Read this, then this. First Edward Tufte goes on to explain why he thinks PowerPoint is so bad, then Cliff Atkinson highlights what some other experts have to say on the subject.
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One man’s war on political correctness!
I originally thought that it would be enough for me simply to comment on this post, however, I’ve done that, but I can’t seem to get it out of my head.
It’s not the author’s post that gets to me; I believe she’s just throwing out food for thought, and from her tone, it doesn’t seem (to me) that she is really against the books as such. It was the comments that hit the nerve.
It seems to me that there’s a need by many American people to make sure that they suck the individuality out of absolutely everything by creating politically correctness in every aspect of their lives. The problem isn’t limited to the States though, it’s widespread. When will it stop? Do you not realise that the more people have to be careful about what they say, do, and write, the less they’ll eventually say for fear of ridicule? Now we’re applying it to business books! For goodness sake, is nothing sacred?
The solution is simple: if you don’t like the title of a book, don’t buy it; and If you’re unhappy about war, send a letter to your president.
But let me make my own decisions…!
I wanna go
I really wanna go (said in really whining 4 year old kid kinda tone). Every time E3 is running and I’m not there, it feels as though I’m missing a portion of my own life. If I have not gone to E3 at least once in the next 5 years I’ll, I’ll, um, do something really drastic or something. Looks as though it was a lot of fun.
Free what inside?
Well paint me red and call me Susan! I very nearly hit the floor when I saw this book in the business section of our national bookseller today. With all the blogging about this book lately, I am truly surprised that people haven’t said more (anything?) about the similarities.
Both are on marketing, both have the cereal reference, and both were released in the last 12 or so months. From the glance I give the “gift” book, it seems that the author is on an altogether different track to that of the “prize” one, but still, sheesh!
Anyway, my curiosity is piqued, expect a review over at 800-CEO-READ Blog in the next few weeks.
Bill on Blogs
Gates just said at the recent Microsoft CEO Summit that blogging is “a very interesting thing”. Nice to see that the big guys are starting to take notice of this “interesting thing” that is transforming the manner/speed that information is spread.
Anything better than Google?
I read at addict3d that a study had been done by a California research firm in which they state that after a total of 2000 adult web users were asked to try Google, Yahoo, Ask Jeeves, Microsoft’s MSN and Terra Lycos SA’s Lycos, that the results were just as good as Google’s. I followed the link from addict3d to the actual article and I have a few comments.
They don’t make any reference to the fact that Google’s interface doesn’t suck like the rest of them do. And they have two case-studies on some of the results, in the first one that they mention (they must have been very proud of) it shows a Google accuracy of 55% where as the others got between 52 and 54%. Wow BIG difference, but it still shows Google as better. Then, for the second case study, they report a Google accuracy of 76% as opposed to the other 64 to 75% accuracy – Still Google wins. WTF is this report trying to say? And it’s titled
What’s your visualDNA?
I’m really not a fan of memes, but I gotta say- this is wicked cool (thanks to The Greg for the link).
Think social networking, meets memetics meets visuals. Here’s my profile if you’re interested:
Beemmer books
I’m guessing that most of you got around to watching the (pretty damn good) BMW films a few years ago. Well BMW’s back, this time with audio books (thanks treonauts). I guess you’ll need to stomach a lot of product placement, but hey, it’s free, so according to my scale, we’re good.
Still wouldn’t drive one though…!
Oh, the irony…
Shit, I laughed out loud when I saw this change this manifestoon the topic of standing out.
I laughed because I had previously read Joe Calloway’s great book on the same topic.
Impressions and expectations
Okay, so I know I’m a bit of a cracked record on this issue, but damn I’m convinced I’m right.
Howard wrote a piece on first impressions a while back, the balance of this post is paraphrased from the comment I left.
Sure, first impressions count, I just don’t believe that they’re the be all and end all that people would have you think they are. First (opening) impressions are usually simply a base from which an interaction will be measured. i.e. The lasting impression (what ultimately counts) is formed by the difference between the opening and closing impression (hint. you should be pushing for a positive number