Recently in Weblogs Category
I am struggling through an install of the Microsoft Office System and I learned that I could post from Word, so I am trying it out. Joe Friend’s blog is a great help. He has written about lots of new features. Ok, so let’s see if this works.
Lunch over IP recommends Comment is free, new blog started by the Guardian:
"The British newspaper The Guardian one week ago started a new collective blog, called Comment is free.
For it they recruited more than 100 smart people across the political spectrum, who post when they want about the subjects of their choice writing as many words as they like. There is an editor in charge, to get some coordination and some "hierarchy" - and help out those of the 100 that didn't have previous blogging experience - but copyediting is limited to checking for libel. Comments by regular columnists from the Guardian and its Sunday sibling Observer are also posted on this "open-ended space for debate, dispute, argument and agreement", as the "about" page puts it. The quality of the contributions is impressive.
Georgina Henry is the editor, who made the switch to blogging after 16 years spent on the print side, and she posted today her lessons-learned-in-the-first-week dispatch".
I think that this is an excellent argument for business blogging.
A Learning Circuits Blog post titled “Blogs as knowledge management” speculates that “Blogs are knowledge objects that can make bottom-up (i.e. useful) knowledge management a reality.” To explain the point the post inserts the following quote from David Weinberger’s blog:
I continue to believe that for many companies the best path to blogging is by using them internally as a knowledge management tool. The dream of KM has been that people will write down what they know. KM regimes, however, have assumed they would have to discipline people into doing that. Blogs entice people to write down what they know and to share it widely. A project blog or a department blog not only surfaces and shares knowledge, it also makes it searchable and archives it. And once a company gets used to internal blogs, it's only natural (if anything about a corporation can be said to be natural) to open up some blogs to trusted customers and partners, bringing them into the intellectual bloodstream of the organization. And then why not open some blogs more widely? Thus companies inch their way into the blogosphere.[Smart Mobs]
I had over 2000 emails in my Outlook in-box this morning and while I am a big fan of GTD, I lost my resolve several months ago in the midst of a massive crunch. So today, I spent the day filing my emails, updating my task lists, and processing my massive backlog. I am very proud of myself and I am sure that others who take choose this path would be proud of me.
Tonight, at midnight, my in-box is entirely empty, nada. It is scary; it is too clean.
And so, I am confronted by anxiety. Will I be better organized tomorrow? When will I break my resolve? What crisis will begin the doom loop towards a mega-full in-box? They say that virtuous people can control their email and I am firmly resolved to be better behaved. I am looking forward to hyper productivity. In fact, I understand my IQ will go up if I refuse to let myself get interrupted by the random flow of emails. I am looking forward to that.
Congratulations to Chris Lydon who, today, just started to broadcast his new talk show, Open Source, on National Public Radio. I have missed Chris Lydon for years and "The Connection" on WBUR has not taken the place of Chris's insight and enthusiasm for ideas. What is so interesting about "Open Source" is that Chris and his team are asking people to participate with programming ideas. So now, you can participate before, during and after the show on the web. The "Open Source" blog gives a good description of the site and show's objectives and provides a place to interact with other listeners. I am really looking forward to this experiment.
Mobile media technology developer WINKsite has launched the Creative Commons Library for mobile users. The Library puts a variety of CC-licensed texts two clicks away from browser-enabled mobile devices.
Mobile books, or "WINKbooks" are texts designed to be read on a web-enabled mobile phone.
Mobile publishing is a concept still in its relative infancy - partly due to the technology barrier that needs to be overcome by many prospective users. The idea that paper and ink should be forsaken for mobile phones is enough to make readers give an almost Luddite shudder. How can any mobile device approach the ergonomics and durability of a good quality book or reading the text on a PC or notebook? Who will read a book on a phone? Replacement however, is not the point. It's all about distribution.
You see, there is a revolution going on all over the world. People from Japan to India to Europe to the United States and South America are engaging content on mobile devices in record numbers - in fact mobile access to the Internet has already surpassed desktop access. For tens of millions their mobile phone is their one and only pipeline onto the Internet, to knowledge it contains, and to each other. Their entire "connected" world is what they can publish and consume directly on their phone. Let's connect everyone to all the great content and thoughts bouncing around the Internet. Don't leave anyone out or behind or without a voice.
Thanks to Dave for the heads-up!
