Computer Meltdown

Over the last month, my darling computer has slowly gone to an eternal rest. At first, the battery was lasting for shorter and shorter periods. Then it was suddenly shutting down. Repeatedly. Then in addition it did not allow me to watch video.  At some point, my lap-top was more like a unreliable desk-top. And now since a few days it does not start at all. I am missing everything about it and trying to adjust to a work computer with a different operating system for now.

A blog related challenge is that I always attach pictures to my blog posts and most of my pics are now locked up in a hard drive I cannot access (no worries, I have back up). For now, that means posts without pictures (and with a slightly sad undertone).

My darling computer, you are missed!

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Blogs I Read: Nana Kofi Acquah – Africaphotographer

In this series, I am recommending my favorite blogs. This week, I’d like to share with you Nana Kofi Acquah and his blog: Africaphotographer

My friend and BloggingGhana member Nana Kofi calls himself a “storytelling photographer”, a description that is spot on. Maybe with the addition of “one of the best photographers in West Africa”.  Nana Kofi is not your ordinary camera guy as he was an English major in university, worked as a writer and only later took up photography. This makes for an individual who’s aim is to tell a story, choice of medium is secondary. Many times this interestingly leads to extraordinarily beautiful frames, often with movement in them, full of humor, highlights that grab your attention, or in the studio shoots a quiet – almost meditation like – stillness much more than a “frozen moment”.

Personally, I appreciate that he is not the kind of photographer that lets his photos alone tell the story. Nana Kofi Acquah does not hesitate to complement his photos with words, expressive titles or even long essays! Many times these words add a distinct political dimension that assures the viewer of that a photo is not decoration. A photo is a story.

An example of such a photo essay is Nana Kofi Acquah’s recent post Africa Will Rise. Africa is Rising.

 

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BloggingGhana Celebrates Press Freedom Day

Recently, BloggingGhana was invited to the Press Freedom Day event organized by the Ghana Journalists’ Association (GJA).

Our executive Nii Ayertey Aryeh, represented us at the event and here is the video evidence.

“We as bloggers recognize the importance of guarding the press freedom we enjoy today… We have a keen interest in putting Ghanaian stories online”

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Bloggforum 2012 : Swedish Blog Event

After just having posted photos from last week’s BlogCamp 2012 in Ghana, I thought this was pretty interesting. Came across this photo from a blog conference in Sweden, Bloggforum 2012. So this is what blogging events looks like in Sweden where blogging seems to predominantly be a female thing!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a photo of the speakers. One of my favorite Swedish bloggers Underbaraclara spoke about Blogs and Business, she is the tall brunette second from left. Pic borrowed from Underbaraclaras blogpost on the event.

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BlogCamp Ghana 2012 : A Report

I am still recovering from Saturday’s BlogCamp12 event at AITI-KACE. So many people! So many interesting people! So much fun! 

As the founder of BloggingGhana, I knew about the scale of the event, but as I have not been directly involved in the preparations I had somehow not expected the massive interest for blogging in Ghana! I was scheduled to be the opening speaker, first thing in the morning, with a short welcoming speech. For a Saturday morning with a Ghanaian crowd, I hadn’t really expected people to be present… but when entering the room, it was almost full!

Kafui writes a very detailed account including his highlights, but I like how he – just like me – was overwhelmed!

 Almost 400 participants ‘invaded’ the venue — the burning passion and quest for knowledge was simply overwhelming.

I had awakenings, epiphanies and inspirations throughout the event.

Ofoli-Kwei got the push he needed to start up his own blog,

 I’ve spent many a night brooding over the idea of having my own blog but the like we say in Ghana the ”vim” has never been enough.
But then I attended Blogging Ghana’s #blogcamp12 and the vim level shot up like crazy!

Nina enjoyed the break-out session on Women in Social Media,

At first we weren’t sure how many of us would be there, so we rearranged chairs into a small circle, which we enlarged a couple of times as more joined.  Although sometimes shyly, and often very quietly, participants started expressing their fears and concerns about women blogging and what they should/could talk about.

In house poet AntiRhythm summarized the event like this:

 Imagine my sweet surprise on seeing so many still-growing minds with yards of yen for social medial relevance at BlogCamp 2012; relevance as content creators and catchers too. Ghana’s rising the right way – led by the youth.

For more reactions, see the Twitter hashtag #BlogCamp12. Pics to come.

Now BloggingGhana has to quickly recoup and think about how we can harness this enormous interest for social media in Ghana! Thanks to all who came and made this day a loud-sounding voice of  a new generation! 

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BlogCamp 2012 – Let’s Go!

The groups of bloggers in Ghana I  belong to  is tomorrow doing our first major event! BlogCamp 2012! It is terribly exciting!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hence, tomorrow I expect to

  1. get up early (I’m the first speaker)
  2. meet some interesting people
  3. introduce some of them to BloggingGhana
  4. learn more about blogging
  5. get inspired to create more local content
Follow me on Twitter tomorrow, @kajsaha for a live version. Will also post in this space!

See you tomorrow!

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Blogs I Read: 3 Swedish Blog Entrepreneurs

Underbara Clara

Clara is THE blogger in Sweden. She is typically Swedish in that she loves nature and works with media. Some of her topics seem contradictory, but Underbara Clara ties them together in a “modern Swedish media mother”-kind of way.

Keywords: Feminist, recipes and fashion, sustainable living, children, countryside.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Elsa Billgren

If Underbara Clara represents Swedishness and everyday living in the countryside, Elsa Billgren blogging for Swedish Elle, is her opposite. Her life embodies glamour. It is high heels, restaurant brunches, downtown apartments and beautiful friends.

