Portals and KM

Social Media, Networks and Tools -- May 19, 2006 - Cleveland

There will be a session on Social Media, Networks and Tools in the Cleveland area on May 19, 2006 at the Ohio Aerospace Institute (OAI) in Brookpark, Ohio, USA.I am very pleased that the Cleveland-based social networking expert, Valdis Krebs will be participating. Also on the agenda are Verna Allee, Glenda Turner, Jack Ricchiuto, and myself. I will speak on Web 2.0. What does it Bring to Business? The five of us will be involved in a panel at the end and we will lead an individual conversation. The event is sponsored by the Ohio KM Cluster and details can be found on their site.

Here is a chance to go to Cleveland and see the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I will certainly be taking it in while I am there.

To Tag or Not to Tag! Notes from the Session

I posted earlier on a meeting of KM Forum, “To Tag or Not to Tag! Should We be Structuring our Knowledge Assets or is Free-text Search Enough?” Here are my notes from the session. There were a number of experts in taxonomy development in the audience and I learned a great deal. The term “tagging” was used for categorization for this session and not for social book marking as in del.icio.us. Of course, the multiple meanings of the word tagging points out some of the problems with tagging. We hope to have tagging as social book marking to be the topic of a future session.

This session was organized around several questions and these were the main one:

1. Can you fully exploit Knowledge Assets in the form of documents without categorizing them? – The answer is that categorization is usually needed. If the contents of a category get too large or if the content is very small, they are less useful. Inside the firewall a controlled vocabulary helps with this categorization but it needs to be continuously refined.

2. How best to give context to content? We said that this is best done by aligning the context with the goals and processes of the organization so it supports work flows. This is something we did in the first knowledge management system I was involved with in the early 90s. In this case we aligned the content with the insurance underwriting and claims processes we were supporting.

3. Is automatic categorizing working for some (or all) of your content? Several people experienced with these tools said they are getting better but still not ready for prime time in many areas. They do get you started but they people still have to do a lot of refinement. They work best in certain well defined fields with a specialized vocabulary. They also work best with hard facts like “age” and less well with inferences.

4. Does taxonomy or navigated search have a place in your organization? Is it available and used? The answer is again yes. Navigated search usually refers to guided search where you are offered alternatives to select from. Siderean Software is one vendor with Seamark Navigator.

5. When is key-word, free-text or Google style searching good enough? Of course, the answer it depends. If you find what you need the answer is yes. Google does have a lot of advanced features that allow you to narrow your search. They are generally not used by most people, including me.

6. How generally pays for categorization and taxonomy development within an organization. This effort is generally seen as “soft” and it is often difficult to get it funded and difficult to determine who should pay for it.

Denham Grey also provided some useful comments on classification and the issues in we discussed that go beyond what I mention above. He said that tagging (in the social book marking sense) “often fits best where the content is user owned and generated (blogs, images), a bottom up emergent categorization works when the group and domain is small (<150 people), strongly bounded and the participants can annotate, edit and refactor the content directly (without a strong editorial process).” There is more in his post, Classification - does it work? enterprise tagging

ProgrammableWeb

Here is another web 2.0 resource. The ProgrammableWeb is blog delivering “news, information and resources for developing applications and mashups using the Web 2.0 APIs.” John Musser says he started the site “because I couldn't find what I was looking for: a technology focused starting point for web platform development.”

There is a nice post listing mashups on mapping which lists 20 mapping applications with open APIs when I checked it. It included the famous Google Maps, as well as stuff rrom Microsoft, Yahoo and lesser known developers. For those dealing with virtual worlds, there is a open mapping API from second world. For each one there is a nice single page. The second life one mentions, “From their site: Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents. Since opening to the public in 2003, it has grown explosively and today is inhabited by nearly 100,000 people from around the globe. The Second Life Webmap API allows you to embed Second Life Maps onto your web pages.”

This is a great service. John was asking for more contributions. He also lists 379 mashups using these applications. For example, there is 1001 Secret Fishing Holes – “Over a thousand fishing spots in national parks, wildlife refuges, lakes, campgrounds, historic trails etc.” I checked it out and it really works.

Also, there is Beer Hunter Canada – “find beer and more with this comprehensive listing and map of retail establishments in Toronto and the rest of Ontario.”I looked at it and it also really works.
And lastly, Banned Books – “Finding Subversives with Amazon Wishlists, demonstrates how your wishlists might be used by government agencies to profile you based on the books you read, I didn’t go there, at least not yet.

