Still, it would be a shame to let an annus nowyourejusttakingthepiss get in the way of a seasonal tradition around these parts. So with more than a nod to the previous four annual recaps, I’ve rounded up a few inspiring things my friends wrote on the internet in 2013. Thank you one and all.

Erin Kissane on turning the ‘how are you?’ question back on ourselves:

“We ask each other how we are, how we’re doing, sometimes how we’re “holding up.” When someone asks it in a formal, professional context, it means little more than “hello.” When our friends ask, they usually want to know a bit more, if not every single detail of recent lives. Weirdly, I suspect most of us aren’t in the habit of asking it of ourselves.”

Corey Vilhauer on becoming the audience again:

“The larger the audience, the more I withdrew. The riskier the subject, the more I held back. Which brings us to where I am today: I’ve stopped saying what I want, and I’ve started being afraid of being wrong.
I am afraid of being wrong. I am afraid of being trivial. I am afraid of publishing something that will be seen as unsatisfactory.
So I publish nothing at all.”

Sara Wachter-Boettcher on embracing your imperfectionist:

“Putting our least polished selves out there for our peers to see—admitting, without shame, that we struggled through rough patches and that not everything turned out exactly the way we’d hoped—won’t expose us as impostors. Instead, it’ll make our work feel that much more real—and, in turn, that much easier for others to be inspired by.”

Nicole Fenton on starting small:

“There are so many days when ‘the work’ is remembering you can do the work. You have to start small. It’s okay, just get the facts down. Say what you know, one word at a time. Take a walk when your chest gets too tight. Be around people who make you happy to be alive. And when you sit down to work and that voice starts shrieking, give it a moment to wear itself out — and then do the work anyway.”

Rebekah Cancino on the other side of insecurity:

“I can promise you this: when it gets tempting to let my own crippling insecurities come crashing down and bring everything to a halt—it’s going to be a lot harder to let them stop me. I don’t have any more excuses to hide behind, and the ugly, purpose-robbing blob of narcissism that self-doubt really is, now lies exposed before me.”

Lisa Maria Martin on using our feelings productively:

“I want to be better – not at hiding my feelings, but at using them productively. And when something goes wrong on a project, I want my first reaction to be generous. I want to give clients and coworkers the benefit of the doubt instead of the kneejerk defense. I don’t want to operate from scarcity.”

Jonathan Kahn on creating safe spaces:

“In a safe space you believe that you are enough. You have value as a person, irrespective of the choices you make and other people’s opinions of those choices. Consequently you’re worthy of love, respect, and compassion—from yourself as well as from others. People accept you for who you are, and so do you.”

Karen McGrane on integrity:

“Integrity comes in the hard choices, from saying no to things you wish you could say yes to. It’s refusing to take a project you might enjoy and that would pay well, because you don’t respect the values of the organization. It’s walking away from a business partnership that offers you significant benefits in terms of exposure and collaboration, because you learn your business partner is not a man of integrity. It’s ending a friendship with a person you genuinely like, because you realize she doesn’t truly have your back.”

This is the tidied-up transcript of a talk I gave a month ago at the Content Strategy Forum 2013 in Helsinki, Finland. It was the third consecutive year I’d spoken at the forum and it was quite possibly the most enjoyable talk I’ve given to date.

Note: Though I’ve included screenshots of the most important slides, you might prefer to read along with the full deck.

The importance of visualisation – mapping the way forward

As our species’ love affair with maps is about as old as civilisation itself, I’d like to begin today’s talk by briefly going back all the way to the beginning of human existence. Long before humans could write we have been making and using maps to make sense of the world around us (Figure 1). Each example offers a snapshot into a different time and culture, as well as a unique insight into the political, cultural, and spiritual forces that drive society.

Figure 1 – Babylonian map of the world. Clay tablet, probably from Sippar, southern Iraq (c.700-500 BC) © Trustees of the British Museum

Every blank surface you can possibly think of – be it of rock, clay, wood, parchment, paper, or tapestry – has been used to plot places and objects according to their relative spacial positions. And it’s this synthesis of science, art, and history that combines to create these beautiful objects. Every map has its own story to tell and harbours secrets it may never fully reveal. A map can delight, surprise, and unsettle in equal measure. And maps can reveal deep truths – not just about where we’ve come from, but about who we are.

Throughout history the map has demonstrated its versatility. They’ve had an administrative use in marking out national boundaries or individual plots of land, a social use in showing who lives where, a military use in depicting the layout of enemy positions, and a political or propaganda use in showing one country or faction over others. But beyond their two-dimensional depictions of a physical world, maps also afford us the freedom to express the cosmos; to make all kinds of ideas about the spatial relationships of multiple components unexpectedly clear. To draw one is an effective way to establish order on an otherwise chaotic environment. To make it navigable. To make it rational.

City maps are a fine example of creating this impression of order. The whole objective behind creating such a map would be to somehow capture, contextualise, and impose order on an environment which is always moving, growing, and changing. An environment which is falling apart and burgeoning at the same time.

As content professionals, we’re often tasked with making sense of complex, unpredictable, and mostly disorderly environments – home to micro communities with their own agendas, rules, and systems of government. Managing content, processes, and people can be a complex endeavour, and managing them in large systems only increases the complexity.

In his famous map of London published in 1747, John Rocque shows off the perfect enlightenment city (Figure 2). It’s clinical, controlled, and beautiful. This is a map of London at its most picturesque. It’s a map that imposes order on a city of unrelenting change, and it gives all the appearance of objective truth. Rocque has deliberately left out the ugly, unsavoury elements of the city.

Figure 2 – John Rocque’s 1746 map of London, which deliberately ignored the city’s unsavoury elements.

To Rocque, it was more important – and lucrative – to present and promote London as the greatest city of its time than it was to present some of its grimier realities. Indeed, mapmakers through the ages have always responded to the mentalities, and met the requirements, of the societies in which they have been created. They quickly learnt that the quality and effectiveness of a map couldn’t simply be judged by its scientific precision, but by its ability to serve its purpose. Without question one of the huge appeals of Rocque’s map was that it successfully imposed order on chaos (Figure 3). This was a visual interpretation of London which offered its inhabitants a sense of promise and a sense of pride as well. To Rocque this map was about imposing clinical precision onto a city which he knew couldn’t literally be accomplished. Why? Because of the human element. And this is the main issue: The thing about cities, like large multi-departmental organisations, is people, and people just make it into a bit of a mad-house.

Figure 3 – One of the huge appeals of Rocque’s map was that it successfully imposed order on chaos.

If we took it upon ourselves to map a complete and literal visual representation of the way content flows within a mid-to-large organisation, we would, in a sense, be mapping a sprawling city. Such a multiplicity of information would need serious reining in if it were not to cancel itself out in a sorry mess. In the end all drawn city maps, however much they distort the truth, are trying to take on the impossible: They are trying to impose two-dimensional order on the chaos that is urban life.

So we’ve learnt that the quality and effectiveness of a map cannot simply be judged by its scientific precision but by its ability to serve its purpose. Aesthetic and design considerations are every bit as important as the mathematical, and often more so. Indeed, maps of this nature have long served as vital political and negotiating tools. In these cases the intended information inherent to the map has to be conveyed in a way that attracts the eye to certain features. Believe it or not but all this can be achieved with even a simple sketch map. Everything that maps are used to represent: placement, proximity, overlap, distance, and direction can consist of only of a few lines and a few letters, with nothing but the essential features remaining (Figure 4). In short: The simpler the better. Maps like this can be used to quickly and clearly communicate our ideas to others. And if sketched in their presence, you can even use them to tell stories.

Figure 4 – Everything that maps are used to represent: placement, proximity, overlap, distance, and direction need only consist of a few lines and a few letters.

Every day we come into contact with various kinds of maps which, on the surface, may look wildly different, but they all share the same basic building blocks (Figure 5). It’s all about picking out the people, places, and things – indeed anything whose relative positions we want to compare – and picturing them in a geographical landscape.

Figure 5 – Different maps, same basic building blocks: Exploded view, Concept map, Star map, and Topological map.

The only real challenge is coming up with a meaningful coordinate system (Figure 6). We’re all well versed in the north-south versus east-west coordinate system, but we can make a map of anything using other pairs of opposites like expensive-cheap versus high-low and fast-slow versus small-large.

Figure 6 – Finding your coordinate system. Anything can be mapped using pairs of opposites.

Once we’ve defined our coordinates we can start to plot our landmarks (Figure 7), beginning with the most prominent feature of our landscape. This could be an object, person, or an idea.

Figure 7 – Plot your landmarks, starting with the most prominent feature.

And then we can move outward (Figure 8), adding more and features and details, illustrating everything from borders and distances to pathways and sets of shared traits. Let’s make a map!

Figure 8 – Move outward by adding more landmarks to you map.

The unfamiliar environment – finding our way

When it comes to getting a grip of that complex trinity of content, processes and people, governance is an important tool (Figure 9). Put simply, governance determines how key decisions are made and who has the authority to make them. Governance defines who is allowed to create, approve, and publish content, and how these decisions are initiated and communicated.

Figure 9 – When tackling that complex trinity of content, processes, and people, content governance is an important tool.

One big content governance challenge is maintaining consistency with messaging, communication, editorial and content standards throughout an organisation. This is made particularly difficult when many contributors have other responsibilities and priorities besides content. Governance is primarily a human management issue, but one useful way to help maintain these standards is through content management system (CMS) workflow. This functionality helps manage the sequence of steps from adding or editing to publishing.

Let’s imagine we’ve been hired by a regional English Council to design a new content workflow for their CMS. This council is one of 27 large two-tier non-metropolitan counties used for the purposes of local government in England. Approximately 15,000 staff across seven departments are responsible for providing services to 700,000 local people including education, social care, transport, and culture and leisure. Unsurprisingly, it’s a varied, siloed environment. Some departments take responsibility of hundreds pages on the public website, others only a few. And in the middle of it all is the relatively small Digital Services department trying to keep everyone’s content balanced and consistent.

If you were about to be airdropped into unfamiliar, and possibly hostile, territory, you’d want to be carrying either a map or pairing up with a native guide. So as an outside consultant arriving fresh into this large, diverse, politically-charged environment, your first instinct in making sense of it should be – besides asking for directions to the nearest coffee machine – to draw a map. In order to work out how decisions about content are made around here we need to figure who best to talk to besides Mandy, our main point of contact from the Digital Services department (Figure 10) – particularly those who might be influential to the way things work without even realising it. And to start this process we first need to map out our landscape.

Figure 10 – To discover how content decisions are made and how they could be improved in our varied, siloed environment, we need to figure out who best to talk to.

Since we’ve just arrived in this new environment let’s start by placing ourselves and the rest of the Digital Services department on the map. Next we want to add in the six other council departments (Figure 11): Adults & Communities, Chief Executive’s, Children and Young People, Community Planning, Corporate Resources, and Environment and Transport.

Figure 11 – To begin mapping our environment, we’ll mark out each of the seven departments.

Now we need to introduce a coordinate system (Figure 12). So let’s plot our departments by their relative sizes from small—large, and we’ll also ask Mandy how quickly each department takes, on average, to move through the gears of creating, approving, and publishing content.

