4 versions of companies thinking green

Over the past few days I’ve come across the following thematic convergence of companies thinking about their impact on the environment.

• Over at the FreshBooks blog Mike McDerment has announced their green office initiative: “ways that small professional services companies (i.e. web designers and consultants, many of which are home-based) can operate their offices in environmentally friendly ways.”
• Fortune Magazine reports that Wal-Mart is going green(!)
• From the Patagonia website I learned about the one percent for the planet campaign, which sounds very cool.

Here at Work Industries I’m looking to get involved in a similar effort to that proposed by Freshbooks. As a start over the next few months, I’ll be contributing to a new project launched by Vancity called ChangeEverything.ca.

Check it out to see what folks are doing to make the world a better place, and, if you’re interested, join in and contribute to the effort.

Jakob Neilsen on Website Traffic Distribution

Recently I discovered a great article from the de facto usability guru, Jakob Neilsen, entitled Traffic Log Patterns. The article consists of two parts, the first being traffic distribution on a website, the second being traffic distribution as related to search engine queries. In this post I’ll tackle some commentary on the first of those parts, traffic distribution on a website.

In Traffic Log Patterns Neilsen reveals the distribution of traffic on his Alert Box website, how the home page receives the majority of traffic while deeper pages in the site structure receive proportionally less traffic, but, that cumulatively the deeper pages receive more traffic than the most popular pages. Neilsen then contrasts his current Alert Box traffic distribution with his traffic distribution from 10 years ago and finds that, though the volume of traffic has grown, its distribution has remained consistent.

To demonstrate, Neilsen plots the distribution of traffic on a two-dimensional x-y graph and calls the resulting shape a Zipf distribution. Since I have no idea about Zipfs, I won’t argue with him. The Zipf distribution holds true for incoming traffic from external websites and for internal traffic on the Alert Box site. The Zipf distribution represents a consistent pattern of traffic on the web.

For me, the main value of the article is the graphs, as they provide a great visual representation of website traffic that’s usually seen in tabular form. If you’re looking for a way to understand and communicate what you’re seeing since you’ve been following my Quick Guide to Reading Webstats, Neilsen’s graphs and discussion of traffic distribution do just that.

The funny thing is Chris Anderson discovered the same distribution of data in a very similar web context a few years ago and gave it a catchy name: The Long Tail. The name spawned an article in Wired magazine and a newly released book of the same name. I recommend at least reading the article and getting up to date on the long tail blog Anderson keeps as well. I have yet to read the book, but if I find it worthwhile I’ll add to this post.

Work Industries Travel Days

I’ll be travelling for the next few weeks and, as a consequence, communication to and fro may be intermittent. If you need to reach me, the best way is by phone at 604-788-1502. I’m uncertain if I’ll have an Internet connection at our place on Lake of the Woods, so emails may take 4 or 5 days to find me.

Travel dates: I’m leaving this Friday, July 28, and will be returning to the offices full time on Monday, August 14. Roughly 2 weeks of away time, back just in time to move in to the new Work Industries offices.

So what will I be doing?

• Spectating at the Kenora Multisport triathlon. I planned on participating but then I injured my knee. I can still swim if anyone wants a swimmer for a relay team.
• Attending my grandparents’ 60th wedding anniversay events, one in Winnipeg, one in Kenora.
• Fishing.
• Summer reading.
• Not swatting mosquitos, apparently.

Wired with Rupert Murdoch

Wired magazine recently published a longish article profiling Rupert Murdoch, News Corp. and MySpace. The article provides some great background for anyone interested in the changing face of social behaviour on the web and the hunches that drove News Corp.‘s acquisition of MySpace. I’d recommend it to anyone looking to understand the influential thinking behind the rising social participatory media on the web and their effect on traditional broadcast media.

