Portals and KM

Cooking Tips in Cambridge

I recently took a cooking class at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education. It was the Friday Night Cooking Series: Gastrowine Tour of France with Chef Pierre Jenatton. Pierre discussed how to pair French foods with French wines and demonstrated how to cook the dishes he selected. He paired a French Riesling with salmon in a mushroom cream sauce, coq au vin with a red burgundy, and rack of lamb with a red Bordeaux – Chateau Michel de Vert – Lussac St. Emilion 2003 for under $10. All were good. Here were my take always:

• German Riesling is 8 percent alcohol while the French version is 12% so choose your level of buzz.

• You can cook salmon on one side if the skin is still on. Cook it skin side down for about ten minutes at a high heat to crisp the skin, then slowly for about another ten minutes, depending on how well down you want it.

• When cutting mushrooms, cut in half first so they will not roll on you. Curl your fingers as you hold the mushroom so you don’t cut your finger tips.

• Both white and red wine can be used in a cream sauce and taste equally good but the white version looks better as red wine cream sauce is purple. When reducing the cream sauce be careful that the liquid does get down too much as the butter fat will separate. Watch and add liquid if needed.

• Aged balsamic vinegar is very expensive but you can buy the cheap stuff and let it sit opened for several weeks. Much of the water will evaporate and you get something is close to the very expensive stuff.

• Let the cooked lamb sit for 5 minutes before you cut it. This allows the moisture to diffuse back into the meat and it is much easier to cut cleanly.

• These classes serve more wine than food. I guess this is to promote conversation and happy customers.

SAP Executive Blogs - "music of the present and future"

I recently got an email reminder on new blog posts by SAP executives. There was an interesting one by Peter Kirschbaue on “Ubiquitous computing: here, there, everywhere – Mediations beyond the hype.” He compares the hype of smart refrigerators, which he refers to the German term Zukunftsmusik -“Literally, "music of the future." -it sounds good. But how long will it take before it's actually a practical…etc,” to the current possibilities of mobile phone based ubiquitous computing. There are four comments from people in four different countries. Your country flag is shown next to the comment and your name. The comment field was invitingly teed up for me with an American flag and my personal information filled in.

The SAP Executive board members keep their blogs at the SAP site. These bloggers including Shai Agassi, Leo Apotheker, Claus E. Heinrich, Peter Zencke and Peter J. Kirschbaue. The title of the web page is “SAP Executives Share Their Vision and Strategy with the SAP Community” and the site invites customers to post comments to the executive board members. You have to be a SAP.com member to read the blogs but that is free and quick to sign up for. If the link above does not work for you go to the SAP site and the community subpage and register.

Types of Blogs – Jack Vinson

Jack Vinson has an interesting list of blog types that has started some commentary. Jack writes, “Many blogs are combinations of styles, which makes identifying unique types difficult. Do you look at topic, style, format, audience?” He then offers a list based on these three attributes

Committee to Protect Bloggers

This group blog support bloggers who are jailed, or worse for political blogging. As the site states: “The Committee to Protect Bloggers is devoted to the protection of bloggers around the world. In a host of countries around the world bloggers are routinely imprisoned for their activities. The blogging community should not leave the responsibility for their well-being in others' hands.” A worthy cause and one we should all support. As Solomon Burke sang in his Grammy winning CD, Don't Give Up on Me – “None of us are free, if one of us is chained, none of us are free.”

Call To Action: Secret Formulas to Improve Online Results

Do you have a business blog or web site and want to increase traffic and prolong visits? Here is a book, Call To Action: Secret Formulas to Improve Online Results, that gives some practical advice. Written by Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg, it covers the roles of usability, information architecture and search engine optimization. There is a nice section on ending the single page visit. There has been a lot of attention on search optimization, but then what happens we someone comes to your site? Is it just a quick look and gone? Getting people to stay is important whether you are selling stuff and just wanting to share your thoughts.

The authors offer an interesting example from Café Press, a site that runs indepdendent shops as wellas syndicated stores. The case study shows how Café Press reduced its shopping cart abandoemnet rate. In the spirit of eBay and Amazon, Café Press manages all aspects of doing business online. Some one can open a store at no upftront cost or inventory to manage. More than a million companies of all sizes offer their wares through Café Press and they adverstise 8 million products and growing. I have often heard it mentioned as the place for selling your custom t-shirts.

One thing they did was eliminate the need for first time buyers to register by creaitng an account. I have also stopped from applying comments on a blog that requires registration. Some Blogger blogs even require you to set up a Blogger accoutn to place a comment. I did nto go further and “abandoned” my comment. While, I understand the issues with comment spam, if you ask for regiatration be prepared for fewer legitimate comments also.

Another suggestion from Café Press is to always give the customer an option to contact by phone throughout. I have been frustrated by commercial sites that do not make the phone easier to find or find at all. I have also been frustrated by blogs that do not offer the email address of the blog writer as another means to contact. Mine is in my About Page which is the first place I look in another blog. Again, this opens up possible spam but there is a trade off. The book has a lot more advice that is useful for business web sites and much of it could be extended to business blogs. Thanks to Amanda Watlington for poitning it out.

Ph.Dotcom – Village Voice on Blogs

The Village Voice, long time New York weekly paper, recently had an article on blogs, “Ph.Dotcom. What is professors could lecture 24-7? Blog culture invades academia” by Getta Dayla. Thanks to John Norvell for pointing this out. It starts with the provocative lines, “Imagine if the great thinkers of the past could have blogged, bouncing ideas off each other in real time, engaging in rapid-fire debates across borders. Would it have led to some kind of intellectual utopia, or total chaos?” This is something I have also thought about, and I am sure I am not alone here.

The article doesn’t develop this potentially interesting thread but instead looks at current academia. A few well known bloggers like Jay Rosen and Larry Lessing are interviewed. Then it switches to the theoretical physics blogosphere. One sample is Sean Carroll of the University of Chicago, famous for his treatise, "Classical Stabilization of Homogeneous Extra Dimensions," who has a appropriately named blog, Preposterous Universe. His blog actually has a lot of good stuff on politics and culture, as well as physics. There is a nice post wondering if the songs that come up on your random iPod play list can predict the future?

The academic music world is also covered. says Jon Dale, who is finishing his Ph.D. dissertation on post-punk at the University of Adelaide in Australia and blogs at Worlds of Possibility is quoted, "Academic work on music is so bloodless most of the time." So his blog tires to pick up the pace a bit. Continuing on this theme of high brow music, British cultural theorist Mark Fisher, offer his blog, K-Punk. There is much more opportunity for good blog surfing but its time for dinner. Check it out yourself.