[Smart Mobs]
From Gnomedex 4.0, Maximizing Your Blogging Strategies, a panel of well-known bloggers: Adam Kalsey, Robert Scoble, Nick Bradbury, Ross Rader, Jason Shellen, Dave Taylor
[IT Conversations]
Whenever a media-using habit becomes obsessive-compulsive fun, I know something is happening that might change the way I do everything. I remember the first Macintosh I got my hands on, and the hours that were lost in Macpaint -- almost all of it using Fatbits, an artistic capability that no instrument had provided before. I remember when the first thing I did online every morning was check the NCSA Mosaic site to see what wild, wonderful, and useful websites had been created the night before. Virtual communities. Instant messaging. Blogging. Now I find myself drawn to the del.icio.us home page, just to see what people have bookmarked. Even more fun is checking out what has been added to the smartmobs or cooperation collections of juicy finds. Who ARE these people? And what ELSE are they bookmarking? Social bookmarking, folksonomy -- I even like the jargon people use before any of us really knows what shape this critter will take when it grows up. If you come across any sites that would interest others who are tracking smart mobs or cooperation -- bookmark them to those tags. Some day in the not too distant future, I'll post the best of what turns up.
[Smart Mobs]
"in the [attention based economy] of blogs, credit for discovering and filtering information is potent currency. Many blogs when posting links, will also include a link to the site that lead them to the link. This practice, bordering on a...
[Robin Good's Latest News]
I noticed today as I looked at my blog's front page that I switched from Radio Userland to Typepad on August 2, 2003. I am now starting my thirteenth month as a typepad user. Before typepad, I blogged for a year at "Ralph Poole'sWeblog" which is still being hosted, for some reason, by Radio Userland. My last post on RU was on August 5th, 2003 explaining that I had changed vendors.
I started blogging after I got laid off from Capgemini, at the end of October 2002. I suspect that the downturn in technology employment had a lot to do with the rapid adoption of blogs. Originally, I thought that I would keep a log of my job search and its frustrations, and my first several months of posts reflect that. In fact, finding a job was too frustrating!. Because of the economy, I did not find a job, so logging my search only exacerbated my feelings of inadequacy. So I switched,I started my own business. For my blog, I decided to follow my interests and write primarily about technology and business, but include some personal detail and posts that reflect a bit more about myself. For example, we visited Northwest Ireland,County Mayo, in July which is recorded in the photoblog. (I still have more pictures to add)
I don't write long essays, but I am very intrigued with some of the blogs I have been reading on story-telling in business. I agree that it can be a powerful mechanism to share knowledge and insight. I am considering using the technique more in my own blog, so stay tuned.
Distributed KM (via Steven): "Improving the productivity of knowledge workers is one of the most important challenges for companies that face the transition from the industrial economy to an economy based on information and knowledge (Drucker, 1999). However, most "knowledge management" efforts have failed to address this problem and focused on information management instead.
This paper briefly explores the failure of traditional knowledge management to adress the problem of knowledge worker productivity and argues that a deeper understanding of knowledge work is necessary to improve it. It then explores knowledge work and how it is supported with information technology tools today, focussing specially on the email client as a knowledge work tool."
[elearnspace]
James Farmer is on a wiki run: What do I want in a wiki?, choosing a wiki, and more wikis. Good resources to bookmark.
[elearnspace]
Posting your email address on a website is a sure-fire way to get an Inbox full of unsolicited email advertisements. The Enkoder protects email addresses by converting them into encrypted JavaScript code, hiding them from email-harvesting robots while revealing them...
[Robin Good's Latest News]
What they said: On the weblog Liloia.com, Tara has a great list of bloggers who blogged Bloggercon II. I still have the best intentions to post some wrap-up thoughts on the day, but am too busy today dodging the whips of a demanding editor on deadline.
[Feedster.com Results For: bloggercon]
What they said: On the weblog Liloia.com, Tara has a great list of bloggers who blogged Bloggercon II. I still have the best intentions to post some wrap-up thoughts on the day, but am too busy today dodging the whips of a demanding editor on deadline.
