Aakash Barot

Inside TAO Education - Mondays

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 16:28:05 -0400

We believe learning is an integral part and everyone should keep learning continuously. Hence we started having ‘Monday Jazz’ A ted like session where we all get 15 minutes to talk on a topic, which is being selected individually from a pool of topics. This pool of topics are contributed from everyone in the team, the only catch is one can not select the topic suggested by oneself.

The idea to swap the process was to see how it works when you want to learn something, but instead of learning by self you expect someone else to teach / enlighten you.

It has been an interesting journey so far. Some sessions are interesting and eye opening and some are extremely boring. We cover topics from ‘future of learning’, ‘How does human mind learn’ to ‘illuminati’ to ‘Business lessons from Mahabharata’ (just to name a few) But all in all its quite useful and interesting.

Let me confess. The first line in this blog is a lie. We didnt started this monday jazz because we realized that learning is an integral part and all. We started these sessions because Mondays were really really boring. And we wanted to do something interesting and this just felt right. We have weekend before and this forces us to learn and prepare something to present all.

We have also tried couple of variations in this. Once we decided to work on moonshot. Which means everyone will think of any big problem in the world they will like to solve and how. Our next idea we are trying is a competition called ‘Nail a concept’. Since we are in education and we are working our assess off on understanding various and the best ways to teach a given concept from lower order to higher order and how to best segment different content, we decided that each one will pick up a concept and share / demonstrate the concept in a way that should give a feeling of ‘WOW’ / ‘AWE’ to the viewer. Its completely open, we can demonstrate outstanding content, assessment, Dissection, learning path, segmentation anything that can be or is being done in TAO.

So its a sunday night and tomorrow I need to present on some topic. I decided I wont sleep till I get something really outstanding, but I am not good in academics and I am really struggling to conclude something that will bring that ‘WOW’ or ‘AWE’ feeling.

And the worst part: Instead of putting my time in working on the concept, I am here writing this blog post, for no reason.

I think this is good enough realization that I should stop writing and go back to working on ‘Nail a concept’.

Thank you.

weandthecolor: Typography and Identity Design. The independent...

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 16:08:34 -0400

weandthecolor:

Typography and Identity Design.

The independent graphic design studio Manifesto Futura from Mexico created this simple and clean identity for Paterna, a carpenter workshop. For the logotype they developed this custom typeface that reflects simplicity.

More of the identity design on WE AND THE COLOR
WATC//Facebook//Twitter//Google+//Pinterest

uxrave: A shorthand for designing UI flows - From 37signals,...

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 16:07:07 -0400

uxrave:

A shorthand for designing UI flows - From 37signals, 2009 and still relevant.

photojojo: Nacho Ormaechea is the creator of these incredible...

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 16:06:21 -0400

photojojo:

Nacho Ormaechea is the creator of these incredible digital collages where he replaces human forms with contrasting visual elements. While definitely reminiscent of double exposures, these images are defined by the portrait’s clean-cut lines that open portals into distant scenes.

Portraits With Human Forms Replaced by Visual Portals

via Colossal

Learning to Learn

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 12:40:00 -0500

The Science of Learning: Best Approaches for Your Brain

Do you wonder why people don’t understand the idea you’re trying to get across in a meeting? Are you mentoring another developer and struggling to understand why the still don’t get it? Do you run training courses and wonder why the attendees only learn 10% of the material? We are all teachers whether as informal mentors, coaches, trainers or parents. Yet only professional educators receive training in this area. Nearly two years ago I started reading neuroscience (Norman Doidge’s “The Brain that Changes Itself”), for fun. Along the way I acquired an interest in neuroscience and wondered how its lessons could be applied to Agile Software Development and beyond.

Only twenty years ago most people in the world of neuroscience believed that the connections between the neurons in your brain were fixed by the time you were a teenager (or even younger)[1]. Now we understand that our wiring continues to change (even new neurons can grow) as we grow older. It’s just the rate of change that slows down. This is called neuroplasticity. The discoveries around it are what make this article possible. All of our knowledge, memories and all of our ideas are stored in neural networks – in other words everything inside our brain is encoded as connections between neurons. Neuroplasticity just says that we’re able to make changes to those connections on an ongoing basis. It says that those connections can be grown, strengthened, weakened and even disappear with time.