Journal of Community Informatics - New open access journal

Community Informatics (CI) is the “study and the practice of enabling communities with Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs).” It attempts to work with communities towards the effective use of technology to improve their processes, achieve their objectives, overcome the “digital divides” that exist both within and between communities, and empower communities. The Journal of Community Informatics “aims to bring together a global range of academics, CI practitioners and national and multi-lateral policy makers policy makers.” It will contain peer-reviewed research articles, as well as commentaries by practitioners and policy makers providing feedback on the significance and application of research for practice and policy development.

Enough With Beating Up on Blogs Already

I recently got a link to this Darwin Magazine article, Enough With the Blogging Already by Graeme Thickins. I found it somewhat offensive and containing a bit of misinformation but I can see where the author might pick up such perceptions. Too much Mainstream Stream Media and blogger focus on blogs has been on the extremes of blogging. This is perhaps more "newsworthy" but it gives a misrepresentation of blogs and leads to unfortunate articles like this one in Darwin Magazine. It portrays a limited, negative view of blogs as a strawman for the author to discredit the use of blogs in business. While I feel there is some misinformation in the Darwin article, and even more bias in an attempt to be cute or clever, the article is feed by this focus on extremes. This focus also unnecessarily inhibits the use of blogs for business and the many opportunities the transparency, ease of use, and broad reach of blogs offer business. A more balanced view of blogs would expand the vision of many to the opportunities offered by this potentially breakthrough technology.

Thickins sets up an extreme characterization of blogs and a reactionary characterization of business. No wonder he finds them like oil and water. Certainly, there have been misuses of blogs. The good and bad news about blogs is that they lower the barriers to web communication so the bad comes in with the good. I suppose there were business in ancient times that were suspicious of the newly invented clay tablets because someone might give way the company secrets or steal the tablets containing the financial records of business transactions. I can see a predecessor of Thickens advising his business listeners, “never put anything in clay, who knows who might see it.”

Here are a few specifics. Thickens gives his top ten reasons that business won’t do blogs. They include, in Thickens's own words:
- Business doesn’t do “passion.”
- Business doesn’t like doing public experiments.
- Businesses already communicate well in various ways.
- Businesses are advertisers, and advertisers don’t like blogs.
- Businesses have other ways of dealing with promoting their stances. The corporate communications and public relations profession is remarkably quiet in all the rah-rah hype of blogging.

I would argue that the businesses that fit Thicken’s reactionary characterization are doomed to falter, whether they use blogs or not. A business that is not passionate about its products and services is not likely the get its potential customers very excited. A company that does not experiment and convey a sense of innovation will become stagnate. There have been many companies that openly experiment. They are just careful about it. Likewise, if companies smugly feel they cannot improve their communications and do not look for new channels, they will also likely fall behind the innovators who do. Finally, while you certainly can find those in advertising and PR who don’t like blogs, there are many in these fields who see blogs as a new frontier to push innovation in their areas for the benefit of their clients. Look at Weblogs, Inc. or the agendas of many marketing conferences. One of the pre-conditions for a company to consider blogs is the desire for innovation as a business value. I think innovation is also a pre-condition for market survival. I am not saying that blogs are a pre-condition for survival, but, if used right, they can help in meaningful ways.

Now, here are a few comments on his comments on blogs. He writes that the main business adopters for blogs are “the typical suspects – the bleeding-edge early adopters that have the people and resources to experiment with new things and always do.” I suppose that IBM, SAP, Microsoft, General Motors, and Boeing, fit this group, as do such fringe publications as Fortune Magazine and the Harvard Business Review. In those bleeding-edge companies, both line employees and senior executives have blogs and in some, if not all, blogs have become an official part of public communication. And these two fringe publications see blogs as a top business trend for 2005. An increasing number of CEOs are blogging, or at least sponsoring a blog written for them, In addition to public blogs, much is going on behind the firewall at these and other organizations who use blogs for things like project management and increased efficiency in internal communication, reducing email, for example. Thickens argues that email is still one of the killers apps for the web. While this is true, the proliferation of legitimate and spam email is also making it a time killing app, as well, with growing inefficiency. RSS and blogs offer a great inofrmation distribution solution to reduce some, but not all, of this email traffic.

Blogs are in the beginning of the typical technology and business trend curve. They are riding the rise of unrealistic expectations. But I think in the midst of this hype is a powerful set of qualities that will bring an openness to business communication that does far more good than harm. Those that move ahead and use blogs in thoughtful ways and adopt blogging policies to reduce risk will more likely be the winners.

Schuman’s Paradise and the Peri - Back Bay Chorale

Boston’s Back Bay Chorale – is bringing back to Boston a Schumann”s masterpiece "Paradise and the Peri.” It was last performed in town 20 years ago. It will be on Saturday May 7 th at 8PM at the Church of the Immaculate Conception, 775 Harrison Avenue in Boston. I leanred about this form my good friends Roberto Cremonini and Victoria Mills who perform with the Chorale. It should be great.

Shuman adapted the music from “Lalah Rookh,” Thomas Moore's Romantic verse stories based on Persian folklore. The excellent Boston Persian restaurant, Lala Rokh is offering a special package including a three-course dinner and VIP tickets to the concert.

There are only two U.S. performances of Paradise and the Peri this year – this upcoming Boston one and the San Francisco Symphony's, which took place in February. Here is an excerpt from the Contra Costa Times review of that performance gives you a sense of what the piece is about: “It's a story of love, heroism, mysticism and redemption. The Peri of the title - an airy sprite who is the child of a fallen angel and a mortal - seeks to regain her rightful place as a demigoddess. The quest takes her to exotic climes such as India, Egypt, Syria and, eventually, the gates of heaven.”

Tickets are available online at the Back Bay Chorale site.

Laissez les Bon Temps Roulez – Don Lesser

My friend Don Lesser writes a great blog article on New Orleans cooking. After some local context, he gives good recipes for boiled shrimp, Etouffee sauce, along with chicken and sausage Etouffee, and concludes with bread pudding. I have tasted the Etouffee and it is certainly better than the packaged stuff from the various New Orleans supply houses. Why not make your own?

We have done research on location several times together, the last time in 2003. I did Gumbo and Shrimp Remoulade for Don recently in Cambridge. However, I was not quite the purist and relied on the packages I sent home from the New Orleans School of Cooking. Still, it was good.

