Victor
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Econ 101
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1 min read
I recently read Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science by Charles Wheelan, a writer for The Economist. He covers many of the more interesting ideas, highlights some underappreciated thinkers, and offers a sound perspective on a field that tries to stay within the boundaries of statistics while undeniably bleeding into politics and sociology. Also see…
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Dreams come true
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1 min read
“It’s been my life’s dream to see the parade live. Once it starts, it means the holidays are here. My other dream is to get a jet pack.“ – NICHOLAS PERDUE, a 16-year-old at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
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Remember Quokka?
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1 min read
I just discovered the work of Mark Allen Nakamura who designed some of the old Quokka Sports site, still one of the most daring and bold layouts to appear on a mainstream site.
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Tom Peters on TV
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1 min read
Tom Peters: Re-imagine! Business Excellence in a Disruptive Age comes to PBS (in NYC, on Monday, Nov 22 at 10pm) Each of the companies profiled faced revolutionary business challenges and responded by inventing entirely new opportunities. Each had to re-imagine the nature of work itself—and did so by soliciting the energy and engagement of each…
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Open, Subsidized Innovation
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1 min read
The company suggestion box is growing in size and sophistication. Taking a cue from the software industry which subsidizes innovation by letting passionate customers beta test new products, companies like Bose are setting up forums for ideas. They recognize that innovation needs to be open, tapping creativity from inside and outside the organization. The system…
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Selling many to many
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1 min read
Chris Anderson’s article in Wired, The Long Tail, is about making previously unprofitable products profitable by making them more widely available. C. K. Prahalad’s book, The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, is about making previously unprofitable products profitable by making them more widely available. The primary difference is that Anderson describes it happening…
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Frontline dissects brand marketing
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2 min read
Frontline is doing the Frontline treatment on brand strategy and the latest marketing. There’s a few refreshingly honest people, and the rest are either critical of the methods or vary from slightly to very silly… A market researcher probes a participant, “Would you say you feel lonely when you eat white bread? Anxious? Trusting?” Read…
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The new MoMA architecture goes *POOF*
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1 min read
The architect, Yoshio Taniguchi, of the new addition to the Museum of Modern Art in New York said to the trustees at the beginning, “Raise a lot of money for me, I’ll give you good architecture. Raise even more money, I’ll make the architecture disappear.” John Updike adds, And disappear, in a way, it has.…
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Backwards process
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1 min read
A friend just reminded me of a story from some time ago. I was giving a short presentation at a financial services company on the user-centered design process. The audience was a project team. I threw up some slides illustrating the various activities: researching users, designing the interface, implementing it, etc. Toward the end, the…
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The best source for IA?
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1 min read
Since the 1703 Treaty of Methuen giving mutual trade advantages to Portuguese wines and English woolens, countries have recognized their own expertise and costs and opted to trade rather than compete in particular markets. So regardless of what our re-elected president tells us, the facts of economic life in the modern world will not change:…
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As for that stupid, damn election…
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1 min read
…I’ve decided to become stinking rich and in my utter richness punish those amazingly annoying “millions of farmers, factory workers and waitresses who ended up voting – utterly against their own interests – for Republican candidates.” Arrrrrrrrrrrgh.
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NYC First Friday, Nov 5
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1 min read
The next social meeting of First Fridays in NYC for the User Experience Design community will be Nov 5, 6:30 at Hell 59 Gansevoort St at Washington St (Meatpacking District) (Between 12th & 13th Streets, West of 9th Avenue/Hudson Street) 212-727-1666 Subway: A,C,E and 1239 to 14th Street or L to 8th Ave I’ll miss…
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The best cooking show ever
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1 min read
New Scandinavian Cooking is just so wonderful. I love when someone takes a format that is already popular and full of variation and just takes it in a whole other direction. In the episode I saw, host Andreas Viestad skied through a sunny day over to a man pulling three char out of a fishing…
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Making advice palatable to CEOs
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1 min read
I had just read What New CEOs Need to Know (here’s a free, shorter version) and was contemplating the CEO’s experience (expressing a strategic vision, trying not to send the wrong signals, not in power but reporting to the board, not in touch with operations, balancing obligations inside and outside the company…) when I came…
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From anger springs innovation, sometimes
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2 min read
Tom Peters in Re-Imagine! For me business is personal, not an abstraction… I’m writing another book because I’m pissed off… I happen to believe that innovation comes not from market research or carefully crafted focus groups but from pissed off people…. Many people I’ve met who strive to be designers and innovators are driven by…