Friday, September 30, 2005

 

One Blogger's Very Thorough Total Cost of Ownership Analysis of Switching to Apple's Platform (Hardware & Software)


Tuesday, September 27, 2005

 

Cluetrain Manifesto

We are not seats or eyeballs or end users or consumers. We are human beings — and our reach exceeds your grasp. Deal with it.

95 Theses

1. Markets are conversations.

2. Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors.

3. Conversations among human beings sound human. They are conducted in a human voice.

4. Whether delivering information, opinions, perspectives, dissenting arguments or humorous asides, the human voice is typically open, natural, uncontrived.

5. People recognize each other as such from the sound of this voice.

6. The Internet is enabling conversations among human beings that were simply not possible in the era of mass media.

7. Hyperlinks subvert hierarchy.

8. In both internetworked markets and among intranetworked employees, people are speaking to each other in a powerful new way.

9. These networked conversations are enabling powerful new forms of social organization and knowledge exchange to emerge.

10. As a result, markets are getting smarter, more informed, more organized. Participation in a networked market changes people fundamentally.

11. People in networked markets have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another than from vendors. So much for corporate rhetoric about adding value to commoditized products.

12. There are no secrets. The networked market knows more than companies do about their own products. And whether the news is good or bad, they tell everyone.

13. What's happening to markets is also happening among employees. A metaphysical construct called "The Company" is the only thing standing between the two.

14. Corporations do not speak in the same voice as these new networked conversations. To their intended online audiences, companies sound hollow, flat, literally inhuman.

15. In just a few more years, the current homogenized "voice" of business—the sound of mission statements and brochures—will seem as contrived and artificial as the language of the 18th century French court.

16. Already, companies that speak in the language of the pitch, the dog-and-pony show, are no longer speaking to anyone.

17. Companies that assume online markets are the same markets that used to watch their ads on television are kidding themselves.

18. Companies that don't realize their markets are now networked person-to-person, getting smarter as a result and deeply joined in conversation are missing their best opportunity.

19. Companies can now communicate with their markets directly. If they blow it, it could be their last chance.

20. Companies need to realize their markets are often laughing. At them.

21. Companies need to lighten up and take themselves less seriously. They need to get a sense of humor.

22. Getting a sense of humor does not mean putting some jokes on the corporate web site. Rather, it requires big values, a little humility, straight talk, and a genuine point of view.

23. Companies attempting to "position" themselves need to take a position. Optimally, it should relate to something their market actually cares about.

24. Bombastic boasts—"We are positioned to become the preeminent provider of XYZ"—do not constitute a position.

25. Companies need to come down from their Ivory Towers and talk to the people with whom they hope to create relationships.

26. Public Relations does not relate to the public. Companies are deeply afraid of their markets.

27. By speaking in language that is distant, uninviting, arrogant, they build walls to keep markets at bay.

28. Most marketing programs are based on the fear that the market might see what's really going on inside the company.

29. Elvis said it best: "We can't go on together with suspicious minds."

30. Brand loyalty is the corporate version of going steady, but the breakup is inevitable—and coming fast. Because they are networked, smart markets are able to renegotiate relationships with blinding speed.

31. Networked markets can change suppliers overnight. Networked knowledge workers can change employers over lunch. Your own "downsizing initiatives" taught us to ask the question: "Loyalty? What's that?"

32. Smart markets will find suppliers who speak their own language.

33. Learning to speak with a human voice is not a parlor trick. It can't be "picked up" at some tony conference.

34. To speak with a human voice, companies must share the concerns of their communities.

35. But first, they must belong to a community.

36. Companies must ask themselves where their corporate cultures end.

37. If their cultures end before the community begins, they will have no market.

38. Human communities are based on discourse—on human speech about human concerns.

39. The community of discourse is the market.

40. Companies that do not belong to a community of discourse will die.

41. Companies make a religion of security, but this is largely a red herring. Most are protecting less against competitors than against their own market and workforce.

42. As with networked markets, people are also talking to each other directly inside the company—and not just about rules and regulations, boardroom directives, bottom lines.

43. Such conversations are taking place today on corporate intranets. But only when the conditions are right.

44. Companies typically install intranets top-down to distribute HR policies and other corporate information that workers are doing their best to ignore.

45. Intranets naturally tend to route around boredom. The best are built bottom-up by engaged individuals cooperating to construct something far more valuable: an intranetworked corporate conversation.

46. A healthy intranet organizes workers in many meanings of the word. Its effect is more radical than the agenda of any union.

47. While this scares companies witless, they also depend heavily on open intranets to generate and share critical knowledge. They need to resist the urge to "improve" or control these networked conversations.

48. When corporate intranets are not constrained by fear and legalistic rules, the type of conversation they encourage sounds remarkably like the conversation of the networked marketplace.

49. Org charts worked in an older economy where plans could be fully understood from atop steep management pyramids and detailed work orders could be handed down from on high.

50. Today, the org chart is hyperlinked, not hierarchical. Respect for hands-on knowledge wins over respect for abstract authority.

51. Command-and-control management styles both derive from and reinforce bureaucracy, power tripping and an overall culture of paranoia.

52. Paranoia kills conversation. That's its point. But lack of open conversation kills companies.

53. There are two conversations going on. One inside the company. One with the market.

54. In most cases, neither conversation is going very well. Almost invariably, the cause of failure can be traced to obsolete notions of command and control.

55. As policy, these notions are poisonous. As tools, they are broken. Command and control are met with hostility by intranetworked knowledge workers and generate distrust in internetworked markets.

56. These two conversations want to talk to each other. They are speaking the same language. They recognize each other's voices.

57. Smart companies will get out of the way and help the inevitable to happen sooner.

58. If willingness to get out of the way is taken as a measure of IQ, then very few companies have yet wised up.

59. However subliminally at the moment, millions of people now online perceive companies as little more than quaint legal fictions that are actively preventing these conversations from intersecting.