Blog-Linked Firings Prompt Calls for Better Policies - CNN

Thanks to Jozef Imrich for this link the CNN article, ">Blog-Linked Firings Prompt Calls for Better Policies. The article reviews some of the well known blogger firings. This part of the news is not new but I do like their conclusion, the need for better blog policies.

The article includes a picture and reference to the Delta Airlines attendant, Ellen Simonetti, who was fired for blogging with pictures of her in uniform. Her blog is Queen of the Sky: Diary of a Fired Flight Attendant, which has become very popular. She also started The Bloggers' Rights Blog which has attracted much attention. John Maloney pointed me to it. There is a list of “Blogophobic Companies/Organizations” on the site. Now, I think there are two sides to every firing and policy. I noticed that Microsoft was removed after a number of people rightly complained in the comment field. Microsoft has done a lot to support employee blogging and certainly does not belong of such a list. I see that Google is still there but it is my understanding that the person they fired admitted that he was wrong which causes me to have some concerns about the validity of the complete list. However, I am sure that some are guilty. A good way to stay off this list of suspects is to have a clear blogging policy for the protection of everyone.

There is a certain irony to the CNN article since, as I understand CNN has a no blogging policy for its reporters or, at least it had one at one point. CNN did not make the blogophobic list but that does not mean they have reversed their policy. It just may mean the list has some false positives and some false negatives.

A Whole New Mind – Daniel Pink

I received an email from Gautum Ghosh that contained an excerpt from Daniel Pinks’ A Whole New Mind. I will not repeat it all but here is an excerpt of the excerpt.

"The last few decades have belonged to a certain kind of person with a certain kind of mind – computer programmers who could crank code, lawyers who could craft contracts, MBAs who could crunch numbers. But the keys to the kingdom are changing hands. The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind – creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers and meaning makers. These people – artists, inventors, designers, storytellers, caregivers, consolers, big picture thinkers – will now reap society's richest rewards and share its greatest joys.”

“This book describes a seismic – though as yet undetected – shift now underway in much of the advanced world. We are moving from an economy and a society built on the logical, linear, computer-like capabilities of the Information Age to an economy and a society built on the inventive, empathic, big picture capabilities of what's rising in its place, the Conceptual Age.”

With a Nerd Score of 6 out of 100 perhaps there is hope for me. I would like to think that Pink is right. Events in the world have, in my mind, indicated that the analytical are not always right and we need people who can conceptualize.

Daniel has a nice blog on his book site. It contains posts that support the ideas in his book. I liked one about Larry Lessing’s new wiki. Larry is inviting anyone who wants to participate, help him revise his book, Code and other Laws of Cyberspace. The only problem with Pink’s blog is that you cannot find individual links for the posts. Perhaps he is too conceptual to understand how permalinks work. Either that, or like some department stores, he wants you to go through the whole thing on the way to what you want.

I found a reference to the TV show, Indian Idol, on Gautum’s blog. I followed up and here is the story from rediff.com.
“Abhijeet Sawant is the Indian Idol. After seven gruelling months and competing against hundreds of contestants, the Mumbai lad was crowned Indian Idol, at around 3 pm at the Famous Studio, Mahalaxmi, south Mumbai. The result brings to an end one of the most awaited outcomes of a talent hunt in Indian television history. Sony Entertainment Television had bagged the exclusive rights from the makers of the US serial American Idol and turned it into one of the biggest television events in India.”

Gautum’s post said that The Apprentice is the next US import for the Indian TV market. Is this what Pink means?

Cannie Cliques – Wired

Valdis Krebs shared this story about the latest in social networking analysis, a revolutionary new breakthrough from MIT’s Physical Language Workshop. As Wired relates in Cannie Cliques, “The Social Networking in Fur, or SNIF, project is a wearable computer system for dogs that allows their owners to monitor the animals' behavior and capture their social networks.” The information from a collar is uploaded to a leash and then on to a server where dog owners can see who sniffed who and what their owners are like. Are cats next?

More Movies of Blog Activity – TekFlo Cyber Map

Peter Gloor is making great progress at TekFlo. Peter and his team have now developed TeKFlo Cyber Map. It shows blogs and web site in dynamic context, enabling the blog or web site owner to find the relationships and links of their blog/site or others in the blogsphere by discovering their connections to well-known “Landmark" web sites and blogs (e.g.. Slashdot or the New York Times. He has created four new sample movies of blog activity to illustrate this feature using the TekFlo mapping capabilities. They are available to view at the TekFlo site. The movies include:

1.Politscape:
40+ Days of links between New York Times and slashdot.org, dailykos.com, atrios.blogspot.com, instapundit.com, freerepublic.com, powerlineblog.com.

2. Mainstream vs. Geek News :
40+ Days of links between "New York Times and slashdot.org

3. How geeky is Dailykos?
40+ Days of links between dailykos.com, New York Times, and slashdot.org. You could do the same to see how geeky you are vs. more traditional news focused by seeing whether you are closer to the New York Times or Slashdot.

4. How geeky is Portals and KM?
In this case my blog is the victim and you get 40+ Days of links between Portals and KM - billives.typepad.com/portals_and_km/, New York Times, and slashdot.org. Needless to say, I am more aligned with the NYT in keeping with my nerd score of 6 out of 100.

One Hundred Years of Uncertainty – Einstein’s Legacy

There was an unusually long OP Ed, One Hundred Years of Uncertainty, about Einstein in the New York Times on April 8 by Brian Greene, a professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia. He writes that 1905 was the big year for Albert who published four ground breaking papers that year. One earned him the Nobel Prize, two others spoke to his famous theory of relativity. But Greene argues it was the fourth which had the most profound impact. It set the stage for quantum mechanics which transformed physics, even more that relativity. He explains as follows:

“Quantum mechanics does not merely challenge the previous laws of physics. Quantum mechanics challenges this centuries-old framework of physics itself. According to quantum mechanics, physics cannot make definite predictions. Instead, even if you give me the most precise description possible of how things are now, we learn from quantum mechanics that the most physics can do is predict the probability that things will turn out one way, or another, or another way still.”

