link for Friday's assignment

http://www.fusiongrant.org/educational.php

Monday's reading

13 Things I Wish I Learned In College

Wednesday's reading

How to Write More Clearly, Think More Clearly, and
Learn Complex Material More Easily by Michael A. Covington

Monday's readings

Three essays by Kathy Sierra:

“Are your users stuck in ‘P’ mode?”

“Why marketing should make the user manuals!”

“How to get users to RTFM”

Building chairs

Course Description 2

This course will look at the role of design in the world around us. Our emphasis will be on features, feel and function rather than on the aesthetics of design. We will consider why some designs work well and others work poorly. We will think about how and why things are designed in particular ways. We will look at the economic and environmental implications of design choices.

Successful completion of this course will fulfill the K College requirement for Tier One writing.

Course Description 1

Some things just feel right. (Do iPods?) Other things—like unprogrammable VCRs or wristwatches that beep every hour—are frustrating. Which leads to an obvious question, why would anyone design a product to frustrate its users?

Design is more than style or fashion. This seminar explores design from the perspective of economics, business, and the environment. We will look at the features and functions of various products and services including: advertising, packaging, websites, retailing, and urban design. We will investigate how intangible experiences and activities can be designed. Observing and analyzing designs can help us better understand the world.

Design for the other 90%

The Brand Builder blog writes on The Upside-Down pyramid of opportunity: Design for the other 90%

"A billion customers in the world, are waiting for a $2 pair of eyeglasses, a $10 solar lantern and a $100 house."

For starters.

That's something to think about. Not in terms of exploitation, but in terms of wealth and opportunity creation. (The development of the easy-to-use, virtually crunch-proof windup $100 laptop - specifically designed to introduce computers and the internet to 3rd world children - is probably among the most ambitious of these types of endeavors, but also a great example of how we can start to create opportunity in regions of the world in which mere survival is still the order of the day.)

While everyone else is trying to appeal to the richest 10%, maybe, just maybe, the real opportunities are elsewhere

Speaking as perfomance

Guy Kawasaki writes on Speaking as a Performing Art with advice from Doug Lawrence, a professional singer and speech coach.

Here's his list of topics:

1. Circulate with your audience.
2. Command attention.
3. Snarl.
4. Bite your tongue.
5. Always perform a sound check before you speak.
6. Use your eyes all the time.
7. Move away from center to make your point.
8. Get quiet.
9. “Underline” certain words with a pause or repetition.
10. Take a risk and be vulnerable.
11. Tee it higher.
12. Know when it’s time to go.
13. Use Q and A as an “encore.”
14. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse.
15. Perform for a hero.

update: More advice from Doug Lawrence:Eight More Ways To Improve Your Presentations

The value of concrete details

Dan Heath at Made to Stick illustrates the power of specific detail.

In the book, we talk about how vivid details can make ideas more credible. Here’s an example from the annals of advertising, plucked from an article on the copywriter Claude Hopkins:

Back in 1919, Schlitz beer approached Claude Hopkins. Their beer sales were in 15th place. They asked Hopkins if he could help them sell more beer. He agreed to meet with Schlitz and toured the brewery. He was fascinated with what he discovered. He then returned two months later with an ad campaign.

His ads told of the “crystal clear water from a special artesian well”. They told of the one “mother” yeast cell that produced all the yeast for fermenting the beer. It was the result of over “1,500 experiments and produced a very distinct fresh, crisp taste”. He told of how the bottles were “sterilized 12 times to ensure purity, so that nothing would interfere with the clean taste of the beer”.

The Schlitz people hated it. They explained to Hopkins that this would never work. They told him, “All beer is made the same way.” Hopkins calmly assured them that people would be fascinated with the “behind the scenes” look and, that no other beer maker had ever told the story.

After much discussion, Schlitz relented and let the ads roll out. Six months later, Schlitz beer was the Number 1 selling beer in the nation.

Pitching a new idea

Paul Williams at Idea Sandbox reviews Life's a Pitch

"New ideas often make people uncomfortable. Many new projects and ideas need a champion to gain acceptance from others. Being able to pitch ideas is an invaluable business (and life) tool.

Basic Disciplines of a Good Pitch

* Find a calm space to think in [for preparation].
* Remember that people's emotions count for more than logic
[appeal to the heart as well as the head].
* Think through your proposition before you spell it out.
* Articulate it in the simplest way.
* Don't go for an unattainable perfect solution, go for what works.
* Focus on what it means to them, not what it means to you."

Make Internet TV

Make Internet TV has a guide to getting started with video, that includes short online videos that demonstrate the various steps.

Semi-professional videos

Download Squad has a great introduction to making cheap but decent videos:
Produce your own semi-professional videos - Part 1 and
Produce your own semi-professional videos - Part 2

"

Task One: Setting up your video rig

What you need:
1.Digital still (with video capability) or video camera
2. Tripod or other similar rig
3. A rolling apparatus
4. Duck tape, preferably black
5. A laptop, Audacity and a Microphone

Task Two: Action!
So now you have your camera, securely fastened to the tripod, which is securely duct-taped to the rolling cart (or whatever) which has your laptop and microphone on the back of it. Great, now you're ready to rock, and roll both your cart and roll film. You are ready for action.

