28 January 2002

Dream Team I had a rare experience a couple of days ago.  Even if you're lucky this doesn't happen very often, but I'm sure you can remember the moment when you first stumbled across a great body of work on the net by someone who's ideas and writing are just head and shoulders above everyone else.  I had a moment like this a couple of years ago when I first came across Joel Spolsky, and sucked down a great long draft of his work, as well as with Clay Shirky, and Tog Tognazzini. Well the last guy Tog, along with Brenda Laurel and the inimitable Jacob Nielsen, work together with a character called Don Norman, in the what Joel called the 'web design dream team', the Nielsen Norman Group. Here's Joel's take back in August : "If you asked experienced UI designers to list the world's top names in UI design, you would get surprisingly similar results. Norman. Laurel. Tognazzini. Nielsen. Those four names are probably everybody's top four. They are the writers of the four best UI books that have ever been written. It seems to have escaped everyone's notice that all four are working together now, at the Nielsen|Norman Group. This is an incredible dream team. Imagine the Institute for Advanced Study in the forties when Einstein and Feynmann were there. Now imagine if Newton and Kepler were there, too, and you get some idea of how exciting this is." If you're still with me, where I'm going with this is that I discovered a whole wealth of stimulating new ideas on Don Norman's site.  His bag is design, but his interests range all over.  Here's an essay on education, In defense of cheating: "Students cheat. There is no way of avoiding this fact. Students hand in homework and project assignments copied from others, or written by their parents, or even purchased...  But the proper solution to the problem is not through prohibition and punishment... I believe that the root cause of cheating in our school systems lies with inappropriate curricula and examinations. Change the practices and the cheating should naturally diminish. Consider this: in many ways, the behavior we call cheating in schools is exactly the behavior we desire in the real world. Think about it. What behavior do we call cheating in the school system? Asking others for help, copying answers, copying papers. Most of these activities are better called "networking" or "cooperative work." In the workplace these behaviors are encouraged and rewarded. Thus, many experts will tell you that their real expertise lies not in what they know but rather in who they know: that is, expertise is often knowing whom to ask and where to look." 6:24:33 PM

Enron for dummies There's obviously a huge amount in the press about Enron at the moment, particularly as Cheney refuses to cooperate with Congressional investigators. And you know as well as I do, we're all going to have to wade through a whole lot more coverage before the press' interest even begins to taper off. So, all the more important as you do your wading, to make sure you're a good grasp of the basic principles involved: what was Enron's business, why was it so innovative, and what was good, as well as bad, about the business model? (There has to have been something good about it, to have generated all that enthusiasm at the time, you'ld hope). The orientation you need is here in the NY Times: "When Enron got started, natural gas and electricity were produced, transmitted and sold by state-regulated monopolies. They were often plodding and inefficient. Enron used Wall Street magic to transform energy supplies into financial instruments that could be traded online like stocks and bonds. These contracts guaranteed customers a steady supply at a predictable price. This may be a good place to pause for an Enron Lesson. The company did stupid and venal things, but introducing the laws of supply and demand into the energy system was smart business and is, by and large, good for customers. One sad side effect of this scandal is that some good ideas may be discredited by association with Enron." 3:23:01 PM