Our users love icons. I guess most users do, but people who write in outliners need a little more graphic relief because our work is totally text and structure. Adding a bit of graphics is like adding spice to a sauce. And they're fun! We're lucky because Font Awesome is such a great collection of icons. And it keeps getting better. If you're developing web apps, you're nuts if you aren't using Font Awesome. Seriously. Anyway, until Fargo 0.65 it was a lot of work to add an icon to an outline. What changed is that we created an icon chooser dialog that makes it easy and fun. If you're using…
Egos
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Most Topular Stories
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If you're developing web apps, you're nuts if you aren't using Font Awesome. Seriously.
Dave Winer21 May 2013 | 5:35 pm -
Chief Product Officer Kouji Kodera Among Several Exits at Troubled Phone Maker HTC
AllThingsD21 May 2013 | 10:28 pmAlready facing big challenges on the sales side, Taiwanese phone maker HTC has been hit with a wave of staff departures. Chief among the exits is Chief Product Officer Kouji Kodera, with several others from the marketing and communications ranks also having recently left including Eric Lin, who is now working for Microsoft’s Skype unit, and communications chief Jason Gordon, who left on Friday. Kodera, a former head of products for Sony Ericsson, joined HTC in 2010. “Kouji Kodera has left HTC to pursue other interests,” HTC said in a statement. “We appreciate his… -
Levels of marketing magic, the placebo effects of desire
Seth's Blog21 May 2013 | 2:45 amANTICIPATION: Before the product is released, the true fans are buzzing and speculating and waiting in line. The anticipation is self-reinforcing, a placebo effect of desire. UTILITY: The album is good, the software is useful, the book changes things. It works better than we hoped. Exceeding expectations pays significant dividends. REMARK: It's purple. Remarkable. Worth talking about. The word spreads. Ten people tell ten people and suddenly, it's abuzz. Not because of PR or hype, but because the remarkability is built right into the product or service itself. And more people enjoy things… -
Better state birds
kottke.org21 May 2013 | 12:20 pmSurprisingly entertaining article about better choices for the state birds of each of the 50 US states. 4. Arkansas. Official state bird: northern mockingbird Christ. What makes this even less funny is that there are like eight other states with mockingbird as their official bird. I'm convinced that the guy whose job it was to report to the state's legislature on what the official bird should be forgot until the day it was due and he was in line for a breakfast sandwich at Burger King. In a panic he walked outside and selected the first bird he could find, a dirty mockingbird singing its… -
Best Moment of Today’s Senate Hearing
Daring Fireball21 May 2013 | 4:05 pmJohn McCain: “Why the hell do I have to keep updating the apps on my iPhone all the time?” ★
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Dave Winer
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If you're developing web apps, you're nuts if you aren't using Font Awesome. Seriously.
21 May 2013 | 5:35 pmOur users love icons. I guess most users do, but people who write in outliners need a little more graphic relief because our work is totally text and structure. Adding a bit of graphics is like adding spice to a sauce. And they're fun! We're lucky because Font Awesome is such a great collection of icons. And it keeps getting better. If you're developing web apps, you're nuts if you aren't using Font Awesome. Seriously. Anyway, until Fargo 0.65 it was a lot of work to add an icon to an outline. What changed is that we created an icon chooser dialog that makes it easy and fun. If you're using… -
Scripting News: Hacker News is depressing.
21 May 2013 | 6:00 amYesterday someone at Hacker News thought to point to my piece about Marissa Mayer. It was a story I wrote in about 15 minutes. The point was at the end of the piece. As a preamble, I told a couple of stories from my personal experience. I figured it would get a few comments, maybe a couple of thousand reads, and that would be that. But the torrent of abuse on Hacker News was something that I haven't seen in a long time. One of the main reasons it doesn't work is that people don't ask questions to clarify. They jump to conclusions, some of which are very wrong. For example, they assumed I was… -
Scripting News: I tried Google Glass.
20 May 2013 | 9:25 amI went to dinner last night with the two Scobles, Robert and Patrick. Robert is famous for the picture of him wearing a Google Glass while in the shower. Last night, he was wearing the glasses most of the dinner, but took them off. He said I should try them. I did. What you get is a sequence of cards, with recent tweets, emails, Google Now type stuff. You scroll through them by swiping on the stem of the glasses. It doesn't any time to get the hang of it. You can create tweets with voice. It happened so quickly I barely knew I had done it. I created a tweet on Scoble's account. It contained… -
Scripting News: My one talk with Marissa Mayer.
20 May 2013 | 7:08 amIt was 2003. Google had just bought Blogger. On the acquisition, they said they wouldn't do anything to tilt the table in favor of Blogger. There was concern in the wider blogging community that Google might use its power in search to give people an incentive to use Blogger over other publishing platforms. They said this would never happen. But a few weeks after the deal they broke the promise. They added a BlogThis! button to Google Toolbar. It only worked with Blogger. It would have been a simple matter to make it work with any blogging tool. But they didn't see why they should do that. It… -
Scripting News: Google is the new MSM.
17 May 2013 | 8:50 amLast night watching the NBA on TNT, new commercials for the YouTube comedy fest. The production was distinctly not YouTube. It was professional in every way. Nothing amateur about it. Google is now MSM. All that talk about Burning Man is sleight of hand. That guy has as much in common with you and me as Rupert Murdoch does. It's not just Google, Twitter is also MSM. Facebook? Eh. Their presence on TV is mostly in URLs at the bottom of other peoples' ads. Their commercials are amateurish, awful imitations of other tech company commercials. Not to say they're the only ones with awful…
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AllThingsD
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Chief Product Officer Kouji Kodera Among Several Exits at Troubled Phone Maker HTC
21 May 2013 | 10:28 pmAlready facing big challenges on the sales side, Taiwanese phone maker HTC has been hit with a wave of staff departures. Chief among the exits is Chief Product Officer Kouji Kodera, with several others from the marketing and communications ranks also having recently left including Eric Lin, who is now working for Microsoft’s Skype unit, and communications chief Jason Gordon, who left on Friday. Kodera, a former head of products for Sony Ericsson, joined HTC in 2010. “Kouji Kodera has left HTC to pursue other interests,” HTC said in a statement. “We appreciate his… -
As Immigration Reform Bill Heads to the Senate Floor, the ZuckerPAC Gets a Win
21 May 2013 | 6:44 pmChalk up a win for tech industry talent-seekers. In a bipartisan vote reached on Thursday evening, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved a bill that aims to radically overhaul much of current U.S. immigration policy, which could ultimately increase the number of highly skilled tech industry workers allowed visas to work inside of the U.S. The bill, which passed through the committee by a vote of 13 to five, is now headed to the floor for debate, where it is expected to be deliberated upon through the summer. It is, in particular, the first small victory for FWD.us, the political action… -
Windows Version of Quicken on the Mac
21 May 2013 | 6:14 pmQ: The only hesitation I have about switching to the Mac concerns Quicken. I have used that program on Windows for over 20 years. All the reviews on the Mac version are less than favorable. If I install Windows on the Mac, would I still be able to run my current Quicken program? A: Yes. When you install Windows on a Mac, using Apple’s Boot Camp utility, the Mac is turned into a full-fledged Windows computer, whenever you choose. So Quicken—or any Windows program—should work fine. If you install Windows in a virtual machine program, such as Parallels, you should also be able to run… -
Apple Tax Bill Overstated to Investors
21 May 2013 | 5:27 pmApple Inc.’s real tax bill isn’t as big as the one it reports to its investors. Among the findings of an investigation by the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations are figures that show Apple’s reported taxes substantially exceed the sum it actually pays the U.S. Treasury. One factor: Apple uses a conservative approach to accounting for taxes on its overseas earnings. It has been setting aside billions of dollars a year in provisions against possible taxes on income that it earned abroad. But those taxes wouldn’t be due until Apple brought the funds… -
The Kids Love Twitter; Facebook, Not So Much
21 May 2013 | 4:22 pmFlickr/Ei KatsumataAs far as social networks go, recent popular opinion suggests Facebook, for all its reach and power, just ain’t cool anymore. Most of those claims have been anecdotal. The most prevalent voice came from Josh Miller — co-founder of competing social startup Branch — whose argument hinged mostly around the behavioral habits of his teenage sister. Despite a lack of hard evidence, this somehow reinforced just how passe Facebook supposedly is. Alas, as of Tuesday, we now have a study to bolster the claims. Teens are expressing “waning enthusiasm” for…
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Seth's Blog
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Levels of marketing magic, the placebo effects of desire
21 May 2013 | 2:45 amANTICIPATION: Before the product is released, the true fans are buzzing and speculating and waiting in line. The anticipation is self-reinforcing, a placebo effect of desire. UTILITY: The album is good, the software is useful, the book changes things. It works better than we hoped. Exceeding expectations pays significant dividends. REMARK: It's purple. Remarkable. Worth talking about. The word spreads. Ten people tell ten people and suddenly, it's abuzz. Not because of PR or hype, but because the remarkability is built right into the product or service itself. And more people enjoy things… -
You should buy the book
20 May 2013 | 8:33 amMitch Joel is a generous and perceptive blogger. Well worth the daily read. He has a new book. You should buy it. David Meerman Scott writes an essential blog, daily. His book is a classic. You should buy it. Tom Asacker writes a very thoughtful blog about marketing. Worth the read. He has a new book. You should buy it, too. Every day, Mark Frauenfelder and Corey Doctorow blog tons of goodness at Boingboing. They each have books. You should buy them and share them. Bernadette Jiwa's blog keeps getting better and better and you are probably already reading it. She has a new book on the way. -
No Signal
20 May 2013 | 2:00 amAt a party the other day, I saw a dead TV monitor. On the screen it said something like, "No signal... check power, cable and source selection..." It doesn't matter at all how hard the DVD player was trying to put on a show. It is irrelevant how good the show on cable was. If it's not getting through, no one sees it. All of us own our own media companies now. We each have the ability to speak up, to tell our stories, and if we're good and if we're lucky, to be heard. Too often, though, there's no signal. You may be pumping noise through your social media outlets, but noise isn't signal. It's… -
Learning by analogy
19 May 2013 | 2:36 amThe story of Hansel and Gretel is not actually about Hansel or Gretel. You are surrounded by examples and lessons and case studies that clearly aren't exactly about your project. There's never been a book written precisely about the situation you are facing right now, either. Perhaps one day they will publish, "Marketing Low-Cost Coaching Services to Small Businesses Specializing in .Graphic Design in the Upper Peninsula for Dummies" but don't hold your breath. Marketing, like all forms of art, requires us to learn to see. To see what's working and to transplant it, change it and amplify it. -
It's Thomas Midgley day
18 May 2013 | 2:00 amToday would be his 124th birthday. A fine occasion to think about the effects of industrialization, and what happens when short-term profit-taking meets marketing. Midgley is responsible for millions of deaths. Not directly, of course, but by, "just doing his job," and then pushing hard to market ideas he knew weren't true—so he and his bosses could turn a profit. His first mistake began when he figured out that adding lead to gasoline appeared to make cars perform better. At the time, two things were widely known by chemists: 1. Adding grain alcohol to gasoline dramatically increases…
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kottke.org
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Better state birds
21 May 2013 | 12:20 pmSurprisingly entertaining article about better choices for the state birds of each of the 50 US states. 4. Arkansas. Official state bird: northern mockingbird Christ. What makes this even less funny is that there are like eight other states with mockingbird as their official bird. I'm convinced that the guy whose job it was to report to the state's legislature on what the official bird should be forgot until the day it was due and he was in line for a breakfast sandwich at Burger King. In a panic he walked outside and selected the first bird he could find, a dirty mockingbird singing its… -
To make an apple pie from scratch...
21 May 2013 | 10:19 amKevin Kelly writes about the challenges of creating a civilization from scratch, say after an apocalypse or interplanetary journey. Let's take a very sophisticated item: one web page. A web page relies on perhaps a hundred thousand other inventions, all needed for its birth and continued existence. There is no web page anywhere without the inventions of HTML code, without computer programming, without LEDs or cathode ray tubes, without solid state computer chips, without telephone lines, without long-distance signal repeaters, without electrical generators, without high-speed turbines,… -
Medical school in blog form
21 May 2013 | 8:32 amWhy go to medical school when you can just read this Medical School tumblr blog? Includes posts on open heart surgery, sickle cell anemia, and a simple suturing demonstration: Tags: medicine video weblogs -
America is bad for your health
20 May 2013 | 7:03 pm"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." And I'll give them heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and a shorter lifespan. A growing body of research suggests that there is often a high health toll when it comes to coming to America. A growing body of mortality research on immigrants has shown that the longer they live in this country, the worse their rates of heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes. And while their American-born children may have more money, they tend to live shorter lives than the parents. The pattern goes against any… -
Does good music need to be good?
20 May 2013 | 5:46 pmI enjoyed and agree with much of Sasha Frere-Jones' take on Daft Punk's recent album, Random Access Memories. Daft Punk's fourth studio album, "Random Access Memories," is an attempt to make the kind of disco record that they sampled so heavily for "Discovery." As such, it serves as a tribute to those who came before them and as a direct rebuke to much of what they've spawned. Only intermittently electronic in nature, and depending largely on live musicians, it is extremely ambitious, and as variable in quality as any popular album you will hear this year. Noodly jazz fusion instrumentals?
