Harvard Business Review contributing writer Amy Gallo quizzed Paul Axtell, author of “Meetings Matter” and Francesca Gino, a Harvard Business School professor, on how to run better meetings: There are many different kinds of meetings–the brainstorming session, the announcement, the decision-making meeting– but here are some good general rules for running an efficient meeting: 1. […]
Offering Effective Analysis — Insight, Recommendation, Impact
This is a persistent challenge. You want to offer a snapshot of all the variables and all the factors that were taken into consideration. But your audience wants to know only three things up front: 1. What is your point? 2. What do you want me to do? 3. If I do it, what do […]
HTML 5: What It Is And Why It Matters
A while ago I published “Adaptive vs. Responsive Design: What They Are, Why They Matter,” and immediately received some follow-up questions about HTML5. Here’s a very quick explanation: For the last fifteen years (since 1997, actually), we’ve been stuffing all sorts of new content onto the web using HTML, a markup language based on typesetter’s […]
Adaptive vs. Responsive Design: What They Are, Why They Matter
Another topic trending on my personal buzzword watch is “adaptive design vs. responsive design.” The difference is a bit confusing, but at the highest level, responsive design means building one design that works on all devices, “responding” to the device with design and layout changes. Adaptive design means “adapting” a single design to the conventions […]
Sources for Free and Cheap Images
Generally, when I’m looking for blog post art I search Flickr first (check the Creative Commons “commercial use” box) and Google next (select “usage rights:free to use or share, even commercially”). If they don’t have what I need, here are my backup sites. EveryStockPhoto Wikimedia Commons morgueFile stockvault FreeDigitalPhotos.net Plus! Image shutterstock Stock.XCHNG Deviant Art […]
Separating the Excellent from the Great
Karen McGrane, author of “Content Strategy for Mobile,” recently wrote an interesting A List Apart post about the difference between work that is good and work that is great. Both groups focus on getting the details, large and small, absolutely right. But the great also express their personal values in the work, and try to […]
Martin Belam on Media Business Models: Try to Make Money And Your Audience Turns on You
Recently the Associated Press faced a firestorm of criticism for launching advertising in its Twitter feed. Martin Belam, formerly UX lead for the Guardian, weighed in on the difficulties of developing a business model for media. Try and charge for content and everybody will tell you that a universal paywall can never work. Erect a […]
“It shouldn’t take extraordinary people to do ordinary things.”
Back in the stone age I worked for Ed Zander, who once said, “It shouldn’t take extraordinary people to do ordinary things.” Ed (who went on to become CEO of Motorola) meant that a department’s regular operations shouldn’t require herculean efforts. Everyday activities like bringing on a new employee, going to a conference, or pushing […]
Paywall Media — Why Not Bundle?
This week, Rick Edmonds at Poynter, Ryan Chittum at CJR, and Mathew Ingram at Gigaom debated the state of the paywall at news sites. Not surprisingly, there is little consensus whether or not subscription paywalls are a deadend or the wave of the future. However, there is one kind of paywall that I haven’t seen […]
The Religion of Analytics
Here are a few notes from a recent cross-country flight. I’m not sure what I was reading at the time (“The Lean Startup?”), but it’s sound advice. Any really good accountant will tell you that the numbers should inform your decisions, not make them. Analytics work best when chasing incremental growth, not opening up new […]
IT Dept Deathmatch: Obama’s Project Narwhal vs. Romney’s Orca
Since the election, my former co-worker Sean Gallagher has been doing a great series on the presidential election’s digital campaigns for Ars Technica. After reviewing the campaigns’ financials, his overall conclusion is that by hiring great people and focusing on open-source and off-the-shelf tools, the Obama campaign created a competitive advantage while saving huge amounts […]
Delivering ‘Likeable’ Content NPR-Style
In the past two years, many large media properties have begun focusing on delivering “sharable” content — articles aimed at increasing links in social media. This is somewhat in contrast to a common strategy of the previous years: creating “searchable” content, aimed at increasing an article’s presence in search. However, in spite of the emphasis, […]