A READER FORWARDED this post at TEDBlog about new views of Saturn courtesy Cassini-Huygens. See the full set of images here. (Thanks, Sharon!) Click this shot for a full-sized view of this spectacular image of rings and moons ...
While on the topic, I suppose I once knew that TED had a blog, but had since forgotten, and now thanks to Sharon am once again reminded. Added to my RSS reader (Google Reader).
HERE'S GOOD NEWS: Malcolm Gladwell is back in the New Yorker, and at his blog as well. He's been working on a new book, which is nearly finished; hence the absence.
JJ: Care to offer any color commentary?
A NEW ADDITION to my Bloglines feeds: Design Observer.
I JUST FOUND FOUR THINGS I really enjoyed reading, seeing, or buying in one visit to Virginia Postrel's Dynamist blog. A sure sign that your pulling a feed from one of the blogosphere's upper crust denizens. If you're not reading her, you should be.
Oh, and I can't wait for my Ball of Whacks to arrive.
As it has done in the past, the blogosphere is doing an excellent job of aggregating the known knowns and known unknowns about the terror plot in the UK. Pajamas Media, in particular, has an excellent roundup worth bookmarking for the day.
(Note: Earlier I pointed to Michelle Malkin's post, but wanted to point to a link focused more on aggregation rather than aggregation mixed with point of view. Pajamas offers that nicely by seperating the news aggregation from blog perspectives.)
DAVID ALLEN HAS STOPPED BLOGGING, at least for a time. The reason is in keeping with his Getting Things Done philosophy:
I'd probably continue it in some form, if I didn't have a multitude of other things to do that are taking priority. It's another time I need to practice my own GTDing and renegotiate my own commitments with myself to stay up with my changing world.
A great point. Part of being in control is being realistic about your commitments, and one of the significant benefits of GTD is how knowing all your commitments (I have 257 of them across 12 lists) suddenly makes you a realist about incoming requests.
And I should know. I've started so many blogs--some that stuck and some that did not--that I've wondered if I get more out of the creation than the posting. Sometimes I want a change of voice, or of topic. And sometimes I've just gotten bored. I've even slowed down here recently, although I think S1A is here to stay (although I might move to a different platform ... tinker, tinker).
Still, this comment makes me wonder if David might miss something more meaningful:
I'm just too stretched to keep enjoying the luxury of late-night college-student-union chatting (blogging).
He made a similar comment when we were together for a few days last Fall. I'll say now what I said then: For somebody who makes his hay from intellectual capital, a blog can be more than chatting over a virtual latte -- it can provide the opportunity to participate in and lead a community of thought.
Thought leaders don't just create material or theory that inform discussions of practice, they participate in those discussions. Blogs great platform for doing so, with far greater reach than day-to-day interaction with colleagues or clients. As a result, a blog can help accelerate the discussion, awareness, and adoption of the practice (an important point if you sell ideas for a living).
Examples abound: Anderson, Weinberger, Moere, Winer, Garr Reynolds, Dubner & Levitt.
In each case the expert at the center of the conversation is getting more informed about his or her area of interest, and more firmly established as the thought leader on that topic, each day. If I were selling ideas for a living it's where I would want to be. I hope to see David return to blogging. To get the full effect his content should probably change a bit -- more on how he interprets the world through the lens of GTD and less on hobbies and travels -- but I hope to see him return nonetheless.
Tags: david allen
MY FRIEND (AND HERO) BECKY WALLER points out The Office Blog. Typically I wouldn't go for such a thing -- as a rule, fake-corporate-marketing-as-buzz-generators blogs show poor sense and a lack of respect for the public. But The Office Blog works because we know it's fake. And because of this wonderful piece of blogging jujitsu, we can enjoy the paranoid delusions of Dwight Schrute online.
The corporate blogging principle at work: Be transparent. It's OK to be fake, as long as we know you're fake.
Tags: becky waller, the office, schrute blog
I'M BACK FROM a wonderful vacation and again fully engrossed in work. Thanks to everyone who wished me good times and much rest; I enjoyed both.
Now something for you, from the "It's About Time" department: Malcolm Gladwell has a blog.
