Food for Thought

Writely

2005-10-02T19:03:00.000+08:00

Found an interesting document creation and collaboration service today called Writely.

Some people are going so far as to say that they'll be the death of Microsoft, but I wouldn't go THAT far... unless Google bought them. :D

Positive/Negative Ratios: 2.9 to 11.6

2005-09-26T16:16:00.000+08:00

Came across an interesting entry in Fast Company Magazine's blog: Feedback and Forth.

Bottomline: people or teams who experience at least 2.9 times more positive experiences than negative experiences over any span of time is more likely to be a "flourishing" individual, partnership, or team.

The original full report is also publicly available.

Interestingly, too much positivity is also bad. At a positive-to-negative (P/N) ratio of more than 11.6, flourishing deteriorates.

Personalized Google Home Page

2005-09-26T14:40:00.000+08:00

Google now allows you to personalize your home page, so that it displays snippets from news sources, your Gmail, any RSS feed, and a host of other information in interesting portlets.

People who prefer the look and simplicity of the "Classic Google" home page can still use it and not be bothered by the slightly more "cluttered" personalized Google portal.

Interestingly, a friend of mine uses the Philippine homepage of Google and it looks like the homepage personalization feature isn't available on that site yet.

The Power of Four

2005-09-19T21:41:00.000+08:00

Tom Hanks gave the commencement address a few months ago at Vassar College for the graduates of class 2005.

Excerpt:

Help publicly. Help privately. Help in your actions by recycling and conserving and protecting, but help also in your attitude. Help make sense where sense has gone missing. Help bring reason and respect to discourse and debate. Help science to solve and faith to soothe. Help law bring justice, until justice is commonplace. Help and you will abolish apathy – the void that is so quickly filled by ignorance and evil.

Life outside of college is just like life in it: one nutty thing after another, some of them horrible, but all interspersed with enough beauty and goodness to keep you going. That’s your job, to keep going. Your duty is to help – without ceasing. The art you create can glorify it. The science you pursue can prove its value. The law you practice can pass on its benefits. The faith you embrace will make it the earthly manifestation of your God.

Blink

2005-07-23T23:23:00.000+08:00

Finally got around to buying Malcolm Gladwell's latest book, entitled Blink.

I'd been wanting to read this book for a few months now, and while I'm not yet finished reading it (now on p.119), I've read enough to know that this book will make me wonder about my decision-making thought processes for the next month or so.

Hmm... did I just do a bit of thin-slicing when I said that? LOL.

Interesting Links

2005-03-15T18:07:00.000+08:00

Spent an inordinate amount of time web browsing today and came across a few interesting links:

Xoom offers Philippine-based online stores a way to collect e-store payments from non-Philippine customers. All payments eventually end up in an Equitable PCI Bank account. Was tested and found to be working by Migs Paraz.
Bath and Body Works uses printable shopping lists and emailed coupons to help drive foot traffic to their stores. Interestingly, they made a strategic decision to not sell their products online.
Workforce Management is an online portal that provides information on employment law, HR development, and HR management.
Crunch mode doesn't work on projects, according to the International Game Developers Association.

Odeo on the way

2005-02-25T22:09:00.000+08:00

Evan Williams has unveiled his next big thing.

Check out the Odeo website and look for the New York Times article.

Road designs by Monderman

2005-01-27T22:47:00.000+08:00

I greatly enjoyed the article on Road Design originally published by the New York Times, and available for viewing at the website of the International Herald Tribune.

When Monderman, a traffic engineer and the intersection's proud designer, deliberately failed to check for oncoming traffic before crossing the street, the drivers slowed for him. No one honked or shouted rude words out the window.

"Who has the right of way?" he asked rhetorically. "I don't care. People here have to find their own way, negotiate for themselves, use their own brains."

Considering that Metro Manila is riddled with concrete dividing islands, metal barricades, and roped off sidewalks, the approach that Monderman takes in his road designs is totally revolutionary. Maybe the MMDA should have a look.

'Amazon Theatre' Sells

2004-11-13T17:53:00.000+08:00

Amazon is doing something interesting this holiday season. They will be releasing five exclusive short films (approx 10 mins in length) on their site, which are freely available to any site visitor, all under the concept of Amazon Theatre. The first film stars Minnie Driver.