Einstein could not accept this uncertainty and tried to argue against it unsuccessfully, even on his death bed in 1955. As a grad student in psychology in the 1970s, I learned that most research cannot set up true experimental conditions to strongly infer causality, and even if those conditions were meet we were still dealing with probability. Not only that, but the questions determine the possible answers, adding a more profound note of uncertainty. At times these principles in physics and experimental science, in general, (whether they are in social or physical science) has been used to argue for relativity in other areas such as public policy. On the other hand, those taking an absolutist position in public policies have also argued against the commonly accepted conclusions of scientists in such areas as evolution.

I think in both instances the beliefs in one area (policy or science) are being over generalized to the other. Science, religion, and philosophy are all different ways to understand the world with different goals and outcomes. Science should not dictate to religion nor should the reverse occur. As Thomas Kuhn argued, there are different sciences and we can see there are many different religions and philosophies. The different sciences and religions can co-exist if each is respected and does not try to dominate the other. We learn from science that there is uncertainty and relativity in the natural world but this does not mean we cannot hold philosophical or religious beliefs with conviction. We just need to do so with humility and with awareness and respect for the beliefs of others.

China’s Forbidden City at the Dallas Museum of Art

I was in Dallas the weekend of April 2-3 for family reunion and we took at trip to the Dallas Museum of Art for a exhibit of artifacts from the rein of Emperor Qianlong (1711-1799 – emperor 1734-1796). Qianlong is billed as the last great Chinese emperor with his rein running the parallel to the American and French Revolutions and other big events in the West. The Chinese empire reached its peak during his tenure and had a period of peace and prosperity. His grandfather picked him to rule and his father made a proclamation to read only after his death naming Qianlong as his successor, the fourth son in natural birth order. Qianlong himself had 41 wives and many children.

The exhibit is only at the Field Museum in Chicago and Dallas so I felt privileged to be there. Qianlong was a master of many talents: art, poetry, military, and diplomacy. He seemed to get the better of a number of European emissaries and ruled over 250 million people, the largest country at the time. Things went downhill for China after him. The exhibit had many things from the Forbidden City, including a number of thrones and scrolls depicting scenes from the empire. A few were done by European artists who worked in the eastern style.

In Search of Fresh Pasta – Don Lesser

My good friend Don Lesser has opened up a blog, Random Thoughts, that covers food and his thoughts on others issues like about the differences between New York and Boston. A recent entry covers the creation of fresh pasta. There is a comprehensive recipe for making pasta and extensive instructions along with a great recipe for Bolognese Sauce, Alfredo Sauce, and Mary DeFelice's Tomato Sauce. Don creates food articles for the local paper in the Amherst Massachusetts area and has been writing about food and other topics for some time. Look for more good stuff coming up.

Auto Europe has RSS

Here is a growing trend. Companies offering RSS feeds of the updates to their special deals. The Auto Europe site says:

“NEW! Subscribe to our RSS feed: You can get the latest travel deals from Auto Europe free in your RSS reader. Just right-click (control-click on a Mac) on the XML button below and copy the link into your favorite RSS reader.”

They still offer an email update option. It will be interesting to see when RSS passes email as a customer update tool.

Making CRM Stick

My good friend Javad Maftoon has just co-published a useful book on CRM - Making CRM Stick: Readying Your Organization for Successful Customer Relationship Management by Daniel T. Murphy, Joseph B. Grady, Javad Maftoon, and Andres A. Salinas. It covers ways to make CRM implementations work based on the practical experiences of the authors. Javad works with the CRM group at IBM Consulting and has extensive prior experience in this area with a number of other consulting firms. We worked on several projects at Renaissance Strategy Group in the early 90s that dealt with enabling better customer relations and employee performance. Companies have spent a great deal on CRM and often the results have not meet expectations. I am sure the collective wisdom of these consultants will be a useful investment for anyone venturing into this area.

This is a critical issue because most CRM implementations fail to produce the desired results. The authors point to an IBM study that found only 15% of these implementations are done right. They also note a more optimistic Accenture study which only found a 60% failure rate. It gets better as the Gartner says that through 2006, only 50% of CRM implementations will be seen as failures. Room for improvement here.

The book contains a series of chapters written by different articles that cover a range of useful issues. It begins with strategy formation. Then it moves to organization alignment, managing organization change, building commitment at the top, and making the business case for change. The book then continues with architecting the future-state customer experience, training issues, and concludes with project management and governance. The last chapter, co-authored by Javad, covers “The challenge of Knowledge Transfer in the New World of Outsourcing and Offshore CRM” which is an issue I have seen first hand. In this case a knowledge management system was effective and had a greater incremental effect on the outsource staff than the regulars. The right topics are there in this book and my initial look says the content is excellent.

.LRN Workshops in Madrid – May 9-11

Cesar Brea will be participating in a series of Madrid workshops for .LRN, the open source e-learning platform. As the description says, “Originally developed at MIT, and now part of MIT's Intellectual Commons, .LRN today is used by a quarter million users in more than eighteen countries worldwide. With a powerful underlying development framework that promotes scalable innovation for collaborative education, .LRN is used by higher education institutions, as well as K-12, government, and non-profit organizations. .LRN also provides a total cost of ownership significantly lower than custom or commercial solutions.” I recommend attending if you able and checking out their LRN site, if not.

New Ways for Innovation – James Surowiecki

James Surowiecki does a nice piece in the April 11 New Yorker, All Together Now, which discusses the new ways that innovation occurs. He argues that companies can no longer support massive R&D efforts inside their firewalls. Taking on a “Wisdom of Crowds” posture, he discusses the ways collaboration is occurring in the development of new ideas and new products. What would Malcolm Gladwell say? Surowiecki uses Sony’s recent short comings as an example of a company that needs to change to more open environment in today’s marketplace.

James also refers to the new book, Democratizing Innovation, by Eric von Hippel, that covers ways that customers often come up with new products or new ways of using old ones. This concept of co-creation has been around a few years. Ajit Kambil and Eric van Heck cover it in Making Markets, an earlier book on online auctions and exchanges. Peter Gloor also covers the related concept of “swam creativity” in his recent work by that title.

He offers this thought towards the end.

“Companies are a little like nations. In an era of globalization, a healthy economy relies on a steady flow of ideas, resources, and capital from outside. So it goes for a big company, in an era of open innovation.”

If only more countries would also take his advice, the world would be a better place.

Opening Day for the Boston Red Sox

It is spring in New England. The crocus are up and it has been above 50 degrees F a few times. The world champion Boston Red Sox just had their home opener. They had Bill Russell who won the world championship in basketball with the Boston Celtics 11 of the 13 seasons he played, Teddy Bruschi and Richard Seymour of the world champion New England Patriots football team, and some unemployed hockey player throw out the first ball. Much emotion was in place. The next day the New York Post showed a picture of Ortiz waving his ring at the Yankees with the caption "In your face" The Red Sox won over the Yankees 8 to 1. The Red Sox nation is temporarily in order.

