Now Available – Frontend Architecture for Design Systems: A Modern Blueprint for Scalable and Sustainable Websites

Micah Godbolt’s new book “Frontend Architecture for Design Systems: A Modern Blueprint for Scalable and Sustainable Websites” has been published. 

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Imagine what a large-scale web project would look like if frontend development were not treated as an add-on, but as an equal partner with backend development and content strategy. This practical book takes experienced web developers through the new discipline of frontend architecture, including the latest tools, standards, and best practices that have elevated frontend web development to an entirely new level.

Using real-world examples, case studies, and practical tips and tricks throughout, author Micah Godbolt introduces you to the four pillars of frontend architecture. He also provides compelling arguments for developers who want to embrace the mantle of frontend architect and fight to make it a first-class citizen in their next project.

Order Your Copy Now >

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I Love to See Others in Our Community Developing New and Creative Products

A few months ago I wrote about Corey Davis’s awesome “Word Connect” app available for iOS and Android. Today, I found out that he has published an iBook entitled “Flight – A Multi-Touch Book”.

Flight! tells the amazing story of how humans learned to fly. Through the use of pictures, drawings, interactive photos, and video, it describes the exciting history and unbelievable stories of how kites, gliders, hot air gallons, airplanes, helicopters, rockets and the Space Shuttle were created. Flight! will teach and entertain young minds (as well as old).

Flight! A Multi-Touch BookThe book is available for pre-order on the iBook store and costs $2.99. As you can see from the screenshot, I have pre-ordered my copy.

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Free Online Book: Learning JavaScript Design Patterns

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Addy Osmani has released an open-source book on JavaScript Design Patterns.

Learning JavaScript Design Patterns is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 unported license. It is available for purchase via O’Reilly Media but will remain available for both free online and as a physical (or eBook) purchase for readers wishing to support the project.

View the book online >

 

A Book on IBM Connections: What’s Possible?

One of the major challenges with getting people in organizations to adopt new collaboration tools – or social business technologies – is helping them to understand what their work would look like if they were to shift to the new way of doing things. Often vendors talk about their products through the lens of features and functions, which is definitely helpful but not enough by itself.

As an independent collaboration strategist, one of the ways Michael Sampson works with clients is to help them understand what’s possible by developing scenarios of how work would be different. Michael’s first book, Seamless Teamwork: Using Microsoft SharePoint Technologies to Collaborate, Innovate, and Drive Business in New Ways (2008) took this approach for conveying how people could use Microsoft SharePoint for running a project. It starts with Roger who works at Fourth Coffee who is given a project to run, and is expected to use SharePoint 2007 for that. Michael’s most recent book, Doing Business with IBM Connections (2013), takes the same approach for IBM Connections 4.5, but covers ten different collaboration scenarios.

Those are:

  • Co-Authoring Documents
  • Managing Meetings
  • Holding Discussions
  • Distributing Team and Organizational Updates
  • Capturing Ideas for Innovation
  • Running a Project
  • Sharing Learning and Best Practice
  • Making Decisions
  • Finding Expertise
  • Achieving Individual Coherence

The book is set in a fictitious company called Albreto, and the adoption and use of IBM Connections starts in the Marketing Department and works its way out from there. Michael’s book is designed as an adoption resource, and is much more about the business and human things that need to work in each scenario rather than just focusing on where to click in Connections. For example, in the Document Co-Authoring scenario, there are specific steps given for how to co-author a document, but there is also reference made to the human dynamics of writing a first draft that allows scope for collaboration, and there’s an advanced concepts discussion at the end of that chapter on how early stage collaboration can reduce the quality of input. This style of approach is followed throughout Michael’s book.

If you are using IBM Connections, it would be a great resource to have available for your users. If you are not using IBM Connections, it would be a great resource to review for the approaches in each scenario. Those approaches are very transferable.

(With Thanksgiving just around the corner, Michael is running a special offer at the moment on his book. You can get 20% off the price of the paperback editions, or the corporate licensing fee for the e-book version. All the details are here – www.michaelsampson.net/thanksgiving.html)

Required reading: Typography in ten minutes

This is a bold claim, but i stand be­hind it: if you learn and fol­low these five ty­pog­ra­phy rules, you will be a bet­ter ty­pog­ra­ph­er than 95% of pro­fes­sion­al writ­ers and 70% of pro­fes­sion­al de­sign­ers. (The rest of this book will raise you to the 99th per­centile in both categories.)

All it takes is ten min­utes—five min­utes to read these rules once, then five min­utes to read them again.

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Podcast: Building a career out of LEGO bricks with Warren Elsmore

Warren Elsmore wrote a book! It’s called Brick City and Warren describes it as “a celebration of the worlds’ architecture, recreated solely using the celebrated toy of the century, LEGO bricks.”
In our podcast with him, we discussed:

  • Is this an instruction book or an idea book?
  • Who is the target audience?
  • What was the book writing process like?
  • How and when can people buy this book?
  • And many more LEGO-rich topics…

Brick City will be in bookstores in several different countries on May 6th, and it is already available for pre-order on Amazon – check Warren’s Brick City page for links. Warren’s website also has more information on his large scale models and his commission-based work.

Podcast trivia: Warren was briefly a Guinness World Record holder for “Largest LEGO Mosaic” from the 2012 LEGO Show, with a mosaic measuring at 143.9 square meters (1607 square feet).

Listen now >

Podcast: Opting In – Ed Brill talks about his new book

Today we spoke with Ed Brill (http://edbrill.com), Director of Social Business and Collaboration Solutions at IBM, about his new book. It’s called Opting In: Lessons in Social Business from a Fortune 500 Product Manager, and it’s available both on Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/Opting-In-Lessons-Business-Fortune/dp/0133258939) and directly from IBM Press (http://www.ibmpressbooks.com/store/opting-in-lessons-in-social-business-from-a-fortune-9780133258936).

We discussed:

  • Why did you write this book?
  • Who is the audience?
  • What is the message of the book?
  • What has surprised you about the book?
  • What’s going on at IBM Connect related to the book?
  • And more…

Listen now >