Food for Thought

Writely

2005-10-02T19:03:00.000+08:00

Found an interesting document creation and collaboration service today called Writely.

Some people are going so far as to say that they'll be the death of Microsoft, but I wouldn't go THAT far... unless Google bought them. :D

Positive/Negative Ratios: 2.9 to 11.6

2005-09-26T16:16:00.000+08:00

Came across an interesting entry in Fast Company Magazine's blog: Feedback and Forth.

Bottomline: people or teams who experience at least 2.9 times more positive experiences than negative experiences over any span of time is more likely to be a "flourishing" individual, partnership, or team.

The original full report is also publicly available.

Interestingly, too much positivity is also bad. At a positive-to-negative (P/N) ratio of more than 11.6, flourishing deteriorates.

Personalized Google Home Page

2005-09-26T14:40:00.000+08:00

Google now allows you to personalize your home page, so that it displays snippets from news sources, your Gmail, any RSS feed, and a host of other information in interesting portlets.

People who prefer the look and simplicity of the "Classic Google" home page can still use it and not be bothered by the slightly more "cluttered" personalized Google portal.

Interestingly, a friend of mine uses the Philippine homepage of Google and it looks like the homepage personalization feature isn't available on that site yet.

The Power of Four

2005-09-19T21:41:00.000+08:00

Tom Hanks gave the commencement address a few months ago at Vassar College for the graduates of class 2005.

Excerpt:

Help publicly. Help privately. Help in your actions by recycling and conserving and protecting, but help also in your attitude. Help make sense where sense has gone missing. Help bring reason and respect to discourse and debate. Help science to solve and faith to soothe. Help law bring justice, until justice is commonplace. Help and you will abolish apathy – the void that is so quickly filled by ignorance and evil.

Life outside of college is just like life in it: one nutty thing after another, some of them horrible, but all interspersed with enough beauty and goodness to keep you going. That’s your job, to keep going. Your duty is to help – without ceasing. The art you create can glorify it. The science you pursue can prove its value. The law you practice can pass on its benefits. The faith you embrace will make it the earthly manifestation of your God.

Blink

2005-07-23T23:23:00.000+08:00

Finally got around to buying Malcolm Gladwell's latest book, entitled Blink.

I'd been wanting to read this book for a few months now, and while I'm not yet finished reading it (now on p.119), I've read enough to know that this book will make me wonder about my decision-making thought processes for the next month or so.

Hmm... did I just do a bit of thin-slicing when I said that? LOL.

Interesting Links

2005-03-15T18:07:00.000+08:00

Spent an inordinate amount of time web browsing today and came across a few interesting links:

Xoom offers Philippine-based online stores a way to collect e-store payments from non-Philippine customers. All payments eventually end up in an Equitable PCI Bank account. Was tested and found to be working by Migs Paraz.
Bath and Body Works uses printable shopping lists and emailed coupons to help drive foot traffic to their stores. Interestingly, they made a strategic decision to not sell their products online.
Workforce Management is an online portal that provides information on employment law, HR development, and HR management.
Crunch mode doesn't work on projects, according to the International Game Developers Association.

Odeo on the way

2005-02-25T22:09:00.000+08:00

Evan Williams has unveiled his next big thing.

Check out the Odeo website and look for the New York Times article.

Road designs by Monderman

2005-01-27T22:47:00.000+08:00

I greatly enjoyed the article on Road Design originally published by the New York Times, and available for viewing at the website of the International Herald Tribune.

When Monderman, a traffic engineer and the intersection's proud designer, deliberately failed to check for oncoming traffic before crossing the street, the drivers slowed for him. No one honked or shouted rude words out the window.

"Who has the right of way?" he asked rhetorically. "I don't care. People here have to find their own way, negotiate for themselves, use their own brains."

Considering that Metro Manila is riddled with concrete dividing islands, metal barricades, and roped off sidewalks, the approach that Monderman takes in his road designs is totally revolutionary. Maybe the MMDA should have a look.

'Amazon Theatre' Sells

2004-11-13T17:53:00.000+08:00

Amazon is doing something interesting this holiday season. They will be releasing five exclusive short films (approx 10 mins in length) on their site, which are freely available to any site visitor, all under the concept of Amazon Theatre. The first film stars Minnie Driver.

The objective of each film is to create interest in merchandise that's available on Amazon. The credits at the end of the film include not only the names of the cast but also the names of the various featured items which were used in the film. These items include clothes, mobile phones, accessories, and beauty products.