There are 376 others. This is a great find, Enjoy.

Authority of the Wikipedia

I recently went to an interesting session led by Dave Weinberger on the authority of the wikipedia at the Berkman Center. There is an available podcast of the event at the Berkman Center. There is an available podcast of the event at the Berkman center site. Dave started with the authority of knowledge, in general, as he is writing a book on the topic. He noted that authority can bring social status, institutional power, and control conversations. Academic institutions are given authority and can grant this authority to attendees. Academic journals are often see as the prime authority on many topics since contributions are reviewed by other authorities.

Dave noted that in the past journal space was limited, in part, because the supply of paper was limited. So only a limited amount of new content got recognized by the authorities. Now in a virtual world, the space for content is unlimited and the distribution means is cheap or almost free.

The Encyclopedia Britannica has over 500 steps to ensure accuracy and to claim to be an authority. It is often compared with the wikipedia where anyone can, in theory, make a contribution in one step. There have even been studies comparing the two, including the well known one by Nature. The wikipedia does have a list of quality standards and it is continuously reviewed by administrators and thousands of volunteers to make entries better and weed out spam or other inaccuracies. The wikipedia will also acknowledge if an article is in dispute, something that the mainstream media and sources like Britannica almost never do. One reason that paper based sources are reluctant to admit problems is that they are hard to fix. In a virtual world the fix is easy.

Wikipedia entries are generally of higher quality if the topic is important and many people contribute to it. The wisdom of crowds in practice. You can see the editing history of a contribution. However, since the wikipedia does not require contributors to give their actual names, it can be hard to know who did what. Some people like Dave are open about their contributions and use their own name.

Dave discussed the concept of “negotiated” truth. The various contributors may get into an editing war over the contents of an article such as one on a political figure. The only way these editing wars can stop is for the various parties to reach a common agreement on a version that attempt to provide a “neutral point of view” and/or an acknowledgement of the various views. If the wars do not stop, the wikipedia staff can lock down the content of an article but this is the exception and represents a failure of negotiations.

I looked at the term “Web 2.0” which remains controversial and the article noted this. The article included what appeared to be some careful wording that was likely negotiated. It also listed sources that we for and against the concept. I will write separately on the details but it seems to be a good example of a negotiated truth. The assassination of JFK is another example where every theory on the event is listed, even the most farfetched

There is no negotiation with other authorities like the Britannica, except to make some suggestions for the next edition which may or may not reach the right ears. The extent to which the “authorities” are closed to multiple views turns knowledge into fundamentalism. I am not suggesting that the Britannica falls into this category, but certain truths are relative and changing. The wikipedia can provide an open platform to negotiate these truths and keep them evolving. Imagine wikipedia descriptions of the universe or the laws of physics in past centuries. Better to have the people participate in these definitions than have the Inquisition do it. On the other hand, I see polls that say the majority of Americans believe in creationism as a science. There is balance to be reached here.

I looked at the wikipedia article on creationism. It is quite long and comprehensive with many viewpoints. I think it maintains a neutral point of view that people on all sides would feel like they were represented in a neutral manner. The wording is very careful and likely the result of a virtual negotiation process. I thought it was very fair. I think it will be interesting to see how the wikipedia handles other controversial topics. This seems to be one of its strengths.

At the moment most teachers do not accept the wikipedia as a source for papers. It has even been said that Jimmy Wales, founder of the wikipedia, agreed with this position in an interview. On the other hand it is a good source for ideas and often contains links to many primary sources by noted authorities.

Why blogging works - Gautum Ghosh

Here is a nice post by Gautum Ghosh on why blogging works. It was judged by Recruiting.com as the best post from HR and Recruiting related blogs last week. It is short and concise. Gautum says that blogging works because it appeals to two of the basic human needs for expression and relatedness. Recruting.com is a community blog by a number of people in the field.

Information Intelligence Summit 2006 Phoenix

The Information Intelligence Summit 2006 will be held on April 11-13, 2006 at the Wigwam Resort near Phoenix Arizona. I have been there and its a great venue. I would have gone to this session but I had a conflict. It contains three events.