60. This is suicidal. Markets want to talk to companies.

61. Sadly, the part of the company a networked market wants to talk to is usually hidden behind a smokescreen of hucksterism, of language that rings false—and often is.

62. Markets do not want to talk to flacks and hucksters. They want to participate in the conversations going on behind the corporate firewall.

63. De-cloaking, getting personal: We are those markets. We want to talk to you.

64. We want access to your corporate information, to your plans and strategies, your best thinking, your genuine knowledge. We will not settle for the 4-color brochure, for web sites chock-a-block with eye candy but lacking any substance.

65. We're also the workers who make your companies go. We want to talk to customers directly in our own voices, not in platitudes written into a script.

66. As markets, as workers, both of us are sick to death of getting our information by remote control. Why do we need faceless annual reports and third-hand market research studies to introduce us to each other?

67. As markets, as workers, we wonder why you're not listening. You seem to be speaking a different language.

68. The inflated self-important jargon you sling around—in the press, at your conferences—what's that got to do with us?

69. Maybe you're impressing your investors. Maybe you're impressing Wall Street. You're not impressing us.

70. If you don't impress us, your investors are going to take a bath. Don't they understand this? If they did, they wouldn't let you talk that way.

71. Your tired notions of "the market" make our eyes glaze over. We don't recognize ourselves in your projections—perhaps because we know we're already elsewhere.

72. We like this new marketplace much better. In fact, we are creating it.

73. You're invited, but it's our world. Take your shoes off at the door. If you want to barter with us, get down off that camel!

74. We are immune to advertising. Just forget it.

75. If you want us to talk to you, tell us something. Make it something interesting for a change.

76. We've got some ideas for you too: some new tools we need, some better service. Stuff we'd be willing to pay for. Got a minute?

77. You're too busy "doing business" to answer our email? Oh gosh, sorry, gee, we'll come back later. Maybe.

78. You want us to pay? We want you to pay attention.

79. We want you to drop your trip, come out of your neurotic self-involvement, join the party.

80. Don't worry, you can still make money. That is, as long as it's not the only thing on your mind.

81. Have you noticed that, in itself, money is kind of one-dimensional and boring? What else can we talk about?

82. Your product broke. Why? We'd like to ask the guy who made it. Your corporate strategy makes no sense. We'd like to have a chat with your CEO. What do you mean she's not in?

83. We want you to take 50 million of us as seriously as you take one reporter from The Wall Street Journal.

84. We know some people from your company. They're pretty cool online. Do you have any more like that you're hiding? Can they come out and play?

85. When we have questions we turn to each other for answers. If you didn't have such a tight rein on "your people" maybe they'd be among the people we'd turn to.

86. When we're not busy being your "target market," many of us are your people. We'd rather be talking to friends online than watching the clock. That would get your name around better than your entire million dollar web site. But you tell us speaking to the market is Marketing's job.

87. We'd like it if you got what's going on here. That'd be real nice. But it would be a big mistake to think we're holding our breath.

88. We have better things to do than worry about whether you'll change in time to get our business. Business is only a part of our lives. It seems to be all of yours. Think about it: who needs whom?

89. We have real power and we know it. If you don't quite see the light, some other outfit will come along that's more attentive, more interesting, more fun to play with.

90. Even at its worst, our newfound conversation is more interesting than most trade shows, more entertaining than any TV sitcom, and certainly more true-to-life than the corporate web sites we've been seeing.

91. Our allegiance is to ourselves—our friends, our new allies and acquaintances, even our sparring partners. Companies that have no part in this world, also have no future.

92. Companies are spending billions of dollars on Y2K. Why can't they hear this market timebomb ticking? The stakes are even higher.

93. We're both inside companies and outside them. The boundaries that separate our conversations look like the Berlin Wall today, but they're really just an annoyance. We know they're coming down. We're going to work from both sides to take them down.

94. To traditional corporations, networked conversations may appear confused, may sound confusing. But we are organizing faster than they are. We have better tools, more new ideas, no rules to slow us down.

95. We are waking up and linking to each other. We are watching. But we are not waiting.

Friday, September 23, 2005

 

The 10 Secrets of a Master Networker
From: Inc. Magazine, Jan 2003 | By: Tahl Raz

Keith Ferrazzi needs two PalmPilots to keep track of all his contacts, people like Bill Clinton and Michael Milken. But there's far more to cracking the inner circle of the power elite than just taking names...



 

Ya Gotta Read This: Does the Truth Lie Within? - New York Times

...It was also the Stone Age that informed his system of weight control. Over the years, he had tried a sushi diet, a tubular-pasta diet, a five-liters-of-water-a-day diet and various others. They all proved ineffective or too hard or too boring to sustain. He had by now come to embrace the theory that our bodies are regulated by a "set point," a sort of Stone Age thermostat that sets an optimal weight for each person. This thermostat, however, works the opposite of the one in your home. When your home gets cold, the thermostat turns on the furnace. But according to Roberts's interpretation of the set-point theory, when food is scarcer, you become less hungry; and you get hungrier when there's a lot of food around.
This may sound backward, like telling your home's furnace to run only in the summer. But there is a key difference between home heat and calories: while there is no good way to store the warm air in your home for the next winter, there is a way to store today's calories for future use. It's called fat. In this regard, fat is like money: you can earn it today, put it in the bank and withdraw it later when needed.
During an era of scarcity - an era when the next meal depended on a successful hunt, not a successful phone call to Hunan Garden - this set-point system was vital. It allowed you to spend down your fat savings when food was scarce and make deposits when food was plentiful. Roberts was convinced that this system was accompanied by a powerful signaling mechanism: whenever you ate a food that was flavorful (which correlated with a time of abundance) and familiar (which indicated that you had eaten this food before and benefited from it), your body demanded that you bank as many of those calories as possible.