Tags: gladwell
ONE OF THE WINE BLOGS I FREQUENT is Lenndevours, whose wine and food reviews I enjoy (and whose accounts of the New York wine industry are first-rate). Here's another reason to read: Publisher Lenn Thompson is a die-hard Steeler fan, and in the spirit of the Super Bowl is posting a Steelers Food Series. So far in the series:
I've been a Steeler fan since ... well, as long as I can remember. Turns out Kate and I will be in London this weekend, so we'll miss the weekend festivities, although we'll arrive home just in time to catch up on the first half of the game via Tivo. Any ideas on where to find a good Chipped Ham BBQ near Hyde Park?
Tags: lenndevours, steelers, super bowl, recipes
A WONDERFUL BLOG: information aesthetics. I also like his use of sparklines to represent the site's web statistics.
Tags: information aesthetics, sparklines
MCDONALD'S CORP. has launched an outside-the-firewall blog on corporate responsibility titled Open For Discussion. The first post: A profile of Dr. Temple Grandin, who helps MCD conduct animal welfare audits around the world.
(Disclosure: McDonald's is a CRA client, and while we've offered strategic counsel regarding blogs as a communication tool in the past, we've not been part of Open For Discussion. Indeed, I didn't know about the blog until Steve Wilson (who publishes a personal blog here), head of MCD's web group, emailed the link to me earlier today.)
It's a good first blog for Ronald: Candid, first-person, authentic, and about a topic where a direct and bloggy conversation with customers should benefit both sides of the conversation. I know many folks expect corporate blogs to be a mouthpiece for PR flacks (any many are), but Steve's absolutely grounded in what makes for good web discourse, and I don't expect blog spin from MCD. My only criticism: I'd like to read the full entry on the front page, rather than an excerpt.
I look forward to seeing how it develops.
Technorati Tags: mcdonalds, corporate blogs
* Scheduled post, written earlier.
AFTER WEEKS OF HOLIDAY OVER-INDULGENCE, Kate and I are going back on the wagon with a return to our semi-low-carb lifestyle. We tend to focus on recipes and simple rules, and we've found the South Beach approach to meals most satisfying. As we (mostly she) were cooking last night's garlic and soy grilled pork chops, oriental cabbage salad, and oven-roasted vegetables, I said "You know, there have to be some South Beach blogs out there."
There are. One of the best is Kalyn's Kitchen, which I promptly added to my Bloglines and del.icio.us accounts. The content and style are very strong, and like most good bloggers Kalyn covers her topic from many angles (like this weekend herb blogging roundup). I've also seen thousands (seemingly) of Blogger blogs over the past several years, and from a design standpoint Kalyn uses it about as well as anyone. I'll be reading often.
Technorati Tags: South Beach Diet, Low Carb, Kalyn's Kitchen
* Scheduled post, written earlier.
BOOKMARK CONFERENZA: THE WEBLOG. From the "welcome" post:
You may not have heard of Conferenza. We think of it as the best-kept secret in the conference business. If you have heard of us, you know that we've been covering hi-tech events for seven years, since the company was founded in 1998.
Since then, we've gone through three major phases:
1. Sponsored. We launched the company with the financial support of a variety of true friends. Our initial revenue came from sponsorship by Credit Suisse First Boston, among others.
2. Columnized. We wrote a regular email newsletter for what is now Business 2.0.
3. Paid. With uber-marketer Shel Israel on board, we moved to a subscription model, where we’ve lived for several years. The value of this approach has been to build a core group of avid readers. The downside has been to somewhat limit our visibility in the industry.
Now we're entering into a new phase - Conferenza: The Weblog.
Our mission remains the same: To bring readers the most accurate news and perspective about the trends and issues covered in hi-tech's premier conferences and other events. We see the blog as a way to broaden our reach, providing the same quality coverage that we always have, but for a bigger readership.
