"the system ... counts the number of incorrect facts within a page ... by tapping into the Knowledge Vault, the vast store of facts that Google has pulled off the internet. Facts the web unanimously agrees on are considered a reasonable proxy for truth. Web pages that contain contradictory information are bumped down the rankings." - Google wan…

"The future of work is screwed. It's being built upon a foundation of legacy thinking and outdated value systems. Instead, the future of work should start with a reboot in company culture and employee engagement." The 10 reasons are both cutting and funny and worth a read. To dig deeper, there's even a free report, summarised in text & video. K…

Comment moderation and online community management strategies for news organisations, but relevant to government sites too: "Comments are a way for readers to connect with one another, and with the journalists and editors reporting the news. But ... can quickly turn uncivil, and news organizations often don’t have the resources or manpower to con…

"From the responsive layouts to the improved APIs ... we’ve reimagined every aspect of the WIRED experience... I want to walk you through our thinking on the new site—to tell you about the technology and design innovations that make this iteration of WIRED possible. We settled on a card-based motif for both its flexibility and configurability..…

"some people have the sense that data somehow makes designers less powerful, that you’re basing decisions based purely on mechanical measures rather than designer intuition and genius... data is what ... turns designers from artists into the most important decision makers in a company... prototypes can really only get you to local maxima ... the…

Good case study, concluding with observations on the role of journalists which also apply to government communicators: "An engaged journalist's role in the 21st century is not only to inform but to bring readers directly into the conversation through... real-time coverage, alternative story forms, crowdsourcing, beat blogging, user-generated co…

"Newsrooms don't need large budgets for analyzing data--they can easily access basic data tools that are free or inexpensive." - Drilling Down: A Quick Guide to Free and Inexpensive Data Tools | Global Investigative Journalism Network

"What was originally intended to be a simple and user-friendly tool for all EU citizens has turned out to be cumbersome and challenging in its use... Stakeholders have come up with concrete recommendations on how to adjust the instrument... first report on the application of the ECI Regulation by 1 April 2015 ... the first step towards a revision…

A whole load of recommnendations for the UK's House of Commons, including some intriguing ones - eg: "We believe the public want the opportunity to have their say in House of Commons debates; we also believe that this will provide a useful resource for MPs and help to enhance those debates. We therefore recommend a unique experiment: the use of…

Quite simply a must read, particularly for any organisation which silos its communications skills and activities: "anyone who wants to get started in real digital marketing should work for a company that sells a specific product to a specific audience... I wanted to propose a strategy to Mozzers on how marketing departments and agencies should s…

A lot of good practical advice here, although focused on teams distributed across the planet, not just Europe. The last recommendation is worth remembering: "Last, but not least... meet as a whole team. Do social things together, give people a chance to get to know one another. Once you connected a real human with the flat, blurry face on the scr…

A glimpse into tomorrow's ultra-personalised web, when these technologies migrate out of marketing into CMS ... "an engine to generate custom sets of tags for each Web site visitor.... the next step is to assemble the tag data into detailed individual profiles for personalization, testing, attribution, and other purposes... These features go bey…

"There is no shortage of stories about companies that create amazing innovations with digital technology ... the software, media and technology industries ... account for less than 10% of the U.S. economy. What about the other 90%? We studied more than 400 large companies ... in every industry, companies are doing exciting things with digital te…

"I’ve seen many successful startups emerge and flourish outside of Silicon Valley, like Hootsuite, Jive, Bazaarvoice, Omniture, Spredfast, Sprinklr, BuddyMedia, BlaBlaCar, Freelancer, and a plethora of Chinese tech companies ... let’s first break down the pros and cons of having your startup be in Silicon Valley" - Your Tech Startup Doesn’t Nee…

I freely admit: I've been a fanboy of the UK's Government Digital Service (GDS) since studying their design principles. Those principles are still good. Everything else, it turns out, was not.

