Portals and KM

World Usability Day – November 3, 2005

I learned from the most recent Forrester newsletter that World Usability Day will occur in two days on November 3. It is a worldwide series of events organized by the Usability Professionals' Association (UPA). The aim of World Usability Day is to promote awareness of the benefits of usability and user-centered design, Earth Day-style. The site is actually a blog. I especially liked their post on Examples of Everyday Objects where they list such things as:

The OXO measuring cup. You can read it from above so you don't need to crouch down to see if you have poured in the right amount.
One-handed paint bucket. A magnetized interior holds the brush so it drips back in.
Tetley tea bags are double-stringed so you don't need to squeeze it over a spoon

The UPA site, itself, says that UPA “supports those who promote and advance the development of usable products, reaching out to people who act as advocates for usability and the user experience.” Their next UPA conference (2006) is on the theme of Usability through Storytelling. It sounds like a good idea but a bit of a stretch.

I applaud usability and often see the need for training as a symptom of the lack of good design. Forrester itself evaluates good and bad self service kiosks. They concluded that banks are much better than retailers in good intuitive design for their kiosks. I would agree here.

Pete Townsend’s Blog – The Boy Who Heard Music

Pete Townsend, 60 year old British rocker of The Who. has a blog, The Boy Who Heard Music, where he is publishing his novella by the same name in 23 installments. Under his current picture he writes, “What is well known is that I'm a rock star. You are not worthy etc. In fact you are worthy. And so am I. We deserve each other.” The complete profile contains more such as his favorit emusic: Joni Mitchell Travelogue, Neil Young Harvest, Yo Yo Ma (Best of), Marvin Gaye Ain't That Peculiar, and anything by Flaming Lips or Wilco.

A quick skim of a few chapters of the novella reads like something a rock star might write but he has a good day job. You can get a downloadable PDF of the book also if you look hard enough.

Tasty Design – A Classic Post on Good versus Bad Food

I recently heard from Melissa from Panama who writes Tasty Design in English and the Cooking Diva in Spanish. I have linked to her wonderful post on good vs. bad food or In the beginning-the eternal battle. I have to quote the beginning here and encourage you to go there to read the rest.

“In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the
Earth and populated the Earth with broccoli,
cauliflower, and spinach, green and yellow and red
vegetables of all kinds, so Man and Woman would
live long and healthy lives.

Then, using God's great gifts, Satan created Ben and
Jerry's Ice Cream and Krispy Kreme Donuts. And Satan
said, "You want chocolate with that?"

It gets better and ends with man going into cardiac arrest and concludes as follows:

”God sighed and created quadruple-bypass surgery.
Then Satan created HMOs.”

I have recently had personal experience with the downgrading of health care through HMOs but that is a long story and only can concur here.

The Case for Blogging – Portals Magazine

The current on-line edition (October) of Portals Magazine has a link to two articles on business blogging under the title, The Case for Blogging. One, Why Executives Should Blog, was first published in July 2005. In this piece they endorse executivbe glogging but note that: “Unfortunately, some executive bloggers are not closing the loop by getting involved in the comments sections of their blogs, where some genuinely interesting and answerable (that is, without legal implications) questions about their companies' products, strategies, and competitors are going asked and unanswered. This creates frustration.”

This seems an obvious point, but executive bloggers who only use their blog as another publication tool run the risk of missing important customer feedback and ideas, as well as risk alienating those same customers.

The other article, Big-Time Blogging, is a condensed version of an article that I wrote for them slightly over a year ago in August 2004. It is nice to see that business blogging continues to fulfill much of the promise it showed in 2004. The print version had several side bars on examples of business blogging at IBM and MIT.

What Blogs & Wikis Bring to Business: Successful Examples from Practitioners – ISPI & ASTD

I will be speaking on “What Blogs & Wikis Bring to Business: Successful Examples from Practitioners” at a joint public meeting of the Massachusetts Chapter of ISPI (International Society for Performance Improvement) and the Central Massachusetts Chapter of ASTD (American Society for Training and Development). It will be held on Tuesday November 8 starting with a light meal at 6:00 and my discussion goes from 7 to 8:30. The event takes place at the Boston Scientific Headquarters at One Boston Scientific Place (Speen St.), Natick MA. This talk is based, in part, on some of the research from our book: Business Blogs: A Practical Guide. There are more details and directions at the Mass-ISPI site.