We also see this as an opportunity to weave together reporting and analysis from a variety of other voices, linking to others in the blogosphere, and providing a place for conference-goers to post their ideas and reports. In the past, we've had the great fortune to have contributors like Sam Perry (now a Reuters Digital Fellow), Richard Brandt (former editor-in-chief of Upside Magazine), and Tom Mandel (poet and tech visionary). This blog allows us to continue to include their reports, and to involve many others as well.
Via JoHo.
Technorati tags: Conferenza.
* Scheduled post, written earlier.
GARR REYNOLDS COMMENTS on Brent Edwards' comments (Brent has a nice blog -- new to me -- BTW) on Edward Tufte's view of advocacy in presentations. Read both; Garr also makes a nice link to Aristotle (50 extra points to Garr for invoking basic rhetorical theory).
In his post Garr asked for comments. Rather than posting a lengthy comment there, I'll post my thoughts here. I attended Tufte's seminar earlier this year, and posted my notes here should you wish to see them (they're in both a browseable MindMap and text format). My take on the issue Brent raises:
To me, Tufte's concern was more that we establish our credibility such that the audience can listen with a critical but open ear, rather than a critical but skeptical ear. His position was (my words): don't pitch, tell. His words: "Pitching out corrupts within." I don't think his concern is about advocacy as with advocacy without warrants. For Tufte, it's about building a case.
Regarding Brent's comments on sparklines: they're great, and candy for the data-design-focused among us. I've posted about them before here and here.
Regarding Garr's thoughts on "balance" of ethos, pathos, and logos: Couldn't agree more. At the firm we counsel clients to overtly incorporate this balance into not just presentation planning, but all communication planning, using a simple schema -- begin all communication planning by asking:
This, generally, gets at logos (believe, know, do), pathos (feel), and ethos (seen, relationship). Some simple examples over at CommLog (poorly formatted due to a recent import process) are here and here.
Frankly, it's wonderful to see sophisticated, thoughtful commentary like Garr's and Brent's on the topic of business discourse. I've always held that the golden age of internal communication is ahead of us; these are signs of progress.
LEE LEFEVER AND SACHI are off on their year-long travel adventure. Follow their journey, and the travels of many other contributors, at The World Is Not Flat.
Quitting work for a year to travel the world. Gutsy. Cool.
HI, and welcome to the first post-Thanksgiving post of the year. Hope those from the States had a great holiday; we certainly did.
Today in my inbox was a note from colleague and friend Becky Waller, announcing she's launched a blog to chronicle her effort to donate half her liver to her brother, Joe. It's not only a compelling journal, the blog's well done, too (Becky's a former magazine somethingorother). The blog is named Chopped Liver. Check it out, and file Becky under Models of Greatness.
In moderately-related news, I bring you Idle Type, a blog which I found via Becky's. It has to have one of the best author profile descriptions I've read in some time. A sample passage:
Before he forgets, the author would like to point out that he is, on average, 20 pounds lighter than he was at this time last year and has slightly bigger muscles, and if you were to comment on his newfound state of fitness, he would feign modesty but feel a secret, almost perverse sense of joy that through his steady relationship with his local gym, he has beaten back — if only temporarily — the biological entropy that begins to make itself known at around his age.
Fifty bonus points for "biological entropy."
WE HAVE A NEW LOOK and new location for CommLog: http://craweblogs.typepad.com/commlog. Please update your bookmarks accordingly.
* This is an automated post.
A NEW SEMI-REGULAR FEATURE for Seat 1A: "Overheard." When you travel as much as I do, you often find yourself in a position to hear snippets of conversation that leave you thinking, "Did that person really just say that?" Here's an example from my travel last week. Overheard at a restaurant counter:
Customer speaking to woman at counter: "That's a beautiful name. I named my cat that."
Seriously: Who compliments someone by saying they share a name with their cat?
By the by, there are websites fully devoted to this concept. Overheard in New York is first and best among them. Not all content there is safe for family viewing (one can overhear much in New York, after all), but they're almost all funny. A recent entry:
PR girl #1: I love your outfit today!
PR girl #2: You know, I was walking down the street, and this homeless man in a box told me that "Purple is the color of royalty."
PR girl #1: Don't joke about that. I could be joining him, if my apartment doesn't come through.