Using Content to Create Connections Among People – Shawn Callahan

Recently the CKO of a mid-size software firm directed me to the white paper, “Using Content to Create Connections Among People” by Shawn Callahan that he found through Patti Anklam’s blog, Networks, Complexity, and Relatedness. The paper discusses how blogging can help sales support people provide better assistance to the sales force and customers. My CKO friend said that Shawn's white paper has created considerable positive interest from several within his sales organization. He has had an enlightening conversation with a manager for some of the technical sales support folks who really wants to get his folks blogging internally relative to e.g. product issues and competitive intelligence. It will be interesting to see what they do.

I also recommend the white paper. Shawn suggests that the sales support people all blog and that the sales people use an RSS aggregator to subscribe to these musings and provide comments and questions in response to these blogs. He adds that the real power of the systems comes when the sales support people asks the sales people to clarify their questions so more relevant answers re provided. There is much more in the white paper. A number of firms and organizations are already using blogs for sales and customer support such as SAP, Microsoft, and within non-profits, Compassion International. These organizations are already getting the positive benefits that Shawn describes.

Shawn’s model also reminds me of a knowledge management system we implemented at Ryder in 2000. It was made from the tools of the day and consisted of a Notes-based knowledge base, Quickplace for project workspaces, and SameTime providing instant messaging, a function still fairly new at the time. The key to the success of the system was not the tools but the use of people. Knowledge Managers were assigned to promote the dialog that Shawn describes that now occurs more easily through blogs. These people were hired from the vertical marketing groups they supported and made sure the connections that Shawn described occurred. They were the glue that connected the system. Blogs now make this human touch more built-in to the system and more likely to occur.

This case is well documented with several dozen articles such as Tom Davenport’s commentary in CIO Magazine. The Ryder knowledge management system was also was named to the CIO 100 for 2002. Here is some business background from one of the articles. It comes from “Intelligence in Motion” by Mary Eisenhart from the December 2000 issue of Knowledge Management Magazine.

“Under the new model, Ryder salespeople don’t sell a straightforward commodity like truck leases; they solve transportation and inventory-management problems for clients on a global scale. To exploit the opportunity inherent in its employees’ expertise, the company needed to make its collective knowledge readily available to all of them.”

The critical nature of this requirement for enhanced and efficient sales support was certainly a motivator for Ryder to invest in the human resources to do what blogs better enable now. There was also enlightened leadership at the time to make these investments. In addition, this same leadership backed the extensive campaign to get the sales force behind the new system. Too many times the focus has been simply on technology investments. The same need to focus on the people issues is still the case with a blog based support system. While I completely support the type of system that Shawn describes, I can foresee many issues around getting a sales force and sales support staff to use such a transparent system. The exposure could be a concern to many. A careful campaign to engage their full participation is an essential requirement for success. Senior management needs to set the tone that openness is both a good thing and a requirement.

Grassroots Use of Technology- April 15-16

There will be a two day conference on Grassroots Use of Technology in Cambridge, MA this coming weekend. It is organized and run by the Organizers' Collaborative and the MIT Center for Reflective Community Practice. Thanks to Deborah Finn for pointing it out.

The Need for Feed(s) - Wired

RSS is expanding way beyond blogs. This type of syndication offers greta potential for internal content distributiona nd updates. It also has been used for some time now by tradtional news outlets such as the New York Times. A Wired article, The Need for Feed(s), by John Gartner discusses the use of RSS feeds by independent news outlets usch as the Denver Post to retain readers in the face of moves into news by Yahoo and Google.

As the article indicates, the Denver Post is teaming with Newsgator to offer its readers, News Hound, a Denver Post-branded newsreader based on NewsGator, a newsreader that displays stories syndicated through RSS. Gartner writes, “News Hound will enable the Denver Post to establish a "stickier relationship with readers," said Greg Reinacker, founder and chief technical officer of NewsGator, which is co-developing the newsreader.” Readers will be able to select categories. In an interesting move, they are also allowing readers to get updates on classified ads such as the appearance of a used car they are looking for. This is a clever move to counteract all the lost newspaper ad revenue to eBay.

I see this as just one of the initial moves to dramtically change the way we get news and other information through RSS, allowing for more user control over the explostion of content on the web.

KM World November 15-17 San Jose California

The 9th annual KMWorld & Intranets Conference and Exhibition has been announced and will be held on November 15-17, 2005 at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center, in San Jose, California. I had presentations at three previous KM Worlds and hope to return to this one.

KMWorld & Intranets 2005 is the largest KM conference that I am aware of and has many vendors with exhibits so it is a good chance to see what the tool guys are doing. These presentations also go beyond technology to offer a lot of practical advice. This year's theme is Applying Strategies, Practices, & Tools for Organizational Success, It “emphasizes that knowledge management is neither theory nor dream, but at work today, totally integrated into daily business and work processes.” This established presence of knowledge management was also the case at the recent Braintrust 2005.

What is Done versus What is Said – Go Daddy and Blog Buzz

Cesar Brea writes an interesting post on Super Bowl ads. The market research people found that the famous or infamous Go Daddy ad was rated among the worst. However, the web traffic and “blig buzz” rated it as one of the highest. Cesar writes a bit more about the concept of “blog buzz” and links to Jennifer Rice on Measuring the Pulse of a Brand that looks at one way to measure this blog activity. He also links to the blog of Go Daddy founder, Bob Parsons, who indicated that he knows his target audience.

Good Times in New Orleans Part 2: Music

I did a lot of research on music events in New Orleans for the week I was there (March 28 – April 1). Yesterday, I covered the food and today, it’s the music. Harmony St. Charles who writes a blog, Harmony St. Charles – Informal Guide to New Orleans, recommended this Off Beat site which has New Orleans music listings. It proved to be very useful. Riley Adams, at The Columns Hotel, was also extremely helpful about good things happening in New Orleans that week.

On Monday, I went with great anticipation to Snug Harbor to see Charmaine Neville. I had heard great things about the place and the music on her site was fine. But the show and place was extremely disappointing. She did a tourist show, assuming, perhaps correctly, that the audience was all from out of town and “taught” us how to pronounce N’Awlins and banged on a cow bell. I am sure her uncles would have been embarrassed and she did not seem to care. I almost asked for a refund on my cover.