Figure 12 – To devise our coordinate system, we’ll rank each department by their relative sizes and how long their content takes, on average, to go from creation to publication.

Our department’s are plotted, so what can we see? If we’re looking for best performing department we need look no further than Corporate Resources, who, despite their large size, are one of the most efficient at delivering content. On the opposite end of the scale are the Community Planning department, who are small and yet one of the least efficient.

Next we want to understand a little more about the politics of the place. So after surveying various members of the Digital Services department, we can map the pathways between departments that they believe share closer communicative ties (Figure 13).

Figure 13 – Mapping those pathways helps us get a clearer picture of the politics of the place.

So what jumps out now? Our marked pathways tell us that there are two distinct groups, with one markedly quicker at delivering content than the other (Figure 14).

Figure 14 – What can our marked pathways tell us?

Perhaps if we wanted to bridge the gap between these two groups the Digital Services team might consider trying to form closer ties with the similarly-sized Community Planning department (Figure 15). If we could improve the efficiency of this relatively small department it might provide a positive knock-on effect. To me, the Community Planning department looks like the ideal place for a pilot project.

Figure 15 – Where are the opportunities for improvement?

Now we have our map. It’s by no means scientific or pretty but as I mentioned earlier the quality and effectiveness of a map should primarily be judged by its ability to serve its purpose. Our map may only consist of a few lines and letters but we now have a quick and useful overview of the council’s departmental structure. Not forgetting, of course, that we’ve only just walked through the door.

The unfamiliar environment – mapping out a process

Designing an effective CMS workflow requires meeting the needs of the organisation and each of your content players. In the case of our English regional Council scenario, this is our team of authors spread far and wide across the seven departments. To understand how we can improve the author experience we need to ask each of our content stakeholders to describe their current process for planning, creating, and publishing content.

In our conversation with Mandy, Content Officer in the Digital Services department, she kindly talks us through the typical process for publishing a press release on the council website. I’m not an especially quick note-taker so I always ask permission to record the conversation.

I was always taught never to read your slides, but hey-ho.

“On Monday she received a request from John, Highways Manager at the Environment and Transport department, to publish a press release to inform the community of the start of major road improvement work. She first called Helen, Technical Services Manager at the Environment and Transport department, who emailed through the source material and directed her on the technical details that needed to be included.

She continues…

“After completing the draft in the CMS environment, she marked the press release as ‘ready for review’ and emailed Rachael, a Content Manager and colleague in the Digital Services team, and Helen again for their feedback. After one or two line edits, she was ready to mark the press release as ‘ready for publishing’, so she emailed David, a Digital Media Officer to prepare and publish the press release to the test server.

She continues…

“John, Helen and Rachael were all emailed to help her perform a second review of the content, where they duly approved its publishing to the public website. David then got all the glory as usual by hitting the button marked ‘publish’.”

Now, I don’t know about you but I’m lost. The hardest part of these conversations is keeping track of all the different people, roles, and departments as they’re reeled off. When we hear four, five, six names or more it can be difficult to process them; to find form of the relationships between them. To make sense of this complex drama we can make a map that shows who each character is, how many there are, and how directly and indirectly involved they are in the story.

Let’s begin by listing all the characters we heard just then and their roles before sketching their likeness (Figure 16). Don’t worry too much about accurately portraying their looks. You may not have even met them before, but it’s always a good idea to put a face to a name.

Figure 16 – Who are the players in our story?

Next we need to separate them by department and plot each interaction and task in chronological order from the initial request to the press release’s publication (Figure 17).

Figure 17 – Plotting each interaction and task belonging to each character in chronological order (click image to zoom).

This is good. We can clearly see the different roles each character plays and the interactions between them. We can follow this process from the initial request, the research and gathering stage, the creation and subsequent review of the first draft, publishing the draft to the test server, the second round of reviews and approvals, and finally publishing the press release to the web. But we’re still missing features of this story which would further enhance our understanding of this process and how it could be improved. Namely, which interactions and tasks took place in the CMS environment and how long each took to complete.

As Mandy almost practically saw the process from start to finish, she’ll be able to help us fill in these details. Let’s first stretch out the timeline to accurately reflect the varying speeds of each interaction (Figure 18).

Figure 18 – Stretching out the timeline gives us a more accurate measurement of how long each task took to complete (click image to zoom).

What jumps out now? We can see that John and Helen from the Environment & Transport department took longer than Rachael to review the first draft and to review and approve the test server version. Might that just be because they have other departmental responsibilities besides producing, checking, and updating website content? Possibly. Let’s see what happens when we mark out which interactions and tasks took place within the CMS environment (Figure 19).

Figure 19 – Highlighting which interactions and tasks took place within the CMS environment might help us reveal where the bottlenecks are in the process (click image to zoom).

Aha! Interesting! John appears to be carrying out his reviews outside of the CMS. How come? To answer this we need to return to our first map.

We can see the Transport and Environment department are on the slower end of the scale in terms of moving through the gears of creating, approving, and publishing content (Figure 20). After interviewing Helen we learn that the department is comprised of three sub-departments: Transportation, Highways, and Environment.

Figure 20 – Breaking down the Transport and Environment department.

John resides in the Highways sub-department, who we discover has no direct access to the central CMS because of their geographic location elsewhere in the county, and thus is effectively an external contractor (Figure 21). Helen tells us that John has to use email to communicate his requests, edits, and approvals.

Figure 21 – John’s failing sub-department might be down to CMS workarounds adding unnecessary time and cost.

It all makes sense now. The reaction times of the Highways sub-department is adding unnecessary time and cost to this and many other content production processes. It’s compromising the efficiency of the Transport and Environment department and the entire organisation. The intrepid explorer would be wise to investigate whether other departments on the slower end of the scale may be affected when broken down like this. There could be incredible cost-saving potential across the board and opportunities to form closer collaborative ties between departments.

And all this from a couple of fairly simple hand-sketched maps.

The power of drawing – mapping the way forward

Anything to do with aligning content, process, and people is bound to be tough, messy, and complex. But remember that we and others who inhabit these environments are not completely constrained by what has happened before. It is a natural reaction of ours to try to order an environment by fitting it into the categories of our expectations. So when we cannot find a way to fit any new ideas and concepts into these simplified slots, it’s really no wonder we experience those sharp pangs of panic. But we and everyone else around us don’t have to rely on the old established categories, we can always create new ones. Our reserves of intellectual capacity are vast. Perhaps if we’re continually looking upon new ideas and concepts as chaotic and threatening this can only be because we’ve never seriously tried to make use of our potential ability to cope with the unexpected. Believe it or not, we are all amazingly inventive and resourceful, and one of the ways to bring out our innate inventive qualities is to step away from our screens and just draw.

Maps like this can be used to quickly and clearly communicate our findings and ideas to others. And if sketched in their presence, we can even use them to tell stories. It can be an eye-opening experience for everyone involved. We have to fuel our innate curiosity. We have to be willing to look stupid if it eventually leads an insight. Mistakes are just part of the process.

Just remember to keep it simple. You’re not doing it to show off. Often it’s the overly-elaborate pictures that draw too much attention to the art, rather than the idea – and it’s the idea that we want them to remember and to develop.

There really isn’t anything about this level of mapmaking that is beyond us. Make use of shapes, arrows, faces. Find your axis. Make mistakes. Start over and over again until you get it right. There is nothing to be apprehensive about. Just keep it in mind that we’ve communicated using sketched maps from the very beginning. Mapmaking fulfils one of our most ancient and deep-seated desires, which is to understand the world around us and our place in it. It’s very much a basic human instinct.

Recommended reading

• Communicating Design: Developing Web Site Documentation for Design and Planning by Dan M. Brown
• You Are Here: Personal Geographies and Other Maps of the Imagination by Katharine Harmon
• Blah Blah Blah: What To Do When Words Don’t Work by Dan Roam
• The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures by Dan Roam
• Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer by Peter Turchi

Debt: The First 5,000 Years, by David Graeber

When: 2-8 January | Time took: 31 hours, 35 minutes

My closing remark:

“Not afraid to take a wrecking ball to established economic schools of thought, this was an exhaustive, eye-opening study of humanity’s relationship with debt.”

A Modern Utopia, by H. G. Wells

When: 9-15 January | Time took: 15 hours, 55 minutes

My closing remark:

“Though Wells by no means describes a world I’d like to inhabit (at times it’s ghastly), his vision is startling. Despite being quinessentially Wells, this perhaps represents too much of a departure to recommend to newcomers of his work.”

The Financier, by Theodore Dreiser

When: 16-22 January | Time took: 23 hours, 30 minutes

My closing remark:

“A beautifully paced tale of the meteoric rise and fall and rise of a young financier interwoven with political intrigue and forbidden love. For a man with questionable morals, you cannot help but root for him.”

The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran

When: 23-26 January | Time took: 1 hour, 55 minutes

My closing remark:

“A spirit level. Could just as easily pick you up if you were down as knock you down if you were too high. A small pocket-sized version would become fatigued in no time all.”

The Vicomte De Bragelonne, by Alexandre Dumas

When: 30 January – 5 February | Time took: 24 hours, 45 minutes

My closing remark:

“Though this is but the first of three volumes that conclude the d’Artagnan Romances, it’s clear from this juncture that this was never going to be as swashbuckling as the first two novels due to the age of the main protagonists. But don’t let that deter you. If anything, these friends are more colourful and intriguing than ever. I now must find the time to read the remaining volumes.”

The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia, by Samuel Johnson

When: 6-12 February | Time took: 6 hours, 40 minutes

My closing remark:

“Discontented with the trappings of royalty, a prince and princess escape from their idyllic surroundings into the larger world to discover if true happiness exists. Though ultimately pessimistic, I found their unpolluted outlooks and boundless curiosity caused an inward examination of my own circumstances. Now, isn’t that always the sign of a great book?”

The Call of the Wild, by Jack London

When: 13-15 February | Time took: 5 hours, 40 minutes

My closing remark:

“A moving tale of survival in a harsh wilderness by means of physiological and psychological adaption. This slow transformation of Buck as he shakes off generations of domestication and his changing relationship with humans as he passes into the hands of several ‘owners’ is wonderfully described.”

Tender is the Night, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

When: 20-26 February | Time took: 21 hours, 5 minutes

My closing remark:

“Took a while to make an impression but ended up leaving a very deep one. Beautifully descriptive, perfectly balanced and highly intelligent.”

Anthem, by Ayn Rand

When: 27 February – 1 March | Time took: 3 hours, 40 minutes

My closing remark:

“Thought-provoking. Rand describes the harmful effects of nullifying and misplacing a person’s skills and interests in the preservation of ultimate equality. This display of obstinate extremism is just as debilitating as its opposing ideology: a single all-powerful ruler. Society benefits most when we’re able to marry our interests with our work and are encouraged to share what we’ve learnt.”

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, by Cory Doctorow

When: 5-10 March | Time took: 9 hours, 15 minutes

My closing remark:

“Took too long to flicker into life. Characters seemed cold and undercooked. Felt as if I’d joined a lively conversation half way through, only to find it wasn’t all that interesting.”