- Executive Retreat on Innovation (April 10),
- Information Intelligence 2006 Summit (April 11&12),
- Information Architecture and Taxonomy Workshop (April 13).

There is a lot on newer developments in knowledge management and taxonomy, as well as how to promote innovation. Discussions of tools like wikis and social network analysis are on the agenda. Speakers are from both services providers and firms that use these services. Examples are Matthew Glotzbach, Enterprise Product Management and Marketing, Google, Joel Alleyne, Chief Information and Knowledge Officer, Borden Ladner Gervais LLP, Deborah Chen, Enterprise Content Management Project Lead, John Hopkins University APL, Frank Chum, Enterprise Architect, Safeway, Inc., David Kemp, Development & Communication Director, ABN AMRO Bank NV, and Peter Gloor, Chief Scientist, IQuest.

To get more details and register go to their site. My friends at Delphi have given me the ability to pass a deep discount on to you. If you use this link to Information Intelligence Summit and then put in the priority code, ii06BLIVES, the event will cost a good bit less.

Menupalace.com – Finding Places in Toronto

I recently did a post on places to eat in Toronto that my friend Cindy Gordon recommended. In doing the research I came across Menupalace.com which is a site that provides information on what to do in Toronto. Mike Tulman of Menupalace asked me to do a review so I took a look. I have no relationship of any kind with the site but it looks good so here is my take.

It is very nicely laid out and covers all kinds of stuff like restaurants, jazz clubs, venues to rent for events, etc. I especially liked that fact that there is a forum for individuals to contribute a review of any of the places or services. It is quite active, a good sign. Here is another example of the increased participation on the web today. It is another example of a reputation system that Jack Vinson writes about in his post, Reputation everywhere. There is an interesting set of forum rules. They also offer a Trading Post “for individuals to buy, sell, and trade between one another.”

Menupalace.com is a good model of participatory web sites. They are currently limited to Toronto. I will also refer to it the next time I am in Toronto and have some free time. I wish they had ones for Montreal and Quebec.

Travellers Secret Box

Originated and conceived by Danish artist Lars Vilhelmsen, Travellers Secret Box is an “ongoing, collaborative border-less project that was first set in motion as a web initiative in May of 2004.” My London friend Karen D’Amico is involved as the coordinator of the UK branch. I like conceptual works like this one. As the TSB site says, “the box itself remains itinerant, of no fixed address, forever travelling from one location to the next, from city to city, country to country, its final destination uncertain and impossible to know.”

I can identify with this as I once hitched hiked around Maine in the late 60s with a sign that just said “Please.” My destination was the same as whoever picked me up. I went to some interesting places and I ended up crossing into Qubebec. There I turned my sign over and wrote S.V.P. on the back. For some reason(s) the Quebecers where not as interested in picking up this young American. Eventually, I gave up and got a ride back across the border. Several long stories came out of this trip. Perhaps if I was carrying the Travellers Secret Box I might have had quite a few more. There are some nice images on the TSB site.

Enterprise Social Media – Fort Worth, Texas May 12

KM Cluster will sponsor the one day event, Enterprise Social Media in Fort Worth, Texas, on May 12 at the City Center Tower II, 301 Commerce St.. I am speaking on “Web 2.0. What does it Bring to Business?” Nancy Dixon of Common Knowledge is speaking on “Company Command: Unleashing the Power of the Army Profession,” Michael J. English will cover “Japan's suppa ginosha Movement: 21st Century Human Capital, Knowledge Transfer, & Organization Development.” Over lunch Verna Alee will talk about “Network Strategies for Managing Complexity: Organizational and Value Network Analysis.” Then Camille Venezia of Knoll will discuss “Time as a New Currency: Flexible and Mobile Work Strategies,” and Adriaan Jooste of Deloitte will conclude with “21st Century Knowledge Leadership: Winning the War for Talent.”

I am looking forward to this session and hope to see some of you there. Here is complete information at the Texas KM Cluster site.
enterprise 2.0

Third International Conference on Knowledge Management - London

The Third International Conference on Knowledge Management will bring together academics, researchers, developers, practitioners and users in the areas of knowledge management and information processing. It will be held in the baroque World Heritage Site of the University Greenwich, on the Thames in London, August 1- 2, 2006. I will see if I can attend. I used to speak at KM conferences in London a lot in the late 90s in the days of larger budgets.

