Bristol based digital chap who thinks about great web and mobile design as well as film, tech, world domination and cats.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Scheduling idea
If you run a master schedule I've found it's useful to add enough detail that you know what that person is doing. i.e. Project - interface designs. It's also useful to note the time e.g. 7 hours, AND how much time remaining e.g. 1st day of 3, 2nd day of 3, etc.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Difference between task and activity
It may seem a subtle difference but I wanted to know what that difference was when I saw a project costed with two columns, 1 for task and 1 for activity. The best explanation comes from: http://www.english-test.net/forum/ftopic9495.html
“generally, as I think, 'activity' has a wider sense.
Activity can consist of tasks.”
“It also may depend on the context field. This from psychological research:
"The distinction task vs. activity is particularly relevant to
task analysis and usability evaluation. A reliable measure
of the distance between what is prescribed (task) and what
is actually performed (activity) could lead to refinements
in the task model and (re)design decisions."”
Google breaks down the barriers (and earns a buck?)
Google helps the web to go social
Maggie Shiels
Technology reporter BBC News Silicon Valley
Friend Connect is Google's new offering
Google has joined the drive to make the web more social by introducing tools to enable people to interact with their friends.
Friend Connect follows plans announced last week by the world's two biggest social networking sites, MySpace and Facebook.
Data Availability and Connect let users move their personal profiles and applications to other websites.
"Social is in the air," says Google's director of engineering David Glazer.
During a conference call at Google's California headquarters, Mr Glazer told reporters: "Google Friend Connect is about being the 'long tail' of sites becoming more social."
"Many sites aren't explicitly social and don't necessarily want to be social networks, but they still benefit from letting their visitors interact with each other. That used to be hard."
Charlene Li, principal analyst at Forrester, told BBC News: "Google is tapping into the 'all things social' heat of the moment, but it's adding a different perspective, not as a data source and social network 'owner' but as an enabler."
Gamut of uses
At the heart of Google's service is the use of Open Social which will allow third parties to build and develop applications for the site.
Social networking is going mainstream
David Glazer
Google
The company says with Friend Connect, any website owner can add a snippet of code to his or her site and get social features up and running right away without any complicated programming. This will run the gamut from invitations to member's gallery and from message walls to reviews.
In an example of how it will all work, Google cited fans of independent musician Ingrid Michaelson who can now connect with other fans without having to leave the site.
Visitors will be able to see comments by friends from their social networks, add music to their profiles and see who is attending concerts all at Ingrid's website.
"Social networking is going mainstream. It used to be proprietary, but now it's going to be open and baked into the infrastructure of the net, not just one site or one source," says Mr Glazer.
Walled garden
MySpace was first out of the gate when it announced plans last Thursday to loosen its grip on the estimated 200 million personal profiles its users store on its site.
Data Availability will allow members to share select information with four partners, Yahoo. PhotoBucket, Twitter and eBay.
Google doesn't do anything without thinking about... how can it benefit Google
Charlene Li
Principal analyst, Forrester
Essentially the user will still be tied to MySpace which aims to put itself at the centre of the web by encouraging users to store all of their core data at the site to begin with.
One day later Facebook entered the fray with a service called Connect.
With its 70 million users worldwide, their plans differ from MySpace by allowing users to take their personal profiles to any website that wants to host them and not just the sites that have partnered up.
So what's driving this move to dismantle the so-called "walled garden" where social networking sites have jealously guarded their users profiles?
Charlene Li, principal analyst at Forrester told BBC News in the end it all comes down to money.
"It's a smart move by Google which is trying to play the role of United Nations secretary general by making sure everyone talks nicely to one another, getting the data to where they want to move it back and forward, and participate in open standards.
"Remember Google doesn't do anything without thinking about, not only how can this benefit the larger community, but how can it benefit Google."
As 99% of sites are not currently socially enabled, Friend Connect has a big potential market in front of it and Ms Li says the route to all things profitable in this space will be through tapping into "the deep profit and user data flowing through Friend Connect."
In other words, mining that information through advertising.
Google is being cautious about approving sites to use the new code and is creating a waiting list for requests to use Friend Connect. It says it expects to give the go ahead to a few dozens sites in the next few days.
