Posts Tagged ‘Clay Shirky’

  • A rant about how society recognize talent

    Clay Shirky’s “rant about women” has been on my mind this weekend. Although the blog post is intended to advice women on how to become more successful, there’s something about it that made me feel very uneasy.

    Clay’s rant about women begins with his former male student’s request for a recommendation. Clay asks the student to write down what he thinks Clay should say about him. The student returns with his draft peppered with praise, which Clay then tones down a notch “…so that it sounds like it’s coming from a person and not a PR department” before sending it off.

    Right. If you ask me, this whole practice of writing your own letter of recommendation is dodgy, but that’s entirely another discussion.

    Having signed the letter, Clay is left feeling annoyed. The interesting bit is that he’s not annoyed at himself for getting into this situation, or the student in question for being cheeky – no, he’s upset at us women.

    Hang on. “What have we done to get the pointy finger?” I thought to myself reading this. Apparently it is not what we’ve done, it’s what we haven’t done, or will not do. Women, he says, would never write a letter overstating their abilities. And that’s because… Read full post

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    Elin Sjursen By Elin

    18th January 10

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     opinion

  • The social web: together we can be perfect(ish)

    Isaac’s been known to repeat the maxim ‘We demand perfection!’ when collaborating with our CSS Ninja, Sarah, on projects. Now, whilst visual perfection is something we strive for at MxM, we also strive for maximum engagement with our users. So I was interested to see this mini-interview with Clay Shirky who espouses a bit of rough to make sites that require interaction more friendly.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjiXevb11Rk

    Basically, he’s saying that if something looks too perfect (like a kitchen fit for a magazine shoot), people won’t touch it. This is why the sites we’ve designed recently (and in the past) put people and activity to the fore.

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    Charlotte Hillenbrand By Charlotte Hillenbrand

    9th October 08

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     Social Web

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