Social – Collected Reading

Digital Strategy ?

When someone says “digital strategy”, or just “strategy,” what comes to mind? You might think of strategic roadmaps, strategic pillars, ROI, KPI’s or a whole range of other deliverables and concepts that create a strategy.

Yet, today many of these tools are based on a foundation that is no longer true. Assuming consumer and business behaviors and activities are not going to change for 12 months is a vision of the past. In reality, the only constant is change and the rate of adoption of new forms of technology and consumer experiences are way in advance of any roadmap that tries to predict the future. So what can you do? This collection of articles looks at ways to become more agile, critiques best practices, and tries to help you avoid doing things that are actually destructive to your own success.

The SIMPLE Answer to Digital Strategy

“Most of the challenges you’ll face will be with folks trying to make this bigger (because that’s easier), slower (because that’s easier too) or stalling (because that’s easiest).”

“The idea of purposefully introducing into my life a service designed to fragment my attention is as scary to me as the idea of smoking would be to an endurance athlete, and it should be to you if you’re serious about creating things that matter”

“By learning to act and iterate quickly in small ways, companies build their most sustainable competitive advantage: agility.”

“Designers bring this intuitive sense for what it [the assignment] means. They understand the power of delivering a great experience and how to treat a user as if they were guests in their own home,” says Gilbert, who’s also the company’s designated chief design evangelist.”

Why “Agile” and especially Scrum are terrible

“The worst thing about estimates is that they push a company in the direction of doing work that’s estimable”

Quote of the week

“After visiting the slums of the metropolis, one realises for the first time that these Londoners have been forced to sacrifice the best qualities of their human nature, to bring to pass all the marvels of civilisation which crowd their city.” – Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844.

1.Single payer healthcare: Vermont’s gentle revolution

“Vermont hired Harvard economist William Hsiao to come up with three alternatives to the current system. The single payer system, Hsiao wrote, “will produce savings of 24.3% of total health expenditure between 2015 and 2024”

Health, Policy, Politics

Source : The Guardian

2. Unspoken Truths

“Simon Hoggart of The Guardian (son of the author of The Uses of Literacy), who about 35 years ago informed me that an article of mine was well argued but dull, and advised me briskly to write “more like the way that you talk. – Christopher Hitchens”

Creativity, Voice, Life

Source : Vanity Fair

3. Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood poised to prosper in post-Mubarak new era

“But Muntasser al-Zayyat, a prominent Islamist lawyer, believes the Ikhwan could end up controlling as much as 60% of parliament – because their secular and liberal rivals are divided and far less experienced than ex-members of Mubarak’s now disbanded National Democratic party, who are likely to stand as independents in their old constituencies.”

Social, Networks, Culture

Source : The Guardian

4. Tale of two halves reunited after a 360-year separation

“The art historian is passionate about this painting, one of about 650,000 treasures moved from China to Taiwan in the last stages of the Chinese civil war that are now on display in the Taipei museum or stored in its vault..”

Art, History, Curation

Source : The Independent

5. Social Media Distractions Are Costing Businesses Major Money [STUDY]

“While these distractions are money-wasters for companies, they also negatively effect individuals’ ability to creatively solve problems, think deeply about work-related issues, efficiently process information and meet deadlines.”

Media, Work

Source : Mashable

Hope you like this collection. Please comment, share and most of all enjoy.

– Kaushik

#5 Collected Reading : May 22nd 2011

Quote of the week

“The Third World today faces Europe like a colossal mass whose project should be to try to resolve the problems to which Europe has not been able to find the answers. – Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earch.”

1.BITTER PILLS : The real cost of healthcare

“In American medicine, supply often creates its own demand, and paying doctors on a fee-for-service basis encourages more high-cost procedures. The I.P.A.B., in conjunction with other cost-cutting provisions in the bill, would look to fix the skewed incentives that lead to overtreatment, bargain for better prices, and insure that we’re spending our money more effectively.”

