February « 2011 « Too Much White Space

FEB

28

TED Glossary

posted by john miles 5

I am often asked what or who is TED and what is a TEDster or TEDx, so to playfully clear up any confusion, I offer a first draft of my understanding of all terms TED.

Please add to the list or correct anything you feel needs improvement in the comments section below.

TEDTalk :: a 3-18 minutes highly curated remuneration-free talk given by someone passionate about their subject matter and an interest in sharing it with curious and passionate listening people.

TEDhead :: One who voraciously devours virtually all releases of online TED talks posted to TED.com

TEDster :: An enthusiast and/or an attendee of the TED conference in Long Beach or Palm Springs.

TEDActivator :: An attendee of the TEDActive simulcast conference in Palm Springs

TEDizen :: A TEDster, who resists connecting with the word TEDster and prefers TEDizen as their label. A TED Citizen.

TEDx-er :: An attendee of one or more TEDx events

TEDJunkie :: One who simply cannot resist another TEDTalk or TED conference, even though work or family await attention.

TEDx organizer :: A person who has been bitten by the curiosity and passion of TED and just had to organize a TED event.

TEDx Licensee :: A TEDx organizer, who went through the proper channels and received official endorsement from the TED organization to put on a TEDx event.

TEDDy :: a stuffed bear children like to drag around by one paw.

TEDCurator :: Chris Andersen, the guy that helps hold the vision of passion, curiosity and the spread of ideas in the world.

TEDPatron = Big Big Wig

TEDDonor = Big Wig

TEDU :: A talk or group of talks given at TED in Long Beach by a TED attendee.

TEDYou :: A talk or group of talks given in the desert near Palm Springs or on the show lounge stage at TEDActive, by a TEDActivator

TEDache :: The feeling on day 2-4 of a TED conference where you think your head might explode from all the input.

ExhausTED :: Post TED conference tiredness from days of high energy talks, connections and after parties.

TEDify :: Brain child of Maria Popova – a blog dedicated to capturing the common tangents between TED‘s incredibly diverse speakers in order to connect the dots to make the bigger social and cultural points.

TEDwithdrawal :: The feeling of yearning for next years conference immediately following this years conference. Also know as PTDS (Post TED Departure Syndrome).

TAGS: Glossary, TED, TEDActive
Posted in innerpreneur | No Comments »

FEB

22

2011 Silver ADDY Award for integritive.com

posted by emily

We are proud to announce that Integritive won a Silver ADDY Award for the Integritive website – www.integritive.com. Matt Levin was happy to represent Integritive and Integritive2 at the event held this past Saturday.

Much thought, care and craftsmanship was put into re-designing our own site. We think it turned out to be a great reflection of who we are and what we value. Well done all.

TAGS: AAFAsheville, addy, awards
Posted in asheville, web design, web development | 1 Comment »

FEB

21

Social media is a must for CEOs

posted by john miles 5

My first thought when considering the social media landscape was a wayward “What a waste of time,” followed by this little gem of preconception: “I am hardly interested in what anyone had for breakfast!”

You may be thinking, or might’ve heard of something similar as prime excuses for steering clear of Twitter and the social media space. Understandable. After all, when it comes to moving their organization into the future, a CEO is constantly busy focusing, prioritizing and deliberating on decisions that will propel their endeavor ever closer to the goal line. There is no room for trivialities, right?

It wasn’t until November 2009 when a friend, mentor and fellow CEO explained the different professional benefits to services such as Twitter and LinkedIn, as a not only an effective business tool, but a necessary one as well to succeed in the entrepreneurial climate of the 21st century. He punctuated the conversation with an emphatic, “You have to tweet!” So here I am, more than a year later, a former skeptic, arguing the case, albeit briefly, as to why CEOs should heed this advice and consider social media (if they haven’t done so already) worthy of their time, not a waste.

Connectivity

Adopting Twitter and LinkedIn has afforded me the valuable opportunity of connecting with highly successful people I respect that I probably would’ve never met otherwise. Whether they are the largest independent hotelier in California, best selling authors or previously “unreachable” CEOs, this technology grants me access to what movers and shakers are doing to prosper in their field — directly from the source. It’s a portal to insight that can teach and inform and has at times, for me personally, influenced my business trajectory, not to mention expanded our network of contacts. Not bad for a guy from Asheville.

