“Last year I decided to put on twist on my annual ‘best blogs’ post by taking a turn toward the obscure. Because blogs now pervade the media landscape, it makes little sense to write a post arguing that Huffington Post is better or worse than DailyKos — or Cute Overload.
It turned out that this change — pointing to lesser-known sites like History of the Button, Buzzfeed, and Indexed — was a rather auspicious. Within 24 hours of releasing the list, seven of the top ten links on Del.icio.us’ typically-tech-centric hotlist were sites on my list. And so in the spirit of celebrating the lesser-known, it’s time again to point toward the best blogs that might have flown under your radar. Here they are, the Best Blogs of 2007 that You Maybe Aren’t Reading…”
“This past October, the design community gathered in Denver for the 2007 AIGA Design Conference to talk about the future of design. What could be more ‘Next’ than the bright young talent of tomorrow? By now most everyone has heard about the wildly successful Command X, graphic design’s first ‘reality show,’ in which seven designers under 26 competed in daily design challenges, presenting their solutions on the conference main stage to be judged by an esteemed panel. All were impressive but one especially talented designer emerged: 24-year-old Nichelle Narcisi, whose youth-targeted voter awareness campaign, with the tagline ‘Except You,’ garnered a standing ovation and even tears from one of the jurors. Here, we spoke with this up-and-comer about her rise to AIGA stardom and why there’s no more room in her life for voter apathy.”
“I spent some time Saturday afternoon in Chelsea looking at a couple shows that I’ve been meaning to see for a while. I was pleasantly impressed with the painted maps by Paula Scher and somewhat underwhelmed by the theatrics that surrounded the collection of work from Banksy.”
“I’ve been thinking about a number of new product ideas lately. In doing so, I’ve been trying to come up with a way more structured way of evaluating them. Here’s a first attempt at defining that. It’s not as clear as I’d like it to be. But perhaps you’ll find it useful.”
“Tony Karrer wrote a post VizThink and Visual Thinking and Learning: Still not sure last week. It’s in reference to a conversation he was having with Tom Crawford, the CEO of VizThink about whether it would be valuable for e-learning professionals to attend the conference he is organizing in January.
Several of us who are facilitating at the conference responded, and a very interesting conversation developed… Dave Gray has been a leader in this field for many years, and his company Xplane has opened an office here in Portland. Dave joined in the conversation with Tony, and since he is a featured facilitator at the VizThink conference, Tom Crawford arranged for Dave and Tony to have an expanded discussion in a free webinar.”
- Topic: How is Visual Thinking Related to eLearning?
- Guests: Tony Karrer & Dave Gray
- Date: Thursday, December 20th, 2008
- Time: 8am Pacific, 10am Central, 4pm GMT
- Cost: FREE
“The sketchboard is a low-fi technique that makes it possible for designers to explore and evaluate a range of interaction concepts while involving both business and technology partners. Unlike the process that results from wireframe-based design, the sketchboard quickly performs iterations on many possible solutions and then singles out the best user experience to document and build upon.”
The Alphabetizer puts just about any list in alphabetical order with options to strip HTML, ignore case, make all lowercase, capitalize first word, remove duplicates, reverse list, randomize and/or ignore indefinite airticles.
“Neil Wilson asks:
“Get Ink” is the fundamental marketing mantra. You guys are natural self-promoters. What do you find is the best way of getting your name in the frame?
10 ideas that came to mind when I thought about ways to get people to notice you/your product:”
“I was trying to find the public bathroom at Macy’s the other day — no easy task in any department store; why is that? — when I ran across the employee lounge, and this sign. It made me feel laugh, and then feel bad for laughing, because if nachos are the best thing about working at Macy’s, well, that’s just depressing…
What crappy work incentives have you been offered?”
“Recession is in the air. It isn’t here for sure, but, damn, when you pay $50 for two coffees and a tart in Paris you know your economy isn’t healthy. Add in the latest energy prices and you see we’re almost definitely going to have a problem over the next year with inflation (compounded since many of our goods come from overseas and our dollar is buying less and less — dramatically less we found on our latest trip to Europe).
If recession and/or inflation is coming, now is the time to prepare. How?”
