communication. community. cognition.
Archive for August, 2010
The Search for the Secret Sauce
Aug 31st
Most internet users don’t remember a time before there was a Google. (Those who do likely were grimacing over my failure to capitalize Internet.) For those who made surfing a dry activity since 2000, there has always been an Algorithm in the background, providing order to the vast online Universe.
What Google did was promote the idea that an unseen formula could improve your search results. Human-inspired and seeded indexes could not scale to cover the exponentially-growing feed of data – and we needed a Secret Sauce to sort it all out.
The Search for the Secret Sauce More >
Whiteboard MythAdventures
Aug 10th
Woman quits job via whiteboard. Allegedly.
(If you send me a url with a picture of your comment on a whiteboard, I’ll format the comment for you…)
Access: Birmingham
Aug 9th
Access: Birmingham
Times are tough for newspaper publishers, who are trying to sell their relevance to subscribers and potential advertisers. The temptation to drop standards is ratcheting up, and once standards are lower it’s hard to recover that blow to reputation. More >
Wax Apples and Plastic Oranges
Aug 9th
Wax Apples and Plastic Oranges
“Social Media is a waste of time. The audience is too small.”
Maybe so. How many people are you talking with?
No, I didn’t ask how many actually talked back with you, how many people were you talking with? More >
The Sweet (and Sticky) Science of Editing
Aug 6th
In television news, you have little time to waste. There’s a set limit budgeted for your story, and anything more than five seconds over your allotment calls for penance, or at least a quest to seek special dispensations. When every second counts, you try not to waste any of the time you have – yet you don’t want to leave anything out.
Listen to The Sweet (and Sticky) Science of EditingScarcity breeds process. More >
Erasing the Objections
Aug 5th
Erasing the Objections
See if these points sound familiar:
- There’s nothing special about this technology, it’s just another way to communicate.
- It’s a technology that frees people to express themselves, storing their input sequentially.
- Innovators are jumping on a bandwagon, which will really be just a fad.
- There’s a limited base of research about its real effectiveness.
- Much of the evidence is anecdotal.
- It doesn’t result in as much participation as was promised.
- What if “everyone has to have one?”
- Will everyone will use it?
Yeah, I know. We’ve heard this all before. So why are so many educators slow to embrace interactive whiteboards? More >
What Siege Engines Can Teach You About Modern Communications
Aug 4th
Let’s face it. Catapults and Trebuchets are just plain cool.
There’s something visceral about launching large items great distances. That’s the easy part, though. The hard part is hitting your targets.
Listen to What Siege Engines Can Teach You About Modern Communications More >