The objective of each film is to create interest in merchandise that's available on Amazon. The credits at the end of the film include not only the names of the cast but also the names of the various featured items which were used in the film. These items include clothes, mobile phones, accessories, and beauty products.

Featured products are also available with a 5% rebate if you buy using the Amazon credit card. [Note: I would probably have bought one of the items if use of the Amazon Credit Card wasn't a requirement to avail of the rebate.]

There are at least three objectives for doing this, as far as I can see:

Drive traffic to Amazon's site just in time for the holiday season (achieved through the release of a new film each week);
Highlight merchandize that otherwise would have been unnoticed by regular Amazon shoppers; and
Increase the number of Amazon credit cardholders by keeping the rebate exclusive to cardholders and offering $30 credit when you sign-up.

I wonder if other sites will be producing their own films in the future.

Attractive things work better

2004-11-09T21:51:00.001+08:00

Excerpts from: Emotional Design, by Donald Norman

The psychologist Alice Isen and her colleagues have shown that being happy broadens the thought processes and facilitates creative thinking...

When you feel good, you are better at brainstorming, at examining multiple alternatives...

Isen's results show that when people are happy, their thought processes expand, becoming more creative, more imaginative...

All these point to one of the main premises of Don Norman's latest book -- attractive things make people feel good, which in turn makes them think more creatively. Consequently, attractive things work better, because people find them easier to use.

Google SMS

2004-10-08T06:13:00.000+08:00

Just saw from Google's blog that they're now offering Google SMS as a new service.

I'm not really sure how useful the area code and residential look-up services would be to non-US residents, but the DEFINE and PRICE information services are definitely of interest to me.

I wonder how they can make money from this. I know in the Philippines, people would set it up so that the content provider (in this case, Google) and the telco would make money from making this available. I wonder how long will it take before someone in the Philippines offers the equivalent service?

Ev's Gone

2004-10-08T05:53:00.000+08:00

Had fallen behind a bit on my blog reading, so it's only today that I learn Evan Williams has left Blogger/Google. I must admit I feel sad, even though I've never met him.

What I found interesting about his exit, however, is the fact that:

he blogged about it on Evhead.com, and
he posted a farewell message on Blogger News, which means there's no way that Blogger users could have missed it.

Most people who leave a company don't get a chance to make so graceful an exit; so from a PR standpoint, it sure seems like he's leaving Blogger/Google in good terms.

Vacation

2004-09-27T10:21:00.000+08:00

Have been away on vacation, taking in the sights, sounds, and smells of Sichuan Province in China. Incredibly exhausting, but definitely worth the effort to see sights as magnificent as this one.

Jiuzhaigou

You can scroll through the rest of the photos at this online slideshow.

Furor over Friendster Firing

2004-09-12T21:29:00.000+08:00

There's an uproar sweeping through the blogging community, thanks to Friendster's firing of Joyce Park, allegedly because of her blog entries about the social networking site's move to PHP from JSP.

The original entry from Joyce's blog, Troutgirl, points to the specific entries that were deemed worthy of termination.

You can find a list of other sites that talk about this incident at Jeremy Zadowny's blog entry on the topic.

Under normal circumstances, people probably wouldn't be making a big deal out of this, but as it turns out, Joyce and her husband Tim are well-respected authors who are active in both the blogging and open source communities.

A few people have decided that the best way to demonstrate their displeasure is by canceling their respective Friendster accounts. Turns out there's actually a Cancel Your Account page.

I'm still not sure how I feel about the situation, since Friendster is yet to air their side of the story. However, if it turns out that they really did fire Joyce without cause, I think the best way to go about this is by posting an entry on your Friendster Bulletin Board to let your contacts know you'll be canceling your account in say, 30 days. You can ask them to pass the word along, then wait out the 30 days so your connections all have ample opportunity to see your BBoard entry, and only then do you cancel the account.

The Invisible Computer

2004-09-09T09:44:00.001+08:00

One of the books that I'm currently reading is The Invisible Computer, by Donald Norman.

It puts forward the idea that the PC is too complex because we're trying to get it to do too many things. He suggests that future belongs to "information appliances" that are tailored to do specific tasks only, and in the process are much more friendly, much more usable, and bottomline, more human.