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Daring Fireball
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Best Moment of Today’s Senate Hearing
21 May 2013 | 4:05 pmJohn McCain: “Why the hell do I have to keep updating the apps on my iPhone all the time?” ★ -
Steve Jobs E-Book Email to James Murdoch
21 May 2013 | 3:38 pmI missed this last week, but John Paczkowski has the entire email from Jobs with the “Throw in with Apple and see if we can all make a go of this to create a real mainstream e-books market at $12.99 and $14.99” line singled out by the DOJ: Now, this is but one piece of evidence in a much larger case. And the DOJ does claim to have other evidence that reflects poorly on Apple, specifically testimony that suggests it used its prowess in the apps market to push reticent partners into signing its e-books deal. But in this particular case, it does seem to have cherry-picked a quote for maximum… -
Wikipedia Corruption
21 May 2013 | 3:28 pmAndrew Leonard, writing for Salon, unmasks a blatantly corrupt Wikipedia editor: The mind boggles. After years of styling himself as someone who specializes in scrubbing Wikipedia pages clean of “conflicts of interest,” Qworty/Young admitted to editing “the Wikipedia articles of writers with whom I have feuded.” How can Wikipedia possibly allow this man to keep his editing privileges? And how are we, the general public, supposed to trust Wikipedia, when Qworty’s record shows how easy it is to work out personal grudges and real-world vendettas in this great online encyclopedia for… -
Wired: First Look at the Xbox One
21 May 2013 | 2:42 pmPeter Rubin: At this point, fewer than 2 million Surface tablets have been sold. Windows Phone has a 3.2 percent share of the smartphone market. The Xbox 360, on the other hand, has sold 77 million units and has been the bestselling game console in the US for 28 straight months. Not to take anything away from Microsoft’s other consumer products, but there’s no longer any question which side the company’s bread is buttered on. And if the Interactive Entertainment Business division gets this right, the Xbox One is going to be a very, very big piece of bread. Xbox is Microsoft’s… -
NYT Live Coverage of Senate Hearing on Apple and Corporate Taxes
21 May 2013 | 10:31 amSenator Rand Paul: Senator Rand Paul, the Kentucky Republican, has taken the floor with a very different tone. He says he is “offended” by the hearings. Who, he said, doesn’t try to minimize their own taxes? “Tell me what Apple has done that’s illegal,” he said. And on Twitter: If there is anyone to blame here it is not Apple, it is Congress and the tax code it created. ★
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Logic+Emotion
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Responsive Marketing
19 May 2013 | 5:25 pmIn the beginning, there were products and services, and some were good. Fewer became trusted brands, but those that did enjoyed unquestioned loyalty supported by a simple yet effective marketing engines built to reach people in mass quantity. The formula worked for decades. An empire was built on the shoulders of Madison Avenue and expanded globally. It is an empire, which still exists today, though arguably it’s a diminished version of its former self. More recently, technology has had it’s own evolutionary process which it’s still going through. Well over a decade ago, when large… -
Brands Who Used The Force on Star Wars Day #Maythe4thbewithyou
4 May 2013 | 12:05 pmBrands that insert themselves into relevant cultural events is now becoming a norm in marketing. Did you know that May 4th is considered Star Wars Day? These brands did, and they inserted themselves in the conversation by producing content which reflected it. Here's a few that went to the dark side: Pop Chips went the simple route and used an action figure to do the heavy lifting. Harrods did some subtle and clever Photoshop to go over to the dark side of marketing. PayPal traveled to a galaxy far far away and kept their branding intact ...while Red Bull played it safe and stayed closer to… -
Content as Currency and Other Thoughts From #Snowcial
1 Mar 2013 | 6:35 amI'm in Lake Tahoe this week combining some business and down-time and recently spoke at "Snowcial"—billed as "SXSW for the snow sports and hospitality industry, it attracts a really cool cross section of people who span marketing, technology and even journalism. If you love skiing or snowboarding and marketing/technology, it's worth considering for your event calendar. I kicked off day one yesterday with a short talk about content, convergence and connectivity. Below are a few themes from my talk: Content As Currency There's a good reason everyone is talking about the role of *content… -
Every Brand Will Need A Content Strategy
26 Feb 2013 | 8:18 amSomewhere in the debate to define what was hot or not as a worthy "real-time marketing" example during the Oscars, we lost sight of the bigger picture. We're not really talking about the benefits of marketing in a timely fashion as much as we are talking about the birthright of an organization or brand to produce, circulate and curate conversations around valuable content. I had to take a pause recently to remind myself of the bigger picture and consider other activations we have in play like working with the organization who represents the US Dairy industry. In this approach, we've gotten… -
How The Marketing Community Lost Last Night #OscarsRTM
24 Feb 2013 | 11:16 pmI'm not surprised, but that doesn't mean I'm not concerned. I witnessed something sad last night, while the Oscars were going down. As I anticipated, there was a great deal of activity by brands and their partners who took a shot at producing content connected to the Academy Awards. Some of the content was just OK. Some wasn't. And to be honest, some of it was pretty good even if not earth shattering. Because I had a feeling there would be a great deal of activity going on—I set up a simple hash tag, because I wanted a way to organize what brands would be doing. So, I set up #OscarsRTM…
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Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang | Social Media, Web Marketing
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Dear Brands, I’m Unnerved Too
20 May 2013 | 10:27 amDear Brands, I just got disrupted. I willingly let a stranger drive off in my car, and I found it unnerving. Last week, I wrote a heartfelt letter to you that our relationship has changed. I shared that I don’t want to breakup, but I want an open relationship. I don’t want to buy products, I want to rent, borrow, share, or swap products. The world has changed, and with it, our relationship. I know that it’s uncomfortable to hear that customers are now buying your products once, then sharing many times with each other, as your revenues will be decreased. This movement,… -
The Maker Movement Disrupts Brands, Provides Opportunities
19 May 2013 | 6:58 amFor my third year, I spent yesterday at the Maker Faire, in Silicon Valley. Unlike any other year, the crowds were overflowing, suggesting this movement was growing faster than the cottage industry before. To put this into context, the maker movement is yet (another) disruption to brands, here’s the lineage: [Disruptions Summarized: 1) The Internet democratized knowledge, 2) Social Media empowered crowd, 3) Collaborative Economy endows crowd to buy once, share many, 4) the Maker Movement aims at buying from brands no more. I must honestly confess, I struggle to keep abreast of all… -
Google better organizes our world –and sells us back the experience
15 May 2013 | 2:15 pmAbove Photo: Google showcases interconnected screens at Google IO conference in SF. By Chris Silva (cross posted) and Jeremiah Owyang, Industry Analysts at Altimeter Group Last year’s over hyped skydiving was replaced by down to earth by grounded product enhancements. We’re live from the Google IO conference in SF with 6,000 developers, press, and media in San Francisco’s Moscone event center. We noticed a lot of Glass Explorer units (which surprisingly was barely mentioned in the keynote) we’ve purchased two to test, and will write up a detailed post on them after we’ve done a… -
Resources: Converged Media, Integrating your Paid, Owned, and Earned
15 May 2013 | 5:08 amIs Facebook paid, owned or earned? The answer is yes. Facebook is all. They integrate advertising units along with content created by brands on their Facebook pages, and allow for consumers to share their opinions right in the comments. Sometimes, ads look like social content, and it’s hard to distinguish the difference. At Altimeter, we see this convergence only increasing, and these Venn diagrams will continue to have overlapping circles of paid, owned, and earned. To meet this converging media types, Altimeter kicked off a research project with Rebecca Lieb (a fantastic speaker in… -
Social Business Buyers Invest in Scaling
14 May 2013 | 5:08 amBrands Focused on Managing Social Proliferation For those that like to be where they money be, this data is for you. Altimeter’s research continues to survey buyers of disruptive technologies, and continues our coverage on social technologies. In our recent Q4 survey to enterprise buyers, focused on marketing business decision makers, which are global national corporations with over 1000 employees, we posed a series of questions in our survey battery. In particular, we wanted to find out where decision makers are bullish on investing and found the following trends on marketers with…
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Dilbert.com Blog
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Ultimate Kitchen
19 May 2013 | 11:00 pmImagine if most of your kitchen surfaces were covered with thin panel TV technology. The front door of your refrigerator would be a TV. Each cabinet door would be a TV. The microwave door would be a TV.This idea would be impractical with current technology. But I imagine we aren't far from having some sort of bendable screen material we can glue to any surface. It might be something like this.Let's say the kitchen knows who you are by the phone in your pocket that is communicating via Bluetooth. Imagine that you walk into the kitchen and all the TVs come alive. Perhaps the starting… -
Larry Page's Voice Update
14 May 2013 | 11:00 pmA number of you forwarded links to a story in which Larry Page describes for the first time his voice problems.In prior posts I had guessed his voice problem was caused by spasmodic dysphonia, a condition I once had. Evidently I was wrong. (For the first time.) But what Page does have is similar in a few ways.With spasmadic dysphonia, the vocal chords clench shut involuntarily. Page seems to have the opposite, in that his vocal cords are partly paralyzed. There is a version of spasmodic dysphonia in which the vocal cords open involuntarily, and that might sound very similar to how his voice… -
Common Sense and Complexity
13 May 2013 | 11:00 pmSequestration refers to the automatic spending cuts that the government of the United States passed into law in 2011, and which went into effect March 1st of this year. The original idea was that the impending meat cleaver approach to the budget would force a contentious Congress to reach agreement on smarter and more targeted cuts for the good of the country. Common sense might tell you that making intelligent budget cuts would be better than reductions across the board. Most people held that view.But my common sense argues the opposite. I say dumb cuts are every bit as good as… -
Solving Three Problems at Once
12 May 2013 | 11:00 pmProblem 1: Grandparents enjoy watching movies, but they don't enjoy the hassle of going to the movie theater.Problem 2: Grandparents want to see more of their families.Problem 3: You feel obligated to visit your parents/grandparents but it can be mind-numbingly boring. And you don't want to sit in the living room for hours listening to medical complaints.Solution: Suppose the AARP (a seniors organization) worked out a deal with the major film studios to allow seniors to stream new movies to their homes on the same day the films are released to studios. And let's say the price is… -
InterFACE
8 May 2013 | 11:00 pmI want a computer interface that is built around the idea of actual faces on every file and file folder.It occurred to me the other day that everything I do has some sort of human associated with it. Some stuff might be for my editor, other stuff for my startup partners, and so on. Everything I do is ultimately for the benefit of at least one human, even if the human is me.Humans are wired to spot faces quickly. If you open a folder with fifty faces, you can spot the one you are looking for in a second. With our current computer interfaces I have to read all of the file names, or sort by date…
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Doc Searls Weblog
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Flickr to Pro customers: no change
20 May 2013 | 11:28 pmFlickr has updated its service. I knew it was coming and I had a few hopes for it: Better multiple account management Personal service, by human beings using their real voices Ability to make changes (e.g. of permissions or licensing) for thousands of shots in one move Finer distinctions than friends/family/private The updates, from what I can tell, offer none of that. What I got, as a Pro customer, appeared in the form of index page copy that began, Dear Doc, as a Pro member continue to enjoy the benefits of unlimited space, an ad free experience and stats. For non-paying users, there was… -
What’s right with QR codes
20 May 2013 | 1:31 amI first heard QR codes called “robot barf” yesterday, when JP said it. Got a good laugh out of it too, because: yeah, if a robot could barf, that’s what it would look like. Digging back, it looks like the first source of the joke is Andy Roberts here, or Jon Mitchell here, both of whom posted on 27 October, 2011. Kevin Marks followed in the same vein with QR Codes, bad idea or terrible idea? on 28 January 2012. There Kevin wrote, among other things, “QR Codes ignore years of research and culture on how to communicate meaning in symbolic form designed to be captured… -
What can people do with data that companies alone can’t?