As to opening out to a wider audience, Google says it estimates that will happen over the coming months.
Meanwhile MySpace and Facebook anticipate rolling out their offerings over the next few weeks.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7397470.stm
Maggie Shiels
Technology reporter BBC News Silicon Valley
Friend Connect is Google's new offering
Google has joined the drive to make the web more social by introducing tools to enable people to interact with their friends.
Friend Connect follows plans announced last week by the world's two biggest social networking sites, MySpace and Facebook.
Data Availability and Connect let users move their personal profiles and applications to other websites.
"Social is in the air," says Google's director of engineering David Glazer.
During a conference call at Google's California headquarters, Mr Glazer told reporters: "Google Friend Connect is about being the 'long tail' of sites becoming more social."
"Many sites aren't explicitly social and don't necessarily want to be social networks, but they still benefit from letting their visitors interact with each other. That used to be hard."
Charlene Li, principal analyst at Forrester, told BBC News: "Google is tapping into the 'all things social' heat of the moment, but it's adding a different perspective, not as a data source and social network 'owner' but as an enabler."
Gamut of uses
At the heart of Google's service is the use of Open Social which will allow third parties to build and develop applications for the site.
Social networking is going mainstream
David Glazer
The company says with Friend Connect, any website owner can add a snippet of code to his or her site and get social features up and running right away without any complicated programming. This will run the gamut from invitations to member's gallery and from message walls to reviews.
In an example of how it will all work, Google cited fans of independent musician Ingrid Michaelson who can now connect with other fans without having to leave the site.
Visitors will be able to see comments by friends from their social networks, add music to their profiles and see who is attending concerts all at Ingrid's website.
"Social networking is going mainstream. It used to be proprietary, but now it's going to be open and baked into the infrastructure of the net, not just one site or one source," says Mr Glazer.
Walled garden
MySpace was first out of the gate when it announced plans last Thursday to loosen its grip on the estimated 200 million personal profiles its users store on its site.
Data Availability will allow members to share select information with four partners, Yahoo. PhotoBucket, Twitter and eBay.
Google doesn't do anything without thinking about... how can it benefit Google
Charlene Li
Principal analyst, Forrester
Essentially the user will still be tied to MySpace which aims to put itself at the centre of the web by encouraging users to store all of their core data at the site to begin with.
One day later Facebook entered the fray with a service called Connect.
With its 70 million users worldwide, their plans differ from MySpace by allowing users to take their personal profiles to any website that wants to host them and not just the sites that have partnered up.
So what's driving this move to dismantle the so-called "walled garden" where social networking sites have jealously guarded their users profiles?
Charlene Li, principal analyst at Forrester told BBC News in the end it all comes down to money.
"It's a smart move by Google which is trying to play the role of United Nations secretary general by making sure everyone talks nicely to one another, getting the data to where they want to move it back and forward, and participate in open standards.
"Remember Google doesn't do anything without thinking about, not only how can this benefit the larger community, but how can it benefit Google."
As 99% of sites are not currently socially enabled, Friend Connect has a big potential market in front of it and Ms Li says the route to all things profitable in this space will be through tapping into "the deep profit and user data flowing through Friend Connect."
In other words, mining that information through advertising.
Google is being cautious about approving sites to use the new code and is creating a waiting list for requests to use Friend Connect. It says it expects to give the go ahead to a few dozens sites in the next few days.
As to opening out to a wider audience, Google says it estimates that will happen over the coming months.
Meanwhile MySpace and Facebook anticipate rolling out their offerings over the next few weeks.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7397470.stm
Monday, May 12, 2008
Blogger
I’m really loving Blogger,
Did you know you can set it up so that you can send posts to an e-mail address and it’ll post these up for you?
Wow!
MoSCoW
I've given myself an aim of learning something new everyday. Today I'm posting about MoSCoW
MoSCoW is a method that is used in business and particularly in software development to get an understanding with the customer on the importance they place on the delivery of each functional requirement. It originated as part of the Dynamic Systems Development Method. Sometimes called a MoSCoW list or a MOSCOW Analysis. MoSCoW stands for:
M - MUST have this.
S - SHOULD have this if at all possible.
C - COULD have this if it does not affect anything else.