Here's one snippet that I particularly liked:

The technology is the relatively easy part to change. The difficult parts are social, organizational and cultural.

It's a great reminder that while it seems easier to ask people to change and adapt to a machine, we should still be focusing all our energies on designing machines that allows people to simply be people. After all, machines are predictable; people are not.

As an aside, the first Don Norman book that I had read was The Design of Everyday Things, which to this day still makes me smile when I fumble with an awkward door handle, or when I try to fix the settings in our kitchen refrigerator.

Process Review: Update

2004-08-22T17:56:00.000+08:00

My process review assignment has progressed further since my initial post.

And so far everyone seems to agree with the framework (Roles, Workflow, Standards, Technology, and Policies) that I had initially proposed.

The only thing that we later added to the framework was a Transition Plan, i.e., a plan that will help the firm implement the recommendations that will come out of our process review.

It is also beginning to look like this framework will be usable for future process review assignments.

Process Review

2004-08-13T22:16:00.000+08:00

Sometime last week I was requested to review the support process of a software company. Since I am not an expert on the software support process, I had to wade through contracts, review existing forms, procedural flowcharts, and interview quite a number of people to understand the "pains" that they experience with the current process.

After the initial dive into the details and wracking my brain for the appropriate analysis framework, I've come to the (preliminary) conclusion that my Process Review recommendations must cover the following areas:

Roles. To ensure that the various parties understand what is expected of them.
Workflow. To describe the sequence of events that must take place for the company to properly render software support services.
Standards (Forms, Checklists). To ensure that the correct and complete information is collected and properly handed off from one role to another throughout the process.
Technology Support. To make historical analysis, periodic review, and monitoring possible.
Policy Decisions. To make explicit the support service levels that must be delivered by the organization.

I'm glad that I stumbled across The Vision Thing a few weeks ago; Effern's many posts on creating workflows are a helpful reminder of what works (and what does not).

Color Scheme 001

2004-08-11T00:30:00.000+08:00

My first attempt to create a color scheme for possible use on a future website.

Created using the technique described in Adam Polselli's website, using a Snail on Leaf photo in the 28mm photography magazine as the source of inspiration.

Color Scheme 001

Color Schemes inspired by Photographs

2004-08-10T14:38:00.000+08:00

As part of my ongoing quest to improve my creative side, I've been:

So it was quite nice to run across Adam Polselli's site today, and see his post entitled "Where'd Ya Get That Color Scheme?, because that page pulls my three tracks together.

Looks like it's time to revisit my photos in Flickr and see if they help me come up with a color scheme that I can use on a new website.

Furl -- Bookmarks on Steroids

2004-08-07T20:51:00.000+08:00

Stumbled across Furl today, and it didn't take long for me to sign-up to this free, fabuluous service.

From the website:

''Furl lets you save anything you see in your browser. The easiest way to do that is to have a "Furl It" button right on the toolbar of your browser. When you find something you want to save, you click the "Furl It" button.

That opens up a new window with the title and URL of the page you are looking at already filled in. You can then add comments to, rate, and categorize the page (or not). When you're done, click "Save".

That's all. Next time you view your archive you will see the new entry.''

Once you've got your archive set-up, people can view your public entries, sign up to be notified of updates, and yes, they can even blogroll it (an RSS feed is available per archive).

I hope the business model behind the site is totally solid, because I want this free service to be around forever.

Inside the mind of Jeff Bezos

2004-08-07T13:40:00.000+08:00

One of my friends sent me a link to the recent Fast Company article on Jeff Bezos. Extremely cool.

Here are a few of the excerpts that I found either funny or interesting:

''Amazon still hangs whiteboards in the elevators, as it did back in the skid-row days, when the barely postcollegiate employees were so overcaffeinated and hyperactive that they amused themselves by scribbling away between floors.''

Considering my own firm's obsession with white boards -- we've got a lot of them -- I found the idea of white boards in elevators a really cool idea! I've already reached the point that I find it difficult to explain concepts without a bit of chalk-talk, so I just love this idea.

''Bezos pursued his idea of a decentralized, disentangled company where small groups can innovate and test their visions independently of everyone else. He came up with the notion of the "two-pizza team": If you can't feed a team with two pizzas, it's too large. That limits a task force to five to seven people, depending on their appetites.''