The hippocampus is the gatekeeper for long term memory, in this case declarative memory (i.e. stories and experiences). Its job is to store and index these memories. It is our job to make it as easy as possible for the hippocampus to do its work.[2]

Abstract Ideas

We sometimes start talking about Unit Testing with a long theoretical explanation and we get blank stares from the people we’re trying to help. The trainer starts off the class with an abstract definition of Agile, and the group is struggling to understand simple concepts. Teaching a class of grade one kids, the teacher explains addition without grounding it in the real world. In these cases we’ve confused the audience. What has happened? Have the students/kids missed some key point? Are the teachers/trainers not being clear in their explanations? Probably not. The problem is that the audience has nothing to relate the abstract idea to. Instead the trainer should help you by providing concrete examples that relate to what you already know. Ask open-ended questions around the topic that will help discover their existing knowledge and then provide concrete examples that map to that knowledge[3]. Questions like: “What does this make you think of?” or “Is there some part of this that rings a bell for you?” or “What is the first thing you thought of when we began this topic?” will help uncover their existing knowledge.

In the case of kids it would be more effective to teach math by using blocks or any other physical object that makes the idea concrete. When explaining Unit Testing we might want to show a small test case and then watch it run. Better yet, give people a series of concrete examples and then let them tease out the theories on their own. In Agile/Scrum training many trainers use exercises (a concrete experience) and then ask the attendees to interpret what happened.

What is going on in your brain?[4] When we learn new things we’re simply growing new neural networks. Since these don’t just grow out of thin air we need to attach them to existing ideas. It’s easier to easier to relate abstract ideas to concrete experiences. In terms of neurons it’s easier to grow an existing neural network than it is to grow a new one. Abstract explanations are the domain of the expert. They can be used to convey complex ideas quickly to people who are experts in the field.

In addition to making the idea concrete, we should stick to the simplest expression of the idea that we can find. Once we’ve provided concrete examples it helps to keep the abstract ideas simple and give our audience a chance to remember them. We can always provide more detail in a follow-up paper via references.

Emotion

The limbic system handles our emotional system and our relationships with people, objects, thoughts, etc.

It is used to drive our behaviour however it can sometimes get in our way. In response to events, people or new situations it can generate ‘towards’ and ‘away’ responses. For example:

Boss sent you on a course and you don’t want to be there
Intimidated by learning Unit Testing or new language
Bullied by the teacher: I don’t want stupid questions
Afraid of being shown to be stupid.
A roomful of people you don’t know

All of these can generate an ‘away’ response. Once that’s happened our brain is going to want to flee and not learn. ‘Away’ responses worked well when many new situations were fatal and sudden surprises might eat you. That’s less of problem in today’s world, but the response mechanism remains.

On the other hand, a ‘toward’ response is positive; the stronger your feeling about something, the easier it is to recall[5]. So instead of an ‘away’ response how do we generate a ‘toward’ response? By making learning their idea and in the process helping them to discover the interest in learning about Unit Testing for example. Once they’ve started to learn, engage them in the Cognitive task. Put the learner in control:

When you have a room full people who don’t know each other take a few minutes for introductions. Survey the room to understand their interests.
Get people to talk about themselves.

All of these break down barriers between people and reduce the likelihood of an ‘away’ response.

Correcting Mistakes

How many people have the experience of making the same spelling mistake over and over? Environment is mine – I’ve been struggling to spell this word correctly for a long time. The more I focus on wanting to spell it correctly the more likely I am to make the mistake. Why does this happen? Like any piece of knowledge in our brain the spelling mistake is encoded in a neural network and the more we use the connections in that network the stronger they become. So the more I repeat the mistake the more likely it is to happen again. If there is someone staring over my shoulder focusing on my mistake and telling me: “Mark don’t make that spelling mistake again”, the more the network is reinforced and the more I am likely to make the mistake.[6]

Avoid the error – focus on the correct outcome. Pairing with another developer? Don’t focus on the problem, focus on what something better would look like and how it will work. When I’m teaching Karate and I see that someone has made the same mistake a few times I don’t them tell what’s wrong, I show them what’s right. I guide their hand or foot through the correct motion, doing it several times over. My goal is to try and create a new stronger network with the right behaviour.

You can do the same with spelling mistakes. With words that I’ve found troublesome in the past instead of relying on the autocorrect features of MS Word, I find the correct spelling and retype it manually. Now even Environment has become a word that I can spell.

