“It needs to be fixed! Now!”
For those that didn’t immediately laugh at that headline, go watch this SNL sketch, now!
I watched a video today of Seth Godin giving a presentation titled “This is broken.” He talks about the reasons why there are so many ineffective processes that are used by businesses that don’t even recognize that they’re useless. Before I continue, check it out below. Read more
Tools & Tips #1: JW Image Rotator
Need a slideshow widget? Hey, who doesn’t from time to time. There are a ton of them out there: Flash, JavaScript or some combination. They all have different features with their own pros and cons. But here’s one that I wouldn’t be able to live without.
The JW Image Rotator is an awesome little app. We’re currently using it on Cal Lutheran’s home page, and I just used it for this past weekend’s Presidential Inauguration slideshow.
It’s small, unobtrusive, and is very customizable through a number or parameters. It’s a Flash app, and while I try to avoid Flash when I can for accessibility and long-term maintenance reasons, the JW Image Rotator just works too well to ignore.
In combination with SWFobject, this one is hard to beat. Take it for a test drive.
Read more
Zeldman on blogging and other issues
Jeffrey Zeldman shares his thoughgts on blogging, web standards, open source and online journalism.
Jeffrey Zeldman Outlines the History of Blogging
Findings from the Web Design Survey, 2008
Extra, extra! Read all about it!
It’s finally here – the results from the 2008 Survey for People Who Make Websites. I’ve just started pouring through the data myself, and it appears that things have not changed drastically since the 2007 findings. One thing to note, however, is that this survey was issued before the recent banking/economic crisis, and the numbers related to confidence, salaries and raises may be different now. Read more
Getting departments to own their Web content
8:41 am – walk into the office
8:45 am – coffee
8:50 am – open up Outlook, scan for website maintenance requests
One of two things usually happens here: either I see no messages, meaning everyone’s happy for the moment, and I open up the job tracker and start working on a project that’s probably due later that week. Or, the more likely scenario – there are at least a couple of fires to put out:
- “There’s a typo on this page.”
- “Please add this information to the contact page.”
- “I need an event registration form that submits to a database and takes payment – by tomorrow!”
- “The sky is falling!!!”
Do schools kill creativity?
Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining (and profoundly moving) case for creating an education system that nurtures creativity, rather than undermining it. With ample anecdotes and witty asides, Robinson points out the many ways our schools fail to recognize — much less cultivate — the talents of many brilliant people.
“We are educating people out of their creativity,” Robinson says. The universality of his message is evidenced by its rampant popularity online. A typical review: “If you have not yet seen Sir Ken Robinson’s TED talk, please stop whatever you’re doing and watch it now.”
Creativity and design
Andy Rutledge has a great article in issue 254 of A List Apart. He makes a clear distinction between useful creativity and unchecked self-expression.
Creativity has nothing at all to do with self-expression or flamboyancy. Aside from the simple ability to create things, the most important feature of creativity is a highly developed perception filter that is somewhat less common than we’re led to believe. [It’s] an inborn capacity for thinking differently than most, seeing differently, and making connections and perceiving relationships others miss.