I totally agree with the concept of small, agile teams.... although it's the first time I've heard it described as a "two-pizza team". Reminds me of Fred Brooks' classic essay, The Mythical Man-Month. That's always worth a re-read.

''Bezos loves making decisions based on hard data, but when that's not possible, he believes in the power of being "simpleminded," relying on common sense about what would be in the best interests of his customers.''

So true! Common sense really rules, and it's a lot less common that we think.

All in all, that was a meaty article that gave readers insight into the way Jeff Bezos thinks and works. Kudos to Alan Deutschman for a great read.

Haloscan Comments and Trackbacks

2004-08-06T01:46:00.000+08:00

I just learned today that Haloscan offers not only commenting capabilities, but trackbacks as well.

So I did a bit of fiddling around with my Blogger template and managed to get both comments and trackbacks enabled on this blog.

Wouldn't even have known about it if I hadn't noticed trackbacks enabled on The Vision Thing earlier this evening. Thanks, Effern!

Now if only I could add categories...

Testing Meme Propagation In Blogspace: Add Your Blog!

2004-08-03T01:40:00.000+08:00

This posting is a community experiment that tests how a meme, represented by this blog posting, spreads across blogspace, physical space and time. It will help to show how ideas travel across blogs in space and time and how blogs are connected. It may also help to show which blogs are most influential in the propagation of memes. The dataset from this experiment will be public, and can be located via Google (or Technorati) by doing a search for the GUID for this meme (below).

The original posting for this experiment is located at: Minding the Planet (Permalink: http://novaspivack.typepad.com/nova_spivacks_weblog/2004/08/a_sonar_ping_of.html) --- results and commentary will appear there in the future.

Please join the test by adding your blog (see instructions, below) and inviting your friends to participate -- the more the better. The data from this test will be public and open; others may use it to visualize and study the connectedness of blogspace and the propagation of memes across blogs.

The GUID for this experiment is: as098398298250swg9e98929872525389t9987898tq98wteqtgaq62010920352598gawst (this GUID enables anyone to easily search Google (or Technorati) for all blogs that participate in this experiment). Anyone is free to analyze the data of this experiment. Please publicize your analysis of the data, and/or any comments by adding comments onto the original post (see URL above). (Note: it would be interesting to see a geographic map or a temporal animation, as well as a social network map of the propagation of this meme.)

INSTRUCTIONS

To add your blog to this experiment, copy this entire posting to your blog, and then answer the questions below, substituting your own information, below, where appropriate. Other than answering the questions below, please do not alter the information, layout or format of this post in order to preserve the integrity of the data in this experiment (this will make it easier for searchers and automated bots to find and analyze the results later).

REQUIRED FIELDS (Note: Replace the answers below with your own answers)

(1) I found this experiment at URL: http://www.wingedpig.com/archives/000168.html

(2) I found it via "Newsreader Software" or "Browsing the Web" or "Searching the Web" or "An E-Mail Message": Newsreader Software

(3) I posted this experiment at URL: http://myfood4thought.blogspot.com

(4) I posted this on date (day, month, year): 03/08/04

(5) I posted this at time (24 hour time): 01:46:00

(6) My posting location is (city, state, country): Manila, Philippines

OPTIONAL SURVEY FIELDS (Replace the answers below with your own answers):

(7) My blog is hosted by: Blogger / Blogspot

(8) My age is: 33

(9) My gender is: Female

(10) My occupation is: Consultant

(11) I use the following RSS/Atom reader software: Bloglines

(12) I use the following software to post to my blog: Blogger

(13) I have been blogging since (day, month, year): 29/10/03

(14) My web browser is: Mozilla

(15) My operating system is: Win XP

The Complete Color Directory

2004-07-31T23:02:00.000+08:00

A couple of days ago, I stumbled across The Complete Color Directory in my favorite bookstore. The book itself is intended for people who want to redesign the rooms in their home, but I bought it because I wanted new color ideas for designing websites.

Although it's not entirely a complete color directory, there's still enough meat in it to be interesting and worth the P1,097 (approx US$19) I plunked down for it. I particular liked the "good combinations" section of each major color. The experienced designer, though, will probably just breeze through it in a few minutes and toss it into the "To sell" pile.

