Posts Tagged: links

Capesquared — No Comments
11
May 10

Story Time

Anyone who knows me, knows that I love Google Reader. I also love the ease with which I can send articles I think someone might find interesting or pertinent. But my comments on the article are usually short, and a dialogue on the topic is rarely sustained.

So, recently, my partners at Capesquared and I instituted something we’re calling Story Time.

Story Time is a standing weekly meeting, based on the idea that the value of these articles is in reading and discussing, critiquing and applying, and that simply emailing them around fails to do this. These things must be discussed, in-person (or at least in real-time) to be truly worth the effort of reading and responding.

Story Time works like this:

  • Find ‘em, Send ‘em. Collect articles throughout the week, sending them as you find them.
  • Cutoff Times. Story Time articles must be submitted at least 24 hours prior to Story Time (i.e., if they don’t make the cutoff, they go to next week’s Story Time).
  • Rotating Curator. Someone makes a list of the articles that went out that week, and we move through them in the order they went out, oldest to newest. The curator changes weekly, to spread the work.
  • Time limits. Every article must be addressed, so the number of articles is divided by the amount of time of the meeting. We usually leave 15 minutes for the…
  • Bonus Round. Leave time at the end (10 or 15 minutes) to go back to the articles that were most interesting, or whose discussion got cut-off by the time limit.

So far, Story Time is working out great. It gives us a chance to discuss the happenings of the week, their relevance to our company, and also serves as a cornerstone of idea generation time. The reflections we’ve been able to generate even at this early stage have been more than worth the minimal amount of time it takes to stand up Story Time each week.

How do you deal with the daily deluge of digitally distributed discourse? If you don’t have any answer, maybe it’s Story Time.

Capesquared — No Comments
3
Mar 10

New Math: Business + Blog = ?

Inc. Magazine has a blog post about the challenges that companies face when trying to use a blog to promote themselves.  The short version: it doesn’t work.

At Capesquared, we’ve read the article, and we agree.  That’s why we’re going to continue the roll out of the Capesquared blog, but with a conscious focus about relevant content.

What would relevant content be?  Well, things that we’re about, but also things that you’re about.  We’re interested in technology and how technology works, but we’re also in how technology changes the way you work.  So, we might post an article about Work and the iGeneration.

We’re interested in design, both aesthetically pleasing and functional.  So, we might post an article about some really cool letter press business cards.

We’re interested in human-driven solutions, collaboration, and innovation.  So, we might post an article about WorldChanging.com – and how we don’t always agree with this approach.

Finally, we’ll talk about projects that we’re involved with – and there are a bunch in the pipeline.

In short, we envision this space to be a place where interesting topics are discussed, where conversations are generated, and where our work, interests, and clients can intersect.

Please keep an eye on this space.  As the blog, and the business, continue to grow, it’s going to be a great ride.  We’d love to have you be a part of it.