lullaby pit

SEO: Google’s Hummingbird algorithm from a content strategist’s perspective

Posted on 2013.11.27 by winterSmith 12 comments

Marketing and Search aren’t different things anymore, if they ever were. Google recently implemented their new “Hummingbird” organic search algorithm, perhaps the company’s most significant overhaul in more than a decade. Thomas Claburn at Information Week explains that Hummingbird is an expansion of Google’s Knowledge Graph, which was “introduced last year as a way to help its search engine understand

PowerPoint is making us dumber and damaging our businesses

Posted on 2013.11.24 by winterSmith 13 comments

Yes, PowerPoint sucks. Here’s why, plus some suggestions about how to fix the problem. Imagine a widely used and expensive prescription drug that promised to make us beautiful but didn’t. Instead the drug had frequent, serious side effects: It induced stupidity, turned everyone into bores, wasted time, and degraded the quality and credibility of communication. These side effects would rightly

A word about S&R’s comment policy

Posted on 2013.11.23 by winterSmith 3 comments

Periodically we find ourselves needing to remind everyone about our comment policy, which is quite a bit different from what you find on other sites. This isn’t a problem for a vast majority of those who visit us, but every once in awhile… So, here’s the link to the policy, which not only lays out how we do it but

Scholars and Rogues

50 years ago today: the Boston Symphony announces that JFK has been killed

Posted on 2013.11.22 by winterSmith Leave a comment

Courtesy of Upworthy and WGBH we get this audio of the moment when the audience learns that Kennedy has been assassinated.

The Butterfly Effect: What would have happened had Kennedy not been assassinated?

Posted on 2013.11.22 by winterSmith 2 comments

A progressive utopia, World War 3 or something in between? Sensitivity to initial conditions means that each point in such a system is arbitrarily closely approximated by other points with significantly different future trajectories. Thus, an arbitrarily small perturbation of the current trajectory may lead to significantly different future behaviour. – Wikipedia Today marks the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s

World Cup draw predictions: the USA is screwed

Posted on 2013.11.20 by winterSmith 8 comments

Bend over USMNT. The Group of Death is headed your way. UPDATED: It’s official. Good news: the US men’s soccer team has qualified for the World Cup in Brazil next summer. Bad news: they’re fucked.

Sports

In the court of the Crimson King

Posted on 2013.11.18 by winterSmith 6 comments

The New Constitution: did I miss one?

Posted on 2013.11.17 by winterSmith 7 comments

I saw a Free Bradley Manning sticker on a car as I walked my dog this morning and it got me to thinking. Some months back I produced the New Constitution series, which set forth the principles upon a more just and workable American government might be based. The final “deliverable,” as we say in the business world, was 20

Let’s stop “making the complex simple”

Posted on 2013.11.15 by winterSmith 2 comments

For years my career has revolved around solving communication problems. One of my specific charges has been to “make the complex simple.” I’ve played along because many of the companies I’ve dealt with (not all, but a majority) think this way. When they do, boat rocking and cage rattling is rarely a winning strategy for advancement. But the truth is

The Friday Facepalm: business news for Nov. 15, 2013

Posted on 2013.11.15 by winterSmith Leave a comment

WTF is wrong with these people? (I’m looking at you Kellogg’s, JP Morgan and especially Yahoo!) Do you ever wonder what goes through the minds of those charged with making important decisions for big companies? Other than a stiff breeze, I mean. Let’s start with a fun one.

Business

The hoax is a hoax: Andy Kaufman is ALIVE! (You heard it here first.)

Posted on 2013.11.14 by winterSmith Leave a comment

So, it’s been kind of a confusing story to follow, but Andy Kaufman’s brother announced that Andy faked his death to escape the spotlight, is still alive and living in hiding, and has a daughter. Then the daughter materializes. Then it’s revealed that she’s an actress and it’s all an elaborate hoax. Or is it?

The Sunday Assembly: a weird idea, but a compelling one

Posted on 2013.11.13 by winterSmith 3 comments

When thinking about why churches thrive, understand that religion is far from the most important factor. Did you see the recent story floating around on the growth of the “atheist megachurch,” the Sunday Assembly? I’m really interested in the concept. Churches have three main draws: religion, community and professional networking. The first of the three is probably the least important

Religion

Infographic: why infographics can’t be trusted

Posted on 2013.11.13 by winterSmith Leave a comment

This is hysterical.

Here it is: the killer app for wearable technology

Posted on 2013.11.13 by Rev. Dickie "Drive-By" Dixon Leave a comment

I have a great idea for a wearable technology app. What if you had a little mobile device you could wear around your wrist, kind of like a bracelet. And it had an app that would tell you what time it was? You could maybe have advanced functionality that would give you the date.

Online dating: the physical attraction problem

Posted on 2013.11.12 by winterSmith 9 comments

In order for an online dating service to work, it has to reliably move people past the merely physical and help them perceive their match’s real attractiveness. In a post a couple weeks ago I mused about how the online dating world is plagued by what I guess we’ll call the “physical attraction problem.” I touched of a bit of controversy, both