Stuff that’s been floating around the office – April 2009

Hey ho cheerio – it’s time for my list of links that have been making us at Made By Many go ‘ooh’, ‘ahh’, or ‘hmm’ lately. 

1. Cat Shit One Movie Trailer: As Isaac very succinctly put it, words fail us. 

2. How Innovations are trickling-up West: It isn’t always West-to-East. Innovation seems to be taking the reverse direction as well. This Fast Company article mentions a number of interesting examples from Nokia looking to launch a new free mobile classifieds service in Kenya, to Western banks looking to imbibe lessons from India’s ICICI Bank. A very good read. 

3. The Facebook generation vs. the Fortune 500: In the Wall Street Journal, Gary Hamel writes about the 12 key work-relevant characteristics of online life that future employees, specifically those from Generation Facebook, will use to assess whether your company is ‘with it’ or past the expiry date. Why is this important? Because, as Hamel says, 

If your company hopes to attract the most creative and energetic members of Gen F, it will need to understand these Internet-derived expectations, and then reinvent its management practices accordingly. Sure, it’s a buyer’s market for talent right now, but that won’t always be the case—and in the future, any company that lacks a vital core of Gen F employees will soon find itself stuck in the mud.

Don’t say we didn’t warn you. 

4. Academic Earth: Lectures from top scholars from around the world. Parents, start preparing your arguments for why kids need to go to college, if yours come up to you and say they’ll learn all they need from a site like this. 

5. Visualize Us: For the data visualization junkies, here’s a set of popular images across the web tagged with ‘infographics’. 

6. 100 Words on Digital Branding by Mike Arauz: My personal favourite is ‘Your competition on the internet is everything else on the internet’.

7. Where We Do What We Do: Take a look at other people’s offices. Workplace voyeurism is what I call it. 

8. How To Stay in Touch Internationally on the Cheap: The New York Times’ Frugal Traveler tells you how. 

9. April Fools’ Day on the Web: OK so April Fools’ Day has passed for this year, but bookmark this site so you’re not taken by surprise next year at least!

10. Omegle: The modern version of chat rooms or something – at least you’re ready for the random questions because you know up front you’re talking to a stranger. 

11. The 2009 Web Trend Map: Maps out the 333 most influential websites and 111 most influential people on the web. 

12. The latest Sprint ad: This one actually mentions (gasp!) Twitter! After all the ruckus around it on the web, here’s an ad that mentions it. Finally. Yeah, that’s supposed to elicit a laugh. The ad’s not bad altogether though. 

13. Yauba: The world’s first ‘privacy-safe, real-time search engine’. Their only answer to how they do that is that they ‘do not keep any personally identifiable information. Period.’

14. Legacy Locker: If you remember, a while ago we mentioned It’s A Wonderful Life. Legacy Locker goes a step further – it safeguards things like passwords so that all our digital data falls into the right hands when the (gulp!) time comes.

15. Zappos Shoe Sales Map: This map is really interesting to watch, but what will be even more important over time are the sales patterns it reveals by region. Potentially it has the power to do a lot for footwear style/trend companies.

16. Susan Boyle Fan Club: If you haven’t seen Susan Boyle wowing the UK with her performance on Britain’s Got Talent lately, you’re in a minority. ‘Wowing’ may be pushing it, I admit, since some people that dislike the gutsy Scotswoman’s performance do exist. (William, I’m looking at you). Anyway, we were amused to note that she’s already got a fan club – with it’s very own site, no less. 

17. The Art & Science of Seductive Interactions: Excellent presentation by Stephen Anderson on how to better user experience designers. 

18. Google News Timeline: Not terribly nice-looking, but still. 

19. Tweet Top: ‘The latest and greatest from Twitter people on popular topics’. Inspired by Alltop (there’s a disclaimer at the bottom of the site), but it really looks like one of those things that will soon be forgotten. I’ve lost track of most sites built using the Twitter API myself. 

20. Twitter as part of student curriculum: The Guardian reports that primary school students in England will soon be required to master Twitter and Wikipedia as part of the curriculum. Amusing at first glance, but perhaps not such a bad idea in the long run!