19 May 2013 | 6:00 amAfter six years on the VRM case, it seems obvious to me that individuals need to be the points of integration for their own data — and of data about them, held by companies. But it’s not yet obvious to the marketplace, since we still lack suppliers willing either to part with the personal data they already hold, or to provide easy-to-use tools that people can use to combine that data, analyze it and put it to use. So, to help with that, here are a few starters: Quantified self data. Right now all the data produced by your Withings scale, your Zeo sleep manager, your Nike+ sportwatch,… -
2013_05_19 link pile
18 May 2013 | 11:41 pmData The Man Who Turned Off Cookies In Firefox Doesn’t Care If It Hurts Advertisers Dynamic pricing vs./+ savvy consumers Mozilla stalls on privacy patch: ‘needs more work’ A shortage of privacy engineers, by Lorrie Faith Cranor and Norman Sadeh, both of CMU Big Data makes the movies Firms Brace for New European Data Privacy Law Little Data Makes Big Data More Powerful Executive Order — Making Open and Machine Readable the New Default for Government Information VRM Vendor Relationship Management in Wikipedia ProjectVRM blog The About page The best VRM… -
Long-form never stopped working
14 May 2013 | 4:55 amFashions come and go. Verities do not. One verity respected by many old-fashioned writers and publishers is the simple fact that long-form pieces work better than short-form ones for the purpose of communicating in depth. If you want deep, and you’re writing prose, more of it will work better than less of it, given an equally strong work-over by a good copy-edit. Such has also been my ample experience at this game. Long-form has always out-performed short, even during the long dark period during which the common non-wisdom in online publishing was that short beat long. Some examples…
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A VC
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Native Advertising Event
21 May 2013 | 3:22 amThis Thursday from 1pm to 6pm, our portfolio company Zemanta is co-hosting a summit on native advertising here in NYC. I've written and spoken a fair bit about native advertising so regular readers will likely be quite familiar with this topic. However, from what I am seeing out there, native advertising is really hitting its stride as social platforms and mobile consumption become the norm. If you are a marketer or an entrepreneur working in the advertising/marketing space, you should be paying attention to this trend. I will be kicking off the event at 1pm with a brief talk and some… -
Success Has A Thousand Fathers
20 May 2013 | 4:41 amBack in the early days of AVC, I did a thing called VC Cliche Of The Week. There was an RSS feed of all of them powered by Delicious, but it is broken and most likely can't be fixed. You can find some of them on gawk.it. One of the cliches I posted about is "success has a thousand fathers." I thought I would re-run that post. Here it is. You can count on it - when a deal works out spectacularly everyone involved will take credit for it. This behavior is particularly annoying to the entrepreneurs who put the sweat, blood, and tears into the Company. They watch the VCs take credit for the big… -
Congratulations Indiana
19 May 2013 | 4:08 amWe talk a lot of NBA basketball in the comments but I don't post about it. This blog is supposed to be about startups and tech, for the most part. But the Knicks lost last night in Indiana and my season is over. I will root for the Grizzlies and the Pacers now but I doubt I will watch many games. This photo sums up the Knicks Pacers series. Actually it sums up the entire season for me. Carmelo Anthony is an incredible talent. He has upped his defensive game in the past year and he carried the Knicks as far as he could. But he doesn't have a second superstar at his side and he could not beat… -
Video Of The Week: SNL's Take On Google Glass
18 May 2013 | 5:22 amThis is pretty funny. -
Fun Friday: Morning Joe
17 May 2013 | 4:48 amIt feels like its been a while since we did a fun friday around here. So here goes. How do you like your morning cup of coffee? I go with the Cortado, ideally in a shot glass. Here's one from Kava, the coffee shop near my home in the far west village. So how do you take your morning cup? Photos please.
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John Battelle's Search Blog
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Yahoo! And Tumblr: It’s About Display, Streams & Native at Scale
19 May 2013 | 4:22 pmThe post Yahoo! And Tumblr: It’s About Display, Streams & Native at Scale appeared first on John Battelle's Search Blog.The world is atwitter about Tumblr’s big exit to Yahoo!, and from what I can tell it seems this one is going to really happen (ATD is covering it well). There are plenty of smart and appropriate takes on why this move makes sense (see GigaOm) but I think a lot of it boils down to the trends driving Yahoo’s massive display business. If there’s one thing we all know, it’s that a new form of native advertising is spreading… -
Behind the Banner, A Visualization of the Adtech Ecosystem
13 May 2013 | 7:41 pmThe post Behind the Banner, A Visualization of the Adtech Ecosystem appeared first on John Battelle's Search Blog. I’m very proud to announce “Behind the Banner“, a visualization I’ve been producing with Jer Thorp and his team from The Office for Creative Research, underwritten by Adobe as part of the upcoming CM Summit next week. You can read more about it in this release, but the real story of this project starts with my own quest to understand the world of programmatic trading of advertising inventory – a world that at times feels rather like a hot mess,… -
These Companies Are Denting the Universe In NY
10 May 2013 | 7:47 amThe post These Companies Are Denting the Universe In NY appeared first on John Battelle's Search Blog. OpenCo NY is just ten or so days away – the opening plenary (for Backstage pass holders and VIPs) is Weds evening, May 22, and the full day of open sessions inside 130+ innovative NY-based companies is the following day, May 23. Consider this post a “curtain raiser” of sorts, with all the information you might need to grok the event and, I hope, participate if you happen to find yourself in NYC for InternetWeek. General admission registration is still open, and I plan… -
On Google Glass and OpenCo NYC
9 May 2013 | 9:12 amThe post On Google Glass and OpenCo NYC appeared first on John Battelle's Search Blog.In case you have any interest, here’s a short clip of me opining on Google Glass and the upcoming OpenCoNYC, which is going to be HOT. More on that soon. The post On Google Glass and OpenCo NYC appeared first on John Battelle's Search Blog. -
Hold Hands or Die Apart
5 May 2013 | 9:30 pmThe post Hold Hands or Die Apart appeared first on John Battelle's Search Blog.I’ve been a bit slow to update this site lately, as my return to Federated Media, and preparation for the CM Summit and OpenCo NYC, have pretty much eaten up all my time lately. But I did want to repost a few things I have written elsewhere, starting with this article in Ad Age, written two weeks ago. Titled Publishers, Ad-Tech Firms, Marketers Need to Connect, Build Trust (no, I didn’t write that headline, if I was in charge, it might have been “Hold Hands or Die Apart” –…
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Signal vs. Noise
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LINK: Ryan on Jobs-To-Be-Done Radio
16 May 2013 | 11:55 amRyan on Jobs-To-Be-Done Radio I talked about software design and seeing through the customer’s eyes for 30 minutes on Jobs-To-Be-Done Radio. In my favorite part we thoroughly debunked personas and talked about how situations, not attributes drive behavior. Hosts Bob and Chris are collaborators of Clay Christensen and they strongly influenced my thinking over the past year. It was a blast to chat on the show. -
Don’t have the right gear? Make it.
13 May 2013 | 2:04 pmI’ve been working on some video tests with the iPhone and I needed to mount it on tripod for some steadier shots. Some folks in the office had good things to say about the Glif from Studio Neat, but the only one we had lying around didn’t fit my phone and sat kinda goofy on our tripod plate. So, I did something I wouldn’t have imagined possible a few years ago. I printed a new one. We got a 3D printer in the office a few months ago. So far it’s been used to make little statues, paperclips, even some chain mail. So I went about designing a new baseplate for our tripod. -
LINK: The 37signals Report Card
8 May 2013 | 6:30 amThe 37signals Report Card We’ve long believed in the value of transparency at 37signals. It’s why we write about how we work and why we provide real-time information about our customer happiness and uptime. We like being held to a high standard, and we think there’s no one better to do so than our customers. Today we’re taking another step towards greater transparency with the launch of the 37signals Report Card. This report card, which we’ll update monthly (April 2013 is available now; subscribe to be emailed the report each month), provides a high level… -
VIDEO: “If you wanna meet with me… come…
5 May 2013 | 12:28 pm“If you wanna meet with me… come to the garden… with your shovel… so we can plant some shit.” -Ron Finley -
Wanted: 25 special customers.
2 May 2013 | 8:21 amWe’re working on a entirely new product, and I’m looking to meet some potential customers. We can meet in person, over the phone, or via Skype, etc. The tool is for the small business owner who runs a company of between 25 and 75 people. You used to be smaller, but now you’re bigger. And you experienced some personal growing pains along the way. When you were smaller, you used to know everyone a bit better. When you were smaller you used to be in the loop a bit more. When you were smaller you used to have a better feel for what everyone was thinking and feeling. When you…
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chrisbrogan.com
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Be Open to Inspiration
10 May 2013 | 8:41 amI’ve been in a bit of a fog the last week or so. Nothing worth talking about, really. Depression stuff. But then it lifted. What’s interesting to me is how I found my footing and how I got back on track, and so there are two items I want to share with you from this: the actual learning, and more importantly, the realization of what got me there. Be Open to Inspiration Humans have this way they deal with too much information. They discard tons of inputs and keep what they feel is important. This is necessary, by the way. Can you imagine how busy your brain would be if you thought… -
Do Local Businesses Deserve Your Money?
7 May 2013 | 1:38 pmI sat at the counter at my local restaurant the other day and waited for over 7 minutes without anyone bothering to acknowledge that I was there. And then I walked out. And so did my money. For good. In fact, I drove to McDonalds, got some scrambled eggs and an iced coffee, and was in and out of the system within the same 7 minutes. (You can save your comments with disdain for McDonalds. If you’re a parent, you go there, unless you don’t. Either way. It’s not the point.) Now, before you try to defend this other place, no, it wasn’t busy. Yes, at least two employees had seen me, and… -
Why Use These Outlier Social Media Tools?
30 Apr 2013 | 4:21 pmWhy should you bother using tools like Vine and Instagram, and the like? That question was asked to me by Pam Vitaz, and she asked it somewhat in this context (my words not hers): Vine’s interesting, but you basically just shot a funny video. Why do that? Here’s the video she meant: Can’t see the video? Click Here. Can’t hear sound? Hover over it and click the little sound thingy. On the surface, it’s the kind of question you can answer with “why not?” But that’s not good enough. Why Use These Outlier Social Media Tools? First, it’s your… -
Can You Work at Being Fearless?
29 Apr 2013 | 7:03 amFear is at the heart of most of our worst choices. I read this facebook post by James Altucher and it really punched me in the stomach. But that’s just one punch in a series, because every time I question how I ended up somewhere, the real answer (underneath all the bull answers) is fear. It’s why most stupid things happen, why all bad things happen (when humans are involved), and is even worse than you think. I’m afraid of a weird collection of things. I’m afraid of sharks (ever since seeing Jaws at a very young age – because I pestered my parents tirelessly til… -
Sponsored Post – Mobile Productivity and the Future
24 Apr 2013 | 4:53 amCan you be productive while on the road? I say yes. In fact, I’m writing this from a hotel room before heading off to a meeting with a client. The following is sponsored by Cloud Powered Work, which is a project with IDG, LinkedIn, and Microsoft’s Office365. Everything in this post is mine, and my opinions are my own. I just produced an episode of my radio show from my hotel room, because I realized that an episode was due and I hadn’t done the work before I took off for the day. Last night, while I waited for my slightly delayed airplane, I cracked open SkyDrive pulled down…
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Joel on Software
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Free as in Fortune Cookies
30 Apr 2013 | 1:42 pmTrello has been out for less than two years and it’s been growing like wildfire. We recently hit 1.5 million members, of whom about 1/3 perform some action every month, and our MongoDB database now contains more than 70 million cards on 3.7 million boards. So the obvious question I get all the time is, “How exactly are you supposed to make money with that?” You may have noticed that Trello is free. Not “free trial,” not “freemium,” but just plain old free. Some people have justifiably wondered if it really makes sense to pay a dozen people, nestled in fancy offices with free… -
The Patent Protection Racket
2 Apr 2013 | 11:31 amThe fastest growing industry in the US right now, even during this time of slow economic growth, is probably the patent troll protection racket industry. Lawsuits surrounding software patents have more than tripled since 1999. It’s a great business model. Step one: buy a software patent. There are millions of them, and they’re all quite vague and impossible to understand. Step two: FedEx a carefully crafted letter to a few thousand small software companies, iPhone app developers, and Internet startups. This is where it gets a tiny bit tricky, because the recipients of the letter need to… -
Town Car Version Control
11 Mar 2013 | 6:34 pmThe team at Fog Creek is releasing a major new version of Kiln today. Kiln is a distributed version control system. One of the biggest new features is Kiln Harmony, which lets you operate on Kiln repositories using either Git or Mercurial. So you can push changes to a Kiln repo using Git and then pull them using Mercurial. This means that you never have to decide whether you want to use Git or Mercurial. Religious war: averted. But, I’m getting ahead of myself! For those of you that have been living under a rock, the single biggest change in developers’ lives in the last decade (besides… -
Software Inventory
9 Jul 2012 | 8:35 amImagine, for a moment, that you came upon a bread factory for the first time. At first it just looks like a jumble of incomprehensible machinery with a few people buzzing around. As your eyes adjust you start to see little piles of things that you do understand. Buckets of sesame seeds. Big vats of dough. Little balls of dough. Baked loaves of bread. Those things are inventory. Inventory tends to pile up between machines. Next to the machine where sesame seeds are applied to hamburger buns, there’s a big vat of...sesame seeds. At the very end of the assembly line, there are boxes and boxes… -
Trello at UserVoice
17 Apr 2012 | 12:57 pmThe folks over at UserVoice are using Trello quite extensively throughout their development process. Founder Richard White describes it all in detail. Need to hire a really great programmer? Want a job that doesn't drive you crazy? Visit the Joel on Software Job Board: Great software jobs, great people.