Outside on Frenchmen Street, things got better. I briefly listened to the Rob Wagner Trio at d.b.a. (504.942.3731), Big Pearl Blues at the Apple Barrel (504-949-9399), and the New Orleans Jazz Vipers at the Spotted Cat (504-943-3887). The Jazz Vipers do a regular set at the Rock N Bowl on Wednesday and offer current versions of old style swing jazz. All the groups and venues were respectable and good listening. Each seemed more interested in music than the tourist dollar which, with the exception of Snug Harbor, appeared to be the goal of the Frenchmen Street area.

Tuesday, I took in the live music at The Columns, where I was staying. John Rankin had a small group and they did easy listening old style swing jazz.

On Wednesday, I went to the Maple Leaf Bar on Oak Street. I have seen some great bands there before but this night they had a punk rock band, which might appeal to some, but was not for me. So I tried Tipatina’s which had a no cover for a local band night. Once again, I have seen great bands there including Bruce Daigrepont and Cajun Band on several Sunday afternoons, but this night they overcharged the cover with the one group I briefly heard. So it was 0 for 2.

Thursday was the high point and reaffirmed my faith in New Orleans music. I went to the Rock N Bowl for their zydeco night with the Zydeco Force. They played at a fast and steady beat with no break for three straight hours and were still going strong when I left. The dance floor was mobbed with many people my age which was encouraging. Thursday night the Blue Nile, on 534 Frenchmen Street (504-948-2583), had Henry Butler. I saw him the week before at Johnnie D’s Uptown in Somerville, MA so picked the Rock N Bowl. There is some great music on Henry Butler’s site.

On Friday, I went to Cobalt in the Monaco Hotel to hear George Porter and David Torkanowsky do two early happy hour sets. The group included piano, guitar, and drums and they did a very professional job with jazz, blues, and R&B. Next, I went to Bourbon Street to hear Marva Wright, a powerful woman who projects the blues well. I have one of her CDs but I got the nights mixed up so I went over to the Ritz to hear Jeremy Davenport. Their FQB was closed until 10 with a private party so I listened for a bit to George Will play sax with a electric keyboard partner. He was playing the lounge crowd well with standards and acknowledging those from Iowa, Wisconsin and other exotic spots. Finally, I went over to the FQB to see what was happening with Jeremy. He does a nice job with Sinatra and Armstrong type standards while playing trumpet with a good band. Emeril \has hired him as a sidekick for his TV show. The guard was gone from the door so I moved in and heard Jeremy’s last two numbers before the ten o’clock break.

Mo Fest 2005 – New Orleans

In addition to the well known New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, the city puts on a free informal event in the city between the jazz fest weekends. Here is what the New Orleans Mo Fest site says:

“NEW ORLEANS' MO Fest, a free outdoor showcase of local music sponsored by the City of New Orleans, returns to Woldenberg Park April 25-26 " the Monday and Tuesday between Jazz Fest weekends. Now going into its third year, MO Fest ("The Mayor's Office Festival") will take place from 1 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Hibernia Pavilion. It will feature great local food and more than a dozen outstanding New Orleans musicians, most of them not appearing at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. In addition to regularly performing bands, MO Fest will present a special tribute to the classic sound of the Hammond B3 organ and its influence on New Orleans music over the years. The B3 summit will be led by Joe Krown of Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown's band and will include such noted New Orleans keyboardists as: John Gros, Rich Vogel of Galactic, Willie Tee, David Torkanowsky and Robert Walter of 20th Congress and Greyboy Allstars fame. Special surprise guests are expected.”

I was pleased that someone from the festival put a comment in one of my posts about New Orleans alerting to this event. I see this as a very positive use of comments to promote events. I saw David Toranowsky while I was recently there, performing with George Porter at Cobalt. He was very good.

Good Times in New Orleans: Part 1 - Food and Sights

I went to New Orleans at the end of March and stayed at The Columns Hotel in the Garden District. My grandmother was the manager in the 1950s. It was originally a private mansion built in the 1880s and the current owners have retained the original character. The place served as the site for the movie, Pretty Baby. There is a well known bar with live music on many nights and a large crowd of local people every night. They spill out to the front porch and adjacent rooms. You climb a winding staircase to the rooms with a circular stain glass skylight at the top that I remember from visits to my grandmother. A deep blue and green mural of lakes and woods covers the stairwell wall leading to the top floor and classical busts are on every landing. The staff was very helpful in planning stuff to do and where the good music was playing. I wrote bit in anticipation but here is some of what I actually did.

When I first arrived, I ate lunch outside at Commander’s Place in the Garden District (1403 Washington St. (504) 899-8221), a long time favorite with classic New Orleans Creole cooking. It is pricy at night but a little better at lunch. Then I took a long walk through the surrounding Garden District. Wondering into one large home open for tours, I was held captive by some well meaning, but talkative ladies who explained every detail of every family painting and piece of furniture. After forever, we had not progressed beyond the front hall and this was a big house. Soon, I noticed another person sneaking away from the tour to explore on their own. Seeing they were not reprimanded, I followed suit only to be temporally trapped by another tour guide on the second floor. I finally escaped back out to the warm day and a coffee at a Po Boy sandwich place on Magazine Street.

Tuesday there was a dinner at Galatorie’s, an old style Creole that has been around forever (1905). Even though it is in the Quarter, locals still continue to go. This meal was not my best there and I hope they are not coasting now. It is located at 209 Bourbon Street (504) 525-2021. Friday lunch at Herbstaint reaffirmed my faith in cooking in New Orleans. Tomato and shrimp bisque and frog’s legs with a mild hint of Creole seasonings were wonderful. It is located at 701 St. Charles in the warehouse district. (504-524-4114).

The best setting for food was out at the West End on Lake Pontchartrain at The Dock, 1926 West End Park, 504-284-3625). Wednesday, I sat on the deck overlooking the lake and had a large pile of crawfish with Abita Amber. They have live music some nights and bars placed all around inside, outside, and on the roof top decks. It is near the long burned out Brunning’s where we went many nights in the 1950s for crabs and watched the sunset on the lake. At that time there was a drag queen bar, the My O My Club, next door. It is now a fast food place.

This lunch followed a great morning at the Audubon Zoo. The animals are in large natural setting and the many different types of monkeys and apes put on a good show. They have a swamp area with Cajun houses, boats, and alligators. The lunch place serves Cajun food and there is a hall for music.