Featured products are also available with a 5% rebate if you buy using the Amazon credit card. [Note: I would probably have bought one of the items if use of the Amazon Credit Card wasn't a requirement to avail of the rebate.]

There are at least three objectives for doing this, as far as I can see:

Drive traffic to Amazon's site just in time for the holiday season (achieved through the release of a new film each week);
Highlight merchandize that otherwise would have been unnoticed by regular Amazon shoppers; and
Increase the number of Amazon credit cardholders by keeping the rebate exclusive to cardholders and offering $30 credit when you sign-up.

I wonder if other sites will be producing their own films in the future.

Attractive things work better

2004-11-09T21:51:00.001+08:00

Excerpts from: Emotional Design, by Donald Norman

The psychologist Alice Isen and her colleagues have shown that being happy broadens the thought processes and facilitates creative thinking...

When you feel good, you are better at brainstorming, at examining multiple alternatives...

Isen's results show that when people are happy, their thought processes expand, becoming more creative, more imaginative...

All these point to one of the main premises of Don Norman's latest book -- attractive things make people feel good, which in turn makes them think more creatively. Consequently, attractive things work better, because people find them easier to use.

Google SMS

2004-10-08T06:13:00.000+08:00

Just saw from Google's blog that they're now offering Google SMS as a new service.

I'm not really sure how useful the area code and residential look-up services would be to non-US residents, but the DEFINE and PRICE information services are definitely of interest to me.

I wonder how they can make money from this. I know in the Philippines, people would set it up so that the content provider (in this case, Google) and the telco would make money from making this available. I wonder how long will it take before someone in the Philippines offers the equivalent service?

Ev's Gone

2004-10-08T05:53:00.000+08:00

Had fallen behind a bit on my blog reading, so it's only today that I learn Evan Williams has left Blogger/Google. I must admit I feel sad, even though I've never met him.

What I found interesting about his exit, however, is the fact that:

he blogged about it on Evhead.com, and
he posted a farewell message on Blogger News, which means there's no way that Blogger users could have missed it.

Most people who leave a company don't get a chance to make so graceful an exit; so from a PR standpoint, it sure seems like he's leaving Blogger/Google in good terms.

Vacation

2004-09-27T10:21:00.000+08:00

Have been away on vacation, taking in the sights, sounds, and smells of Sichuan Province in China. Incredibly exhausting, but definitely worth the effort to see sights as magnificent as this one.

Jiuzhaigou

You can scroll through the rest of the photos at this online slideshow.

Furor over Friendster Firing

2004-09-12T21:29:00.000+08:00

There's an uproar sweeping through the blogging community, thanks to Friendster's firing of Joyce Park, allegedly because of her blog entries about the social networking site's move to PHP from JSP.

The original entry from Joyce's blog, Troutgirl, points to the specific entries that were deemed worthy of termination.

You can find a list of other sites that talk about this incident at Jeremy Zadowny's blog entry on the topic.

Under normal circumstances, people probably wouldn't be making a big deal out of this, but as it turns out, Joyce and her husband Tim are well-respected authors who are active in both the blogging and open source communities.

A few people have decided that the best way to demonstrate their displeasure is by canceling their respective Friendster accounts. Turns out there's actually a Cancel Your Account page.

I'm still not sure how I feel about the situation, since Friendster is yet to air their side of the story. However, if it turns out that they really did fire Joyce without cause, I think the best way to go about this is by posting an entry on your Friendster Bulletin Board to let your contacts know you'll be canceling your account in say, 30 days. You can ask them to pass the word along, then wait out the 30 days so your connections all have ample opportunity to see your BBoard entry, and only then do you cancel the account.

The Invisible Computer

2004-09-09T09:44:00.001+08:00

One of the books that I'm currently reading is The Invisible Computer, by Donald Norman.

It puts forward the idea that the PC is too complex because we're trying to get it to do too many things. He suggests that future belongs to "information appliances" that are tailored to do specific tasks only, and in the process are much more friendly, much more usable, and bottomline, more human.

Here's one snippet that I particularly liked:

The technology is the relatively easy part to change. The difficult parts are social, organizational and cultural.

It's a great reminder that while it seems easier to ask people to change and adapt to a machine, we should still be focusing all our energies on designing machines that allows people to simply be people. After all, machines are predictable; people are not.