Bouvard and Pécuchet, by Gustave Flaubert

When: 12-18 March | Time took: 17 hours, 5 minutes

My closing remark:

“A dense, stop-start journey. Best read in accompaniment with a dictionary, an encyclopedia and a map of France, there are rewards on offer for those prepared to do a little detective work. Despite the farcical misadventures of the copy-clerks I couldn’t help but admire their boundless optimism and curiosity. One for fans of thinly-veiled humour.”

The Shape of Things to Come, by H. G. Wells

When: 19-25 March | Time took: 24 hours, 40 minutes

My closing remark:

“Though a work of fiction, it feels odd to be so comprehensively informed about a post-Great War history that never took place and an improbable future. While it’s impossible to resist reviewing some of Wells’s early predictions from our present day vantage point, it would be wrong to use them as a measure of the book’s worth. I gained an even deeper respect for Wells as a thinker and a dreamer.”

Captain Blood, by Rafael Sabatini

When: 26-31 March | Time took: 17 hours, 25 minutes

My closing remark:

“A heart-soaring, air-punching triumph. Dumas has a new rival for my affections.”

Oblomov, by Ivan Goncharov

When: 2-8 April | Time took: 9 hours, 40 minutes

My closing remark:

“A brilliant portrait of a man doomed to his fate by the nature of his upbringing. Though clearly from a tender, loving home, the young Oblomov was fiercely overprotected, brought up in an enclosed environment, and surrounded by adults who perpetually put things off until tomorrow. I got the impression it rendered him wholly unprepared for the rigours and harsh realities of adulthood.”

The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen, by Rudolf Erich Raspe

When: 9-15 April | Time took: 9 hours, 40 minutes

My closing remark:

“Every good local watering hole has one: that self-aggrandising raconteur with their name stitched into their own velvet-upholstered stool. My guess is they’ve picked up a thing or two about the art of exaggerated storytelling from this plain daft collection of one man’s exploits. I like to think the Baron managed to summon life’s development console and enabled ‘god mode’.”

Bel-ami, by Guy de Maupassant

When: 16-20 April | Time took: 7 hours

My closing remark:

“Charting one man’s rapid ascent to the summit of late 19th-century Parisian society. Maupassant really works his magic: you immediately empathise with Duroy’s bid to escape the squalor of his initial existance, but that affection is thereafter tested as his elbows-out approach leaves a trail of checkmated friends and colleagues and more than a few discarded mistresses.”

The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, by Robert Tressell

When: 23-29 April | Time took: 27 hours, 45 minutes

My closing remark:

“It’s easy to see why this intensely political novel became something of a sacred text among activists. You quickly share the author’s despair as he describes a broken system where society’s poorest willingly donate their labour for a barely living wage in order to contribute to the wealth of their ‘betters’, and when all attempts to mend it are thwarted by the very people who suffer the most.”

Tales of the Jazz Age, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

When: 30 April – 6 May | Time took: 12 hours, 50 minutes

My closing remark:

“An eleven-strong collection of short stories that play very different tunes. The tender and moving ‘The Lees of Happiness’ won’t be forgotten in a hurry.”

Tess of the d’Urbervilles, by Thomas Hardy

When: 7-14 May | Time took: 20 hours, 20 minutes

My closing remark:

“A poignant chronicle of life’s ironies and the pain of the human condition.”

A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens

When: 14-20 May | Time took: 13 hours, 25 minutes

My closing remark:

“Though an undoubted treat for the mind’s eye, I found sweeping away all those preconceptions and expectations that come with reading such a celebrated title initially hindered my enjoyment. Only another whirl will do it justice.”

The Invisible Man, by H. G. Wells

When: 21-24 May | Time took: 6 hours, 15 minutes

My closing remark:

“An ideal launchpad for any newcomer to Wells’ work. It’s hard to know to what degree a cloak of invisibility would alter both our moral outlook and mental state. To be effectively cast onto society’s fringes could drive anyone to consider committing misdeeds. I like to think Wells’ underlying message was of our collective ignorance and awareness of society’s ‘invisibles’.”

The Waves, by Virginia Woolf

When: 28 May – 3 June | Time took: 11 hours

My closing remark:

“Heavy and yet so light. An incredibly intense and overwhelming experience.”

The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde

When: 4-10 June | Time took: 8 hours, 35 minutes

My closing remark:

“Decorated with some of Wilde’s most celebrated and repeated epigrams, this is an exquisite parable of late 19th century middle class decadence and indulgence.”

Dead Souls, by Nikolai Gogol

When: 11-15 June | Time took: 15 hours, 55 minutes

My closing remark:

“A master storyteller, Gogol manages to deliver both a charming and reckless comedy and a withering assessment of Russian society. There is a precise vividness to his writing that immediately thrusts you into his world and the fascinating gallery of characters that inhabit it.”

Lamberto, Lamberto, Lamberto, by Gianni Rodari

When: 18-19 June | Time took: 3 hours, 40 minutes

My closing remark:

“If you can imagine a bizarre mix of Dorian Gray and Benjamin Button with a dash of Dog Day Afternoon and Pythonesque black humour thrown in for good measure, then you’ll go some way to understanding why this was such a rip-roaring treat.”

Erewhon, or Over The Range, by Samuel Butler

When: 25-30 June | Time took: 11 hours, 30 minutes

My closing remark:

“The back to front world of Erewhon, with its bizarre treatment of criminals and the infirm to the banishment of machinery, becomes the stick which Butler uses to beat Victorianism. So vivid are his descriptions of the psychological effects of being alone in the wilderness, I wonder whether Butler was able to draw on his own experiences of solo adventuring in New Zealand.”

The Prisoner of Zenda, by Anthony Hope

When: 2-6 July | Time took: 7 hours, 35 minutes

My closing remark:

“After spawning more than its fair share of screen adaptations, homages, and parodies, it would be easy to believe we’re familiar enough with Hope’s original adventure to dismiss it. Don’t make the mistake I nearly made. This superb tale of chivalry, romance, and self-sacrifice still warrants your attention. If anything, it gives hope to wealthy, work-shy fops everywhere.”

New Grub Street, by George Gissing

When: 9-15 July | Time took: 17 hours, 45 minutes

My closing remark:

“Essentially this is a tale of two young writers trying to survive the increasingly ruthless literacy industry in late 19th-century London. Whereas one displays all the dogged persistence needed to play the game of self-promotion, the other, of a more delicate disposition, refuses to betray their artistic values. This was a deeply moving and brutal study of an industry corroded by commercialism.”

Siddhartha, by Hermann Hesse

When: 16-21 July | Time took: 4 hours, 35 minutes

My closing remark:

“Reached spiritual depths that even the bathyscaphe of Auguste Piccard wouldn’t dare descend to.”

The Titan, by Theodore Dreiser

When: 23-29 July | Time took: 21 hours, 50 minutes

My closing remark:

“Disappointingly dull compared to The Financier. Any lingering affection I had for this roguish character had all but evaporated only a quarter in.”

Jude the Obscure, by Thomas Hardy

When: 30 Jul – 5 Aug | Time took: 18 hours, 20 minutes

My closing remark:

“One in the eye for the institutions of marriage and the church. No wonder this provoked such a storm of protest in Victorian Britain.”

O Pioneers!, by Willa Cather

When: 6-11 August | Time took: 7 hours, 50 minutes

My closing remark:

“Many works of place focus solely on how humans affect the landscape, but O Pioneers! offers a deep examination of how the landscape affects the human. And in Alexandra, there’s this feeling that as the air and the earth appear to develop a mutual understanding these qualities come to be reflected in her own benevolent, reciprocal character. What a joyous introduction to Cather’s work this was.”

To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf

When: 13-19 August | Time took: 9 hours, 20 minutes

My closing remark:

“At 16, I’d never experienced the loss of someone close. I never understood its environmental impact, nor about our efforts to capture and preserve those feelings. 13 years on and so many more pieces of this fell into place. I’ve always greatly admired its audacity and artistry, but this implies detachment. I wasn’t ready. Maybe years from now I still won’t be. This one goes on the carousel.”

Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard, by Joseph Conrad

When: 20-26 Aug | Time took: 22 hours, 35 minutes

My closing remark:

“Phew, what a scorcher. So thorough and merciless was this journey that you wind up feeling as though you too are toiling away in the energy-sapping heat. At times it was akin to peeling an onion: multi-layered and eye-watering.”

Candide, by Voltaire

When: 27 August – 2 September | Time took: 3 hours, 45 minutes

My closing remark:

“With Candide, Voltaire delivered the smackdown on Enlightenment optimism. As a satire on the state of the world this remains as fresh and relevant today as when it was first published over 250 years ago.”

McTeague, by Frank Norris

When: 3-9 September | Time took: 14 hours

My closing remark:

“You set them up just to knock them down. As rise and falls go, this was steep.”

Babbitt, by Sinclair Lewis

When: 10-16 September | Time took: 14 hours

My closing remark:

“Lewis’s superb use of dialogue added much depth and colour to this tale of one man’s reluctant attempts to break free from the rigid conformities of his middle American life.”

The Good Soldier, by Ford Madox Ford

When: 17-23 June | Time took: 8 hours, 55 minutes

My closing remark:

“Though our narrator appears to have written this jumbled, non-linear story with the benefit of hindsight, it’s interesting to note how much his opinions of others deviate as a result of each new twist – as if getting it all down in words helped to arrange things in his own mind. Therapy, perhaps.”

The Trial, by Franz Kafka

When: 24-30 September | Time took: 8 hours, 20 minutes

My closing remark:

“Every bit as chilling and nightmarish as I imagined it would be.”

An Outpost of Progress, by Joseph Conrad

When: 1 October | Time took: 50 minutes

My closing remark:

“Short and savage. Nobody describes slow, simmering mental degradation quite like Conrad.”

The Seagull, by Anton Chekhov

When: 8-11 October | Time took: 2 hours, 15 minutes

My closing remark:

“The blackest of stage comedies with a cast of characters so unmistakably human in their failings that you cannot help but warm to them.”

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce

When: 15-21 October | Time took: 9 hours, 50 minutes

My closing remark:

“Along with Dubliners, I found this to be a fine introduction to Joyce, so much so that I almost wish I’d been exposed to it before Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. By showing the rebellious young the way out, Portrait beautifully expresses Joyce’s personal and artistic ideology.”

The Machine Stops, by E. M. Forster

When: 22-28 October | Time took: 2 hours, 20 minutes

My closing remark:

“Hard to believe this was penned in 1909. Forster describes a world in which humans have abandoned the earth for the clouds, live in small cubicles, rarely get outside, and communicate mostly through instant messaging and video conferencing, while there’s a huge computer network around the planet, monitoring all human activity. It’s an almost perfect long short story.”

One of Ours, by Willa Cather

When: 29 October – 4 November | Time took: 9 hours, 20 minutes

My closing remark:

“Perhaps not as endearing as O Pioneers! but it’s every bit as affecting.”