[Feedster.com Results For: bloggercon]
Here is the way an Iron Chef program is described:
"The concept of the show is that a flamboyant, eccentric gourmet, portrayed by Kaga Takeshi, lives in his castle with his "Iron Chefs." These Iron Chefs are the top chefs in the culinary fields of Japanese, Chinese, French and Italian cooking. Each week, Kaga will choose a challenger chef (from anywhere on the planet) to "do battle" against his Iron Chefs. Kaga will present a theme ingredient and each chef will then be charged with preparing a multi-course meal that utilizes the theme ingredient in each course. The chefs have one hour to cook. Then, Kaga and four judges taste the food and pronounce winner. Sometimes there are ties and a 30 minute cook-off battle, with its own theme ingredient, will need to be held. Every now and again, there will be shows with no theme ingredient or tag team chefs cooking.The great appeal of the show is its meld of sports commentary with a cooking show. There is a sidelines announcer, Ota Shinichiro, who provides a play by play commentary on the dishes as they are prepared. There are also two announcers, Fukui Kenji, who provides most of the announcements and Hattori Yukio, who is the "color" man and fills in the viewers with tidbits of culinary knowledge."
This idea came up in Jeff Jarvis' session on the Business of Blogs. I think it has some merit.
Who do you think would be the best matchups? What do think the topics should be?
Channel 9: The two Microsoft guys who came to Bloggercon
On Saturday, at Bloggercon, I had the good fortune to meet and have lunch with two of the guys responsible for Channel 9. Lenn Pryor (C 9), Jeff Sandquist, (C 9) Scott Johnson (Feedster), Betsy Devine (Feedster), Seth Finkelstein, and Gregory Narain, and I all had lunch together at the Cambridge Common. I told them that I was one of the thousands of registered user of Channel 9 and that I had been reading their posts and following the conversations. It was great to get a bit of the inside story about starting Channel 9 at Microsoft and how their efforts, despite being controversial, have been such a success. Both Lenn and Jeff commented that they really liked to engage customers rather than only listening to other developers within Microsoft. So, this is a bold experiment. A small group of people can really make a difference in a large company, it takes courage, but, who can argue with understanding your customers better.After sitting with these guys for a bit I was reminded of John Kotter and some of his books and lectures about leadership and change management. Here is a quote from an interview he did with the Leader to Leader Institute:
“L2L: In your new book with Dan Cohen, The Heart of Change, you say that the single biggest challenge in the change process is not strategy, structure, culture, or anything like that, but just getting people to change their behavior. Why is that so difficult?I hope people in Microsoft are listening and watching what the Channel 9 guys are doing.John Kotter: All through our lives we have been taught to over-rely on what you might call the memo approach -- the 19 logical reasons to change -- and we've under-relied on what Dan Cohen and I found is much more effective, which is presenting something that is emotionally compelling. People change their behavior when they are motivated to do so, and that happens when you speak to their feelings. Nineteen logical reasons don't necessarily do it. You need something, often visual, that helps produce the emotions that motivate people to move more than one inch to the left or one inch to the right. Great leaders are brilliant at this. They tell the kind of stories that create pictures in your mind and have emotional impact. Imagine, someone once told me, if Martin Luther King Jr. had stood up there in front of the Lincoln Memorial and said, "I have a business strategy." King didn't do that. He said, "I have a dream," and he showed us what his dream was, his picture of the future. You get people to change less by giving them an analysis that changes their thinking than by showing them something that affects their feelings.
L2L: Intellectually, then, people may realize the need for change, but still not do anything differently.
John Kotter: Yes, because they don't have the passion to break out of their habits. It's tough to break habits. Ask smokers. The momentum from history -- from how we've always done things -- can end up making our future look like our history.
Overcoming complacency is crucial at the start of any change process, and it often requires a little bit of surprise, something that grabs attention at more than an intellectual level. You need to surprise people with something that disturbs their view that everything is perfect. Take one story we have in the book, the "Videotape of the Angry Customer." People who saw that video were caught off guard. Their mouths dropped open in surprise. Successful change leaders show people what the problems are and how to resolve the problems. They use things that people can see, hear, or touch. This may mean showing a video of an angry customer rather than a report of a customer survey. Change leaders make their points in ways that are as emotionally engaging and compelling as possible. They rely on vivid stories that are told and retold. You don't have to spend a million dollars and six months to prepare for a change effort. You do have to make sure that you touch people emotionally.” Copyright © 2003 by John P. Kotter
Dave Winer and the organizers of Bloggercon created a discussion format in which participants in the sessions engaged in “hyper-commenting”. Although the moderators facilitated the discussions, comments from everyone accreted into an understanding of subjects like “What is Journalism?” and “Presidential Blogging”. The overall effect was that focused answers emerged out of each group session. The audience was energetic, fun and obviously responded well to this format, which was, oddly similar to blogging. I took lots of notes and will continue to describe who I met and what I learned in subsequent posts.
