Dan Pink and the Power of Intrinsic Motivation
What motivates us? Do we respond better to carefully constructed reward systems? Or do we just want to be smarter, get smarter, and figure things out on our own?
The Future of Publishing: Do We Have It All Backwards?
Clever, clever, and oh so worth watching through to the end:
If You Can’t Stand the Heat: Open Dialog and Open Access
The Scholarly Kitchen is a venue for open dialog. Yet a few open access advocates consistently try to intimidate people in order to squelch discussion.
A Renowned Literary Author Self-Publishes
Is this a watershed moment for independent publishing?
Science Blogging as a Public Outreach Tool — Unfulfilled Potential or Unrealistic Expectation?
A recent study points out that science blogs are failing to provide much in the way of community outreach and education to the non-scientist public. Is this really a failure, or is it an unrealistic expectation?
Orbiting the Google — A Gravitational Pull Affecting Our Lives and Thinking
Google exerts a strong pull in the digital realm. Is it strong enough to affect the boundaries of our thinking?
Facebook Patents the News Feed — The “One-Click” Button of Social Media Now Has An Owner
In a moment as important to social networking as Amazon’s one-click patent was for e-commerce, Facebook gets a patent on the news feed. But many questions remain, especially about prior art and what is a “news feed.”
The Video College Application: Tufts Embraces the YouTube Generation
A large university embraces video applications, and more than 1,000 students submit, mostly via YouTube. Here are some clever videos spotlighting some of today’s college applicants.
The Internet’s Extended Cultural Memory — Is It Sapping Our Creativity?
One of the great benefits of the Internet is how it has extended our cultural memory. But has this also stolen our freedom of thought, our ability to create original works of art?
“You Are Not a Gadget” — Why Open Culture and Technocentric Philosophies Are Ruining Our Lives
Jason Lanier’s manifesto about the open culture exposes its lack of ingenuity, its commercial depredations, its amoral world view, and its elitist predilections. It’s worth reading in full.
Are Google and Microsoft Squaring Off Over Public Domain Works?
Why Google apparently gives government documents more protections than 19th century texts is just one of the puzzles in their usage guidelines.
The Steve Jobs Commencement Address
This week’s Friday fun — Steve Jobs’ commencement address at Stanford. An inspiring message from one of our true luminaries of innovation.
Is It Still Disruption When You’ve Done It Yourself?
The fact that scientific publishing hasn’t been disrupted may be a sign of a problem, not an advantage. A future choice may be disruption or irrelevance. Which will we choose?
What Is a Career in Publishing? Recruiting the Talent We Need for the 21st Century
Publishing can’t attract the best and brightest until it markets itself correctly — as being about more than the containers of the past, and being all about the ideas and communication approaches of the future.
Is Privacy Dead? Only When Exploitation Mixes with Apathy
Recently, pronouncements by online mega-players (Google, Facebook) have been lighting up the boards as Eric Schmidt and Mark Zuckerberg particularly have made incendiary comments about the future and value of privacy. Here’s Eric Schmidt, in a brief clip, saying things […]