As an aside, the first Don Norman book that I had read was The Design of Everyday Things, which to this day still makes me smile when I fumble with an awkward door handle, or when I try to fix the settings in our kitchen refrigerator.

Process Review: Update

2004-08-22T17:56:00.000+08:00

My process review assignment has progressed further since my initial post.

And so far everyone seems to agree with the framework (Roles, Workflow, Standards, Technology, and Policies) that I had initially proposed.

The only thing that we later added to the framework was a Transition Plan, i.e., a plan that will help the firm implement the recommendations that will come out of our process review.

It is also beginning to look like this framework will be usable for future process review assignments.

Process Review

2004-08-13T22:16:00.000+08:00

Sometime last week I was requested to review the support process of a software company. Since I am not an expert on the software support process, I had to wade through contracts, review existing forms, procedural flowcharts, and interview quite a number of people to understand the "pains" that they experience with the current process.

After the initial dive into the details and wracking my brain for the appropriate analysis framework, I've come to the (preliminary) conclusion that my Process Review recommendations must cover the following areas:

Roles. To ensure that the various parties understand what is expected of them.
Workflow. To describe the sequence of events that must take place for the company to properly render software support services.
Standards (Forms, Checklists). To ensure that the correct and complete information is collected and properly handed off from one role to another throughout the process.
Technology Support. To make historical analysis, periodic review, and monitoring possible.
Policy Decisions. To make explicit the support service levels that must be delivered by the organization.

I'm glad that I stumbled across The Vision Thing a few weeks ago; Effern's many posts on creating workflows are a helpful reminder of what works (and what does not).

Color Scheme 001

2004-08-11T00:30:00.000+08:00

My first attempt to create a color scheme for possible use on a future website.

Created using the technique described in Adam Polselli's website, using a Snail on Leaf photo in the 28mm photography magazine as the source of inspiration.

Color Scheme 001

Color Schemes inspired by Photographs

2004-08-10T14:38:00.000+08:00

As part of my ongoing quest to improve my creative side, I've been:

So it was quite nice to run across Adam Polselli's site today, and see his post entitled "Where'd Ya Get That Color Scheme?, because that page pulls my three tracks together.

Looks like it's time to revisit my photos in Flickr and see if they help me come up with a color scheme that I can use on a new website.

Furl -- Bookmarks on Steroids

2004-08-07T20:51:00.000+08:00

Stumbled across Furl today, and it didn't take long for me to sign-up to this free, fabuluous service.

From the website:

''Furl lets you save anything you see in your browser. The easiest way to do that is to have a "Furl It" button right on the toolbar of your browser. When you find something you want to save, you click the "Furl It" button.

That opens up a new window with the title and URL of the page you are looking at already filled in. You can then add comments to, rate, and categorize the page (or not). When you're done, click "Save".

That's all. Next time you view your archive you will see the new entry.''

Once you've got your archive set-up, people can view your public entries, sign up to be notified of updates, and yes, they can even blogroll it (an RSS feed is available per archive).

I hope the business model behind the site is totally solid, because I want this free service to be around forever.

Inside the mind of Jeff Bezos

2004-08-07T13:40:00.000+08:00

One of my friends sent me a link to the recent Fast Company article on Jeff Bezos. Extremely cool.

Here are a few of the excerpts that I found either funny or interesting:

''Amazon still hangs whiteboards in the elevators, as it did back in the skid-row days, when the barely postcollegiate employees were so overcaffeinated and hyperactive that they amused themselves by scribbling away between floors.''

Considering my own firm's obsession with white boards -- we've got a lot of them -- I found the idea of white boards in elevators a really cool idea! I've already reached the point that I find it difficult to explain concepts without a bit of chalk-talk, so I just love this idea.

''Bezos pursued his idea of a decentralized, disentangled company where small groups can innovate and test their visions independently of everyone else. He came up with the notion of the "two-pizza team": If you can't feed a team with two pizzas, it's too large. That limits a task force to five to seven people, depending on their appetites.''

I totally agree with the concept of small, agile teams.... although it's the first time I've heard it described as a "two-pizza team". Reminds me of Fred Brooks' classic essay, The Mythical Man-Month. That's always worth a re-read.

''Bezos loves making decisions based on hard data, but when that's not possible, he believes in the power of being "simpleminded," relying on common sense about what would be in the best interests of his customers.''