Integration

How many people know the Baby Einstein DVD’s? How about the Leap Frog’s DVD series like the Letter Factory? These all promise that they will improve our kids’ knowledge in a certain area – even create “Einsteins”. Yet they don’t seem to live up to their promise. If you’re lucky your child remembers the contents but understands none of it. They gained information but not real knowledge.

How many people have attended 1-2 day seminars that promise to teach you how to conquer the world? Yet when we leave we remember only a tiny fraction and find that we struggle to act on the information. Why does this happen? Why isn’t it sufficient for someone to stand at the front of the room lecturing all day to impart real knowledge?

You and your child received information in this way but you didn’t make it your own. You can’t and don’t act on it because it isn’t really your own knowledge yet.

The problem is that we have Short Term and Long Term memory. Short term memory is good for seconds, minutes and, if you work hard, a few hours at best. We use it for solving problems: planning our day, planning the route from our house to the coffee shop, and much of the work that we do every day. Short term memory is great for problem solving but it’s not where we put things that we are learning.

Long term memory on the other hand is where we store things we really learn.

Unfortunately for Leap Frog, Baby Einstein and the people giving 1-2 day courses, it’s much harder to get something into the long term memory and have it stick. These people are just shoveling information into short term memory, and it’s never transferred to long term memory. Most of what you have learned today will be forgotten by the time we leave. So what works better?

Note-taking helps but it’s still just recording the facts on a piece of paper. We’re just acting as recipients of knowledge. To truly learn we have to do something more. The key ideas: restate the learning in your own words and use as many parts of the brain as possible. When I run this as a seminar I invite the audience to discuss the ideas during breaks with the goal of creating and performing a play. The discussion, restating the ideas in your own words, and performing a play involve the motor, visual and auditory cortexes. Even when people don’t perform the play, just visualizing it will involve the motor to cortex to a degree.[7]

In a classroom setting, exercises and games (especially ones involving movement) are good, as is anything else that engages more of the student’s brain regions. When giving assignments, consider asking for detailed thinking and high level thinking; pictures; sounds and even smells. Our goal is to create the largest neural network possible.

Images

Images are a bit like Google for your brain: they’re easily remembered, provide fast lookup service and can provoke strong emotional reactions. Pictures work because they’re rich in content, convey relationships, sizes, shapes etc. They also work because millions of years of evolution have equipped us with fast, efficient, visual processing. By comparison, words take a lot more energy to store. This works because the effort is being offloaded to the occipital lobe in the back of the brain. Pictures, storytelling and metaphors can all be used to activate the occipital lobe[8].

Many good presenters use the Presentation Zen[9] approach to delivering ideas: Many images and few words. PowerPoint slides full of words encourage distraction and multi-tasking. Since our brains don’t multi-task well we have a choice either read the words on the screen or listen to the speaker. Inevitably we do the former. Images on the other hand stimulate the visual cortex and provide an addition hook to help remember the information at a later date.

While not as strong as images, sound plays a similar role. At Agile 2007 I attended Jean Tabaka’s presentation “Why I don’t like Monday’s”. Jean used the Boomtown Rats song as a background/introduction to her presentation. Three years later, its one of two presentations from whose content I can recall.

How can we use this? Where possible it helps to use pictures and drawings to convey some of our ideas. When we can’t use pictures it helps to explain ideas in terms of real people and their interactions as opposed to using complex abstract ideas[10].

Conclusion

Rather than summarize what I think you should have learned from this material, instead I invite you to summarize the material yourself. In addition to using words consider drawing pictures, mindmaps and anything else that might involve new parts of your brain.

TAO Education

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 01:31:15 -0500

TAO Education

TAO - Education

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 01:30:43 -0500

TAO - Education

Start-up Porn

Sat, 03 Nov 2012 04:33:00 -0400

Running a startup is like jogging in a hurricane: Stuff flies at you from every direction. Separating the immediate from the important – and the important from the critical – largely determines success.