Weblog + Webcam = Creative Idea

2004-07-25T20:29:00.000+08:00

I found Mike Davidson's blog recently by way of Didier Hilhorst's Nundroo blog.

If you haven't seen it yet, you really should check it out. Look for the "Live" theme option on the sidebar, and make sure you have Flash 6 installed.

It's the first time I've seen a weblog make use of a frequently updated webcam (every 2 minutes, complete with a little clock image to give you an idea of the local time). Of course, not everyone's got a great view from their condo window, but you've got to love the creative thinking that went into the concept.

Dire Straits

2004-07-25T01:23:00.000+08:00

I recently received a .pdf file entitled "Where to the Philippines (or Does the Philippines Have a Chance?)" from a friend. The report was dated June 2004.

You can download your own copy of the PDF from the Wallace Business Forum's Special Reports Section. Choose "Where to the Philippines" in the list of reports.

Even though the file was 40 pages long, I took the time to read it. It so sharply highlights the dire straits that the Philippines is now in.

One of Wallace's Key Points:

In the past 30 years the Philippines has averaged 3.1% annual GDP growth and a population growth of 2.5%. Which means almost no improvement for the Filipino over that 30 years. This is about half the rate achieved by other nations in Asia. The reason:
Politics - vested interest vs national good
Uncontrolled population growth
Weak educational system
Corruption
Inadequate infrastructure
An agriculture system that hasn’t improved in 30 years
An inadequate focus on job creation
A judiciary in need of major improvement
Security
Good governance.
If these 10, and it must be all 10 of them, aren’t fixed the Philippines will average 3.1% for the next 30 years too. The logic of this can’t be denied.

The funny thing is, despite his portents of doom, Wallace seems to believe that it's possible to turn things around, and even outlines immediate action steps for newly re-elected President Arroyo.

I seriously doubt she'll follow any of his free advice, though. She seems to respond better to threats.

Web Design Blogs

2004-07-23T21:05:00.000+08:00

I love reading blogs that focus on Web Design. I'm always amazed at what people are able to produce when their right brains are working in hypergear.

And you know how it is when you follow a couple of blogs that you really like. Before long, they'll have a post about another blog, and you'll find yourself following the link almost mindlessly. If it's an interesting post, the blog gets added to your subscription.

So it's really no wonder that after just a couple of months of using Bloglines as my RSS feed reader, I've now got quite a long list of subscriptions to blogs that focus on web design.

Here they are, in no particular order:

SimpleBits. The hypertext home of web design consultant and author, Dan Cederholm

Mezzoblue. Dave Shea

Asterisk. D. Keith Robinson

Authentic Boredom. Cameron Moll.

Design By Fire. By Andrei Herasimchuk. From the school of hard knocks, where we always burn the midnight oil with a passion for design.

Molly. The personal and professional web site of Molly E. Holzschlag, author, instructor, web standards evangelist. Sometimes interesting, often mundane, with topics ranging from pop-culture to Internet policies.

Jeffrey Zeldman's Daily Report. Web design news, info, and insights since 1995. CSS layout, XHTML, usability, accessibility. Designing with web standards. ISSN #1534-0309

Airbag Industries. Greg Storey's site. "The World's Safest Website"

Superfluous Banter. Personal blog of Dan Rubin.

Nundroo. The newly launched blog of Didier Hilhorst

Veerle. Thoughts on Music, Ibiza, Apple, Nature, Graphic/Web design.

Whitespace. Learning design through teaching design.

Ordered List. Articles and opinions on Web Standards, PHP, MySQL, and generally all things web related.

Angie McKaig. Design. Geekery. Business. Culture. And a great pair of legs!

Happy reading!

Word of Mouth at Work

2004-07-20T00:42:00.000+08:00

Stumbled across a site today called Change This.

I'm not sure where it's headed, but it will be interesting to see how successful this site is with its manifesto (PDF).

In general, anything where Seth Godin is involved is automatically interesting for me. Permission Marketing, after all, was such an eye-opener when it first came out. I've lost track of the times that I wished more people would read it, understand it, and apply the principles behind it. I also wish I could cram a copy of the book down every spammer's throat, but that's a topic for another post.