Task Three: Pre-production and video conversion
Many times, the video format in which you record will not be compatible with the editing software you have.

Task Four: Editing and effects
To edit my movie I used Windows XP's built-in Windows Movie Maker. Sure it has its glitches and problems, but it is A) free, B) available, and C) quick and dirty.

Task Five: Adding sound loops (optional)
My favorite site for this being Flashkit (registration is free but not required) offers several hundred sound loops, most user-submitted, that are free for non-commercial use.

Task Six: Rendering
This task is simple, but takes time, so don't plan any LAN parties for a while. You'll need all the processing muscle you can get. I would usually use the highest quality setting available to render my videos, and then use a better, non-WMM third-party conversion or compression utility to make a smaller version if needed.

Task Seven: Finishing Touches
Another great idea to help put a glowing touch on your finished video product is to burn it to CD-ROM.
Labeling a CD with a nice gradient or bright graphic on the label always help the customer or other audience feel compelled to pop in your CD-ROM to "see what is on it."

"

PR Photos

Marketing and Branding gives advice on How to Take a Decent PR Photo

"

# Try to limit the number of people in the photo to three.

# Solid color clothing works well.

# Plain backgrounds also help to keep the clutter to a minimum. Often the photos are converted to black and white so contrast between the foreground and background is helpful.

# A triangular photo composition is best where the main person is looking at one of the others and is being looked at by the other two.

# If the organization you are trying to promote has a symbol or a logo, make sure that it is seen proximately in the photo.

# Is it possible to show a little action? The best PR photos do not have the subjects looking at the camera, but are actually involved in what they a doing.

"

Huge images

Homokaasu provides a free online feature called Rasterbater that takes any photo and returns it as a pdf file suitable for printing huge posters from your home printer.

Bad Charts and Graphs

Gary Klass writes on How to Construct Bad Charts and Graphs

"The three fundamental elements of bad graphical display are these: Data Ambiguity, Data Distortion, and Data Distraction."

Easy mistakes worth avoiding

VermontBSD presents a list of common writing errors.

"

They're / There / Their

Than / Then

Apostrophes (when to use them and w'hen no't to'o)

To / Too / Two

Affect / Effect

"Alot" is not a word

By / Buy / Bye

Loose / Lose

Passed / Past

Some spellings are rediculous

Plain / Plane

To unthaw something is to freeze it. (see "thaw")

Wander / Wonder

Weather / Whether / Wether

Where / Were (vs "wear")

Who / Whom

Whose / Who's

Your / You're

Brake / Break

Breath / Breathe

Compliment / Complement

Fair / Fare

For / Four / Fore

Be well, and do good work.

Lead / Led

Allowed / Aloud

Hole / Whole

"

Thanks to Pogue's Posts

Ephemeral stores

Trendwatching writes on Pop-up Retail

"If new products can come and go, why can't the stores that display them do the same? Well, you guessed it, retail outlets increasingly do. From gallery-like shopping spaces with one-off exhibitions to mobile units bringing innercity-chic to rural areas, TRENDWATCHING.COM has noticed an increase in temporary retail manifestations around the world."

Press release

Scott Baradell writes Eight Telltale Signs That Your Press Release Is Bull... These lessons can be applied to many other types of writing.

"1. Vague claims. Are you a "leading" provider of this, that or the other? So's everybody else."
Be specific. Provide details. Quantify. Source your data. Where appropriate, include a quote from a third party to verify your claims.

2. Industry jargon abuse.

3. Business nonsense talk. Paradigm shift. Scalable. Best of breed. End to end. Mission-critical. World-class. Targeted completion date. Long tail. Crowdsourcing.

4. Silly superlatives. If what you were announcing were really "revolutionary," you wouldn't need to put out a press release.


So do yourself a favor and keep your press releases straightforward in structure, clear in language, and supported by facts."

PowerPoint defense

Graphpaper.com writes In Defense of PowerPointism

"Microsoft’s PowerPoint is frequently blamed for the poor quality of many presentations and for a supposedly- disastrous state of communication in both the private and the public spheres. Public speakers are lambasted for their wooden stage presence, crippled by their over-reliance on projected slide shows and meaningless bullet-points. The slides themselves, too, are often rife with design crimes ranging from clip-art diarrhea to impenetrable verbosity."

But, they ask, is it the technology?

"I wonder if the majority of the world’s crappy presentations wouldn’t be just as bad, or even a hell of a lot worse, if the presenter didn’t have the slides to use as a crutch."

They finish with these tips:

"Slim down. If you are a good speaker, yes, consider dramatically limiting your use of slides to help you remember what you want to say...

You and your slides are inseparable. Do not worry about whether or not each slide makes sense by itself. The best slideshows, in fact, are almost completely nonsensical outside of the context of the live presentation...

Explore a variety of alternative presentation styles ...

Evolve. I’ve found that my style has evolved over time specifically because I’ve been watching and emulating other speakers I admire. Every presentation or keynote I attend, no matter how boring or tiresome, usually offers some insight ..."

thanks to Pogue's Posts