Roberts understood that these signals were learned associations - as dependable as Pavlov's bell - that once upon a time served humankind well. Today, however, at least in places with constant opportunities to eat, these signals can lead to a big, fat problem: rampant overeating.

So Roberts tried to game this Stone Age system. What if he could keep his thermostat low by sending fewer flavor signals? One obvious solution was a bland diet, but that didn't interest Roberts. (He is, in fact, a serious foodie.) After a great deal of experimenting, he discovered two agents capable of tricking the set-point system. A few tablespoons of unflavored oil (he used canola or extra light olive oil), swallowed a few times a day between mealtimes, gave his body some calories but didn't trip the signal to stock up on more. Several ounces of sugar water (he used granulated fructose, which has a lower glycemic index than table sugar) produced the same effect. (Sweetness does not seem to act as a "flavor" in the body's caloric-signaling system.)

The results were astounding. Roberts lost 40 pounds and never gained it back. He could eat pretty much whenever and whatever he wanted, but he was far less hungry than he had ever been. Friends and colleagues tried his diet, usually with similar results. His regimen seems to satisfy a set of requirements that many commercial diets do not: it was easy, built on a scientific theory and, most important, it did not leave Roberts hungry.



(Via http://www.freakonomics.com/blog.php.)


 

lifehack.org » Permission to Suck:


Anguish, frustration, I’m so blocked. I’m not sure why writer’s block is so notorious. Is the profession filled with vociferous whiners? Do they get creative block more than others, more than musicians, artists, web designers, research scientists, strategic planners, or Fortune 500 Marketing Directors?

No one’s immune to losing their creative mojo. What about those titanic talents that we all admire but occasionally sneer at under our breath in a jealous tremor? Even they can sink; they’re just slightly more buoyant than the rest of us. Talent rises to the surface, but everyone can learn to swim. Although I have met some creative floaters who perform as asthmatics adorned with a 100 pound weight belt, but that’s rare enough to dismiss.


Imaginative creativity is an individual thing. Everyone’s method for reaching creative “flow” is proprietary. Without realizing it, companies that try to enforce creative processes can better succeed at fostering resentment than nurturing creativity. Being in a room with a dozen co-workers standing in circumference while holding hands, as they play “pass the story line” in an attempt to carve out a creative “space”, can feel more like corporate Hokey Pokey. I’ve never rushed to my office in a fit of imaginative ecstasy after compulsory creativity building sessions – have you?

Interview one hundred creative professionals [those who get paid to innovate for example] and methods will begin to distill to some invariant form. This is where all those “creative techniques” are born. Blocked? Go to the gym. Want to be creative? Meditate. Running dry on the ol’ inspiration? Start a journal.

Techniques can be highly effective. I have a tool box full of pattern breaking activities that where collected over a 25 year career. Yet, following prescribed techniques is similar to knowing a phone number for great take-out and being pleased with the food you serve; needs are filled, but what if they don’t like Italian? Got another number I can call?

Let’s back up a step. Creativity is the act of bringing something new into being. That new thing has form. Before it had form it was imagined. If I build a chair from a pile of mahogany, am I being imaginative? It’s not a given is it? I’m creative by putting my stylish spin on the chair idea, but it doesn’t guarantee an imaginative solution. The pattern needs to be broken in the imagination. When we say, “be creative”, we generally mean – be imaginative.

Being blocked is symptomatic of predictable patterns. The brain remembers everything as a pattern; random thoughts are imaginary, only patterns survive. In an odd twist, being blocked can hint at an ego that has been stroked by too much reverence. That’s why being touted as a world-class master or reputing great accomplishments with your special “style” can solidify a pattern cast in marble. You become a victim of your own brand, fearful of experimentation or disappointed with approval loss that often comes with new directions.

It takes courage to express imagination – as it takes courage to act out or walk naked onto a stage – and it takes skill to filter the imagination in a meaningful way. Imagination is so deeply personal it’s easily ignored except in dreams like so many vestigial insights pushed down making room for life’s challenges. It may not be a societal compliment to say, “he has an active imagination” but that is exactly from where true creativity stems. We all know how to imagine but the creatively skilled know how to harness imagination; they give it space, practice filtering and create new patterns.

So am I saying that this creative stuff takes work? You betcha. Maybe even a lifestyle change. Stress causes us to seek known patterns: bring your “A” game. Our “A” game is what we know works well; it’s proven and, therefore, doesn’t stretch our imagination. The trick is to combine your “A” game with your active imagination in just the right proportion to satisfy yourself and your challenge. Still, the more permission you have to suck, the easier it is to express your imagination. Here’s a rhetorical brain teaser: Is it possible for a talented musician to suck in an unimaginative way?

Corporate “Hokey Pokey” creative exercises as support for profit driven deadlines and performance incentives aren’t the best creativity stimulants. What’s needed is a culture change or – sans change – outsourcing. I’m confident hat’s one reason Volkswagen hired Crispin Porter + Bogusky as their advertising agency of record. VW needs a company whose culture is steeped in imagination or at least one that is really great at leaching every last drop of creative blood from its stable of youngsters yet to hone their creative archetypes. While I’m not an insider, I’m certain the culture at CP+B is far less about reactive judgments and far more about proactive risks.

What happens to those pre-marbleized young talents? Do they get burned out and routinely patterned? Some do, but the best learn how to stay curious and open while resisting reactive judgments even under the most unsympathetic pressure. Nothing kills creativity quite like quick judgment – we fear it. Our imagination shrinks like – well, you know – and “I was in the pool” is no excuse for this kind of shrinkage. Taking an invulnerable stance is equivalent to moving away from imaginative solutions.

