Archive for October, 2006

IDEA 2006 Conference: summary

I’m finally figuring out that small conferences are better in almost every respect than large ones. You can easily find people, get access to the speakers, single track makes it a shared experience, and everyone is chill and informal in a way impossible at 500 or 1500+ person events.

(Wait: was the conference itself an experiement in designing large datasets? hmmm).

The IDEA 2006 conference worked for me on several levels:

  • Venue/Event synchronicity. It’s so rare that venues match their event. The Seattle library was the perfect place for this.
  • High intellectual space between sessions. The topics ranged so much that I felt my brain working to fill the gaps and make new connections. No one took the topic (large spaces) too literally, giving me lots of room to fill things in on my own.
  • Speaker diversity. It went from Park ranger, to librarian, to data mappers, to web entrepreneurs: awesome range of ways to attack the topics.
  • Big fat pile ‘O interesting ideas. Highlights were many, but deepest impact cam from the Local project folks, who make the most meaningful work out of design, and information, I’ve seen in some time. But the contrasts in hearing people talk about their approaches to designing data vs. design libraries, vs. designing parks, set off my thinking and left my mind buzzing.

I’m still going through my notes (my liveblogging entries can be found here) – Truly had an excellent two days: time well spent.

Tags: Idea2006

  • By Scott (admin) on October 25th, 2006
  • 1 Comment »
  • Software/Web development

Can CounterStrike teach your team? (Video games as training tools)

One of the many great conversations I had at the Construx summit was about how games like Quake, CounterStrike and Warcraft teach people basic teamwork and communication concepts.

Well, wouldn’t you know: A report was published this month by the American Federation of Scientists making similiar claims.

Here’s a CNN article on the topic and the full AFS report.

Report from executive summit @ Construx

Last week I had the pleasure of speaking at Construx’s annual executive summit: an exclusive small conference of executives and C-levels from the software industry.

My talk on teams and stars was fun: lots of follow up questions, side conversations and� ocassional debates about star egos, military fire teams, and team compensation. Great crowd and I had a great time.

Slides from the talk: Teams and stars and the essay the talk is based on.

  • By Scott (admin) on October 23rd, 2006
  • 1 Comment »
  • Management

This week in pm-clinic: Haunted by ghost employees

This week in the pm-clinic discussion forum:

A handful of managers that have worked together for years are good friends. One of them, the one with the least competent reputation, left over a year ago, and is now being hired back into the company as a perennial contractor (product manager).

Every time my team has interacted with him, across various contracts and on different projects, we’ve had some kind of performance problem. However given his connections, despite feedback to the contrary, he keeps getting rehired (generally with different teams each time).

What can I do, as a manager myself, to exorcise this ghost employee from my world?

- Signed, Haunted by a ghost employee

Liveblogging the IDEA2006 conference

Rather than torture y’all with my first foray into liveblogging, I’m writing live comments, insights, and brlliant notes on each and every session.

Check it out here: Ideaconference blog.

Tags:

Maps of war: animation of middle east history

meast.jpgThe folks over at mapsofwar.com have put together an exception little visualization of the history of the middle-east, showing the reigns of every major empire in the last 2000 years.

Highly recommended. Great example of how effective a little animation can be.

Maps of war: Imperial history of the middle east

(Link from Mark Denovich)

Scott's Bestselling Books
  • Confessions of a
    Public Speaker
  • Provocative and funny secrets from a veteran speaker, you'll laugh as you learn.
  • Buy now at Amazon Book Details
  • The Myths of Innovation
  • The classic bestseller on how amazing lessons from the past can help you innovate today.
  • Buy now at Amazon Book Details
  • Making Things Happen
  • The classic and bestselling handbook for any project leader, packed with tactics and stories.
  • Buy now at Amazon Book Details
Photos from Recent Events (view flickr stream)

You're reading Scott Berkun, All rights reserved unless noted. You can subscribe here Blog RSS Comments (RSS)