W - WON'T have this time but WOULD like in the future.
(Source wikipedia)
Just to confirm, a must priority is a showstopper, a project failure if not executed.
“Must
Anything labelled as “MUST” has to be included in the project delivery timebox in order for it to be a success. If even one “MUST” item is not included, the project delivery is considered a failure. “MUST” is also an acronym for the Minimum Usable SubseT” from wikipedia.
To put this in context if we take one of the items, RSS feeds, its reading if BCC cannot offer RSS feeds of community users’ blogs, you view the project will have failed.
The MoSCoW prioritisation process is to weight the requirments to assist in executing the project. It would be great if we could have a chat and go through these. Mainly need to get a bit more balance across the prioritisation.
(source - wikipedia and someone I work with)
MoSCoW is a method that is used in business and particularly in software development to get an understanding with the customer on the importance they place on the delivery of each functional requirement. It originated as part of the Dynamic Systems Development Method. Sometimes called a MoSCoW list or a MOSCOW Analysis. MoSCoW stands for:
M - MUST have this.
S - SHOULD have this if at all possible.
C - COULD have this if it does not affect anything else.
W - WON'T have this time but WOULD like in the future.
(Source wikipedia)
Just to confirm, a must priority is a showstopper, a project failure if not executed.
“Must
Anything labelled as “MUST” has to be included in the project delivery timebox in order for it to be a success. If even one “MUST” item is not included, the project delivery is considered a failure. “MUST” is also an acronym for the Minimum Usable SubseT” from wikipedia.
To put this in context if we take one of the items, RSS feeds, its reading if BCC cannot offer RSS feeds of community users’ blogs, you view the project will have failed.
The MoSCoW prioritisation process is to weight the requirments to assist in executing the project. It would be great if we could have a chat and go through these. Mainly need to get a bit more balance across the prioritisation.
(source - wikipedia and someone I work with)
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Six Career Tips To Help You Grow
This has really helped me think:
Six Career Tips To Help You Grow________________________________________
Learn something new every day
When I was a lowly intern right out of college doing grunt work IT application clean up and light UI design, I asked harassed, my dear colleagues to teach me something every single day. They thought I was bright-eyed, cute, and naive and I ended up learning a little about each of the web developers, system integrators, project managers, web managers, web architects, computer support teams. Bit by bit, I soaked in each little morsal about web in the enterprise and it fueled me to learn more. Leo Cheng, Jason Martorano, Oliver Cheng, Dave Giffen, John Perera, Kunal Malik, Jeff Cavano, Aileen Cheng, Robert Cartelli were so good to me, thanks guys.
Often, the fastest way Up is Out
Often, the fastest way up, for those who enjoy working in companies, is out. In most cases, incremental raises are often single digit changes (keeping you above the inflation waterline), and the occasional promotion will be low double digits. For those that I’ve met and move to new job positions, outside of their company they can often expect a 20%-40% increase in salary as they join a new company. It’s interesting to see that firms may value outside talent as more important than inside experience talent, in some cases, a fresh skillset or experience may be what’s needed.
Reverse engineer the job you want
Another useful tip is to reverse engineer the position that you desire to be in. Earlier in my career, I aspired to be a web manager, so I took job descriptions of web strategists and looked at all the skills and experiences needed. I printed out the job description (circled the salary) and taped it to my bathroom mirror, I saw it every morning and night, a double dose of self-reflection. Over time, you start to piece together the projects, programs, and apply new skills to learn how to do this. With time and perseverance, your resume will catch up to where you want to go.
Education matters, but not as much as you thought
For very specialized jobs, where in school training is essential (law, medicine, sometimes programming) this bullet doesn’t apply to you. More and more executives I meet have degrees in something they didn’t study in school for. For most jobs, they hire you because of what you can do for them, not what school you went to. There’s a reason why education falls to the bottom of the resume, and the ‘value statement’ is at the top, quickly followed by real world experience. Don’t get me wrong, education is very important, a bachelor degree is really expected in today’s workplace, but I often lean on the broad, theoretical knowledge I gained as a primer (or glossary) for me to dive in deeper in the business world.