So true! Common sense really rules, and it's a lot less common that we think.

All in all, that was a meaty article that gave readers insight into the way Jeff Bezos thinks and works. Kudos to Alan Deutschman for a great read.

Haloscan Comments and Trackbacks

2004-08-06T01:46:00.000+08:00

I just learned today that Haloscan offers not only commenting capabilities, but trackbacks as well.

So I did a bit of fiddling around with my Blogger template and managed to get both comments and trackbacks enabled on this blog.

Wouldn't even have known about it if I hadn't noticed trackbacks enabled on The Vision Thing earlier this evening. Thanks, Effern!

Now if only I could add categories...

Testing Meme Propagation In Blogspace: Add Your Blog!

2004-08-03T01:40:00.000+08:00

This posting is a community experiment that tests how a meme, represented by this blog posting, spreads across blogspace, physical space and time. It will help to show how ideas travel across blogs in space and time and how blogs are connected. It may also help to show which blogs are most influential in the propagation of memes. The dataset from this experiment will be public, and can be located via Google (or Technorati) by doing a search for the GUID for this meme (below).

The original posting for this experiment is located at: Minding the Planet (Permalink: http://novaspivack.typepad.com/nova_spivacks_weblog/2004/08/a_sonar_ping_of.html) --- results and commentary will appear there in the future.

Please join the test by adding your blog (see instructions, below) and inviting your friends to participate -- the more the better. The data from this test will be public and open; others may use it to visualize and study the connectedness of blogspace and the propagation of memes across blogs.

The GUID for this experiment is: as098398298250swg9e98929872525389t9987898tq98wteqtgaq62010920352598gawst (this GUID enables anyone to easily search Google (or Technorati) for all blogs that participate in this experiment). Anyone is free to analyze the data of this experiment. Please publicize your analysis of the data, and/or any comments by adding comments onto the original post (see URL above). (Note: it would be interesting to see a geographic map or a temporal animation, as well as a social network map of the propagation of this meme.)

INSTRUCTIONS

To add your blog to this experiment, copy this entire posting to your blog, and then answer the questions below, substituting your own information, below, where appropriate. Other than answering the questions below, please do not alter the information, layout or format of this post in order to preserve the integrity of the data in this experiment (this will make it easier for searchers and automated bots to find and analyze the results later).

REQUIRED FIELDS (Note: Replace the answers below with your own answers)

(1) I found this experiment at URL: http://www.wingedpig.com/archives/000168.html

(2) I found it via "Newsreader Software" or "Browsing the Web" or "Searching the Web" or "An E-Mail Message": Newsreader Software

(3) I posted this experiment at URL: http://myfood4thought.blogspot.com

(4) I posted this on date (day, month, year): 03/08/04

(5) I posted this at time (24 hour time): 01:46:00

(6) My posting location is (city, state, country): Manila, Philippines

OPTIONAL SURVEY FIELDS (Replace the answers below with your own answers):

(7) My blog is hosted by: Blogger / Blogspot

(8) My age is: 33

(9) My gender is: Female

(10) My occupation is: Consultant

(11) I use the following RSS/Atom reader software: Bloglines

(12) I use the following software to post to my blog: Blogger

(13) I have been blogging since (day, month, year): 29/10/03

(14) My web browser is: Mozilla

(15) My operating system is: Win XP

The Complete Color Directory

2004-07-31T23:02:00.000+08:00

A couple of days ago, I stumbled across The Complete Color Directory in my favorite bookstore. The book itself is intended for people who want to redesign the rooms in their home, but I bought it because I wanted new color ideas for designing websites.

Although it's not entirely a complete color directory, there's still enough meat in it to be interesting and worth the P1,097 (approx US$19) I plunked down for it. I particular liked the "good combinations" section of each major color. The experienced designer, though, will probably just breeze through it in a few minutes and toss it into the "To sell" pile.

Weblog + Webcam = Creative Idea

2004-07-25T20:29:00.000+08:00

I found Mike Davidson's blog recently by way of Didier Hilhorst's Nundroo blog.

If you haven't seen it yet, you really should check it out. Look for the "Live" theme option on the sidebar, and make sure you have Flash 6 installed.

It's the first time I've seen a weblog make use of a frequently updated webcam (every 2 minutes, complete with a little clock image to give you an idea of the local time). Of course, not everyone's got a great view from their condo window, but you've got to love the creative thinking that went into the concept.