MINDSPACE Behavioural Economics Update: Professor Cass Sunstein, co-author of Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness, will speak at the Institute for Government on 22 March 2013. Background New insights from science and behaviour change could lead to significantly improved outcomes, and at a lower cost, than the way many conventional policy tools are used. MINDSPACE: Influencing behaviour through public policy was published by the Institute for Government and the Cabinet Office on 2 March 2010. The report explores how behaviour change theory can help meet current policy challenges, such as how to: reduce crime tackle obesity ensure environmental sustainability. Today's policy makers are in the business of influencing behaviour - they need to understand the effects their policies may be having. Blogs MINDSPACE grows up – behavioural economics in government Reaction "brilliant" - Sir Gus O'Donnell, Cabinet Secretary "this is the best report of its kind - it is reflective and practical at the same time.
Web 2.0 is so over. Welcome to Web 3.0 - Jan. 8, 2009 (Fortune Magazine) -- Financially speaking, Web 2.0 has been a total bust. Social-networking companies such as MySpace and Facebook have loyal fan bases, but they're not exactly minting money. MySpace's projected $600 million revenue in 2008 falls far short of parent News Corp.'s (NWS, Fortune 500) billion-dollar sales target for the site. Messaging service Twitter has no business model. Video-sharing site YouTube was the only big sale; Google paid $1.65 billion for it two years ago but still hasn't figured out how to make much money off it. Social media's champions hoped 2008 would be a watershed year for Web 2.0. One reason is that the economic climate for today's web startups is a lot chillier than it was during the first dot-com frenzy. Not that being bought is a panacea for social-networking firms. Fact is, when you're looking at photos from last night's holiday party on Facebook, you're probably ignoring that teeth-whitening ad.
Anatomy of a Web Design Client Share this infographic on your site! <a href=" src=" alt="Anatomy of a Web Design Client" width="500" border="0" /></a><br />From: <a href=" Web Design Schools</a> Embed this infographic on your site! <a href=" src=" alt="Anatomy of a Web Design Client" width="500" border="0" /></a><br />From: <a href=" Anatomy of a Web Design Client We've all dealt with the typical web design client. Every business needs a website if they want to remain relevant which is why, in today's Internet drive world, the skill of web design and development is highly coveted. Here's how we perceive the world of web design clients: I Love This!
July 2012 Looking at this Datameer infographic, posted by GigaOm’s Derrick Harris: Who’s connected to whom in Hadoop world, I was trying to remember if I had ever seen such a neat, balanced ecosystem map. With 20 years in the software industry, I have seen my share of vendor ecosystems, and more often than not, participated into them as a partner, since I have always worked for small(er) vendors. Some ISV partner programs were really good (Powersoft’s CODE partner immediately comes to mind), some were designed to pretend as if partners mattered – for example when time came to sell sponsorships to an annual conference. All these partner programs had one common point: they were host-vendor-centric: they were designed to revolve around the primary vendor, for which complementary technology was available. The typical graphical representation would be concentric circles, with the primary vendor in the center. Enters open source – and one specific open source project that changes it all: Hadoop. Yves
Semantic Web The promise of web standards W3C standards define an open web platform for application development. The web has the unprecedented potential to enable developers to build rich interactive experiences, that can be available on any device. The platform continues to expand, but web users have long ago rallied around HTML as the cornerstone of the web. Read more about W3C Standards Why W3C web standards? W3C publishes recommendations, that are considered web standards. W3C develops technical specifications according to the W3C Process, which is designed to maximize consensus, ensure quality, earn endorsement and adoption by W3C Members and the broader community. W3C web standards are optimized for interoperability, security, privacy, web accessibility, and internationalization. W3C's proven web standards process is based on fairness, openness, royalty-free, we make the web work, for everyone. Value of creating standards at W3C Wide array of applications
15 sites web developers and designers should know Creating a good website isn't an easy task, but there's a few tools that can definitely make your developer or designer life easier. In this article, I have compiled 15 extremely useful website that any web developer or web designer should have bookmarked. ColorCombos When designing a website, one of the firsts (and most important) steps of the process is to choose a color scheme. LIpsum Who doesn’t know the extremely popular Lorem Ipsum text? What the font? You just saw a logo or website using a particular font and you enjoyed it. ConvertIcon Favicons are a must have for any website, mostly because on modern browsers as such as Firefox, it is displayed along with the site name in tabs. BgPatterns background Patterns is definitely one of the current webdesign trends. HTML Encoder Do you display code on your website? Test Everything Sprite Generator CSS Sprites is definitely a great technique to use, mainly because it reduces the number of HTTP requests. Load Impact IconFinder TypeTester CSS Tidy
The Manager's Role in Agile What role does management play in the agile world of self-organizing teams? What is the function of managers in this new world? What does an agile organization need from its management team? Where should the agile manager focus their efforts for greatest benefit? In a general sense, an agile manager is responsible for the “gray area” surrounding agile teams and throughout the organization. This gray area can be divided into three large categories: managing teams, managing investments, and managing the organization’s environment. Managing Teams Agile team management Resource management Performance managementManaging Investments Managing through metrics and reporting Agile portfolio managementManaging the Environment Internal partner management Supplier managemend and outsourcingMeta-Competency Organizational change Perhaps unsurprisingly, the competencies are not revolutionary. Managing Teams: Self Organization Meets Leadership Intelligence Agile Team Management Resource Management
French Election Watchers Protest Information Ban on Twitter With the thousands of references to "flan," "tomato" and the weather in Budapest, Hungary, that took place on French social media over the weekend, one might think France was overcome with excitement about a cooking expo in Central Europe. The truth? French election watchers were using code words to report early voting results in the country's presidential election, bypassing a national law that bans disclosing results before 8 p.m. on election days, according to The New York Times. Many Twitter users considered the online reporting an act of protest against the blackout law. #RadioLondres “@aurelmondon: In French Island Saint Pierre & Miquelon #Sarkozy (23%) is behind Hollande (30%) and #MELENCHON (24%)”— Fabien (@Menilmuche) April 22, 2012 Le Flan est périmé , je répète , le flan est périmé #radiolondres— Le chêne 90 (@Lechene90) April 23, 2012 The results came from media outlets outside France, who are outside the jurisdiction of French law. Image courtesy of the Government of France
Mapping Science During the month of June of the year 1812, at the border between Russia and Poland, a group of men begin a singular march. It is the Grande Armée of Napoleon Bonaparte. Their goal is to invade Russia — a task for which 422,000 men have been summoned. It will be a futile effort, however. Utter destruction will come to them during the last months of the year. Fifty-seven years later, while in his eighties, a French civil engineer who has enjoyed studying streams and physics, and drawing maps of economic phenomena, will shift his interest to historical subjects. Charles Joseph Minard will depict the soldiers’ travesty in a single map one that has become irrevocably linked to Bonaparte’s march, and in its own way, just as iconic. Overlaid on the map of Russia, a brown band represents the diminishing size of Napoleon’s forces as the army moved up and down the latitude and longitudes of the vast country. A flowmap of Napoleon’s 1812 March to Russia by Charles Joseph Minard (1869).