Selected Interesting Posts from 2005

While sipping some wine and enjoying a mince pie or two it is customary at this time of year to look back and reflect on the previous year. While as a general principle I do not post link-lists on ThoughtPort, in the spirit of the season I have gathered together a non-comprehensive selection of enjoyable blog posts from the writers that I have found most interesting during 2005. While you probably will not be interested in every single one of these, I think there should be something here that you will enjoy. — Merry Christmas.HughMacleod’s Global Microbrand Rant. Rock on Hugh!
Presentation Zen has a fun comparison between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates presentation techniques. This one taps into my favourite ideas around The New Simplicity.
Seth Godin is on to something with his idea about Small being the new big. As usual, I could have linked to about ten of Seth’s posts, but I still like this one.
Chris Anderson’s essay on The Probalistic Age, is probably not one to tackle if you have been quaffing the Xmas vino, but it is worth the effort. A sample quote: “Google is arguably the first company to be born with the alien intelligence of the Web’s large-N statistics hard-wired into its DNA.” Anderson is the editor of Wired magazine, so you will need your techno-evangelist filters on.

Addendum: One post I forgot when I published this originally was Jason Kottke’s GoogleOS? WebOS? post from August. Some aspects of this have already dated, but as an overview of the key ideas behind the migration towards a browser-centric OS, this is a good place to start.

Pre-Blogging Versus Post-Blogging

Here is a blogging tip I have discovered after a few years of posting here. Do not blog something you intend to do, only blog about things that you have done. Case in point, I blogged about GTD eight weeks ago and made sweeping generalisations about how I was going to reorganise myself for optimum productivity and so on. I have not opened my copy of David Allen’s book since then. So now whenever I am asked questions like “so how is that GTD system working out for you?” I have to look sheepish, shuffle my shoes, clear my throat and quickly change the subject. Talk about your Not-GTD...

Lecturing on Corporate Identity – Phase Two

I completed my second day with the third-year students at IADT just before going on my week’s holidays. (Yes, that was one month ago. I composed this post on my Palm and could not complete it due to a few very busy weeks.) I spent a fascinating afternoon reviewing and discussing the student’s solutions to the project’s corporate identity brief. They were commissioned to create the identity for a fictitious nation state.
It is challenging to make the mind-shift from art-directing in the morning to lecturing in the afternoon. It is a new skill for me to master: but one that is rewarding on a number of levels. I found it very encouraging to see how effectively some of the students were able to grasp the overall principles underlying the discipline of corporate identity; particularly given that this was their first opportunity to do so. It was also refreshing to see how willing some of the students were to pursue options far beyond the scope those we would normally have the opportunity to explore in the more accelerated timescales of the professional world. Having such freedom to explore really is the primary opportunity afforded by studying design at third-level. Reality will dictate so many constraints once young designers start working on real-world projects with real budgets.
My only disappointment on the day was that so much of their work was undermined by multiple typos and outright spelling errors. Given that the fusion of words and images sits at the core of the discipline graphic design, I was worried by their seeming inattention to the ‘word’ half of that equation. Although that is a problem I see more and more of in the professional sphere as well. But that can be the topic of another day’s blog post.
(These camera-phone images are a totally arbitrary cross-section of some student’s project work. Therefore probably not covered by this site’s CC licence.)

Technorati Tag: Corporate Identity

Do You Squidoo?

I have been taking part in the beta testing programme for Seth Godin’s new web-2.0 startup Squidoo. They have just lifted their blogging embargo as of today, hence this post. What is Squidoo all about? It is an online social application. It is based on the idea that everyone is an expert on something (read their PDF which outlines their philosophy). The site allows anyone to create (ideally) focussed, one-topic web pages. Squidoo lenspages are construced from different classes of modules and everything is RSS-enabled and AJAX-powered. With Google Adsense integrated as well, there is the opportunity to generate a revenue stream if your content is compelling enough.
One key idea is that your own personal lens-page could be a companion to your blog. Someone coming to your blog to the first time may not want to re-read a volume of existing posts to understand what you are about. A lens-page could give that reader a snapshot overview of who you are and where your head is at. Equally a lens-page can be about any topic that you are interested in.
Have a look at my first quick effort at assembling a lens-page, for some idea of what this service facilitiates. I do not have any substantial content posted there yet, as I was concentrating on exploring the interface and the tools available today.
Some more fully-realised lens-pages examples are the Squidlens and Seth Godin’s personal lens-page.
Now that this service is in public beta you can start building your own lens-pages and linking them to your blog.
Technorati Tag: Squidoo

Salthill Promenade, November Morning

We just spent a few days staying in Galway city. Somewhere I have not visited for years. I had forgotten that there are lots of unusual 1950’s-style structures on the Salthill promenade.

They have been painted in an unusual colour scheme – a mixture of lime-yellow and orange – that makes them fairly pop out of their surroundings. I took a few photographs which I think are interesting and now have posted online. I took these shots early in the morning, hence the ‘28-Days Later’-esque lack of people.