Is Your Business Useless? - Umair Haque - HarvardBusiness.org
I think pop culture has wrecked business writing
8x8 | Kris Lane
“ Gargamel. Gargamel isn’t really a supervillain — just an evil old dude with the ability to create magic potions. He wants to destroy the Smurfs because he thinks he knows how to run a better Smurf society. Sound familiar? It’s the economic equivalent of financial engineering. Private equity funds are textbook examples: their magic potions never seem to work very well. Though the companies they run may benefit in the near-term, eventually, they run iconic companies into the ground. ”
“ Somewhere along the way on the web, a lot of designers and developers have abandoned common courtesy for condescending quips that drip with pride and ignorance. And these sorts of unsolicited designs, apart from their accompanying snarky commentary, would be interesting cases studies in what young designers think up, apart from the external factors affecting large sites. However, with the attitude they’re currently wrapped in, it’s hard to separate the message from the messenger. ”
“Do not adjust your mind. There is a fault in reality.”
CHOP CUP on Vimeo (via Vimeo)
It’s Color Theory, Charlie Brown!
A little mini brush-up on color theory and its uses in animation, by way of Bill Melendez’ beloved 1966 TV special It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown: this essay, written by L.A.-based animator Justin Hilden, contains a scene-by-scene analysis of the use of color on the special, focusing particularly on its emotional and dramatic effects.
“ Don’t get stuck like the schoolboy, endlessly practicing grammar and learning vocabulary, but never writing a poem, a play, or a novel. ”
I have a crush on Jonathan Harris
Ever since his observation on the emptiness of flash experimentation vs idea generation (and Harris’ response) at Flash on the Beach, I generate my own internal angst by benchmarking both ideas and the work against my own past experiments and Harris’ benchmarks. I still haven’t succeeded, and not sure i will, but i shall die trying.
Now his essay snippets from World Building in a Crazy World bring a lot of perspective to the constant reblogging, retweeting vacuous environment which we co-exist with.
Most online experiences are made, like fast food, to be cheap, easy, and addictive: appealing to our hunger for connection but rarely serving up nourishment. Shrink-wrapped junk food experiences are handed to us for free by social media companies, and we swallow them up eagerly, like kids given buckets of candy with ads on all the wrappers.
These experiences are sensitive neither to individual humans nor to the human collective, but only to page views and growth (in a corporate, not personal sense).
Our Digital Crisis - Jonathan Harris
There are a lot of salient points contained within all of the mini essays and I find parallels with Matt Jones ideas behind the Get Excited and Make Things
