In The Know v 1.23: Stuff You Didn’t Know You Didn’t Know Edition
A quick look at five important links.
- Nimble
This report from Razorfish describes the media ecosystem and the role of content in the system. It’s worth reading for several reasons. If you’re building web content as a publisher, employment website owner or vendor, the Nimble Report is a good guide for thinking about next generation content. The report itself is a delicious example of what can be done with web content. And, if you’ve been paying attention to the street action (blogging, social media and so on), it’s a good way to catch up on the continuing evolution of delivery systems and tools. - The Wrong Stuff: On Air and Error
An interview with Ira Glass from NPR. The pull quote;
“at the Onion. Every Monday they have to come up with like 17 or 18 headlines, and to do that, they generate 600 headlines per week. I feel like that’s why it’s good: because they are willing to be wrong 583 times to be right 17.”
Ira talks about the importance of being wrong as a key to learning and innovation. - The Anosognosic’s Dilemma: Something’s Wrong but You’ll Never Know What It Is
This New York Times piece (long but worth the investment) looks at the work of David Dunning, a Cornell professor who wrestles with the problems of accurately seeing yourself and/or others. His insight? People have a hard time seeing some things and, if they can’t see it, you probably can’t tell them about it. Here’s one takeaway:
“People will often make the case, “We can’t be that stupid, or we would have been evolutionarily wiped out as a species a long time ago.” I don’t agree. I find myself saying, “Well, no. Gee, all you need to do is be far enough along to be able to get three square meals or to solve the calorie problem long enough so that you can reproduce. And then, that’s it. You don’t need a lot of smarts. You don’t have to do tensor calculus. You don’t have to do quantum physics to be able to survive to the point where you can reproduce.” One could argue that evolution suggests we’re not idiots, but I would say, “Well, no. Evolution just makes sure we’re not blithering idiots. But, we could be idiots in a lot of different ways and still make it through the day.”” - Google Voice: Your Guide to Getting Started
Google Voice is now available to everyone. The service gives you a single phone number that rings on all your phones, sends you text messages with transcripts of your voice mail. It’s worth getting and this guide will hurry you up the adoption curve. - What is Data Science?
We’re at the front end of a data tsunami that will grow exponentially in the coming decades. Data Science is the process of absorbing all of that data and converting it into intelligence. Each of us will be come data scientists and this is a good introductory article.