Edgio, another web 2.0 or 2.5 application

The cumulative innovation of web 2.0 continues with the advent of Edgeio: listings from the edge. As Cesar Brea writes in Marketplace Advisor, Edgeio Launches: Who Needs eBay and Craigslist? As Cesar wrote, “Edgeio allows blog publishers to use their own sites as ecommerce storefronts, and uses tags and RSS to aggregate blog publishers' listings. On the buyer side, it provides a purpose-built interface for browsing these listings to find what you need. I think this is a good example of a "Web 2.5" application in some respects, in that it follows some of the principles of Structured Collaboration.”

Cesar links to a Business Week article on it, Edgeio Edges Toward Launch--and a Clash with E-Commerce Giants? The Business Week adds some more explanation of how it works, “The way Edgeio works is that bloggers would post items they want to sell right on their blogs, tagging them with the word "listing" (and eventually other descriptive tags). Then, Edgeio will pluck them as it constantly crawls millions of blogs looking for the "listing" tag and index them on Edgeio.com. Also, Edgeio sends a trackback to the blog, providing a way for the blogger to go to Edgeio and modify the listing,”

The Edgeio sites says the are currently tracking 29,254,005 websites and listing 7,894 items. Sounds like they are using Technorati APIs as the tracking numbers match. You find stuff through their site and publish items from your site. It is kind of like Craig’s List through blogs.

Here are some more ideas from Cesar that Edgeio generated, Web 2.5 Application Ideas, including some stuff on intergating calendaring.

The Clueless Manifesto- Giving Credit to the Stupid Question

Thanks again to Jozef Imrich, the Media Dragon, for a link to The Clueless Manifesto. It comes from the Creating Passionate Users blog whose writers are also authors of “the Head First books - a new brain-friendly series from O'Reilly.” They say that they are “all passionate about the brain and metacognition, most especially--how the brain works and how to exploit it for better learning and memory.” Now there is a novel idea.

They actually raise a good point. Sometimes the experts are wrong and the naïve person who looks at something differently comes up with the right new perspective. Of course, more often they don’t. It has been said that dolphins will push sailors to shore. But then it has also been said that dolphins push sailors in random directions but we only hear from the ones who got pushed to shore. The wisdom of a crowd of dolphins may be random but if there are enough of them and there is diversity of thinking there might be a good idea in the group.

I like the Clueless Manifesto since I am often the one who asks the naïve question, especially when it comes to technology. My score of 6 out of 100 on the geek test certifies that I can ask the naïve question when it comes to why use a certain new technology. I have on occasion asked a CIO why (as in business reason) they implemented a new technology only to be met with silence. This “skill” also been useful in doing QA on technical documentation. But it would not be useful in creating the new technology itself.

The tenants of the Clueless Manifesto are cleverly written and they provide a nice quote from the Alfred North Whitehead (with a link to his wikipedia entry), "The 'silly question' is the first intimation of some totally new development." See what you think.

RSS via Email – Squeet

Now, I thought that you used RSS to reduce your email; but for those email junkies here is a way to use it to increase the stuff in your email inbox. Use Squeet. Let me know if I am missing something here.

TechCrunch – Tracking Web 2.0

Cesar Brea recently told me about TechCrunch which profiles and reviews new web 2.0 products and companies. Michael Arrington writes it. He is a founder of edgeio, and considers TechCrunch his hobby. Michael also works as a consultant on business development.

A recent post covered Skobee which facilitates event planning. As he wrote the tool will. “add new participants, and suggest changes to the date or place by leaving a comment with natural language, such as “How about Tuesday instead, and we’ll meet at TechCrunch.” Skobee will structure the data and update the event information for everyone. And even better: instead of logging into the site and leaving a comment, participants can simple “reply all” to the email, which includes “plans@skobee.com”, and skobee will figure out what event is being discussed, add a comment to the event page automatically, and update accordingly.”

This is interesting but many people inside the firewall are using wikis for the same thing. Of course, inside the firewall you can better control access but wikis on the web can have a password also and RSS will let everyone know about changes. I may be missing something here and probably that is the case. .

