What’s on your reading list?

I’ll kick off with my blog subscriptions tagged “intranet” in google reader (view posts/subscribe to this list):

• Column Two – James Robertson in Australia, who is also behind the Intranet Innovation Awards.
• Currybetdotnet – Martin Belam, who I first met and worked with at the BBC when he helped us with our intranet search strategy back in 2002.
• Dilbert – keeps me sane.
• FastForward – stuff on so-called “Enterprise 2.0″.
• Globally local – locally global – Jane McConnell in France. Useful international and strategic perspectives. Annual global survey giving excellent insight and evidence if anyone needs to build a business case for an intranet.
• InfoDesign: Understanding by design – digest of design-related posts and articles (including interaction design, user experience design and information architecture) compiled by Peter J. Bogaards.
• Inside out – A relative newcomer to the intranet blogging scene and a must-read from Richard Dennison at BT.
• Intranet Blog – Toby Ward in Canada. Has worked with numerous companies and seen a lot of intranets – useful case studies and advice on avoiding common pitfalls.
• IBF Blog – Rotating bloggers on a monthly basis offering insight and analysis from research and evaluations of dozens of company intranets. [I wear an occasional Intranet Benchmarking Forum hat]
• Is this wisdom – Richard Hare on networking and sharing ideas.
• Learning Trends – Elliott Masie’s newsletter on the world of learning, work and technology.
• New Thinking by Gerry McGovern – killer content and the long neck.
• The Obvious? – Euan Semple, who started the BBC’s internal blogs, wikis, discussion forum, profile pages long before anyone was talking about Enterprise 2.0 or other such neologisms. Thought-provoking ideas and ruminations on social media, the internet, society and work.
• Signal vs. Noise – The blog from 37 signals makers of Basecamp and other useful, usable and desirable web apps.
• Webcredibles – Accessible writing on accessibility.

This gives me a manageable amount of info and insight and points to other conversations going on that are relevant too.

It’s difficult deciding what to tag “intranet” and what to tag “intranet-related” – as Richard Dennison asks what is an intranet after all?

I’ve tagged quite a lot, including the frequently updating news-based sources, as intranet-related to try to see the wood for the trees as it were.

Right, wrong, good, bad? Too introspective? What’s missing? What do you recommend?

1. I am late. I will be there at
2. I’m at home. Please call
3. I’m at work. Please call
4. I’m in a meeting, call me later at
5. I will be arriving at
6. Meeting is cancelled.
7. Please call
8. See you at
9. See you in
10. Sorry, I can’t help you on this.

I’ve never used them. I’m not sure I ever will.

“Sorry, I can’t help you on this.” Seriously!

I mean they all seem to be written in some strange language from a bygone era. For starters they all have complete words and correctly used punctuation.

It got me wondering what templates you’d end up with if you went round asking people what text messages they send the most.

• Accountant
• Articled clerk of a limited company
• Assurance agent of recognised company
• Bank/building society official
• Barrister
• British Computer Society (BCS) – Professional grades which are Associate (AMBCS), Member (MBCS), Fellow (FBCS) (PN 25/2003)
• Broker
• Chairman/director of limited company
• Chemist
• Chiropodist
• Christian Science practitioner
• Commissioner of oaths
• Councillor: local or county
• Civil servant (permanent)
• Dentist
• Designated Premises Supervisors
• Director/Manager of a VAT registered Charity
• Director/Manager/Personnel Officer of a VAT registered Company
• Engineer (with professional qualifications)
• Fire service official
• Funeral director
• Insurance agent (full time) of a recognised company
• Journalist
• Justice of the Peace
• Legal secretary (members and fellows of the Institute of legal secretaries)
• Local government officer
• Manager/Personnel officer (of limited company)
• Member of Parliament
• Merchant Navy officer
• Minister of a recognised religion
• Nurse (SRN and SEN)
• Officer of the armed services (active or retired)
• Optician
• Person with honours (e.g. OBE MBE etc.)
• Personal Licensee Holders
• Photographer (professional)
• Police officer
• Post Office official
• President/Secretary of a recognised organisation
• Salvation Army officer
• Social worker
• Solicitor
• Surveyor
• Teacher, lecturer
• Trade union officer
• Travel agency (qualified)
• Valuers and auctioneers (fellow and associate members of the incorporated society)
• Warrant officers and Chief Petty Officers

This is the list of acceptable countersignatures on the Passport Service website.

Interesting post by Ewan McIntosh. Via Nick Reynolds at work.