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dooce®
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Hashtag peanut butter
21 May 2013 | 11:41 amI am the valedictorian of looking like I am taking notes. -
No filter
21 May 2013 | 7:46 amRemember a world without Instagram filters? -
What goes around
20 May 2013 | 2:54 pmA public apology to my siblings who will flash an evil, knowing grin when they read this. -
Dose of protein
20 May 2013 | 9:39 amToo bad I'm renting because this right here would be the reason to get chickens. -
Going on four years
20 May 2013 | 7:56 amA pleasant discovery while clearing out my hard drive.
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Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO
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What to expect in SEO in the coming months
13 May 2013 | 9:17 amWe just recently taped a new round of webmaster videos, and I thought this video deserved a full-fledged blog post. This is my rough estimate (as of early May 2013) of what search engine optimizers (SEOs) and webmasters should expect in the next few months: Bear in mind that this is a very rough estimate, because priorities, projects, and timing can change based on a lot of different factors. But I hope this gives folks a ballpark idea of what to expect in the coming months as far as what my team is working on. -
Email backlog
12 May 2013 | 11:59 pmThis is a “hairball” post you can ignore. However, this post does trace my thinking about how to scale webmaster communication. Part of me wants to start answering questions I get via email by stripping out the identifying information and then replying with a blog post. Instead of one person getting a single reply, everybody could see what the answer is. I spent most of the past week tackling my horrendous email backlog. At the start of the weekend, I was just touching 500 unread emails. I got it down to 218 unread emails and 264 total emails in my inbox. Of course, the ones that… -
The dangers of productivity porn
12 May 2013 | 11:58 pmA quick “hairball” post about how sometimes it’s better to just go with the flow. I like how xkcd made this point with a chart of whether it’s worth the time to fix something that’s bugging you. I have a friend who is mechanical engineer. A few years ago he took me for a tour of his workplace that ended in his office. As I looked at his workstation, something leapt out at me. My friend had never changed his background screen. Whatever the computer came with by default, that’s what he was using. With this simple act of indifference, my friend taught me an… -
My wife keeps me grounded
12 May 2013 | 11:51 pmThis is a harmless “hairball” post I had as a draft. Me: Hey, they added me to popurls.com! My wife: Never heard of it. (pause) Had you heard of it before? Me: Yeah. Wife: Really? Me: Yeah! Wife: (with an extra helping of sarcasm) Really? Me: Yes! Wife: (dripping with condescension) You’re a very important man. -
Playing with a USB Missile Launcher
12 May 2013 | 11:45 pmThis is the last half-finished “hairball” blog post about USB devices on Linux. I actually did manage to get a working program that controlled a USB foam missile launcher. Unfortunately, I didn’t document all the steps, so this blog post just sort of stops at some point. I got a USB Missile Launcher for Christmas. The manufacturer, Dream Cheeky, provides software–but only for Windows XP. And I thought to myself, “wouldn’t it be fun to practice some USB reverse engineering skills?” Because another Christmas present was a USB protocol analyzer from…
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Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing
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How I Write and How I Decide What To Write
21 May 2013 | 4:39 amPeople seem fascinated with routines – how other people get things done and the like. While you do need to develop your own way of getting it all done, it can be inspiring and reassuring to hear how others are doing it. (Yesterday I wrote – 7 Things I Did Not Know About Writing Before I Started) How I decide what to write about photo credit: Sven Van Echelpoel via photopin cc I have a pretty solid editorial calendar that runs out about a year in terms of monthly focus themes so my blog posts, podcasts and guest content is lined up to match my annual plan. For example, this month’s… -
7 Things I Did Not Know About Writing Before I Started
20 May 2013 | 4:29 amI remember thinking I wanted to be a writer as far back as high school. Only thing is I didn’t really know how to become one. photo credit: geoftheref via photopin cc Then one day I decided that writing articles would be a good way to build my business, so I just started writing and a funny thing happened. The practiced of writing daily turned me into a writer. But, the habit of writing also shaped far more than my ability to create meaningful sentences and that’s the reason I believe that everyone in business must write. Writing to express my thoughts transformed everything about how… -
Weekend Favs May Eighteen
18 May 2013 | 5:13 amMy weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week. I don’t go into depth about the finds, but encourage you check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from Flickr or one that I took out there on the road. I spent a little time in Philadelphia this week. Good stuff I found this week: Linkstant – script that alerts you when someone links to any page on your website. Ubersuggest – keyword suggestion tool that uses many sources and groups suggestions in some very… -
Mobile Copywriting Tips and Four Apps to Assist
16 May 2013 | 5:59 amThursday is guest post day here at Duct Tape Marketing and today’s guest is Teddy Hunt – Enjoy! photo credit Via Flickr by FaceMePLS With 79 percent of Americans working remotely at least part of the time, it seems the days of copywriters chained to cubicles are far behind us. However, leaving the desk behind can take some getting used to. Read on to discover tips for copywriting in a mobile work environment, and 4 helpful apps to assist you in doing so. Stay Connected with Technology Many of us step out of the office to recharge our batteries, but you shouldn’t cut yourself… -
How to Turn Your Best Customers Into a Growth Engine
14 May 2013 | 3:28 amI’ve said repeatedly that building a vibrant community is the most important objective of any business these days. photo credit: Mourner via photopin cc While this may sound like some social media laced feel good sentiment it’s actually quite practical. Making your business customers, prospects, suppliers and partners feel like important members of a bigger community simply makes long-term business sense and is the key to long-term growth in ways that you not have even considered. Many businesses get the idea treating customers in ways that make them want to return and refer, but you…
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KurzweilAI » News
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Multitasking neurons found essential to the brain’s computational power
21 May 2013 | 4:38 am(Credit: iStockphoto) There are many neurons, especially in brain regions that perform sophisticated functions such as thinking and planning, that react in different ways to a wide variety of things. MIT neuroscientist Earl Miller first noticed these unusual activity patterns about 20 years ago, while recording the electrical activity of neurons in animals that were trained to perform complex tasks. “We started noticing early on that there are a whole bunch of neurons in the prefrontal cortex that can’t be classified in the traditional way of one message per neuron,” recalls Miller, the… -
ACT confirms clinical trial participant showed improvement in vision from 20/400 to 20/40 following treatment
21 May 2013 | 4:17 amIntermediate age-related macular degeneration (credit: Wikimedia Commons) Advanced Cell Technology, Inc. (ACT) has confirmed that the vision of a patient enrolled in a clinical investigation of the company’s retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells derived from human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) has improved from 20/400 to 20/40 following treatment. ACT is currently enrolling patients in three clinical trials in the U.S. and Europe for treatment of Stargardt’s macular dystrophy (SMD) and dry age-related macular degeneration (dry AMD) with hESC-derived RPE cells. These trials are… -
Beyond Second Life: more realistic avatars
21 May 2013 | 3:41 amPhilip Rosedale, founder of once-popular virtual world Second Life, has created a new company called High Fidelity. As suggested by the video above and the blog, the company is developing more natural ways for avatars to communicate (with heads and hand movements, for example) and with low latency (faster response time). “Imagine holding your phone and being able to twist and move your avatar’s hand. Kinda like turning any phone (with sensors) into a Wii controller,” says cofouinder Ryan Downe. “Low and behold when we plugged our Glass in and tried to run the Android app… -
A new tool for precise brain mapping
21 May 2013 | 12:13 amNon-invasive, neuron-specific localized stimulation by near-IR fiber optic beam (red) vs. invasive, non-localized stimulation by blue light (credit: S. Mohanty/UT Arlington) A new tool that could help map and track the interactions between neurons in different areas of the brain is being developed by University of Texas Arlington assistant professor of physics Samarendra Mohanty. The technology would be useful in the BRAIN (Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies) mapping initiative. This new method, which uses a fiber-optic, two-photon, optogenetic stimulator, has been… -
Electrical brain stimulation helps people learn math faster
20 May 2013 | 3:49 amTesting the effects of transcranial random noise stimulation the prefrontal cortex. The orange plates are near-infrared spectroscopy devices, using infrared light to measure blood-flow changes. (Credit: Albert Snowball et al./Current Biology) A harmless form of brain stimulation called transcranial random noise stimulation (TRNS) can help you learn math faster, researchers report. “With just five days of cognitive training and noninvasive, painless brain stimulation, we were able to bring about long-lasting improvements in cognitive and brain functions,” says Roi Cohen Kadosh…
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Escape From Cubicle Nation
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Announcing … Fantastic lineup of Spring classes from Power Teaching students
20 May 2013 | 11:54 amIn March/April, I ran another small session of my Power Teaching class. Another extremely smart and enthusiastic group joined in intensive study of effective training design and development, and worked on real, live classes that they are launching this Spring and Summer. I love teaching this class for three reasons: It is exceptionally energizing to share my passion for teaching with completely open and eager participants They really worked their hearts out to apply great design to their classes, ensuring a superior learning experience for their students They were extremely generous with each… -
Why writing your book doesn’t have to be scary
25 Apr 2013 | 10:42 amI am delighted to feature a guest post today from my friend and fellow coach, bestselling author Debbie Rieber. Debbie is in the business of helping people get the books in their heads written, sold, and out into the world. As someone who is writing a book now, I know that we authors need all the help we can get! In this post, she helps to disprove some of the myths that keep us stuck and afraid to write. Enjoy! Whether you’re an entrepreneur looking to strengthen your platform or someone with a body of research, a story, or a unique point of view you feel compelled to share, writing a book… -
It just got easier to book yourself solid
9 Apr 2013 | 9:58 amWhen I started my coaching practice, I felt extremely awkward when I talked with prospective clients. Asking for a sale felt like torture. And I was so excited about anyone at all hiring me for my services that I didn’t really consider whether they were a good fit or not. Thankfully, seven years ago I found Book Yourself Solid by Michael Port, which gave me an extremely clear framework and tools for selling my services. One of the reasons why I liked the book so much is that Michael operates out of a personal value set of service and integrity. When I got to know him personally a… -
10 Ways to Develop a Mastery Mindset
5 Apr 2013 | 4:17 pmIn today’s world of hacks, shortcuts and instant money-making blueprints, I think we have lost appreciation for slow-brewing mastery in our work. Through the years, I have worked with many martial artists, cultural leaders and business mentors who have taught me that trying to finish first in a short race is not only stressful, it works against developing deep expertise. Here are ten ways to develop a mastery mindset: Learn patience My mother in law has taught me that Diné people (Navajos) have ceremonies for every part of life. There are baby’s first laugh ceremonies and puberty… -
Confession of an entrepreneurial optimist
15 Mar 2013 | 3:46 pmI am cruising into my 17th year in business. Seventeen years of creating things, connecting with people, figuring out what I want to do, what people need and inviting them to pay me to help them get things done. It has been fun. Really, really fun. I remember when I first started blogging and everything was just so dang exciting. I didn’t know what I was doing, and had an ugly homegrown Typepad blog. Every day I would meet a new, cool person who would teach me something new. Rich Sloan from Startup Nation called me out of the blue one day to tell me he liked my writing and I think I…
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Matt Mullenweg
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On Yahoo-Tumblr
19 May 2013 | 8:38 pmIt now looks pretty certain that Yahoo has pulled off a deal to buy Tumblr for 1.1B. The relationship between WordPress and Tumblr has always been pretty friendly: Tumblr’s own blog used to be on WP, WordPress.com supports Tumblr as a Publicize option alongside Twitter and Facebook, our Akismet team sends them daily emails of splogs on the service, and there’s healthy import and export traffic both ways. (Imports have actually spiked on the rumors even though it’s Sunday: normally we import 400-600 posts an hour from Tumblr, last hour it was over 72,000.) News like this,… -
Houston: Modern American Boomtown
18 May 2013 | 6:18 amThe Wall Street Journal interviews Annise Parker on Houston and calls it “The Modern American Boomtown”. I think Houston is the most under-appreciated city in North America, as anyone who’s hung out with me for more than a few hours has heard me preach. -
The Physical Graph
17 May 2013 | 2:31 pmWired has a great cover story on Audrey portfolio company SmartThings: In the Programmable World, All Our Objects Will Act as One. -
Saudi Arabia Surveillance
14 May 2013 | 10:42 pmA Saudi Arabia Telecom pitched Moxie Marlinspike on how to intercept Twitter, WhatsApp, Viber… -
Four Little Numbers
26 Apr 2013 | 2:19 pmFour Little Numbers, Joen Asmussen talks about working on this year’s new default theme for WordPress, which also just launched on WordPress.com.
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blog maverick
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Help The Mavs Design Our Next Uniform !
13 May 2013 | 12:08 pmThe Mavs are going to re-do our uniforms for the 2015-16 season… if we get a unique and original design. What’s the best way to come up with creative ideas ? You ask for them. So we are going to crowd source the design and colors of our uniforms. You know what an NBA uniform looks like. You know what the Mavs colors are for today and the past. We want some new ideas that stay true to our logo and at least close to our current color schemes. Show us what you got ! How do you participate ? You post your ideas/pictures/graphics/videos/photos directly on this blog. Yes we want… -
The Dumbest Words In New Media
10 May 2013 | 2:13 pmHow many times have we heard someone talk about the future of media and they immediately use their child as an example of what we all will experience in the future. “My daughter will only use a touch screen.” ” My son doesn’t know the difference between the tv and his itouch. He just wants video where and when he wants it.” “My child is addicted to netflix” “My child is…. fill in the blank with a reason why we all should believe the future is what an infant/pre-teen/tween is experiencing and enjoys. I can’t help but laugh at the… -
Want Your Newborn to be an Athletic Superstar ?
