Link Collection — December 4, 2011

• What Would Ben Franklin Do? Influences of America’s First Environmentalist | ThinkProgress

  “Everywhere Franklin went, his feisty personality preceded him, and it was this reputation in Europe that played a key role in securing the foreign aid the revolutionaries needed to triumph over the British. Many consider the celebrated polymath to be the first “American” in numerous regards—in entrepreneurialism, in political discourse, and, of course, in partying. As it turns out, Franklin was also the first American environmentalist, and his inventions influenced the scientific community for decades.”

  tags: benjaminfranklin

• How To Be More Interesting (In 10 Simple Steps) – Forbes

  Words for us geek types to live by:

  “4. Embrace your innate weirdness. No one is normal. Everyone has quirks and insights unique to themselves. Don’t hide these things—they are what make you interesting.”

  tags: talent

• Cloud Computing – Bessemer Venture Partners Cloudscape

  Infographic on players in Cloud Space, broken out in standard manner: SaaS, PaaS, & IaaS

  tags: cloud computing bessemer

• Fresh Copy: How Ursula Burns Reinvented Xerox | Fast Company

  Interesting article on Ursula Burns and the ups, downs and strategic changes for Xerox. Plus, she told President Obama “that he owed her $3 billion.”

  tags: burns xerox

• Martin Scorsese On Vision In Hollywood | Fast Company

  I just enjoyed this article. Scorsese’s creative influences, rules to live by; as well as parallels of the film creation process with software development — takes, composition, and editing.

  We should do more editing in software development.

  tags: creativity scorsese

• Let them eat data | FT Tech Hub | FTtechhub – Industry analysis – FT.com

  Open data and #snark from the FT. What could be better?

  “Whether this measure spawns many new enterprises like PLACR remains to be seen, but it’s the perfect austerity plan. If there isn’t the money to improve the rail infrastructure, get some apps developed instead that will tell people just how long their train is likely to be delayed.”

  tags: opendata

• Napster: Lessons for The Enemies of Shadow IT – tecosystems

  “Given that developers have an increasing portfolio of accessible open source software and cloud services available to them, it’s unlikely that an enterprise crackdown on so-called shadow IT will be materially more effective. And then there’s question of whether throttling the constituency within your business that wants to move fastest is generally a good idea.

  Why not enable them, then? Instead of firewalling the services Shadow IT wants, provide them centrally. Turn the tools that you are wasting your time fighting into an enticement to come out of the shadows. You’ll have better, if still imperfect, visibility into consumption and usage patterns as well as shorter development cycles. What’s not to like?”

  tags: sogrady shadowIT

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.