Blogs | Social Signal

Some blog comments are easy to deal with. They praise you to the heavens, share a related story or gently offer a different perspective... that is, they're a positive part of the conversation. You thank, you respond (or they're comment spam, in which case you report them to Mollom or Akismet and then delete) and the circle of life continues.

But other comments are hard. They get your back up. They seem to question not just your argument but your integrity. The more you read them, the clearer it becomes that they were written by evil, evil people. And with your fight-or-flight mechanism firmly in gear, you write a blistering reply...

For something that has such a huge impact on our emotional response, colour often gets surprisingly short shrift in web projects. People who can argue for hours about the relative merits of "About" over "About Us" will flip a coin to choose between blue, purple or green as the colour for text links.

Today's Globe & Mail included a special supplement about MBA programs, with a feature story on why and how schools are incorporating social media into the curriculum. "Within minutes or even seconds, online chatter can span continents, conveying positive spin or the kiss of death for a product or company," reporter Diana McLaren writes. "Business schools are adapting to the rapidly shifting relationship between companies and consumers."

For the past four months, Social Signal has been privileged to work with the Mountain Equipment Co-Op and the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society on The Big Wild, a community for wilderness conservation. It's an extraordinary partnership and project: one that marries MEC's membership and special place in the appreciation of Canadian wilderness with CPAWS' advocacy for wilderness conservation.

According to Microsoft Canada, the average Canuck has seven online profiles out there. A lot of us have a lot more - some active, some abandoned and gathering dust, and still others that are forgotten yet still chug automatically along. (I haven't opened my FriendFeed page in well over a month, but it includes things I did only a few minutes ago.)

Update: Something's changed at Google's end, and this tip no longer works... at least, not in the four browsers I checked it in. I'll be on the lookout for workarounds, but in the meantime, any suggestions are welcome. And thanks to the commenters who've pointed it out.

Google Forms are one of the lesser-known and more powerful features of Google Docs. They let you capture data from your users in a Google Spreadsheet, via simple web-based forms that can stand on their own or sit embedded in a web page.

Asked on LinkedIn:
In an earlier question regarding promotional ideas to promote our community classes, it was suggested that we offer a free sign language course (value $195) to someone in need; maybe a family member, spouse, or other individual who wants to learn this valuable and important language. We like the idea of this type of promotion, but not sure how to structure this offer and create criteria so that the selection of winner is fair. We plan to send a press release to announce this free offer. Do you have any ideas on how-to set the criteria, and/or any lessons learned offering a similar promotion?

You'll never find your communications skills put to the test more strenuously than during a crisis. Even the best of organizations feels the strain when a crisis hits, whether it's a scandal, a service interruption, a product recall or a natural disaster.

Tired of Google Reader's straight-ahead interface for catching up on the latest news? DoodleBuzz describes itself as a "typographic news explorer". Type in any keywords, and then use your mouse to scribble on the screen; DoodleBuzz will present news stories from your search, arranged along the outline of your doodle.