• Should Designers and Developers Do Usability? (Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox) to usability webdesign roles … saved by 38 other people … 1 day ago
• BBC NEWS |UK | ‘Most dangerous’ roads revealed to A682 yorkshiredales longpreston roads safety … saved by 3 other
  people … 2 days ago
• Community Kit for SharePoint – Home to sharepoint cks blogs wikis communitykit … saved by 51 other people … 2 days ago
• Wired Science – Wired Blogs “Yes Men Strike Oil: Civil Disobedients Make Modest Flesh-to-Fuel Proposal” – as my friend another Paul says serious/funny. to yesmen prank politics activism environment … saved by 52 other people … 3 days ago
• Epicenter – Wired Blogs “Dismantling the Media With the BBC’s News Director, Richard Sambrook” – David Weinberger interview to BBC news richardsambrook davidweinberger interview viaeuan … saved by 19 other people … 3 days ago
• Dulwich Rhino Run – Event Details – Runner’s World Tuesday 3 July, 7pm 10 miler to Dulwich running London dulwichrhinorun … 4 days ago
• Face-off | Media | MediaGuardian.co.uk to facebook bbc guardian … saved by 6 other people … on june 19

Meanwhile, it’s good to see something being done by the Evening Standard to help London’s cyclists… (of course, this doesn’t have to be limited to London)

Evening Standard’s 12-point charter

1. A real cycle network across London
2. Better cycle lanes with proper segregation
3. Enforcement of special advanced stop lines for cyclists
4. HGVs to be fitted with special cyclist safety mirrors
5. Compulsory cyclist awareness training for all bus drivers and new HGV drivers
6. Make safe the Thames bridges: some of the most dangerous places for cyclists
7. Cycle-friendly streets: fewer one-way systems which funnel cyclists into the middle of traffic
8. More cycle parking across London
9. A police crackdown on bike theft
10. Campaign to urge the selfemployed to claim a 20p a mile cycling allowance against tax
11. Better cycle-bus-rail coordination: adequate parking at all railway stations
12. Cycle training for all schoolchildren and any adult who wants it

Here are a few things I do to keep fit:

• Running – it’s my Dad’s fault, and it’s his Dad’s fault! There’s nothing quite like it for clearing my mind. The more undulating the better… the Yorkshire Dales and the eastern Pyrennees are perfect, and East Dulwich and surrounding area has plenty to offer too.
• Cycling – to work – it’s a 12 mile journey each way and I’m managing about 6 journeys out of 10 a week at the moment.
• Not using lifts and walking up escalators – there are 124 steps at Elephant & Castle, down in the morning, up in the evening. When I’m not cycling of course.
• Walking – what better way to get to know somewhere than to have time to stop every now and then and look up.

This is certainly true of John Maeda’s book The Laws of Simplicity (Simplicity: Design, Technology, Business, Life).

Maeda is a world-renowned graphic designer, visual artist and computer scientist at the MIT Media Lab.

At work we have a big simplicity theme going on at the moment which I’m closely involved in. The book is the perfect reference for this work.

On a personal note I found it covers themes which are incredibly important to me in the way I work and think as a technologist, designer and facilitator and also in my non-work life.

There are ten laws. If you’re really pushed for time the tenth law “The One” summarises them all:

Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful.

The book is deliberately 100 pages long. Just knowing that when you’re reading it is reassuring and offers a feeling of simplicity in itself.

I must admit I enjoyed the book so much I broke the third law immediately by taking my time to ponder the content.

There’s a great explanation of how the iPod became more complex before it became simpler, like so many other things in life!

Maeda also covers Gestalt, one of my favourite subjects, and how it helps when designing and understanding design.

If you don’t want to buy the book, much of the information in the book is available on Maeda’s Laws of Simplicity blog, though I find the fact that the book packages the ideas and is itself simply designed means it works much better for me.

Five things you might not know about me:

1. I went to nine nurseries/schools including O Pequeno Principe (The Little Prince) nursery in Brazil and the Junior English School in Rome, Italy.
2. At Southampton University I was the long-haired lead singer in a band called SINS (which stood for Suck It ’N See!). Our biggest gig was in front of 1500 people celebrating Chamberlain Hall’s 10th “Bar Birthday”
3. Both my ears are pierced.
4. In 1992 I was Office Angel of the Month while temping at South London Dial-a-ride. The office postcode was SW19 8UG – I told them the mnemonic was “Swig bug” and that’s how they remembered their postcode from then on. I don’t think it’s connected to the Angel award.
5. I broke my nose doing the high jump. I was 15 years old and representing my school at an athletics meeting. I cleared the bar (1.58m) but had to pull out. My record was 1.78m which was also the school record for a short time. I also did 110 metre hurdles, javelin, 800 metres and 1500 metres.