The Return of the Native, by Thomas Hardy

When: 5-11 November | Time took: 14 hours, 55 minutes

My closing remark:

“Only served to provide further proof, as if any were needed, of Hardy’s lyrical genius. Never has the rural landscape been described to me so vividly.”

The Cleanest Race, by B.R. Myers

When: 12-18 November | Time took: 4 hours, 10 minutes

My closing remark:

“A revealing insight into this secretive and often misunderstood country. You could compare the regime’s relationship with its people to that of a manipulative and mollycoddling parent – like Stockholm syndrome on a nationwide scale. Their pursuit of a pure race is often brutal; I was particularly appalled by the castigation of citizens who entered into relationships with stationed Russian troops.”

A Room with a View, by E. M. Forster

When: 19-25 November | Time took: 9 hours, 10 minutes

My closing remark:

“An unfair reflection, but this was a case of reading the right book at the wrong time. Whilst in the midst of a battle against my own feelings for someone, the last thing I wanted to be exposed to was a story about an against-the-odds love match. Must try again in calmer waters.”

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, by Omar Khayyám

When: 26 November – 2 December | Time took: 2 hours, 30 minutes

My closing remark:

“Many will have been exposed to certain stanzas of this epic poem, but to read it in its entirety allows you to fully savour its modest yet distinctive rhetoric, its vibrant images, sparkling witticisms and razor-sharp reasoned assertions.”

My Ántonia, by Willa Cather

When: 3-9 December | Time took: 12 hours, 35 minutes

My closing remark:

“Another Cather novel that reads like a love letter to the Great Plains of the American West and its people. And it’s precisely their innate hardiness and resilience at the mercy of nature’s seasonal extremes that makes me glad I chose the winter to read this. It teaches us that life, at certain points, is tough and unforgiving but, like the seasons, the green shoots of Spring are never far away.”

The Little Nugget, by P. G. Wodehouse

When: 10-16 December | Time took: 13 hours, 35 minutes

My closing remark:

“Enjoyable, but coming from a master comic like Wodehouse I was left a little disappointed not have been tickled more by it.”

The Magnificent Ambersons, by Booth Tarkington

When: 17-23 December | Time took: 17 hours, 55 minutes

My closing remark:

“In his tetchy, sneering prose, you can see how much pleasure the author must have taken in dismantling this once-rich and powerful family dynasty whose mistake was to fall behind the times. An enjoyable read.”

Crome Yellow, by Aldous Huxley

When: 24-29 December | Time took: 10 hours, 45 minutes

My closing remark:

“A subtly devastating satire of the early 20th century academic society at their pretentious and snobbish worst. Great fun.”

Update #1: thanks to the magic of Readlists, this collection is now available in handy ebook form. Go grab it for your reader of choice.

Update #2: I’d also like to politely nudge you in the direction of Ahava Leibtag‘s own list of favourite content strategy articles from 2012.

The Audience You Didn’t Know You Had

Angela Colter, Contents magazine, January

“Accommodating low-literate adults does not come at the expense of more adept readers. In fact, crafting your content to accommodate this audience has the added benefit of making information easier for everyone to read, understand, and use. Everybody appreciates clarity.”

The tiny description that would fit snugly into a tweet: Creating content for people with low literacy skills (or anyone under stress) doesn’t mean “dumbing down” anything, you’re simplifying it.

Structure First. Content Always.

Mark Boulton, The Personal Disquiet of Mark Boulton, February

“It is unrealistic to write your content – or ask your client to write the content – before you design it. Most of the time. Content needs to be structured and structuring alters your content, designing alters content. It’s not ‘content then design’, or ‘content or design’. It’s ‘content and design’.”

The tiny description that could pass through the eye of a needle: A ‘Content first!’ approach mustn’t be interpreted to mean everything has to be lovingly prepared and finalised before it can be designed.

Future-Ready Content

Sara Wachter-Boettcher, A List Apart Magazine, February

“We may never be able to anticipate each user’s personal preferences, but the more we understand the relationships between information, the more the compromises inherent in any design decision will be clear—and the better prepared we are to make tough calls.”

The tiny description that would make a pair of pygmy marmosets nod in unison: As we continue to hurtle towards a more flexible future, we need to free our content from the shackles of the traditional web page. Look, book!

Content Modelling: A Master Skill

Rachel Lovinger, A List Apart Magazine, April

“Since the content model serves different audiences, at several different stages of the project, treat it as a living document. It’s never really complete — you just stop updating it when the project is over.”

The tiny description that has never been sold liquor over the counter: Robust content models can help support communication and collaboration between UX designers, developers, and stakeholders. A powerful tool.

Accessibility Considerations for Web Content

Georgy Cohen and friends, Meet Content, May

“We need to work diligently to build up an infrastructure that supports accessible publishing. We need to choose and use tools, including authoring tools, that support accessibility; we need to provide accessibility training to everyone involved in the publication workflow from authors to designers to developers; and we need to designate specific individuals or groups to acquire a relatively high level of accessibility expertise so they can provide support to the rest of the community.”

Terrill Thompson, Technology Accessibility Specialist, Information Technology University of Washington

The tiny description that still requires a stepladder to reach the biscuit barrel: It’s great to hear web professionals working in higher ed talking about planning for accessible web content, particularly their successes.

Writing in the Dark

Kathryn Schulz, New York Magazine, May

“I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t a night owl. As a kid, I read in bed until hours that would have horrified my parents, had they known. I can recall staying up until 2 a.m. to finish (of all things) Ballet Shoes—a cliff-hanger, apparently, when you are 8 years old. A few years later, I stayed up past three reading The Mists of Avalon, my usual late-night alertness enhanced, no doubt, by the sex scenes. I pulled my first all-nighter halfway through sixth grade. I was 11.”

The tiny description that always got on fine with those fiddly calculator watches: When a good book or prolific writing spell takes you well past the witching time of night, why stop there? You are far from alone.

No Longer No Sense of an Ending

Dorian Taylor, Contents magazine, May

“I’m tempted to claim that hypertext empowers us to represent more complex conceptual topologies than older literary technologies, but I’m not completely convinced of that myself: consider the subtlety, nuance, and explosive range of interpretation embedded in your favourite poem. It’s more accurate to say that hypertext enables complex conceptual structures to be explicit—baked into the artifact, rather than emerging through reading.”

The tiny description that’ll never exceed the carry-on limit: Nothing else this year made my heart soar quite as much as this brilliant exploration of the promise and potential of hypertext. Savour it.

How to Kill a Troll

Erin Kissane, incisive.nu, July

“Civility isn’t fancy-talk for ‘being nice.’ It’s the essential quality we require to live together in complex social structures built on our jumpy, irrational primate brains. Online, where we increasingly live, we need it more than ever.”

The tiny description with a big heart: Finding it within ourselves to love and understand those who commit senseless acts of hate might be our only hope.

How words should be

Elizabeth McGuane, Mapped., July

“If we’re ever going to have the stability to focus on the ‘what’ and not the ‘how’, we need to get more involved in the design conversation, the roots of how digital things are made, not just managed and kept alive. We can do this by looking to other worlds making their work digital-first, like parts of the art world, and see what they’re trying – we don’t have to settle for reflexive, skeuomorphic text formats, much as our nostalgia for paper and ink might tug us in that direction.”

The tiny description that is proud to call Rockall its home: As content strategists, we have a duty to look beyond predefined formats; to explore the potential of our ideas; to get closer to designers.

Appetite for (Creative) Destruction

Melissa Rach, Contents magazine, September

“Despite its fiery name, creative destruction is often a slow burn. It’s not an event, it’s a lifestyle. We will be creating these changes to our organizations and content for years to come. It’ll be painful. It’ll be exciting. And, someday hopefully, it’ll be called progress.”

The tiny description that requires no introduction: As customer demands for content increases, we content strategists are well placed to guide organisations through this process of change.

Meet the neighbors

Margot Bloomstein, Appropriate, Inc, September

“The strength of community requires two things: participants and connection. There are no communities of one; we need others. Individuals working in isolation, even when their numbers are great, also cannot benefit from community; we need to interact.”

The tiny description that once received a bear hug from a tardigrade: We can only learn so much on our own. Reaching out to our peers through meetups and conferences can grow ourselves a great support network.

Empathy and Content Strategy: on Teaching, Listening and Affecting Change

Corey Vilhauer, Eating Elephant, October

“Your job isn’t to make the change happen – only your client can do that. Your job is to present the change, understand the issues that will serve as barriers to that change, and walk a bit in their shoes. This will be weird – those shoes might not fit and they might have sweaty feet and seriously can’t we all just get a pair of Dr. Scholl’s inserts up in here? – but you’ll learn more about their needs than you’d have ever picked up by doing a competitive analysis of other websites.”

The tiny description that once provided the motion capture for Jiminy Cricket: Not everyone will understand or respond to our efforts to facilitate organisational change. This calls for bravery, patience, and empathy.

Strategy on the Inside

Rachel Lovinger, Scatter/Gather, November

“Structuring content requires synthesizing a swath of sources, designing usable systems, changing organizations, training personnel, soothing egos, adjusting priorities, allaying fears, reallocating resources… all while trying not to disrupt an existing content production process that cannot just stop while you sort out all this stuff. Does that sound easy? It shouldn’t. This is big ‘S’ strategy, and it requires understanding, insight, diplomacy, negotiation, and persuasion.”

The tiny description that has long disputed the term ‘pocked sized': The success of any organisation’s content strategy can only really be determined by how well it is implemented, and how much it is embraced.

Universal Design IRL

Sara Wachter-Boettcher, A List Apart Magazine, November

“The web’s ability to connect people, facilitate understanding, and amplify ideas has enabled us to build incredible things. It’s also given us a wealth of lessons in how to design thriving, thoughtful communities. Lessons it’s time we turn toward ourselves—toward reaching this more personal, more intimate goal.”

The tiny description that regularly makes a single drink last a whole evening: If we’re truly serious about universal design then we need to work harder to provide every voice with a safe and welcoming environment.

Subcompact Publishing

Craig Mod, craigmod.com, November

“You shouldn’t have to hire a famous actor to show readers how to use the app with his nose. Much like a printed magazine or book, the interaction should be intuitive, effortless, and grounding. The user should never feel lost.”

The tiny description that uses a teaspoon as a shovel: A thoughtful essay on the rise of small, tailored publishers working to deliver an experience that best reflects today’s multiscreen world.

Your Content Is Giving You A People Problem

Erin Scime, Forbes, December

“It’s no longer possible to be a deep expert in one functional area. Digital requires employees that are more cross-disciplinary and able to adapt to the demands and challenges of varying platforms and understand how communication needs shift between channels.”

The tiny description that still has recurring nightmares about roly-poly puddings: How we can better prepare organisations adapting their existing content processes for coping with those inevitable political challenges.

