Fastcodesign recapped their 2011 with their top essays on innovation from the past year, including essays on Steve Jobs, disruptive innovations, the 4P’s of marketing, design, and more.
In this TED Talk, Stefon Harris performs an improv with his Jazz Quartet, followed by some insight into the idea of mistakes. Essentially we learn how many actions are perceived as mistakes, only because we don’t react to them appropriately.
This infographic gives us some perspective on how we use Facebook. It breaks down things based on popularity, sentiment, timing, and more, giving us some interesting insight along the way.
Clay Shirkey takes a very real look at the state of newspapers, the impact of paywalls, and the future of content in general. Ultimately he says it is up to the core users to decide how everything will play out.
Finally, Lifehacker shared their updated guide on when to buy anything during the new year. The breakdown shows you the ideal months to buy electronics, furniture, clothing, appliances and more. And for a micro look, check out their Best Days of the Week to Buy Anything.
I just finished reading The Flinch by Julien Smith and it’s a great read. Short and to the point, The Flinch is focused around the idea of facing your fears or those things that make us FLINCH. Here’s a quick synopsis of the book:
“Your flinch mechanism can save your life. It shortcircuits the conscious mind and allows you to pull back and avoid danger faster than you can even imagine it’s there. But what if danger is exactly what you need? What if facing the flinch is the one best way to get what you want? Here’s a chance to read the book everyone will be talking about, before they do. What are you afraid of?”
The book is about 50 pages if I had to guess, so not too long, but it’ll at the very least get you thinking about your life and how you’re living it. At least it did for me. And the best part is that you can get this Kindle book for FREE, so get it today and stop flinching.
The following infographic is pretty eye-opening, as it shows you the ‘illusion of choice‘ we have when it comes to our media outlets.The simple fact that 6 companies control 90% of the media in the U.S. is baffling to say the least. Does it matter?
Faris Yakob recently gave a talk at Mashable’s Media Summit on the Importance of Being Awesome, as it relates to media, design, code, and more. Check it out below.
The Social Good Summit presented by Mashable, 92Y and the UN Foundation starts today and if you’re interested you should check out the Livestream of the conference.
Here’s an excerpt of what the Summit is all about:
The Summit unites a dynamic community of global leaders to discuss a big idea: the power of innovative thinking and technology to solve our greatest challenges. It ignites conversations between a live audience in New York City and thousands around the world participating via Livestream.
The most innovative technologists, influential minds and passionate activists will come together this September with one shared goal: to unlock the potential of new media and technology to make the world a better place.
Some of the speakers include Desmond Tutu, Dr. Muhammed Yunus, Randi Zuckerberg, and more.
It’ll be streaming live starting today, Monday September 19th until Thursday September 22nd, from 1 PM – 5 PM (est), so be sure to check it out.
There’s tons of information out there nowadays and at times I’m overwhelmed on what to do with it all. Solutions for organizing information are becoming more and more popular as people are encountering similar problems. Here’s how I find high quality information and organize it.
Discovery
As I said before, there is ridiculous amounts of information out there, but fortunately there are some great tools that let you pick and choose which sources you want to engage with. My favorite is probably Google Reader, which allows you to pull RSS feeds for any website on the internet and also provides a great way to organize the feeds. I wrote a post about it ages ago that you can check out here.
After Google Reader, the newest service that I’ve started playing around with is Pulse, which takes the same idea from Google Reader, but makes it much more visually pleasing and easy to use for mobiles devices. The user interface is great and its optimized for tablets, android devices, and iPhones. Pulse serves up content in a range of categories, but you also can add custom feeds that can be hit or miss at times.
And if you’re fortunate enough to have an iPad then Flipboard is an awesome information discovery engine that integrates content from a range of top websites in a very usable, magazine style presentation.
All in all, Google Reader, Pulse, and Flipboard are great for information discovery, but where I have found less solutions is on the information organization front.
Organizing
I’ve found few tools that are tailor made to such a need, but there are some that you can certainly tweak to provide an adequate solution. I think one of the best suited for such adaptation is Tumblr, as it allows you to share defined types of content/media including text, quotes, videos, pictures, and links. This type of structure is great for keeping track of information that you value, while also sharing it with others. A simple workaround where you define tag pages as your navigation lets you further organize the information.