Given how active a blogger Seth is, it should therefore be no surprise to see that there's also a blog for Change This, entitled Read and Pass... which, of course, explains the rationale behind this post.

Blogger's new WYSIWYG Feature

2004-07-16T22:32:00.000+08:00

Blogger has launched a new WYSIWYG feature that allows people to "compose" blog posts with HTML formatting built-in (ala Gmail). Unfortunately, there seems to be a few bugs in the new feature.

I'm glad I was reading other people's blog posts prior to updating my own blogs today; at least I had an idea of what was in store for me, since I use Firefox as my default browser.

Just to be on the safe side, I first updated one of my blogs using Internet Explorer. There were a few stray div tags around my blockquote entry, which strangely enough, only screwed up my previous posts, not my new post. The old posts ended up being flushed completely to the left of the margin, and my sidebar disappeared to the bottom of the page.

To work-around the problem, I simply switched to "Edit HTML" mode, edited the post directly in HTML by removing the misbehaving div tags, and voila! When I republished the post, it was working just fine. :)

So here I am attempting to update another blog, this time using Firefox. When I first entered the Create Post page, I found an incomplete page -- no little tabs on the upper right corner, no ability to preview, and no buttons along the upper left of the edit area. Thank goodness for this post in Massless.org, which gave me the tip to just refresh Firefox on the Create Post page. So far, it appears to be working fine. The true test, of course, will be the blog post. If you're reading this, then I guess it worked.

A last thought -- I really admire the folks at Blogger who are gamely taking the punches from folks who are peeved by the bugs in the WYSIWYG feature. To have worked hard on this capability and to have this type of negative fallout -- well, lesser mortals would have been crushed and become dysfunctional. You've got to admire their attitude and dedication to this service.

Update: Just found the Blogger Help page that describes the WYSIWYG feature.

Wikis and Weblogs

2004-07-14T22:16:00.000+08:00

The original post entitled Status Reports 2.0 at the Rands in Repose blog is more than half a year old, but I only encountered it today.

The post essentially asks whether or not we need status reports, and recommends the use of Wikis and Weblogs to take the place of status reports.

I have to admit that the article made me stop and think. After all, my firm has used Wikis for over 4 years for a variety of purposes. We've used them internally for keeping company policies and various administrivia available online, and we've used them on projects as project repositories.

Despite the fact that our Wikis allow us to track changes to pages, our team members still turn in individual status reports via email. Granted, they're fairly short reports since they consist mostly of URLs to the relevant Wiki pages that had been updated during the reporting period. I guess our firm is still small enough that the status reports are not really that critical to progress monitoring and therefore can be terse and bulleted. [In fact, I personally find the status reports more critical as inputs to the regular performance reviews of team members!]

We've been talking a lot in the past couple of months about using blogging software. However, they've only been envisioned as communication tools targeted at our clients and suppliers. I'd never really thought of them as status reporting software. That's certainly worth thinking about.

Great Presentations

2004-07-11T21:19:00.000+08:00

Okay, I admit it. I'm one of those horrible people who make word-heavy powerpoint slides.

So it's cool when you come across a couple of sites that take things to the next level:

Cliff Atkinson's Beyond Bullets. People communicating with people.

The Vision Thing: Business. Process. Management

How do people come up with this stuff?! Is this something that can be learned, or are you just born with this type of talent?

The Buzz in the Blogosphere

2004-07-07T21:22:00.000+08:00

It's amazing how new ways are being found to mine the "World Live Web", a.k.a. the Blogosphere. Here are a few of the utilities / sites that I've encountered, which bear a closer look.

Bloglines. Of course Bloglines ranks at the top of my list, the free, web-based RSS-Aggregator service. They've recently unveiled their new look to celebrate their first birthday. I love the fact that the number of subscribers for each feed is now indicated. And the Clippings feature is great.

DayPop. Encountered this site for the first time today. They "Search 59000 News Sites, Weblogs and RSS feeds for Current Events and Breaking News". The Wordburst and Wishlist features are new to me, and certainly worth watching.

Technorati. "Search the World Live Web. Want to know what's being said, right now, about every Weblog or Web page that has something worth talking about? Type in a url, keyword or phrase above and search the World Live Web."

