The Value of a Mentor

I really like the positive and enthusiastic approach that Penelope Trunk follows in her post: You need a mentor now, here's how to get one

I wish that I had found a mentor early on, in one of my many careers. Some nice advice here from Penelope on how to find one.

Berkeley on Google Video

The University of California at Berkeley has released over 250 hours worth of video with educational content, including classes, symposiums, and events. (Hat tip to Tara Calishain)

The press release from Berkeley has more details:

UC Berkeley offers courses and symposia through Google Video

I'm finding myself excited over the Information Systems 141 - Search Engines: Technology, Society and Business videos, which include speakers from Yahoo!, Google, and Microsoft, as well as others.

Government writing in plain language

When your audience is a broad spectrum of the citizenship of the United States, part of your mission is to communicate with them in a language that they can understand.

A movement within the federal government to help writers use easy to understand language led to the creation of the Plain Language website. There are some nice tips on the site for anyone who writes to a wide audience on their page about Usefulness in Web-Writing.

There's a column at the site of The American Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) on the development of the plainlanguage.com pages from one of the folks instrumental in its redesign of a year or so ago. One of the fun aspects of the redesign was that it was a project bringing together graduate students at Johns Hopkins University with the federal government.

The efforts of those students, and the feedback the site has seen has led to the creation of a new site, and guidelines for people who write web sites for the federal government: Webcontent.gov. If you're interested in usability and accessibility, this site is worth checking out. If you're interested in writing in a way which will make it easier for visitors to understand your message on your website, it's also worth a visit.

A Druid on Rugby

When the national poet writes scathing poetry about your rugby league's management, you know you have some problems: A poet speaks of rugby shame, of wooden spoons and who's to blame

Reflections of leadership in everyday encounters

An excellent article from USA Today on Raytheon CEO Bill Swanson's Unwritten Rules of Management, titled CEOs say how you treat a waiter can predict a lot about character.

All thirty-three of the rules are listed in the article, yet I found myself sending for a copy of the actual booklet, which is free. There are a few folks I want to share it with...

Early money problems for the colonies

In honor of tax day, an early look at money problems for the colonists:

History of Colonial Money (pdf)

The whole system was off to a rough start:

The lack of coins and currency forced the colonists to barter. The English leaders felt that colonial exports, such as animal skins, dried fish, and tobacco, should be paid for in English goods. Colonial exports would be accepted in return for an equal value of such goods as fabrics, window panes, pewter dishes, and mirrors. This barter arrangement - an exchange of goods or services without using money - seemed ideal to the British but was increasingly unpopular with the colonists, who preferred coin for their exports to gain more independence over their buying power.

I'm afraid that in some ways, we're still looking for more independence over our buying power.

Ads from around the world

Some really great images on Ads of the World.

I tracked back to this original source from a post on Adverblog on some creative Nike images created by Chinese artists.

A long timeout

If you understand what you're doing, you're not learning anything

- a fortune cookie from yesterday

I've been on a long hiatus from here. I'd like to kick start this blog, and use it more than I have. One post in five months really just isn't enough. I have been busy blogging on other topics at another blog, but I miss this one.

I'm probably going to broaden the scope of this blog a little to include more topics than only business related ones. So, if I point to Swimming Ants here, or a new way of looking at museums.

Brilliant Photo Essay on the Design Process

PingMag has an enjoyable article on The Website Development Process.

It was good enough to get me to break out my camera, and wander around aimlessly with it for a couple of hours this afternoon.