From Bubble Graphs to Mind Maps

// April 6th, 2007 // 3 Comments » // Business, Career, Design, Learning, Management, Personal, Programming, Venture Capital, Writing

Bubble Graphs

I can honestly say there are almost no learning techniques from Jr. High that I have carried forward through my short academic life into business. However, there is one gift that a now nameless, faceless teacher once gave me. That gift was the ability to put my thoughts on paper first, and then dork with them and refine them. She (I think it was a “she”) called them “Bubble Graphs”, but the point was to brainstorm about a topic for a speech, a paper, or an argument and document things. Then go back and do the organization and structuring of those thoughts, with a final output being an outline.

Where is Jason?

// March 27th, 2007 // No Comments » // Design, Ministry, Programming, Web Ministry

Everywhere and nowhere, that is where. In addition to some significant life changes I hope to blog about next month, I am in the midst of a big web ministry project at the church where I work. We changed our audience focus from insiders to outsiders, and are completely redoing our site visually and architecturally.

Father of the TV Remote Control Dead at 93

// February 28th, 2007 // No Comments » // Business, Design, Miscellaneous, Programming, Television

I am a big fan of This Week with George Stephanopoulos. Mainly because I get to hear quippy commentary from George Will during the round table portion of the show. But they also have a section of the show called “In Memoriam” which reviews the “important” people who died that week, and displays the total number and list of soldiers names who have passed away in Iraq and Afghanistan during the week.

Why Netflix Gets It and Blockbuster Does Not

// February 23rd, 2007 // 2 Comments » // Business, Community, Design, Economy, Management, Movies, Programming, Television, Venture Capital, Writing

So I attempted to cancel my Blockbuster.com subscription a few moments ago because of a bad experience, and had to fill out a survey to get it done. There was a comment field where they asked “How Can We Improve? Would you mind taking a minute to explain why you’ve decided to cancel your account?” So, I was willing to help out and wrote the following in my very sick state (the flu or a cold maybe). Upon submission of the survey, a form error was returned on the comment field which reads: “Please type in 255 characters or less for your comments.”

E-zekiel Content Management System Failure

// January 12th, 2007 // No Comments » // Programming, Web Ministry

Those of you who build websites know sometimes the things you attempt simply will not work. Either the technology won’t cooperate or it is designed in a way you don’t expect. Once in awhile you come across an infrastructure item that has a bug or an odd behavior. Even less often do you come across a security problem that is a result of poor engineering.