Bruce Mau lists a process-related item in his “Incomplete Manifesto for Growth.” Item No. 3 says, “Process is more important than outcome. When the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to where we’ve already been. If process drives outcome we may not know where we’re going, but we will know we want … Read more
Norman opens the book with a discussion of three teapots he owns. He doesn’t use them, but he loves how each tells a story. One is impossible to use, one is a classy glassy Michael Graves design and one is unusual. Norman says when we like the look of an object; we’re more willing to … Read more
Lifehack asks the group how to start a small business. Funny thing, I never wanted to start my own business. It means dealing with bookkeeping/accounting, legal stuff, marketing, and finding clients. But in 1999, after completing my certificate in Internet Technologies, I thought I wanted to do web design on the side. At the time, … Read more
My sister and I judged a Science Fair at a middle school. I got the exciting (not) category of botany while she did biochem. One of the projects sent her on a wild good chase because a kid quoted a Web site in his research. He claimed — because of the web site — there … Read more
I believe it’s true that exercising your brain keeps your mind sharp. Nintendo has released a handful of excellent games for its Gameboy DS that attract the Baby Boomers. Thanks to games like Brain Age and Big Brain Academy, my mom who never got into video games, asked for a Gameboy DS! Poor Mom, Nintendo … Read more
Having worked as a process manager and tech writer in software development for over 10 years, I ran into the problems covered in Five common errors in requirements analysis. Problem 1: Customers Don’t Know What They Want This is often true because much of development has to do with technology that’s beyond the customer’s knowledge. … Read more
I don’t like a cluttered desktop or Program List. Most of the time, I won’t let an application add icons to Quickstart (the >> between the taskbar and the icons on the left) or desktop, unless it’s a program I’ll access frequently. The most frequently applications get to live in Quickstart. According to this Seattle … Read more
Thanks to poor Pluto’s recent declassification as a planet, the American Dialect Society — an organization founded in 1889 that “is dedicated to the study of the English language in North America, and of other languages, or dialects of other languages, influencing it or influenced by” — picked “plutoed” as its 2006 Word of the … Read more
Do industries secretly agree not to provide the best customer service so no one gets a competitive advantage? A little overboard, but it looks that way lately. Our arch in front of our house cracked — not unusual based on the way it was built without rebars. But it scares me whenever people come to … Read more
It happens to everyone, writers and non-writers. We need to write something, but can’t produce content — at least, nothing of good quality. A couple of people I know (one is a writer and the other isn’t) ran into this problem as a result of personal challenges. One weathering a dangerous storm and the other … Read more