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.
In this slide show from Laurent Kretz we learn about why not to start startups and some useful advice if you choose to anyways. Overall its a realistic view about what startups are all about, as he chooses to focus on the less glamorous side of things.
The following is a set of interesting infographics focused on the world if it was made up of only 100 people. In this setting, the graphics focus on education, religion, race, and many more issues that make it easier to comprehend the current breakdown of things today.
In this article from Get Finch, we explore the idea of the redesign and its many intricacies. The article explores the never ending cycle of redesigning, as well as key usability practices for better results.
This simple Google Docs spreadsheet allows for anyone to access each and every TED Talk every created. It organizes the talks by speakers, names, and summaries, while providing a link to each individual talk. A useful resource indeed.
Groupon has been at the center of much conversation lately and one analyst believes that it’s not going to last for long. TechCrunch brings us this intriguing piece about why Groupon is poised for collapse based on its model and negative affects on business.
And if you missed last weeks links, check them out here.
This HBR articles acknowledges the importance of collaboration for success, but there are a number of misconceptions that can seriously derail productive teamwork. These include harmony, fluidity, size, communication methods, leadership, and talent.
Education has been a hot topic this year and one trend that is apparent is the movement of learning into a digital format, accessible to all. In this video, we are introduced to DIY U and the future of education, based on the new book from Anya Kamenetz.
This article from behavioral economist Dan Ariely explores the interesting situation in which we make many of our choices. More importantly he shows how we often alter our choices to match our underlying preferences, despite external pressures.
In this Q&A with Janet Echelman from the TED Blog, we learn more about the creative overlap. She talks about the need for time to stumble upon the creative, the importance of collaboration across fields, and pushing the limits.
Seth Godin does it again, as he compares and contrasts the work we do in two very different contexts. Either we can work for someone or we can work for ourselves, which do you think is more fulfilling?
And if you missed last week’s links, check them out here.
Throughout this War on Terror, we’ve followed what our people have experienced: losses sufferred, hearts broken, and lives lost, but how often have we thought of the other side? What about all the innocent bystanders in these countries that have had their lives drastically changed from terrorism as well? What might their perspective be on the war and actions taken by the US and other countries? In this TED Talk by Sam Richards, we experience an exercise in empathy to try and better understand the other side of the story.
What exactly do students get with the ridiculous amounts of tuition they pay every semester? An important question as more and more students are facing ever increasing student loans. Seth Godin tries to clarify the real value of the money being spent.
In a TED Talk by Ron Gutman, we get a high level overview of just how powerful smiling can be. Some surprising findings include its impact on longevity and how a smile can create positive emotions in others, very interesting stuff.
Behavioral economist Dan Ariely shares some further insights into the area of self-control. He covers how our self-control is essentially challenged everyday and how we can develop the ability for our own benefit. Also, the marshmallow experiment video near the end is hilarious.
Another showcase of HTML5 is found in the interactive film ROME for the latest collaboration album between Danger Mouse, Jack White, and Norah Jones. Its really cool stuff, but as it says its experimental, so you should use Chrome to watch it.
A recent post from 37 Signals talks about how it is the process that is more important than the passion, when doing business. There are some great points in the article about the issues with following your passion and how to find meaning in your work. Also for more from 37 Signals, check out their book Rework, that rethinks the assumptions of business settings.
And if you missed last week’s links, check them out here.
I’ve noticed lately just how much we’ve started to focus on the value of failure. It seems we’re understanding that failing is how we learn, how we grow, how we gain experience. I know I remember my failures much better than my successes, because they teach us something new and valuable every time.
Posts from Seth Godin, Wired, and Harvard Business Review have been hitting on failure more and more often, but are we seeing any significant changes? I’m not so sure. The underlying problems of accepting failure and making mistakes can be seen in the education system, where we get it drilled into our impressionable minds where being right is all that matters, and if you’re not right you’re basically stupid.
Additionally, even though we can acknowledge the importance of failure and making mistakes, are we able to actually be open to them, be receptive and accepting to situations when we have failures? Can we see the bigger picture, rather than feeling crappy, embarrassed, and discouraged? A recent TED Talk from Kathryn Schulz talks further about this idea of acceptance and being wrong. You can watch the full video below.
This article from Bruce Nussbaum makes the bold statement that design thinking has failed and its time to move on. It’s an interesting piece basically outlining why he thinks we’ve gotten all we can from this process and its now time to move towards the next big thing: Creative Intelligence.