Perhaps more interesting was a post, Exclusive: Salesforce Business Mashups, New Developer Community, on how salesforce.com is supporting mashups. The author writes about a smart move, “Salesforce has grown to become much more than just a CRM application and is now a platform for business collaboration and communication on the web – allowing developers to build applications on their platform and giving their 399,000-strong customer base access to these applications.” Like Google, they seems to understand Web 2.0 and how to get their customers more committed and locked in. He adds that. “over 40% of requests to Salesforce web servers are SOAP requests to their API.” Many examples are provided. One of the most obvious was the Google Maps mashup, which displays on a map the location of your sales leads or contacts. There are many more in the post.

Wikimania 2006 - Cambridge, MA

The Wikimania 2006 will be Aug. 4 - Aug 6. in my city, Cambridge, MA. Wikimania is an annual global event devoted to Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. It is both a scientific conference and a community event, open to the public. For more information, see the Wikimania website.

Important dates
Mar 30, 2006 : Proposal deadline for workshops and tutorials Notification of acceptance: by April 30
Apr 15, 2006 : Abstracts due for panels, papers, posters and presentations Notification of acceptance: by May 15

KM Forum - Collaboration – Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

The KM Forum is having another interesting session where they look at the evolution of collaborative tools. Titled Collaboration – Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, the session will allow you to “hear about one of the first computer-mediated collaborative environments, DEC Notes at Digital Equipment Corporation - and we'll follow that with the story of Lotus' QuickPlace/Team Room technology, which was a direct descendent of the DEC tool. Our journey through the tools space will continue into the "2.0 World" - where blogs, RSS, and podcasts are and will increasingly be used to support collaborative innovation environments. The have heard most of the speakers and they are all very good. It will be held on Thursday, March 30, 2006, Bentley College, 9 AM - 5 PM, Danielson Room in LaCava, Waltham, MA

Patti Anklam, Hutchinson Associates (formerly of DEC)
Liz Berkhardt (formerly of Lotus' QuickPlace team)
Larry Chait, Managing Director, Chait and Associates, Inc. (formerly CKO of ADL)
Donald R. Chand, Professor, Bentley College
Kathleen Gilroy, CEO, The Otter Group

Facets of Cubism - Boston MFA

A few weeks ago I went to the Facets of Cubism exhibit at Boston Museum of Fine Arts. It is on until April 16 and worth visiting. I am struck by the structural and sculptural style of the artists with very strong page placements. Cubism in the past was only mildly interesting to me. It seemed as phase that people like Picasso pasted through but did not stay in long. Now I have started a drawing class which has made me more aware of such issues and that was one reason I went to this show. We have doing a number of still life drawing base don set ups our teacher puts together. He has talked a lot about the “equipment” or the objects that are represented and the composition including the white spaces. He has a clear preference of the importance of the composition over the equipment. The cubists seem to share this view. I found that many of the cubists did very central page placement with good attention to the “white spaces”, whatever color these background areas appeared in.

The exhibit description says that “Cubism was the watershed moment of twentieth-century art. In about 1907 Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque broke sharply with traditions in western painting. They discarded pictorial illusionism and linear perspective to create images that reflected a new experience of everyday reality. As Picasso mused, “I wonder whether it isn’t more important to paint the things that we know rather than those that we see.” Perhaps a bit of hype on the watershed part but it is a movement that I now have renewed interest and respect as a result of this small exhibit and my class.

There is also a companion exhibit, Degas to Picasso: Modern Masters which runs until July 23. It is a more eclectic collection of what the museum could come up with and its only theme seems to be the time period. Still there is some good stuff there. Artists include the late works of Degas, Gauguin, Munch, Rodin, Giacometti, Picasso, Matisse Berman, Despiau, Zadkine, Dali, Miró, Delvaux, Magritte, Calder, Man Ray, and many others. However, it is not there major work for the most part, as the Michelin Guide says about some stuff, this is worth seeing if your are there for other reasons.

French Quarter Festival - New Orleans

I am going to New Orleans in late April for the first time since before Katrina. I was last there in March of 2005 and wrote about the trip in Good Times in New Orleans: Part 1 - Food and Sights. I grew up there in the 1950s and I am very interested in what happen to the many places that I knew from childhood and subsequent trips. The places we lived were in Uptown and I think these areas were spared some of the worst damage and flooding. My grandmother managed the Columns Hotel during this time and I stayed there on my last trip. I was pleased to see it open for April but then learned they are booked for the month. Good for them, not so good for me.

