"I know I'm paid for something that, in the grand scheme, is not Work." writes Scott Berkun in his new book, Confessions of a Public Speaker. In this free excerpt, Scott discusses speakers' fees, his and others, along with what's cool or not so hot about talking for a living. Scott adds: "The unspoken risk I run is having no salary. I have no pension. I have no extended contract guaranteeing me lecture gigs forever. This book could bomb or be destroyed in reviews, and my speaking career could come to an unfortunate and immediate end, which in the grand scheme of things would be OK." Read the entire excerpt now.

The Power of Less — "Practicing the art of less, whether it's agile development, minimalist business plans or spare graphic design, has had a momentum all its own during the rise of Web 2.0," write Jennifer Pahika and Brady Forrest in new O'Reilly Insights on Forbes.com. "But the art of less got a significant boost since economic conditions deteriorated, and less became the one thing we all had plenty of. In the best case scenarios, creative "power of less" responses to dramatic budget cuts have resulted in outcomes much better than the status quo, especially when technology was leveraged," add the chairs of the upcoming Web 2.0 Expo in NYC. See if you agree. Read more.

We're launching the beta of O'Reilly Answers, and I'm inviting you to be part of it. In brief, O'Reilly Answers is a community site for sharing knowledge, asking questions, and providing answers that brings together our customers, authors, editors, conference speakers, and Foo (Friends of O'Reilly). O'Reilly is at the center of an amazing exchange of knowledge sharing and idea generation, and we want you to join us in changing the world by spreading the knowledge of innovators. Read more.

Today in Answers, a user wants more info and less hype on Google Wave: "What's so revolutionary about Google Wave? Can somebody break down the features and benefits of the service in such a way as to convince the average user of its ability to change the way we communicate?" Join the conversation and share your knowledge or ask a question of your own in O'Reilly Answers.

Red Laser -- "impossibly accurate barcode scanning". Uses Google Product Search to identify products that you scan using the camera on the phone. I remember Rael and I talking to Jeff Bezos about this years ago, before camphones had the resolution to decode barcodes. The future is here and it's $1.99 on the App Store. This and more in today's Four Short Links. Read more.

In this post, we will walk through the steps to create an interactive chart with a Google-Finance-esque interaction. Before we get to far into the details, let's take a look at the final product. The top chart is a line chart showing a subset of data from the greater data set. The chart on the bottom is a representation of the entire data set. You can adjust the slider on the bottom to change the granularity and scope of the data represented in the top line chart. Read more.

This gem from Whimsley makes the point - with extensive statistical modeling supporting the argument - that our algorithm-obsessed, long tail merchants are actually depleting the overall choice pool despite the fact that as individuals we may be experiencing a sense of more choice through recommendations engines. "Online merchants such as Amazon, iTunes and Netflix may stock more items than your local book, CD, or video store, but they are no friend to "niche culture". Internet sharing mechanisms such as YouTube and Google PageRank, which distil the clicks of millions of people into recommendations, may also be promoting an online monoculture." Read more.

A friend of mine, who has achieved repeated success in high-tech startup land, said that if you want to be successful, focus on segments where <10% of the crowd currently adopts the solution, and by virtue of dramatically simplifying the approach, you can toggle adoption rates to closer to 90%. Enter Posterous, a micro-blogging tool (it's free) that does a few things really well. Read more.