EMEA: Crossing Borders at Microsoft
By Carrie Bogner, Senior Director of Citizenship, Online Services Group, Microsoft
I’ve been working in the IT business for more than 25 years now. It’s been a time of massive expansion in the availability and capability of technology for personal use. In the last 7 years my focus has been the online world and I’ve been lucky enough to witness and participate in some amazing uses of internet technologies to cross borders. I’d like to share a couple of ways I’ve been doing just that recently.
I grew up in Dodge City Kansas in the USA. My work takes me all around the world and I currently live in London. Much of my family remain in Kansas, but I’m not missing out on seeing my nieces and nephews grow up. Weekly web cam calls mean we’re in regular contact, sharing news and experiences and I get to play my part in our small family community no matter where in the world I find myself.
I’m also involved in a much much bigger global community that crosses borders to help child refugees – ninemillion (http://nine-million.spaces.live.com/). Through web sites, blogs, social networks, internet searches, online events and more, a global community of supporters are bringing the issue to the attention of the world and raising funds to provide education and sport opportunities for kids in refugee camps.
My job provides me opportunities to learn about and experience different cultures all around the world. When you cross borders, you get the chance to really appreciate the similarities and differences – and I get to see how they translate into the online world. We had some fascinating results from research last year that looked at uses of social networking around the world. Here are some highlights...
- In Brazil they are the most flirtatious, creating a very highly charged environment for social networking, and the most popular site there is called “All Cut”
- In China consumers are very etiquette driven, so if you update your site all your viewers must actually send a reply and if they don’t it’s considered rude
- In Canada it is heavily friend driven and migration has a big impact in that they’re staying in touch with their friends and family across the world
- In France it was quite distinctive in that it was much more about personal expression and blogging than about networking with people
- In the US they are beginning to see the emergence of Spaces and social networks as another form of entertainment
- In the UK consumers are seeing this emergence as a new form of social currency. Instead of handing out your mobile phone number to new friends, you would hand out your Windows Live Spaces address
I really believe there is so much our global community can gain from crossing borders through online services – broadening our horizons and building bridges between people and cultures in a way that was never before possible. But I also recognise that the internet and online services can be used for harm as well as good. It saddens me, but does not surprise me, that the worst of human-nature exists online, just as it does offline.
So I can’t stress enough how important it is that we all learn how to protect ourselves and our friends and families in the online world, just as much as we do in the offline world. We’ve got to learn what the risks are and educate ourselves and others about them.
Forewarned is forearmed as they say. Technologies such as phishing filters, content filters and contact management tools can help to protect people. But as with many things in life, learning to behave safely is just as vital, if not more so.
Here are some resources Microsoft has been proud to support, which parents, children and educators may find useful:-
• http://www.getsafeonline.org/ (English)
• http://www.websafecrackerz.com/ (English)
• http://www.internauten.de/ (German)
• http://www.acosoescolar.info (Spain)
• http://www.surfsafe.nl/ (Dutch)
You can also find information about online safety and security on the Microsoft web site at www.microsoft.com/protect
Safer Internet Day is a great day to show how committed we are to enabling people of all ages to travel the online globe as safely as possible. Insafe is providing a tremendous facility for people and organisations to combine their efforts in this area and we’re thrilled to be involved. Through partnerships, technology, educational materials, policies and enforcement, we can make a difference.
So if you do one thing today, on Safer Internet Day, do something to educate yourself or someone you know about online safety. That’s what I’m going to be doing!
My utmost respect and best wishes to everyone working to make the internet a safer place.
Carrie
Comments
The descriptions / comparisons of Internet interests and usage among the various countries is so interesting. I would like to add that in the U.S. Microsoft has also been an important supporter of i-SAFE Inc. - most notably in the development of its iLEARN online, a no-cost online Internet safety education programme for educators, parents, law enforcement, and "fifty +" adults; which also includes a special section for International participants; as well as a corresponding International curriculum that can be customized for individual localities.
How wonderful it is that Insafe is providing us this opportunity to share our many resources and learn from one another!
Carolyn
Posted by: Carolyn Walpole | February 6, 2007 05:04 PM
Great text!
About Brazil's most popular online community, the right name is Orkut, available at www.orkut.com.
Posted by: Josafá C. | February 7, 2007 02:09 PM