7 May 2013 | 6:46 amWell I have no idea how to make sure he or she gets there. But what I do know that is if you have any such aspiration for your soon to be bundle of joy, then there is one thing you must do: You must save the cord blood from your child’s birth. At the Dallas Mavericks we have been diving into any and all advances in medical science that can give us a competitive edge. (The new advanced metrics that will impact the game). I’m not talking performance enhancing drugs, I’m talking proactive analysis and advanced recovery methodologies. One that is obvious is the use of Stem… -
The Real Problem with the Twitter HackCrash
2 May 2013 | 9:36 amIn case you missed it, the @AP twitter account was hacked , which resulted in a tweet that sent markets spiraling down only to recover a few minutes later once it was revealed that the tweet was a fake. Here is more info. Why did the market head lower so quickly ? This is from Paste Magazine “The events last Tuesday were likely caused by the news-reacting algorithms that are designed to electronically read and interpret machine-readable news,” said in an emailed response by Irene Aldridge, a hedge fund consultant on algorithms and author of High-Frequency Trading: A Practical Guide… -
Sometimes I truly do get GREAT advice from NBA fans
3 Apr 2013 | 12:14 pmI pity Your IGNORANCE all that Money and U still don’t have a CLUE – Brittney Griner born 10/18/1990 Inbox x Gary to Mark.Cuban HOPE YOU READ THIS CUBES , BECAUSE I AM MAKING A POINT -> Brittney Griner born 10/18/1990(1+0+1+8+1+9+9+0=29 2+9=11 KEEP READING Your Buddy DAN GILBERT was to Ignorant to listen in 2007 , and it cost him LEBRON and a TITLE . http://www.thepostgame.com/features/201202/gary-grinberg-numerology-jeremy-lin-tim-tebow-nba-cleveland-cavaliers Sports Numerology When it comes to Sports , the scouts and G.M. are Paying attention to every Number But the Most…
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The Tom Peters Weblog
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"1/47"
13 May 2013 | 7:10 amI frequently say, "I've only learned one thing 'for sure' in the 47 years since I started doing 'this stuff.'" (The 1966 staring point goes back to my U.S. Navy Seabee days in Vietnam.) The term "for sure" is meaningful; as a scientist by disposition, I don't believe as a matter of course in "for sures." So this exception is a big deal—to me. And that one for-sure thing is ... WTTMSW. Or, to clarify ... Whoever Tries The Most Stuff Wins. In Search of Excellence was constructed around "eight basics." And the first was "A Bias for Action." As we said then, and it's become more true over… -
Piggy Sue!
8 May 2013 | 4:57 amThe two great folks who are doing sustainable farming at our place have become parents. Well, not really. But their productive porker mom, Piggy Sue, just produced (about 72 hours ago) a litter of 15. Some of the newcomers below ... -
Jabil, Saint Pete Beach
2 May 2013 | 1:25 pmEarlier today Tom was in St Petersburg Beach, Florida, speaking to Jabil. Their website states they have "Global Expertise in Intelligent Supply Chain Design." Jabil, St Petersburg, FL Jabil, Long Version -
Presentation Excellence
26 Apr 2013 | 6:51 amTom has given more than 2,500 speeches in the last 30 years. He knows what it's like to face a crowd, whether it be friendly or skeptical. As his own toughest critic, he's never been completely satisfied with his performance. While he has offered pointers here and there, he's never written at length about speaking until now. We are fortunate that he has overcome whatever trepidation he may have had to tackle this topic. You'll find in the document below extensive advice and practical wisdom about speaking from a man who has spent most of his life on a stage, trying to share knowledge and spur… -
Algorithms Rule!?
19 Apr 2013 | 6:57 amFrom the extraordinary/chastening book Automate This: How Algorithms Came to Rule Our World, by Christopher Steiner: "... The audience then voted on the identity of each composition.* [Music theory professor and contest organizer] Larson's pride took a ding when his piece was fingered as that belonging to the computer. When the crowd decided that [algorithm] Emmy's piece was the true product of the late musician [Bach], Larson winced." (*There were three, one each by Bach/Larson/Emmy-the-algorithm.) " ... Which haiku are human writing and which are from a group of bits? Sampling centuries of…
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Conversation Agent
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Tesla Model S at a Mall Near You
21 May 2013 | 3:00 amThis past weekend I was at the King of Prussia Mall very briefly to pick up a few items for an upcoming trip. That is the one place I zip in and out of, parking near a less trafficked entrance, and practicing my long step to go as quickly as possible from entrance to destination. Occasionally, one store gets my attention on the way, it's brand new and much bigger than it used to be and has a big white Apple on the glass pane. I stopped short of it this time. Right before it, I noticed a big crowd going in front of an open space. Inside, there were two brand new Tesla Model S cars, a white… -
The Most Obvious and Important Realities
20 May 2013 | 3:00 amIn a 2005 commencement address at Kenyon College, author David Foster Wallace shared with students his take on the Truth with a capital "T" and the real value of a Liberal Arts education. The most obvious and important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about. The Glossary captured a little over nine minutes of that speech in this video, which starts with the statement above explaining why "this is water". The context of day in/day out makes our internal dialogue win over the present awareness. It papers over the fact that we have a choice. It does take will and… -
Why Learning is as Important as Teaching
19 May 2013 | 7:51 amIn a recent TED Talk, Bill Gates shares this compelling statistic: “Until recently 98% of teachers got one word of feedback: satisfactory.” We all need feedback. With no feedback, says Gates, no coaching, there’s just no way to improve. Learning is as important as teaching, if not more. As he says in the talk, even great teachers can get better with smart feedback. Teaching doesn't happen only in the classroom Mentors, coaches, and peers who are willing to provide constructive feedback enrich our opportunities to learn more about what works. In the absence of deliberate feedback, I… -
Switching Sides
17 May 2013 | 3:00 amThis past Monday, author, consultant, and friend Peter Shankman, the man who found himself on the receiving end of Morton's Steakhouse greatest customer experience, invited me to the experience the 3D IMAX Theater premiere of Star Trek in New York City. That's for the man behind the connection. As for the man behind the reboot of the Star Trek franchise, J.J. Abrams, he succeeded in creating a compelling story. I'm not normally too much into 3D, and IMAX can make me dizzy. However, this movie was well done. It was like being part of the action. The best scenes are those of connection between… -
New, More Social Google Maps
16 May 2013 | 3:00 amGoogle is out on a changing spree. A new Google+ that looks a lot more like Facebook pages and Pinterest mashed together responsively (that was the commentary last night), and more dynamic and social data rich maps. In the last couple of weeks, the Interwebs were filled with news, commentary, and reviews of Google Glass. Although little was said at the Developer Conference#. Google Now app updates, too. How about those Google driverless cars#? All this on the heels of changes to Gmail UI, and the announcement that due to declining use it will be retiring GReader in July#. And I'm sure I'm…
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The Daily Nightly
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How to help Oklahoma tornado victims
20 May 2013 | 4:56 pmThe Oklahoman, NewsOk.comA teacher hugs a child at Briarwood Elementary school after a tornado destroyed the school in south Oklahoma City, Monday, May 20, 2013.By Suzanne Choney, Contributing Writer, NBC NewsThe loss of life and stunning devastation in Oklahoma City suburbs after a monster tornado ripped through the area are heart-wrenching. "The streets are just gone. The signs are just gone," said Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin, after she toured the area by helicopter Tuesday. And many, many relief organizations are getting the message out on how to help.American Red CrossThe Red Cross has set… -
Delayed by war, Class of 1943 finally holds senior prom
20 May 2013 | 1:36 pmNBC NewsGrace Duffy dances with her stand-in date Dave Lenahan at the Hillhouse High School class of 1943 reunion and prom. Follow @NBCNewsUS Rehema Ellis and Andrew Rafferty, NBC News writesIt took seven decades, but the Hillhouse High School Class of 1943 finally had its senior prom.Prom for the members of the Greatest Generation was cancelled 70 years ago when the young men in the Connecticut school — and across the country — were called on to go defend the United States during World War II. But as of last Sunday, the high school rite of passage was no longer something… -
'We saved the ship': WWII vets gather, likely for last time
17 May 2013 | 2:39 pmTerry Pickard / NBC NewsSurviving sailors from the USS Franklin hold a reunion at Patriots Point in Charleston on Friday. Terry Pickard and Carlo Dellaverson, NBC News writesMT. PLEASANT, S.C. -- Two dozen surviving veterans from the World War II aircraft carrier USS Franklin gathered on Friday, probably for the last time, to honor and remember one of the most remarkable naval episodes of the war.It was before dawn on a late winter morning in 1945 when a Japanese dive bomber dropped two 500 pound bombs on the Franklin. The year-old carrier nicknamed “Big Ben” was serving in the… -
Fighting to save Africa's rhinos
17 May 2013 | 1:53 pmWildlife Rangers are on the frontline of the battle to save elephants and rhinos from poaching gangs. The illegal trade in rhino horn, highlighted by Prince William earlier this year, is threatening the very existence of the creatures. NBC's Rohit Kachroo reports on the work of the round-the-clock patrols at Lewa National Park.By Rohit Kachroo, Correspondent, NBC NewsFirst came the sound of gunshots late at night. Then, a few hours later, a carcass was found -- his bloodied face and mutilated body shielded by the long grass. Before long, the stench of death was rising from what was now… -
Sisters, separated for 17 years, find each other at high school track meet
16 May 2013 | 4:18 pmRobin Jeter and Jordan Dickerson both grew up in Washington, D.C., in separate families that lived miles apart. They knew they had other family members, but never met one another – until ending up at the same track competition. NBC's Ron Mott reports. By Ron Mott, Correspondent, NBC NewsWASHINGTON – Their similarities are striking, but teenagers Robin Jeter, 18, and Jordan Dickerson, 17, grew up quite differently in the nation’s capital.They’re smart, pretty and fashion-forward. Both teens are also athletically inclined and have double jointed thumbs they can contort onto…
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Ann Coulter's Townhall.com Column
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Here's That "Dynamic Scoring" You Asked For, Senator
15 May 2013 | 3:45 pmThe Heritage Foundation recently issued a comprehensive report showing that Sen. Marco Rubio's plan to instantly legalize 11.5 million illegal immigrants would add $6.3 trillion to the nation's budget deficits over... -
Beware of Liberals Who Come in Evangelicals' Clothing
8 May 2013 | 3:29 pmEvery few months since at least 2006, The New York Times takes time out from brow-beating Evangelicals to praise them for supporting amnesty for illegal aliens. Most of the "Evangelicals" the Times cites are... -
America's Most Feared Economist
1 May 2013 | 8:14 pmYou can tell the conservatives liberals fear most because they start being automatically referred to as "discredited." Ask Sen. Ted Cruz. But no one is called "discredited" by liberals more often than the inestimable ec -
The Problem Isn't Just Illegal Immigration, It's Legal Immigration, Too
24 Apr 2013 | 1:15 pmThe people of Boston are no longer being terrorized by the Marathon bombers, but amnesty supporters sure are. On CNN's "State of the Union" last weekend, Sen. Lindsey Graham's response to the Boston Marathon bombers... -
If Rubio's Amnesty is So Great, Why is He Lying?
17 Apr 2013 | 4:24 pmWhen Republicans start lying like Democrats, you can guess they are pushing an idea that's bad for America. During his William Ginsburg-like tour of the Sunday talk shows last weekend, Sen. Marco Rubio was the...
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Jeffrey Zeldman Presents The Daily Report
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Don’t Cry For Me, San Diego
19 May 2013 | 11:52 am -
Ryan and Tina Essmaker of The Great Discontent
10 May 2013 | 11:58 amRYAN AND TINA Essmaker are my guests for Episode No. 91 of The Big Web Show (“everything web that matters”). Ryan is a designer and the co-founder of The Great Discontent. By day he works with Crush + Lovely as head of products, and manages No Little Plans, The Great Discontent’s parent company. Tina is an illustrator, essayist, photographer, blogger, and the co-founder of The Great Discontent, an online journal of interviews focusing on creativity and risk, and No Little Plans, The Great Discontent’s parent company. By day she manages community for Crush + Lovely and… -
Adobe Love
8 May 2013 | 7:02 amI CAME to AdobeMAX in Los Angeles to give a talk to a room full of designers. Before arriving, I thought of Adobe as a historically important 20th century company that was slowly leaking relevance—a company web designers in the era of responsive design have begun to think of with a combination of fondness and embarrassment, like a beloved but somewhat shameful old uncle. I came to LA with those perceptions, but I leave with the impression of an exciting 21st century company in emergence. Realistic products for a magical age The products I saw were both amazing and realistic. It was amazing… -
The Big Web Show No. 90: Paul Ford on emulators, archives, and the web
3 May 2013 | 10:38 amTHE AMAZING PAUL FORD is my guest in Episode No. 90 of The Big Web Show (“everything web that matters”). In a fast-moving hour, we discuss computer system emulators on the web, designing web archives, the value of context in software and literature, the new tribalism, the fallacy of history, buying records when you are 16, why getting to magic is more important than attaining perfection, the interconnectedness of software design and storytelling, how parenting twins facilitates A/B testing, and loads more. Give it a listen! URLs, URLs, URLs Ftrain.com A Conversation with Paul… -
McGrane: Kill Your CMS
3 May 2013 | 7:58 amTHE ERA of “desktop publishing” is over. Same goes for the era where we privilege the desktop web interface above all others. The tools we create to manage our content are vestiges of the desktop publishing revolution, where we tried to enable as much direct manipulation of content as possible. In a world where we have infinite possible outputs for our content, it’s time to move beyond tools that rely on visual styling to convey semantic meaning. If we want true separation of content from form, it has to start in the CMS.–Karen McGrane, WYSIWTF ∙ An A List Apart Column.
