I like that the UMich School of Information has a very simple graphic that tells you which classes you need to take for each Master’s-level specialization, like this one. Compare with my general requirements as an Emory undergrad. Granted, I’m comparing a more specific 2-year program to a more flexible 4-year one, but the UMich image is so much easier to understand quickly. It’s good to show the information in multiple forms, catering to those who want to read everything and those who just want a quick-and-dirty introduction.
Category: business
You Thought We Wouldn’t Notice tracks art/design plagiarism. Though I’m not a copyright hound, I love this kind of “community standards” work to point out the offenders.
Gangs are now actively recruiting and educating people for cyber crime. I suppose we can call this Crime 2.0.
In praise of chain stores. “They increase local variety, even as they reduce the differences from place to place. People who mostly stay put get to have experiences once available only to frequent travelers, and this loss of exclusivity is one reason why frequent travelers are the ones who complain.”
Best Buy is de-structuring its corporate work policies. The spin:
The endeavor, called ROWE, for “results-only work environment,” seeks to demolish decades-old business dogma that equates physical presence with productivity. The goal at Best Buy is to judge performance on output instead of hours… There are no schedules. No mandatory meetings. No impression-management hustles. Work is no longer a place where you go, but something you do.
Pretty cool. The long-term goal is to take this flexibility all the way down to the retail storefronts. Best Buy has even spun off a little consulting company, CultureRx, to help other companies make the same changes. I hope it works out for them. I suspect a good bit of this shift is generational. Younger workers want more breathing room. And its better to take a little risk to stay ahead of the curve when they’ve got Wal-Mart and Target hot on their heels.
The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture, and Coolness (review: 3.5/5)
Stephen Levy’s very readable story of the obscenely popular iPod came just after I bought my new computer, and served a welcome distraction as I imported all my music. As an interesting publishing twist on the ‘shuffle’ idea, various editions of this book have the self-contained chapters (with titles like “Cool” and “Apple” and “Personal”) re-arranged in different orders, sandwiched between the intro and the coda. Kind of cool.
Luckily, this book is more biography than love letter. There’s a lot of industry history, delving into early portable music hits like Sony’s Walkman, a bit of the sordid history of the music publishing industry in the midst of the mp3 revolution, insider perspectives on Apple’s development process, whether or not shuffle mode is really random, and so on.
And of course, there’s a lot about infatuation with the iPod itself. Levy cites Virginia Postrel’s book on industrial design:
Having spent a century or more focused primarily on other goals–solving manufacturing problems, lowering costs, making goods and services widely available, saving energy–we are increasingly engaged in making our world special. More people in more aspects of life are drawing pleasure and meaning from he way their persons, places, and things look and feel.
Thank you, Capitalism. Of course, recognizing that progress is one of the reasons the iPod is so successful amid products with better specs. “More” isn’t always more. It’s just a beautifully designed object that’s a joy to use, in the way we choose. As Levy says:
shuffle turns out to be the techna franca of the digital era–not just a feature on a gadget but an entire way of viewing the world, representing the power that comes from aggregating content from a variety of sources and playing it back in an order that render irrelevant the intended ordering by those who produced or first distributed the content.
Yes, we like control. More, please.
Here’s an interview about the beginnings of Flickr with its leaders Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield. [via stamatiou]
WPopac made an even bigger splash after winning a Mellon prize recently. WPopac (what’s an OPAC?), is a work-in-progress online library catalog that uses WordPress. There’s all sorts of potential for customer tagging, comments, RSS, trackback, relevant search. Good stuff.
CNN Money asked a number of notables, from Rachel Ray to Craig Newmark to Andre Agassi, for tips on how to succeed in 2007.
It looks like DC is about to make a serious move to attract teen females to graphic novels. DC does a generally good job with their mainstream comics, but I can only read superheroes for so long. I’m curious to see what they come up with.
No, you may not see my receipt
I thought it was funny to see this little essay on businesses that check receipts at the exit doors. I had a similar experience a while back. Honestly, I was kind of hoping I’d run into one of these situations so I could make a valiant little stand for consumers throughout the nation. This was the first time anyone had ever asked me. Anyway, so I was at Fry’s…
[Scene: I was buying some things for my home office [document trays, labeler, file folders, & other geekery]. I paid up, got my bag, and headed confidently towards the exit. As I approached the door, I saw a man with suit, tie, and badge, wielding a highlighter in his hand.]
Store Guy [approaching with a smile] Hello! I’ll just need to take a look at your receipt.
Mark [walking past, with bag in hand ] No, thanks! Have a good day, sir.
Store Guy [blank expression, then recovering] Excuse me!
M [slowing, turning] Yes?
SG [following, hand to ear] What was that?
M [paused at door] I’ve got my stuff. I’m heading out now.
SG [approaching, highlighter at the ready ] Excuse me?
M – I’m… leaving…
SG [standing face to face] You can’t leave without checking your receipt.
M [deftly wielding a keyword ] Are you detaining me?
SG [kerflummoxed] Ah, no… I just need to check your receipt.
M – No thanks.
SG – It’s store policy.
M – That’s Fry’s policy for everything?
SG – Yes, our store policy is to check every receipt.
M – Hm. [pause] No thanks, I’m going to head home. Have a good day, sir.
SG [blank stare]
[Mark exits.]
[Exeunt]
—
So I honestly felt bad about giving him a hard time. I try to go out of my way to be a Good Customer, and I hate to be the one to make this guy’s afternoon go sour. But darn it, someone has to stand up to these incursions, and I would gladly repeat it. Though perhaps not in the near future at the same store. What do you about it? Do you stop and let them check? Do you go on out the door?
10 Minute Mail is a service that gives you a temporary e-mail address. Could come in handy for those pesky online newspaper registrations or other confirmation protocols, but I wonder if it will just get blacklisted one day? BugMeNot offers another reliable way to get around those registration walls.
There are a several different flavors of Kettle Chips in beta right now. Yes, beta. You, too, can be one of the illustrious taste-testers for a mere $20. [via df]
Here’s a weekly rogues gallery for the world’s worst spammers. And here are the top 200 operations, accounting for about 4 of every 5 spam e-mails you get. “Spam gang.” That is so… weird. [via jb]
“The gethuman project is a consumer movement to improve the quality of phone support in the US.” Version 1.0 of their standard service requisites was published about a month ago, and also has some suggested “gold standards”.
ReputationDefender is a service “created to defend your and your family’s good name on the Internet.” The two-part goal is “to SEARCH out all information about you and/or your child on the Internet” and “to DESTROY, at your command, all inaccurate, inappropriate, hurtful, and slanderous information about you and/or your child using our proprietary in-house methodology.”
I’m just dying to know what the “proprietary in-house methodology” is. Looks like they have a few attorneys on staff… [via library stuff]
“I’m a 24-year-old aspiring real estate investor from Sacramento CA. After going to few seminars I bought 8 houses in 8 months across 4 states with no money down. I fixed and sold 2 and then ran out of cash. I am now facing foreclosure on 4 houses. I’m learning my lessons, finding solutions and blogging about it.”
–Says Vanity Fair, no one does late-night like the Russians…try clubbing in Moscow.
—“Advertising has forgotten how to be subtle”. [via ald]
—All about books in the bathroom. Is it “a symbolic way to replace whatÄôs lost through the act of voiding,” or more like “listening to music while youÄôre vacuuming”?[via pt.i]
Mark Larson 