You are a company of one
The other observation I share with my friend (and now you) is that you are a company of one. Even though your paycheck is being delivered through your employer, you are solely responsible for your direction, what you learn, how you perform, and how much you’re paid. I firmly believe that you are paid what you’re worth, so when I hear people complaining “they are underpaid”, in my mind, I translate that as you’ve “undersold yourself”, get skilled, spend time on weekends or early mornings to learn more, and apply new projects, programs and skills –or leave. Therefore, you are your own CEO, CMO, CFO, COO, CTO, you’re in control of your destiny. As you can tell, I don’t believe in fate, you are driving your ship of one.
Develop your plan, and put it in writing
If you’re with me so far, develop your own plan, both short term and long term plans, and set goals on how to reach them. Often, these goals don’t have titles or companies in them, but they describe the environment, or the end outcomes of which you want to reach. Over time these goals will change, and that’s ok, but at least you’re looking forward. I learned this from my buddy’s dad when I was growing up, he had several businesses, and one of his dreams was to have a Ferrari –he achieved it.
Source: unknown
Six Career Tips To Help You Grow________________________________________
Learn something new every day
When I was a lowly intern right out of college doing grunt work IT application clean up and light UI design, I asked harassed, my dear colleagues to teach me something every single day. They thought I was bright-eyed, cute, and naive and I ended up learning a little about each of the web developers, system integrators, project managers, web managers, web architects, computer support teams. Bit by bit, I soaked in each little morsal about web in the enterprise and it fueled me to learn more. Leo Cheng, Jason Martorano, Oliver Cheng, Dave Giffen, John Perera, Kunal Malik, Jeff Cavano, Aileen Cheng, Robert Cartelli were so good to me, thanks guys.
Often, the fastest way Up is Out
Often, the fastest way up, for those who enjoy working in companies, is out. In most cases, incremental raises are often single digit changes (keeping you above the inflation waterline), and the occasional promotion will be low double digits. For those that I’ve met and move to new job positions, outside of their company they can often expect a 20%-40% increase in salary as they join a new company. It’s interesting to see that firms may value outside talent as more important than inside experience talent, in some cases, a fresh skillset or experience may be what’s needed.
Reverse engineer the job you want
Another useful tip is to reverse engineer the position that you desire to be in. Earlier in my career, I aspired to be a web manager, so I took job descriptions of web strategists and looked at all the skills and experiences needed. I printed out the job description (circled the salary) and taped it to my bathroom mirror, I saw it every morning and night, a double dose of self-reflection. Over time, you start to piece together the projects, programs, and apply new skills to learn how to do this. With time and perseverance, your resume will catch up to where you want to go.
Education matters, but not as much as you thought
For very specialized jobs, where in school training is essential (law, medicine, sometimes programming) this bullet doesn’t apply to you. More and more executives I meet have degrees in something they didn’t study in school for. For most jobs, they hire you because of what you can do for them, not what school you went to. There’s a reason why education falls to the bottom of the resume, and the ‘value statement’ is at the top, quickly followed by real world experience. Don’t get me wrong, education is very important, a bachelor degree is really expected in today’s workplace, but I often lean on the broad, theoretical knowledge I gained as a primer (or glossary) for me to dive in deeper in the business world.
You are a company of one
The other observation I share with my friend (and now you) is that you are a company of one. Even though your paycheck is being delivered through your employer, you are solely responsible for your direction, what you learn, how you perform, and how much you’re paid. I firmly believe that you are paid what you’re worth, so when I hear people complaining “they are underpaid”, in my mind, I translate that as you’ve “undersold yourself”, get skilled, spend time on weekends or early mornings to learn more, and apply new projects, programs and skills –or leave. Therefore, you are your own CEO, CMO, CFO, COO, CTO, you’re in control of your destiny. As you can tell, I don’t believe in fate, you are driving your ship of one.
Develop your plan, and put it in writing
If you’re with me so far, develop your own plan, both short term and long term plans, and set goals on how to reach them. Often, these goals don’t have titles or companies in them, but they describe the environment, or the end outcomes of which you want to reach. Over time these goals will change, and that’s ok, but at least you’re looking forward. I learned this from my buddy’s dad when I was growing up, he had several businesses, and one of his dreams was to have a Ferrari –he achieved it.
Source: unknown
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