This is one of two beaches behind (or beneath?) PR from the Beach. I can never understand how city beaches like this - Cheltenham Beach, North Shore - can be empty in this way, coming as I do from a UK background where the minute the sun hits, the beach teems with people, ice cream and umbrellas. The above picture reflects a busy Wednesday morning. If you think it looks empty, you should see some of the New Zealand beaches on the South Island that look out to the Pacific or cast your eye West into the waves of the Tasman Sea.
'May those who help the most win'
While reading up on the finer points of Android, I stumbled on Google's tenth birthday offering - Project10^100 - designed to encourage good ideas that can change the world. A very 'nice idea' about promoting 'nice ideas' and an obvious expansion of the TED concept which has been running for a considerable while now.
But...I was very, very surprised that the Google Gods of the Search Engine had made it all so hard to find! Search returns on the title are few and far between, the title is not one that snaps easily off the tongue or sticks in the mind - personally, their tag line of 'May those who help the most win' is more memorable. They have the obligatory viral YouTube video (silly not to, seeing as they own the channel, but at the time of writing, it had less than 1000 views) and all the details are available, but given that there is a $10m giveaway for the winning ideas it all seemed a bit under the radar. (I do appreciate that I may be one of the few people left in the world who thinks $10m is a lot of money. Whatever your view on this, $10m can certainly go a long way towards bringing good ideas to fruition.)
I did wonder if perhaps they didn't want that many people to find out about it, although I couldn't think why that would be the case. The organisation's reputation has taken a pretty significant bashing in recent months and as a brand, Google seems to be in danger of heading the same way as Microsoft, which for many years held the monopoly on the 'love them or loathe them, we can't work without them' user perspective. So, in our Google driven world, could this birthday contest be part of a move towards greater corporate social responsiblity? Will it make us feel warm and cuddly toward this web giant? Personally, I don't think so. The issues of trust, access and accountability need to be addressed first.
Yet, perhaps it is a start. So if you have a great idea, nip over and tell them. You only have until October 20 2008 to have a go. Put your thinking caps on, be creative, think up something wonderful to benefit humankind - unless of course, all $10m wouldn't be enough for your grand plan!