Here’s a list of things that won’t help you succeed:

1. Michael Arrington’s view on anything other than your startup

2. Responding to comment trolls

3. The daily fluctuations in your Twitter followers

4. Comparing yourself to Mark Zuckerberg (or any other founder)

5. Repeatedly using the term “killing it” or “crushing it”

6. Cat videos

7. Complaining about virtually anything

8. Blaming _______ for your profound lack of traction

9. Internet stalking people you don’t like

10. Reading five blog posts on the same topic to make sure you “got it”

11. Stereotyping

12. Focusing on your next pivot

13. Bringing up your degrees

14. Prioritizing legal fees over your product

15. Designing a killer startup T-shirt

16. Posting political rants

17. An NDA

18. Researching how to elevate your Klout score

19. Understanding the difference between convertible debt and convertible equity

20. Basking in vanity metrics

21. Expensive business cards

22. Arguing the merits of PowerPoint vs. Prezi vs. whatever

23. Checking your email 27 times a day

24. Bragging about your lack of sleep

25. Focusing on head count

26. Imagining what you’ll do with $10 million

27. Non-paying users

28. Being intimidated

29. Obsessing over your logo colors

30. Second-guessing your decision

31. Your 50-page business plan

32. Micromanaging

33. Focusing on your revenue

34. Feigning interest in people for gain

35. Your amazing product that goes un-marketed

36. Gossip

37. This blogpost. Now get back to work.

(Thanks to Forbes for this amazing article)

Concentration

Fri, 26 Oct 2012 14:12:00 -0400

Concentration has two enemies, mental agitation, or busyness, and mental torpor, or numbness.

Generally, agitation arises from desire. An attractive object appears in the mind and the mind leaves the object of meditation to follow it.

Torpor arises from subtle apathy developing within the mind.

In order to have firm concentration these two obstacles must be eliminated. A man needs a candle in order to see a painting which is on the wall of a dark room. If there is a draught of wind the candle will flicker too much for the man to be able to see properly and if the candle is too small its name will be too weak. When the flame of the mind is not obstructed by the wind of mental agitation and not weakened by the smallness of torpor it can concentrate properly upon the picture of the meditation object.

In the early stages of the practice of concentration mental agitation is more of a hindrance than torpor. The mind is continually flying away from the object of concentration. This can be seen by trying to keep the mind fixed on the memory of a face. The image of the face is soon replaced by something else.

Halting this process is difficult, for we have built the habit of succumbing to it over a long period of time and are not accustomed to concentration. To take up the new and leave behind the old is always hard. Yet, because concentration is fundamental to all forms of higher meditation and to all higher mental activity, one should make the effort.

Mental agitation is overcome principally by the force of mindfulness and torpor by attentive application. In the diagram representing the development of zhi-nay there is an elephant. The elephant symbolizes the meditator’s mind. Once an elephant is tamed, he never refuses to obey his master and he becomes capable of many kinds of work. The same applies to the mind. Furthermore, a wild and untamed elephant is dangerous, often causing terrible destruction. Just so, the untamed mind can cause any of the sufferings of the six realms. (Click on Image to view it bigger)

At the bottom of the diagram depicting the development of concentration the elephant is totally black. This is because at the primary stage of the development of zhi-nay mental torpor pervades the mind.

In front of the elephant is a monkey representing mental agitation. A monkey cannot keep still for a moment but is always chattering and fiddling with something, being attracted to everything.

The monkey is leading the elephant. At this stage of practice mental agitation leads the mind everywhere.

Behind the elephant trails the meditator, who is trying to gain control of the mind. In one hand he holds a rope, symbolic of mindfulness, and in the other he holds a hook, symbolic of alertness.

At this level the meditator has no control whatsoever over his mind. The elephant follows the monkey without paying the slightest attention to the meditator. In the second stage the meditator has almost caught up with the elephant.

In the third stage the meditator throws the rope over the elephant’s neck. The elephant looks back, symbolizing that here the mind can be somewhat restrained by the power of mindfulness. At this stage a rabbit appears on the elephant’s back. This is the rabbit of subtle mental torpor, which previously was too fine to be recognized but which now is obvious to the meditator.

In these early stages we have to apply the force of mindfulness more than the force of mental attentive application for agitation must be eliminated before torpor can be dealt with.

In the fourth stage the elephant is far more obedient. Only rarely does he have to be given the rope of mindfulness.

In the fifth stage the monkey follows behind the elephant, who submissively follows the rope and hook of the meditator. Mental agitation no longer heavily disturbs the mind.

In the sixth stage the elephant and monkey both follow meekly behind the meditator. The meditator no longer needs even to look back at them. He no longer has to focus his attention in order to control the mind. The rabbit has now disappeared.

In the seventh stage the elephant is left to follow of its own accord. The meditator does not have to give it either the rope of mindfulness or the hook of attentive application. The monkey of agitation has completely left the scene. Agitation and torpor never again occur in gross forms and even subtly only occasionally.