If you learn to endure fear, the imagination still needs fuel. Creative curiosity is a passionate muse search without an agenda. Vertical experience is helpful but broad horizontal experiences are crucial. Vertical knowledge is quickly assimilated; horizontal knowledge takes a lifetime of dedication. Without the open mind of a landscape thinker, companies are doomed to repeat what’s been done with little variation; the silo gets taller until it falls.

Want a technique? Try this: do. Find your passion for doing, and then climb on for the ride. Passion gives you courage to suck. Ever hear, “there’s no such thing as a bad question”? Of course you have. Yet, there are humiliating ones. A passionate question gets asked no matter how humiliating. It can’t, not be asked, just like creative talent can’t not do. Blocked? Plunge forth with ghastly ideas, dreadful songs, appalling paintings or unspeakable prose. Give yourself permission to suck. I’d be surprised if the great didn’t find its way out of that pitiful pile of poor.

Author: Bruce DeBoer


(Via http://brucedeboer.typepad.com)


 

This is why we should buy Google stock.


http://marketwatch-cnet.com.com/Google+builds+an+empire+to+rival+Microsoft/2100-1032_3-5875433.html?tag=st.pop


 

Spray-on Skin Cells

The first controlled clinical study to examine the effectiveness of sprayed cultured skin cells to close the wounds of burns victims is being undertaken at the Queen Victoria Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (QVH), East Grinstead. ‘We have seen what I can only describe as miraculous results using spray on skin with patients surviving 90% burns who otherwise had very little chance of survival.’ [press release]

via MedGadget | BBC


 

How to throw playing cards


Thursday, September 22, 2005

 

Why M$, like Quark, is failing.

(via RoughlyDrafted)

 

Synthesis: What makes me creative?:  

by: Bruce DeBoer

'My 8 year old son is so creative he's going to be an artist.'  How many times have you heard that?  Naïve art – young children are natural at it.  It's the first rain in the desert, new run-off paths are spontaneously created; the water forges streams where there were none.  An 8 year old discovers crayons uninhibited by life experience, ego, and deadlines.  Nearly every connection is a new one.  She hasn't yet learned how not to be creative.

When we say that art is immature, what do we mean? We don't necessarily mean that the artist lacks originality; more likely, we mean that its originality is born by an artist who doesn't yet know enough to be interesting, or deliver emotion in a compelling way. The moment a child realizes their art is immature, the crayons stand a good chance of being surrendered.

Information and experience are like food for the creative process. It's raw substance. Information needs to be digested to brain-fat so it can re-immerge as mature creative energy. It's as if it needs to be inculcated into our souls before we are free to randomize it into original creative expression. If we don't digest it, a creative product – art, innovation, music, etc. – is sure to be more derivative that original. Creativity is using our unique inner selves to rearrange the raw material.

Society teaches the creativity out of our students. If X, then Y is easy to teach. If X, then Y gets results. It generates tangible and immediate ROI. Do this and get that result. Take an alternative path and risk failure or – even worse – ridicule. Research creative history and learn what got rewarded and what was ignored. Teach high craft and call it high art. Creativity is too soft and round; there is nothing to grab onto. There are often no clean results to judge. Creativity is messy but we all crave the rewards.

When do we begin to fear our own creativity? I believe it is the point at which we began to market ourselves. True creativity is deeply personal because we have to create new streams – new run-off paths in our souls. Risking creative rejection is terrifying. It's rejection that cuts so deep it's worse than a High School crush laughing when you finally get the nerve to ask her to the movies (I digress, forgive me). Creativity takes courage. Being vulnerable takes guts. Needed is a willingness to be rejected for what is among the most personal of expressions. The stakes are high.

Taking a less risky path is more about fine craft than innovation. I'm reminded of advice from an emerging professional as I left college: he told me, "On the outside, there is no room for 'b" quality work." In other words: it is the end of experimentation without consequences. Experiment all you want on your own, but come to work with your "A" game: bring what you know will meet approval.

Hugh MacLeod of Gaping Void fame uses the Sex and Cash theory to explain how creativity and business relate. Re: Sex and Cash, "This tense duality will always play center stage. It will never be transcended." Creativity is sexy. The more you get paid for your creativity, the less sexy it is. I believe there are laws governing sex and cash, are there not? Do we dare go counter culture?

The occasional and often publicized young creative genius can lull us into the false impression that creativity is only for the immensely and naturally talented. "I can't do that, I've never been creative." The truth is creativity is hard work. Creative people are talented because they put in the hours. There is a passion for the doing; they can't not-do, and the results are secondary to the act but no less important than their original idea. Does this confuse you?

Whether you're an artistic temperament seeking structure or a rational temperament seeking imagination, creativity is constructive only when related to others. If you've heard improvisational abstract Jazz you know what I mean. An artist's passion can be intensely creative but the results can fail to inspire others – it's self indulgent.

Ever try to talk through your raw creative ideas with another? Sounded dim, didn't it? People often reject another's raw creativity; it's simply too intimate until it takes a form prone to mutual acceptance. Raw creative ideas aren't ready for prime time – they need at least minimal crafting. Like a beautifully written song sung out of key – poor craft masks the emotion or defeats the function.

For those of you in need of concrete illustration, the DeBoer creativity equation will keep you busy:

Imagination x Craft x Emotion = Art
Imagination x Craft x Function = Innovation

[This should help with the test at the end, so pay attention.]

However flawed you may find these equations; my point is that emotion and function are the human relational elements to art and innovation. Without emotion, art appears dry and mechanical. Without function, innovation is pure Rube Goldberg. Craft is the vehicle of creativity. Crafting the creativity allows the emotion and function to "sing".

The good news: Creativity is portable. The bad news: fine Craftsmanship is not. When people say I'm a great photographer, most are telling me that I've honed the craft of photography beyond the ordinary. I can't move my honed skills from photography to writing, to music, to business, but I can take my creativity with me. It's fluid that way. We begin to recognize talent when an accomplishment tipping point is reached in the three elements of our creativity equation.

