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Expanding our commitments to supplier diversity
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Expanding our commitments to supplier diversity

At Google we recognize our responsibility to promote diversity, equity and inclusion in every part of our company. From our efforts and investments around economic recovery and skilling led by the Grow with Google team to the workforce development initiatives funded by Google.org, we’ve designed programs to help bring greater opportunities to underserved communities; a few weeks ago, we announced a new initiative that aims to improve the earning potential of 20,000 Americans by $1 billion.

We want to help build an inclusive economy that works for everyone. This extends within our company, and accounts for the economic impact that we can have when we buy goods and services. That’s why we’re providing access, development and investment in diverse-owned companies through our supplier diversity program.

While our supplier diversity efforts began nearly a decade ago, in the summer of 2020 we committed to do more. We ended 2021 surpassing our first milestone to spend $1 billion with diverse-owned suppliers by spending nearly $1.5 billion.

This year, we’re setting a new goal: In 2022, we aim to grow our spending with diverse suppliers to $2.5 billion while expanding our program beyond the U.S. to include suppliers from historically underrepresented groups around the world.

Building a pipeline for the industry

Maximizing our spend is just one piece of our supplier diversity program. We’re also making additional investments in mentorship and training to help diverse leaders at small and medium-sized companies grow their businesses. Through our Google Tuck Digital Excellence Program, we’re providing resources that help develop digital skills and build an online presence. By the end of this year, we will have graduated more than 425 diverse-owned business leaders and awarded $750,000 in scholarships as part of this program.

The impact of our work

Across Google, our teams have been working to bring our supplier diversity investments and commitments to life.

Speedy access to cash and capital is often critical for many of our diverse suppliers. Through our Accelerated Payments Program, we’re ensuring eligible suppliers are paid within 15 days. This provides companies like Chime Solutions, located in Morrow, Georgia, Philadelphia-based Ladipo Group and Miami-based Republica Havas with more working capital to keep their businesses running.

In our work with San Ramon, California-based R Mo Diversity Solutions, we’ve established a Certification Access program that provides financial support and removes the administrative burden many suppliers face when pursuing diversity certification. As a result, we’ve seen businesses like C-Suite coach in New York — who we contract with for our Grow with Google Digital Coaches program — to secure NMSDC, WBENC and NGLCC certification.

We’re continuing to find innovative ways to remove barriers, this includes encouraging existing suppliers to partner and create alliances with diverse-owned businesses. We’re excited to see companies like CD Moody, Black-owned construction company based in Atlanta, in partnership with Holder Construction become a major supplier for data center projects in Virginia and Ohio. As a supplier partner for our data center retrofit program, CD Moody now has access to a wide range of data center construction opportunities with other companies beyond Google.

More work to be done in 2022

True progress means historically underrepresented businesses have increased access to equitable opportunities that grow their businesses. We will continue our work to drive positive social and business impact.

We are proud of exceeding our first spend goal and the programs we have created to elevate diverse suppliers. Yet we know we have more to do and look forward to continuing that work and increasing our impact through our mentoring, development and partnership programs, especially as we expand our program globally. We’re excited about the opportunities and innovation that we can bring to this space as we continue this journey alongside our suppliers.

10 Marzo 2022
Come vedere Twitter, Facebook, BBC e altri siti dalla Russia: Tor
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Come vedere Twitter, Facebook, BBC e altri siti dalla Russia: Tor

Twitter è ufficialmente bloccato in Russia dal 4 marzo scorso, secondo l’agenzia d’informazione russa Interfax, e lo stesso vale anche per Facebook. Questo rende difficile per chi si trova nel paese mantenere i contatti e ricevere informazioni attraverso queste piattaforme.

Ma Twitter ha attivato un accesso tramite Tor che permette di eludere questo blocco restando ragionevolmente anonimi. Questo accesso funziona anche per altri paesi che bloccano Twitter, come la Cina, l’Iran o la Corea del Nord. 

L’annuncio di quest’attivazione è stato fatto piuttosto in sordina, tramite un tweet di Alec Muffett, uno degli informatici che ha collaborato con Twitter per creare l’accesso protetto e anonimo. Twitter ha semplicemente aggiunto la rete Tor alla versione inglese dell’elenco dei browser supportati, con molta discrezione.

