I recently read an article by the Associated Press about a Kenyan village Chief, Francis Kariuki, who uses Twitter to locate missing farm animals and children, to organize the village, and to keep residents safe. In one example in the article, thieves had broken into a school teacher’s home at 4 a.m. Kariuki posted a tweet and, within minutes, village residents gathered outside of the home and the thieves fled.

Kariuki has 300 followers, but he estimates that his tweets directly and indirectly reach thousands of residents. Many of the residents cannot afford smartphones, but they access tweets through a third-party mobile phone application.

Using Twitter saves a lot of time and money. “I no longer have to write letters or print posters which take time to distribute and are expensive,” Kariuki said to the Associated Press.

Kariuki also sends messages of hope, and he plans to use Twitter to promote peace during the upcoming presidential election. According to the Associated Press, it’s the first election since the 2007-08 post-election violence in which 1,000 people in Kenya died.

I’m constantly amazed by how people creatively use Twitter to better their lives and communities. What’s the most innovative way you’ve seen Twitter used?

Cuba has recently criticized Twitter for spreading rumors that Fidel Castro had died. This rumor became a trending topic on Twitter, which was also criticized by Cudbadebate,a state-controlled website.

Twitter has a clear policy to not mediate content and confirmed to Mashable that this policy was upheld in this instance.

This isn’t Twitter’ first rodeo (and likely won’t be its last) when it comes to upsetting government officials. This leads to the big question: Should Twitter monitor its content?

My personal answer is no. The beauty of Twitter is that it provides a channel for people to freely share information and content. If Twitter starts monitoring what people post, it will detract from what makes it great.

What do you think? Should Twitter mediate rumors and controversial content?

We’re proud to announce that one of our premier web projects, CenturyLink’s Business Markets Intranet, has been named as one of the World’s 10 Best Intranet sites for 2012!

As an unrelenting advocate for usable, functional and (of course) good looking websites, I’m especially proud of this recognition. The Nielson Norman Group is a leading user-experience research firm with worldwide name recognition among the web and user experience design community.  As a long time reader of Jakob Nielson’s Alert Box, it’s humbling to know that our hard work and dedication is going to be used as an example for other designers to learn from.

Peak has worked on the Business Markets Intranet since 2007, when we helped turn a meandering, hard-to-use and outdated collection of HTML files and broken links into a streamlined, user-friendly intranet site powered by a custom content management system powered by Ruby on Rails.

In 2010, the CenturyLink (then Qwest) team engaged us, in partnership with Denver-based EffectiveUI, to redesign the site, revamp the content, and create an even more engaging, task-oriented website for it’s Business Markets team. We delivered a new site that not only added powerful tools that educate users, but also recognizes and empowers them as valuable parts of the organization.

We’re extremely proud of the result.  It’s not easy to get recognition outside of the client organization for intranet sites since they’re obscured from the public by firewalls and passwords!

Business Markets Intranet Team: Bruce Black (CL), Brad Umbaugh (EUI), Jeff Hansen (CL), Brenda Van Der Steen (CL), Emily Puffett (CL), Timberlyn Wilson (CL), Rhia Bucklin (Peak), Rick Wangen (Peak), Shelley Washburn (EUI), and Michael Salamon (EUI).

The iPad has revolutionized and changed the way businesses operate.  Retail stores use them to check out customers. Hotels provide them to guests to order room service and check email. Restaurants use them to organize long wine lists. There are many smart ways that businesses can leverage iPads to be more customer-focused in a cost-effective manner. Using this technology in a clever way can become a competitive advantage for your business.

A study conducted by NPD Group shows that “nearly three quarters of U.S. small and medium businesses (SMB) with fewer than 1000 employees have plans to purchase tablets over the next 12 months, with the iPad being the most considered tablet among those firms planning an upcoming purchase.”

Obviously, this is bad news for tablet competition. The Amazon Kindle Fire has been the only tablet to compete with the iPad. However, its operating system is consumer-focused and it lacks hardware desirable for business use.

Microsoft is making a big tablet push next year, with plans to release the Windows 8 Tablet. Windows-based tablets have traditionally not fared well; however, it seems the upcoming tablet will be more fun and useful. Windows 8 is being developed to elegantly perform on both traditional computers and touch-based tablets. Most businesses use Microsoft software, so the new tablet could be an attractive option.

Do you think the Windows 8 Tablet will compete with the iPad? What are your tablet plans for 2012?

While watching a special screening of Mission: Impossible 4 the other day it occurred to me: the world needs villains. Everything needs a balance, the heroes cannot stand apart from average folks without confrontation of a villain. Villains don’t need to be bent on world-domination or be a danger to individuals. In business, we simply have our competition be the villain, the thing we’re trying to overcome.

Christopher Penn writes we need the “Big Bad” to establish a baseline of what not to do. He continues to highlight the idea that sometimes – as marketers – we are our own villain. One of my resolutions for next year is going to involve better planning of marketing campaigns and building better partnerships with like-minded folks. The better your network, the less likely you’ll become a villain: both to your network and to your own efforts.

Funny side-story: for Christmas this year a good friend of mine got me the book “How to Be a Villain” which has hilarious descriptions of terms, scenarios and situations compiled from years of film, stories and real-world examples. I’m about half-way through this riot of a book and so far nothing seems to highlight marketers or advertisers as villains. (Phew)

Do your business resolutions for next year include executing better campaigns, avoiding simple mistakes or destroying your competition? Do any of your resolutions include wearing a cape?