PR girl #2: At least he lives in Manhattan.--Office, 53rd & Broadway
Heh.
Have an "overheard" item you'd like to share? Submit it and I'll post it. Send submissions to alan dot l dot nelson at gmail dot com.
I JUST FOUND PRESENTATION ZEN by Gar Reynolds. Be certain to read his account of Steve Jobs' latest One More Thing presentation.
CURIOUS ABOUT THE VOTING IN IRAQ? Omar brings you a first-hand account via the blogosphere. (And if you've not yet read Iraq The Model, you're missing one of the best Iraqi blogs out there.)
JASON BATES has a nice post on metaphors and organizations, and poses some questions worth considering.
I HAVE A FONDNESS FOR CITIZEN JOURNALISM , and am glad to see the Houston Chronicle embracing the idea. Read local coverage of Hurricane Rita at the Stormwatchers Blog.
UPDATE: The professional journalists at the HouChron are blogging the storm, too.
ONE OF MY PROFESSIONAL COLLEAGUES, Steve Wilson, has a new blog up. Steve's the Senior Director of Global Web Communications at McDonald's. He's an incredibly smart guy, a wonderful client, and a friend to boot. He'll be posting content worth reading, so be sure to check it out.
FOR THOSE WHO just can't get enough: Freakonomics, the blog.
DO I COME OFF AS BITTER? Because that's not my intention. As it says in the header:
"I write not to complain, but to chronicle."
With our recent trip to the wine country I've been plumbing the depths of wine blogs, and there are a number I've enjoyed enough to add to my Bloglines feeds:
Finally, another blog I've found along the wine-way, but that's not specifically a wine blog, is Chocolate & Zucchini, a top-notch food blog written by 25-year-old Frenchwoman Clotilde. Long, well-written posts about the intersection of food and life. An example of her style:
On that particular day in that particular grocery store -- I believe it was a Super U -- our mission was to get all the fixings for a raclette, a typical mountain festive meal in which you melt raclette cheese in a special appliance and eat it with potatoes and charcuterie. Yum. But of course I couldn't help looking at everything else -- the yogurts and the cookies and the cereals and the chocolate -- and one thing I threw into the cart when Maxence wasn't looking was a baking-mix by Maïzena, the leading brand of corn starch. A baking-mix that whispered the sweet promise that it would help me make a half-dozen of cute and charming petits pains au pavot.
At the register, Maxence picked up the box and looked at me quizzically -- his left eyebrow clearly asking, "Did another patron accidently [sic] put this in our cart?". I looked away, whistling innocently. And the little box made its way with us to the house, then to the South-West where we drove next, and then back to Paris, where it crawled to the back of a kitchen cabinet to hide.
Check it out.
Also, seeing as Kate and I (1) drink wine often and (2) make a practice of trying as many different wines as we can, I've added a TypeList called "In Our Glasses" to the left-hand column, just beneath the "On My iPod" TypeList. There I'll be posting links and quick reviews for the last three wines we've tasted, FYI.
Tom Barnett on Friedman's The World Is Flat:
[T]his was all about selling his op-eds as a compilation. He needed something—what did he call it? Oh yeah, a "literary license" to draw attention to the fact that he's completely out of new ideas. No Lexus here. No Olive tree here. No Golden Straightjacket or Electronic Herd or Super-Empowered Individual. Just Flat. Just 469 pages of Flat. Thank God he was smart enough not to put "flat" in his index, because his publisher would have been forced to list every frickin' page in the book! And in doing so, the company only would have revealed what a pathetic effort this volume really is.
I wonder how he really feels. And if you're not familiar with Tom Barnett, you should be. After all, "disconnectedness defines danger":
Show me where globalization is thick with network connectivity, financial transactions, liberal media flows, and collective security, and I will show you regions featuring stable governments, rising standards of living, and more deaths by suicide than murder. These parts of the world I call the Functioning Core, or Core. But show me where globalization is thinning or just plain absent, and I will show you regions plagued by politically repressive regimes, widespread poverty and disease, routine mass murder, and—most important—the chronic conflicts that incubate the next generation of global terrorists. These parts of the world I call the Non-Integrating Gap, or Gap.