Keywords: Champagne, Oysters, Vintage shopping, Stockholm by night and red lipstick.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Onekligen

Lisa Bjärbo is an author, something-in-publishing, a vegetarian and a mother of two and her blog is about all of that. With humor!

Keywords: Children, books, freelance, whats-for-dinner, irony.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photography plays an important role in the three blogs discussed above and serves as inspiration for us who reads their blogs religiously. These blogs are extremely popular in Sweden and these entrepreneurs makes a living off their blogs, either through adverts on the blog and/or the branding she creates for herself through her blog – with spinn-offs like books, magazine articles, radio shows, TV appearances etc.

Reading their well-written, beautiful and entrepreneurial blogs provide the best possible dream-away-kind-of-entertainment for this blogger in Ghana!

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Blogs I Read: Shiloh /Holli Holdsworth

Looking for an online getaway? Follow blogger extraordinaire, Holli Holdsworth, on the journey of her life (as in she sold it all, bought a boat and will now see the world!)

The blog is SV Shiloh – notes from the boat.

Holli kept a much read blog writing out of Ghana, and in her last post she writes beautifully about her host country for 16 years:

Ghana raised me from the blinding grip of naiveté, helped mold me, open my sheltered eyes, gave me a new world in which to raise a family and learn some heart piercing lessons about love and loss.
Ghana has been everything to me – from a highschool bully to my tour guide, my big sister, a boss you can never quite please.

Let’s see what Holli will say about the world!

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GhanaDecides, iRegistered and Ghana Biometric Voter’s Registration

Participants at the Ghana Decides and iRegistered Campaign Launch

Over the last couple of years, I have been telling you about the growth of network of bloggers I belong to. The network started with eight bloggers and have over the years grown to include about 150 blogs, a website and many connections and friendships. This year, we are aiming higher!

We had our first meeting in July 2008, sent a blogger to Copenhagen Climate Change Summit in 2009, had our first international guests in August 2009, blogged on Obama’s visit and in 2011 we registered as an association. Earlier this year, the project group that had been working towards finding funding towards a project to create awareness and promote voting in Ghana had some good news, we had received funding from STAR-Ghana. The project is called GhanaDecides and aims at bringing the Ghanaian election 2012 online using social media.

This past Saturday, the same day as the biometric voter’s registration started, the GhanaDecides project had their launch. We also outdoored the iRegistered-campaign to spread information about voter’s registration.

I feel so happy and proud!

Follow the project on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and the GhanaDecides-website. Read also fellow blogger Sena Rick’s post

And do register to vote!

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BloggingGhana for Social Media Minds in Ghana

Yesterday, I met with the best social media minds of Ghana. Some 15-20 of us in BloggingGhana  had our monthly meet-up (Are you a blogger in Ghana? Sign up to join us here).

Last year, just before I left Ghana, we registered the network called GhanaBlogging that has been meeting since 2008. We felt it was time to move to the next step. Actually, we were rather forced to do so due to the massive interest in our group. Now, BloggingGhana (BloGh for short)is our registered name, so GhanaBlogging is history as you are not allowed to register bodies that start with the country’s name in Ghana. We have an exiting year ahead that I surely will write more about on this blog over the months to come.

But back to yesterday, I can happily report the year started well for us. We had great turnout, high level of energy in the group ans most importantly we had some extremely fruitful and some hrm… more fun-oriented discussions. 

Ps. After the meeting there was a little discussion on Twitter (seach for #BloGh) and I think Nana Fredua-Ageyman‘s comment captured something vital about the organization:

“one thing about #blogh is the camaraderie. Everyone behaves like he or she knows you before.”

I think that also shows in the photo Edward Tagoe took.

 

 

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My Blogging Year 2011

Photo: Mattias Wiggberg

It is getting late. The year is almost ending. The time has come for bloggers to summarize the year. We all do it differently; I enjoyed  MsAfropolitan’s love letter, the book lists that hyper-readers Accra Books and things and A Fork in the Road shared and Africa Is A Country’s West African club hits!

My summary of the blogging year 2011 might not be possible to dance to, still here it is:

The year started out on a strong note. In January, I learned about Free and Open Source Software for Academics and analysed the Ghanaian “happiness culture“.

During February, I realized  in Swedish media Ghana is often portrayed like a success, economically, democratically and technologically. A more recent text buttressing my point is the top African success stories 2011 at Connected Africa.  This month I also celebrated my 30th birthday and my 500th blog post!

In March, I was inspired by DUST magazine and wrote my own You Know You Are In Accra When – jokes.

April was the month I got more serious and wrote about the mental health crisis in Ghana, sexual harassment and the unrest in Ivory Coast.

On Mother’s day I announced I was becoming a mother myself. At that point in May, my belly was so big everyone who saw me IRL knew. It was not like you needed to be an investigative journalist…  really is there just one investigative journalist in Ghana?

In June, I left Ghana for Europe. First stop was Marseille.  Then it was time for debating homosexuality. A debate that also made it to Global Voices.

In July, our daughter was born. What an experience! What a miracle! What a sweet soul!

In August, she was Virtually Outdoored. So was the Ashesi Berekuso Campus.

In September and October I was spending every hour of the day with our baby in Sweden. Taking walks, breastfeeding and blogging only sporadically.

Second week of November, I returned south and my daughter saw the green leaves and red soil of Ghana for the first time. And the green hoopoe!

In December, we had no water and I wrote about the EU Blue Card. And that was my 2011 year of blogging!

I am sure in the days to come, we will see many more chronicles of 2011 at Ghanablogging.com (soon to change name to BloggingGhana, but that is a story for 2012!)

Gott Nytt År! Afehyia pa! Happy New Year!

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