So we decided to stay in the Quarter and I discovered that the French Quarter Festival will be going on during our visit so this all turned out for the better. Unlike the more well known New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, the French Quarter Festival is actually in the city, it is free, and it features only musicians for South Louisiana, all good things. . It is held in various venues and street corners in The French Quarter April 21-23. My birthday is the 21st and I can think of no better way to celebrate.

The artists are generally not as well known as those at the Jazz Fest (e.g., Fats Domino and Buckwheat Zydeco) but a number of them are in my CD collection, gathered in previous trips. These include Marva Wright and the BMWs, Jon Cleary & The Absolute Monster Gentlemen,, Joe Krown Organ Combo, The Wild Magnolias, Olympia Brass Band, Los Hombres Calientes, and Rockin Dopsie and the Zydeco Twisters. And these are just the ones in my CD collection, there are many more to discover.

I know that there are many controversies around how the recovery is proceeding or not proceeding and who is benefiting in the short and long term; but it will be good to go down there, see what is happening first hand, leave some tourist dollars behind, and take some new experiences back.

Value Network Analysis Site - Verna Allee

John Maloney pointed me to the Verna Allee site that is now a Creative Commons resource where people can access, download and use anything on the site. It includes all the materials on her value network analysis. She is going to expand the library to include “detailed guides, case studies and tools to doing a value network analysis” with the goal of making value network analysis an open source methodology. Others will be able to contribute but the inputs will be screened to ensure quality. They will also use blogs and wikis as part of the platform. It will be interesting to see how this develops. I have heard Verna speak a few times at KM conferences and her work is very thorough.

Here is a recent podcast Verna did to the College of Engineering, Collaborative Intelligence Laboratory, on Feb 22, 2006.

Newsvine – Participatory News Editing

Here is another Web 2.0 participation tool. You too can be a news editor. Critt Jarvis spoke at the Berkman Thursday blog group a few weeks ago on how he practices citizen journalism on Newsvine. I have been slow to write up notes but not from lack of interest. Newsvine is a place to read, write, and discuss news. It allows you to place news itmes that you find interesting and influence what gets top billing. You can also set up watch lists and subscribe through RSS. Just what the news junkie wants.

Here is a good article on all these participatory news sites, Journalism 2.1? A new site tweaks the grassroots formula, that features Newsvine and mentions Digg.

You can call attention to stories that might otherwise get overlooked. In some ways it is like Digg for broader news. There is a lot of AP stuff in the middle column and then on the right, The Vine where others contribute stories. You are just a click away from contributing.

There are categories across the top including odd news. They reported the following about the top odd news stories. You could add to the comments:

Most Comments:
Study Warns Women About Spring Break (11 comments)
Masked Man Tells Bank: 'Just Kidding' (6 comments)
We Never Knew "How" Bees Fly - Scientists Now Do Know and it may lead to new aircrafts! (5 comments)

Newsvine also has their own blog where you can get the latest. They claim it is “the finest blog about Newsvine in the world.” But then they are writing about their own product – so just how objective is this? At least you get the latest.

A social and cognitive analysis of tagging - Rashmi Shinha (Part Two)

Yesterday I wrote about Rashmi Shinha’s cognitive analysis of tagging. Today I will discuss her social analysis or why people tag. As she says, “even if you tag mostly to remember your own stuff, it is difficult to remain untouched by the presence of others.” This is why I blog. Tags provide some of the social connections that blogs offer with a lot less work. They are like mini link blogs and except all you do it use the delicious pull down from your browser and a few clicks. You can see who else is tagging what you like. You can hope that your tag might lead others to the stuff.

She evokes James Surowiecki and provides a useful summary of his four conditions that can lead to "wisdom of crowds.” Here is what she said about the four conditions in her words:
(1) diversity of opinion - each individual brings their idiosyncratic perspective to bear on the issue. (this is definitely true for tagging. There is a long tail of tags).
(2) independence of members from one another (that people make independent decisions. This is why mass copying of others' tags is not a good idea.)
(3) decentralization (with tagging power does not reside in a central location, but it does seem to very influenced by the first few taggers..)
(4) a good method for aggregating opinions (Tag clouds and simple lists seem to work well for this, though better methods are needed.)

