I’m trying to explain what the fantastic charts at the Go Big Always blog are about and why you should look at them, but it’s tough. I’ve copied one of them here to give you a peek. They are funny, clever, insightful, irreverent, iconoclastic — in short, they really hit the mark in many ways. It only takes a couple of minutes to view them all, so check them out!
Archive for the 'Technology' Category
Great Charts, Great Insights
Posted by Ted Hopton on July 10, 2008
Posted in Human Interest, Humor, Management, Metrics, Statistics, Strategy, Technology | No Comments »
I Freed Myself From E-Mail’s Grip
Posted by Ted Hopton on June 30, 2008
To reclaim productivity lost to responding to e-mail, an I.B.M. employee shifted his means of communication to other tools.
I like the idea here. It’s not for everybody, but clearly something has to give. Too many of us spend too much time toiling on email — we aren’t controlling our own schedules or task lists, as we’ve let ourselves be sucked into a Faustian bargain that seems hopeless.
It’s not going to be easy (if it were, we’d all have freed ourselves from email’s tyranny, wouldn’t we?). But if we don’t try new ways to break free, we never will break email’s grip. Try something different!
read more | digg story
Posted in Human Interest, Technology, Web 2.0 | No Comments »
Earth to Aliens: We’re a Bunch of Dorks
Posted by Ted Hopton on June 25, 2008
Lore Sjöberg is hilarious. I’ve listened to his Alt Text podcasts for Wired for years (his dry delivery style makes the audio performances even better than reading his commentaries). In fact, with George Carlin’s passing on my mind, it strikes me that Sjöberg is something like the George Carlin of geek technology. This commentary isn’t his very best, but it’s a good sample of the way he skewers traditionally accepted ideas.
Humans have been attempting to send messages to the stars since … I’m going to say the early ’70s. I mean, theoretically some caveman could have yelled, “Hey! Stars! You suck!” a hundred thousand years ago, but he was an idiot. But of all the messages sent into space, which ones are good? Which ones conform to quality standards? That’s what I’m here to tell you.
Posted in Human Interest, Humor, Science, Technology | No Comments »
Lights, Camera, Inaction - NYT
Posted by Ted Hopton on June 19, 2008
This article, “Lights, Camera, Inaction,” is not really about the tiny, new Flip Video Mino camera, as I thought it was when I chose to read it. Instead, it’s a funny riff by Michelle Slatalla on the urge so many of us feel to archive our lives with photography, and the guilt we thereby create for ourselves when we fail to do it well.
Years went by without pictures. It became too hard to be the family archivist in an age of ever-changing technology, especially for someone like me who fears any gadget more complicated than a cocktail shaker. Every time I tried, a battery died or a memory card went missing or I pushed the wrong button or accidentally taped over someone’s piano recital.
I liked this comment after her oldest daughter complains because there is only one viewable family video left: “She got good at guilt at college,” Slatalla observes. And she demonstrates Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Human Interest, Nostalgia, Technology | No Comments »
IM Proves Useful In Reducing Workplace Interruptions
Posted by Ted Hopton on June 4, 2008
I’ve long had mixed feelings about instant messaging during the workday. Clearly, there are times when it turns into a time waster. Still, it’s much easier to “kill off” an IM discussion and get back to work than it is if you’ve wandered over to someone’s desk to ask for something.
Social etiquette requires you to make some small talk, inquire about your colleague’s interests, etc. In other words, in person (and on the phone) we should — rightly — interact with peers in a friendly, personal way, because that’s the right way to act. But that’s not terribly efficient, and if you can get the info you need, instead, through a 30-second instant message chat and then get back to work with a quick, “thx so much, ttyl” then I can see Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Management, Technology, Web 2.0 | No Comments »
Social Networking Has Gotten Political — In a Good Way
Posted by Ted Hopton on May 26, 2008
Roger Cohen’s NYT column, “The Obama Connection,” starts off with a play on Bill Clinton’s famous line from his first presidential campaign (”It’s the economy, stupid”): “It’s the networks, stupid.” Ironically, it’s Bill’s wife and heir-apparent, Hillary, who is implicitly the “stupid” one this time.
More than any other factor, it has been Barack Obama’s grasp of the central place of Internet-driven social networking that has propelled his campaign for the Democratic nomination into a seemingly unassailable lead over Hillary Clinton. Her campaign has been so 20th-century. His has been of the century we’re in.
I’d already been following Obama’s use of the Internet for fund-raising and organizing and energizing volunteers (see, Adios, Sound Bites & Fat Cats - Obama is Changing Politics and Barack Obama Is Rocking the Youth Vote and Obama Supporters Are Hip and Artistic and Home Agents Calling for Barack Obama). Cohen’s column nicely connects the dots and lets the picture emerge more clearly.
As Joshua Green chronicles in an important piece in The Atlantic, Obama has used social networking and his user-friendly Web site to develop the money machine, and the youthful engagement, that has swept him forward.
So, I found Green’s article, “The Amazing Money Machine,” and read that, too. It’s Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Innovation, Networking, Politics, Technology, Trends, Web 2.0 | No Comments »
Google AdWords Editor a Great Tool for More Than Google
Posted by Ted Hopton on May 12, 2008
Google AdWords Editor is a free tool that makes even sweeping changes to your Google Adwords campaigns snappy, and it can be used with Yahoo and Microsoft’s ads, too. Sweet!
Learn all about it in a great post by David Szetela, at Search Engine Watch. He’s got great tips on using Google Adwords in his blog’s archives, too, so take a look through them.
Posted in Marketing, Technology | No Comments »
Struggling to Evade the E-Mail Tsunami
Posted by Ted Hopton on April 20, 2008
Email can bury anyone’s efficiency. I confess I am not good at keeping up with it, myself. So I read this article in the NYT hoping to learn some new ideas for coping.
Eventually, someone will come up with software that greatly eases the burden of managing a high volume of e-mail. But in the meantime, we perhaps should look to the past and see what tips we might draw from prolific letter writers in the pre-electronic era who handled ridiculously large volumes of correspondence without being crushed.
I found one of the suggestions quite amusing, yet at the same time so obvious: “a secretary.” I recall when every manager where I worked had an administrative assistant. And I watched as the number of those positions dwindled and more and more Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Human Interest, Management, Technology | No Comments »
Barack Obama Is Rocking the Youth Vote
Posted by Ted Hopton on April 19, 2008
It’s old news that Obama is popular with younger voters. But this article on Search Engine Watch by Liana Evans explains how much more effective Obama’s use of social media websites has been than his competitor’s.
No longer is it just a TV advertisement, a radio ad or a full-page ad in the local city newspaper that is influencing the youth vote. Heck, it’s not even MTV that is affecting the youth vote anymore. It is the world of social media that is having the greatest effect on energizing that youth vote.
It’s a good case study of how to market effectively using social networking sites — and how not to, in the case of Clinton’s campaign. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Marketing, Media, Networking, Politics, Strategy, Technology, Trends, Web 2.0 | No Comments »
A Virtual Travel Agent With All the Answers
Posted by Ted Hopton on April 19, 2008
Alaska Airlines introduces a surprisingly pleasant virtual assistant on its Web site.
Posted in Call Centers, Customer Service, Technology | No Comments »