Influencers is a short documentary about influential people and how trends become contagious in todays world. In this short in-depth series, Steve Stoute talks about the concept of cool, culture, communication, and collaboration. You can watch the full documentary here.
I’ve been a big fan of infographics and how they present information in a visually pleasing, yet effective manner. One of the best resources I’ve found for infographics is GOOD magazines website, where they have a large collection of high quality graphics covering a range of topics.
This article from Smashing Magazine, talks about the battle between Inspiration vs. Working Hard and how working hard always wins. It goes further into why inspiration doesn’t really work, despite our infatuation with it, and how ultimately its our hard work that will lead us to success.
TED has recently decided to take the venture into education with their latest initiative through TED-ED. TED-ED is essentially a new platform focused around the TED community creating and shaping how TED can use its resources to enhance education. Become part of the Brain Trust to share your ideas today.
And if you missed last week’s links, check them out here.
In this article by Scott Adam’s, creator of Dilbert (love his comic), we look at how education often takes the approach of one-size fits all, when this shouldn’t be the case. More importantly, we get an inside look at how Scott truly learned, while he was in college.
Neil Parsicha, blogger turned author, shares his story of the three A’s of awesome, in an inspiring TED Talk. Neil is most well known for his blog, 1000 Awesome Things, that shares with the world the smaller things in life that we truly enjoy.
Both makers and managers have value, but the real key is finding the balance between the two. In this article, Seth Godin explores how such a balance can be established. Also check out the essay by Paul Graham that inspired this article.
In this short video from Fast Company, memory expert Bob Gray talks about some tips on how to remember peoples names, as well as how valuable this skill can really be for business and networking.
Another piece related to developing your personal skills, this article from Work Awesome discusses how to improve your ability to persuade. One of the tips is remembering people’s names, seems like its a pretty important one.
And if you missed last week’s links, check them out here.
I recently watched a TED Talk by Sarah Kay, it was spoken word, which I myself really enjoyed (see it below).
After watching it I scrolled down to the comment sections and there was quite the back and forth going about what Sarah Kay had performed was amateur and wasn’t ‘real’ poetry. Many said that it had to be much more powerful, not use mainstream cliches, be more catered to the individual instead of the audience. Others argued that the entire point of spoken word was to connect with the audience, however it may be.
The question I have is what is art then? There seem to be many conflicting views on what makes something art. In my opinion I feel that it is just the expression of an individual that has no purpose but to really be shared with others, a gift if you will. Its not about the recognition or money or fame, but genuinly sharing one’s feelings and experiences. Do you think Sarah Kay’s work was art or not?
Education has been a hot topic lately and one of the biggest innovation to occur in this space as of late has been the Khan Academy. The Khan Academy is an amazingly simple yet brilliant platform that utilizes web video to engage with students and teach effectively. It all started with Salman Khan (the founder of the organization) creating videos that he posted on YouTube for his cousins in math. It has since exploded into a fully fledged organization, dedicated to teaching a number of core subjects through video. There have been a few features that have been developed since its inception that truly add value to the platform.
1). Measurables
This is a huge component as now you can follow the students progress in such detail that its easy to address issues and identify problem areas. The data collected shows you which areas are of struggle, which were easy, how much time was spent, etc. All things that were never available before and all of which give a huge advantage for the teacher and their effectiveness.
2) Practice Makes Perfect
The other major benefit from the platform is the ability to go at your own pace and practice problems until you’ve got a concept down. In classes you usually take a test or do homework and if you don’t know a concept or two, you still get by, but that can come back to haunt you. With the online tracking, its clear what a student struggles with and the exercise platform ensures that you learn how to solve that problem, so you never miss out.
From the measurables and the practice exercises you get a Knowledge Map that can show you the progress of a student, concept to concept. It allows you to see the path needed to reach the next topic, what areas need to be focused on to get there, and overall how the student is progressing. An example of a knowledge map is seen below.
Essentially this platform gives you a number of benefits such as the ability for the teacher to give more directed attention to individual students, allow other students to teach one another, and implement flip thinking teaching styles (lecture at home, homework in class), all of which are very innovative in regards to the education setting.
This is the future of education and it will be interesting to see how this grows in the coming years. You can watch Salman Khan’s TED Talk from the recent conference below and also check out the website here.