Per accedere a Twitter in questo modo è necessario procurarsi per prima cosa l’applicazione Tor Browser, che è un programma di navigazione Web ad alta sicurezza e privacy: quello che molti conoscono perché si usa per accedere al cosiddetto dark web. Tor Browser si trova presso Torproject.org ed è disponibile gratuitamente per Windows, macOS, Linux e Android in numerose lingue (per iOS c’è Onion Browser). Chi non ha accesso a Internet può ricevere Tor su qualunque supporto digitale. 

Esiste anche una versione completamente autonoma di Tor, denominata Tails, che si tiene su una chiavetta USB e non richiede di installare nulla. Se si avvia il computer con la chiavetta inserita, si attiva Tails, che contiene Tor; se si avvia il computer senza chiavetta, parte il sistema operativo normale, ossia Windows, macOS o Linux che sia. Questo consente di evitare di lasciare sul proprio computer tracce visibili della presenza di questi software, che potrebbero essere considerati sospetti. Tails si trova gratuitamente presso tails.boum.org.

Una volta installato Tor o avviato Tails (che a sua volta avvia Tor), per accedere a Twitter scavalcando filtri e blocchi si immette questo link, che come tutti i link di questo genere è chilometrico:

https://twitter3e4tixl4xyajtrzo62zg5vztmjuricljdp2c5kshju4avyoid.onion/

Usare Tor o Tails permette di accedere anche a Facebook a questo link:

https://www.facebookwkhpilnemxj7asaniu7vnjjbiltxjqhye3mhbshg7kx5tfyd.onion/

oppure questo per dispositivi mobili:

https://m.facebookwkhpilnemxj7asaniu7vnjjbiltxjqhye3mhbshg7kx5tfyd.onion/

come annunciato a maggio 2021 da Facebook.

Alec Muffett ha pubblicato inoltre su Github un vasto elenco di stazioni radio accessibili tramite Tor, come la BBC, Deutsche Welle, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in numerose lingue. L’elenco include anche link Tor ai motori di ricerca, a Protonmail e al cosiddetto secure drop di Bloomberg, Al Jazeera, Financial Times e di molte altre testate internazionali. Il secure drop è un sito al quale è possibile inviare documenti, video o immagini in maniera sicura e protetta.

La BBC offre inoltre trasmissioni in onde corte su 15.735 kHz e 5875 kHz, ricevibili in Ucraina e in buona parte della Russia anche senza connessione a Internet dalle 22 a mezzanotte (ora dell’Ucraina).

La BBC ha inoltre attivato una pagina apposita di informazioni su come accedere alle sue trasmissioni via Internet e su come ricevere in modo sicuro Tor e Onion Browser se non è possibile raggiungere l’App Store di Apple o al Play Store di Google per scaricare queste applicazioni. Sempre la BBC segnala e mette a disposizione anche un’altra app, Psiphon, che consente di eludere filtri e blocchi. E molti utenti russi stanno installando software di tipo VPN nel tentativo di restare connessi al resto del mondo e sapere cosa sta accadendo realmente.

Nessuno di questi sistemi per aggirare le censure è perfettamente sicuro e infallibile, e quindi vanno tutti adoperati con molta prudenza, però intercettarli o bloccarli richiede un impegno di risorse tecniche e umane che potrebbe rivelarsi insostenibile, soprattutto se vengono usati da tantissime persone.

Una volta tanto, insomma, il dark web si dimostra utile per scopi positivi, ben diversi da quelli per i quali è conosciuto normalmente.

Fonti aggiuntive: Engadget, The Guardian, Il Post.

 

Scritto da Paolo Attivissimo per il blog Il Disinformatico. Ripubblicabile liberamente se viene inclusa questa dicitura (dettagli). Sono ben accette le donazioni Paypal.
10 Marzo 2022
B2BContentGatingImageA600w
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To Gate or Not to Gate? Changing Trends in B2B Marketing

Open garden gate image.

Open garden gate image.

Q: How many lead gen marketers does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: Please fill out the form below and we will email you the punchline.

The great gate debate continues to rage throughout the B2B marketing world. What once was a landscape full of sparse landing pages with lead gen forms has become an ocean of content. But still, there’s little consensus about how to get the most value out of what we marketers create.

Does ungating content devalue it? Does gating content make it inaccessible to the audience you’re most trying to reach? We all agree that getting people’s contact information is a value exchange. The debate is whether we offer the value first, or we demand that the reader do so.