Several years ago I had the good fortune to spend the better part of a week in London at the Savoy. One of the things I took away from that trip (besides fine memories and an affection for cocktails made in the style of The American Bar) was a memory of the curious yet strangely appealing notebook in the gift shop I neglected to buy.
I remember its features well: Black. An oddly appealing heft and feeling to the touch. A handy pocket inside the back cover. An elastic band to bind the whole thing together. And a description noting how it was the same notebook used by Picasso and Hemingway.
I didn't think of the notebook again until earlier this year, when I stumbled across a reference to the same notebook at Merlin Mann's 43 Folders. It's called a Moleskine (pronounced "mole-eh-skeen-ah"), and I promptly picked one up at my local Barnes and Noble to use as a journal for recording thoughts on the road.
While the stories of Picasso and Hemingway are in some dispute, and while the notebooks cost more than your average set of tear sheets, they're a wonderful journal with a beautiful aesthetic. You just feel better holding a Moleskine, and they've become a permanent addition to my bag. Find them here.
My interest in Moleskines also led me to two blogs I enjoy: Moleskinerie and Journalisimo (subtitled "Back to Analog"). Both celebrate the aesthetic and art of writing, something I've increasingly enjoyed as I've tried to focus and simplify the technology in my life (my current mantra: be a geek, but be a geek with balance and purpose).
Who knew that PR guru Richard Edelman had a blog? Apparently Constantin Basturea, who has a worth-reading perspective on the blog efforts of PR firm Ketchum as well.
The U.S. Open Championship has a Blog -- and it's actually worth reading, with postings by USGA insiders from the tournament.
If you're not reading The Comics Curmudgeon each day, you're missing one of the funniest blogs on the Web. Not always safe for children; almost always hilarious for adults.
Jason Kotke is one of the many young geniuses who, as programmers and hackers, have driven the Internet (and in Jason's case, blogging software in particular) forward whilst the rest of us have tended to our own vocations. I met Jason briefly at the DNC in Boston, and while I'm certain he doesn't remember me, I've been a reader of his beautiful, interesting, and very witty blog, Kotke.org, since. Check it out.
I see Business 2.0 has added a blog to their on-line presence. It's a good read, but I notice there are no comments. Here, I think, FCN has them beat. It's hard to create a community when everyone in the community can only listen and never talk ...
New on my blogroll is Mike Moran, a Senior Correspondent at MSNBC and the man behind the creation of Hardblogger. We met at the DNC in Boston, where we shared a drink at the hotel bar late after the nomination and had a good conversation about blogs and journalism (while having, I seem to recall, some of the finest chowder of my life).
While still at MSNBC, he's also now publishing the Sword and Pen blog for the Overseas Press Club of America. His observations on the intersection of blogs and journalism are first rate, as is his writing. Check it out.
While returning from vacation this past March I shared a flight with Jake Richter, a patent consultant from Bonaire and modern-day Renaissance man. It turns out I had been unwittingly passing in and out of his life for years via the Bonaire Web Cams and Bonaire Talk web sites, which I visit with some frequency, and of which Jake is the creator.
Given his on-line interests, we spent much of the flight
talking about blogs, how they’re different from other media, and how they might
serve his interests and passions. I’m now glad to see that Jake’s taken the
plunge, publishing The Richter Scale from
Check out his site, and welcome to the blogosphere, Jake.
You can watch an interesting corner of the new frontier of journalism over at Blinq (not to be confused with Gladwell’s Blink), the blog of Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Dan Rubin. I met Dan at the RNC in Boston last Fall, where Knight-Ridder and the Inquirer (which he calls "the filtered, mainstream aggregator that pays me" at Blinq) had him playing an experimental blogger role. He must have taken to the medium, because the Inquirer has now set him up whole-hog with his own site. He’s a good guy, and great reporter, and from the looks of it, a fine blogger.
One thing he mentioned as difficult in Boston was overcoming his well-honed reporter’s voice … that it was a challenge making his posts personal and subjective rather than impersonal and objective. He seems to have overcome that challenge, reading his recent posts.
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