Imagining the Future from Website Statistics

Posted on February 4, 2010 by Usha Devi Venkatachalam

Thanks to the WLP website redesign project, we have been thinking about technical capabilities of our site visitors a lot lately. Thanks to Google Analytics, we can pinpoint such things as what browser, operating system, screen resolution, and so on that our website visitors have, which is very helpful as we make design decisions. Continue reading →

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Gandhian Thought and Action for the Modern World

Posted on February 2, 2010 by nadodi

http://www.swaraj.org/learningresources.htm

Need to read every one of these links…

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Concentrate Not on the Results…

Posted on January 25, 2010 by nadodi

Do not depend on the hope of results. When you are doing the sort of work you have taken on, essentially an apostolic work, you may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself.

Thomas Merton
“Letter To A Young Activist”

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Weapons of Influence

Posted on January 15, 2010 by nadodi

Cialdini describes six “weapons of influence”

  1. Reciprocity: people will repay favors.
  2. Commitment and Consistency: people will stick to commitments made publicly.
  3. Social Proof: people will do what other people do.
  4. Authority: people obey authority figures.
  5. Liking: people are more influenced by those they like.
  6. Scarcity: people desire what is perceived as scarce.

From Never mind what people believe—how can we change what they do? A chat with Robert Cialdini

Books to read:

  • Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
  • Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive
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Google and China: Clash of Two Rising Superpowers?

Posted on January 14, 2010 by Usha Devi Venkatachalam

Yesterday Google created an internet sensation by announcing that in response to sophisticated attacks from China targeting human rights activists in China as well as Google’s own intellectual property, it will cease censoring search results and would even consider closing shop. While the impact of this decision remains to be seen, it is being applauded by many, including James Fallows and Rebecca Mackinnon and doubted by a few, most notably Evgeny Morozov.

Things are already moving at internet speed. Unlike the censored Google search results of yesterday, the ‘Tank Man’ photos, which previously would not have appeared in search results in China, have started showing up for the search term “Tiananmen”. Continue reading →

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Vision and Action…

Posted on January 12, 2010 by nadodi

Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.

Japanese Proverb

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