ISPI is dedicated to increasing productivity in the workplace. It has an international network of local and regional chapters. I spoke at their national conference when I was involved with technology enabled learning in the 1980s and have much respect for the organization and its goals. The Massachusetts Chapter of ISPI is a great local source for information, education, and advocacy for human performance technology and they have monthly meetings, such as this one, that are open to the public.

ASTD’s goal is to provide quality professional development programs in the workplace learning and performance development disciplines. It also offers “opportunities for networking among professionals, collaboration with businesses and organizations and the exchange of best practices solutions and information.” The Central Massachusetts chapter is the local connection for professionals in this area. There are also several other ASTD chapters nearby including the Greater Boston ASTD and the Bay Colonies ASTD, serving southeast Massachusetts and Rhode Island. When I was involved in learning development in the 1980s, I presented at the national ASTD conferences on several occasions. Like ISPI, I have great respect for ASTD and am very pleased to speak to this joint meeting of the local groups.

Blogs in Product Development and Management – New England PDMA

On Thursday, November 3, 2005 at 6:30 PM, I will be presenting on the topic, Blogs in Product Development and Management at the New England chapter of the Product Development and Management Association. The event will be held in Waltham, MA and you can get directions from the PDMA web site under events. I interviewed a number of product marketing managers, VPs of sales and marketing, and other senior sales and marketing executives at places like SAP, IBM, PubSub, and ActiveWords, as part of the research for our book, Business Blogs: A Practical Guide. I will be sharing their experiences and insights at this event.

As the PDMA web site indicates, “The Product Development and Management Association (PDMA) is the premier global advocate for product development and management professionals. Our mission is to improve the effectiveness of individuals and organizations in product development and management. This is accomplished by providing resources for professional development, information, collaboration and promotion of new product development and management.” I am pleased to have this opportunity to engage in a conversation on how PDMA members and their clients might use blogs. The event is open to the public so I hope some of you in the Boston area can attend.

Pioneer Training’s Blog for Business Computer Users

A few months ago Pioneer Training launched a Pioneer Training blog to provide “tips, tricks, opinions, and information for business computer users.” They have now built up a good collection. Pioneer Training is located in western Massachusetts and offers regular public classes in many MS office applications, as well as common desktop tools such as Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Quickbooks, and others. They also provide custom classes for organizations. They started their Pioneer Training blog to offer many of the lessons learned and common questions from these classes. In addition, it is a good way to get to know them.

Their blog is also a great example of how a business blog can complement a company’s web site. The web site provides the constant information such as their capabilities and offerings. The blog provides their experience in an informal way that provides a series of topics of interest to their customer base.

If you use any of the common desktop application and want to benefit from experts who have taught hundreds of classes on these applications, I encourage you to go to their blog. Recent posts include tips for Word, Excel, Access, and Dreamweaver.

Free Krispy Cremes and Coffee – October 26

That got your attention. Stop by the MassINC Cyber-Cafe near the Grand Staircase of the Massachusetts State House, Boston for coffee and Krispy Kreme doughnuts while getting a chance to surf the entire new-and-improved Massinc web site. There will also be guided tours of everything the new website has to offer. Thanks to Deobrah Elizabeth Finn for pointing this out.

MassINC "Cyber-Café"
Date: October 26th, 2005
Time: 9:00 AM to 11:00 AM
Location: Grand Staircase, Massachusetts State House, Boston
See their Massinc site to RSVP

Wikimania 2006 - Boston? - Yes!

The Boston Wikipedians developed a formal bid to host Wikimania 2006, the second international Wikimedia conference, sometime next summer. Here is a wiki post on the Boston wikimania effort. Sam Klein is playing a lead role in this effort. The first wikimania program was in Germany and had large number of sessions and international attendees. I just learned that Boston won, beating out Toronto which was the other finalist. More details to follow.

Visual Complexity - The Art and Science of Networks

Thanks to Valdis Krebs for pointing to the Visual Complexity site with a wonderful collection of network visualizations. As the site says, “VisualComplexity.com intends to be a unified resource space for anyone interested in the visualization of complex networks. The project main goal is to leverage a critical understanding of different visualization methods, across a series of disciplines, as diverse as Biology, Social Networks or the World Wide Web.”