Honourable mentions

• Allen Tan on highlighting and focus… by Allen Tan, Readmill blog, May
• Bloggers and Bowerbirds by Erin Kissane, incisive.nu, June
• Beyond the page by Nicole Jones, Readmill blog, June
• 10 Timeframes by Paul Ford, Contents Magazine, June
• I’ve been playing the same game of Civilization II for almost 10 years. This is the result. by Lycerius, Reddit, June*
• Growing up in words by Nathan Ditum, sarahditum.com, June
• Summer Reading… and Programming by Robin Sloan, robinsloan.com, July
• Testing Websites in Game Console Browsers by Anna Debenham, A List Apart Magazine, September
• Content strategy scares the hell out of me. You too? by Jonathan Kahn, lucid plot, October
• Your Content, Now Mobile by Karen McGrane, A List Apart Magazine, November
• I Want a World by Nicole Jones, Swell Content, November
• Translation is UX by Antoine Lefeuvre, A List Apart Magazine, December
• Participation by Mark Boulton, The Personal Disquiet of Mark Boulton, December

*ok, so I’ve allowed myself one glaring anomaly

Visualising Data: Seeing is Believing

As humans, our ability to observe and analyse the contents of the world around us is both unique and astonishing, but so too is our capacity to form verbal and visual concepts. These seem to be the principal factors which have worked to our adaptive advantage in competition with other animal species. We are, in one respect at least, superior to other animals because we have developed a greater variety of systems of communication and expression, and one of these is art.

Figure 1 – Paleolithic Era cave paintings of giant elk and bison. Discovered in France and Spain respectively.

Indeed, some of the earliest known preserved examples of human expression (Figure 1) demonstrate our incredible ability to bring chaotic and complex environments under control through the magic of art, because to illustrate something is to transform it into whatever form or shape we want. And though we’ll never know for certain what our prehistoric ancestors were thinking when they painted pictures of cows, horses, bison and deer on the walls of caves, it is thought that because their paintings showed large and dangerous wild animals rather than humans, that this was their attempt to bring them under control — to tame them. It’s an interesting theory, particularly when we consider how many of these animals would come to be domesticated by humans thousands of years in the future.

So if art and other forms of creative expression are the power to transform and interpret, then science is the great identifier and unifier, and there a few better collisions of these two cultures than a diagram.

Figure 2 – Examples of Famous diagrams (clockwise from left): Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man, the Pioneer Plaques, Florence Nightingale’s coxcomb diagram, Copernicus’s heliocentric universe.

Our history is littered with instantly recognisable diagrams (Figure 2). At their most potent they have the ability to express complex ideas simply, and an intellectual and artistic beauty that has the power to shift our perspectives or change our mind about things. Often it’s that desire for simplicity and beauty that leads to the truth.

Figure 3 – Copernicus’s heliocentric universe diagram. He had to move heaven and earth to draw it. (c. 1543).

Take, for example, Nicolaus Copernicus’s heliocentric model of the solar system (Figure 3), which would come to revolutionise the way we look at our place in the universe. For over two thousand years scholars and religious scriptures were steadfast in their belief that our planet was the static centrepiece of the universe, but Copernicus — then a little-known Polish cleric — dared to think along different lines. His concept revealed the solar system as we know and understand it: not with Earth at its centre, but the Sun. This radical new arrangement of the universe just seemed unreasonable and ridiculous at the time, with Earth millions of miles away from where it was supposed to be positioned. So how did Copernicus support his theory?

Figure 4 – Copernicus’s ‘On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres’ contains thousands of years worth of astrological data (c. 1543).

One thing you immediately notice as you scan through his life’s work “On the revolutions of the Celestial Spheres” are the amount of pages filled with numerical data (Figure 4), but they weren’t all his own. Copernicus not only relied on his own astrological data to recalculate the planetary positions, but thousands of years worth of previous observations by others. All this data underpins the completed diagram.

But despite the weight of its foundations, the beauty of his diagram lies in its simplicity. If you or I wanted to quickly explain the arrangement of our solar system to someone, you’d probably sketch something a lot like it. That it still hasn’t been bettered is testament to his achievement.

The data revolution

For someone whose investigations involved using data from several external sources, you wonder what Copernicus would have made of today’s huge democratisation of data. Right now we’re increasingly seeing barriers lowered between ourselves and rich data sets containing information about our communities, our politics and our governments. It’s not some fanciful idea to suggest that wider public access to numbers and statistics offers us a clearer picture of what’s really going on in the world, and that with this knowledge we can begin to make our lives better at a local, national and international level. As citizens, we should all be very excited indeed about the pace of this digital data revolution.

Tools

One of the exciting offshoots of this has been the emergence of powerful new tools for interrogating and presenting data. Tools which can help us all make better sense of our environments, help us find out if the things we think and believe are actually true or not, and communicate our findings in a way that our audiences understand and can act upon.

What’s great about this sort of work is that a lot of the stuff used to do it is freely available to everyone. None of these tools used for data extraction, exploration and visualisation will cost you money at their basic level to access and use at their basic level.

• Gephi
• Google Chart Tools
• Google Fusion Tables
• Google Refine
• Lucid Chart
• ManyEyes
• OpenStreetMap
• ScraperWiki
• Tableau Public

Where we fit in

I’m at pains to point out that I’m not a data scientist, nor am I a statistician, or mathematician; I’m just someone who has found visualising data to be both an effective way to gain a deeper understanding of the hidden processes that exist within organisations, and to amplify and simplify the communication of my content strategy recommendations and arguments to other audiences — namely decision makers. Essentially, it’s about trying to have a two-way conversation with the people who can effect change within an organisation using data-driven visual communication. What I’m not advocating for needn’t be a great deal of added work on your plate. The idea is to make effective use of some of the existing tools and deliverables you would typically call upon during a project’s discovery phase. Let’s take a look at a few ways we can do this.

The hidden people networks

One of the many effective methods of analysing the lifecycle of an organisation’s content is to conduct one-on-one interviews with key members of the authoring team, but finding the ideal people to speak to in a multi-departmental organisation isn’t always that easy. Consulting a hierarchical organisation chart can be helpful, but what they don’t reveal are those hidden relationships that are forged by everyday collaborative content work.

Figure 5 – A sociogram visualises the interpersonal relationships within a group. It is composed of nodes (individuals) connected by edges (relations).

A sociogram (Figure 5) is a visualised representation of the structure and patterns within a social network. They can be a powerful tool for discovering deeper meanings behind the relationships and communities within a network of people, and can be used to quickly reveal community clusters and calculate network science parameters such as degree and betweenness centrality.

Degree

The degree of a node calculated by the number of edges that are adjacent to it. So by ranking each node within a social network by degree, we can distinguish which individuals have the most connections (Figure 6).

Figure 6 – A sociogram ranked by degree. The more connections an individual has the higher their degree.

Betweenness centrality

Betweenness Centrality measures how often a node appears on the shortest paths between nodes in a network. So by ranking each node within a social network by betweenness centrality, we can distinguish which influential individuals have the most connections across distinct community clusters (Figure 7).

Figure 7 – A sociogram ranked by betweenness centrality. The more connections an individual has to different community clusters the higher their betweenness.

Let’s build a sociogram

All content management systems (CMSs) and intranets worth their salt automatically generate and store logs which maintain a history of activity performed on them. With information on each page requests, including when they were created, edited and who was responsible, to name but a few, it is possible to chart the lifecycle of content pieces or whole pages. If you, your database or CMS manager, or someone equally clever, extracts a set of site-wide logs for a specified period, then you can put together your very own sociogram using the data.

Once opened in a rich text text editor, your log file might look a bit like this:

#Fields: date time c-ip cs-username s-ip s-port cs-method cs-uri-stem cs-uri-query sc-status cs(User-Agent)
2012-09-03 00:10:19  XXX.XXX.X.211 clarke_n  XXX.XXX.X.103 80 GET /admin/pages/content.php?id=84 Cmd=contents 200 Mozilla/4.76+[en]+(X11;+U;+Linux+2.4.9-ac7+i686;+Nav)
2012-09-03 00:10:39  XXX.XXX.X.17 olson_b  XXX.XXX.X.103 80 GET /admin/pages/content.php?id=37 Cmd=contents 200 Mozilla/4.76+[en]+(X11;+U;+Linux+2.4.9-ac7+i686;+Nav)
2012-09-03 00:11:12  XXX.XXX.X.40 zajac_s  XXX.XXX.X.103 80 GET /admin/pages/content.php?id=37 Cmd=contents 200 Mozilla/4.76+[en]+(X11;+U;+Linux+2.4.9-ac7+i686;+Nav)
2012-09-03 00:13:20  XXX.XXX.X.29 arecchi_f  XXX.XXX.X.103 80 GET /admin/pages/content.php?id=168 Cmd=contents 200 Mozilla/4.76+[en]+(X11;+U;+Linux+2.4.9-ac7+i686;+Nav)
2012-09-03 00:13:50  XXX.XXX.X.107 chalmers_s  XXX.XXX.X.103 80 GET /admin/pages/content.php?id=174 Cmd=contents 200 Mozilla/4.76+[en]+(X11;+U;+Linux+2.4.9-ac7+i686;+Nav)
2012-09-03 00:13:52  XXX.XXX.X.178 harding_a  XXX.XXX.X.103 80 GET /admin/pages/content.php?id=174 Cmd=contents 200 Mozilla/4.76+[en]+(X11;+U;+Linux+2.4.9-ac7+i686;+Nav)
2012-09-03 00:14:38  XXX.XXX.X.107 chalmers_s  XXX.XXX.X.103 80 GET /admin/pages/content.php?id=73 Cmd=contents 200 Mozilla/4.76+[en]+(X11;+U;+Linux+2.4.9-ac7+i686;+Nav)

That might have been too much, too soon. Let’s take a closer look at a single entry.

2012-09-03 00:09:53 XXX.XXX.X.104 russell_g XXX.XXX.X.103 80 GET /admin/pages/content.php?id=12 Cmd=contents 200 Mozilla/4.76+[en]+(X11;+U;+Linux+2.4.9-ac7+i686;+Nav)

The highlighted fields are the ones we’re particularly interested in. They are: date, time, client ip address (c-ip), client username (cs-username) and the content accessed (cs-uri-stem).