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Andy Sernovitz | Damn, I Wish I'd Thought of That!
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50 small things to help improve your customer service
21 May 2013 | 7:00 amHere’s a guest post Greg Meyer, a member of the Customer WOW team at Desk.com, wrote for our WordofMouth.org project. Check it out for more great word of mouth marketing tips like this every day. “The Thank You Effect” is an example of a small action that prompts meaningful next steps to measurably improve service in any company. In my experience, there are a number of these small actions that, when evangelized through a support team or through the larger company, can really make a difference on the customer experience. So I made a list of 50 small things that you can do to… -
Copy Protection is the Opposite of Copy Promotion (which we call “marketing”)
20 May 2013 | 7:00 amI’ve often thought that over-done efforts at copy protection kill the limited piracy that helps start the word of mouth about new content. Or they just make it too hard to use, and frustrated consumers walk away. David Pogue writes about Tor Books’ test where they dropped copy protection and saw no measurable increase in piracy. Read it here. David’s analysis is right on: Copy protection is never going to stop determined pirates Folks with no money aren’t ever going to pay you anyway, so it doesn’t matter if they steal the work If it’s easy enough to buy… -
It’s the empty space that’s useful
19 May 2013 | 7:00 amLao Tzu said: Thirty spokes share the wheel’s hub; It is the center hole that makes it useful. Shape clay into a vessel; It is the space within that makes it useful. Cut doors and windows for a room; It is the holes which make it useful. Therefore benefit comes from what is there; Usefulness from what is not there. We manage communities for executives and this is very relevant advice: It not the content we produce that makes our communities useful, it’s the empty space that we give them to talk to each other that’s so valuable. Our job isn’t to fill the empty space,… -
Spam vs. Viral
18 May 2013 | 7:00 amSeth Godin is a man who defined honest and effective email for all of us. Permission Marketing and Unleashing the Ideavirus are required reading for our team. Here’s a healthy reminder of the biggest ideas in email from two of Seth’s recent blog posts: Is this spam? If you have to ask, it probably is. The essential truth is that spam is always in the eye of the recipient. If you think it’s spam, it’s spam (if you’re the recipient. If you’re the sender, your opinion is worthless.) I don’t care what the privacy policy fine print says, if someone thinks… -
Showing that you care about your customers
17 May 2013 | 7:00 amSalesforce.com is going to be down for 5 minutes tonight. Really, not a big deal to most customers. Most companies would have hoped nobody would notice. Salesforce gave us all a warning when we logged in. It’s how you handle the little things that show the quality of your customer service.
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Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed
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Twitter Digest: 2013-05-19
20 May 2013 | 4:00 amUrban Dictionary: Highlingual – The belief that, when high, you can speak two or more languages http://t.co/F9sjt3Y77j -> There hitherto unplumbed relationship between football passing direction and politician orientation http://t.co/14SOuKvnIS -> Oh, ugh: Psychology tops SDSU list of most popular degrees among 2013 graduates – http://t.co/wrikqz1606 -> That sound you hear is every VC in US rummaging thru portfolio for SFTTCSYBITL (Some Fucking Thing They Can Sell Yahoo Before It’s Too Late) -> To paraphrase P.J. O’Rourke, giving money and an impatient board to a… -
Twitter Digest: 2013-05-16
17 May 2013 | 4:00 amTableau to start trading tomorrow with symbol “DATA”. Nice. Love those guys. -> Like services such as Wealthfront, but wish there was an uber-Wealthfront that managed allocations to LendingClub, CircleUp/Angellist, etc. -> Frontline: The Retirement Gamble – http://t.co/ip8xqqyGwC -> Today in “ewww”: Human feces taint more than half of U.S. public swimming pools | http://t.co/FVGlfXHLSD -> Lovely: Newegg nukes “corporate troll” Alcatel in third patent appeal win this year http://t.co/4wVEwd0Hfy -> -
Twitter Digest: 2013-05-14
15 May 2013 | 4:00 amDiana Deutsch’s ‘Sometimes Behave So Strangely’ is the crack cocaine of looped audio http://t.co/zVDwEOveuh -> Watching Penguins/Senators, and explaining the deep mysteries of Evgeni Malkin to the offspring -> Jay Peak VT claims 350” of snow this season, more than Steamboat CO or Squaw Valley CA – http://t.co/IQvPkykCgY -> New @MenInBlazers podcast out. A reminder how good quality podcasts can be. http://t.co/HrX4Ptey59 -> Nice to see, but amusing when new TV shows don’t yet have names: Female Entrepreneur Project - http://t.co/oROkaL0wtu /cc @lesamitchell -> -
Twitter Digest: 2013-05-13
14 May 2013 | 4:00 amThe 'IKEA Effect': How people overestimate the value of crap they assemble themselves – http://t.co/6eHfbQK1RF -> Good news for losers everywhere: Players in a winning team run a higher risk of suffering an injury – http://t.co/gDW3dGvQbq -> Tried to explain Bloomberg data story via analogy to Unix, “finger” & “.plan”. Might as well have been talking about the Oldovar toolkit. -> Mance Rayder is real… RT @EQECAT: Wall of ice rises out of lake and destroys homes in Canada http://t.co/682ervGqY9 ->
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@ProBlogger
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7 Steps to Proofreading Like a Pro
21 May 2013 | 9:37 amThis is a guest contribution by Charles Cuninghame, website copywriter and owner of Text-Centric. I’m sure we can all agree that proofreading is the least fun part of blogging. But while it may be tedious, it’s well worth the effort. Typos are not only embarrassing, they can also cost you money. In a widely reported study in 2011, British entrepreneur Charles Duncombe found a single spelling mistake can cut online sales in half! If you don’t have a product, then you could be missing out a blog subscriber or repeat visitor! Here’s a tried and tested proofreading process that I’ve… -
Are You Balancing Emerging Technology with Effective Strategy?
20 May 2013 | 8:21 amLast week I was asked at a conference to reflect upon the future of digital and among other things I made a reflection that seemed to resonate with those gathered. It was: Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. As online publishers we see a steady stream of articles being written about new and future technologies, companies and trends in the online publishing space. It is certainly an exciting time to be doing what we’re doing with such amazing development happening all around us and some amazing projections being made about what is ahead of us – however in the midst… -
How to Blog Like a Pro: Workshop on the Gold Coast Australia – Next Week
19 May 2013 | 7:56 pmNext week (29th May) I’m running a special workshop at the Internet Conference on the Gold Coast here in Australia. The workshop is titled – How to Blog Like a Pro – and you’ll get 4 solid hours of teaching in it – all delivered by me in a workshop limited to 40 people only. The workshop has only previously been available to those signing up to the full 3 day conferences as an add-on but there are a few tickets still available and so I asked the organisers if we could sell them as a stand-alone ticket (i.e. you don’t have to come to the full 3 day event). -
How To Use Auto Responder Emails to Boost Your Blogging Efforts
17 May 2013 | 8:22 amThis is a guest contribution by Asher Elran of Dynamic Search. I thought emails were a waste of time and that they are ignored, but then I learned how to do it right and watched the numbers flip. After you published a great post and pushed it through your social network, the third step is to leverage your email list too. This is where the auto-responders can help you gain new subscribers while you’re busy writing your next blog post. The majority of email marketing services are the same. I prefer Constant Contact or Mobilizemail’s new email feature. Following the steps below… -
How Much Content Should I Have Ready to Go When I Launch a Blog?
16 May 2013 | 8:23 amI recently had the opportunity to sit with a small group of Pre-Bloggers – people about to start their first blogs. One of the questions I was about how much content should be written before launching a new blog. My answer came in two parts: The Ideal Scenario What I actually have done The reality is that what I ‘preach’ isn’t always what I ‘do’ – so let me tell you about both! Note: we give a lot of teaching and some great exercises on this topic in ProBlogger’s Guide to Your First Week of Blogging. The Ideal Scenario OK – here’s…
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AllThingsD » Walt Mossberg
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Windows Version of Quicken on the Mac
21 May 2013 | 6:14 pmQ: The only hesitation I have about switching to the Mac concerns Quicken. I have used that program on Windows for over 20 years. All the reviews on the Mac version are less than favorable. If I install Windows on the Mac, would I still be able to run my current Quicken program? A: Yes. When you install Windows on a Mac, using Apple’s Boot Camp utility, the Mac is turned into a full-fledged Windows computer, whenever you choose. So Quicken—or any Windows program—should work fine. If you install Windows in a virtual machine program, such as Parallels, you should also be able to run… -
Apps Raise the iPad's Aptitude for Real Work
14 May 2013 | 6:08 pmThere’s a popular myth that Apple’s iPad and other tablets are simply media-consumption devices, unsuitable for productivity applications. That’s just not so, and this week I tested a variety of office suites for the iPad for mini-reviews of their capabilities. In fact, I wrote and edited this entire column on an iPad using the most popular paid iPad app, the $10 Pages word processor by Apple. [ See post to watch video ] Not every productivity task is optimally done on tablet software, of course. Writing a plain text document like this one isn’t the same as creating a… -
A Printer for the iPad
7 May 2013 | 6:10 pmQ: We own an iPad and we would like to purchase a printer to use with it. We don’t know which to buy. A: Apple’s iOS operating system, which powers iPads and iPhones, can print decent-looking documents, using a built-in technology called AirPrint, which prints wirelessly. You don’t need to set up any drivers or other software on the iPad itself. However, AirPrint requires a printer that has Wi-Fi capability and is connected to the same Wi-Fi network as your iPad or iPhone. In addition, the printer must be a model that supports AirPrint. All the major printer makers sell… -
Two Products for People Who Miss the Old Windows
7 May 2013 | 6:03 pm[ See post to watch video ] The face of Windows 8 — the tablet-like, tile-based Start Screen that comes up every time you start a new PC — is nicely designed and works well on touchscreens. But a lot of people hate it. They do almost all of their computing in the traditional Windows desktop environment, which has been demoted to secondary status in Windows 8. And they are annoyed that Microsoft has replaced the familiar Windows Start Menu with the Start Screen in Windows 8. That means when you want to launch a new app that isn’t pinned to your taskbar, you have to jump back… -
The 411 on Phone Discounts
30 Apr 2013 | 6:09 pmQ: You recently mentioned the HTC One as being priced at $200. I’ve just been on the phone with my carrier T-Mobile, which offers me the HTC One for $100 down and $20 a month for 24 months. They explain they “no longer offer discounted phones” under their new world order or whatever. Can you explain? A: In the U.S., carriers traditionally subsidize the price of mobile phones and then make back the money by requiring buyers to sign a two-year contract, so they don’t defect before the carrier has made back the subsidy from them. Under this formula, the HTC One is indeed…
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Brian Solis
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Getting Back to Basics: Why Brands are Getting it Wrong in Social Media
21 May 2013 | 8:29 amQuestion: What is your #1 advice for social media strategists and managers? Answer: Stop talking about social media Type “social media” into a Google search bar and you’ll find roughly about 4.7 billion results in .30 seconds. Next, try “social media conference.” You’ll see something along the lines of 1.2 billion results in .25 seconds. Social media is important but I’d argue we aren’t celebrating it for the reasons we should. Instead, we are forcing social media to conform to traditional thinking and processes rather than adapting business philosophies and supporting… -
Internal social networks improve communication + collaboration when empowered to do so
17 May 2013 | 4:49 amI received an email from my friend at CIO Journal just as I boarded a United flight from Mexico City to San Francisco. He was on deadline and the topic was too good to miss. I’ve spent more than a fair amount of time studying and reporting on the social landscape as it pertained to internal engagement, communication and collaboration. I frantically typed on my iPhone with my thumbs before the door closed. Time was.running.out. With the hit of the send button, the door closed, and I was relieved to know that I made the deadline. Fast forward….the article recently ran in… -
New Digital Influencers: The Coming Youthquake
14 May 2013 | 7:32 amElements of inspiration that went on to become my new book, What’s the Future of Business, Changing the Way Businesses Create Experiences Blame it on the youth they say. Indeed, there’s a great assumption that the future of technology falls in the hands of emergent generations. The youth of today will someday represent the majority of consumers, employees and citizens. That’s always the case, but what we don’t yet fully appreciate is just how different young adults think today. We don’t yet understand what it is they value and why. We’ve not yet assimilated how they make decisions… -
Part 2: The Broken Link of Social Customer Service
9 May 2013 | 8:05 amPart Two. An edited excerpt of What’s the Future of Business, Changing the Way Businesses Create Experiences In Part 1 of this series, The First Mile: The Broken Link of Social Media Customer Service, we reviewed the opportunities and challenges that face any business seeking to engage customers in social networks. To become customer-centric requires a culture that supports customer-centricity and an active investment in defining the first mile experience. The first mile of customer engagement is a post-commerce or post-transaction strategy that invests in an ongoing experience to keep… -
The First Mile: The Broken Link of Social Media Customer Service
7 May 2013 | 7:03 amPart One. An edited excerpt of What’s the Future of Business, Changing the Way Businesses Create Experiences For all that social media is doing to change business for the better, it’s not yet enough. Interview any executive and ask them what their priority business goals are for 2013 and I’m sure you’ll see some element of customer-centricity on the list. Yet the challenge that exists for any organization trying to get closer to customers lies in the definition of customer-centricity. If getting closer to customers is a key objective, why do many businesses neglect the…
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Joho the Blog
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The New Yorker Caption Contest is making me an embittered, broken man
20 May 2013 | 4:03 pmMy offering has once again been passed over by the cruel gods that rule the New Yorker Caption contest. The cartoon shows Noah’s ark filled with giraffes. Noah is talking to what seems to be a young woman. (I describe it because I can’t find a unique url for it.) The selected entries are: “I wouldn’t say ‘favorite’ animal.” /li> “Mistakes were made.” /li> “I have trouble saying no.” /li> Here’s my rejected caption: “That’s ok. Everyone has trouble with Excel at first.” Ok, it’s not so great. But… -
