Māori Language Week + Google

In New Zealand this week (26 July - 01 August 2010) is Maori Language week and I assume that everyone reading this blog will somehow, no matter how small, already be involved! As you are readily aware I have a large "online world" and so thought it would be appropriate for me to spread the word and get involved online.

Fistly, I went to the Te Taura Whiri i te reo Māori – the Māori Language Commission - website, http://www.koreromaori.co.nz/, and checked out the options for me which turned out to be full and easily put to use - expect me to get better and better at using the basics over the week (please, let me know if I'm mispronouncing anything :-)

I'm going to try and permanently translate my online bios/abouts such as @MiramarMike, Facebook, Google Profile ... let me know if I've missed any.

And finally, being a heavy user I thought I'd check out what they offer in way of support for te reo. Of course there has been the Māori version of the main NZ Google search site for some time (release post). Go to http://www.google.co.nz/ and click the "Google.co.nz offered in: Māori" link below buttons:

I also thought I might be able to add a "translate this page into Māori" opton to my website either via the toolbar or a gadget embedded onto the site but (Google Translate tools and Resource), unfortunately, Māori is not a language offered ... yet. Come on Google NZ, get working.

They do support Māori in their Google Translator Tookit which I'd urge those that can utilise to crack in and start using - read their blog post about the release.

Finally, the obvious question - how do I translate this page in Māori - leave me a comment

Collaboration At Its Finest

Over on the WaveAdept blog (subscribe) you'll find two posts from me around "collaboration"

Online Collaboration On A Document – A Great Story

Sometime ago a few of the WaveAdept team were over in Sydney working hard (that’s our story and we’re sticking with it!). Whilst over in the Great West Island we stumbled over an opportunity that we believed the team really should have a crack at … but we only had an afternoon to gather our thoughts, write up an RFP* and get it out to the relevant people.

... read the full article >>>

The 3 C’s – Communication, Consultation and Collaboration

You’ve got the technology (be it Google Apps, SharePoint or whatever) and your IT people have integrated it, patched it, set you up and handed it over… now what?

Well, for a start, sit back and congratulate yourself that your organisation is:

• Saving costs (NZ$2million per year for NZ Post with their Google Apps roll-out, and they’ve just started)
• Freed up your IT staff to concentrate on your company’s particular ‘secret sauce’
• No longer have to wait to benefit from the latest features
• Instantly given access ‘anywhere, any time and (almost) any device’

Really, celebrate that you have switched from old to new.

But once the party is over you’re going to have to get back to work getting the true benefits from your new toolset.

... read the full article >>>

#tweet4yourteeYouTube Mission + NZ Google Barcamp

The Tweet 4 Your Tee guys are pretty bloody awesome because not only do they manage to arrange a tweetup for their promo video but they SPONSOR THE NZ GOOGLE BARCAMPS!!

Thank you.

And of course I have my @MiramarMike t-shirt from the Wellington @NZGoogleBarcamp.
Get yours for the Auckland event (Sat 21st Aug) and @Tweet4yourtee donate NZ$10 dollars to the event!

Now, watch the video to see how many local Twitter peeps you can spot (@smrtgirl right at the front there ;-). Then, get over to their online store and buy yourself a T-shirt with your @Twitter name on it.

The Real Life Social Network v2

A common sense, obvious and leading presentation from Paul Adams who is the "Senior User Experience Researcher" at Google. If you want to know about Facebook's weakness it's the word "friend" - and we all know it, it's been the butt of jokes for ever and it's the reason we all feel uncomfortable using it - what is a "friend"?

The Real Life Social Network v2

View more documents from Paul Adams.

Paul's "about":

Senior User Experience Researcher at Google. I’m the research lead for sociability, and I work with teams building products and features for the social web. I’ve previously worked as a User Experience consultant at Flow (working with the BBC, The Guardian, Vodafone, London Underground, and others), and as an Industrial Designer at Dyson