It's been a while since you were last fed, so you must be hungry for the latest tasty morsels from the smörgåsbord that is the Cogapp Internal Blog (these elaborate analogies are getting harder to think of, ok?).

10 tips for managing a creative environment
Spotted by Gavin.

After coming back from the Web 2.0 Expo in New York, Gavin spoke to the production team about 10 tips for managing a creative environment by Adaptive Path - a really interesting presentation where they went to talk to a number of different creative groups, looked at how they managed their creative processes and then developed a ‘ten tips’ presentation. You can find it here.

Patients Like Me
Spotted by Gavin.

Also at the New York Conference, this site came up loads:

Patients Like Me is a website that allows users to share experiences, track symptoms and ask advice from others - all specific by condition.  Useful in Cogapp's work with Arthritis Research Campaign, as well as the Kidney Patient Guide.

Tag Clouds

Several people on the internal blog have been noticing interesting applications for 'tag clouds' (visual depictions of word frequency) lately. Cynics might say that when used for navigation, tag clouds are a bit passé, but as tools for breaking down, analysing and comparing texts, they still hold a lot of potential.

Alex Bridge and Mat Walker spotted tag clouds being used for deconstructing political speeches, on both sides of the Atlantic.

The BBC's report on Nick Clegg's address to the Lib Dem conference includes a tag cloud of his most frequently-used words:

And in this tag cloud analysis of the year's US Presidential and Vice-Presidential debates, the idea is taken one step further.  The technology is being used to compare the metrics of speech structure between candidates and make inferences about their "thinking styles".

All very interesting possibilities, particularly if, as Alex suggested, creators were to visualise the clouds in ways explored by IBM's ManyEyes. You can read Tristan's post on Many Eyes, an interactive data visualisation service, here, and see his own creative response.

So, what will you visualise?

And For Dessert...

So many treats, so little space.

4,300,000 dominoes were toppled on Domino Day 2008! (Spotted by Tristan)

Thanks to Sam, we now know that Viennese children with 460,000 bricks helped break the Lego Tower Record (96.73 feet!).

Tristan conducted lightwriting experiments with electroluminescent wire.

And Codeo was launched in October with suitable pomp and Wagon Wheels:

Phew! I don't know about you, but I need a peppermint tea after all that...