Chris Guillebeau offers his e-book 279 Days to Overnight Success for free on his blog. This is a great piece of writing that debunks the popular myths about “making it” blogging.
See for yourself – download it today.
It seems like correcting Seth Godin is a favourite pastime enjoyed by folks online. Sorry to break from the group, but I happen to think he is a deep well of relevant information.
This week he brought up the idea of upsides versus downsides – how much effort do businesses put into minimizing their downside versus the time they put into offering the best user experience?
One of the primary examples from the post is that of a hospital spending a huge amount of time doing paperwork to prevent litigation and prevent people from getting worse when their primary goal (and reason for existing) should be improving the lives of the patients coming through their doors.
The hospital example was interesting and timely because in “real life” the Jewish General Hospital recently came out and said it has been able to improve patient care (upside) by reducing errors (downside) through its new(ish) full disclosure policy. This ties in nicely with Seth’s article because it proves that it is possible for even large organizations to let go of the status quo and achieve new levels of excellence.
In the case of the Jewish General Hospital, it seems paradoxical but by admitting and dealing with errors, the hospital is actually less likely to be sued and face costly litigation. In essence, they have found a way to improve patient care, cut costs, and foster an open corporate culture. Way to go!
Don’t worry folks, I haven’t disappeared. I’ve been buried under a mountain of RSS. One of the disadvantages of trying to stay informed about absolutely everything is that if you take just a few days away from the newsfeeds you will fall way behind.
Google Reader makes it extra easy to lose interesting posts when you scan too fast. I still prefer it over all other software I’ve tried so far.
I have to admit, reading Valleywag was a bit of a guilty pleasure. The online publication, which was part of Gawker Media, is akin to the tech world’s Perez Hilton. Gossip about silicon’s celebrities is dished up daily and served to geeks’ RSS feeds everywhere.
Valleywag was folded in 2008 and became a column in the overall Gawker site. Too bad… it was fun to see people get so upset over its (essentially tabloid) articles.
The main criticism people had of Valleywag was its willingness to publish unverified gossip in order to be the first to break developing stories. In Valleywag’s defense, the stories weren’t presented as fact, the magazine disclosed that it was operating on unverified rumour, and it was quick to update as new information became available.
That said, the wider issue is that a publication of Valleywag’s size and reach has a responsibility to get its information right the first time because the majority of its readers do not come back to check the updated status of new items – they expect to have already received the full story. The irony here is that the very thing that made Valleywag popular – the speed at which it spread its gossip – is what is was most criticized for.
LimitlessUnits.com is an interesting little blog that shares many of my own morals. I wish Tony updated more but the posts he puts up are always thoughtful and fleshed out. Design-wise the site is simple in an elegant and usable way. If programming and video games are up your alley, go on over and subscribe.
I’ve decided to start using Fridays to reflect on the state of my RSS reader. Starting on Friday of next week I plan to showcase blogs that I think are well written, technically marvelous, or just plain cool.
Please feel welcome to contact me if you’d like to share your own site, or one that you think is worth checking out. The genre is unimportant – I’m looking to fill my feed with as much great content as I possibly can.
You have to shake your head every time someone goes off about “netbooks”, those wonderful, tiny, cute computers that don’t cost very much. When you look at them, what do you really see? How about a crappy laptop that can barely run Windows. The thing is cheap in more ways than one – but somehow marketers have been able to spin that as a good thing and make big profits off useless hardware without needing to develop anything new.
Anything sounds better with a little bit of spin – Web 1.0 is clunky, slow, ugly. Web 2.0 is a designer’s dream, sexy, with new technology. Well, no. The technology isn’t new at all – the web is the same. The only difference is enough marketers held onto the “Web 2.0″ buzz phrase and shouted it repeatedly long enough that it became accepted as fact.
There was never anything truly “new” about New Media. There’s nothing earth shattering about Social Media either. Call it a new paradigm all you want, there is nothing different between it and “old” media: the goal is to communicate our message to as many people as possible. How others perceive your brand and how you react to that feedback is not something new and alien – it’s just a lot faster now than it used to be. Your audience is your focus group. Traditional roles haven’t changed one bit – their owners have.
