|
|
Thursday, September 04, 2008
|
|
| |
Rules For Superior Stories
Charles Tilly in his book Why? distills down the rules for how Jared Diamond takes complicated ideas in books like Guns, Germ, and Steel and whittles them down to an essential yet still interesting essence:
- Simplify the space in which your explanation operates.
- Reduce the number of actions and actors.
- Minimize references to incremental, indirect, reciprocal, simultaneous feedback effects.
- Restrict your account--especially of causal mechanisms--to
elements having explicit, defensible equivalents within the specialized
discipline on why you are drawing.
- Remember your audience: you will have to tell your superior
story differently depending on the knowledge and motivation your
listeners will bring to it. Think of your stories as relational work.
1:58:48 PM 
digg
reddit
|
|
The Lifecycle of a Typical New Product Announcement
Look at enough new product announcements and there appears to be pattern. The same sorts of articles are posted on every product. So why not jump ahead of the curve? When a new product comes out see which of the following you want to sign up for:
- Rumor of X's Imminent Release. Oh Joy!
- X
Has Just Launched! Live blogging now.
- How X Will Change Everything
- The Real Reason Behind X
- X First Impressions
- Warning: X has
Serious Issues (performance, security, privacy, crash, design,
licensing, etc)
- X Who Wins and Who Looses
- X FAIL
- Why X Sucks
- X is Better Than Everything Before and After Forever
- Why Y is
Really Better than X
- The Story Behind Project X
- X Will Get
These New Features Eventually
- Company Y Announces Support for X
- Indepth Review of X Here First
- X Looks Good But Not Yet Ready
- What X Means for the Plans of Company Y
- How You Can Make Old
Product Z Work Like X Now
- X Over Hyped and Under Performs
- X is
Now Bigger than Product Y
- Why Did We Ever Care About X in the First
Place?
- I Wasted an Hour of My Life Using X
- X: The Video
- What X Means for the Future of Humanity
- Tips for Using X
1:48:24 PM
digg
reddit
|
|
|
|
© Copyright
2008
todd hoff.
Last update:
10/14/2008; 7:03:57 AM.
|
|
| September 2008 |
| Sun |
Mon |
Tue |
Wed |
Thu |
Fri |
Sat |
| |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
| 7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
| 14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20 |
| 21 |
22 |
23 |
24 |
25 |
26 |
27 |
| 28 |
29 |
30 |
|
|
|
|
| Aug Oct |
|
