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Saturday Links: Herding Googlers

Nathaniel Ward — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 15:00:13 +0000

Photo: Flickr/giiks
Google researchers discovered that technical ability isn’t what makes a good manager. Instead it’s, well, being a good manager. “What employees valued most were even-keeled bosses who made time for one-on-one meetings, who helped people puzzle through problems by asking questions, not dictating answers, and who took an interest in employees’ lives and careers.” A neat infographic explains Google’s criteria.
Slate explores the dramatic fall of pickpocketing in the United States: “In a 2001 story, the New York Times reported that there were 23,068 reported pickpocketing incidents in the city in 1990, amounting to nearly $10 million in losses. Five years later, the number of reported incidents had fallen by half, and by the turn of the millennium, there were less than 5,000. Today, the NYPD doesn’t even maintain individual numbers on pickpocketing.”
Vasilis Vryniotis offers a list of best practices webmasters should follow before launching a site. These are also good to keep in mind after a site is launched, too.
A new mashup from Greater Greater Washington allows you to redistrict the District of Columbia’s wards based on 2010 census data. Here’s my take.
Last but not least, Remy has a new video for Reason.tv:

Nathaniel Ward — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 00:36:54 +0000

Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) takes an unpopular yet important stand against deficit spending. Will his colleagues stand with him?
Not only is the winning design for the new U.S. embassy in London embassy horribly ugly, but so are all the runners-up. Why do so many architects think their buildings have to eschew traditional design conventions to be any good?
Simon Heffer offers some unkind words about the man who could be Britain’s next prime minister (maybe). “Cameron shifts easily on such issues because he has very few principles, other than his belief in himself as prime minister. If it is feasible one day to reward marriage through the tax system, he will do so. If it is not, he won’t really care less. Such is the mindset of the former public relations man, whose elastic intellect can be placed on whatever side of whatever argument.”
And last but not least, Wired’s article about Google’s algorithm provides not only a fascinating look at search technology but an interesting case study of an organization that consistently innovates.

Nathaniel Ward — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 07:26:10 +0000

Does More Prevention Mean Lower Cost? Not necessarily, argues Mark Steyn.
How Facebook is Gunning for Google (And Killing SEO)
Echoes of Herbert Croly’s Promise of American Life. “For nearly a century, California offered ordinary people better lives than they could lead perhaps anywhere else in the world. Today, reflecting our intensely stratified, increasingly mobile society, California affords the Good Life only to the most gifted and ambitious, regardless of their background. That’s a deeply undemocratic betrayal of California’s dream—and of the promise of American life.”