I am struck by the art as much as the science. It is organized by categories such as art, business, knowledge, and food networks. You can click on individual pictures of networks to get much more detail such as Global Access in the Knowledge Networks. It is described as a digital workspace and research tool. A food network is the Norwegian Food Web for Humans.

Upper Cape Cod Restaurants: A Frequent Visitor’s Picks

As everyone knows, there are two Cape Cods. The Upper Cape goes from Provincetown to Orleans and the Lower Cape from Chatham to Falmouth and Sandwich. I am an Upper Cape person, as is my friend Don Lesser of Pioneer Training. He has been going to Truro for summer vacation in August for years and knows the places to eat quite well. Don writes food articles for the Amherst paper and we should all trust his judgment. I have blogged on his writing before with Laissez les Bon Temps Roulez and In Search of Fresh Pasta among others. Here are his picks for lunch with one dinner place thrown in. His comments are included with a few other things I picked up on some of the web sites.

The Lobster Pot, despite looking like some god-awful tourist trap, has really good and interesting food. It is located on 321 Commercial Street, Provincetown, (508) 487-0842

Front Street is a good restaurant but pricier and more suited for dinner with many Italian based dishes. Their web site says it has received the Wine Spectator, Award of Excellence 1992 to present and also obtained the Boston Magazine Readers Poll Award, "Best Cape and Island Restaurant" It is located at 230 Commercial St. Provincetown (508) 487-9715

Clem and Ursie’s, on 85 Shankpainter Road, Provincetown (the third P’town exit on 6, across from the Grand Union supermarket) is like a clam shack on steroids. Good food, some interesting variations. They would be good for lunch since their ordering and fulfillment system tends to break down during heavy dinner rushes. (508)~487~2333

Moby Dicks is another super clam place (too big to be a shack). It is in Wellfleet and has really good quality seafood, some interesting additions to the standard fare. It is impossible to get into during normal dinner hours in the summer. Don usually tries eating lunch there at 3 in the summer. (508) 349-9795

P.J.s is another clam place in Wellfleet. (Both Moby’s and P.J.s are on 6.) It has gotten a bit pricy in the last few years, but is reliable and good. (508) 349-2126

Buca’s Tuscan Roadhouse in Harwich is a great upscale dinner recommendation, departing from the down market lunch places. It is northern Italian, has a wine list written up in the Wine Spectator, and is Don’s favorite restaurant on the Cape. It is located at 4 Depot Road, Harwich Massachusetts, 02645 (508) 432-6900

Here is a link to a post that Don did on Cape Cod Cookery.

Results of the Edelman/Technorati PR blog survey

Edelman asked Technorati to help them with a survey of blogs and PR. Technorati contacted thousands of bloggers via email, blog posts and the networks of discussion and links those posts generated. The survey generated 821 responses during the week of September 26, 2005. The complete findings can be found at the results site.

I did a blog post announcing the survey and participated in it recently. I found some of the results interesting. It was likely a survey of people who blog for business reasons given the answers. This was also their apparent target audience.

The highest reason for blogging was to be recognized as an authority in your field with keeping a record of your thoughts, my choice, a close second. Connect with others was third but all of the above was not an option. The majority posted every few days, probably right for busy business blogger. The vast majority said they would like free samples of products to review. Since the majority said they were never contacted by a PR firm, they must not know what they would be getting into.

I am contacted on occasion by PR firms wanting me to support their product. If it is very blatant and not someone I know, I do not respond. A PR friend said that this would open the deluge. If I know the PR person and/or the message is from an employee or head of the firm, I will respond. I have received some interesting things, like a video and DVD on BBQ which I reviewed, along with a number of professional reports and books. I always acknowledge that I was sent the material to review and attempt to write a balanced review.

The Edelman site provides the complete results so I will not repeat them here but suggest you take a look.

Healthcare and Medical Blogging

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal, Net Benefits, discussed how blogs offer a look at life on the front lines of medicine. Go quickly as the link may not last long. The article looks at the ways that “doctors and nurses are joining the blogging revolution, ruminating about medical issues -- and providing a rare window into their world.Their Web logs offer an insider's perspective on a range of important and often contentious issues, from the latest research studies to quality problems in health care. They are aimed primarily at creating dialogue among professionals, but many encourage input from consumers. And some doctors even answer general health-related questions online.”