[misc] The loneliness of the long distance ISBN
20 May 2013 | 11:29 amNOTE a couple of hours later: OCLC has discovered a problem with the analysis. So please ignore the following post until further notice. Apologies from the management. Ever since the 1960s, publishers have used ISBN numbers as identifiers of editions of books. Since the world needs unique ways to refer to unique books, you would think that ISBN would be a splendid solution. Sometimes and in some instances it is. But there are problems, highlighted in the latest analysis run by OCLC on its database of almost 300 million records. Number of ISBNs Percentage of the records 0 77.68% 2 19.85% 4… -
Lobby for FaceBook, Yahoo, NewsCorp and Elsevier opposes the White House Open Access order, among others
17 May 2013 | 12:32 pmPeter Suber points out that FaceBook, Yahoo, Elsevier and Yahoo have joined the NetChoice.org lobby that has issued a clarion call against open access that blurs the line between lies and gibberish. Peter blows the statements apart, leaving nothing but clean air and a whiff of ozone. NetChoice.org is publicizing its monthly “iAWFUL” (Internet advocates watchlist for ugly laws) list of policies that it doesn’t like. The list has little to do with advocating for the Internet, and everything to do with supporting the interests of Internet businesses (“committed to tearing… -
[meshcon] Ryan Carson of Treehouse
15 May 2013 | 8:13 amRyan Carson [twitter:RyanCarson] of Treehouse at the Mesh Conference is keynoting the Mesh Conference. He begins his introduction of himself by saying he is a father, which I appreciate. Treehouse is an “online education company that teaches technology. We hope we can remove the need to go to university to do technology.” NOTE: Live-blogging. Getting things wrong. Missing points. Omitting key information. Introducing artificial choppiness. Over-emphasizing small matters. Paraphrasing badly. Not running a spellpchecker. Mangling other people’s ideas and words. You are warned,… -
Lucky me
15 May 2013 | 6:38 amI had a lovely time at the University of Toronto Faculty of Information yesterday afternoon. About twenty of us talked for two hours about library innovation. It reminded me: how much I like hanging out with librarians; how eager people are to invent, collaborate, and play; how lucky I am to work in an open space for innovation (the Harvard Library Innovation Lab) with such a talented, creative group; how much I love Toronto.
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Daniel Pink
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How to Pitch Better: The Question Pitch
20 May 2013 | 6:02 amToday we begin a new series of short videos based on Chapter 7 of To Sell is Human, wherein I reveal the 6 successors to the elevator pitch. Up first is The Question Pitch, which shows when you should use the interrogative to make your case (and when you should avoid it). -
The 6 essential lessons of a satisfying, productive career
16 May 2013 | 5:49 amJust in time for graduation season, Johnny Bunko is here to remind you of the 6 essential lessons of any satisfying, productive career: 1. There is no plan. Make decisions for fundamental, not instrumental, reasons. 2. Think strengths, not weaknesses. What do you consistently do well? What gives you energy rather than drains it? 3. It’s not about you. The most successful people improve their own lives by improving others’ lives. 4. Persistence trumps talent. There are massive returns to doggedness. 5. Make excellent mistakes. Commit errors from which the benefits of what… -
Dan Ariely’s revised model of labor
9 May 2013 | 5:37 amBelow is a fantastic TED Talk from Dan Ariely on why people work hard, when they’re willing to make extreme efforts, and how easy it is to crush their motivation. Among the insights and provocations: “Ignoring the performance of people is almost as bad as shredding their effort in front of their eyes.” “Is efficiency still more important than meaning? I think the answer is no.” “By getting people to work harder, they actually got them to love what they’re doing to a higher degree.” Watch and ponder. -
Are you inside the circle or outside?
8 May 2013 | 6:03 amThe annotated map below has been lighting up the the social mediasphere in the last couple days — and for good reason. It forces those of us outside the circle (I’m looking at you, America) to ponder what the next century will really be like. -
Is your focus prevention or promotion? 5 questions for Halvorson & Higgins
18 Apr 2013 | 5:59 amOn the cover of Focus: Use Different Ways of Seeing the World for Success and Influence are a red light and a green light. The symbols nicely capture the central idea in this fascinating book (Buy it on Amazon, BN, 800CeoRead, or IndieBound), which debuts today. Heidi Grant Halvorson and E. Tory Higgins, who together run the Motivation Science Center at Columbia Business School, argue that human beings have two broad approaches to the world. Some of us are red lights. We’re prevention-focused. Our overriding goals are to minimize losses, to feel secure, and to elude the looming…
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craigconnects
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Bringing High-Speed Broadband to Vocational Schools in Palestine
16 May 2013 | 7:55 amIn 2011 Inveneo and Coolnet, with funding from craigconnects, began Palestine's Technical Vocational Educational Training (TVET) program. Connected to aging infrastructure with extreme network congestion, the schools were functionally cut off from the Internet, with one principal needing to disconnect the entire school and wait 15 minutes just to send email. The solution was a network designed by Inveneo and built using local resources, which in 2013 began delivering broadband at roughly 1,000 times the previous speeds. Palestine Nablus Students Inveneo's focus on design, local… -
Annie Leibovitz, DonorsChoose, and Myself walked into a school…
14 May 2013 | 8:35 amHey folks, I went to NYC a few months back for a Vanity Fair photo shoot with DonorsChoose.org staff, board members, and advisers. All photos were taken by Annie Leibovitz. The photo shoot took place at P.S. 33 in NYC. Featured are DonorsChoose.org board members and advisers Timothy Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek; Livia Stone and Biz Stone, Twitter co-founder; Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit; Charles Best, founder and C.E.O. of DonorsChoose.org; Stephen Colbert, host of The Colbert Report; Desirée Rogers, C.E.O. of Johnson Publishing; Anil Dash, blogger and founding partner… -
If it wasn't for comedy…
9 May 2013 | 12:13 pmIf it wasn't for comedy, I'd have no personality at all. I just found this video of me and the First Lady. I think it had to do with the "craigslist for good" concept. This was in Washington, DC at an allforgood.org event, which has since subsumed into the Points of Light, where I'm an advisor. At this event, Michelle Obama launched the National and Community Service Program. A sense of humor helps you realize that things like status and prestige are illusions. -
Help me give back to military families via DonorsChoose.org
7 May 2013 | 10:47 amOkay, teachers in a lot of schools never get a break, and that's often true in schools that serve military families. Remember that the families of active service troops also serve when troops are deployed. A really good way to give teachers and military families a break is via DonorsChoose.org. They're a great example of how we all use the Net to help each other out, by pooling a few dollars to give people a break. DonorsChoose is something I can understand. It's like microfinance applied to classroom projects; we all can contribute a little to fund a classroom projects. -
Easter Seals Advocacy Awards Honors Gary Sinise, Tom Brokaw and CITI for Work with Veterans
26 Apr 2013 | 10:03 amThe Easter Seals Advocacy Awards for the Washington, DC; Maryland, and Virginia areas honoring Tom Brokaw, Gary Sinise, and CITI for their work helping veterans, were awarded in Washington, DC on April 16, 2013. In addition to Sinise and Brokaw, in attendance were Phil Panzarella, Chairman of the Board, Easter Seals (DC, MD, VA); Lisa Reeves, President and CEO of Easter Seals (DC, MD, VA); Executive Vice President and Head, Global Affairs of CITI Candi Wolff; combat veteran, wounded heroine and congresswoman Tammy Duckworth; 17th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral (retired)…
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The Dish
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Your Tuesday Cry
21 May 2013 | 7:29 pm[Re-posted from earlier today] A survivor of the Oklahoma tornado gets a surprise: I totally lost it with that video. First off: what a great human being. No bullshit, no mawkishness: “I know exactly what happened.” Then the little dog – her second prayer. Sometimes it takes just one tangible story to fully grasp from a distance what these people have just experienced. And to see the hidden values – of love and life rather than property – that redeem us even after that horror. The human death toll from the tornado now stands at 24, with hundreds more injured. -
Face Of The Day
21 May 2013 | 6:50 pmJohn Mirch, left, and Michael Camacho, right, participate in a Rally Against Hate, organized by members of New York’s Lesbian-Gay-Transgender-Bisexual community, on May 20, 2013 in New York City. The rally was organized in response to a recent spate of hate crimes, most notably the murder of Mark Carson, a gay man who was shot in New York’s West Village neighborhood in the early hours of May 18. By Andrew Burton/Getty Images. [Re-posted from earlier today] -
The Crack Baby Epidemic That Wasn’t
21 May 2013 | 5:57 pmRetro Report re-reports on old stories, “connecting the dots from yesterday to today, correcting the record and providing a permanent living library where viewers can gain new insight into the events that shaped their lives.” Its latest video focuses on the alleged crack baby epidemic in the 1980s: Clay Dillow summarizes key points: How did science get it so wrong? The primary study behind the “crack baby” epidemic scare involved just 23 infants–a sample set too small to be meaningful. It also included only infants rather than adults who had been exposed to crack as… -
Syria From The Outside
21 May 2013 | 5:32 pmJenna Krajeski looks at how the Syrian conflict has bled into Turkey: It has cost Turkey seven hundred and fifty million dollars to host the [Syrian] refugees, with about one hundred million more coming in from outside sources. Members of Syria’s opposition—both armed and not—consider Turkey their base, and the Turkish government’s support for them has made the country an opponent of the Assad regime in more than just words. The border is being knocked down piece by piece—whether by journalists and soldiers crossing back and forth or shells falling on Turkish towns. In a report… -
Gaming Out The Limits Of Morality
21 May 2013 | 5:02 pmChristian Brown showcases videogames that challenge the conception of winning at all costs, such as Spec Ops: The Line: [A]s the game progresses, generic Arab bad guys are replaced with American soldiers and sometimes civilians. The load screens — most commonly seen after the player dies — explicitly question the values of the player. “DO YOU FEEL LIKE A HERO YET?” they ask, as you wait to jump back in and shoot dozens more digital soldiers. One’s motives for playing the game are openly called into question: The decision to keep playing instead of walking away from the game is…
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Jessica Gottlieb A Los Angeles Mom
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A Giveaway in Honor of My 86th Ex-Step-Cousin Twice Removed
16 May 2013 | 10:29 amIf Alexander Skarsgård shows up at my front door, knocks three times (no doorbell and no knocking two, four or five times) and says, “Leave all this and come run away with me.” I’m going to abandon everyone and leave here with this slightly broken very handsome tall man. Ok, maybe he’s not slightly broken but his character in What Maisie Knew sure is. Yesterday William and I saw a screening of What Maisie Knew and it was a ridiculously uncomfortable movie to watch. It was a great movie (see William’s review) but I found myself not breathing regularly. I was… -
What Maisie Knew: Storytelling Done Right [Guest Post]
15 May 2013 | 9:08 pmWhat Maisie Knew is a gem of a movie. Its subject matter – divorce, family dysfunction, loss of innocence – is the stuff of made-for-TV movies. But, accompanied by a talented cast, Scott McGehee and David Siegel manage to navigate the titular character’s story with great skill and empathy. Maisie is six years old. Mother Susanna (Julianne Moore) is a has-been, middle-aged rocker who dreams of returning to her days of glory, while father Beale (Steve Coogan) is an art dealer with the attention span of a squirrel. The two are engaged in the aftermath of a bitter divorce, where Maisie… -
I’m All Into Nudity, Hot Male Lesbians & Exploitation Today
14 May 2013 | 6:32 pmMy friend April asked me if I’d write something about a new show on Danish TV where women get naked in front of two old men (I’m assuming they’re rich because there’s no other reason for these two to see so much skin) and are evaluated. Apparently the world is in an uproar because this is the most sexist thing ever. Except that Howard Stern has been doing it for at least 8 years if not more and his stylist Ralph had a laser pointer which he’d use to point out a woman’s cellulite. Ralph is so handsome that he’s actually qualified to do this. You can… -
My Mom Was Born Without Gaydar
13 May 2013 | 10:14 amAs a New York City teenager in the 50′s my mother spent her time in the Village smoking Gauloises and otherwise being fabulous with her girlfriends. I know about some of her favorite haunts because she brought me to them endlessly and repeatedly since before I could even remember. There was Chumleys, DiRoberti’s, El Faro and then there were the Chinese restaurants everything South of Houston (Yona Schimmel’s, Katz’ and Russ and Daughters). There was a midtown and an uptown to Manhattan but they were never as interesting to us as My Mother’s Manhattan which… -
Look at My Kid
9 May 2013 | 2:43 pmNo, really. Look at her. Both of my kids are hypermobile. Some people call it double jointed. It’s a good thing to have for sports, Jane can pull her arm back a little further than most kids so she gets more momentum when she’s hitting the ball. Alexander can do wacky stuff with his elbows when he’s throwing a baseball and then there are the parlor tricks when they both just start wrapping their bodies into odd shapes solely to creep me out. Lucky me. Yesterday I pulled out the camera for Jane’s volleyball match and was able to snap a shot of her hypermobile arm in…
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Dembot
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via via
16 May 2013 | 1:13 pmvia via -
The History of Know Your Meme
6 Dec 2012 | 10:16 amI thought I would do a little history of Know Your Meme because there isn’t a good one out there. I had written one up before on the Know Your Meme website, but it got deleted. In the Fall of 2007, Know Your Meme started one day in a moment. At the time, Joanne Colan was the anchor of Rocketboom, I was selecting the content, writing the scripts and producing the show, Joe Bonacci was editing, Kenyatta Cheese was organizing company operations (the editing department in particular), Jamie Wilkinson was operating dev and Elspeth Rountree was administrative assistant. It was an awesome… -
What Feedback on YouTube Can Do
15 Nov 2012 | 4:06 amYou know, one of the most energizing and motivating parts of publishing video on YouTube is the instant feedback. It’s a special kind of feedback that goes beyond what you typically experience on other platforms. On those occasions when you know you did your best work, and then notice the positive energy and feedback around your work increases, it drives you to keep doing what you do best. And when the world gets in your way and in your own mind your work is not the very best, and the feedback comes with criticism, it drives you to do your best. Consequently, between the positive… -
Rocketboom Approaches 10 Year Anniversary Rocketboom just...
