links for 2007-08-28
-
Anil Dash, "occasional lolcat critic"
« July 2007 | Main | September 2007 »
August 27, 2007
August 23, 2007
links for 2007-08-24
-
I may never trust a photograph again
August 22, 2007
links for 2007-08-23
-
Speaking of classes, this is a terrific sounding program.. I can picture Victor Lombardi silently planning to move to the west coast
August 21, 2007
Back to school
I am pleased to announce that I'll be teaching a class in Victor Lombardi's new Smart Experience professional school.
The class, Managaing the Online-Offline Partnership, derives from my career in "traditional" offline organizations and the great challenge many of us face: bringing the value and importance of Internet activity to an organization whose focus isn't in the online arena.
The challenge is one I've tackled with brio over the years; indeed, "evangelism" has even been a part of my job description on multiple occasions. The task is as fascinating as it is complicated. When you have colleagues running an eight-figure business, and the Internet represents barely 10% of your readership or your revenue base, it's easy for said colleagues to dismiss your initiatives as a side project, even when those initiatives' impact has a much lengthier reach. The challenge is bringing that reach to light, and creating excitement and momentum in what to others may be both marginal and frightening.
I plan on hosting a fully participatory session, with light case studies, some role playing, and lots of input from the assembled. SmartEx is new, so class is entirely what my students and I will make of it. My readers are invited to join me in my session, as I make my humbly triumphant return to a classroom setting. (I last taught in the 1990s at open-i media, back in the days when HTML had to be coded by hand.) I'm looking forward to it.
Ideapad readers are eligible for a discount for enrolling in my class--contact me and I'll pass along the code.
links for 2007-08-22
-
Great story. And it's not Comcast... my experiences with Time Warner techs are roughly equivalent (if not as amusing)
-
His first answer is truly the best quip I've read in a long, long time
August 20, 2007
My family
PLAYERS: Seated from left, wife, advertising producer, pop-culture aficionado; mother; and sister-in-law, Love and Sex editor for a major media website.
SCENE: Mom and Dad's fortieth anniversary dinner at Provence in Soho. "Josie" is playing on the house stereo.
SISTER-IN-LAW: This song is called "Josie!" It's a Steely Dan song about a prostitute.
WIFE: So I just found out what a Steely Dan is!
MOTHER: Yeah? What is it?
WIFE pauses, considers, then explains: It's—a vibrator. Or a dildo.
MOTHER turns, points at SISTER-IN-LAW. That's something you're supposed to know!
(see also)
August 13, 2007
links for 2007-08-14
-
The best and most fondly memorable flights I've taken have all--all--been on Virgin Atlantic. Looking forward to expanded domestic service
-
A great, geeky read on the new highway fontography
-
I am okay with this (if a bit jealous)
August 7, 2007
links for 2007-08-08
-
I'm teaching a class in October. Sign up today! Full post on the Ideapad to follow
August 6, 2007
Morning in Rockport
The incredible shrinking newspaper
The paper felt light this morning, as it often does on a Monday in August, only more so. The columns on the right-hand side of the front page looked a little narrower than usual, and I didn't know why.
Then I looked to the left and saw the note: today the New York Times switched to its smaller sheet size.
Unsurprisingly, I hate it. It lacks the impact, the heft, the ability to convey significant information on a single page. The accordion fold on the subway creates a meek, finished-too-fast column of text. It makes the paper feel less significant, less worth the cover price, less important.
Of course, the Times's news coverage hasn't dropped; some of it has simply gotten shorter or moved online. But--and I say this fully aware of the irony--I don't really want to go to a website for continuations of content I'm reading offline. Despite my thorough online lifestyle, I am resolutely committed to reading the printed newspaper every day. I look forward to it. I have nothing to gain by reading most of the paper, I want to read all of it, and to use nytimes.com for its blogs and for sharing items with friends, not to get extra scoops or a handful of letters to the editor that I used to be able to read in print. I also find it mildly hypocritical that the Times cites rising costs in its resizing decision, when it raised the newsstand price a full 25 percent just weeks earlier.
I know that newsprint is increasingly expensive, and that readership of the print edition is down, and that my desire for the old-fashioned edition makes me something of a fuddy-duddy and a nimbyist. At some point I'm sure I'll get used to it, just as people always adapt to change. But the new style of the New York Times, by being 11% smaller, is, for the time being, making the Times itself feel 11% lesser.
August 1, 2007
Timing
I walk into the Banana Republic Men on 17th and 5th and notice my shoe is untied. I stop near the entrance and lean over to tie it. Elapsed time in store: five seconds.
As I am bent over, a sales clerk swiftly approaches me, and asks: "Are you finding everything okay?"