There was a -list of prominent medical related blogs including the following. The article gives descriptions of each so there is a reason to go there.

DB's Medical Rants
Medpundit
Shrinkette
Blogborygmi
Codeblog -- Tales of a Nurse
A Chance to Cut is a Chance to Cure
Bioethics Discussion Blog
Chronicles of a Medical Mad House
The Cheerful Oncologist

Happy medisurfing. Thanks to Bob Harrigton of Cambridge Manangement Group for sending me this piece.

What Is Web 2.0 – Tim O’Reilly

Kathleen Gilroy of the Otter Group pointed me to a very useful article, What Is Web 2.0, by Tim O’Reilly on the next generation of the Web. Here are some of the key principles that I pulled out of the article. In some cases I modified O’Reilly’s text to shorten the message. The long article provides much more and context for these trends.

1. In Web 2.0, the value of the software is proportional to the scale and dynamism of the data it helps to manage.

2. To be successful, like Google Ads, you need to leverage customer-self service and algorithmic data management to reach out to the entire web, to the edges and not just the center, to the long tail and not just the head.

3. Network effects from user contributions are the key to market dominance in the Web 2.0 era.

4. Tools like blogging harness the wisdom of crowds by using collective intelligence as a kind of filter as the collective attention of the blogosphere selects for value.

5. It is content now. Every significant internet application to date has been backed by a specialized database: Google's web crawl, Yahoo!'s directory (and web crawl), Amazon's database of products, eBay's database of products and sellers, MapQuest's map databases, Napster's distributed song database.

6. Now Web 2.0 era software is delivered as a service, not as a product, like Google vs, Netscape, so there are no software releases, just continuous improvement: Users must be treated as co-developers, not simply customers.

7. Think syndication, not coordination. Simple web services, like RSS, are about syndicating data outwards, not controlling what happens when it gets to the other end of the connection.

You can see that this is a shift in orientation and that blogs and wikis are prime examples, but certainly not the only ones. Google, Map Quest, Amazon, eBay are prime company examples. What Is Web 2.0, will become a classic article. Here is a telling quote to consider:

"...a recent ZDnet editorial concluded that Microsoft won't be able to beat Google: "Microsoft's business model depends on everyone upgrading their computing environment every two to three years. Google's depends on everyone exploring what's new in their computing environment every day."

BlogBridge at Blogon

Chris Shipley has selected BlogBridge to be showcased at her Blogon conference in New York October 17-18. BlogBridge is an open source project. It is an RSS aggregator specifically meant for for people who need to keep up with many feeds - whether they are blogs, news, reviews, press releases, query feeds, etc. Here is a link to the latest 2.5 release of Blogbridge.

Google Wi-Fi – Good or Bad Idea?

There are now broad hints that Google might move into WI-FI access, going way beyond its search roots to do battle with the telcos in this area. As Adam Pasick writes in Google Prepares to Launch WiFi Service, “The company has already launched a sponsored WiFi "hotspot" in San Francisco's Union Square district in April with a start-up called Feeva. Speculation about a forthcoming Google WiFi service has been rife since August following an article in Business 2.0 magazine, but the company has refused to discussed its plans.”

Opinion seems unclear on whether this would be a good thing for Google or be an over reach. But perhaps the service could be very good for users if it is free like most Google offerings or very low cost. Chris Nolan seems to feel that the wi-fi foray is a good thing. There have been efforts for cities to provide free or low cost wi-fi that the telcos have blocked to preserve their profits at the expense of the public. I wonder how they will respond here. I can feel the legal staffs getting ready from here. It might give Google unparalleled leverage over the Web that could be used for good or bad purposes. As I wrote in It’s becoming a Google World, Google is now covering all the big apps on the Web. Now they might dominate the means for you to access those apps.

I do not pretend to have all the answers here or even enough to offer a firm opinion but it certainly is something to consider and watch. Google has joined Microsoft as perhaps the only two firms with enough coverage to dominate and dictate to the IT industry. It remains to be seen how this power will be used and how it will be challenged in the marketplace and in the courts. They even now plan to go into phone search. What is next?

