I’m fascinated by data visualization. Expressing complex ideas in a simple way is immensely powerful. In my post yesterday, I linked to a county-by-county time lapse of unemployment rates. I’ve found some interesting images (complete with a thorough explanation) examining the U.S. economy. The article is interesting, but the images, if you’ll pardon the cliché, [...]
I came across a great explanation of what I believe are the primary reasons most organizational change efforts are exceedingly more difficult than leaders initially expect: [Because] change in organizations typically involves shifts in the way people work, these may introduce feelings of inadequacy and dislocation that potentially challenge people’s identities as competent workers (Ezzamel, [...]
Go here first. Then come back. I’ll wait. The trouble with talking about government budgets, even ones as small as a city or local school district, is that big numbers rapidly lose meaning to people. It’s more visceral to talk about a dozen people (or dollars or “things”) than to discuss a million of then. [...]
The Editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries and the Houghton Mifflin Company have published (2003) a book titled 100 Words Every High School Graduate Should Know. It’s an interesting list. Some words are used in science (chromosome, gamete, mitosis, quasar), some in history/politics (antebellum, gerrymander, laissez faire, oligarchy). Others are useful to understand modern society [...]
I’ve refrained from posting on the voucher debate for a variety of reasons. But I realized some of my comments on other blogs were longer than some of my posts here. The following comes with the hopefully unnecessary caveat that the opinions stated here are my own, and may not be representative of any group [...]
A friend of mine recently accepted a position at Boise State University, and documented the numerous customer service troubles he encountered along the way. It’s a bit long but worth reading. I’ve highlighted his main points here. As customers, we search for someone to blame, but only because we want a problem fixed. The person [...]
I’ve been thinking a lot about what Phil Windley calls an “abundance mentality.” (He didn’t coin the term; it was through his article that I was introduced to the phrase.) I’ve been seeing variations on the same theme from Paul Allen (who really epitomizes the concept of an abundance mentality), Garr Reynolds, Kathy Sierra, and [...]
I stumbled upon Kathy Sierra’s blog, Creating Passionate Users, a couple of months ago, and I was hooked. She discusses management, marketing, and technology, but her biggest contribution is learning theory. She is the driving force behind O’Rielly’s “Head First” series of computer books, taking on the dry and often boring task of teaching computer [...]
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