Blogdex. The Weblog Diffusion Index. "Blogdex uses the links made by webloggers as a proxy to the things they are talking about. Webloggers typically contextualize their writing with hypertext links which act as markers for the subjects they are discussing. These markers are like tags placed on wild animals, allowing Blogdex to track a piece of conversation as it moves from weblog to weblog."

I'm sure there are other sites like these, but so far, these are the ones that I've encountered.

Also worth a close read is The Wisdom of Blogs, published in Blogger's Knowledgebase.

Can Gmail's Invite-Only approach be considered Viral Marketing?

2004-07-01T11:30:00.000+08:00

Yes, I have a Gmail account.

A lot of people have apparently been wondering what the fuss is all about, with many remarking that Gmail is just webmail after all. In addition, some very valid accessibility issues have also been raised regarding the interface.
Despite all the negative comments, I can't help but like Gmail. It's an emotional, irrational thing. The fact that it's from Google makes it immediately worth watching. The fact that it's currently by invitation only also makes it a hot item (supply and demand, and all that).

Oh, as an aside -- there's now a Philippine Gmail User's Yahoogroup... and you guessed it, you can only subscribe to it if you use a Gmail account.

I'm waiting for all the marketing gurus to jump in and examine the "viral marketing" aspects of the Google beta test approach. It will be interesting to find out if Google had designed (by intention) the "Invitation Only" approach to generate a lot of marketing hype and unmet demand.

Alexa

2004-06-24T01:34:00.000+08:00

Came across this company for the first time today.

I was thrown off by the interface for a moment because it looked so much like Amazon.com. But at least there was an immediate explanation for that.

What surprises me is how similar it is to Google, in the sense that it offers search engine services, has a downloadable toolbar that stops pop-up ads, and also had a number of other data services available. And it's owned by Amazon?! Who knew.

Creativity in Action

2004-06-05T00:02:00.000+08:00

If you're like me, you've often wondered how creative people work. I've got too much of a connect-the-dots type of personality to be creative; consequently, I admire creative people a great deal.

So I derive an inordinate amount of enjoyment from seeing creativity in action, as you can no doubt tell from one of my earlier posts.

I'm therefore quite excited at the prospect of following the developments in "Designing the Band, an exercise in user-centered, standards-based web design" at the Asterisk* Blog. Perhaps you'll consider coming along for the ride.

I guess we still judge books by their covers

2004-06-03T20:57:00.000+08:00

Many thanks to Angie McKaig's weblog for posting a link to this Research Report: How Do People Evaluate a Web Site's Credibility? Results from a Large Study (Oct 2002).

Unbelievably, Design Look ranked as the strongest determinant (i.e., cited by 46.1% of respondents) for a visitor's Credibility Rating for a website. Branding (listed as Name Recognition and Reputation) was only cited by 14.1%.

That study sure sends a strong message -- we should pay more attention to our site's overall look and feel, instead of relying on its content (Information Usefulness - 14.8%) to convince our website visitors.

I guess at the end of the day, we're still judging our books by their covers.

Manifesto for Corporate Weblogs

2004-06-03T00:11:00.000+08:00

Although I started blogging several months ago, I still know very little about the Blogosphere and its inhabitants. Thankfully, every day brings new, valuable discoveries, such as Robert Scoble's Corporate Weblogs Manifesto.

It's a great thing to stumble across, in light of the fact that:

Google had recently launched a blog and I had been keeping a curious eye on it out of personal interest; and

I had been sharing my renewed personal interest in Blogging with my boss, but couldn't come up with ideas as to how our company could use it. When the day comes that we start Blogging as a company, I'm sure this manifesto will be the first thing I dig up from the archives.

Anyway, from a timing standpoint, it really looks like corporate blogs are picking up steam. Debbie Weil's blog even has a whole category of posts that focus on "Blogging for Business", and she offers a seminar on Blogging for Associations.

Benchmarking, when taken to the extreme, becomes bad

2004-06-01T10:24:00.000+08:00

That's the conclusion I get from reading Seth Godin's latest blog post on Benchmarking.

