Today was Staff Recognition Day at UMR. In keeping with the theme for the day, I dressed like a pirate and called my place of employment “UMRrrrrrr.” (I also took a camera-phone self-portrait of me in bandanna and eyepatch, which Facebookers can find on my profile there. I won’t be posting it here. So Facebook me if you dare. Arrrrr!)
Anyway, the day was filled with all manner of officially sanctioned falderal. Which means tomorrow is nose-to-the-grindstone day. That means little to no blogging here tomorrow, and then on Friday I’ll be in a meeting for most of the day. Thankfully, I’ve been plucking tidbits from the web and stashing them away like a rabid squirrel hoarding acorns. So here is an early harvest for you, a Wednesday edition of the Friday Five.
- Two takes on Twitter. Is the microblogging tool-of-the-moment merely a stage for self-indulgent blather (kind of like some blogs, present company excluded) or a welcome addition to the digital lifestyle? CNET brings you two views.
- The model commencement speaker. An English prof opines on graduation speeches. The worst commencement speakers? Politicians. The author’s favorite? Mr. Rogers. Via Arts & Letters Daily.
- 100 Ways to Kill a Concept. “So, you’ve got an idea. A big idea. But will your idea take flight? Not if you let your concept be killed by all the usual excuses you hear from your managers, your bosses, your spouses—excuses motivated by fear or possessiveness.” A manifesto in PDF by Michael Iva. The list of excuses is worthy of posting on a door, a la Martin Luther, and I confess that as a manager, I’ve made more than my share of them. Via Change This.
- Speaking of killing a concept … or in this case a sacred cow: Presentation Zen ponders, Who says we need our logo on every slide? Plus more about the good and bad of PowerPoint.
- Pundits are (nearly) always wrong. More wisdom from Seth Godin. Pundits miss the mark, he says, “Because they measure ‘presentation.’ Not just the PPT presentation, but the way an idea feels. How does it present. Is it catchy? Clever? Familiar? We measure whether or not it agrees with our worldview and our sense of the way the world is.”
Andy writes! 