Bismillaahir Rahmaanir Raheem
michael.dehaan (his spelling, not mine!) posted something that you can take or leave (I don’t want to start a flame war on my own blog):
michaeldehaan.net | Popularity Contests Are So Junior High School.
But what is intriguing are the ideas that develop in the comments. Please take some time and read those first, and then come back here. 
Bismillaahir Rahmaanir Raheem
Alhamdulillaah, my good friend Belal Khan of Leechon Films fame has started (a while back, actually) a program called Message Mastery. You should get the full explanation from the website, but the basic gist of it is that it is a training seminar focused on developing masterful messages through the medium of video.
He’s released a few videos that are freely available that are samples of what the entire program entails. I found the one entitled “Three POWER Principles of Filmmaking” to be quite refreshing in how simple, yet effective, such techniques can be. Even more beneficial is that the tips he provides, while framed around the production of video media, are general enough to be beneficial in almost any context.
Give his site a check-out and leave some comments as he’s very keen on getting & responding-to feedback from his visitors & members of his program.
Disclaimer: Belal is just my friend - I am neither associated with Message Mastery nor am I enrolled in the program…yet.
Bismillaahir Rahmaanir Raheem
Alhamdulillaah, a few months back, I successfully wrapped-up the audio recording & production project for the Texas Dawah Convention 2007. This was clearly one of the most ambitious projects in which I’ve been involved in my life, especially given the degree of responsibility I was given and the amount of work I had to do.
The project for me was a great learning experience on numerous fronts - management, business, technology, work ethic, and team work are amongst a few of them. If it weren’t for the great support I received from my partner & friend (I’ll only mention him if he wants me to - knowing him, he probably would prefer I don’t by default), then the work would have never happened and would have ended-up a terrible flop.
Please read on if you’re interested in knowing the history of how I became involved with this project, how it was executed, some of the challenges I faced during it, and finally, and a part of which I am very proud, how I completed almost exclusively using free (as in freedom) software, particular that which comes with Fedora.
I work at a company that is involved in providing consulting services to K-12 educational organizations (that is, schools). My officemate gets the pleasure of writing & rewriting our testing coding, which basically handles the testing & test scores of students. Therefore, it should be no surprise (or, well, at least only moderately surprising) that I found the following site mildly interesting:
http://www.fairtest.org
This is an interesting organization whose purpose is to show the implicit failure of standardized testing. I have to say, I kinda agree with some of their points…I almost wish I could help them redesign their website…