Sharing

As important as giving time and giving money is the exchange of ideas and experiences that potentially can enrich our community. Twitter, if used properly, helps nurture that ideal by maintaining an open line of dialogue between colleagues and friends — 140 characters at a time. So look at your social media use as part philanthropy, generously sharing information that could help your fellow business journeymen along their way.

News and information

One of my most cherished Twitter functions is information filtering. To stay abreast by sifting thru all the major business publications and outlets cover to cover could take the better part of a lifetime. Twitter streamlines the process of how we extract information by filtering out the noise and serving up what’s necessary on a daily, more immediate basis. By selectively following people I trust and have a proven track record of liking similar content, I essentially am able to customize my news, eliminating wasted reads. For instance, for technology news and TED updates I follow the CEO of Mojo Interactive in Orlando, Glen Lubbert @glubbert. For my fix on the state of the authentic leadership and conscious capitalism movement I read Bill George @bill_george. And for some good old fashioned comic relief — or where I can find a loud, questionable sweater — I’m a fan of Bill Cosby @billcosby. He’s as entertaining on Twitter as he is on stage or screen. Hilarious!

The time saved in having my news curated for me is priceless.

Revenue

So what’s the bottom line? Since adding social media as part of our approach, our firm has generated over six figures of additional new business. It’s hard to ignore the numbers.

I share this much like my mentor CEO did with me, not to impress, but to persuade you to at least try this new medium. I guarantee the benefits will soon become clear. Share what you are learning, cross-pollinate your ideas, make new connections, and lead your organization into the Twitter-sphere.

I look forward to speaking to you on Twitter in 2011 – Send a tweet and include @integritiveJM and a link to this article and I’ll be your first follower.

TAGS: business, leadership, social media, twitter
Posted in business, social media | No Comments »

FEB

18

Javascript better practices: Clone HTML templates instead of directly creating elements

posted by steve

When manipulating the DOM with Javascript, try to avoid creating elements as much as possible. Instead, clone an HTML template, then use Javascript to alter the text and attributes of those elements.

The main benefit of this practice is to keep the HTML separate from the Javascript source. This way, you can style and rearrange HTML elements as much as you’d like, without having to modify your Javascript code.

For example, say we have a list of items grabbed from a feed:

<ul id="feeds">
  <li>
    <h2 class="title">Item title</h2>
    <div class="description">
      Lorem ipsum sin dolor sit amet...
    </div>
  </li>
  ...
</ul>

And say in your Javascript code (jQuery in this example), you’re dumping a feed’s items into this list:

$.get('/feed/url', function(results) {
  for (var i = 0; i < results.entries.length; i++) 
  {
    var entry = results.entry[i];
    
    var li = $('<li></li>');
    $(li).text(entry.title);
    ...
    $(li).appendTo('#feeds');
  }
});

Above, we’re using jQuery to create the <li> element. There’s really nothing wrong with this, but if you use an HTML template beforehand, you can save yourself some time in the future, when you need to make changes.

So our plan is to:

Create an HTML template for the list item
clone() this with jQuery
Alter the attributes and text with jQuery
Then append it to the <ul>

So let’s start with the HTML template:

<ul id="feeds">
  <li class="template" style="display:none">
    <h2 class="title">Item title</h2>
    <div class="description">
      Lorem ipsum sin dolor sit amet...
    </div>
  </li>
</ul>

Now we have a simple HTML template for our list item. Next, we’ll modify the Javascript to clone the list item, then modify its contents and their attributes, rather than creating elements directly.

$.get('/feed/url', function(results) {
  for (var i = 0; i < results.entries.length; i++) 
  {
    var entry = results.entry[i];
    
    // clone li.template
    var li = $('#feeds li.template').clone();
    $(li).removeAttr('style')
         .removeClass('template');
        
    // manipulate its contents
    $(li).find('.title').text(entry.title);
    $(li).find('.description').text(entry.description);
    ...
    $(li).appendTo('#feeds');
  }
});

Now you can modify the HTML, move things around, or change the elements without having to modify your Javascript. Good practice for future-proofing!

What do you think? Do you have a different opinion or other practices?

TAGS: clone, DOM, html, jQuery, template
Posted in tutorials, web development | 2 Comments »