"an engine to generate custom sets of tags for each Web site visitor.... the next step is to assemble the tag data into detailed individual profiles for personalization, testing, attribution, and other purposes... These features go beyond Web page tags to capture data from mobile apps, from ad pixels served on external Web sites, and from other s…

"we wanted an easy way to create and share social cards with our readers... Vox Media’s ‘meme’, an open source social card making tool. A few hours of tinkering later, and we had our own version set up with some simple functionality, along with a new name: CardKit.... a simple and easy to use tool for everyone to quickly and dynamically create im…

"Who says innovation is only for start-ups? In these interviews, the heads of three large, established companies—Intuit, Idealab, and Autodesk— argue there’s no reason big players can’t develop the next big thing... how it can remove roadblocks to experimentation, and the merits of creating its very own idea incubators. "one thing that’s made the…

"The coverage of HSBC in Britain's Telegraph is a fraud on its readers. If major newspapers allow corporations to influence their content for fear of losing advertising revenue, democracy itself is in peril." - Why I have resigned from the Telegraph | openDemocracy

"...the trick with content marketing is that it's a long game.... it can take months to build a backlog of great, search-friendly content.The great thing is, once that content's written, it'll work for you over time by accumulating traffic and generating leads... I’ve been inspired by BuzzFeed and other popular online content platforms, whose les…

"Crowdsourcing is not about work. Crowdsourcing is about community. Without a solid community, you get not-solid results from your crowdsourcing endeavor.... The goal of many of these tactics is not to stop assholes from being assholes, just to slow them down and demotivate them from destroying your community." - Crowdsourcing isn’t broken — Bac…

"This interactive project lets you step into the shoes of the president of Azerbaijan and assess how the decisions you make influence your popularity in the country" - President for a day, via https://www.journalism.co.uk/news/online-storytelling-ideas-from-hackastory-hackathon/s2/a564037

"To zero-in on exactly what you want to say, what you want someone to take away and what you want someone to do is critical but just the beginning ... you then need to distill everything into something snackable, engaging and shareable, the amount of work and thoughtfulness intensifies. Essentially, to visually communicate through byte-sized nar…

"Yesterday’s campaign-driven projects with their long lead times, well defined scope and clearly delineated beginnings and ends are giving way to something more organic and continuous, something more fluid, even improvisational. But marketing organizations, by and large, are still organized around a campaign-driven cadence." - Content Marketers …

"When you think about a company with no managers there’s a good chance your mind drifts to stories of chaotic “meritocracies”, bro-y cultures, and HR disasters. Whereas we value mentorship and coaching, continuous self-improvement, and strive to make sure everyone feels safe and supported. ... That said, we do think there are problems with tradit…

"Advancement in digital technologies has disrupted everything, including leadership styles ... Employees want more ownership rather than to follow instruction; customers want to participate in the marketing and development process; and leaders are finding that open and agile organizations are able to maneuver more effectively ..." Not just platit…

"Designers can create in-depth, documented case studies of their work. The best ones clarify the complex choices designers have to make and explain their thinking behind UX and visual decisions. They document and communicate that knowledge clearly, helping our design community to develop a more empathetic, human‐centered way of speaking about our …

Even if you're not in the slightest bit interested in bitcoin or blockchains, you should read this, as it first explains why the Internet enabled innovation through "the abstraction of a separate “application layer.” Core Internet protocols - the “transport layer” - shuffle packets of data around, but they don’t define how the exchange of packets …

"While we've always loved a good chart and map at Vox, appreciating a chart or map does not data journalism make. Data journalism is not just data visualization... ... the explosion in data sources readily available on the web... can both aid in telling important and necessary stories, but can also be easily misunderstood and potentially manipula…

"There is a danger in asking the wrong question ... you’ll probably get the right answer for the question you’re asking, but it’s not going to be the right answer for the question you really needed to ask. " - A Beginner's Guide to Social Media Analytics | Amy Vernon | Ochen