So the wisdom of the crowds sorts out stuff. I can do a delicious search on web 2.0 and find that 2987 people tagged Tim O’Reilly’s article on web 2.0 (on 3/13/06). There are a number of other things that were tagged by more people. I can read what each wrote about O’Reilly’s piece. I can do a Google search on the same term on the same day and find 67,000,000 hits and Tim O’Reilly’s article is listed as number three, a slightly higher ranking than in delicious. There is a lot larger crowd involved here but I cannot see Google’s algorithm that ranked it that way.

I looked at what people wrote in their delicious notes on the O’Reilly article I find mostly trivial stuff that was written as a self note to the tagger, A few of them seem to be written to a larger audience. It is all fairly raw stuff with no vetting. However, you can quickly skim the notes to get a cumulative impression of what people said, like the travel and restaurant review sites. It also does not mean that you agree with the majority of them.

Rashmi also looks at the tag web 2.0 and she reports 230,000 tags by October 2005. Well on March 2006 there were 4017 tags on “web 2.0” and 48,449 tags on “web2.0.” Do things get untagged or tags get thrown out or run out of the viewed pace like Technorati? This does not seem right. She adds that there is no consensus regarding the term. Tagging allows you label stuff without really knowing what the label means. Categorization would require this to be effective (see yesterday’s post). Tagging does not need this knowledge as much.

Tagging can be a handy tool to keep book marks of links to stuff. This was its original intention. The designers did not have folksonomy development in mind as I learned at a Berkman session with the founder. The value of the social side is less clear to me except to web junkies, even though it can be interesting. The value of the social side seems clearer behind the firewall where tools like IBM’s Dogear make use of authentication so you know who the tagger is and thus can better evaluate their tags and use their tags to learn more about them.

Read Rashmi’s piece and decide for yourself. It is worth it.

BTW James Surowiecki gets 347,000 hits in Google and 123 in delicious. Rashmi misspelled his name as Suroweicki. Her spelling got 2 tags in delicious and 553 hits in Google. The link to his book site is number one in Google and has the third most tags in delicious. The link with most delicious tags is a New Yorker piece by Surowiecki that is not on the front page of Google, although another New Yorker piece is number 8 in Google. I am not completely sure what to make of this comparison between Google and delicious as they have difficult goals. However, some people may use them with similar intensions. I think I will still go first to Google to find stuff but if it is really important I might also check delicious as an alternate source. On the other hand, if I want to tag stuff myself or work with a colleague on something that requires tagging I will naturally use delicious. enterprise tagging

A social and cognitive analysis of tagging - Rashmi Shinha (Part One)

Rashmi Shinha writes two essays on tagging that Tomoaki Sawada pointed out to me. In the cognitive analysis of tagging she writes how the lower cognitive cost of tagging (versus categorization) makes it popular. In the social analysis of tagging she writes how tagging transforms the solitary browsing experience into a social one. Rashmi Sinha is the Founding Principal of Uzanto - a Mountain View California based consulting company that focuses on web product strategy. She is also very smart.

In the cognitive analysis she compares it to categorization. Tagging is a simple two step process. We associate stuff to the objects to be tagged and then we tag it. Done. However, with categorization the process is just begun at that point. After associating some stuff to the objects to be categorized then you have to decide which one to use and if there is a hierarchy, what is the order. You also want the category system to enable you and others to find it later. This remains a problem for me with my email folders and document folders. This categorization involves some difficult and often arbitrary decisions. It is also hard to undo categories so you are even more hesitant about committing to them.

Dave Weinberger makes some of these points (but not the one about the cognitive ease of tagging) in Tagging and Why it Matters. Dave concludes that social tagging better represents our networked and cluttered world than any attempt at creating a universal framework that reflects a rational order to the universe. While I do not want to attempt to bring rational order to the universe, I do want to try bring some rational order to my email folders so I can find stuff later.

I really like Rashimi’s conclusion. “the beauty of tagging is that it taps into an existing cognitive process without adding add much cognitive cost.” We tend to free associate about stuff (tagging) but we resist being forced into a corner that is hard back out of (categorization).

With tools like delicious the mechanics are also easy. However, the lack of required standards also makes discovery of the stuff that people tag an exploratory process. A colleague, Kathleen Gilroy, and I used a slightly different version of common topic to start a “clean” tag about this common topic. To start with a somewhat unique tag we joined two words with an & and no spaces. Kathleen gets all the credit for this idea We were the only ones using this particular combination of letters and so we could store the stuff we were reading to write a report and each of us could find each other’s stuff easily without having to sift through lots of others. If we wanted many other people to find these tags we could probably re-tag it with two tags, each using one of the words. If we wanted to see what other people were tagging on the topic we could also look at the more common way to tag the words.