Offhand, here are my thoughts after reading his post:

it's tough to keep benchmarketing against others when you know darned well you're not going to be able to keep up

it's reckless to stop benchmarketing altogether, because while ignorance may be bliss, you can't stay ignorant forever -- especially when your business goes under.

So I can only conclude that:

we SHOULD keep benchmarketing, but we should do so in moderation (I am feeling very Aristotlean right now)

we should focus our energies on figuring out WHAT things should be measured. I may be able to track hundreds of indicators, but all that is futile and worthless if they're all the wrong indicators to focus on.

once we know what should be measured, we can focus on those indicators only, and avoid getting distracted by factoids that aren't critical to our desired outcome.

and of course, like most things, we should periodicially revisit our assumptions about what's important, because the world around us constantly changes, and we should likewise continuously adapt.

Design Eye for the Usability Guy

2004-05-28T10:22:00.000+08:00

Here is an unbelievably entertaining and enlightening read for anyone who:
- Is interested in Jakob Nielsen's work; or
- Is interested in web design; or
- Both!

Kudos to the folks at Design by Fire for this piece of work.

Expectation Management

2004-05-20T20:43:00.000+08:00

From the Art of Worldly Wisdom -- a collection of aphorisms from the works of Baltasar Gracian, as translated by Martin Fischer.

#19. Do not enter where too much is anticipated. It is the misfortune of the over celebrated, that they cannot measure up to the excessive expectations of them afterwards: never can the actual attain the imagined: for to think perfection is easy, but to incarnate it, most difficult...

Too often, we avoid being the "bad guy" by not saying no, or by not correcting people's lofty expectations. We don't give ourselves the opportunity to sweeten our relationships by setting the bar low enough that we can do more than what's expected.

The Book Exercise

2004-05-17T23:05:00.000+08:00

Got this from Tim Oren's Due Diligence Blog:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.

"For the point where the successful commander concentrates his forces must be a point that is vital or at least extremely important to the enemy."

From Bevin Alexander's "How Great Generals Win: A military historian appraises the world's greatest commanders, from Hannibal to MacArthur".

Ask the HeadHunter

2004-05-13T15:58:00.000+08:00

At a time when many people are anxious about job prospects, career paths, and employment packages, it's always refreshing to come across a site that gives targeted and meaningful advice to both applicants and employers.

I first encountered Ask the Headhunter years ago because I was new as a hiring manager and was probably more nervous about conducting interviews than any of my interviewees. I was always combing the bookstores and the internet for advice on how to conduct job interviews. The articles by Nick Corcodilos helped me put the whole job interview process into perspective: forget the trick questions -- just focus on finding out if the interviewee is someone you want in your firm.

Over the years, I've pointed many of my younger friends to Nick's newsletter and I continue to revisit it myself on a regular basis. Much of the career advice directed at employees (e.g., How to perform in a performance review) can be flipped around and used by bosses as concrete advice on how they can be better managers. Anyone who seeks self-improvement will manage to find something new to think about from this site.

True Professionalism

2004-05-13T12:51:00.000+08:00

Several years ago, I came across David Maister's book, "True Professionalism". What a great book! I found myself underlining so many passages because I agreed with so much of what's in it.

"Principles (or values) are the most effective management tools a firm can use. Successful firms are differentiated not by their different goals, clever strategies, or special managerial tactics -- these are all remarkably similar worldwide. Successful firms are clearly differentiated by a strict adherence to values, i.e., to professionalism." - page 2

Too often, I pick up the latest management book from the latest management guru and increasingly find myself getting less wheat for the amount of chaff that I have to wade through. The books may offer new concepts and a new framework, but in the end, a firm's ability to execute on its strategy is still dependent on the professionalism of the people in the firm.

Dell and Rollins

2004-05-10T14:55:00.000+08:00

From a Fortune Magazine (May 10 issue) Interview of Michael Dell and Kevin Rollins (Dell's new CEO):

"People don't realize that the way Michael and I have been running the company was irrespective of titles. We just worried about what needs to be done and who's available. We don't spend a lot of time wondering who's in charge of what."

I particularly like the above quote, because it very closely describes the way that we work in my company. However, I'd always thought this type of freewheeling / as needed coordination would be possible only for small firms. It's refreshing to see that it's just as effective a management style in large firms.