Thanks to my friend Allan Denchfield for pointing this out. As recently reported in the Boston Globe business section, the success of Google has also inspired more venture capital money to flow back into Web-based start-ups. I guess this is a good thing if it encourages innovation.

Google has also hired a Washington lobbist to help their many business causes.

Deep Smarts – Dorothy Leonard

Dorothy Leonard of the Harvard Business School will talk on, ‘Deep Smarts: The Engine of Every Organization” on Thursday, October 20, 2005, 4:00 - 6:00 p.m. at the Boston area KM Forum. As the description says, “Every day, managers see business wisdom walk out the door or allow it to be lost through ineffective knowledge transfer practices. Prof. Leonard will discuss why some forms of expertise are difficult to capture and why we need to understand the way our brain works in order to fashion programs for developing and transferring critical knowledge.”

This sounds good and I plan to attend. Dorothy is the author of: Deep Smarts: How to Cultivate and Transfer Enduring Business Wisdom, with Walter Swap (Harvard Business School Press, 2004). Registration and program information can be found at the KM Forum site.

Did You Prefer the Stones or the Beatles?

A friend recently asked me which I liked better in the 60s, the Stones or the Beatles. That was a big question then as people my age will remember. There was a definite choice here. At the time I liked the Stones better and that was generally the “cool” thing to do. But now I like the Beatles much better for the depth of their contribution of music. I still like the Stones and listen to both. My friend agreed with my assessment, both then and now.

Kathleen Gilroy recently provided a nice review of Paul McCartney’s latest concert in the Boston area which reminded me of this question. She also linked to a Boston Herald review of the event.

Ansel Adams at Boston’s MFA

Last week I went to the Ansel Adams exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The day started well when we found a metered spot on the street, saving significant money over the lot. Little did I know at the time that the show was so interesting that I would have to go out and put more money in the meter as the time got close to the two hours you can pay at one time and there was more show to see. This is the first time that has happen for me at an MFA special exhibit. This does not mean that it was my favorite, just that it was quite good and took a lot of time to process. A ten minute movie was included which added to the time.

My favorite photo is actually the one they show on their web site, a close up of a rose and not you usual Ansel Adams scenery shoot. I bought a print at the shop afterwards. As the MFA site says:

“Because the exhibition is drawn from the largest private holding of his work in the world, rarely exhibited photographs from the 1920s through the ’70s are hung side by side with the iconic images that made Adams famous. Footage of Adams mountain climbing, a large-format camera on display, and video of the photographer in the field and in the darkroom add to the complete picture of Adams as artist and outdoorsman.”

I recommend it and plan to go back.

Yahoo News Adds Blogs – Mixed Opinion

According to a Forbes.com article, Can You Tell Blogs From 'Real' News? Yahoo is testing a new search tool that includes results from thousands of mainstream media outlets, and a separate results column for blogs. Forbes asks, “But is Yahoo! taking another big step in the blurring of lines between professional media and grassroots journalism?” Since they clearly differentiate the sources of news from mainstream media and blogs, I see no blurring here.

I think the Yahoo spokesperson quoted in the article is more accurate, "Traditional media don't have the time or resources to cover all stories," says Jeff Redfern, a director in Yahoo! Search. "We want to offer an alternative perspective on news outside of what the mainstream media has to offer." Jeff goes on, "We will make sure there is enough differentiation and demarcate where the [content] is coming from," says Redfern. "Part of the goal here is to learn from consumers and publishers, he added, noting that blogs aren't necessarily cannibalizing mainstream media. "Sometimes this stuff gets positioned as a zero-sum game, but it's not."

These seems like a good idea to me. However, the term citizen journalism seems weird. Does this mean the mainstream reporters are not citizens? Sounds like something Batman would say. One of the best sources for alternative journalism is Rebecca MacKinnon’s blog, RConversations, one of the cases in our book on business blogs.

Garrett Eastman, Harvard blogger and another of our cases, also pointed to a Washington Post story on the same move, Yahoo Adds Blogs to Its News Section. The Post article did not claim that Yahoo was blurring any distinctions but simply expanding the range of news sources. It added, “Yahoo's inclusion of blogs in its news section represents another validation for a growing group of people that are bypassing newspapers, magazines and broadcast outlets to report and comment on topical events. Although many top bloggers lack formal journalism training, it hasn't stopped them from building loyal readerships or breaking news that the mainstream media either missed or ignored.”

