contentious.com

Overview of the history and possible future of mainstream bay area news orgs trying to chage for access to their content online.

"Foursquare may still be relatively small (around 450,000 users), but wow have they been able to woo certain areas of the mainstream quickly. We already know about the deals with Conde Nast, Marc Jacobs, the New York Times, and others — some of which are pulling in revenue. And then there’s the Bravo deal, which has already included a commercial spot. But now, Foursquare is getting love in the bright lights of Vegas.

"Yes, the pictures above and below were taken at the Miracle Mile Shops attached to the Planet Hollywood hotel in Las Vegas. As you can see, the huge ads entice users to check-in at the mall. If you do so, they might highlight your check-in, any tips, and even show who the current mayor (the Foursquare user who has checked-in most often) of the mall is prominently."

"Seen from the perspective of traditional business, social enterprise can seem like a madman’s pursuit. That was Tom Tierney’s initial experience when he left Bain and Company to found the Bridgespan Group, a nonprofit dedicated to helping organizations that serve others. In this audio lecture, Tierney takes us from the niggling little voice asking if he was leading his life in a meaningful way through his adventure to break with his old but lucrative life and pursue something that would truly make a social impact. He spoke at the Innovation Summit, an event organized by Civic Ventures and sponsored by the Center for Social Innovation to celebrate social entrepreneurs over the age of 50."

"Google removed SearchWiki, the feature that allowed you to customize search results by promoting them, removing them or adding comments below search snippets. SearchWiki cluttered search results and the aggregated results from public SearchWiki pages were rarely useful."

"10 to the 27th power is a colossal number, but will it be accepted as being hella big?
"An oft-hated slang word coined in Northern California has been proposed as a worthy entry into the field of scientific measurement when calculating enormous numbers. Austin Sendek, a physics student at UC Davis, wants the number of 10 to the 27th power — a trillion trillions — to officially become "hella" big.

See the comments for excellent rebuttal of this point:

"Sadly for me researchers also found one other trait—but only in males—is linked to higher IQs: sexual exclusivity.

"Kanazawa did not find that higher or lower intelligence predicted sexual exclusivity in women. This makes sense, because having one partner has always been advantageous to women, even thousands of years ago, meaning exclusivity is not a "new" preference. For men, on the other hand, sexual exclusivity goes against the grain evolutionarily. With a goal of spreading genes, early men had multiple mates."

"(Savage:) But smarter guys, against-the-grain types, have just one. Because monogamy goes against the grain for men. Or it did. I would argue that honest non-monogamy is against-the-grainier these days than sexual exclusivity or, failing that (as so many monogamous folks do), maintaining the appearance of sexual exclusivity."

"Essentially, "The Crazies" is a stereotypical zombie film, where a mysterious outbreak happens in a small town's water supply. A cast of characters have to gruesomely fight their way to freedom, all while not getting infected themselves. But Director Breck Eisner found a way to take the played-out zombie genre and create a unique blood fest that had everybody in the theater freaked out."

"Eventually there will be another storm as big as the ones in 1921 and 1859 — a sort of solar Katrina. But the impact is likely to be far worse than in previous solar storms because of our growing dependence on satellites and other electronic devices that are vulnerable to electromagnetic radiation. In the tabletop exercise, the first sign of trouble came when radiation began disrupting radio signals and GPS devices. Ten or 20 minutes later electrically charged particles "basically took out" most of the commercial satellites that transmit telephone conversations, TV shows and huge amounts of data we depend on in our daily lives, Bogdan says.

"When you go into a gas station and put your credit card in and get some gas," he says, "that's a satellite transaction."

Sept. 2009 package of features on Design Thinking.

Apparently a classic article espousing Design Thinking, by Tim Brown. It's behind a paywall though. If anyone can send me a copy, please comment below and we'll connect.

"Talking about only "design thinking" and "business thinking" is limiting. Me? My degree is in anthropology. And a not-so-secret truth about "design thinking" is that a big chunk of it is actually "social science thinking." Design thinkers talk about being "human-centered" and "empathic," and the tools they use to achieve that are methods borrowed from anthropology and sociology.

"However, that's still not enough. Two of Adaptive Path's founders, Jesse James Garrett and Jeffrey Veen, were trained in journalism. And much of our company's success has been in utilizing journalistic approaches to gathering information, winnowing it down, finding the core narrative, and telling it concisely. So business can definitely benefit from such "journalism thinking."

"Do we need to espouse "library thinking," "history thinking," and "arts thinking?" Should we look at Steve Jobs' background, and say what business needs is more "calligraphic thinking?"

Podcast well worth listening to.

"Design problems are often embedded in cultural practices. Some solutions require behavioral changes that users may be reluctant to make. Incremental changes can seem insignificant while attempting a disruptive overthrow can be very risky. So how do you systematically come up with solutions and examine them against risk? Here we delve into what Evans calls "squirrelly-wicked" design problems."

Blog as book-in-process on a compelling topic. I'd like to apply design thinking principles to my lean mobile efforts.

Really cute video. Even ChatRoulette can have some redeeming qualities 🙂

Interesting charity — Here's what goes into each prepackaged ShelterBox. This kind of planning and pre-assembly allows this aid org to often be first to reach disaster victims with survival supplies.