Talent doesn't need a creative process per se. Talent finds formulaic process stifling: a canvas and a deadline, however, is a different story. Talent will surface no matter what; it won't be denied. Talent doesn't need the best camera to make great imagery. Just as money can't buy contentment, the best guitar, camera, or paints can't aid creativity, only help polish the craft.

Process helps companies hide their poor creative talent. "We have a great creative process" that we use to get our accountants to think "out of the box". Ugh! Isn't that what Enron boasted? Remember what I said about putting in the hours? Either a company hires those with creative passion and nurtures it with a catalytic culture or it doesn't. Usually it doesn't. Reflecting on the process undermines the ability, it takes us back to "if X then Y" and the crayons stay in the box.

Watching creativity is like watching a cow lactate – all day long nothing is witnessed, then, WHAM, milk. Once you have your milk, only then should you send it through the process. Make sure it solves the problem. Make sure the Function and the Craft in the Innovation equation is honed to a fine edge. Bad milk? Keep moving.

Somewhere around puberty we accumulate enough junk in our minds that we need to organize it: make it linear. Random thought is no longer an efficient way to make it through the day and stay sane. Most of us lay down our crayons. Those who don't surrender, usually become artists, musicians, fashion designers or advertising art directors who wander through the desert waiting for rain."



(Via .)


Friday, September 16, 2005

 
Hey Nick!

Lynda.com

Lynda.com is a great resource for digital-video tutorials of some of the more advanced design tools. You can buy discs or subscribe for $25 a month for Quicktime online access (a real deal). I find the tutorials quite useful--it's fun to see how much more I have to learn even in the programs I have used for a long time (Photoshop for example). It's also instructive to see how others accomplish the same tasks and do it from a completely different angle.



-- Chuck Green



I tried some of the free sample classes streamed on Lynda.com and found that I remembered much more from these movie tutorials than I did from the many guidebooks I usually use. Must be how my brain works. I retain the tip, shortcut, or method long afterwards, which is not true after I am done with most computer manuals. Normally I close the book, and then have to look it up months later when I forget again. If you think visually (and most of the software covered here has a visual basis) then you might find this style of learning superior, as I do. But it is harder to search/find a solution to a specific nagging problem with this online library, because they do not yet have a fine-grained index or search beyond section headings. For expanding your reach with software packages, their subscription deal for online tutorials is a fine bargain; for hunting down a needed fix, I'd use your standard software bible.



-- KK



Lynda.com

"



(Via Cool Tools.)


Tuesday, September 13, 2005

 

Another I want it: World Puzzle Globe - He`s got the whole world...


 

Core


riverfronttimes.com | News | Cocky to the Core  | 2005-06-22
<http://www.riverfronttimes.com/issues/2005-06-22/news/feature_1.html>

 

The New Paradigm for Connecting Brands to People


Amazon.com: Books: Emotional Branding: The New Paradigm for Connecting Brands to People
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1581150784/ref=reg_hu-wl_mrai-recs/002-3763257-4214457?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance>

1) from consumers to people 
2) from product to experience 
3) from honesty to trust 
4) from quality to preference 
5) from notoriety to aspiration 
6) from identity to personality 
7) from function to feel 
8) from ubiquity to presence 
9) from communication to dialogue 
10)from service to relationship 

 

Do you think this could be real?

David Swenson's electrostatic "invisible wall"

 

Neil French is my Hero! (swoon!)

and Neil's CA Column

 

Aarrgggghhh!!! All I want is a video player for wmv, avi, everything!

Microsoft Windows Media - Windows Media Player 9 for Mac OS X

 

To be read: 2 from Use A Stick: What I've Learned & Coastal Thinking

Coastal Thinking

 

Demand Your Data! Exercise The Right To Your Travel Records Held By The TSA

One day I might care enough to do this.

 

Communication Nation: From fog to focus


 

Thanks NoahBrier.com :: Links Tagged with "lifehacks"


 

30 Things You Didn't Know You Could Do on the Internet


Monday, September 12, 2005

 

SiteTagger: Antisocial Bookmarking

and anti-spam fun

 

Maybe I'll use this one day

movabletype.org : A beginner's guide to TrackBack Explanation

 

Triple Nine Society

and Getting into Mensa

 

Fully backing up Mail.app in OSX 10.4 Tiger (revised)

1. Backing up mailboxes and address describes the files required to do a safe backup of Apple Mail and all its settings and of your address book.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=151500
2. How to remove unneeded files after importing mail from Panther into Tiger lists the redundant files that can be safely removed when Mail is up and running in Tiger. Mail folder can be reduced by almost 30% by this tip. http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301315
3. Remove some extraneous Mail mailboxes. http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20050629160328239
4. Fix Mail.app indexing issues. http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20040729192248562

 

Best Practices for Time Travelers


 

MIT engineers an anti-cancer smart bomb


 

Things he and his girlfriend have argued about


 

Free 3D Models of Great Buildings

Hundreds of free 3D walkthough architectural computer models are included here at the Great Buildings Online web site, linked with free DesignWorkshop Lite architectural 3D walkthrough software for both Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000 and Power Macintosh.
The models range in detail from very simple formal massing models of just a few blocks, through basic interior/exterior spatial walkthrough models, up to detailed interior/exterior models complete with furnishings and landscaping.
It's all free for your own personal architectural enjoyment, experience, and understanding.

 

This is what a reporter should be.


An Anchor Who Reports Disaster News With a Heart on His Sleeve - New York Times


September 12, 2005
An Anchor Who Reports Disaster News With a Heart on His Sleeve

By ELIZABETH JENSEN
The CNN anchor Anderson Cooper strikes a pose in the September issue of the men's magazine Maxim, modeling a sharp black suit set off by his prematurely gray hair. A stylized jumble of broken television sets is piled high beside him.

