MobileActive.org

Participatory sensing technologies could improve our lives and our communities, but at what cost to our privacy?They place calls, surf the Internet, and there are close to 4 billion of them in the world. Their built-in microphones, cameras, and location awareness can collect images, sound, and GPS data. Beyond chatting and texting, these features could make phones ubiquitous, familiar tools for quantifying personal patterns and habits. They could also be platforms for thousands to document a neighborhood, gather evidence to make a case, or study mobility and health. This data could help you understand your daily carbon footprint, exposure to air pollution, exercise habits, and frequency of interactions with family and friends.

This compendium of articles (available at a cost) attempts to critically investigate the use and utility of mobile phones in Africa. Contributors include Nathan Eagle who writes about ‘Economics and power within the African telecommunication industry’,  Amanda Atwood’s report on Kubatana’s experiences in Zimbabwe setting up mobiles as a means of sharing news outside of government propaganda, to Bukeni Waruzi’s essay on collecting data on children’s rights violations in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2004.  SMS Uprising is published by Fahamu, a British-based organization with a focus on information services for Africa. For a critique of the book see our aticle here.

To counter the Zimbabwean government’s tight grip over the traditional media, activists integrated old fashioned tactics of leaflets, graffiti, and small covert meetings with electronic media: short wave radio, pocket sized video cameras, digital cameras, fax machines, the Internet and email.

An early adopter of this mix of ICTs was Kubatana.net, a locally based non-profit which became an important aggregator of civic and human rights information on Zimbabwe. Its free online archive, established in 2001, offered articles, reports, documents and interviews with much of the information sourced from local civic organisations and international watch dogs. Its electronic NGO directory made civil society organisations accessible at a time when contact details were extremely fluid. Its email newsletter mailing list kept thousands of ordinary Zimbabweans regularly informed of events, opportunities and newly added resources to the web site. And its early adoption of SMS proved crucial to keeping Zimbabweans informed during the critical 2008 elections.

The use of email by marketers to target audiences has been in serious use for the past 8 years. Equally as long, has been the use of SMS (short message service) or “texting” as generation Y so affectionately adopted that term. SMS has been in use in all parts for the world as a marketing, commerce and communication medium from everything to purchasing sodas from a vending machine to get stock tips and sports scores. Wide spread adoption in the North American market only started to pick up in the past  three years as businesses started realized the SMS was both a simple means to reach the minds and hearts of “handy” users while providing a cost effective means to manage brand equity, marketing communications and build a loyal customer following. With almost every type of business using SMS to grab customers or audiences, few know how to integrate SMS as part of a concerted marketing or CRM strategy to grow their business and generate ROI (Return On Investment). This document will touch on the key criteria for selecting an SMS vendor when looking for expertise to help your enterprise make better decisions on reaching and building an audience.

(Note: While targeting a commercial audience, some good tips for NGOs and nonprofits here as well)