Dancing elephants twitter amid harsh realities

With retrenchment and job reductions — oh, let’s call them what they really are: mass firings — as subtext, three of the more influential clubs associated with the newspaper industry held their annual conventions last week. There were hopeful twists amid fear and loathing. The Society for News Design and the Associated Press Managing Editors […]

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Download: Right Brain rules for design, business and life

One of the fundamental tasks of design and business is to stand between revolutions and life, to help people deal with change. That’s the premise of The Right Brain Rules, a strategic vision and a portfolio of assets for creating value into the future. Voice-over and context are missing, but here’s the requested slide deck […]

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Playing with Spore and messin’ with our gene pool

Play is to our time what work was to the Industrial Society: our dominant way of knowing, doing and creating value. Now Spore has arrived in North America to mess with our gene pool. The multi-genre “massively single-player online game” allows a player to control the evolution of a species from its beginnings as a […]

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How To: Choose the right colors for your web site

[We like to use, celebrate and design products that are both useful and beautiful. Here’s the first in an occasional series of quick tips for improving your designs. Add yours in the comments or in a guest post.] Here are two tools I use to help select and code the right colors for my designs. […]

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The seven senses of the world’s best-designed newspapers

The Society of News Design has announced the World’s Best Designed Newspapers, an award I conceived as chair of SND’s design competition back in 1995. Once again no American newspapers. Papers in Europe, Mexico and former Eastern bloc countries have dominated the World’s Best competition, reflecting the emergence of free expression and the flourishing of […]

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The right brain rules at SND

Of all the news organizations, the Society for News Design is the only one that is truly global, cross-disciplinary and creative. Right Brainers rule this week at SND’s annual workshop at Red Rock Resort, tucked next to the mountains about ten miles from the Vegas strip. The creative class represents the best hope for a […]

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Memo to U.S.: Global bloggers speak out on elections

As Barack Obama took to the floor at the Democratic National Convention, it became utterly apparent to me that this is the year that will change everything.  You see, I was perched on my couch in Boston in a familiar position; cross-legged, with my MacBook on my lap, ears perked up, attentive to every word.  […]

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SocialMedian: New ways to share and discover relevant news

This spring we noted the launch and alpha testing of SocialMedian, a new link aggregator that five months ago looked something like a more social version of delicious or Diigo. It has been undergoing continuous development since then – and the newest release should be especially noteworthy for bloggers, researchers, journalists, marketers and activists. If […]

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Call for Nominations – Sept. 15 deadline for Game Changers

Awards honor people, projects and ideas that use media to change the world. An international panel of pioneers from media, technology, business, social activism and blogging will judge nominees for the new We Media Game Changers Awards. The awards recognize people, projects, ideas and organizations leading change and inspiring a better world through media. Winners […]

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