Scott Berkun's Blog, page 99

What should I write about next? Place your vote!

I'm really digging this system of having you folks submit and vote on topics.

My rough plan is I'll pick the top voted topic every Wednesday, so it's not too late to help select this week's topic.

Head over here to vote or submit something.

On God and Integrity

When I was a kid I watched my team, the NY Giants, hold on to a short lead in the closing minutes of Superbowl XXV back in 1991. They were up by 1 point, and with 8 seconds left the Bills had a chance to win the game by kicking a field goal. It's an awful feeling to have your fate, or your team's, so clearly in the hands of your competitor.

Those long moments waiting for the kick were horrible – but something happened that made it much worse.  In the seconds before the Bills kicked the ball...

When visualizations go wrong, part 2

Here's part 2 of my continuing series of visualizations gone wrong (part 1 was about a viz on web browser market share).

The idea of metaphor is a good one. It's one of the oldest communication tools we have. It's clever and wise to use something people understand to help explain something they don't.

There's even a good argument to be made that much of all learning is done through some kind of metaphor.

But using any metaphor at all, or a well known one from a context that is unknown or feared ...

Improved images in Confessions

There was a minor issue in the first print run of Confessions. The in-line photographs of the book, of which there were about 25,  looked a bit dim, with not nearly enough contrast.

O'Reilly has fixed this in the 2nd print run, which is what has been selling on amazon for at least the last two weeks (And in fact, as I understand, the book is on it's third printing).

You can see the difference in photo quality in the picture below:

Just fyi: All of the signed copies Powell's is currently selling ...

Live chat at UW, next Friday 12pm PST

My friend Kathy Gill, who hosts a regular live web show at the University of Washington Digital Media department, is having me on next Friday at 12pm PST. Here are the details:

Emerging with Scott Berkun

Friday, January 15, 2010 at 12:00 PM, PST

In the third installment of our Emerging series, MCDM's own Kathy Gill will talk with Scott Berkun about technology and public speaking, the challenges of Twitter for speakers, and how clear thinking and communication is at the heart of today's economy.

S...

Signed edition of Confessions now for sale

Powell's books, where I'm speaking tonight, is selling signed copies of Confessions of a Public Speaker.

Very cool – people ask me all the time for this, but there's no easy way for me to sign/sell books. Well, now thanks to Powell's you can get one shipped to you if you want.

Confessions of a Public Speaker Signed edition – From Powells

Why do big companies suck?

(Note: In a new series of posts, now called reader's choice, I'll write about whatever people submit and vote for.  If you dig this, let me know if the comments, and submit your ideas and votes).

Before thinking about companies, it's worth noticing that many things suck. For movies, books, websites, the bar is pretty damn low. Suckage is everywhere. And this is true regardless of size – many small companies suck and medium ones too.  The real question then is why, if at all, do big companies s...

Portland: Speaking Wed & Thursday, this week

I'll in Portland tonight thru Thursday, speaking at a few places.

Here's the rundown:

Wed: I'll be on AM Northwest, 9am (Channel 2)
Wed: At CHIFOO, 7pm  ($5 if you're not a chifoo member, free if you are)
Thursday: At Powells Technical bookstore, 7pm – If we have a big crowd I'll do a short talk, otherwise super informal. I'll answer any questions you care to bring, and sign books.

Hope to see you. Help spread the word if you know other locals!

Wednesday linkfest

Here are this week's links:

Terrorism on airlines is overstated - In a simple argument of reality vs. perception, terrorism on airplanes, even if there was an event every month, are so small in the spectrum of fatalities as not to warrant the dramatic attention and worry people seem to have.  If these numbers are right (which I can't verify), one incident per 16,553,385 departures, even if there were 10x more terrorist incidents it'd still be a ridiculously small number.Tyler Durden's rules...

What should I write about? You decide!

If you haven't noticed, I've been writing about a wider and wider range of things. This is no accident. My ambitions with books and the blog are wide. I'll always be writing about pm, design and innovation things, but will always be writing about wider things too.

But I've failed to involve you guys in the process as much as I'd like, which I'm fixing now.

I put together a list of old requests from blog comments and emails, and found a little tool called slinkset that lets anyone vote, and...