- Eugene Eric Kim: A Manifesto for Collaborative Tools. This essay is a manifesto about software for collaboration -- why the world's future depends on it, why the current crop of tools isn't good enough, and what programmers can and must do about it.
[Dan Gillmor's eJournal]
I am always exited when I find a new voice writing and thinking about KM. Jack Vinson, from Knowledge Jolt with Jack, pointed out that Ton Zijlstra writes about information overload in a long post in his blog. He talks about the volume of information and how to distinguish between a signal and noise. Blogs provide a good filter and allow sense making individuals to make sense of the noise and tell us when it is a signal. I, have a very tight seive, but I read lots of RSS feeds. I find I only comment when the signal resonates with me.
SocialText Demo
I had a demo of the SocialText application today. I was impressed by the functionality and the difference between this and many other collaborative applications.
The presentation layer is an elegantly simple text based presentation of functions that combine the best of weblogs and wikis. More like a wiki, the application encourages collaboration and iterative thinking by allowing users to edit and build on pages written by others. Posts are presented in reverse chronological order, like a blog, but participants in a collaborative project can augment and edit anything they want. An idea can easily be extended in an ad-hoc way by creating a new page with content that enriches the idea or discussion.
Implementation of the application would consist of some easy adaptation of the interface to personalize it a bit with logos and colors. User adoption would require some training, but not a lot, and a commitment among a distributed team that they would contribute to this collaborative environment rather than continue to send point to point or broadcast emails. The application is flexible enough, however, to fit the way busy people work, and users can select to post to the SocialText application by email, and can receive updates sent from the application in an RSS feed or via summary emails, like a listserv.
All in all, a very impressive app. I look forward to find a use for it with a client.
This article was clipped from the February 2, 2004 copy of the New York Times, technology section. I agree with the assertion that new software is allowing people to adapt more quickly to changing business situations. Collaborative technologies and social software allow fast problem solving and innovation in distributed teams.
"...John Seely Brown, former director of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, says he believes that recent changes in software technology could allow big gains in productivity and innovation. The opportunity, he says, is to move beyond the limitations of centralized systems for automating business operations, like enterprise resource systems. "Those systems are prisons," said Mr. Brown, who is scheduled to speak at today's conference.
The software plumbing of computing, Mr. Brown explains, is evolving, and so is Internet-based software for individual workers. Software systems built on Web standards, he said, can be used as pick-and-place building blocks, instead of the more formal hierarchical systems of the past.
Mr. Brown also points to the rapid development of what he calls "social software" like instant messaging, Weblogs, wikis (multi-user Weblogs) and peer-to-peer tools - all of which make it easier for workers to communicate and collaborate online, almost instantaneously.
The combined result, Mr. Brown said, is information technology that can amplify social interaction and enhance workers' understanding of what is happening around them. The benefit, he added, could be to increase their ability to "collectively improvise and innovate."
That is a key to productivity and peak performance, according to Mr. Brown. Business, he said, is a lot like soccer. In soccer, there are some set plays, but the best teams also display a wealth of effective improvisation based on the players' deep knowledge of one another. "It's the same in the best corporations or start-ups," he said.
Mr. Brown insists that the relentless pressure of global competition and the migration of skilled jobs abroad adds urgency to the pursuit of technology-enhanced productivity gains. "We can get a lot more out of people here if we really tap into them as new sources of innovation and productivity," he said. "And we're getting the right kinds of technology tools to move this along.
"It's the only way we can compete."
Richard Eckel has started an official Groove Networks Company Weblog. A discussion about this new weblog is taking place on Vowe.net
TrackBack (0) | Comments (0) via [Jeroen Bekkers' Groove Weblog]
I like the concept of a company weblog, but I agree with the posters in Vowe.net discussion; the site should allow comments. Groove makes an excellent product and has always been open about what they are doing. This would be a good way to have a constant dialog with their customer group. More communication rather than less is positive, a two-way forum would be better. Hopefully this is just an oversight.
