Archive for June, 2008

Great article from Slate on how to write online. Terrific tips that apply to everything. I love this notion:

Nielsen champions the idea of information foraging. Humans are informavores. On the Internet, we hunt for facts. In earlier days, when switching between sites was time-consuming, we tended to stay in one place and dig. Now we assess a site quickly, looking for an “information scent.” We move on if there doesn’t seem to be any food around.

The trick is to really understand how users read on the Web. And we really read different. Here’s some terrific stuff for you informavores on eye tracking research.

I’ve also been following Nick’s thinking (and here) on how the online world might be changing how we read. It’s definitely impacting my book reading, which I am just finding harder and harder. Seems lots of folks are forgetting how to read… Is it that Google is giving us pond-skater minds? Andrew Sullivan ponders:

Are we fast losing the capacity to think deeply, calmly and seriously? Have we all succumbed to Internet attention-deficit disorder? Or, to put it more directly: if you’re looking at a monitor right now, are you still reading this, or are you about to click on another link?

For me its an economic issue… Social media is absorbing the time spent in front of a book, TV, or DVD. And the more I use it the more I like the links and connections. The comments. And the community of folks. Its part voyeurism and part participation.

Stumbled onto this post via popurls… enjoyed Kevin’s list and some of those at the bottom of the post… will throw mine up soon…

• WSJ reports on Dell and bloggers…
• Liked this presentation… some good principles that can be applied anywhere:
• find the most passionate 1% of citizens and engage them deeply, not just with the organisation but also with each other
• create ‘third spaces’; unconference events and online communities
• community engagement has to be integrated with communication strategies and planning processes
• creating online communities is only one part also need to go where people are today ie find related communities of interest
• create a community evangelist roll
• … this diagram was insightful as well…
• 
• Reminded me of one of my favorite Drucker quotes:

“Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two–and only two–basic functions: marketing and innovation.

“Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs. Marketing is the distinguishing, unique function of the business.” – Peter Drucker

• Just what we needed… another online office suite… Acrobat.com is a combination of three recently launched online services: Adobe Brio (online meetings), Adobe Buzzword (online word processor), and Adobe Share (online file sharing). via TechCrunch.
• Intel’s Chief on Strategy, Globalization and the Price of Oil: “take the openness of the notebook down to the price point of the cell phone.”