It is a very different Mr. Cooper who has captivated CNN viewers in the two weeks since Hurricane Katrina crashed ashore. The jumble of broken stuff is there, but it is real remnants of homes and lives washed away. Mr. Cooper's heart-on-his-sleeve demeanor has been anything but slick and packaged.

The 38-year-old anchor has dressed down officials in interviews with polite righteous indignation in behalf of hurricane victims. At least twice he choked up on air, once abruptly stopping his commentary about lost homes and waving away the camera as he looked about to burst into tears. CNN's camera occasionally has caught him playing with stray dogs. He says he has no intention of returning to his hip New York existence any time soon.

"Life is funny like that," Mr. Cooper said of the fashion spreads (he is also in Esquire this month) as he took a break on Friday in Baton Rouge, La.

Mr. Cooper's Sept. 1 interview with Senator Mary L. Landrieu, Democrat of Louisiana, marked a turning point in the tone of hurricane coverage as he snapped when she began thanking federal officials for their recovery efforts.

"Excuse me, Senator, I'm sorry for interrupting," Mr. Cooper interjected. "I haven't heard that, because, for the last four days, I've been seeing dead bodies in the streets here in Mississippi. And to listen to politicians thanking each other and complimenting each other, you know, I got to tell you, there are a lot of people here who are very upset, and very angry, and very frustrated.

"And when they hear politicians slap - you know, thanking one another, it just, you know, it kind of cuts them the wrong way right now, because literally there was a body on the streets of this town yesterday being eaten by rats because this woman had been laying in the street for 48 hours."

His comments pushed right up to the line between tough questioning and confrontational advocacy journalism, but viewers responded.

CNN last week expanded Mr. Cooper's prime-time role, teaming him for two hours with Aaron Brown, in addition to his 7 p.m. weeknight show, "Anderson Cooper 360°." "He is the anchorperson of the future," Jonathan Klein, the president of CNN/U.S., said in an interview. He is "an anti-anchorperson," he said, adding: "He's all human. He's not putting it on."

"I don't feel like I'm doing anything different," Mr. Cooper said of his work on the hurricane, comparing it to 1992 reports he did from Somalia for the Channel One classroom news broadcast.

Mr. Cooper said that he did not believe in taking sides and did not think he had done so. "I am listening to people's questions and getting answers," he said. "I am least of all interested in any TV anchor's opinion, and least of all my own."

"This is life and death," he added. "This is not some blow-dried pundit standing outraged for some ratings, which is what cable news often boils down to."

As for his emotional moments: "It's absolutely not true; it's lies, lies, spread by that conservative or liberal agenda, whatever it is," Mr. Cooper quipped, before conceding: "I have been tearing up on this story more than any story I've worked on. I can't really explain why that is." He has tried not to do it on camera, he said, because "who wants to see that?" But, he added: "It's hard not to be moved. The fact that it is in the United States, for me, added a layer and dimension to the story."

The producer David Perozzi worked with Mr. Cooper at ABC News, where he reported for "20/20 Downtown" and was anchor of the overnight newscast. Mr. Perozzi said that his friend "has shown a certain amount of heart and compassion," adding: "He does care about people deeply."

When no major news organization hired him after his graduation from Yale in 1989, Mr. Cooper said he had a friend make a fake press pass and he headed overseas on his own, sending Channel One stories he taped with a small home-video camera.

His bare-bones training in Somalia was a precursor for his current assignment.

"When you travel with him, he's no joke," Mr. Perozzi said. "He's really intense. He could care less how he looks, his hair and makeup. If there's no cameraperson, he grabs the camera."

For all that drive, this is the same person who quit ABC News in 2000 to be the host of ABC's reality show "The Mole" when the news division told him to choose between the two jobs. One executive publicly predicted that Mr. Cooper would never work in news again.

"I think at that time he was sort of at a crossroads in his life and wasn't sure about TV news," Mr. Perozzi said. "But it doesn't seem to have hurt him."

CNN hired him in December 2001, giving him his show in 2003. He often heads to disaster zones, and has reported on the December 2004 tsunami and the Niger famine.

"It sometimes feels as if we need to bungee-cord him to the anchor chair," Mr. Klein said, adding that he is happy to have Mr. Cooper stay in the South indefinitely. "He's young and healthy, he can go forever."

Mr. Cooper said that his mother, the socialite Gloria Vanderbilt, "is a little concerned and freaked out" about his nonstop work, but that he has no plans to return home.

"I can't imagine going back," Mr. Cooper said. "I'm going to have to at some point, but I don't know what I'm going to do, I don't know," he repeated, his voice trailing away.

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

 

I want one!

Endless Pools and Fastlane Swim Spa, Year-round Swim Spas


Friday, September 09, 2005

 

How To Get A Job In Advertising (or any other industry).

I truly believe in the maxim "Don't take diet advice from a fat man." But since I've been asked a couple of times, and I think it's valuable, here's what's worked for me.

People want to help. Really. Even in New York. I've found that just calling people works wonders. Get a name from somewhere (anywhere, even just from the receptionist), call them, and say the following:

"Hi, I'm [name], and I'm a freelance [copywriter, or whichever position you want]. Now, I know you probably get calls all the time, and you probably don't have an open position. But that's okay. Really, I'd love to buy you a cappucino in exchange for the priviledge of picking your brain for 10 minutes (15 minutes tops) on what you *do* have, the expertise on how you got your job, and the skills you've built to do what you do. So, whadaya say? I'm a nice person, and I promise not to bother you again afterwards."

Okay, don't read that script exactly. But communicate the gist of it articulately, while still being you.

