Solving Problems
Looking for solutions is like looking for Easter eggs
The kids are all looking for eggs as hard as they can. They look under and around the furniture. They find a few eggs. They look in one room and then move to the next. They find a few more eggs. They look where others have looked. They find even more eggs, but they don’t find the [...]
Book Review: Made to Stick
How do you create ideas that people will remember? It is a pretty hard problem. Dan and Chip Heath say you have to make them sticky. Borrowing a term from The Tipping Point, the Heath brothers provide some great ideas on things you can do to make your message memorable. Here is what they say about [...]
Book Review: Tipping Point
Small things do make a big difference! That is the point of the Tipping Point by Gladwell. This book provides some great insights on how having just the right person, the right words or right environment can have a huge impact on making something big happen. I guess this book has been around a while but if [...]
Problem: Lots of Pictures – Solution: Flickr
Digital photography is great. It make it practical to take hundreds or thousands of pictures without the cost of developing and printing. I have had the chance to travel quite a bit. In the old days for a two or three week trip I would take about 30 roles of 36 exposure film, about 1000 [...]
Learning from the Past: Ancient Technology
As I traveled through the Middle East I was amazed at what they managed to build in ancient times. They solved incredible problems using only what they had on hand. They moved water. In 22 B.C. Herod the Great built an aqueduct for six miles from Mt. Carmel to Caesarea with just at the right [...]
All the Good Technology is Free
Amazing how there is so much free technology today. No wonder the economy is down, everyone is giving their products and services away for free. Well I guess that is not entirely true, but it is incredible what you can get for free (or almost free). I love it. Here is a list of free [...]
Review: Ken Watanabe’s Problem Solving 101
Ken Watanabe’s “Problem Solving 101″ is a great read. I find anything that get us thinking about how to solve problems really helpful, and “Problem Solving 101″ does just that. Most people solve problems every day, but never really think about the problem of “problem solving.” In this short book, Watanabe provides an overall plan [...]
Why Seven?
All my lists will have seven things in them. Why? There are several reasons. There has been a long standing rule of thumb of 7 plus or minus 2 for the optimal number of things for a person to remember at a time. It has often been used for the right number of things in [...]
Frustrated over user error – Don’t be!
Do you get frustrated when a user asks a question or has a problem with the system that he could have figured out himself or should have known the answer to? It seems that if the problem is our fault or the system’s fault then we are OK to work on it, but if it is [...]
Internet Communities: Helping others solve their problems
Last night , I got an email from someone I did not know. She said she found me on Twitter (follow me on Twitter if you want.) She had a problem that she asked if I could help with it. She wanted to post photos on her WordPress site from some photographers, but she was concerned [...]
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North Ideas
I like to solve problems with technology. In this blog, I'd like to share some of my ideas and also tell you about solutions I am currently working on. Welcome, and please share your own ideas with me by leaving a comment.
