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10 (give or take) mistakes in blogging and web design - a dissent

By Laura Scott
20 Oct 2005
Shelley sarcastically mentioned the other day that she "sucks at blogging" because of how she does a lot of the things Jakob Nielsen says are the Top Ten Design Mistakes in weblogs: No Author Biographies No Author Photo Nondescript Posting Titles Links Don't Say Where They Go Classic Hits are Buried The Calendar is the Only Navigation Irregular Publishing Frequency Mixing Topics Forgetting That You Write for Your Future Boss Having a Domain Name Owned by a Weblog Service

Is there really so little talent in the world? (And does Hollywood have it all already?)

By Laura Scott
16 Oct 2005
In doing some catch-up on the Web 2.0 conference that happened a couple of weeks ago, I came across Kaliya's round up, where she remarks upon the rather inane statement made by television mogul Barry Diller:
Dumbest thing said on the stage: Bary Diller dismissed the idea that citizens with blogs and video editing software were major threats to the entertainment industry. "There is not that much talent in the world," Diller said. "There are very few people in very few closets in very few rooms that are really talented and can't get out."

When a website is a car, not a taxi

By Laura Scott
29 Sep 2005
This may sound kind of like a sales pitch, but it seems that many people do not understand the difference between a static website (aka "brochureware") and a dynamic website. So I thought I'd explore the question: When is a brochure more than a brochure? I think vlado put it quite simply:
"If you have more features, you'll pay far more" Well, Laura seems to favour exactly the opposite - quote the customer a brochure site and deliver them an ever expanding, flexible website. It's up to them to decide where to put the boundaries, rather than their budget.

Open source voting? Watch California

By Laura Scott
28 Sep 2005
For anyone who's been watching how American elections seem to have become increasingly commodified, with huge contracts going to just a few corporations who seem unaccountable to even election officials, it's inspiring to see this:
California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson is forming a panel to investigate using open source software in elections. He has invited OVC [Open Voting Consortium] president Alan Dechert to be on the panel, and has asked for Dechert's input on who should be on the panel.
It's inspiring to see the Cluetrain in business start to bleed over into political institutions (beyond the "netroots"). The democratization (small "d") of electoral politics can only be a good thing for a democracy.

Internet marketing - competing against non-consumption across the digital divide

By Katherine Lawrence
25 Sep 2005
The digital divide is vast. Businesses, organizations, and political leaders are rushing to become part of the digital future. In a January 2005 article the BBC tells us Blog readership has shot up by 58% in 2004 Eight million have created a blog 27% of online Americans have read a blog 5% use RSS aggregators to get news and other information 12% of online Americans have posted comments on blogs Only 38% of online Americans have heard about blogs The last statistic puts things in perspective, only 38% of online Americans have heard about blogs. So how many is that? According to Internet World Stats there are almost 203 million Internet users as of June, 2005, a 68.5% penetration according to Nielsen//NR.

The HP Way - misunderstood. Bottom line trumps all

By Katherine Lawrence
29 Aug 2005
The HP Way was not gentle. The principles that Bill Hewlett and David Packard set down to run Hewlett-Packard, HP, are not always accurately reported. For example, recently I heard a seminar where the speaker waxed on about corporate values. The speakers cited the HP Way,
and nowhere is there a mention of a bottom line.
I beg to differ. It's rule number one. Packard writes,
profit, [is] a measure of success, a source of strength; maximize it so long as you do so in ways consistent with the other objectives;
The motivational speaker was wrong. David Packard once told us that without profit, we cannot do any of the other good things that HP was chartered to do.

The HP Way - more than a myth

By Katherine Lawrence
28 Aug 2005
The HP Way is legend. It was Hewlett-Packard's set of guiding principles - a sort of yardstick - a road map. I had not been with the firm very long when I first heard the words HP Way. At an HP staff meeting, a manager berated one of the team. The subordinate responded without blinking, "that's not the HP Way." The manager changed tone immediately. At that moment the founders' principles were in the room even though Hewlett and Packard where elsewhere.

CEO as Genetic Engineer - Monsanto morphs

By Katherine Lawrence
26 Aug 2005
Monsanto Chemicals came to a decision in 1994 that it had to re-invent itself. Monsanto brought Gemini Consulting on board to help facilitate the process. The President of Gemini called it "CEO as genetic engineer." Internal and External Communications, IEC, was a leading media firm involved in computer-based training for Fortune 500 (F-500) firms. IEC hired me with the Monsanto/Gemini project in mind, mainly because of my technical writing experience as well as expertise in chemical plant operations - unit ops. Gemini contracted IEC to document how Gemini benchmarked - that is, how they documented the best practices of the client. Another way to say "best practices," is "the way the successful people seem to be doing something." Based upon that, the IEC team I was on was charged with authoring an interactive computer-based training program geared toward senior consultants.

Going back to DuPont

By Katherine Lawrence
26 Aug 2005
"You can't go home again," wrote Thomas Wolf. In the next several weeks I will be blogging on my memories of starting out - my first position out of college - and how I chanced to be hired by E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, Inc., of Wilmington Delaware. I hope this will be more than a "remember when" story. I hope to make it relevant. Why is this a remarkable story? Why should it be told? Well, let me tell you a little about DuPont. DuPont is one of the oldest firms in the world - founded in 1802. It continues today and is still in the Fortune Fifty (F-50) and is one of the Dow Jones firms that tell us where the stock market is. Pretty remarkable. No other firm on the Dow Jones can trace itself back that far. More remarkable still is that DuPont is a "green" company whose corporate policy is environmentally conscious. Kermit may have lamented, "it's not easy being green," but DuPont is doing something about their impact on the environment.

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