find a model of Internet politics that captures the strength of the medium, while retaining control and organizational precision in the hand of politicians (Sey & Castells, 2008, p. 228). Furthermore, social media should be used to mobilize the allies of climate change to put pressure on world leaders in the participating countries.

It does pose a risk for Denmark to experiment with a new framework for political decision-making, but hosting COP15 is in itself a risk. And anyway the green influentials in the Web 2.0 landscape will be listening, talking, and connecting about climate change and COP15 anyway.

All in all, the goal is to build a Web 2.0 platform providing a framework for climate diplomacy and providing the target audience (green influentials) information about and access to the COP15 negotiations, thereby sustaining accountable and transparent negotiations.

The social media strategy could include:

3. Cop15Blog with sevaral voices like Tree Hugger, GristMill, and Daily Kos.

 4. The LinkedIn Group COP15 to sustain a professional network

 5. Flickr: I was there

 6. The COP15 Channel on YouTube featuring round ups and raw material.

 7. #COP15 – twittering during the conference like from Netroots Nation