In the eighth stage the elephant has turned completely white. He follows behind the man for the mind is now fully obedient. Nonetheless, some energy is still required in order to sustain concentration.

In the ninth stage the meditator sits in meditation and the elephant sleeps at his feet. The mind can now indulge in effortless concentration for long periods of time, even days, weeks or months.

These are the nine stages of the development of zhi-nay. The tenth stage is the attainment of real zhi-nay represented by the meditator calmly riding on the elephant’s back.

Beyond this is an eleventh stage, in which the meditator is depicted as riding on the elephant, who is now walking in a different direction. The meditator holds a flaming sword. He has now entered into a new kind of meditation called vipasyana, or higher insight: (Tibetan: Lhag-mthong). This meditation is symbolized by his flaming sword, the sharp and penetrative implement that cuts through to realization of Voidness.

At various points in the diagram there is a fire. This fire represents the effort necessary to the practice of zhi-nay. Each time the fire appears it is smaller than the previous time. Eventually it disappears. At each successive stage of development less energy is needed to sustain concentration and eventually no effort is required. The fire reappears at the eleventh stage, where the meditator has taken up meditation on voidness.

Also on the diagram are the images of food, cloth, musical instruments, perfume and a mirror. They symbolize the five sources of mental agitation, i.e. the five sensual objects: those of taste, touch, sound, smell and sight, respectively.

"1980 – The world’s first gigabyte-capacity disk drive, the IBM 3380, was the size of a refrigerator,..."

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 04:39:48 -0400

“

1980 – The world’s first gigabyte-capacity disk drive, the IBM 3380, was the size of a refrigerator, weighed 550 pounds, and had a price tag of $40,000 ( $113 thousand in present day terms), 2.52 GB

Today you can get a microSDHC card with almost 13 times more storage for $21.40 on Amazon. Oh, and it weighs just over half an ounce.

”

-

futuristgerd: Big Thinkers - Alvin Toffler [Futurist] by Pete...

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 04:38:45 -0400

futuristgerd:

Big Thinkers - Alvin Toffler [Futurist] by Pete Machnik

world-shaker: pencilblots: For World Shaker. For no reason at...

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 04:34:43 -0400

world-shaker:

pencilblots:

For World Shaker. For no reason at all, except I tried to draw you in the new version of “Coffee Time is the Best Time” and it ended up looking like me. So you are singing Houston, because you are a cornball, in my demented comic universe I store in my head.

I have no idea how I missed this earlier today, but it’s amazing.

By the way, I have to admit defeat here: PencilBlots’ beard is better than mine.

"As many Americans already know, not one of the four men currently vying to lead the nation over the..."

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 04:31:59 -0400

“As many Americans already know, not one of the four men currently vying to lead the nation over the next four years — not President Barack Obama; not Vice President Joe Biden; not Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney, nor his running mate, Paul Ryan — has mentioned climate change during the debates…”

"The thought manifests as the word; The word manifests as the deed; The deed develops into habit; And..."

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 02:55:55 -0400

“The thought manifests as the word;
The word manifests as the deed;
The deed develops into habit;
And habit hardens into character;
So watch the thought and its ways with care,
And let it spring from love
Born out of concern for all beings…
As the shadow follows the body,
As we think, so we become”

- - Buddha

"Nothing in life is as important as you think it is when you are thinking about it."

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 20:12:00 -0400

“Nothing in life is as important as you think it is when you are thinking about it.”

- Daniel Kahneman

Why people Smoke

Tue, 17 Jul 2012 02:09:54 -0400

Why people Smoke

Important learning from Tech Giants

Tue, 17 Jul 2012 01:53:40 -0400

Keep in Mind, as you head start!!

Chairman and CEO, Xerox
One surefire way to get an intimate understanding of a company is to start at the bottom. That’s what Ursula Burns did when she interned with photocopying behemoth Xerox in 1980, and she’s worked there ever since.

In 2009, Burns become the first female African American CEO of a Fortune 500 company and helped turn the firm away from paper toward business processes by negotiating the $6.4 billion purchase of Affiliated Computer Services, the largest acquisition in the company’s history.

Lesson: Starting from the bottom — or managing your company as if you did — can improve your view of how each department works.

Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist, Google

Calling Vinton Cerf a savvy networker might be a massive understatement. Not only did he help father the Internet with the U.S. Department of Defense in the 1970s, he also created the first commercial email with MCI in the 1980s, founded the Internet Society which guided policy and standards in the 1990s, and joined search giant Google in the 2000s.

