Day: June 27, 2009

This week’s links:

• On Education: Two interesting posts by Koshy and Atanu.
• Four Pillars of an Open Civic System: by John Geraci. “What we really want (or what I really want anyway) is not simply government transparency, but an open civic system – a civic system that operates, and flourishes, as a fully open system, for whatever level we happen to be talking about – federal, state, city, neighborhood, whatever. And transparency is a big part of that open civic system, but it is still only one part.”
• Jeff Bezos at Wired conference: An interesting collection of quotes. “People over-focus on errors of commission. Companies over-emphasize how expensive failure’s going to be. Failure’s not that expensive….The big cost that most companies incur are much harder to notice, and those are errors of Omission.”
• The Start-up Guru: Inc magazine on Paul Graham. “His company, Y Combinator, is a hybrid venture capital fund and business school that invests in, advises, and, literally, feeds 40 or so early-stage businesses a year. Investments are small — less than $25,000 per company — but Graham supplements the money with smart advice, introductions to later-stage investors, technical help, and a sense of community.”
• The Power of Mind Mapping: from Forbes. “Mind mapping, a form of visual outlining, may seem superficial, but once mastered it provides a powerful tool for managing information overload and the hyperbolic multitasking of the modern world.”