This is a more sensible statement.

NewsGator and Feedburner Join Forces

Two of my favorite blog tool companies joined forces as announced on October 11. I use both of these tools. The founders of both firms, Greg Reinacker, and Dick Costolo, are also cases in our book, Business Blogs: A Practical Guide, so I have had the pleasure of getting both of their takes on the future of the blog market. .

As the Newsgator - Feedburner press release stated “The combination of FeedBurner and NewsGator provides the richest possible RSS platform for online publishers,” said J.B. Holston, president and CEO of NewsGator. “Online brands can now not only offer the richest aggregated content solution available, but also monitor the audience’ response to the offering in great detail. As Nielsen recently reported, RSS users are three times as valuable as regular online readers.”

The press release stated the key benefits of the partnership:

• Search statistics and post ratings identify which topics drive the most traffic through your users’ aggregators
• Detailed measurement of performance criteria including readership trends, ad performance, feed item popularity and syndication circulation metrics
• Ability to insert targeted and time-sensitive ads using a flexible management engine for RSS feeds
• Comparisons of Web-based readership to RSS feed readership
• Strategies for building inventory utilizing a comprehensive database of RSS feeds
• Bandwidth absorption and protection from traffic spikes and repetitive polling

I stripped out some of the marketing language from the traditional marketing spin but this does seem like a good thing. I see that Newsgator has been on a recent shopping spread as they also picked up NetNewsWire.

MiniMicrosoft - Microsoft's Deep Throat

Henrik Schneider, former Harvard Berkman Fellow - now back in Budapest, sent me this interesting article, A Rendezvous with Microsoft's Deep Throat. The article wrties that, “Mini-Microsoft may be the most notorious blogger on corporate life. For more than a year, Mini has been a thorn in the side of the software giant, posting a stream of anonymous critiques of the company, Mini's employer.” So I checked it out.

Here is a great quote from the top post when I looked at the blog, Get Rid of The Curve to Reduce Microsoft's Headcount. “Managers learn that lesson (do not get rid of low performers until the action allows you to protect the others) really well the first time they go through it. Better to keep low performing reports around to keep the 3.0 bucket full until you're absolutely required to flush them out. Or get some new hires to slap the "welcome!" 3.0 on. Otherwise, your high performers aren't getting the rewards you want and your eyes are twitching as you stare at that blue "Love 'Em or Lose 'Em" book on your shelf.”

I ran groups through several rounds of layoffs at several companies. You always wanted to keep some “cushion” to protect your strong people so you fought to keep everyone. MiniMicrosoft came through on its first post but said stuff that applies to all big companies. But I do not know how the writer remains unknown. He feels that he will be fired if his identity is known and has not even told his wife about his double life. I would think that there are a few smart people at Microsoft who could figure out the author of this blog. Perhaps they find him a useful vent for employees. Some of the posts get hundreds of comments, mostly from fellow Microsoft employees.

Google Print – A Good Thing

If is well known that Google has partnered with the University of Michigan, Harvard, Stanford, the New York Public Library and Oxford University to scan and index their library collections and make them available on the Web. Only small snippets of the entire text are available if the book is copyrighted. Tim O”Reilly writes in the New York Times Op Ed, Search and Rescue, that the Author’s Guild is trying to stop this effort as a violation of copyright law.

Tim supports Google on this and I agree, as far as I know the facts. If the book found is copyrighted, the user is notified and has the opportunity to purchase it. As Tim writies. “Google allows click-through to the entire book only if the book is in the public domain or if publishers have opted in to the program. If it's unclear who owns the rights to a book, only the snippets are displayed.”

This will make books more accessible. Authors write to be read and to make money. Those books that have passed into public domain status will now be better able to continue to meet the first objective. Those still under copyright are more likely to be found and meet both objectives. The really great writers focus on the first objective, that is the lasting one. At the same time, the writer's ability to make a living needs to be honored and protected and this system seems to do that.

Congress Abandons WikiConstitution

In case you were wondering The Onion reported last week that: “Congress scrapped the open-source, open-edit, online version of the Constitution Monday, only two months after it went live. "The idea seemed to dovetail perfectly with our tradition of democratic participation," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said. "But when so-called 'contributors' began loading it down with profanity, pornography, ASCII art, and mandatory-assault-rifle-ownership amendments, we thought it might be best to cancel the project." Congress intends to restore the Constitution to its pre-Wiki format as soon as an unadulterated copy of the document can be found.”

