Word of the day…
filiopietism – the reverence of forebears or tradition carried to excess
For a fascinating post on this, check out this link – The Lesson of the Monkeys
The Tragic Circle
Reply
Monthly Archives: February 2013
Intranet Truth
Quote
All effective intranets are usable,
… but not all usable intranets are effective.
– Building on Intranet Usability
Related articles
The Power of Comic Books!!
Wow!
Comic Books are fun!
They are a great visual medium. And they are a great way to tell a story.
One of Jorge Cham’s latest editions in his PhD comic series is on an interview that was held with Keegan Lannon at Comic-Con. Keegan is a PhD student and is studying “the narrative of comic books“. (Yep – it seems that Comic-Con has an intellectual side.)
This edition struck me on many levels:
The Content
Keegan describes his study. It’s on how comic books tell stories. “What does the mind do as it scans across the page and sees all the words, and put something together. What can we learn about information and communicative process by the way narratives tell stories.”
Keegan has even created a Taxonomy of Word Functions in Comics:
- Neurolingustic Text – Speech/Thought bubbles
- Sound Effects – Motivated/Unmotivated
- Narrative Text – Intra/Extradiegetic
- Printed Text – Consequential/Incidental
Keegan provides an interesting description of the difference between films, books and comics.
One fascinating thing that resonated with me was the observation that Keegan made about the power of a graphic. People can write many, many words to describe something, when a good graphic and a caption can be just as powerful.
The Presentation
The way that Jorge put this edition together is amazing. Instead of just having a film of the interview, he made amazing use of various ways to present the information.
Jorge uses different ways of capturing various topics into panels. He also emphasises main points by adding speech bubbles, as well as extra drawings.
What could of been a mildly interesting way of capturing information from a PhD student is turned into something very, very captivating!
It’s a well spent 4 minutes and 43 seconds!
Related articles
How a person and a Swiss Army knife are different.
I have a Swiss Army knife.
It’s one of those with 12 different tools on it. I carry it everywhere with me. Why? Because it is extremely handy.
I have used (I kid you not) almost all the tools. I’ve used the saw to cut branches hanging over the driveway when a truck couldn’t make it under them. I’ve used the screwdrivers almost all the times (I don’t even go to my tool bag in the garage any more). I’ve use the knife frequently, and for all sorts of different jobs where something needs to be cut. The tweezers have been used several times for emergency removal of prickles from my daughters foot.
The list goes on…
This got me to thinking.
A multi-talented person (an experienced IT’er) can be compared to the multi-function swiss army knife. However a little bit more thought on this lead me to realise that, No, a multi-talented person can NOT be compared to a Swiss Army knife.
Here’s 5 reasons why…
| Swiss Army knife | Multi-talented person |
| Has multiple tools of which each one is designed to achieve specific tasks, and does it well. | Has multiple talents, but can be stronger in some areas than others. |
| Each tool continues to do what it is designed for, no matter the length of time between uses. | Skills can be become rusty if not frequently used. |
| The tools in the Swiss Army knife do what they are meant to. They never change. (The can opener always open cans). | People have the ability to extend their skills through continual learning, and experience. |
| Swiss Army knives are predominantly recognisable by the red colour, | Multi-talented people don’t always wear red. That’s reserved for those people who meet their demise early on. |
| Swiss Army knives can be easily carried in your pocket. | Whilst, with the correctly modified clothing, carry people around in your pocket is possible, multi-talented people like to explore new things. They like variety. |
There may be more reasons, but I think you get the point…