27 Oct 2012 | 9:02 amRocketboom Approaches 10 Year Anniversary Rocketboom just entered it’s 9th year. Wow. Rocketboom is indisputably the longest running online video show in the world. I’ll wait another year or two to do the big review. The quick update for today: For most of Rocketboom’s life there was no market to support it. And to this day, I’ve still never taken investment. So I had to go out and invent my own deals and always worried about food and shelter for the company (and myself). You can track this on my blog here and in the archives at http://dembot.net I made the best of it. Today, there… -
Welcome Keghan Hurst
21 Apr 2012 | 11:21 amYou may have been wondering where Rocketboom has been for the last several months. The wilderness? Sitting around selling stamps? Nope. Looking for Keghan. You would think a grand search through the depths of YouTube would lead you to the talent you are looking for pretty easily, wouldn’t you? You might even think that having access to Hollywood agents, or subscription platforms like Backstage might help, right? Well YOU WOULD BE WRONG!! If you have ever enjoyed Rocketboom in the past, you know that we put it all into talent and I can tell you with all certainty, talent is very rare. So…
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Bijan Sabet
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"Tumblr is an aesthetic pleasure, like entering a modern art museum for the first time."
21 May 2013 | 12:52 pm“Tumblr is an aesthetic pleasure, like entering a modern art museum for the first time.” - Baig: A Tumblr guide for newbies (via tumblropenarts) -
Mushaboom - Feist (The Postal Service Remix)
21 May 2013 | 7:04 amMushaboom - Feist (The Postal Service Remix) -
Peter Vidani, Tumblr’s Creative Director. Williamsburg,...
21 May 2013 | 5:11 amPeter Vidani, Tumblr’s Creative Director. Williamsburg, Brooklyn. -
Yahoo + Tumblr
20 May 2013 | 5:26 amI met David Karp, the founder/ceo of Tumblr when he was 19. I was immediately taken with his passion and drive to create wonderful things. Those days, David was building within his consulting company called Davidville. My friend Fred Seibert made the intro and I’m forever grateful for that. Not too long after that David launched Tumblr to the world and I became one of it’s earliest users. I fell in love with the product. It was something I wanted to use every day and I have done just that. During the summer of 2007, David and I spent a bunch of time together and getting to know one… -
After a hike through a muddy trail
20 May 2013 | 3:44 amAfter a hike through a muddy trail
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inessential.com
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NickB Snatched Up by Blog Company
18 May 2013 | 2:51 pmNick Bradbury — my friend, co-worker at NewsGator and Sepia Labs, developer of HomeSite, TopStyle, FeedDemon, and Glassboard — starts work at Automattic on Monday. Congratulations to Automattic on hiring a great developer! -
Identical Cousins 16
14 May 2013 | 12:31 pmIn this episode, Michael and I have the fun of interviewing Chris Liscio, who makes the super-mega-ultra-groovy audio apps Capo, FuzzMeasure, and TapeDeck. -
Brentsplitting
10 May 2013 | 7:51 pmI was a guest on Daniel Jalkut’s Bitsplitting podcast. It was fun! Many thanks to Daniel. -
30 Minutes To Sync
7 May 2013 | 12:21 pmTom Harrington continues his series of posts on iCloud and Core Data. I’ve seen addPersistentStoreWithType:etcetera: block for 30 minutes. And keep in mind, this is when iCloud is working normally. This is not an error condition, this is “working as designed.” He suggests a solution: using two separate databases, one for normal use and one just for syncing, with custom code that shuttles data between the two. That solution points to what bothers me about the whole thing, which is that this is all too tightly-coupled. Ideally your storage system and syncing system are not the same… -
What Is a River of News Reader?
7 May 2013 | 10:40 amI wasn’t clear on it completely. So I asked Dave, and he answered.
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nakedjen
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I am a farmer.
13 May 2013 | 7:12 pmMonsanto won the game today. It's a very dangerous and Orwellian game. It is only a few ticks of the clock before Monsanto holds enough of the most important cards to decide who is truly allowed to eat and...who lives and who dies. -
Dottie Bella Cooper Needs Our Help, Please.
5 May 2013 | 11:14 amPlease help us find this missing cat, Dottie Bella Cooper. Let's use Social Media in our best way to help bring her home in Atlanta. -
Wow, I need this beet right now!
26 Apr 2013 | 10:08 amI'm sharing here, not to say, "Oh look, I'm living my life, isn't it lovely?", but more because, well, this space feels like that old closet up in the attic at this point that's filled with old costumes that I used to wear, that I really love and would never, ever discard. -
She had nice eyes. They lit up when she spoke.
15 Apr 2013 | 9:51 amSee that beautiful person that you are right now and love her. -
Tick Tock
29 Mar 2013 | 5:15 amMy professor is part of that dream of mine. In the list of all of the things I wrote about the person I wanted to come share my life with me and my dogs, he ticked off every single item. My professor had no idea the list even existed, but into my life he walked, quite by accident, and then after just a mere 24 hours he announced that he was staying.
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Rex Hammock's RexBlog.com
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When disaster strikes “someplace else,” first send money (continued)
21 May 2013 | 4:38 amIt is with deep grief that we learn of the magnitude of the loss of life caused by yesterday’s tornado in Moore, Oklahoma. That so many of the victims were children is especially sad. Parents, especially, know it is the realization of that which we fear the most. Below is a re-posting of a blog post I’ve written, in various ways, in the past. As I know is true for all of us, my thoughts and prayers are with the people who are now coping with the aftermath of this disaster: Over the years, I have written about many natural disasters and the human toll they’ve taken. I believe… -
A great idea from Nashville featured on CNN
20 May 2013 | 2:50 pm[It's National Bike Month. And yes, this is another post about bicycling. You'll really like this one. I promise.] Last fall, I had the privilege of spending six Thursday evenings volunteering at Nashville’s Oasis Center’s Bike Workshop. As I said in a Flickr set I posted at the time, during a six week session at the Workshop, disadvantaged kids get to choose a bike they will learn how (by doing) to take apart and then completely rebuild. At the end of the program, their work will be rewarded by earning the bike — and the knowledge to know how to keep it maintained. Last… -
Bike to Work Day is Friday. Here’s the route I take 2-3 times a week to Downtown Nashville
15 May 2013 | 3:36 pmI try to ride my bike to work 2-3 times a week, rain or shine, hot or cold. When I tell that to people who know where I live and work, they picture in their minds me riding down Nashville’s busy Harding Road/West End Corridor. “No,” I tell them. All but a few blocks of my commute is free from traffic and I can hear birds chirping the entire way. Indeed, most of the route is via designated bike lanes, greenways or limited-access streets. At a nice and easy pace on my commuter bike (think pick-up truck), the commute takes about 40-45 minutes. When I explain my route to those… -
On Chris Brogan’s podcast, taking about customer media, content and if living in Nashville is part of why I do things the way I do
15 May 2013 | 11:10 amRecently, Chris Brogan invited me onto his very popular podcast where we talked a lot about how companies and businesses are using media and content to connect directly with their customers. It’s sometimes challenging to explain what I do (especially to people with tweet-sized concentration), but Chris’ approach helped me come close. If you are one of the 12 readers of this blog, you may find it of interest. Or not. Either way, I had fun talking with him. -
How to be happy: have a great marriage
14 May 2013 | 8:15 amI’m glad to see that a PDF of this past weekend’s Baccalaureate Address by David Brooks has been posted on the Sewanee.edu website. It is filled with wonderful gems like this: “The first thing to worry about: Will I marry well? This is the most important decision you’re going to make in your life. If you have a great marriage and a crappy career, you will be happy. If you have a great career and a crappy marriage, you will be unhappy. I tell university presidents that since the marriage decision is so central, they should have academic departments on how to marry. They…
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Franklin McMahon
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How to Learn Photoshop CC and Graphic Design
17 May 2013 | 4:46 amWhere do you start? One question I get constantly is how to learn Photoshop and how to learn graphic design. I’ve seen a lot of people take the incorrect route with this and I’ve decided to do a short video explaining the process. Especially if you are using Photoshop CS6 or the new Photoshop CC via Adobe Creative Cloud, or going through tutorials, these tips can help. It can make you better at the tool and better at graphic design, particularly if you are just starting out. Watch on YouTube: Ask Franklin – How to Learn Photoshop CC and Graphic Design -
How Can You Market Your Business To Be Different?
29 Apr 2013 | 6:51 amWhen you start your business and begin offering services, chances are you are offering a lot of the same things your competition is. There is much common ground, similar options, services and features. The hardest thing to do is also the most important, which is be different. Being different gives you leverage. It sets you apart from the competition. You begin to offer something that can’t be had anywhere else. It does take some time with a pencil and sketchpad to really map out what you can offer that cannot be found elsewhere, but it’s one of the most important brainstorming sessions… -
How to Use Emotion and Market Pleasure for Your Creative Business
17 Apr 2013 | 5:14 amHow you market yourself has a big impact on perception by a potential client. Often your creative business grows not because your skills get better (although that always helps) but because you start to rethink how you position what you are offering. This typically happens in three steps: 1. Services We all start out this way. When you first set up shop and provide services, you almost always list them in very basic terms. Web design, photography, music creation, marketing, social media, graphic design, etc. You list just what you do. I take photos of your event. I will design a website for… -
Generate Some Mystery In Your Creative Career – Andy Warhol
11 Apr 2013 | 8:16 amAndy Warhol was famous, and infamous, for saying very little. In the press, on TV, during interviews. But instead of the public losing interest because he was boring, the opposite happened, they became more and more intrigued. It’s hard not to be chatty these days, with so many digital ways to get your words out there. But having an element of mystery can really help you rise higher in people’s minds. You can often leave them wanting more. Warhol was an extreme part of the spectrum obviously. It would be difficult to have a televised interview or web feature and answer in either one word… -
Ask Franklin: How Do I Get My Big Project Started?
9 Apr 2013 | 5:20 amAll of us have a lot of projects we want to get to. Creative, business, personal. What does it take to get it rolling? That is the topic of today’s episode of Ask Franklin..how to finally get that big project up and rolling. Watch on YouTube - Ask Franklin: How Do I Get My Big Project Started?
