March 21st, 2006 by 
alameda
Yet another article about websites and how to make them more effective for your business.
Search Engine Marketing and Website Content focuses on content rather than formatting and uesability.
However, there are some items that could use translation for folks who know their business - updating the website is something they do when the doors close and the customers have gone to bed.
- your overall keyword density on each page - assumes that you know you need to associate keywords with a page. IN the text on the page, it is a good idea to use words and phrases related to the page topic. Most page creation tools allow you to add keywords or meta data to individual pages. These aren’t visible to site visitors but they help search engines categorize your pages. More keywords aren’t necessarily better, but concentrating on a single topic is. If the keywords focus on a particular topic, the search engines may determine that your page is particularly relevant to that topic.
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March 20th, 2006 by alameda
Gene Bellinger writes an interesting article Change Management - The Columbo Theory which includes this quote about managing change. This has significant implications for collaborative writing and active learning.
It depends on whether one can integrate self and other to create selfless. It depends on whether one can integrate dependent and independent to create interdependent. It depends on whether one can develop a sense of self and self-awareness which is independent of the event, and establish an intent, as Senge and Fritz put it, for the pursuit of truth. Not my truth, or your truth, but more of an appropriate truth.
There is a link to another article entitled It depends that covers a lot of reseach and theory on modeling, simulations and learning, especially within organizations and “systems.”
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March 20th, 2006 by alameda
A Reading List for Aspiring Knowledge Workers
Jim McGee’s Musings
http://www.mcgeesmusings.net/2006/02/27.html#a4734
This is somewhat esoteric, but I want to learn more about learning. Better to make a note now, when the information is offered, rather than searching for it later when I’m ready to dig in.
comments from Stephen Downes OLDaily
OK, this is probably a pretty good list, but I would approach a reading list for knowledge workers very differently. For example, knowledge workers should be familiar with Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature, Wittgenstein’s On Certainty and Polanyi’s Personal Knowledge. Throw in some Feyerabend and Lakatos to taste. Add Minsky’s Society of Mind. Ronald Giere’s Understanding Scientific Reasoning. Blend with Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation and Patrick Watson’s Struggle for Democracy. Mix in William Gibson’s Neuromancer, John Varley’s Steel Beach, and Ursula LeGuin’s Always Coming Home. Finish with John Staurt Mill’s On Liberty. Never read directly into a subject - read around the subject, and then let your intuition guide you through the details. It will, you know.
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March 20th, 2006 by alameda
Mark Daoust says
“ugliness has never looked better… ugly websites are surprisingly effective in making money. As a person who puts business before technology, a profitable website is an unbelievably attractive website to me.”
Case in point. Plenty of Fish may not be drop-dead gorgeous as sites go, but the subject - ad-supported free dating, has a huge appeal. $10,000 per day isn’t too shabby. Hey, whatever works!
There are two general rules that you must keep in mind when building your website: 1) What type of message will resonate with my visitors, and 2) Is the site easy to use?
Also on his list of ugly-but-wildly-effective sites.
I’m not so sure I would go so far as to call them “ugly” (except maybe Drudge Report) but they are rather “plain.” Anyway, you get the idea. However, there are plenty of really attractive, functional sites. Sites can be astheticly pleasing and functional.
Websites, like any other marketing tool, convey a message and are an invitation for visitors to trust us. Our design needs to reflect this.
Great advice for any business, large or small.
Learn more…
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