M is for Minimize

I just finished upgrading my site. Took 45 minutes total (most of that spent waiting for background jobs to finish up), which isn't bad considering I hadn't spent any time on the site really in the last 6 months. So where was I? Turns out you can cram an awful lot into 6 months. My god has it really been that long? I'm not sure ...

I just can't do it.  I tried, but I haven't come around just yet. I tried to give Drupal a chance to win me over with it's flexibility and growing community of developers / designers.  I spent a few evenings searching out what I would need to develop something comparable to ScienceForAmerica.com.  What's more, I'm not convinced I could even template the site without some serious study in how ...

Stressing about finances?  Pulling out of the markets?  Worried about what the Dow will do next? Why? Is there anyone out there excited to see investors seemingly dump everything in their portfolios?  We are seeing what could possibily be the biggest sale for stocks in 80 years.  This kind of sale will make people straight-up R-I-C-H. Get some cash ready and dump it in.  Anything.  Once investors realize there really is ...

TED Blog is all you'll ever need to visit to learn about technology, entertainment and design (hence TED!).  Thing I love about this site is all the streaming content- TED has some great presenters.  What I would give to get a ticket to this event.  Check it out here http://tedblog.typepad.com/.

I'll admit - from the moment the intro session started at BarCampMilwaukee, I was hooked.  People throwing around names like Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal, and Rich Internet Applications and I knew I was in good company.  Granted I'm not very experienced in the last, but I can recognize the potential and am trying to grasp the concepts of Adobe's AIR development platform. The sessions I got the most out of ...

Note to self: I need a Nikon SLR. I just got back from BarcampMilwaukee3, the technology and creativity "un-conference".  I wasn't prepared for the creativity side of it, but I found this to be more refreshing than the discussion about web technologies I had throughout the two days. It seems interesting to me the sheer number of photographers in the crowd.  I would put this number at one out of ...

Peer production created eBay, Wikipedia, Craigslist, Facebook, and provided Netflix with hundreds of thousands of movie reviews. Netflix alone has user-generated content worth millions to the company. Facebook's community of super-active (hyper-active?) users has helped to push the social networking site beyond the competition, with recent valuations as high as $15 billion. All are examples where users happily do for free what companies would otherwise have to ...

The future of business is selling less of more. This according to Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail. Anderson looks at why the future of commerce and culture isn't in hits, the high-volume head of a traditional demand curve (and what is still driving the motion-picture and music industries). He makes the case that the future is now in what used to be regarded as ...

Every party needs a host. Like a good host, your community manager should be your most active, high-profile member- accountable to everyone and responsible for setting the tone for the community experience. Because your community manager will have special powers and insider knowledge, you'll need to take extra care in choosing someone to fill this role. Step one in the screening and selection process - ...

Why do people interact online? Are these the same reasons for interacting face-to-face? These are two questions I've been asking myself while considering a redesign of my social networking site, Science For America. These are questions you should consider before creating your social networking space. By having a clear purpose that makes sense to you, the space designer, and the members, you can give yourself ...