With this mind we can return to our scary log file. What we’re looking for is the same content or page accessed by two or more different authors within a certain timeframe. I’ve highlighted two such examples below:

#Fields: date time c-ip cs-username s-ip s-port cs-method cs-uri-stem cs-uri-query sc-status cs(User-Agent)
2012-09-03 00:10:19  XXX.XXX.X.211 clarke_n  XXX.XXX.X.103 80 GET /admin/pages/content.php?id=84 Cmd=contents 200 Mozilla/4.76+[en]+(X11;+U;+Linux+2.4.9-ac7+i686;+Nav)
2012-09-03 00:10:39  XXX.XXX.X.17 olson_b  XXX.XXX.X.103 80 GET /admin/pages/content.php?id=37 Cmd=contents 200 Mozilla/4.76+[en]+(X11;+U;+Linux+2.4.9-ac7+i686;+Nav)
2012-09-03 00:11:12  XXX.XXX.X.40 zajac_s  XXX.XXX.X.103 80 GET /admin/pages/content.php?id=37 Cmd=contents 200 Mozilla/4.76+[en]+(X11;+U;+Linux+2.4.9-ac7+i686;+Nav)
2012-09-03 00:13:20  XXX.XXX.X.29 arecchi_f  XXX.XXX.X.103 80 GET /admin/pages/content.php?id=168 Cmd=contents 200 Mozilla/4.76+[en]+(X11;+U;+Linux+2.4.9-ac7+i686;+Nav)
2012-09-03 00:13:50  XXX.XXX.X.107 chalmers_s  XXX.XXX.X.103 80 GET /admin/pages/content.php?id=174 Cmd=contents 200 Mozilla/4.76+[en]+(X11;+U;+Linux+2.4.9-ac7+i686;+Nav)
2012-09-03 00:13:52  XXX.XXX.X.178 harding_a  XXX.XXX.X.103 80 GET /admin/pages/content.php?id=174 Cmd=contents 200 Mozilla/4.76+[en]+(X11;+U;+Linux+2.4.9-ac7+i686;+Nav)
2012-09-03 00:14:38  XXX.XXX.X.107 chalmers_s  XXX.XXX.X.103 80 GET /admin/pages/content.php?id=73 Cmd=contents 200 Mozilla/4.76+[en]+(X11;+U;+Linux+2.4.9-ac7+i686;+Nav)

Next we want to extract these usernames (cs-username), including others that fitted our criteria, and add them to a two-columned spreadsheet (Figure 8) with the first set of usernames under a column heading of Source and the second under Target. Our examples had olson_b and chalmers_s acting as the sources and zajac_s and harding_a as the targets.

Figure 8 – A two-columned spreadsheet with extracted usernames.

Once all the usernames have been added, we can save the sheet as a comma-separated values (CSV) file and import them into some graph visualisation software, such as Gephi. We might initially see something like this huge mess of nodes and edges (Figure 9).

Figure 9 – Gephi rendering of usernames extracted from log file (click image to zoom).

Running a layout algorithm

Though it’s not making a very clear job if it right now, what this rendering is showing us are the links that exist between all the people who have edited content pieces consecutively. If we were to run a good quality layout algorithm, we would begin to see the clusters of connected nodes forming (Figure 10).

Figure 10 – ‘Force atlas 2′ layout algorithm applied to Gephi rendering (click image to zoom).

I’ve used Gephi’s own ‘Force Atlas 2’ to position these nodes in an aesthetically pleasing way. This is now looking much more like a sociogram. We can easily see the different communities to which these individuals are connected identified in the graph.

Ranking nodes by degree

To help us see the most important individuals in the network, we need to rank these nodes by degree. We’ll illustrate this by changing the colours of each node depending on the number of connections they have (Figure 11). In our sociogram, the ‘greenest’ nodes have the highest degree.

Figure 11 – Nodes ranked by degree (click image to zoom).

Ranking nodes by betweenness centrality

Next we’ll find which influential individuals have established the most connections across distinct community clusters. To do this we’ll rank the nodes by betweenness centrality (Figure 12). In our sociogram, the largest nodes have the highest ‘betweenness’.

Figure 12 – Nodes ranked by betweenness centrality (click image to zoom).

Filtering nodes to reveal strongest group

Despite using both colour and size to help us see who are the most influential nodes in this network, it is still a little too crowded. So we’ll use a filter to remove the weaker nodes in our sociogram (Figure 13).

Figure 13 – Nodes filtered to reveal strongest group.

Now we are left with the three individuals who carry the most influence. One or all of durning_j, scott_f, and pearson_r might well occupy lower positions on an organisational chart than others, but their importance to the way content flows around this organisation means they are clearly worthy of our attention.

Lessons

By extracting and visualising the data contained in a log file we were able to:

• See the different community clusters to which people were connected
• See which individuals held the most influence over multiple groups
• Create an alternative organisational chart useful to any content strategist who’s been air-dropped into a project

Relationships between content

NOTE: I am indebted to Dorian Taylor for this idea. Do yourself a favour and read everything he’s ever written, particularly his article “No Longer No Sense of an Ending” which featured in issue 3 of Contents Magazine.

In a piece on his website titled “visualizing paths through the web“, Dorian introduces us to a rendering of the most frequently-trodden paths through his website:

When auditing content for the Web, it’s important to remember that although many of us still write Web content as isolated documents, they are very rarely read that way. It’s entirely feasible for a reader to encounter inconsistent or confusing writing between one page and the next. In order to fully appreciate the story we’re telling our audience, we should look at it in context.

Using the same techniques as Dorian I was able to create my own rendering of the most frequently-trodden paths through the website of a fictitious UK bus and coach operator (Figure 14). The potential is there to learn to learn a great deal about the way the content relates to one another.

Figure 14 – Mapping the movement of users between the web pages of a fictional UK bus and coach operator.

But before we begin the task of rendering one ourselves, let me use a couple of simplified examples to explain what we’re looking at (Figure 15).

Figure 15 – Simplified network of the flow of users between web pages.

Each node represents an individual page on the website, while rach directed edge represents the flow of users, or traffic, between two pages.

Figure 16 – Weightier nodes and edges indicate key paths and stops.

In this example (Figure 16), the larger nodes in the graph have a higher PageRank, which is essentially a higher importance in relation to the other pages in the network, while the thicker directed edges indicate a higher frequency of flow between two pages.

In his piece, Dorian goes on to point out that web servers log information on every available referring resource (the previous page) and each new request (the next page) we make.

When opened in a rich text editor, your web server log file might well look a bit like this:

XX.XXX.XXX.86 [30/Aug/2012:11:09:27 +0100] GET /contact-us/ HTTP/1.1 200 14728 - "http://www.crosscountrycoaches.com/destinations/" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.0; rv:14.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/14.0.1"
XX.XXX.XXX.86 [30/Aug/2012:11:09:29 +0100] GET / HTTP/1.1 200 12007 - "http://www.crosscountrycoaches.com/destinations/" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.0; rv:14.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/14.0.1"
XX.XXX.XXX.86 [30/Aug/2012:11:09:29 +0100] GET /contact-us/view-your-ticket/ HTTP/1.1 200 14084 - "http://www.crosscountrycoaches.com/" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.0; rv:14.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/14.0.1"
XX.XXX.XXX.86 [30/Aug/2012:11:09:37 +0100] GET /services/ HTTP/1.1 200 13428 - "http://www.crosscountrycoaches.com/" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.0; rv:14.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/14.0.1" XX.XXX.XXX.86 [30/Aug/2012:11:09:38 +0100] GET /login/ HTTP/1.1 200 17284 - "http://www.crosscountrycoaches.com/services/" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.0; rv:14.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/14.0.1"
XX.XXX.XXX.86 [30/Aug/2012:11:09:42 +0100] GET /reprint-your-ticket/ HTTP/1.1 200 27788 - "http://www.crosscountrycoaches.com/services/" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.0; rv:14.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/14.0.1"
XX.XXX.XXX.86 [30/Aug/2012:11:09:42 +0100] GET /services/terms-and-conditions/ HTTP/1.1 200 11638 - "http://www.crosscountrycoaches.com/reprint-your-ticket/" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.0; rv:14.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/14.0.1"

You could be forgiven for thinking it exactly like the log file sample we saw earlier, but there are some subtle differences. From this log file sample we want to locate each referrer-referent connection (previous and next page) that come under matching client ip addresses. To simplify things let’s focus on two particular entries. The fields we’re interested in are (in highlighted order) client ip, next page URL and previous page URL.

XX.XXX.XXX.86 [30/Aug/2012:11:09:29 +0100] GET /contact-us/view-your-ticket/ HTTP/1.1 200 14084 - "http://www.crosscountrycoaches.com/" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.0; rv:14.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/14.0.1" XX.XXX.XXX.86 [30/Aug/2012:11:09:42 +0100] GET /reprint-your-ticket/ HTTP/1.1 200 27788 - "http://www.crosscountrycoaches.com/services/" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.0; rv:14.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/14.0.1"

With the help of our friendly web server manager it is possible to turn this log into a list of page-by-page connections, each weighted by the intensity of the traffic flowing between them. Cleaning the data is simply case of stripping it of all non-human visits by web crawlers like Google Bot, Bing Bot and others. Unless your site is about robots or creepy-crawlies you can safely remove any mentions of ‘bots’, ‘spiders’ and ‘crawlers’.

As before, we want to extract these URL’s and others that fitted our criteria and add them to a two-columned spreadsheet (Figure 17). The referring URLs should be placed under a column heading of Source and the referent URLs under Target. Finally, we need to save the sheet as a comma-separated values (CSV) file.

Figure 17 – A two-columned spreadsheet with extracted page URLs.

Introducing Cross Country Coaches

Before I continue I wish to formally introduce you to our fictional UK bus and coach operator, who will be acting as a working example for the remainder of this talk. Cross Country Coaches’ main services include airport runs, day trips to major UK towns and cities, holiday camps and amusement parks, as well as sporting and music events. Everything on their website should be geared towards the journey planner; the starting point from where e-tickets can be purchased.

If we were to import the extracted URL data into Gephi we might see something like this even larger mess of randomly distributed nodes and edges (Figure 18).

Figure 18 – Gephi rendering of referrer/referent URLs extracted from web server logs (click image to zoom).

Running a layout algorithm

We’ll run the same layout algorithm as before (Gephi’s Force Atlas 2) to position our nodes in an aesthetically pleasing way (Figure 19).

Figure 19 – ‘Force atlas 2′ layout algorithm applied to Gephi rendering (click image to zoom).

Ranking nodes by PageRank

To help pick out the most important pages in the network, we’ll use colour and size to rank our nodes by ‘PageRank’ (Figure 20).

Figure 20 – Nodes ranked by PageRank (click image to zoom).

Filtering nodes to reveal strongest group

The colour and size of nodes are helping us to see what is the most influential content in this network, but we could benefit from clearing away the clutter. This level of complexity may suit someone who is close to the data but for those that are not we should consider filtering out the network’s weaker nodes (Figure 21).

Figure 21 – Nodes filtered to reveal strongest group.

Probably the most interesting part of this simplified network to note is the amount of arrows which point towards /contact-us/, particularly from the /journey-finder/. That many are choosing to leave this process of buying an e-ticket to contact Cross Country Coaches is interesting and would be well worthy of further investigation.

Nevertheless, what we have ourselves is a sample of the most frequently-trodden paths through this website — a very useful starting point for any investigation into a website’s content. So we’ll export the node data as a .csv as this will come in handy for the final part of this talk.

Lessons

By extracting and visualising the URL data contained in a web server log file, we were able to:

• Provide a different perspective on the stories we’re telling our audiences
• Filter the data to reveal the key paths and stops users are making
• Generate a sample of the the most frequently accessed content for this website

Playing with numbers

Using internal data

We can add further value and depth to our visualisations by informing them with data from our own investigations. We’ll take our exported node table and manually add a set of new columns full of data extracted from a recent audit of Cross Country Coaches’ website (Figure 22).

Figure 22 – Set of new columns added to exported node table (click image to zoom).

For example, we could add data on which department (Responsibility (Dept)) and individual (Responsibility (Individual)) is responsible for maintaining each page, whether the content is maintained in-house or by external parters (Source), when the content was last updated (Last update) and criteria for measuring the quality of the content (Actionability, Accuracy and Usability).