Health, Policy, Politics

Source : The New Yorker

2. Interview: Wim Crouwel at the Design Museum

“I hope they will always remember me as straight forward designer, still trying to find some tension in the work, work that is recognizable “

Design, Typography, Clear

Source : www.dezeen.com

3. The Illusion Of Social Networks

“Surely, the benefits of participation are well-documented, but there are costs, too. While information is being channeled through these social networks, the fact remains the same illusions created by television have mutated into a stronger strain within social media. While more interesting information gets to us faster, the downside is that the new channels—and, we are all the channels—sometimes unknowingly create “little white illusions” that, over time, compound into something that may or may not reflect real life.”

Social, Networks, Culture

Source : Techcrunch

4. Faulty Towers: The Crisis in Higher Education

“What we have in academia, in other words, is a microcosm of the American economy as a whole: a self-enriching aristocracy, a swelling and increasingly immiserated proletariat, and a shrinking middle class. The same devil’s bargain stabilizes the system: the middle, or at least the upper middle, the tenured professoriate, is allowed to retain its prerogatives—its comfortable compensation packages, its workplace autonomy and its job security—in return for acquiescing to the exploitation of the bottom by the top, and indirectly, the betrayal of the future of the entire enterprise..”

Education, Politics, Dialogue

Source : The Nation

5. There’s Only One Way Gas Prices Will Really Fall

“The scenarios differ, but there’s one common thread: When demand for oil falls, prices fall. The one proven way to push down the price of oil and gas is simply to use less of it.”

Oil, Consumption, Society

Source : Business Insider

Hope you like this collection. Please comment, share and most of all enjoy.

– Kaushik

#3 Collected Reading : May 8th 2011

1.Sherlock Holmes & the science Fiction of Deductions

“Like a science fiction writer, Doyle seemed to start with the premise of “what if?” Instead of a detective who arrived at the answers through intuition or moxy, Doyle asserted a different premise with the Holmes stories — what if the detective discovers the answers scientifically? What kind of adventures might he have? Looked at from this semantic angle, the original canon of Sherlock Holmes almost passes for science fiction.”

Deduction, Scifi,Mystery

Source : Clarks World Magazine

2. Honeybees ‘entomb’ hives to protect against pesticides, say scientists

“Honeybees ‘entomb’ hives to protect against pesticides, say scientists Honeybees are taking emergency measures to protect their hives from pesticides, in an extraordinary example of the natural world adapting swiftly to our depredations, according to a prominent bee expert.”

Environment, Society, Bees

Source : The Guardian

3. The secret life of libraries

The libraries’ most powerful asset is the conversation they provide – between books and readers, between children and parents, between individuals and the collective world. Take them away and those voices turn inwards or vanish. Turns out that libraries have nothing at all to do with silence.”

Social, Learning, Society

Source : The Guardian

4. The economic—and other—benefits of regulations

“The economic—and other—benefits of regulations

A series of studies over the past several decades

find that the value of the benefits of regulations has

consistently and significantly exceeded their costs.

Also, the cost estimates typically made by the government and

industry representatives have tended to be significantly overstated.

When regulations are implemented they tend to be much less

costly and more efficient than expected.”

Teaching, Design, Leadership, Digital

Source : Economic Policy Institute

5. Boyd Tonkin: A bookish boom in Buenos Aires

“Argentina’s capital boasts at least 350 bookshops, apparently more than in the whole of Brazil.”

Books, Culture, Global

Source : The Independant

Hope you like this collection. Please comment, share and most of all enjoy.

– Kaushik

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Quote of the week

1.Single payer healthcare: Vermont’s gentle revolution

2. Unspoken Truths

3. Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood poised to prosper in post-Mubarak new era

4. Tale of two halves reunited after a 360-year separation

5. Social Media Distractions Are Costing Businesses Major Money [STUDY]

Share this:

Quote of the week

1.BITTER PILLS : The real cost of healthcare

2. Interview: Wim Crouwel at the Design Museum

3. The Illusion Of Social Networks

4. Faulty Towers: The Crisis in Higher Education

5. There’s Only One Way Gas Prices Will Really Fall

Share this:

1.Sherlock Holmes & the science Fiction of Deductions

2. Honeybees ‘entomb’ hives to protect against pesticides, say scientists

3. The secret life of libraries

4. The economic—and other—benefits of regulations

5. Boyd Tonkin: A bookish boom in Buenos Aires

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