Of course, there is no one answer to these questions. No two B2B audiences are the same, so a one-size-fits-all approach won’t work. But it’s true that audience expectations as a whole are changing, and we need to change with them.

Here are some of our gating best practices.

1 — Match Your Tactics to Your Goals

The biggest question about gating is the simplest one: Is this content intended to raise awareness, boost thought leadership, or grow your audience? Then gating is a bad choice. Top-of-funnel content should, generally speaking, be as widely accessible as possible.

However, if your goals are mid-to-bottom funnel, then gating might make sense (more on that later). This means content for folks who are actively seeking a solution or evaluating vendors. These folks are in the market for useful content that helps make that purchase decision, and gating that content makes sense.

When you dig a little deeper, though, it’s not just about gated vs. ungated. It’s about how much content you gate, which content in the campaign should go behind that lead gen form, and how you bring the right audience to the content. With that in mind…

[bctt tweet=”“It’s not just about gated vs. ungated. It’s about how much content you gate, which content in the campaign should go behind that lead gen form, and how you bring the right audience to the content.” — Joshua Nite @NiteWrites” username=”toprank”]

2 — Think Bigger Appetizers and Smaller Entrees

Let’s say your organization just sponsored some hefty original research. You know there’s a ton of intrinsic value in that research for your audience. The old-school practice would be to put all of it behind a gate, with just a few stats to whet people’s appetites.

There’s so much free content available now, though, that you have to offer more value before you ask for that contact information. For example, our client Prophix made a long-scroll, content-heavy power page to support their original research: The 2020 CFO Benchmark Report. With influencer content, plenty of stats and some truly gorgeous charts and graphs, the page is a destination unto itself. But for those ready for a next step, the page also directs folks to download the whole report as a PDF, or to contact Prophix for a demo.

Then there’s Content Marketing Institute, which puts out an exhaustive report on B2B marketing benchmarks every year. This past year, they published in conjunction with MarketingProfs and offered the entire report completely ungated, in easily embeddable and shareable format. These folks know that a thought leadership piece like this is worth more the more people see it. CMI’s annual report has made their name synonymous with content marketing, and that’s worth more than the leads they might capture from a gated report.

3 — Don’t Lock Up Your Influencers

In case you haven’t noticed, influencer marketing is one of our agency specialties. We love to work together with B2B influencers to create awesome content. We want to make it as easy as possible for influencers to share the great stuff we make together — which means ditching the gate if at all possible.

B2B thought leaders are going to be more enthusiastic about linking their audience straight to content, rather than to a landing page with a form to fill. 

I can’t think of a more compelling example than our client Demandbase’s recent Smarter GTM™ comic. This is a substantial, visually stunning, influencer-packed piece. And there’s not a gate in sight. Demandbase’s goal for this piece was to raise awareness of their new offering and establish thought leadership. So it made perfect sense to keep it ungated, even though it’s a ton of great content.

[bctt tweet=”“B2B thought leaders are going to be more enthusiastic about linking their audience straight to content, rather than to a landing page with a form to fill.” — Joshua Nite @NiteWrites” username=”toprank”]

4 — Add More Value Behind the Gate

If we’re giving away the good stuff up front, what should we be gating? Look for ways to add additional utility to the content. Prophix did a great job at this with their Digital Transformation in Finance page. They created three mini-assets that spoke to specific audience segments, then embedded CTAs to each one in its relevant section. This way, Prophix is maximizing views to the report page, while also offering a lead-capturing next step for those who want it.

You don’t have to go the lengths that Prophix did to add value, of course. It can be as simple as offering a PDF download of a web-based asset, for portability and printability. Or you could offer a calculator, checklist, or other useful tool. 

5 — Less Gatekeeping, More Great Content

None of this is to say that you should never gate content, of course. If you have a bombshell industry report with insights that will knock people’s socks off, you may be able to make the value proposition. But most marketers will see better results in top-of-funnel content if it’s freely available. 

My advice: Give away the good stuff and treat gated content like a dessert, not a main course. Audience expectations have changed, and in the all-out war for people’s attention, a gate can be a fatal flaw for your content.

Check out Lane Ellis’ post for more advice on B2B marketing in 2022.

The post To Gate or Not to Gate? Changing Trends in B2B Marketing appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog – TopRank®.

9 Marzo 2022