all posts tagged “quote”
We're getting close to rolling out a new and improved version of
CommonCraft.com and I have a favor to ask. We're planning to include testimonials in the new design. These are short quotes that will display the names (and organization names, if desired) of the people providing the quotes.
While all testimonials are welcome, short quotes of 150 characters or less would be perfect (about the size of a Twitter update.) Just a few words about our videos, how they're used, results, etc. Here's an example:
"Common Craft videos have helped me save time by getting everyone on the same page"
I feel a little funny asking, but we
don't often know how the videos being used and by whom.
A couple of things to remember:
- Honesty - we are looking for quotes from people with real experience with our vidoes
- Contact Info - If you provide a quote, please include information for contacting you
- Our focus is education and training, so quotes from professionals in this world are much desired
How to Share:
If you'd prefer to share a testimonial privately, please use our contact form.
If you don't mind sharing your experience with the world, that works too. A few ways:
- Write a review on our Facebook Fan Page
- Twitter It with #commoncraft
- Leave a comment on this post.
Thanks so much for helping us with the new design!
It's true, Common Craft (the company and blog) is 5 years old today, or sometime around now. I recently went back to the very first blog posts I wrote in 2003.
One of first was called "My Intentions for this Weblog" of June 24, 2003. Here are two quotes:
This weblog will be written in the language of a lay person. I feel strongly that a key to my success is being able to relate technology and technical concepts to people that are not educated or well-versed in technology. I think that the language of technology is very much focused on technologists. My goal is to make communication technology easy to understand for people like my Mom.
And...
Lastly, my overall and far-reaching goal with this weblog is to increase the understanding and acceptance of the Internet as a communication tool. There is a world of people and organizations that are looking for ways to use the Internet to work and communicate better and I want this site to help them see new opportunities.
I honestly didn't realize that these things were such a big part of my plans 5 years ago. Truthfully, I don't see much change in the next 5 either.
This birthday post at 2 years is one of my favorites too.
The first is by Antione de Saint Exupéry, author of The Little Prince and a pioneer in aviation:
Perfection is not when there is no more to add, but no more to take away.
The second is by William of Occam (1288-1347) You might know the name from Occam's Razor.
It is vain to do more with what can be done with less.
These quotes mean a lot to me and were found, most recently, at the beginning of Chapter 5 of Tim Ferriss' book The 4-Hour Workweek. More on that later.
Every once in a while we get an email that reminds us why we started making videos for the Common Craft Show. Here is a quote from an email today:
I love your films! We were so inspired by the Wiki-Plain English that we have now set up 5 active team workspaces and have totally revolutionised the way we work. (I spent 10 years as a TV/Radio Producer and now work in behaviour/social change communication and I can say I have never come across a short film so motivational yet so simple!)
Yay!
This email put smiles on our faces. Any thing we do that can help people create positive change is time well spent.
I'm originally from North Carolina and I once learned that our state motto is "Esse Quam Videri" which translates to "To Be Rather Than To Seem"
If you ask me, this should be the motto for businesses (and individuals) who are trying to adapt to the new world of community, marketing and advertising on the web. The days of "seeming" are over and success in the future is all about "being". Really, there is no choice - the customer now decides what is real.
To Be Rather Than To Seem - it makes sense to me.
Richard MacManus quoted a passage from Steve Jobs' commencement address at Stanford.
"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."
Those words mean a lot for me, and not because I worship at the alter of Steve.
I just read (and recommend) this .pdf from Guy Kawasaki's book, Art of the Start. For folks thinking about starting a company, I think it's good and somewhat non-conventional advice.
I thought this was an interesting this "key principle":
POLARIZE PEOPLE. When you create a product or service that some people love, don't be surprised when others hate you. Your goal is to catalyze passion�??pro or anti. Don't be offended if people take issue with what you've done; the only result that should offend (and scare) you is lack of interest. Car design is a good example of the love-versus-hate reaction; consider the bifurcation of people's reactions to cars such as the Mini Cooper, In�?niti Fx 45, and Toyota Scion xB. People are either devoted fans or relentless critics, and that's good.
This reminds me of one of Leo Buscaglia's quote that I like a lot:
I have a very strong feeling that the opposite of love is not hate -- it's apathy. It's not giving a damn.
Via: Nancy White via Change This
I heard a few powerful words regarding honestly recently and wanted to pass them on. I had never heard it put this way:
Honesty is the intent not to deceive.
[luvly] Talking to Ward Cunningham about wiki
While I'm writing about wikis, I thought this fit well- it's a transcript of a call with Ward. I really liked some of the thoughts Ward has about wikis (go figure). I particularly liked his comparison of wikis to a fragile civilization...
Civilisation is a construction of people that exists longer than anyone has a right to expect it to.
I like walking in city parks, but they are very easy to destroy. And sometimes someone will come along in their SUV and destroy one, but
we still build city parks. Just driving along, you can see how many buildings, how much of civilisation remains in one piece and working
when it could so easily be broken by a very few people.
I think that says a lot about how wikis can so easy be defiled by the public, but aren't in many cases. It also says something about what Ward thinks about SUVs.
Via: Richard MacManus' Linkblog
ACM: Ubiquity - A Conversation with Andrew Hargadon
I really enjoyed this interview. Andrew is an associate professor at UC Davis Grad School of Management. In this interview he debunks many of the widely-held ideals about innovation. I like the way he thinks.
On the difference between innovation and invention:
Innovation is the practical exploitation of any novel idea. Novel ideas can be inventions in the strict definition of the term, which means they didn't exist before, but most often they're not. Instead, they're based on taking an idea that's been developed somewhere else -- or combining a number of existing ideas -- and introducing them to a market that hasn't seen those combinations before.
On the notion of his rule "divided we innovate"
It's better to allow people to focus on the things they do well and only bring them together sporadically, if at all. Another alternative is to keep people focused on what they're doing and give other people the charter of finding the commonality. Keeping people divided allows them to go in different directions, which creates the variance you need later to find new combinations.
Via: Fast Company
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