Another tool I’ve found useful, but more specifically for images has been Pinterest. Essentially Pinterest lets you pin any images across the web and tag them to your boards for future use, either to keep track of information, inspiration, ideas, and more. You can check out my Pinterest boards here.
Overall I think that there is still a need for better organizational tools around information. Right now I think Pinterest has done a fantastic job in the images space and I hope to see more tools that are focused around organizing articles and videos in the future. If you know of any tools that are ideal for these needs please share!
Justin Kan, founder of Justin.TV and SocialCam, recently wrote this article for TechCrunch about the the dynamics of startups. Most importantly he talks about how many startups commit suicide rather than truly fail.
CNN brings us an interesting perspective on the current state and future of social networks. In the article they talk about the ever present trends of tribalism in the digital world, information overload, and how the model is yet to be perfected.
In this YouTube video, Professor Marlitta Hill delivers a brilliant, creative, and controversial lecture to her class on the long stigmatized word ‘nigger’. You can find part 2 of the speech here.
The latest social network, Google+, has been the trending topic for the past week, and in this article from Fast Company, we get their perspective on how this one will play out. Also, a great post from Chris Brogan has a list of 50 things to consider in regards to Google+.
99% brings us a mashup of 9 great interviews from some of the greatest minds we’ve ever seen. In this article we get insight into the minds of creative leaders such as Steve Jobs, Ernest Hemingway, Ansel Adams, and more.
And if you missed last week’s links, check them out here.
Small businesses are the heartbeat of the economy and true entrepreneurship. Unfortunately we often focus on the few startups that make it big, turn into gigantic corporations and file for million dollar IPO’s down the line. In the meantime, the hundreds of thousands of smaller businesses are overlooked. I feel like its often the same in government, as they focus on bailing out the major corporations, giving them incentives and tax breaks, but we’d be served well not to forget about the little guys. In the following infographic we get more information on small businesses in America and the Hard Facts if you will.
Infographic courtesy of Focus.com and the U.S. Department of Commerce.
William Taylor, founder of Fast Company magazine, recently wrote an article for Harvard Business Review about the idea of how talented people are overrated in terms of their value. Its an intriguing article that generated a lot of conversation, resulting in a follow-up post that can be read here.
Freddie W, YouTube star, features in this short film about stereotypes and how they can play out in exaggerated situations. Freddie W is known for his high quality content, humor, and solid story lines, so be sure to check out his other stuff.
This post by Chris Brogan talks about the simple truth that we never learn something until we’re ready to learn it. He touches on the dynamics of teaching, learning, and preaching. The preaching part especially relates well with my own post ‘On Giving Advice’ that you can read here.
The Discovery Channel has launched a new initiative focused on satiating your curiosity by answering all kinds of questions that people are interested in. I always enjoy these types of sites, despite the randomness of content they are always very informative. One of my favorites is I Always Wondered by Jarrett Green.
The newest member of the billionaires club, Bob Parsons of GoDaddy web hosting service shares some advice with The Wall Street Journal. In this article we get his 10 Rules for Success, such as making decisions quickly and not taking yourself too seriously.
And if you missed last week’s links, check them out here.
There are all kinds of business models out there, but I think the most ingenious one has to be universities. They are massive money making machines and its crazy how they are able to get everyone to pay for an education they can’t afford.
When you look at the university industry from a business perspective there is one thing that they seem to disregard that is central to any business, having a customer focus and by customer in this situation I mean the students.
Universities have become too big to be flexible and meet needs of their students anymore, essentially they do what they see fit and everyone else has to fit into the box that is a university or major. Think about the choices you have as a student. Basically you can choose your major and perhaps a few electives here and there, but that’s all the choice they allow. This may not be true for all colleges, but it is for the majority.
If you think about, when was the last time a university asked you, the paying customer, the student, what YOU wanted from the school?
When the students are what makes the universities prosper, make millions of dollars, and empowers them to continually raise tuition, then shouldn’t the students be better served? Shouldn’t they have a larger voice? Universities don’t serve their customers adequately for how much we pay them.
Fortunately, at the same time we’re seeing a counter movement in education in the use of technology, content, and design to deliver a higher quality, individualized experience to students that meets their needs. Organizations such as the Khan Academy, P2PU, and Academic Earth are giving the power to the students instead of the teachers or institutions.
I can understand how many are saying the education system may be the next bubble, but at the same time no real change will occur until our preconceived perceptions of these systems and their value are broken. In the meantime, let’s continue paying off our student loans.