So much for open source government. Thanks to Garrett Eastman for sharing this.

Harvard Gazette has RSS

Following the New York Times and the Boston Globe, Harvard University's Office of News and Public Affairs now offers several RSS feeds corresponding to the headlines in the main sections of the Gazette, the faculty and staff newspaper. They also provide a brief article explaining what feeds are.

Jessica Baumgart, a regular Berkman Thursday blog group participant, was involved in this effort. She is also a case in our book, Business Blogs: A Practical Guide.

Sonny Rollins Picks Some Music

There was a nice article in the New York Times, Sonny Rollins: A Free Spirit Steeped in Legends. In this piece Ben Ratliff interviews Sonny Rollins as he plays some selections that influenced him. His picks start with Fats Waller’s 1934 recording of “I’m Going to Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter,” a song that he frequently heard as a young child. Next up was Coleman Hawkins playing “The Man I Love,” recorded in 1943. a major influence on Sonny as a young musician. Then he selected Charlie Parker, backed up by a very young Miles Davis on “Another Hair Do.” The final pick was Lester Young doing “Afternoon of a Basis-ite.” Sonny, 75, has a new CD out, “Without a Song” but that was not discussed. I have a few of his CDs and especially like his Ballads and Saxophone Colossus.

Report from New Orleans – Harmony St. Charles

My NOLA blogging friend, Harmony St. Charles recently gave a report about her return to her neighborhood in New Orleans, Lundi Lundi Lundi.... In it she writes, “My house is in Old Jefferson which is right outside Riverbend between River Road and Jefferson Hyw. Our area took on next to no water. The damage came mostly from wind and looters/arsonists and downed trees. Jefferson has been open a week. So, what I saw was after considerable clean up. Holy crap.” Go to her post to read what she saw.

This is quite near where I used to live in the 1950s and I fear for my old homes. She and her husband have decided to stay away from NOLA for at least a year to give their kids a stable place to attend school. She concludes, “You may think "it's bad," but you're wrong. Because it's way worse than you know. (Her descripton of a relatively uneffected ares supports that view) Help and kindness is going to be needed for a long long time. Support those going back and please try to understand those who choose to leave. It's a hard choice to make either way.”

Good luck to all those who face this choice.

Know How: Managing knowledge for competitive advantage – The Economist

Here is an interesting free paper from the Economist, Know How: Managing knowledge for competitive advantage. The free report finds that Knowledge management tools are now the most important strategic technologies for large companies. Good for them. They base this claim on a survey of Western European executives that found that 67 per cent of companies cite knowledge management/ business intelligence technologies as important to achieving their strategic goals over the next three years. This total compares with 63 per cent that named new customer-relationship-management (CRM) solutions and 35 per cent that cited mobile/wireless technology as vital.

Knowledge management appears to have established a very long run compared to many new initiatives. It went through all the Gartner curve moves from over-hype to the depths of disillusionment to finally reaching a plateau of reasonable results. I think that blogs, wikis, and RSS can give it new life as we enter a more user centered Web world.

Thanks to John Maloney for pointing it out.

Employee Bloggers and Blogging Guidelines – Edelman

Here is a very comprehensive paper on blogging in the enterprise, Talking from the Inside Out: The Rise of Employee Bloggers. The paper starts with some interesting data that provide some clues about the power of employee bloggers who reach outside the enterprise to advocate their firms. An Edelman study found that people are more three times more like to trust the average person than the big shot at the top of the organization and a McKinsey study found that 67% of consumer purchases are based on word-of-mouth. No wonder Microsoft encourage sits employees to blog. Some CEOs have recognized this and have tried to have a more human presence with the market through a blog.

The article has a nice set of reasons to blog to the outside world, as well as asset of possibilities for using blogs as a knowledge management tool. Much of this and the examples have been covered elsewhere but this is a good summary. CEO blogs are also named.

The paper is especially useful for its discussion of employee blogging guidelines. Thanks to Rebecca MacKinnon who sent me this paper because of its treatment of blogging guidelines. There is a listing of some actual organizational blogging guidelines with partial content summaries. Having a clear statement on blogging policies should be a part of every blog. I include mine in my About section.