His next move will literally bring together two worlds, as he’s teamed with NASA to develop an interplanetary Internet that uses radio and lasers to transmit data.

Lesson: By constantly networking and collaborating, you’re likely to have more projects on the horizon and new people to work with.

Co-founder, Chairman and CEO, Apple

A revolutionary whose innovations helped craft or change four distinct industries (personal computers, animated films, music and digital publishing), Steve Jobs was an entrepreneur at heart, starting Apple in a garage and making it one of the world’s most profitable firms. At his core was his belief that pursuing your passion will bring you success. “Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition,” he told graduating students at Stanford in 2005. “Everything else is secondary.”

Lesson: If you’re not passionate about what you do, you might want to consider doing something else.

Chief Operating Officer, Facebook

If it seems there’s a disconnect between the Facebook of The Social Network and the company that rang the NASDAQ bell this year, shareholders have Sheryl Sandberg to thank.

The former Treasury Department chief of staff worked as the vice president of global online sales and operations at Google before joining Facebook and turning its office culture upside down. Her message to the staff was heard loud and clear: You must first have class to become a world-class company.

Lesson: For your company to grow, it may first need to grow up.

Though Bill Gates hasn’t worked full-time at Microsoft since 2008, his presence is still felt in every product the firm has released. With a goal of putting a Microsoft-run computer on every desktop and in every home, Gates started by crafting the BASIC computer language and eventually built an entire industry around his Windows-based operating system.

Despite his tech skills, the magnate maintains that personal relationships are most important for budding entrepreneurs. “Being able to bring in different people who were fun to work with and figuring out how to get those people, those broad skills, to work well together has been one of the greatest challenges,” Gates said in a 2005 interview.

Lesson: No matter what industry you’re in, the people on your team matter most.

Vice President of Communications, Apple

It might seem strange to include a corporate communications manager on a list of great tech leaders, but Katie Cotton has earned her stripes. Notorious for its secrecy, Apple generates buzz like no other company and Cotton is a big reason why. For years, she served as the gatekeeper to the late Steve Jobs, controlling the media’s access to the intensely private innovator.

Cotton guides all of Apple’s messaging. So when a Chinese factory making Apple products overworks its employees, she’s the one who tries to make sure it doesn’t smudge Apple’s image. Recruiting a similarly confident, no-nonsense media- relations rep can build a reality distortion field around any business, large or small.

Lesson: Stay on message, and your company can appear confident and secure.

Pioneer of Artificial Intelligence

From a hypothesis on pattern formation to mathematical biology, Alan Turing was a man ahead of his time, writing chess programs for not-yet-existent computers and breaking encrypted German code in World War II. Although he died in 1954, his Turing Test for computers with artificial intelligence is still in wide use, ensuring that Siri’s responses are as lifelike as possible and that spam- bots aren’t cracking into email accounts blocked by CAPTCHA images.

Lesson: Be bold. The times will catch up with your innovations.

Vice President of Consumer Products, Google (now CEO - Yahoo (this very moment))

Google may have been founded by two guys from Stanford University, but arguably the search giant’s most standout leader is Marissa Mayer, Google’s 20th employee and first female engineer. Responsible for more than 100 features on the search engine’s website — including the all-white front page, Gmail’s interface and the site’s expansion into more than 100 languages — she has become indispensable as the company has matured, showing entrepreneurs there’s more than one way to own a company.

Lesson: Create an entrepreneurial atmosphere for your employees. You never know who among your staff will develop into your next all-star.

Cofounder, Wikipedia

With a sliver under four million articles, Wikipedia has become a wildly popular destination for information. But Jimmy Wales hasn’t written much of it, and he was even chastised by the site’s community for editing the article about himself.

Instead, the former futures trader was among the first to successfully 1Ccrowd source 1D the web, relying on a group of passionate writers and editors to curate the site and demonstrating to startups worldwide the mighty clout of the crowd.

Lesson: Building a passionate customer base can extend your brand around the world.

Data is powerful.

Tue, 17 Jul 2012 01:39:43 -0400

Data is powerful.

7-way Venn. Amazing, beautiful.

Thu, 05 Jul 2012 02:58:19 -0400

7-way Venn. Amazing, beautiful.

Open Journalism

Thu, 05 Jul 2012 02:56:00 -0400

Open Journalism