What I found is, everyone jumps at the opportunity to talk about themselves. Everyone. Particularly to someone who's not only interested and listens well, but who's also intelligent & articulate. Do you have any idea how many stupid, uninterested, going-thru-the-motions people they have to deal with every day at work? Especially disappointing are the kids they deal with who are there supposedly to learn from them, the interns. 99.99% of the time those kids are pathetic. I know I was when I was an intern.

People in advertising usually work in groups (or will when they at some point work in larger agencies). All you have to be is someone they'd like to work with someday.

Schedule the meeting, show up on time. Then just listen. They'll be flattered and floored. Particularly if you take notes. 

(Oh yeah, bring a business card of your own. Give yourself the title of [Copywriter]. Doesn't matter if you're not employed at the moment. Step into the role, and the salary will come.)

Then comes the easy part. At the end of the talk (before you start getting up/packing up!) ask: "All of this has been fantastic, just great, thank you! You've been so insightful. My last question is, could you give me a name or two or three of other [copywriters] who may be at a similar point or at different points in their careers, but who might have just a bit different perspective or experience than you on how they got into the field?" (Again, don't be the script. Be you.)

Then meet those people, and do exactly the same thing.

The thing is, everyone knows you're looking for a job. But no one wants to have to turn someone down. So meet all of these people (send thank-you notes!) and sooner or later when they hear of a job opening they're going to think of that brilliant, beautiful/handsome person who was a really good listener. You.

One more thing. The meetings never last 10-15 minutes. Almost always they're around a half hour. I'm telling you, people love to talk about themselves. It's not just me. ;)

Hope this helps.

But before you do anything else, if it's advertising you want, read these books:

How to Put Your Book Together and Get a Job in Advertising: 21st Century Edition (Paperback) by Maxine Paetro
Pick Me : Breaking Into Advertising and Staying There (Paperback)  by Nancy Vonk & Janet Kestin

These people are much smarter and more experienced than I am.

 

Global Perspective. Really interesting.


http://worldprocessor.com/catalog/world/




 

design I love.

eleventwentyfive | tree pillows
http://eleventwentyfive.com/noflash/treepillows.html




 

Fully backing up Mail.app in OSX 10.4 Tiger

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301315




 

Free templates for Blogger


http://blogger-templates.blogspot.com/




Thursday, September 08, 2005

 

Mantra Generator

by Dilbert:
http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/games/career/bin/ms.cgi


 

How-To Almost Anything


http://www.soyouwanna.com/index.html


 

Fun thing.

ThinkGeek :: Lazer Trip Wire
http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/security/78df/


 

Language Corner


http://www.cjr.org/tools/lc/index.asp


 

One step in keeping it all "Work-Safe"

Ghostzilla - the invisible browser
http://www.ghostzilla.com/index.html


 

Another wish.

As you can see, I'm using this blog more for my keeping stuff than for sharing it. I doubt many people will be interested in the various stuff/crap I find.

How To Spin A Pen
http://www.pentrix.com/pentix/tricks/360ThumbNormal.html


 

Partial text of draft Iraqi constitution


http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1554716,00.html


 

Fun, wish I could do this.

Rubik's Cube Solver
http://wrongway.org/cube/solve.html


 

How to give and receive criticism


http://www.scottberkun.com/essays/essay35.htm


 

On (Design) Bullshit


http://www.designobserver.com/archives/002559.html




 

Great Reads

Bruce Mau's Incomplete Manifesto For Growth
http://www.brucemaudesign.com/manifesto.html

What is the one thing everyone should learn about science?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,13026,1453311,00.html

Top 10 Motivation Tools
http://www.onlineorganizing.com/ExpertAdviceToolboxTips.asp?tipsheet=22

5 Rules from Wieden + Kennedy
http://thinksmart.typepad.com/good_morning_thinkers/2005/05/5_rules_from_wi.html

Mark Fenske's 14 Anti-Laws of Advertising
http://www.rm116.com/adcenter/files/fenskeantilaws.pdf

From Gaping Void: How to be Creative
Download HowToBeCreative.pdf

Two Young Creatives of Equal Talent   by David Lubars
http://www.commarts.com/CA/colad/dvdL_111.html

Pretty much every advertising resource on the net, from the Red Book to pertinent ad law to Adcritic.
http://www.rm116.com/adcenter/files/internet_resources.pdf

Before You Send Out Your Book Read This   by Lauren Slaff
http://www.cmykmag.com/online/articles/06/index.html

A Note to Student Art Directors   by Hal Curtis
http://www.commarts.com/ca/colad/halc_158.html

This Is What I Have Learned   by Milton Glaser
http://www.icograda.org/web/feature-past-single.shtml?pfl=feature-single-2.param&op2.rf1=103

Essential Resources for Creativity (163 techniques + 30 tips + books!) from lifehack.org 
http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifehack/essential-resources-for-creativity-163-techniques-30-tips-books.html


 

Just what New York needs: Buildings with targets painted all over them.

But I love it anyway. Maybe even moreso from the painful irony.

From rm116.com & mnspeak.com:










 

This will make you happy.

Nike's balloon sk8bowl:
http://www.nike.com/illvill/video/balloonbowl.html

 

Light the world on fire

Thanks to VCU Adcenter's rm116.com:









From the 2003 Belding Awards

 

50 Smartest things to do with your money


http://money.cnn.com/magazine/investing/smartest/


 

I love Words of Wisdom.

Stanford University Commencement Address June 12, 2005 
by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer & Pixar Animation Studios
http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html

Iowa State University Commencement Address August 6, 2005
by Michael Gartner, president, Board of Regents, State of Iowa
http://www.iastate.edu/~nscentral/releases/05/aug/gartner.shtml
And here's every "What I've Learned" interview that Esquire published from October 1998 to January 2002. (Unfortunately the rest require subscription at Esquire.com.)