To speed this process up we could enlist the help of Google Fusion Tables to merge data across two spreadsheets by pairing up one (or more) columns with matching values (Figure 23).

Figure 23 – Merging two tables together by linking one or two sets of matching column data (click image to zoom).

To help us take a deeper dive into the additional data we’ve added to our exported node table, we could use a rapid chart creator like Tableau Public. Designed for PCs (although a Mac version is in the works), Tableau Public makes it simple and easy to make pretty complex visualisations with up to 100,000 rows.

Measuring content quality

Let’s pose a question for the data to answer:

Q. Is there a perceived difference in the quality of content maintained in-house by Cross Country Coaches and through their external partners?

By importing the data I’ve been able to create a simple set of bar charts which tell us what each content source scored out of five for Actionability, Accuracy and Usability for the content they are responsible for (Figure 24).

Figure 24 – Bar chart created in Tableau Public showing the average scores for each content source (click image to zoom).

From the chart it is clear that Tourism Partners scored below average for each criteria. As they are primarily responsible for the content for each town and city destination, let’s filter the data further to generate a breakdown of the scores for each (Figures 25, 26, 27).

Measuring the actionability of the content for each town and city destination

Figure 25 – Bar chart created in Tableau Public showing the Actionability scores for each town/city destination (click image to zoom).

Measuring the accuracy of the content for each town and city destination

Figure 26 – Bar chart created in Tableau Public showing the Accuracy scores for each town/city destination (click image to zoom).

Measuring the usability of the content for each town and city destination

Figure 27 – Bar chart created in Tableau Public showing the Usability scores for each town/city destination (click image to zoom).

Looking at each of these scatter plots there a few recurring destinations which scored below average, particularly Brighton and Hove and Edinburgh who scored two out of five for both content actionability and accuracy. While it would be fair to say that these destinations should be first in line for a review, could data from external sources help with prioritising our efforts? Let’s bring some into play.

Using external data

To investigate whether external data could help us, I downloaded data on domestic tourism statistics between 2009-11 from VisitBritain.org. The only problem was that the data wasn’t in a raw state, but rather housed inside a PDF file. Thankfully, you can save hours of re-keying and checking by using some of the free PDF-to-Excel conversions available. I’ve had success with both PDF to Excel Online and Zamzar.

Once more we can call upon the services of Google Fusion tables to merge our data for each town and city destination with the downloaded VisitBritain.org data (Figure 28).

Figure 28 – Using Google Fusion Tables to merge our data for each town and city destination with the VisitBritain.org data (click image to zoom).

Now let’s map the data using Tableau Public (Figure 29). Included are bubbles marking the location each town and city from the Cross Country coaches data. The bubble sizes represent the total domestic tourist trips made between 2009-11 (in millions), and their colour intensity represents the total tourism spend between 2009-11 (in millions).

Figure 29 – Map of British isles showing tourism data for each town and city destination (click image to zoom).

Unsurprisingly, London take the prize for the largest and darkest bubble. As the capital of England will always remain a priority, we’ll remove it from the map and, in the process, observe the rest of the British Isles breathing a huge sigh of relief (Figure 30).

Figure 30 – Map of British isles showing tourism data for each town and city destination excluding London (click image to zoom) (click image to zoom).

Let’s now use the sliders to filter out the destinations which scored the highest for Actionability, Accuracy and Usability (Figures 31, 32).

Figure 31 – Map of British Isles showing tourism data for each town and city destination that scored between 2 and 4 for each content quality criteria (click image to zoom).

Figure 32 – Map of British Isles showing tourism data for each town and city destination that scored between 2 and 3 for each content quality criteria (click image to zoom).

We’re now left with Birmingham, Edinburgh, and Brighton as the destinations which had the highest amount of trips and spend combined with the lowest scores for Actionability, Accuracy and Usability. Might they be our priorities?

Lessons

By extending our exported node table, we were able to:

• Dive deeper by filtering and partitioning data from our own investigations
• Explore possible possible new angles and ideas by importing and presenting external data
• Develop a basic narrative around our data by adding interactive elements to our visualisations

You can do it!

Don’t be afraid to play and experiment with your data. Have fun asking questions of it. I have found that approaching it with such a mentality means it often yield its secrets and stories with surprising ease. And though we often associate numbers with authority and certainty, uncertainly can be a great way of raising new questions and sharing them with others. Getting your work in front of people might mean you get help and co-operation back.

The big question, as I saw it, was whether I’d be able to fully grasp and appreciate the subtleties of character and circumstance in each novel, particularly when all but the briefest opportunities for leisurely contemplation and reflection are cut short by the looming spectre of next week’s title. At this stage, I couldn’t see past thoughts of daily ‘targets’, guilt-lead sessions, and late-night/early-hours skimming (no doubt with the dawn chorus cheeping an audible indication of some ungodly hour).

Fast forward a full six months and I needn’t have worried myself so much. While I have had to adopt a more strict, regimented approach to my reading, I can say with much relief that it’s never once impeded on my enjoyment of the 26 books I’ve read up until now. I’ll go as far as to add that getting into a regular pattern has been good for me, and that, without it, I simply wouldn’t have been able to sustain the rate of books I’m reading right now without feeling thoroughly burnt-out.

52 weeks 52 eBooks: The story so far

Looking at my reading history on Readmill, the first 26 books on my list were completed in a total of 361 hours and 5 minutes, which roughly equates to 15 days and 1 hour. Here’s a recap:

Debt: The First 5,000 Years, by David Graeber

When: 2-8 January | Time took: 31 hours, 35 minutes

My closing remark:

“Not afraid to take a wrecking ball to established economic schools of thought, this was an exhaustive, eye-opening study of humanity’s relationship with debt.”

A Modern Utopia, by H. G. Wells

When: 9-15 January | Time took: 15 hours, 55 minutes

My closing remark:

“Though Wells by no means describes a world I’d like to inhabit (at times it’s ghastly), his vision is startling. Despite being quinessentially Wells, this perhaps represents too much of a departure to recommend to newcomers of his work.”

The Financier, by Theodore Dreiser

When: 16-22 January | Time took: 23 hours, 30 minutes

My closing remark:

“A beautifully paced tale of the meteoric rise and fall and rise of a young financier interwoven with political intrigue and forbidden love. For a man with questionable morals, you cannot help but root for him.”

The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran

When: 23-26 January | Time took: 1 hour, 55 minutes

My closing remark:

“A spirit level. Could just as easily pick you up if you were down as knock you down if you were too high. A small pocket-sized version would become fatigued in no time all.”

The Vicomte De Bragelonne, by Alexandre Dumas

When: 30 January – 5 February | Time took: 24 hours, 45 minutes

My closing remark:

“Though this is but the first of three volumes that conclude the d’Artagnan Romances, it’s clear from this juncture that this was never going to be as swashbuckling as the first two novels due to the age of the main protagonists. But don’t let that deter you. If anything, these friends are more colourful and intriguing than ever. I now must find the time to read the remaining volumes.”

The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia, by Samuel Johnson

When: 6-12 February | Time took: 6 hours, 40 minutes

My closing remark:

“Discontented with the trappings of royalty, a prince and princess escape from their idyllic surroundings into the larger world to discover if true happiness exists. Though ultimately pessimistic, I found their unpolluted outlooks and boundless curiosity caused an inward examination of my own circumstances. Now, isn’t that always the sign of a great book?”

The Call of the Wild, by Jack London

When: 13-15 February | Time took: 5 hours, 40 minutes

My closing remark:

“A moving tale of survival in a harsh wilderness by means of physiological and psychological adaption. This slow transformation of Buck as he shakes off generations of domestication and his changing relationship with humans as he passes into the hands of several ‘owners’ is wonderfully described.”

Tender is the Night, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

When: 20-26 February | Time took: 21 hours, 5 minutes

My closing remark:

“Took a while to make an impression but ended up leaving a very deep one. Beautifully descriptive, perfectly balanced and highly intelligent.”

Anthem, by Ayn Rand

When: 27 February – 1 March | Time took: 3 hours, 40 minutes

My closing remark:

“Thought-provoking. Rand describes the harmful effects of nullifying and misplacing a person’s skills and interests in the preservation of ultimate equality. This display of obstinate extremism is just as debilitating as its opposing ideology: a single all-powerful ruler. Society benefits most when we’re able to marry our interests with our work and are encouraged to share what we’ve learnt.”

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, by Cory Doctorow

When: 5-10 March | Time took: 9 hours, 15 minutes

My closing remark:

“Took too long to flicker into life. Characters seemed cold and undercooked. Felt as if I’d joined a lively conversation half way through, only to find it wasn’t all that interesting.”

Bouvard and Pécuchet, by Gustave Flaubert

When: 12-18 March | Time took: 17 hours, 5 minutes

My closing remark:

“A dense, stop-start journey. Best read in accompaniment with a dictionary, an encyclopedia and a map of France, there are rewards on offer for those prepared to do a little detective work. Despite the farcical misadventures of the copy-clerks I couldn’t help but admire their boundless optimism and curiosity. One for fans of thinly-veiled humour.”

The Shape of Things to Come, by H. G. Wells

When: 19-25 March | Time took: 24 hours, 40 minutes

My closing remark:

“Though a work of fiction, it feels odd to be so comprehensively informed about a post-Great War history that never took place and an improbable future. While it’s impossible to resist reviewing some of Wells’s early predictions from our present day vantage point, it would be wrong to use them as a measure of the book’s worth. I gained an even deeper respect for Wells as a thinker and a dreamer.”

Captain Blood, by Rafael Sabatini

When: 26-31 March | Time took: 17 hours, 25 minutes

My closing remark:

“A heart-soaring, air-punching triumph. Dumas has a new rival for my affections.”

Oblomov, by Ivan Goncharov

When: 2-8 April | Time took: 9 hours, 40 minutes

My closing remark:

“A brilliant portrait of a man doomed to his fate by the nature of his upbringing. Though clearly from a tender, loving home, the young Oblomov was fiercely overprotected, brought up in an enclosed environment, and surrounded by adults who perpetually put things off until tomorrow. I got the impression it rendered him wholly unprepared for the rigours and harsh realities of adulthood.”

The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen, by Rudolf Erich Raspe

When: 9-15 April | Time took: 9 hours, 40 minutes

My closing remark:

“Every good local watering hole has one: that self-aggrandising raconteur with their name stitched into their own velvet-upholstered stool. My guess is they’ve picked up a thing or two about the art of exaggerated storytelling from this plain daft collection of one man’s exploits. I like to think the Baron managed to summon life’s development console and enabled ‘god mode’.”

Bel-ami, by Guy de Maupassant

When: 16-20 April | Time took: 7 hours

My closing remark:

“Charting one man’s rapid ascent to the summit of late 19th-century Parisian society. Maupassant really works his magic: you immediately empathise with Duroy’s bid to escape the squalor of his initial existance, but that affection is thereafter tested as his elbows-out approach leaves a trail of checkmated friends and colleagues and more than a few discarded mistresses.”