Technorati/Edelman Blogger PR Survey

Here is a survey on blogging and PR sponsored by Technorati and Edelman, a PR firm. You can take it and get a copy of the white paper summarizing the results.

Prediction Markets – SF KM Cluster December 2

SF/Silicon Valley KM Cluster is holding a special event on Prediction Markets on Dec 2 in downtown San Francisco. Registration is open at the KM Cluster site. Prediction markets Prediction markets may become a bigger play as the wikipedia writes:

“Also known as information markets, decision markets, idea futures, and virtual markets, prediction markets are speculative (i.e., betting) markets created for the purpose of making predictions. Assets are created whose final cash value is tied to a particular event (e.g., will the next US president be a Republican) or parameter (e.g., total sales next quarter). The current market prices can then be interpreted as predictions of the probability of the event or the expected value of the parameter.”

There is much more in the wikipedia description. The best known prediciton market is the Iowa Electronic Markets,

RSS Networks for Learning and Innovation – Kathleen Gilroy

My friend Kathleen Gilroy will be speaking on RSS Networks for Learning and Innovation at the October 11 meeting of the Massachusetts chapter of ISPI. It will be around 6 at the Tufts Health Plan facility, 333 Wyman Street, Waltham, MA. More details can be found at the ISPI site. I will be attending and recommend it to anyone in the area. As the description says, this event will:

Explore a new system for learning and information management that solves the problems people have with current learning and knowledge-sharing technologies and methods

See how RSS can be used to create learning networks and enable powerful personalization and customization, complex filtering, and analysis of all kinds of content flowing through an organization. RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is an XML format for sharing content among Web sites.

Look at a prototype of an RSS learning network and examples where RSS networks are used for innovation in a large financial services company and for resource and project management at a global engineering firm

N-TEN (Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Network) Conference - Cambridge, MA

On Friday, October 21 there will be a conference on how non-profits can make better use of technology. It will occur at the Charles Hotel in Cambridge, MA As the site says, it “is an opportunity for anyone with an interest in helping nonprofits use technology more effectively to meet colleagues, collaborators, and clients; learn from each other and from leaders in the field; and share information and resources.”

Deborah Finn is designing a session on "advocating for technology” that should be very interesting. She is involved in the Katrina People Finder and Katrina Help work, among many other things, including her day job as a technology consultant to non-profits.

How to Lock-In Your Clients – Ross Dawson

This Tuesday, October 4, Ross Dawson with speak at the October meeting of the Boston CoF at 6:30 PM on “How To Lock-In Your Clients” at 38 Cameron Ave., Cambridge, MA. Ross is the CEO of the consulting firm, Advanced Human Technologies, based in Sydney and San Francisco. He is author of "Living Networks," the Amazon.com bestseller, and "Developing Knowledge-Based Client Relationships", and has written numerous articles, including the Microsoft Strategic White Paper "How to Lock-in Your Clients". I recently did a review of his Developing Knowledge-Based Client Relationships.

Nice Online Guide to New Orleans

I was going through a series of links, originally provided by Garrett Eastman, and came to this guide to New Orleans by Sharon Keating. There is a lot of personal history including riding the St. Charles Ave, street car. Something I also did a lot as a kid. It remains a great way to see the city. There is also a much now on the aftermath of Katrina. Garrett writes the Rowland Institute Library blog and his work is one of the case studies in our, Business Blogs: A Practical Guide.

I see that my friend Harmony St. Charles is back blogging about New Orleans.

Beantown Jazz Festival

Last weekend I went to the Beantown Jazz Festival in Boston’s South End, a great event to think about for next year. Two stages were separated by two blocks of street food with a heavy emphasis on BBQ. There was a third in an adjacent playground, the combination providing continuous music from noon until 7 on Saturday, Sept. 23. We saw Tracey Gibbs do gospel with a group of about 5 other women and a band. Next, Harkim Law did a Ray Charles cover session with many favorites. He had a rough voice that especially suited early Ray. We saw the very last of Nicole Nelson at the other end. She is a powerful R&B singer, like a modern Aretha Franklin. Mango Blue followed on that stage with hot latin jazz as you can imagine. The Beantown Jazz site has some pleasant jazz still playing now.