Oct 30
2007
More Presentations (and Other Stuff)
Two presentations (on networks and rebuilding cities) and a bunch of random links.
So I'm really digging SlideShare at the moment. It's a great way to share presentations and the embed functionality is pretty killer. It's pretty hard to believe Google hasn't added embedability to it's presentations yet (or has it and I just don't know about it).
Anyway, I finally got around to posting the presentation I gave when I went out to Montana in May. Here it is (if you want the PDF, download it here):
Now onto another presentation, this one comes from this month's likemind global question: "If you were to rebuild your city from scratch, how would you build it differently and what would you keep the same?" Piers was kind enough to put it into list form and we've got the full presentation over at the likemind site.
And now for some random links . . .
- Steven Johnson breaks down which authors use the longest sentences. Combatants include: Malcolm Gladwell, Steven Pinker, Seth Godin, Christopher Hitchens, Michel Foucault and Frederic Jameson.
- The Economist notes something I've been thinking for a while but having trouble articulating: "Unlike other networks, social networks lose value once they go beyond a certain size. 'The value of a social network is defined not only by who's on it, but by who's excluded,' says Paul Saffo, a Silicon Valley forecaster."
- Worried that your shotgun is too far from your bed? The Back-Up solves that by giving you a handy holder that goes between your mattress and box spring.
- The Outsourced Brain is pretty much the same article as Your Outboard Brain Knows All. In fact, David Brooks mentions reading Clive Thompson's article . . . weird. (Brooks link via Chet)
- Metcalfe's Law is Wrong. This isn't really new news, but it's the best explanation I've read. If Metcalfe's law was correct it would make no sense for networks (like Facebook or Myspace for instance) to be closed. (For more info on networks, check out the presentation at the top of this post.)
- Last but not least, one last article on network theory. This one talks about the importance of random connection in a complex network (and is pretty old).
Okay, that's it for now. Off to Jacksonville. See you later.
Hi Noah,
The part where you talk about "baking marketing into the product" made me shiver… It's called design!
Smart design (assumed your aspirations are capitalistic) can look towards marketing the product and foresee how the product will be used or understood. But I think If you want to "bake in marketing", you need to at least redefine the terms. Answers.com says marketing is…
A. The act or process of buying and selling in a market.
B. The commercial functions involved in transferring goods from producer to consumer.
If you were so inclined you could, under definition A, stretch the term indefinitely. But please don't…
Don't get me wrong, there are many smart people that work in marketing, and I love to have their input on design. The problem is that most marketers that drive development initiatives drive them against the wall because their goal is to sell the product –which is marketing– to as many people as possible. With sales as the primary development goal, control over the design shifts away from the designer and power to the marketer whose role is now perceived as more important, because they are closer to the people with the money.
I think it's great to start a dialogue between design and marketing as long as both sides can retain some common sense and stand up to the man for what they believe in.
The clear disadvantage for the marketing folks is that they are sitting closer to the space cadet CEO's in this world, who only get excited about buzzwords and stock tickers and don't care to understand their actual product. So most marketeers are already impregnated with the lingo and familiar with the thought process and fuel it to compete. I don't think it helps being too close to people like the UPS head who replaced Rand's logo –which read: we ship stuff… with love– with a crest or swoosh with something that means absolutely nothing. Because the closest this guy gets to knowing his product is that he is dreading that he can't outsource it to india, like everyone else. Not the best buddies to have when you are trying to design something new.
All right, cut! The rant takes off like an rocket-ship. In the age of 4 minute attention spans, maybe somebody else will chime in and we can land the vessel safely together to make this a better world… or plot a course for another.
;)
Florian