Tools

So . . . how’s your week going? For me, and perhaps for you, this week is like any other — a tangle of deadlines, meetings, phone calls, email, and dreams deferred. But in the hallowed halls of Twitter, something else is going on. It’s “Hack Week.” For seven days, Twitter employees will “all be […]

One of the strange rituals of life in 2010 is what I call the “Shootout at iPhone Corral.” It’s the moment in a conversation when two people who aren’t normally given to gun-slinging unholster their iPhones for a showdown over who has the coolest apps. To spare you that encounter, herewith are 5 apps that […]

Okay. I’ve done it. I’ve created my own iPhone app. With the help of the amazing folks at Mobile Roadie, we’ve launched the official (sic) Daniel Pink app. You can download it — it’s free! — from iTunes. What’s cool about apps in general, and this one in particular, is that they feel like web sites […]

Andy Smallman, head of the Puget Sound Community School in Seattle, has come up with a social innovation that’s ingenious, inspiring, and infectious. He calls it “kindness class.” Each week students in the online course get an assignment. In week one, they do something kind for themselves. In week two, they do something kind for […]

Just in from the Wall Street Journal . . . Microsoft, Verizon in Talks to Launch iPhone RivalBy AMOL SHARMA and NICK WINGFIELDMicrosoft Corp. is in discussions with Verizon Wireless to launch a touch-screen multimedia cellphone on the carrier’s network early next year, in a bid to compete with Apple Inc.’s iPhone, people familiar with […]

Today’s must-read, ironically, is an essay by the ever brilliant Kevin Kelly on the decline of word-centered, book-based literacy and the rise of something new.  We are becoming, Kelly says, “people of the screen.”An excerpt:“The fluid and fleeting symbols on a screen pull us away from the classical notions of monumental authors and authority. On the screen, the subjective […]

According to Brad Stone’s essay in today’s NY Times, this is the term academics use to describe the inaccessibility of paper-based public records.”Once upon a time,” Stone writes, “people in search of [criminal records] had to hire private investigators to navigate byzantine courthouses and rudimentary filing or computer systems, and to deal with often grim-faced legal clerks. […]

If statisticians could fashion an on-base percentage for business gurus, Seth Godin would be Ted Williams. Nobody has a better rate of success in getting smart ideas in play.One of my favorite bits of Godin guidance is to “remarkablize” even the most mundane aspects of your business — a great example of which arrived in the mail yesterday.I subscribe […]

Recharge Pod‘s wind-powered mobile phone charging station for outdoor events, which premiered this weekend’s Glastonbury Festival. (HT: Springwise)  

Mark Frauenfelder at BoingBoing points us to a perversely interesting advertising innovation posted on The Fire Wire (which is very good blog, btw.)Realizing that littering porches with coupons isn’t all that effective, Papa John’s Pizza “has taken an innovative approach to direct marketing with its deceiving faux delivery boy & pizza appearing at your doorstep. The optical illusion […]