Red Auerbach (12/00)    Jeff Bezos (01/02)    Bobby Bowden (9/01)    Richard Branson (01/02)    David Brown (6/01)    Mark Burnett (7/01)    Julia Child (6/00)    Rodney Dangerfield (10/00)    Jimmy Dean (10/01)    Conrad Dobler (11/00)    Kirk Douglas (4/01)    Faye Dunaway (8/99)    Al Green (11/01)    Andy Grove (5/00)    Evel Knievel (7/99)    John McCain (7/00)    Haley Joel Osment (3/00)    Richard Petty (8/01)    Lou Reed (4/00)    Don Rickles (1/01)    Roseanne (3/01)    Siegfried and Roy (8/00)    J.R. Simplot (2/01)    Homer Simpson (01/02)    Phil Spector (9/99)    Edward Teller (01/02)    Rip Torn (5/01)    Charles H. Townes (12/01)


 

Timesuck. As if I didn't have enough timesuck already.


http://www.i-am-bored.com/


 

Titles Designed by Saul Bass

http://www.notcoming.com/saulbass/index2.php

One of the Godfathers of graphic design.


 

Creativity Coaching: 11 Tips to surviving a day job with your creativity intact

The list is below. Click the link for more details.

http://www.creativity-portal.com/cca/articles/jori.keyser/day.job.html

11 Tips to surviving a day job with your creativity intact

By Jori Lynn Keyser

There’s no doubt about it — maintaining a day job while all your instincts are roaring in another direction is one of the toughest things a creative soul can endure. If you’re keeping body and soul together for hourly wages and then find yourself too tired or distracted or frustrated to be creative after work, you’re not alone. It’s sometimes a superhuman challenge to sustain creative energy so that the switch to art or writing is as easy as possible once you get home.

Here are a few of the many things you can do to stay connected to your inner creative thread when circumstances make it impossible for you to be in your studio or at your writing desk.

  1. Name your vision.
  2. Set a creative goal that will keep you moving.
  3. Begin the night before.
  4. Get up early.
  5. Design a morning ritual and do it every day.
  6. Learn to do the Lifeboat Exercise.
        ... Find yourself a raucous bell. Ring your bell loudly and shout, “Create!” Go to your workspace, set a timer for ten minutes, and work. When the timer goes off, shout, “All clear!” You’ve just made ten minutes progress... [You don't need a bell. A timer on your 'puter works just as well.]
  7. Set a theme for the day.
        [As much as I hate astrology and other New Age junk, I happen to like Angel Cards.]
  8. Practice [looking for] relevance.
  9. Put on the headphones and crank up the volume.
         Don’t underestimate the power of fun...
  10. Surround yourself with who you are.
  11. Be grateful.

Each of these points deserves a book of its own, and there are many more tiles in the ever-surprising mosaic of creative process. For now, start where you are. Look upon your day job as the blessing it is while you set your formidable creativity to the joyful task of honoring your art every day and growing from the challenge.

In the meantime, examine your big vision, select a goal or two, and watch everything in your life align in that direction as you move steadily and surely toward your heart’s desire. 

© Jori Lynn Keyser, 2005


 

Freeing information. Rescuing knowledge.

The Memory Hole
http://www.thememoryhole.org/

Cryptome
http://www.cryptome.org/

FAS Project on Government Secrecy
http://www.fas.org/sgp/





 

The Death Clock - When Am I Going To Die?

http://www.deathclock.com/

Hmm....
According to this site if I quit smoking, it'll be on Thursday, September 22, 2067. If I don't, 
Friday, May 2, 2053. But I knew that.

 

Search 3.2 billion digits of Pi for any sequence of digits.

Try your phone number or SSN.

 

The Advertising Artwork of Dr. Seuss


 

Online Poster Collections (and other Graphic Design)


This list is from http://www.beatnikpad.com/weblove.php . Thanks to them.

(Also see the related Bagatelle categories:  design   |   inspiration   |   photography.)

» Before Green Eggs and Ham: Theodore Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss),
Advertising Man.
» Posters from the Work Progress Administration (WPA):
By the People, For the People and selected highlights. Archival bliss.
» Alison Tait passed on this nice gallery of
music promo posters.
» Typography in motion pictures:
Movie Title Screens.
» Rave on:
Flyer Art
» Pardon the alliteration:
Polish propaganda posters.
» Feast your eyes on Clark MacLeod's collection of
Saigon proproganda posters.
» Sick, with style:
Design for Chunks.
» I am sated: 50's graphic design nostalgia from
Ephemera Now.
» Various book cover art and print from a huge
illustration auction.
» Corporate branding as art:
Logoed.
» I wish I still smoked: A huge collection of
Cigarette packages.
»
Vintage suitcase labels: The lost art of travel.
» The inspiration-filled
Ad-Access Project
» Feast on a massive, eye-popping collection of 20's and 30's
travel brochures.
» Behold the
Emergence of Advertising in America.
» A very nice collection of
Vintage Luggage Labels.
» "By the people, for the people":
Posters from the WPA
»
Ski Posters from the Beekly collection.
» Expansive collection of illustration, Cuban poster art, and much, much more at
Docs Populi.
» Beautiful collection of
Chinese Propaganda posters
» Archive of
Italian Posters
»
The Chairman Smiles: Posters from the former Soviet Union, Cuba and China
»
Contemporary Posters: 1960-1980
»
Spanish Civil War posters
»
Modern Dog (incredible designers & Robynne Raye is a wonderful person, too)
»
Poster Art by Nels Jacobson
»
Picturing Power: Posters of the Chinese Revolution
»
Chissolm Larson Gallery: huge collection of posters from all over the World.
»
Posters from the Soviet Union: Communism and jingoism from an age gone, but not forgotten.
»
800 vintage posters from Russia, Cuba, Poland and the Czech Republic.
»
Art of the Movies: 100 American Movie poster classics.
»
Swiss Poster Collection brought to you by the Carnegie Mellon University.
»
British WWII Recruitment posters

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