The Haystack

It’s been a very busy few months, and November is no exception. In addition to an unholy amount of client work at Cinnamon, this month has brought a couple of speaking engagements.

On November 8th I had the privilege of taking part in a panel discussion at the eNederland conference about web accessibility and the new Quality Model for Websites. The Quality Model is heavily based on the Dutch Web Guidelines for government websites, and is an effort to encourage businesses to conform to accessibility and usability best practices. Other members of the panel were Gerlach Cerfontaine (President and CEO of Schiphol Group) , Rabobank ICT-manager Harrie Vollard and Thuiswinkel.org director Wijnand Jongen. There is a photo and a summary (in Dutch) at the website of the Taskforce for Handicap and Society, one of the initiators of the Quality Model project.

Next Thursday (November 29th), I’ll be doing a presentation for Logeion Association for Communication on real-world application of accessibility and usability guidelines, and the impact on online communication. Ruben Timmerman will present some case studies on the business application of usability principles. More information is available (in Dutch) at the Logeion website.

I recently became a father (for the third time), and I’ve been so busy with that and work that I’ve had to mark thousands of feeds as read more than a few times. Now, on a relatively quiet evening, I’ve got my shit together enough to actually be able to read my feeds, and post a few noteworthy ones here. There is no particular order. Enjoy!

• Joseph Sullivan’s favorite book covers of 2007. There are some gems here. I especially like One Red Paperclip and Chip Kidd’s design for After Dark.
• Seems that November 26 will be Blue Beanie Day. Holy shit. I love Zeldman, but people, we just barely recovered from everybody talking like a f*cking pirate. Besides, I don’t have a blue beanie. Photoshop.
• Feel a little more intellectual the next time you decide to throw a sheep at your Facebook buddies. Danah Boyd and Nicole Ellison dive into the history of social network sites.
• While everyone else is spewing fire about frameworks and such, Andy Clarke ponders instant cake mixes. Come on, Andy, get with the program. This just proves you’re a nut.
• Joe Clark coins Clark’s Law, which is in part why I love open source. Not to be confused with the other, less important Clark’s Law.