Links for April 4 2010

Happy Easter everyone.

Last week was the first published post using Delicious to manage links for my Sunday links post.  I used a javascript from Delicious to insert a certain set of tagged links and their notes.

As I found out (thanks Maddie !), that script does not insert the links into my RSS feed, which is a bummer because I don’t want you to have to come over here just to read a post.  So…I fixed it.  Enjoy my Sunday Links from the comfort of your RSS reader! :)

Here’s this week’s links:

• Reputation and Game Mechanics Are the Future of Social Software by Hutch Carpenter on Spigit Blog

  In this post, hutch looks at the very interesting aspect of games and game mechanics for use in social software (and business).

• “Simple vs. Complex?” No. “Simple, THEN Complex” by Justin Kownacki

  Start with the easy problems, then seek out the hard ones. Excellent advice

• Shoes and software by Jason Fried on 37signals

  Sometimes we all forget that what people want/need are oftentimes the simplest of things.  But simple has to be delivered well to make a difference…and to make a profit.

• A real person, a lot like you by Derek Sivers

  I can’t say it any better than this quote: “It’s too overwhelming to remember that at the end of every computer is a real person, a lot like you, whose birthday was last week, who has three best friends but nobody to spoon at night, and is personally affected by what you say.”

• The CIO’s Dual Roles – Will the CIO Lose the C? by Chris Curran on CIO Dashboard

  If the CIO is only an order taker, service manager and operationally focus, the role will diminish in the future.

• IT R.E.A.D all over by Mark McDonald on The Gartner Blog Network

  McDonald provides an interesting argument on the future of IT….he says IT may just go the way of the newspaper (and dodo).

• Learn the Business, Deliver Business Results by R.J. Morris on Fistful of Talent

  Written for HR pros, the concepts here are easily applicable to all aspects of the business. In this article, R.J. Morris argues that you need to step out of your comfort zone and make yourself more valuable to the organization.

• Optimize the Whole = Measure at All Levels by Jurgen Appelo on NOOP.NL

  On why measuring the whole is important: “What you measure (and constrain) has to cover everything, from start to finish, from top to bottom, or else the unmeasured and unconstrained parts in the system will self-organize toward sub-optimal results.”

• The Importance of Balance by Jeff Cornwall on The Entrepreneurial Mind

  Jeff Cornwall provides a good argument as to why balance as an entrepreneur is important.

• Instead of focusing on the image, focus on everything around the image by Taylor Davidson

  Quote: Creating rich, immersive and scalable experiences is the biggest opportunity in marketing today, and “experience artists” are going to play a large, rich role in marketing going forward.

• Marketers Must Lead Agency Change by Sean Corcoran on Forrester Blogs

  Quote: First we believe marketers need to step back and rethink what they should be outsourcing to their agencies. Forrester identified three fundamental services that agencies provide: Ideas, Interaction and Intelligence (agencies can provide other needs like infrastructure and man power, but we believe those are means to these three ends). By no means are these three I’s new, but their role in the adaptive marketing landscape is changing.