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PostRank is like FriendFeed for your content, they say. It gets you feedback on what happens with what you insert into the net.
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David Tebbutt is a writer and also a trainer and mentor for writing. After 30 years of active writing for the public, he now has decided to concentrate on training and consulting. “Every company is a media company”, Tom Foremski said. “The media is us”, I say. Somewhere in between is Mr Tebbutt helping others navigate this wide and surprisingly deep ocean.
links for 2010-06-09
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links for 2010-05-31
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A simple and clean deck regarding the use of type on the web and new techniques that multiply the typographic possibilities in webdesign.
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They say about themselves: “FontShop is the original independent font retailer. We’ve been around since the dawn of digital type. Whether you need to find the right font or need to create one from scratch, let our years of experience work for you.”
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links for 2010-05-28
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I like what Dan Pink says about motivation, drive, planning a lot. This video is a really cool visualization.
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Two PowerPoint documents to make layout and planning of presentations a little easier: Grid and storyboard.
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links for 2010-05-26
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They say: “We believe most software is too complex. Too many features, too many promises. Instead, we build simpler web-based software with elegant interfaces and thoughtful features you’ll actually use.”
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links for 2010-05-25
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FluidDB is a platform for the web of things, each represented by an openly writable “social” object. Humans record and organize information in an infinite variety of ways. FluidDB lets you define how your data is structured. Information has a context and FluidDB preserves this in the way data is stored and retrieved.
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At betaworks, nimble, loosely connected companies match users, data and content to create superb products, great API’s and profitable businesses. They are involved with bit.ly, chartbeat, tweetdeck, twitterfeed, and themselves.
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An animated GIF-paranoia about nonstop design workers
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Failed Customer Support — An email that never got answered
Some weeks ago I got interested in the “envy” and “touchsmart” notebook series of HP. I entered their website. An hour and a severe headache later I emerged and wrote the following letter to the customer support via the online contact form of HP:
Dear HP,
with all due respect for a company that develops great technology, I can’t help but feedback to you: Your website is a usability nightmare.
It might serve as a means to winnow out all but the most determined buyer; or in its excessive display of tabulated details satisfy a connoisseur of your ERP’s and CRM’s prowess. But seriously, there is no way to easily find even your current flagship products — my case of interest being the touchsmart tm2. How can this be in an age where expertise on the issues of user experience, simple design and benignly guiding usability is prolific?
To alleviate this pain for future generations of HP-customers I beg you to consider employing the services of some consultancy from the aforementioned areas of expertise. My personal choice in this matter being the Messiers Siegel+Gale. At least have a look for an example of a really well done website at siegelgale.com.
With warmest regards,
Matthias Daues
PS: I would appreciate some kind of reaction from somebody in charge of this mess you put a willing customer through. Thank you for your consideration.
I never got an answer. Maybe you never got an answer too. Wouldn’t it be nice to have them feel our frustration? For your convenience there is a link to their online contact form: http://bit.ly/a644af
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Why is Acumen different? An argument in favour of patient capital. — Acumen Fund’s Community
I have written three quite emotional and maybe overly polemic rants to vent my feelings of urgency, one in the “forum”, one on “my page” and one on “urgent evoke”. Now I want to state in hopefully quite simple terms, why I think Acumen’s approach is fundamentally different from the standard model of aid, which has its rightful place when partnered with the attribute “humanitarian”. It has to do with relationship-building.
The standard model of aid goes like this: Donor (gives money) -> intermediary (collects the funds and covers his cost) -> recipient (gets alms). There is only one business model involved, that of the intermediary. His livelihood depends from the continued existence of donors and recipients. If the donors run out of funds or if the recipient runs out of need, the business falters or dies. For development aid this means that the aim of truly making poverty history is contrary to the best interest of the one business that is the hub of the system. Since there is a unidirectional flow of capital, the system is rigid. A set of rules and regulations holding all parties involved accountable to the same measures does not exist. It is a profoundly asymmetrical and arbitrary relationship.
Acumen’s model of aid goes like this: Donor (gives money) -> intermediary (collects the funds and covers his cost) <=> recipient (gets loans). There are two business models involved, that of the intermediary and that of the recipient. If the donors run out of money, the intermediary’s business still falters or dies. But if the recipient lifts himself above the poverty line he will still be a viable busniness partner for the intermediary. Since there is a bidirectional flow of capital, the system is flexible. A shared set of rules and regulations holds all parties involved accountable. It is a potentially symmetrical relationship where arbitrariness is weeded out in principle.
The model Acumen follows is scalable and its components are allowed to change over time: The donors could become investors in bonds issued by acumen to finance projects. Acumen can filiate and become a bank or cooperate with financial institutions to do so besides collecting charitable funds. The recipients that succeed and become established businesses will still need access to capital and consulting services that Acumen can provide. All in all, the “patient capital”-approach enables common growth instead of outgrowing each other.
What lessons can this teach us on how to approach the diverse problems of poverty in the western world?
Best, Matthias
From: http://ping.fm/bcR6e
Start building a world of equal measures! — Acumen Fund’s Community
Isn’t it odd that while talking about “The Poor” and trying to do good the fact that it is people, individuals, gets mostly lost? I think a lot about the tendency to mistake the label for the person. It is a hard thing to avoid. It makes many people suffer from a skewed perspective, I think, and hinders a conversation on eye-level and a relationship on equal footing. I certainly have my share of suffering from it.
In school, in church, where I used to serve as an altar boy, in university — everywhere I encountered an “us and them” view of the world. My understanding of aid has correspondingly been to give away a piece of what we have, translated into money, to shroud “Them” in a threadbare image of ourselves. But what kind of relationship does this “standard model of aid” constitute?
In my wildest dreams I envision a world where people aren’t like somebody else but who they want to be. This entails a world without subsidized industries wreaking havoc under the shield of customs-barriers, unbalanced conditions for business and trade established by force through governmental dependence from foreign capital. And it entails a world where people may do business freely and where they want to under the one condition that it is legit, legal, and environmentally sustainable. This entails a world where those terms are measured equally.
How can it be that many an African seeking his fortune in Europe confronts lethal odds, masters them, and is then not allowed to contribute to the GNI of the land of his dreams? How crazy is that? How can you lock away a motivated worker with proven traits any HR-shmuck claims to look for? Resilience, resourcefulness, high frustration-threshold, entrepreneurial drive, focus, you name it? Someone who ambitiously aspires? As if work were a limited resource. As if value were a meta-commodity to be jealously distributed among a society frightened of losing status in the long term? This is not only not fair, I find it dumb. It is the downside of the standard model of aid.
In my wildest dreams a few years hence those that lifted themselves out of poverty will come and teach the bottom third of our society how to apply traction and gain self-determination, and why not sooner?
From: http://ping.fm/LhHpd
Zuma shows you get the HIV epidemic you deserve
So Jacob Zuma is sorry about having unprotected sex with someone three decades younger than himself … — http://bit.ly/bzp8zV
links for 2010-06-11