Creative and Cool Stuff on the Web: Issue One
A screenshot from the decision-tool flowchart I found earlier this month on the Doist blog as part of my search for creative and cool stuff on the web. July 13, 2020.
We’ll see how long this experiment lasts. This “issue one” may end up as “issue only.”
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I feel a strong sense of nostalgia for the days when the Internet opened up to the average person and creative people started populating their personal corners of it with blogs and creative projects and groundbreaking and interesting websites that didn’t simply serve business purposes. (For my article on how search engines and social media have reshaped the web, click here.)
In an effort to catalog fun sites and creative finds from across the wide world of the Internet today—even if they serve some business purposes—I’ve decided to put out a monthly post collating links to great finds on the web.
I tried crowdsourcing ideas for this issue and came up with a blank; alas, as I feared in my earlier article, no one knows of anything creative today that doesn’t have its base in social media. So I compiled a list of fun finds I’ve encountered in recent weeks, and I’ll hope they inspire readers to send me a few finds of their own for forthcoming issues. (If not, this feature may turn into a one-and-done sort of attempt.)
Without further explanation, find below my bulleted list of creative and cool stuff discovered on the web this month:
This oldie, but everlasting goodie, continues to delight me each month: PostSecret. I send endless thanks to Frank Warren for keeping PostSecret going strong as its own corner of the web, long after social media sucked out all the Internet’s oxygen.
The Pudding has continued to surprise me with its creative and fun posts bringing data to life through what the publication calls “visual essays.” Recently, I’ve especially enjoyed its post that shows generational gaps in music and its post exploring the truth or fiction in the notion that writers write about what they know.
I enjoy Stephen B. Heard’s blog, Scientist Sees Squirrel, and follow it on Feedly to ensure I don’t miss a post. His post about extrinsic and intrinsic motivation in students really struck a note with me; in business and in life, we focus so much on trying to inspire (dare I say “force?”) intrinsic motivation when, quite often, we should expect no more than extrinsic motivation.
Always an important question and perhaps an even more important question when I keep hearing that people have ended up in back-to-back videoconferences during the COVID-19 crisis: Should you cover your topic in an e-mail, rather than calling a meeting? I loved this flowchart decision tool from the Doist blog to help people figure out whether they really need to send a meeting request.
What have you recently found on the web (away from social media) that surprised you with its creativity? It doesn’t have to have just launched, either! Share it in the comments or send it to me via my contact form.