On Thursday I drove over to the Mississippi coast to get to the nearest beach, a little over an hour away. Ocean Springs was billed as an artistic town. It was fine but I liked Bay St. Louis better, with many funky shops. Perhaps, this was also because the only sun I got occurred while I was there. It rained a lot so I could only take pictures of the beaches. In the Gulfport and Biloxi area, monster gambling casinos have grown up that seem to attract large crowds. One is shaped like a pirate ship from outer space.

I spent a lot of time walking around Magazine Street with its up and down market shops and had a coconut snow ball at Ms. Tee Eva’s, (4430 Magazine) alerted to its status as the premier snow ball place by the great Harmony St. Charles blog. I also walked around my old neighborhood at the Riverbend in Uptown. Our small apartment has now been consumed by the real estate office next door. A mandatory stop in the Quarter was the New Orleans School of Cooking’s Louisiana General Store at 524 St. Louis Street. There I filled a box with New Orleans cooking supplies to be shipped home such as Remoulade sauce. I was pleased to find it waiting for me when I returned to Cambridge.

I cover my music experiences tomorrow.

Blog Book Binge - Weblogg-ed

Thanks to Kathleen Gilroy for pointing me to this post by Weblogg-ed on the rising number of books on blogs, There is:

Road Blog by Robert Elmer, a youth book on family blogging adventures.

The Secret Blog of Raisin Rodriguez by Judy Goldschmidt, another blog book for adolescents.

Baghdad Burning : Girl Blog from Iraq by James Ridgeway is on a more serious note covers events there from the perspective of a 25 year old woman under the alias of Riverbend.

China, the Sexiest Country on Earth: Blogs of China Business & Life by Joseph Tong, T. M. Rosenthal covers life and business lessons of China through personal blogs of Chinese.

There are many other titles but blogs appear to have become a recognized communication channel that is the subject of a variety of books.

Blogs and Local Citizen Journalism at Berkman

At the Berkman blog meeting next Thursday night, April 14 in Cambridge, MA, Lisa Williams will include a tour of local citizen-journalism sites, tools, and a look under the hood at h2otown.info, a citizen journalism site for Watertown, MA. You can participate remotely at this site (only during the session) that Shimon Rura set up and ask questions during the meeting at the IRC channel for the session. We also attempt to archive audio of meetings so you can listen after the fact see the Berkman meeting blog for details.

Enterprise Collaboration with Blogs and Wikis - Infoworld

Thanks to Peter Gloor for pointing me to the Infoworld article, “Enterprise collaboration with blogs and wikis: Companies turn to new tools to foster dialog between employees, customers, and the public” by Michelle Delio. It starts with an intriguing quote, “This article has been modified from its original version. Certain quoted material has been removed because its veracity could not be confirmed.” Wonder what was there?

The quotes actually get better. Martin Wattenberg, a researcher on the collaborative user experience team at IBM Watson Research Center says, “Blogs and wikis play opposite roles. Blogs are based on an individual voice; a blog is sort of a personal broadcasting system. Wikis, because they give people the chance to edit each other’s words, are designed to blend many voices. Reading a blog is like listening to a diva sing, reading a wiki is like listening to a symphony.”

It goes on to cover the good and bad of blogs or wikis. Much of the material has appeared elsewhere but the piece provides a well written summary.

Business Blogs – San Francisco Workshop

I will be giving a one day workshop on Business Blogs: Next Practices in San Francisco on April 18 through the San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Valley KM Cluster. It is based on the book, Business Blogs, A Practical Guide, which Amanda Watlington and I are just finishing. The objectives of the workshop are to enable participants to:

• Understand what critical competitive advantages blogs bring to business
• Be able to assess the opportunities and risks of business blogs
• Understand the uses of blogs for external and internal communication
• Lead blog tactics for Personal Knowledge Management
• Understand wikis and how they accelerate effective collaboration
• Know how to get your blog at the top of the search engines
• Understand the basics of Enterprise RSS how-to syndicate blogs
• Define clear blogging objectives for your business
• Be able to start a business blog with confidence

We plan to have a series of similar workshops at various locations. Amanda will be delivering some, as well. Thanks to John Maloney for supporting this effort and to MyST Technology Partners for sponsoring it. The next day there will be a session on “The Engelbart Hypothesis: Beyond Collaboration To Collective IQ.” It is a tribute to the visionary Dr Douglas Engelbart. Both sessions are held at The Presidio, San Francisco Film Center at 39 Mesa Street, Suite 107 San Francisco. Advanced registration is required.

Global Voices Online – Building Blog Bridges

Rebecca MacKinnon and Ethan Zuckerman are developing Global Voices Online to promote dialog and expanded news coverage of global issues. The About Page covers the mission. It is a global citizens’ media project, sponsored by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at the Harvard Law School. “The primary mission of Global Voices is twofold: 1) To call attention to the most interesting conversations and perspectives emerging from citizens’ media around the world by linking to text, audio, and video blogs and other forms of grassroots citizens’ media being produced by people around the world; 2) To facilitate the emergence of new citizens’ voices through training, online tutorials, and publicizing the ways in which open-source and free tools can be used safely by people around the world to express themselves. “

They are looking for bridge bloggers who summarize the content in bogs in their country and convey this summary through their blog, providing a window for others. Many of these bloggers have just emerged on their own. Ethan and Rebecca have also set up a Global Voices wiki to document the bridge bloggers and other resources on a country by country basis. This will allow you to go to a country that is in the news such as Kyrgyzstan as see what is being said in the blogs. The project is in the very beginning. They ask that if bloggers discover interesting bridge blogs to let them know and/or encourage the bridge bloggers to get involved with their site.

One goal is to raise important international stories that are not getting proper coverage form the mainstream media. They hope that journalists will look to their site as a nothe trusted news source

Getting a Little Help from Active Words

I was recently introduced to Active Words by Buzz Bruggeman, one of the co-founders. It is a great help tool that turns words that you type into actions. You specify the action connected to words and then turn these words into actions. For example, if I type ’blog” and hit the Action Word designated function key, F8 is the default, it opens my blog. This is particularly useful in launching nested stuff like files in My Documents.

There are also other useful functions like automated spelling correction for common misspellings. My two fingered typing approach constantly causes me to transpose certain words on a consistent basis. Now these corrections can be made automatically without having to go back and manually change the spelling. There are other things liked automatically converting numbers to words. You can also trigger many Outlook functions like openning contact information. I am just beginning to understand the capabilities but I find it useful so far. There is a scripting language for those people more technical than me. Take a look.

