I saw this great article on the SnagIt blog that pointed to Dian's posting about how to protect web images using watermarks and the like. I have been a fan and user of SnagIt for many years now, even before being an instructional designer, and while I do not usually do this last step for my images, others may find this particularly useful.

How is this for empowering and protecting your hard work?

Seems Robert Scoble has a different interpretation of the Google power and do no evil message than I do. As I mentioned in my reply to his post, #42, perhaps doing no evil is open to interpretation, and what is clear to me is not that way to others.

I hope it is the other way around, at least when people judge my own work!

Now that I am thinking more about my Google post, I am thinking about Brin's regret. If that choice was "a net negative," why not change their own policy?

It seems Sergey Brin over at Google now regrets his company's involvement of censoring in China. The Guardian reports that the Google motto "Don't be evil" seems somewhat problematic regarding this situation. Brin is quoted as saying: "On a business level, that decision to censor… was a net negative."

So, censoring is negative for business, but it is still acceptable according to Google's Code of Conduct? This states (with the text in bold being my emphasis of their actual words):

Our informal corporate motto is "Don't be evil." We Googlers generally relate those words to the way we serve our users – as well we should. But being "a different kind of company" means more than the products we make and the business we're building; it means making sure that our core values inform our conduct in all aspects of our lives as Google employees.

The Google Code of Conduct is the code by which we put those values into practice. This document is meant for public consumption, but its most important audience is within our own walls. This code isn't merely a set of rules for specific circumstances but an intentionally expansive statement of principles meant to inform all our actions; we expect all our employees, temporary workers, consultants, contractors, officers and directors to study these principles and do their best to apply them to any and all circumstances which may arise.

The core message is simple: Being Googlers means striving toward the highest possible standard of ethical business conduct. This is a matter as much practical as ethical; we hire great people who work hard to build great products, but our most important asset by far is our reputation as a company that warrants our users' faith and trust. That trust is the foundation upon which our success and prosperity rests, and it must be re-earned every day, in every way, by every one of us.

So please do read this code, and then read it again, and remember that as our company evolves, The Google Code of Conduct will evolve as well. Our core principles won't change, but the specifics might, so a year from now, please read it a third time. And always bear in mind that each of us has a personal responsibility to do everything we can to incorporate these principles into our work, and our lives.

While business is business and revolves around increasing value for stockholders, I am still bothered by how they are interpreting this with their censorship. How is a statement of principles, even one which they rightly acknowledge evolves over time, aimed at one set of users (Chinese authorities) while the end-users (those who use the Google services themselves) are manipulated by finding changed results from the searches? 

Google claims, in Serving Our Users:

Google has always flourished by serving the interests of our users first and foremost. Our goal is to build products that organize the world's information and make it accessible to our users.

I suppose Google is selective in providing which information to which users. With Google dominating Web searches, at least in the US, I am increasingly concerned that Google will begin tampering with their censorship here as well for causes or sites or concerns or issues they want to promote. After all, their service is to use, so they do not technically owe end-users anything. They are free to organize "the world's information" in any way they choose. This has interesting implications for maintaining the power they now have, especially for those to whom they choose should benefit from it.

What is to stop them, as they now have a track record?

I love the new Monte character created for Northern Voice. Strange that I can relate so well with him; hopefully Weight Watchers will make a difference within the next four weeks before the conference!

I just stumbled across the link for the Social Media Club while looking for something else, and it just goes to show how the web can be used as a wonderful social activity, connecting people near and far. Looked pretty interesting, especially when I noticed a name that is strangely familiar - Howard Greenstein. Turns out he is one of the co-founders of this organization that just happens to have a meeting space here in New York. I know him as my director at New York University's School of Continuing and Professional Studies. Small world, especially since neither of us knew about the techie interests of the other.

Wonder if Howard knows I am traveling to Northern Voice especially to have spaghetti with Lee LeFever (among other things at the conference), as my Foundations of Training I class will be completed by then?

I saw this link on Presentation Zen today for a wonderfully postmodern film, Le Grand Content. This short film offers an interesting perspective and commentary on meaning-making and thinking along with the ubiquity of PowerPoint.

According to the authors:

Le Grand Content examines the omnipresent Powerpoint-culture in search for its philosophical potential. Intersections and diagrams are assembled to form a grand 'association-chain-massacre'. which challenges itself to answer all questions of the universe and some more. Of course, it totally fails this assignment, but in its failure it still manages to produce some magical nuance and shades between the great topics death, cable tv, emotions and hamsters.

I just registered for Northern Voice, the two-day, non-profit personal blogging conference that's being held at the UBC main campus in Vancouver on February 23-24, 2007. Glad Nancy at Full Circle Online Interaction Blog recommended it recently.

I remember reading about last year's conference and wished I could attend, so this year will not miss it!