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Shape - CSS template
green, asian, one-column
Response to 'Why Social Media Isn't Living Up To...'
It seems that the businesses best suited to the social media environment would be those without the pointless overhead (literally) of an Industrial Age organizational structure, e.g. a “marketing department.” Most people, when ordered to work towards making their position (and career) redundant, will do a remarkably poor job of it. Perhaps that is why the “re-engineering” is going so slowly?
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“Capitalism is eating itself. The market works, and when it works, it commodifies or obsoletes everything. That’s not to say that there’s no money out there to be had, but the money won’t come from a single, monolithic product line. The days of companies with names like ‘General Electric’ and ‘General Mills’ and ‘General Motors’ are over. The money on the table is like krill: a billion little entrepreneurial opportunities that can be discovered and exploited by smart, creative people.
“We will brute-force the problem-space of capitalism in the twenty first century. Our business plan is simple: we will hire the smartest people we can find and put them in small teams. They will go into the field with funding and communications infrastructure—all that stuff we have left over from the era of batteries and film—behind them, capitalized to find a place to live and work, and a job to do. A business to start. Our company isn’t a project that we pull together on, it’s a network of like-minded, cooperating autonomous teams, all of which are empowered to do whatever they want, provided that it returns something to our coffers. We will explore and exhaust the realm of commercial opportunities, and seek constantly to refine our tactics to mine those opportunities, and the krill will strain through our mighty maw and fill our hungry belly. This company isn’t a company anymore: this company is a network, an approach, a sensibility.”
"NYPD Press Passes
Here is an overview of the proposed revisions to the New York City Press Pass application process:
- Restrictions limiting press passes to certain mediums will be removed— in the future, online, offline, on-air, etc. will all be treated equally.
- To qualify for a press pass, the journalist or journalism organization will need to provide six clips from the last 24 months showing news-gathering activity that would require a press card— that would include live reportage from police and fire scenes, public assemblies, government press conferences, or similar events.
- The new system will consist entirely of working press cards, reserve cards (issued to freelancers by a news organization), and single-event cards. The other press cards that were issued as a courtesy (but didn’t allow the reporter to cross police or fire lines) will be eliminated.
- If an applicant for a press card is denied, there is a formal process to appeal, in which the city has a set period of time (90 days) to respond to the appeal. Previously, the city had no time limit for response, and applications often fell into a black hole of city bureaucracy.
"Public relations is changing from relying on official public releases to increasingly whispering to the right people in one’s social network."
Socialstructing: Bringing Social Back into Our Economy and Organizations - Boing Boing
Internet Marketing Channel Checklist
An overview of the different choices an agency has in spending client dollars; in which situations each is useful.
Starter Kits For Web Design
27 Toolkits, frameworks, and design templates. Towards a modularized design process.
![billyjane:
nice work! i think i’m a street art addict, always checkin’ out for new ones on the streetz… have to get out ‘nd make somethin’ too [my few last tries were total failure, gotta practice more ;]
STeW - samurai
via:
stencils:S T e W](http://29.media.tumblr.com/44MQtPVP8oe5d41xXx3YiI3wo1_400.jpg)
Combine common graphics from past projects into one document for easy use in the future.
Design should never repeat itself, however there are certain elements that are often repeated out of necessity, such as icons, logos, symbols, etc. (particularly when you are creating a wireframe). Combine all of these common elements into one Photoshop or Illustrator document for future use. This will eliminate the search through past design documents for an icon or symbol you have already created.
File with common graphic elements.
Business as a Game
A good source on how gaming and the integration of game mechanics could transform businesses is the book “Changing the Game” by David Edery and Ethan Mollick. You will find there many real-world examples / case studies for value, effectiveness and common principles.
There’s a lot to be said on the subject, but broadly speaking I would focus on two different categories:
a) Adding a layer of game mechanics to a service: as in the Mint example (check some interesting and relevant posts on USV/Albert Wenger’s blog). Common tactics are competition (leaderboards, achievements, badges etc.) and collaboration. For the latter you might want to look into some highly successful Facebook games (eg Zynga’s) and how recruiting friends and working with them towards a
common goal is built into the core mechanics.
b) Creating unique games in order to promote a message / brand, to educate customers, to demonstrate products etc. This is a relatively mapped territory with an increasing body of work. You might want to start with Ian Bogost’s blog (http://www.watercoolergames.org/ ) that
maps advergames and other uses of games that go beyond pure entertainment. Two communities that are very active in this space are the Serious Games initiative and Games for Change. Games of this kind
are usually ‘stand alone’ and they present a double challenge - (a) creating an engaging/fun experience while (b) integrating your agenda into the gameplay. The more organic the integration, the better product you have.
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Coyle describes a tennis academy in Russia where they enact rallies without a ball. The aim is to focus meticulously on technique. (Try to slow down your golf swing so it takes 90 seconds to finish. See how many errors you detect.)
By practicing in this way, performers delay the automatizing process. The mind wants to turn deliberate, newly learned skills into unconscious, automatically performed skills. But the mind is sloppy and will settle for good enough. By practicing slowly, by breaking skills down into tiny parts and repeating, the strenuous student forces the brain to internalize a better pattern of performance.
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