Jon Udell: Extreme design versus extreme programming. Quote: “Central to Cooper's methodology is the documentation and analysis of personas. These are carefully thought out representations of key actors (Lucy the sales rep, Bill the investor) that aim to capture the goals and motivation of these actors. From these you deduce what tasks they perform according [...]

Newspaper design: A return to simplicity. Mario Garcia's article on simplicity in newspaper design (and redesign) is nice. Simplicity tip: “When in doubt, review the rules of the minimalistic style of Bauhaus artists. Context, without excess, is the key.” [ia/ - news for information architects]

Column Two: KM & CMS blog. Step Two Designs, the firm in Australia whose whitepapers we have linked to occasionally, has started Column Two a new blog on knowledge management and content management systems. [ia/ - news for information architects]

Cobranding. In the New Architect article, “Joint Venture”, Adaptive Path's Jeffrey Veen discusses how to co-brand services successfully on the web. Well-executed partnerships can make your site's offerings both more complete and more competitive. Just remember that new content or services will only attract users if they are complementary to your current offerings and are [...]

HBR article on social networks. Harvard Business Review has an [article in their June issue] about Social Network Analysis and how to tap into the power of informal knowledge & action creation in a company. This is an important field of study for us to keep up with, because it provides a new context for [...]

Harnessing Social Networks in Libraries.  Watch Marylaine's Ex Libris site for a new column about utilizing social networks in libraries called “Who You Know Still Counts.” Here's an excerpt: “I've been reading a couple of books which I may tell you more about in subsequent issues,* and though one is about  information entrepreneurship and the [...]

Theologians call for wider debateIn the shadow of the priest sex abuse crisis, members of the world's largest association of Catholic theologians, yesterday called on the Catholic Church to re-explore its power structure, its priesthood, and its teachings about sexuality. [Boston.com] Probably the best article I've seen on the wider issues stemming from the current [...]

Political News from Wired News – Do Dots Connect to Police State? Adding more fuel to critics decrying the administration's centralization of power, President Bush proposes a cabinet-level domestic security office. [ ... ] The FBI and the CIA would not be replaced by the new agency, but some of their operations would be given [...]

New Yorker.   Interview with Barry Diller.  Very smart guy. Question:  And what about Internet connectivity? Do you see it through the cable wire, or the telephone wire, or some other wire? Diller:  I think it's going to come from lots of places. I think that, from what I have seen, cable-modem penetration is growing, is efficient, [...]

The Self-Checkout: Lots of Swiping, No Stealing ” 'Most of the systems are similar and use a recorded voice and visual cues on a touch-screen monitor to guide shoppers through the process. At the bagging end, most use scales that can detect attempts to steal unscanned merchandise. Behind the scenes, each self-checkout station works with [...]