Article: Bohannon, J. (2012). “Who Controls Social Networks?” sciencemag.org. Visited on Oct 9, 2012:http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/06/who-controls-social-networks.html This article is about how ideas spread in social groups through peer influence. A theory long debated is that a small number of people who are influencers spread ideas through their peer groups. Critics of the theory argue that is...
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Frost, B. (2012). “Separate Mobile Website Vs. Responsive Website.” smashingmagazine.com. Visited on October 25, 2012: http://mobile.smashingmagazine.com/2012/08/22/separate-mobile-responsive-website-presidential-smackdown/ This article is about how to address the challenges of the mobile web by either creating a separate mobile website or creating a website that is responsive to different screen sizes. These two approaches are illustrated by the...
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Tugend, A., (2011). “It’s Just Fine to Make Mistakes.” NYTimes.com. Visited on October 8, 2012: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/12/your-money/12shortcuts.html Experiment: A study was conducted comparing the productive abilities of participants testing high and low in “perfectionism”. The task was to rephrase a passage without interpretation for a panel of judges who were unaware of the status of the participants....
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How many different ways can someone describe a color? There is a delightful video titled “Luscious” by the Sappi paper company Off Register. In it, the main character attempts to describe the exact shade of “luscious” she wants printed on paper. “It’s like the inside of a baby polar bear’s ear,” she tells the...
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This week, I was invited to attend a BRIDGE Summit at Stanford. I was there to represent Ushahidi’s work and wasn’t particularly sure what to expect… But it turned out to be a very interesting brainstorming session for a new product/service in the health space: BRIDGE. Dr. Stephen Friend (M.D. and PH.D., president/co-founder/director of...
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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the power of language. Sure, there have been a lot of news relating to language (election, after all, is only a few months away): legitimate rape is one example of powerful words/phrases in the news. But I would like to briefly explore how words and language can...
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The Olympic Games are coming to a close and there are some interesting design decisions that seem worth mentioning. But let’s start with a cursory set of design requirements: safety, transportation, visibility and observability of events, entertainment, fairness, cultural sensitivity and appropriateness, and so much more. As with all design problems, divide and concur...
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