Not their star reporters. Not their politics coverage. An intern. Who never considered journalism as a career. But knew data visualisation. "On December 21 the quiz was posted and by the end of the year had become the site’s most popular piece of content for 2013." - Behind the dialect map interactive: How an intern created The New York Times’ m…

Easier said than done. It'd be a lot simpler if we could just Kill the Mediocre. "From startups to global enterprises I see two things. One, I've observed the voicing of ideas that immediately vanish into the ether of complacence, politics or blatant disregard. Two, I've witnessed the escape of morale where employees refuse to share ideas to im…

Great minds think alike ;) Couldn't resist commenting. "So how can you find great stuff as part of your content marketing efforts? Even better, how can you become a curator known for generously sharing the best of relevant content? " - How to find and share great content » Trafcom News Blog

They're online? Seriously, someone made a study to discover: "non-anonymous social networks like Facebook... provide an ideal environment for the expression of the ‘hoped-for possible self,’ ... emphasizes realistic socially desirable identities an individual would like to establish...” It's a good article, though. Particularly like the point ab…

A good pro-EU article ends with: "How dare these foreigners impose on us clean beaches, food labelling, consumer protection, lead-free petrol, road safety, access to healthcare abroad, cheaper mobile phone charges and real chocolate? ... If we want to bathe in sewage, landfill our countryside, guzzle mechanically recovered meat, and pay through t…

Davastating analysis in the FT of "... three visible failures: First, the economic, financial, intellectual and political elites mostly misunderstood the consequences of headlong financial liberalisation ... The rescue was necessary. But the belief that the powerful sacrificed taxpayers to the interests of the guilty is correct. Second, ... a gl…

"Performance reviews that are tied to compensation create a blame-oriented culture. It’s well known that they reinforce hierarchy, undermine collegiality, work against cooperative problem solving, discourage straight talk, and too easily become politicized. They’re self-defeating and demoralizing for all concerned. Even high performers suffer, bec…

You can go for months without a good post on the EU public sphere, and then a whole bunch come along at once.

"Barack Obama, Jerry Seinfeld, a line cook at Applebee's, and a guy with two penises walk into a bar. Actually, no, they would never do that. No venue could bring these people together. And yet, each of these people has stood before the IamA subcommunity on the social network Reddit, and typed those immortal letters, "AMA." Ask. Me. Anything. "…

"I still catch myself thinking I know better than the wealth of data at my fingertips. That’s not to say your intuition and savvy as a marketer aren’t valuable. You need both. ... take a holistic look back at what worked well, what didn’t, and what you can double down on in the year to come." - Year End Analysis: How to Plan Your Content Based o…

"whole new publishing and technology system ... continually iterate on the site and take advantage of new technology trends ... instead of seeing major redesigns in the future, users will see more incremental changes" Key question: are the native ads clearly ads? - New York Times redesign points to future of online publishing - Jan. 8, 2014

Great advice for web data analysis everywhere: "We don’t live in a perfect world. Vague requests are going to get floated. ... that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t recognize and strive to minimize how often that happens. Here’s how: - Condition yourself to go to full alert whenever the word “interesting” is used ... - probe for clarification as much …

"coming up with creative ideas on demand is only part of the answer. Just as crucial is how ideas link to action. ...we have developed an integrative process for idea generation based on approaches drawn education, consumer research, business model design and emergent strategy... The first three steps are designed to help managers understa…

"I had an ethics class where the explicit message was, “Crime doesn’t pay.” But the implicit message was, “It isn’t a crime if it is merely immoral and not strictly against the law.” " - Why business schools charge so much and pay their teachers so little – Quartz

Great longread. Some excerpts: 1) It's a serious problem: "these online offenses are enough to make a woman want to click away from Twitter, shut her laptop, and power down her phone. Sometimes, we do withdraw: Pew found that from 2000 to 2005, the percentage of Internet users who participate in online chats and discussion groups dropped from 28…

"One cultural tool for constructing Europe has been through official symbols aiming to emotionally strengthen citizens’ identification with basic values of the European project.... The fifth symbol is the euro, introduced in 2002. When trust in European institutions is shaking, so is the belief in those symbols and the identification of and with …

"Change of direction speaks volumes for change in German attitudes triggered by the euro crisis." ... Maybe some EU functionaries need to get out of their luxury offices now and then, and talk to the people. Then they'll be able to carry out policies which are rooted in practical life." - Key centre-Right German party adopts new hardline Eu…

Landfillharmonic. Watch. Share.

One guy, a camera and a whiteboard (and millions of views and a book and lots more). Sigh. I miss my super huge whiteboard.

“Comments from readers are probably one of the thorniest problems for online publishers of all kinds… and the methods for dealing with them are all over the map... We spoke to online editors and community managers at 104 news organisations from 63 countries across the globe, plus a selection of experts from the corporate and academic worlds to id…

Interesting survey of HuffPo, Techcrunch & other experiences with changing commenting systems and policies. - HuffPost policy banishes trolls — and drives away some frequent commenters | Poynter.

"Blamestorming is a neologisms describing a meeting, which means to be formally a brainstorming. But the real purpose is to find a scapegoat" - from the EC's inestimably good Think Tank wiki

An alternative to Popular Science's approach: "Climate change articles trigger some of the most heated discussions on Ars Technica... a scientific matter with political ramifications, it's also the focus of astroturfers (fake grassroots movements), trolls, and the willfully scientifically illiterate. At Ars, we take trolling very seriously... we…

"ScribbleLive is an important tool for covering events and breaking news as well as for live chats. Journalists should get adept at using Scribble (or other liveblogging tools such as CoverItLive, Liveblogpro or Superdesk). But be sure to use it in tandem with Twitter. You don’t have to choose between them." - Using ScribbleLive, you can livetwee…

"If you have been following European politics and media, online and offline, for the past 5-6 years, you cannot but notice the genesis of a European Public Sphere . This sphere may be more or less evolved depending on national media, but it clearly there, much more than it was before the last European elections and the before the start of the cris…

Quote of the day: "rekindling enthusiasm for Europe with new banking regulations... is like boosting libido by reading the instructions on a packet of condoms" - Can the European Center Hold? - NYTimes.com

"we essentially write new content that we then throw away at the end of the day. Content shouldn’t die by design... topical contexualization... means guiding readers through large, convoluted news topics. ProPublica’s topic pages get us closer to contextualizing huge topics. For every major series that they cover over time, there’s a landing page…

How nice to see a positive answer to the perennial question: Where are the MEPs?

A refreshing focus on what matters: "Voters are frustrated that they exert less influence than ever over elites... a restoration of the people’s dwindling faith in political institutions at national and EU levels is at once the biggest and the most elusive prize... decline in public confidence in Europe’s governing classes is wider, and it rel…

Terrific article: "people are more likely to be moved by information that challenges their prejudices if they’re prevented from responding to it straightaway and it has time to sink in, to steep... On social media... the person you disagree with isn’t just misinformed but moronic, corrupt, evil. Complaints become rants. Rants become diatribes... …