My Top Doo Wop – Part Two

Yesterday, I gave some reflections on Doo Wop in Part One and here are some of my favorites. There are many collections of Doo Wop songs. Here are my choices grouped by CDs that contain them. There is also a lot of overlap in collections.The second and third CD contain some of the the songs listed under the first one but I did not repeat them. If you were born before 1950, I challenge you to not sing these songs in your head as you read them.

Shama Lama Ding Doing – Hear Music

• Only You (and you alone) – The Platters

• For Your Precious Love – Jerry Butler and the Impressions

• In the Still of the Night – The Five Satins

• Tears on my Pillow – Little Anthony and the Imperials (actually “Hurts So Bad" is even better but it is not on this CD) This is also the group I least associate with Doo Wop of those listed but since it was on the Doo WOP CD and I like then, I listed it.

• Stay – Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs

• I Only Have Eyes for You – The Flamingos

• Speedo (but my real name is Mr. Earl) – The Cadillacs

The New Millennium Doo Wop Party – Rhino Records

• Book of Love – The Moontones

• Duke of Earl – Gene Chandler - hear the complete song here as Gene Chandler welcomes you to The Dukedom at his site.

• There is a Moon Out Tonight – The Capris

• Earth Angel – The Penguins

• Why do Fools Fall in Love – Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers

• Heart and Soul – The Penguins

• Save the Last Dance for Me – The Drifters

The Best of Doo Wop Ballads – Rhino Records

• Where or When – Dion and the Belmonts (named after Belmont Ave. in the Bronx)

• Since I Don’t Have You – The Skyliners – “I don't have plans and schemes And I don't have hopes and dreams. I don't have anything. Since I don't have you....”

• Oh What a Night – The Dells

• 16 Candles – The Crests

• Been So Long – The Pastels

• Daddy’s Home – Shep and the Limelites

I also have to add “You Belong to Me” covered in Doo Wop style by the Duprees (after Jo Stafford, Patti Page, and others) even though I do not have a copy now. Here are the lyrics written by Pee Wee King, Redd Stewart & Shilton Price in 1952. I challenge you to not sing these. If you need the music here is a site, You Belong to Me, with the music (but bad music) so you can get the tune right. They have the words, too.

See the pyramids along the Nile
And watch the sunrise on a tropic isle
But just remember darling all the while
You belong to me

See the marketplace in old Algiers
Send me photographs and souvenirs
Just remember when a dream appears
You belong to me

I'll be so alone without you
Maybe you'll be lonesome too
And blue

Fly the ocean in a silver plane
See the jungle when it's wet with rain
Just remember till you're home again
You belong to me

I'll be so alone without you
Maybe you'll be lonesome too
And blue

Fly the ocean in a silver plane
See the jungle when it's wet with rain
But remember darling till you're home again
That you belong to me

My Top Doo Wop – Part One

The ultimate sing along music is Doo Wop. The other day I shared a CD with a friend my age. We immediately began singing with the songs and discussing memories from the era. Doo Wop prospered from the mid-fifties to the early sixties just as I was becoming aware of music in early adolescence. The songs were all about love, a topic I also discovered during this time. Their general innocence paralleled my own early years and that of many others on the front end of the baby boom. Perhaps that has something to do with the fondness of the memories. In the mid sixties Soul, the British groups, and other more complex and forceful songs took over as we got older, entered later adolescence, and the country became more politicized on many important issues.

So Doo Wop is the music of awakening and transition for many. This afternoon I pulled out my collection and reflected on my favorites. I generally like the ballads best. This was an era with great group names that reflect this innocence, The Five Satins (In the Still of the Night), The Flamingos (I Only Have Eyes for You), The Platters (Only You and many more), The Cadillacs (Speedo (but my real name is Mr. Earl), The Moontones (Book of Love), The Capris (There is a Moon Out Tonight), and The Penguins (Earth Angle). There were a lot of cars and birds and you tend to remember the song more than the group, especially the one hit wonders.

After finding Doo Wop missing from the Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock and Roll, looked in the wikipedia. It has a reasonable entry on Doo Wop. It says the term was orginated by a DJ, Gus Gossert, in the 1970s to refer mostly to the white groups of the era but it got later expanded to cover black R&B groups of the era. Most current CD collections include both white and black groups. Some people do not like the term, but whatever term you choose the music is great and ideal for singing along. Google has 604,000 hits for doo wop, some make for interesting reading

There are many collections of Doo Wop songs available today. My list of favorites is very long so I will continue tomorrow with my picks.

The Social Network Analysis of Rock Bands

No, this is not an April Fool’s joke or is it? There is actually a web site (not blog), Band to Band, that allows you to map the connections between rock bands. I dare you to try the link. You pick two bands and they will let you know who from one band played in another that included someone who played in another, etc. until the link is made. Fo example, it took eleven steps (bands) to connect T Rex and U2 but i ttook 14 steps to connect the British rock group, Queen, with Flatt & Scruggs, the country and western band. Think of the work to put this together. I am sure Freddy Mercury and Curly Seckler would have been grateful to know the connections.

Then, if click on a album you can see all the band members and what other albums they worked on, creating connections outside their core group.

Thanks to Ph. D. student in Human Ecology at Lund University in Sweden for pointing this out. I would give him credit but not sure his doctoral committee would want to know how he spends is time.

I should add that finding connections is more common that it seems and we all have many relationships. As a disclaimer on the post below on Thoreau's blog, I am a distant cousin of Henry through my great grandmother, a Dunbar, from Maine. Henry visted his Dunbar cousins when he went there. However, I have no known relationship to any of the above bands.

The Blog of Henry David Thoreau

I was going through very old RSS entries and found the Blog of Henry David Thoreau thanks to Anne Stanton who linked to it. I wonder what some other 19th century blogs would look like?

In this case, posts from Thoreau’s journals have been entered over several months by Gregory Perry. It even has a Henry’s Friends blog roll. A testimonial from Emerson is included. I read the journal in its old print form over thirty years ago and found it meaningful at the time.

The entry for 8-Mar-1853 has a certain Yoga Berra quality to its use of langauge.

“I know of no more pleasing employment than to ride about the country with a companion very early in the spring, looking at farms with a view to purchasing if not paying for them.”

This too is not an April Fool's joke but you will have to follow the links to see for sure.