Once you get past the gaudy wealth numbers and dumb awe-speak of the writer, the article provides good insight and balance without all the myopic rah-rah of new media champions predicting the end of mass media. Particularly, from young Rupert himself in the final page, Rupert, Verbatim:

BROADCASTING VS. NARROWCASTING
Mass media will go on. Look at American Idol, with 35 million viewers and advertisers rushing to get on. Niches have a future, too. Look at our Speed Channel, which is mostly Nascar stuff. The middle ground - that’s where you don’t want to get caught.

THE FUTURE OF TELEVISION
The majority of viewing will continue to be in a living room on a TV screen - one that is far bigger and better than what most people have today. Sure, everyone’s going to have a small screen, too. It’s a convenience. But I don’t see people sitting on the beach and watching a movie on their telephone.

THE FUTURE OF NEWSPAPERS
Can newspapers make money online? Sure. Can they make enough to replace what’s going out? At the moment, with the Internet so competitive, so new, and so cheap, the answer is no. But don’t look at it as a newspaper - look at it as a journalistic enterprise. If you’ve got authority and trust, if you can make the news interesting, you’ll survive.

BarCamp Vancouver: Registration Open for Aug. 25-26

As I mentioned before, I’m part of a motley crew organizing BarCamp Vancouver. (Here’s a quick overview of BarCamp Vancouver that I posted last week, with a bonus video from some key conspiritors in San Francisco.)

Over the weekend, with a minimum of hand wringing and forethough, we threw open the doors to register for BarCamp Vancouver. So if you’re interested, get on it. We’re limiting the number of attendees to 90 and 15 people have signed up already.

To register, as the instructions on the page say, click the button to edit the wiki page and add your name at the bottom in the list with everyone else. Simple? Not so much. If you have any troubles or reservations, please get in touch with me and we’ll figure it out.

If you’re coming, watch for my presentation on building a do-it-yourself (DIY) advertising community called AdHack, and be sure to tap me on the shoulder and say, ‘hi!’

Could David Pogue use a Personal Technologist?

More from the TED blog, a video of NYTimes tech columnist David Pogue on the inanity of software complexity that does a good job of ridiculing some of the accepted practices of software.

Highlights include an impression of Steve Jobs singing ‘Don’t Cry for me Cupertino’ at the 17 minute mark, and a demonstration of voice-recognition software with macros for spoken shortcuts to frequent responses (think about that one for second - say a short word or two and whole sentences can appear).

I’m particularly receptive to Pogue’s message because it points well to a need for a personal technologist / personal technology advisor, a service I offer through Work Industries. Here’s the pitch:

Who Needs a Personal Technologist?

If any of these symptoms sound familiar, we recommend considering a session with a personal technologist.

• Overwhelmed by the flood of information?
• Anxious about what you don’t know?
• Frustrated by gadgets that don’t work?
• Keep meaning to figure how to get that thing to work properly, if only you had the time?
• Caught yourself saying, ‘It can’t be this hard to…’?
• Not even bothered to call a customer service line?

These are the reasons that drove us to start a service to deal with technical overload, the personal technologist.

Modeled on the personal financial advisor, the personal technologist navigates the muddied waters of technology to take the pain out of technology and make the gadgets work for you.

Take the first step to technological freedom and learn more about Work Industries’ personal technologist service.

Ken Robinson on Creativity in Education

I just finished watching a 20-minute video of Ken Robinson’s presentation on the nature of creativity in our education systems from the TED (technology, entertainment, design) conference, and it’s a great clip. Robinson is funny and engaging and almost without knowing it you find yourself agreeing with him. Grad a drink or snack and let it play.

Some highlights, paraphrased:

• More people will graduate in the next 50 years from universities than in cumulatively have graduated ever before.
• We are seeing huge inflation in university degrees - as more people graduate their degrees become less differentiating and valuable.
• Those graduating from universities today will not retire until beyond the middle of the 21st century. How can their education possibly hope to prepare them for the changes they will see just in the next 10 years?
• Most university professors live in their heads and consider their bodies relocation devices for their heads.

Also, check out the TED Blog for links to conference highlights and discussion.