The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, by Robert Tressell

When: 23-29 April | Time took: 27 hours, 45 minutes

My closing remark:

“It’s easy to see why this intensely political novel became something of a sacred text among activists. You quickly share the author’s despair as he describes a broken system where society’s poorest willingly donate their labour for a barely living wage in order to contribute to the wealth of their ‘betters’, and when all attempts to mend it are thwarted by the very people who suffer the most.”

Tales of the Jazz Age, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

When: 30 April – 6 May | Time took: 12 hours, 50 minutes

My closing remark:

“An eleven-strong collection of short stories that play very different tunes. The tender and moving ‘The Lees of Happiness’ won’t be forgotten in a hurry.”

Tess of the d’Urbervilles, by Thomas Hardy

When: 7-14 May | Time took: 20 hours, 20 minutes

My closing remark:

“A poignant chronicle of life’s ironies and the pain of the human condition.”

A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens

When: 14-20 May | Time took: 13 hours, 25 minutes

My closing remark:

“Though an undoubted treat for the mind’s eye, I found sweeping away all those preconceptions and expectations that come with reading such a celebrated title initially hindered my enjoyment. Only another whirl will do it justice.”

The Invisible Man, by H. G. Wells

When: 21-24 May | Time took: 6 hours, 15 minutes

My closing remark:

“An ideal launchpad for any newcomer to Wells’ work. It’s hard to know to what degree a cloak of invisibility would alter both our moral outlook and mental state. To be effectively cast onto society’s fringes could drive anyone to consider committing misdeeds. I like to think Wells’ underlying message was of our collective ignorance and awareness of society’s ‘invisibles’.”

The Waves, by Virginia Woolf

When: 28 May – 3 June | Time took: 11 hours

My closing remark:

“Heavy and yet so light. An incredibly intense and overwhelming experience.”

The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde

When: 4-10 June | Time took: 8 hours, 35 minutes

My closing remark:

“Decorated with some of Wilde’s most celebrated and repeated epigrams, this is an exquisite parable of late 19th century middle class decadence and indulgence.”

Dead Souls, by Nikolai Gogol

When: 11-15 June | Time took: 15 hours, 55 minutes

My closing remark:

“A master storyteller, Gogol manages to deliver both a charming and reckless comedy and a withering assessment of Russian society. There is a precise vividness to his writing that immediately thrusts you into his world and the fascinating gallery of characters that inhabit it.”

Lamberto, Lamberto, Lamberto, by Gianni Rodari

When: 18-19 June | Time took: 3 hours, 40 minutes

My closing remark:

“If you can imagine a bizarre mix of Dorian Gray and Benjamin Button with a dash of Dog Day Afternoon and Pythonesque black humour thrown in for good measure, then you’ll go some way to understanding why this was such a rip-roaring treat.”

Erewhon, or Over The Range, by Samuel Butler

When: 25-30 June | Time took: 11 hours, 30 minutes

My closing remark:

“The back to front world of Erewhon, with its bizarre treatment of criminals and the infirm to the banishment of machinery, becomes the stick which Butler uses to beat Victorianism. So vivid are his descriptions of the psychological effects of being alone in the wilderness, I wonder whether Butler was able to draw on his own experiences of solo adventuring in New Zealand.”

52 weeks 52 eBooks: The shape of things to come

With every passing week this feels increasingly less like the challenge I originally devised for myself. Instead, I’m finding it a source of great excitement and comfort to be able to confidently predict that over the next six months I’ll make time for some of the greatest books ever written. Onward, ever onward.

From “Tools for a Revolution”:

Even at their most rough, angular, and controversial, online communication technology, tools, and platforms have shown the potential to shift the balance of power to a nation’s people. And we, the people who will shape the intelligent content and communication platforms of tomorrow, can play an important role in safeguarding this power.

Marking something of a departure from my usual fare, this was as exhilarating to write as it was humbling. I am hugely indebted to team Trunksy for helping me buff this to a fine shine.

From as far back as I can remember I’ve enjoyed lifting the lid on things to expose its hidden mechanics.

When, as a child, any household appliance or toy had broken beyond repair I’d jump at the chance to perform one of my directionless and inconclusive autopsies. Whether I knew what I was looking for, or at, mattered little, I was having too much fun to care.

But while I’d consider myself a keen and committed dismantler and occasional repairer, I’m no natural builder of things. What I mean is that I often lack the skills and knowledge to build something beyond prefabrication. To say, for instance, that I’ve built a working personal computer by sourcing and assembling the separate component parts would be perfectly true, but this was only achieved by carefully following instructions that I had no desire or reason to contradict or doubt. These step-by-step guides meant this layman didn’t need to understand in great detail what these components were and why they were needed.

This isn’t to belittle this kind of activity. I believe the assembly of a prefabricated system that works as intended is a more creative operation than pulling something to pieces. While the latter schooled me in the art of classification and labelling the former taught me an even greater lesson: that it’s not the separate component parts that matter, but the evolving system as a whole.

This lesson is something I think we can all take something from, particularly when trying to help an organisation or a group of content creators make that daunting leap from thinking and working in whole ‘pages’ of content to a system of smaller, dynamic modules, which could fly off in all manner of directions and co-exist with content from other groups and departments.

In nature, evolution happens not in isolation but in combination. To survive and thrive in an environment requires sharing it with others, not just simply demonstrating ruthless efficiency and aggression. It goes without saying that these departments and teams must be allowed to compete with one another to push through their own agendas and secure budgets, but I’m a big believer in encouraging people to take some shared responsibility for this organisation-wide adaptation process. To make this work there needs to be unity, co-operation as well as smart and sensible delegation; where the right people from the right departments get to work on the right things. As obvious as this sounds, it still amazes me how often a clash of egos or lingering frictions from a past episode manages to hamper such progress.

Working together in this manner also breeds a collective sense of responsibility for the future. When more people are encouraged to branch out from their own areas of influence and acquire a deeper understanding of the overall interconnectedness of a system the more they will help establish a culture of healthy restlessness. So even when faced with the challenge of supporting an increasing amount of devices, platforms and standards–fuelled by a fiercely competitive mobile marketplace–the system continues to evolve with widespread support, care and appreciation.

[Image credit: green circuit board by Peter Shanks]

When you’re engrossed in a good book nothing else matters. You could be chilled to the bone, within earshot of a cacophony of noise, or being tossed around like a rag doll in a train carriage, but it’s still not enough to disturb that bubble. That’s one of reading’s many beauties: the opportunity for escapism.

But what’s it going to take for you to pick up that book? You know, the one that might help you finish that essay, broaden your horizons, or increase your earning potential? The one we make elaborate excuses for not reading?

I believe this where an online book reading platform like Readmill has huge potential.

Picking up the book you know you should be reading

Buying or borrowing a book on a subject may seem a significant rung up the ladder, but acquiring it is just about the easy part. The real test is when it’s sitting neatly on your bookshelf or desk, or loaded into your Ebook reader, and has been for some time. Who or what is going to push you to prize open that cover?

Learning amongst others, particularly in an academic setting, should be just about ideal. But how often did our required reading largely consists of big, heavy textbooks laden with hundreds of pages with tiny type and an equally uninspiring cover? This coupled with an unfortunate feeling that many of your contemporaries weren’t taking things as seriously as they could was enough to cause that initial late summer buzz to wilt by late autumn.

Frustration and panic can provide short jolts. If you work yourself up into a mood you can do just about anything, but that’s hardly the ideal frame of mind for taking in information. This often feels more like some sort of punishment.

Waiting for a chance to question a book can work. Instead of moving from cover to cover you use it as a reference; relying on the strength of its index to dip in and out when the time arises. But how do you know if the real solution you’re looking for is not on the page you’ve already read and understood but on a page you haven’t?

It matters not that this book may make a great deal of difference to your circumstances. It’s hard work reading when your mind wants to wander off in search of more appealing and safer subjects; when your focus and concentration drifts in and out, causing you to revisit whole passages you’ve failed to take in.

Making time for reading–particularly if it follows a regular pattern–obviously helps. Half an hour once a day is a good deal better than three and a half late on a Sunday. And being good to yourself afterwards can also provide the motivation to attack unappealing text with added vigour.

But how about sharing these issues and your book-reading progress with others trying to do precisely the same thing? Discussing a book amongst people with different views, backgrounds, and experience can enhance your understanding of a subject. And, by the same token, sharing your highlights and insights can alert others to things they may have missed or didn’t consider important at the time.

They’ll help push you just as much as you’ll help push them.

[Image credit: book sale look by ginnerobot]

Despite these misgivings, I’m prepared to openly profess my enjoyment of, and brace yourselves … preference for, reading from a screen, particularly for long periods. Though I’ve the distinct feeling this opinion will run counter to many of your own, I make no apologies for expressing it. In fact, it’s largely due to their adaptability that I’ve come to rely on these handheld devices; allowing me to adjust the display brightness under diminishing light, ramp up the text size when my eyes are failing me, and summon up a dictionary when I stumble across an archaic word or phrase. It’s all very Fisher-Price, I grant you, but though they will never look, feel, or indeed smell like a good book ought to, they can provide almost everyone with comfortable reading conditions.

Over the course of the last six months, I’ve slowly grown to love eBooks. I’d now go as far as to say that, faced with a straight choice, I’m prepared to plump for an eBook over its undeniably more handsome and impressive physical counterpart. And so it was during this period of discovery when the death of Project Gutenberg’s founder Michael Hart was announced. The availability of thousands of out of copyright books in digital form from many of the world’s greatest authors still amazes me just as much as when I first learned about the project’s existence ten or so years ago. It’s an incredible legacy to leave behind, and one I couldn’t help but feel should be celebrated in some way.

The challenge

If there’s one thing I’m very good at, it’s devoting a tremendous amount of time to pointless exercises: getting hopelessly lost down endless Wikipedia rabbit holes [I’ve only just this minute taken a mere six steps to get from Jack Lemmon to Samuel Pepys], staring blankly at walls as though they’re a magic eye puzzle, and generally waiting around for something more exciting to happen. So I thought I’d try and curtail these and other wasteful causes by taking on a challenge that cannot be completed until this time next year: to spend the next 52 weeks reading 52 eBooks.

To the reading pod

It was always going to take something special to prize me away from iBooks and Readmill was just that. In addition to offering an equally comfortable and pleasurable reading experience, it allows me to keep up with what my friends and contemporaries are reading, as well as share thoughts and highlights from what I’m reading. Readmill will be my weapon of choice for this challenge, so you’ll be able to keep up with my progress, should you be interested and intrigued by it. I dare say I’ll also tweet about this from time to time.

The list

If the strength and feasibility of an idea can be roughly measured by how one feels about it after a night’s sleep, then I suppose a good one must survive a further six. I’m happy to report that I remain as excited by the prospect of this challenge as I was when I began drawing up the longlist of titles, which were soon whittled down to the final 52 below.

I cannot think of a more appropriate way to celebrate one person’s vision and audacity than to read a few books in the digitised form he introduced forty years ago.

I feel as though I’ve already gone some way towards ensuring an interesting year. I guess whatever I do, or wherever I pitch up over the course of the next twelve months, I’ll never be too far away from my eBook reader. Wish me luck.