ErinIs.com

Big news out of China this week is that the government has once again cut off access to Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and other social media sites in preparation for the 20th anniversary of  the Tiananmen Square protests. You can read here, here and here to learn more.

Which makes me wonder why this awesome campaign by Ogilvy (Frankfurt, Germany) for the International Society for Human Rights does not include the President of China, Hu Jintao? (Via)

Iran

Cuba

Venezuela

In the time I devote to New Business I’m often scouring for propsect leads in the public sector and am amazed at the types of projects that the government has to bid out.

My favorite from this week was an RFP (request for proposal) on Redacting Services. Redacting is basically going through and removing sensitive information before publication or sharing of that information. Its common practive in legal documents or company information to remove data before sent to the public. 

Redacting can be accomplished with a sharpie and a copy machine. Sharpie out the pieces you don’t want viewed, then make a copy to ensure the words cannot be seen through the other side of the page or through the ink. I’m sure many of you are thinking, but the goverment must have a more sophisticated method for removing sensitvie data, after a couple months working on gov’t contracts I can assure you thats not the case. 

I kind of want to bid on the redacting contract as an indepent contractor. Charge $500 an hour and the cost of my sharpies to complete the simple, mindless process.