• USDA, Farm Service Agency - Hay Net Entry Page
  Love the “have hay - need hay” concept of keeping things simple. Distilling it down to two core elements rather than “hit’em with both barrels” approach.
  (tags: ue)

In my time I’ve performed probably about a hundred interviews for prospective hires. They were all technical positions from QA Load Testers to Systems Architects from small to large clients. One time having to fill 18 positions at once. Not fun, but you get to see the best and worst in people. Phone screening was the most entertaining. Many times I’d ask a question and hear a keyboard in the background fly into action or they repeat the question and hear whispers. It’s amazing what people will do to get hired and fired quickly.

This popped into my head because of this article, and how true it is. Building your work force using a “hire by testing” methodology is a very good idea. Not solely using this method, but making it a component of your usual regiment. Too many people just memorize buzz-words or understand just high level concepts to get through interviews. Adding a “hire by testing” methodology increases your chance of getting quality people in the door, and at the very least makes you feel confident your making the right decisions. I’ve used it on most of my interviews and have been very pleased afterwards when I do.

• Tumblr
  site for creating tumblelogs
  (tags: tumblelog microblogging)
• The Tumblelist (tumblelog directory)
  This is a list of tumblelogs. Found this on Wikipedia.
  (tags: tumblelog microblogging)

Like a lot of what we come across, we search for nitche business purposes or meaningful twists on design communications and social media methods, practices and/or products to extend brand and help communities establish voice. Today I was talking about Twitter with some friends of mine that we work with. Like everyone else, they are looking for a meaningful spin on products like Twitter and how they could add dimension to their community. So, I am thinking about the Twitter phenomena as it lights up like a Texas prairie in a hot and dry summer…and I wonder what applications will be next and who will create them. Will we? I dunno… In another month or so we will reveal some pretty cool things that i am anxious to talk about…I digress.

The thoughts? Who is out there working on a filter widget, WordPress or Drupal plugin, or syndication method that will allow us to “tune in” or “tune out” to our Twitter community? When can we cast a wider net so we can add more “friends” to our Twitter profiles and then add tags, keywords, adjust sliders for content types, select drop downs or just create our own filters to key in on what our friends are doing that we are interested in? Hell, maybe we are talking “Pipes” here.

Don’t get me wrong, I love all of my friends dearly, but this new phenomina could drive the most stable person insane. So, how do we capture what is meaningful and relevant? How do we do this where it feels like we have “less friends.” When I go home after a long day at work and my wife wants me to have dinner with friends or has some social activity planned, my most common line is, “but I really don’t need more friends, so can’t I just stay home and relax?” This never works. And, don’t get me wrong, I do need friends, but I am more interested in how I can “tune in” and “tune out” to what is going on allowing me to look through a more community oriented lens at what is going on. Then, when I am interested, I can refocus my lens when I am interested. Maybe this can allow me to have a more meaningful dialog with my friends?? We can get right to the point and discuss what is relevant to what is exactly on our minds at the moment.

So, who is out there thinking the same thing? There must be some mad scientist working on this little concoction already…

• Presentation Zen: The “Godin Method” of presentation design
  one of seth’s presentations
  (tags: seth presentation)

• Drupal tip: Usable form buttons | urlgreyhot
  good point from urlgreyhot on handling “preview, submit, delete” actions.
  (tags: drupal)
• Design Patterns group at flickr | urlgreyhot
  Great idea by Michael to create a repository for best practices / things to do or not to do in web interface thinking.
  (tags: design urlgreyhot)
• SIMILE | Timeline
  I love this little timeline tool. Has some real potential for mapping major milestones and deliverable dates for projects. So often the timeline itself is a moving target. Deliverables and efforts change daily. While we may normally have an end date i
  (tags: cool timetracking timeline)

• Keynote Theme Park
  keynote theme park - cool
  (tags: keynote)

I attended Cirque du Soleil’s latest touring show, Corteo, last night at fair park with my wife. This was my second Cirque experience, the first being the Varekai when it came through Dallas.

The magnitude of this show is absolutely unbelievable. Each part of the show, whether it be the acrobatics, the technology/production, or the music is the epitome of precision, excellence and creativity. So needless to say, I was very inspired by Corteo. It’s another example of what human beings are capable of.

Here is a clip of the first (and probably the most beautiful) acrobatic acts of the show. And I’ve never seen anything like this guy. Enjoy!

pbwiki says that “making a free wiki is as easy as making a peanut butter sandwich.” Their recent step in updating their web editor is a step in the right direction for the wiki community. It’s still a nerdy little application but it demonstrates a few people thinking about the right things. pbwiki is worth a try for those just getting acquainted with the power of the wiki and is much easier to start than most. pbwiki is a hosted application but seems to have some horsepower. Looks like we can even add our own css.

Newsflash: Just as I was about to hit the submit button, I saw the post on the pbwiki blog about raising a couple of million bucks. Now we gotta sharpen our pencils and submit our wish list. Maybe now someone can de-nerdify wikis and make them work for my dad (a metaphor I use to relate to communications and technologies that need to pass the usability barometer….if they can be used by my dad, then they have a fighting chance!(I love my dad, but he’s not ready for most wikis yet))

Great work by the pbwiki team on this. And, by the way, the “nerdy” comment is a sincere compliment. Respect…

• Google Co-op
  Checking out google co-op….Danny pointed it out to me.
  (tags: google)
• :: The Hard Road ::
  cool story…referred by Danny
  (tags: cycling)