Weblog

It’s official; companies are finally recognising that outlawing social networking sites such as Myspace and Facebook in the office is unlikely to work. Moreover, not only is it a futile task, but it also represents a massively missed opportunity to improve the efficiency of an organisation - and the quality of employee experience.

For many years the office watercooler has been the focal point for social encounters in the office. Now, in the age of Web 2.0, we are seeing a steady revolution in our corporate social lives. Degrees of connectivity within organisations are on the up - and not across traditional lines of the corporate communication structure. Instead we are forming links between points previously left unconnected, all thanks to the corporate social network.

I must admit to being a little late coming round to the vast potential of Amazon’s e-book reader, Kindle, and other similar technologies. My initial skepticism was pretty simple; no matter how good the screen technology might be, I’d still rather hold and read from an actual book, even if it is heavier/bigger/more awkward than the Kindle. However, I am now convinced that e-Book readers will be absolutely indispensable in revolutionising at least one area of reading life: the academic library.

The Information Commissioner Office (ICO) has this week ruled that Phorm’s service must operate on an ‘opt in’ basis, rather than the ‘opt out’ model which the company had initially intended to deliver. Good. I do not know a single person who was happy with the proposed ‘opt out’ concept, and even would go so far as to say that every setback for Phorm (as long as it persists with opt out) is a victory for the progress of the web…

(Those unfamiliar the recent Phorm controversy can check here and here for background info)

An ice cream flavoured with cow dung extract has this week won its creator a Nobel Prize. Also among this year’s winners was a bottomless bowl of soup, and a study into the side-effects of sword-swallowing…

Now maybe that was a misleading opening. I’m not talking about the Nobel Prize (which is scheduled for December), but rather the lesser known ‘Ig’ Nobel Prize, founded in 1991 at Harvard and presented to a range of winners at the university each year.

The prize recognises genuine achievements from a range of categories (chemistry, physics, engineering, computing etc) whose work has a ’special’ quality but a low chance of being recognised by mainstream awards such as the Nobel Prize.

Smashing Magazine has featured EtonDigital’s design for SprintBio in a recent review on footer use in modern web design. The article examines the significance of the footer space, and provides examples of creative approaches to this area. SprintBio has been selected for its effective use of colour to separate content types.

The footer space can often be an overlooked and even ignored aspect of web design. However, if approached in a creative manner, the footer offers developers more freedom than many other sections of a site.