Nice list by Leah Buley on things to do before starting a project. It’s been said that the two hardest parts of a project are the beginning and the end.  In the middle, it’s often perfectly clear what should have gone differently at the start.  But when you’re kicking off a project, you’re often so preoccupied trying to establish cordial working relationships and understand the nature of the project that some of the trivial but essential details get neglected.  That’s too bad, because it’s often the trivial essentials that build trust.

Nice piece by Tony Schwartz over at Harvard Business Review: So here’s the paradox: Americans are working 10 percent fewer total hours than they did before the recession, due to layoffs and shortened workdays, but we’re producing nearly as many goods and services as we did back in the full employment days of 2007. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke called these gains in productivity "extraordinary" and unforeseen at a recent Senate hearing. There’s a simple, visceral reason for the gains, Mr. Chairman, and it’s called fear.

Web 3.0 from Kate Ray on Vimeo.

I was searching for material on media literacy and came across this very insightful definitions of deductive and inductive arguments: Mastering the art of picking out premises and conclusions is the first step toward good analytical thinking, but we must also think about whether the premises really do support their conclusions. Making that sort of determination requires that we think a little bit about the different kinds of arguments. There are several ways of categorizing arguments, but for our purposes, we can distinguish all arguments into one of two types: deductive and inductive. Deductive argument: an argument whose premises make its conclusion certain Inductive argument: an argument whose premises make its conclusion likely (Note: Some dictionaries - and even some older logic texts - define deductive arguments as arguments that reason from the general to the specific and inductive arguments as those that reason from the specific to the general. That particular usage of the terms is obsolete.) The difference between deductive and inductive arguments is easiest to see by way of examples. Smith owns only blue pants and brown pants. Smith is wearing a pair of his pants today. So Smith is wearing either blue or brown pants today. This is an instance of a deductive argument. We can tell that the argument is deductive because the two premises (that is, the first two sentences) guarantee the truth of the conclusion. If the two premises really are true, then there is no possible way that the conclusion could be false. Here’s another example: The soccer game is on either Thursday or Friday. I just found out that the game is not on Thursday, so the game must be on Friday. Again, this is a deductive argument, for the truth of the premises guarantees the truth of the conclusion. Contrast those examples with this one: January has always been cold here in Siberia. Today is January 14, so it is going to be another cold day in Siberia. This argument is inductive. The premises makes the conclusion likely, but they do not guarantee that the conclusion is true. To put the point another way, it is possible that the premises of this argument could be true and the conclusion could still be false. One can, for example, imagine a freak warm day in Siberia on January 14. But one cannot imagine that Smith owns only brown pants and blue pants, that he is wearing his own pants and that his pants are not brown or blue. To make the conclusion about the color of Smith’s pants false, one has to make one of the premises false. But one can make the cold day in Siberia claim false while keeping the premises true. Here is one more: The local branch of Wachovia Bank was robbed yesterday. Jenny needed money to pay off her gambling debts. She just bought a gun two days ago, and I saw her hanging around the local Wachovia Bank yesterday morning. Today the bookie’s goons stopped looking for Jenny. So Jenny robbed Wachovia Bank yesterday. This is the sort of inductive argument that should be familiar to anyone who has ever watched an episode of "Law & Order." Again, though, as anyone who has seen "Law & Order" can attest, these sorts of inductive arguments can be (and frequently are) wrong. Even if all the premises are true, it is still possible that the conclusion is false.

From an interview with Peter Morville: Peter Morville: The terms "faceted navigation" and "parametric search" are often used interchangeably, but for the sake of comparison I find it valuable to define interfaces that require the simultaneous, up-front specification of all search parameters as exemplars of parametric search. Like the Boolean queries of yore, this forces users to formulate and execute a search strategy without guidance or feedback. Sliders and pull-downs are easier than ANDs and ORs, but syntax is only part of the problem. In contrast, faceted navigation lets users begin naturally with a keyword or two. They’re rewarded with traditional results plus a list of facets (or fields) and values, usually on the left. This SERP (search engine results page) serves as a custom map that offers insights into the content and its organization. And, this is a map that’s also the territory. Users can take a simple next step to clarify or refine their query by clicking on a facet value. And, by taking several of these simple next steps, users can construct a sophisticated, powerful query. So, not only do users find what they need, but they also learn along the way.

Snapped this at a local video store. There are multiple Top 1s, Top 2s, etc.

Sarah Lacey writes about the education and training opportunities in the developing world: "But in emerging markets, modern education is still developing on an elementary, collegiate and vocational level. Burgeoning populations who want better opportunities are struggling under the confines of what young democracies can provide, giving a huge opportunity for private, for-profit education systems to play a bigger role than they’ve played in the West historically. And obviously, the Web and mobile is a big part of this. It’s not just about access, it’s about breaking learning down into affordable, consumable chunks—the same way the Web has broken music and media down into sell-able, bite-sized pieces of the song and the blog post. Some of this is happening inside the classroom and some is redefining what a "classroom" is."

Nice collection by Smashing Magazine. "We’re all mostly accustomed to educating ourselves by reading articles. Rare are the opportunities to attend conferences or watch live shows on subjects that we’re interested in. That’s why we are presenting here phenomenal videos and related resources on the topic of user experience (UX) by different presenters at different events. We have focused on current content but have included some older videos that are still relevant. It will take you more than 16 hours to watch all of these videos. So, make some popcorn, turn off the lights and enjoy."

Gates believes that in five years time you’ll able to find the "the best lectures in the world". You can now, but its "unevenly distributed"! "One particular problem with the education system according to Gates is text books. Even in grade schools, they can be 300 pages for a book about math. ‘They’re giant, intimidating books," he said. "I look at them and think: what on Earth is in there?’"

Simon Goh has written a thought-provoking piece on managing common content on the intranet. The intranet comprises broadly of corporate and business common content. Corporate content are stuff such as backoffice processes, policies, templates, news, corporate events and employee benefits. Business content are stuff such as standard contract clauses, services & solutions offerings, project references, document deliverable templates, delivery samples and methodologies. Regardless of the category, 5 things need to happen for an intranet to be a trusted place for staff to get common content. Common content needs to be: available as soon as they are at the right place well-written accurate, current and comprehensive rid of Redundant, Obsolete and Trivial (ROT) content