I did an experiment to test this. There were 41 tags with our combination of words in delicious. I think they are all ours but I know for sure that almost all are. I then searched on the first term (intranet) and got 4780 tags and searched on the second term (web 2.0) and got 4016 tags. If took out the space between web and 2.0, I got 48,449 tags. When I combined the two words with an & but put in space I got 110 tags, I tried replacing the & with the word “and” and got the same tags. So you have to play around a bit to find all the stuff but this exploration process can also allow you to discover new things.

It seems the ease in creating tags makes up, at least some what, for the relative difficulty in finding stuff. However, this is good if you are doing research and exploring things on the web and have the time and patience for it. A call center rep accessing an enterprise knowledge management system to answer a customer’s question who is waiting on the phone will want to the quick hit to the righ tthing and that is the goal of a categorization system, especially if the reps pay is adjusted by how fast they get the customer off the line satisfied enough to not call back. This is why people spend time on categorization systems.

In summary, tags are fast done but it takes a bit of effort to find stuff with them. That effort can illuminating in itself if you have the time and interest. Categorization takes more time but that is in part because you want to make it easy to find the right stuff the first time.

All of this rambling leads to the second benefit of tagging, the social side but this is long post, enough for one day. You should also read Rashimi's complete posts as I they go into much more depth that my summary. I will cover the social side tomorrow. enterprise tagging

Blog Visualization at IBM and iQuest

Darren Shaw and others (Emerging Technology Services, IBM Hursley) contribute to the blog, raising the eight bar. It is written by group of techies working in and around IBM’s Hursley Park Lab in the UK. They get together regularly for tea and to chat so they decided to start this blog to record highlights of their conversations and activities. They claim to be adding a bit of UK flavour to it. I spent a year working on a technical project in Staines, just outside London, so I will look forward to their interpretations.

Tomoaki Sawada pointed me to a post that Darren did on Blog Visualization at IBM. As Darren said, “showing pictures of the people commenting, scaled to represent the strength of the link between that person and the blog. More comments, in both directions, strengthens the relationship and makes the picture bigger. It’s also more personal, as each IBM blogger gets their own page with pictures of all their connections.” Tomoaki Sawada of IBM UK pointed me to this. There is a nice picture with the post which shows what he did. As he wrote, it is nice to see pictures of your main blog contacts all on one page.

Another tool for looking at the networking between blogs is iQuest. They have a software suite that can “analyze anything with words or symbols – articles, web pages, reports, memos, e-mails, telephone call logs, transcripts, message boards, blogs, survey responses and more – to show who is talking to whom, what they talk about, when they talk and where those conversations are taking place.” It contains a very useful visualization capability that also shows these relationships over time. A while back they did a visualization of who links to my blog and who links to these linkers and I could watch a movie of how these patterns emerged over time.

To Tag or Not to Tag! Should We be Structuring our Knowledge Assets or is Free-text Search Enough?

Here is an interesting event that I plan to attend in the Boston area. The KM Forum discusses To Tag or Not to Tag! Should We be Structuring our Knowledge Assets or is Free-text Search Enough? Questions to be discussed include the following as they are listed on their event site:

- Can you fully exploit Knowledge Assets in the form of documents without categorizing them?
- How is contextual content best understood and presented?
- Is automatic categorizing working for some (or all) of your content?
- Does taxonomy or navigated search have a place in your organization? Is it available and used?
- When is key-word, free-text or Google style searching good enough?
- Are you clear about which approach is needed and for what circumstances?

I hope to see you there and I am sure I will be writing something based on this discussion. It will be held on March 16 at 4 PM. at Jarg, (MetraTech Building), 330 Bear Hill Road, Suite 230, Waltham. As they write, “This debate has endured for years but the technological ground keeps shifting. Business managers and audiences are becoming more sophisticated about search, where and how they need to use it.” At the same tagging tools are completing changing the paradigm with social book marks that can be shared through such tools as del.icio.us and IBM’s Dogear that works behind the firewall. enterprise tagging

Pioneer Valley (Amherst) MA Area Brew Pubs: A Local’s Favorites

My friend Don Lesser lives in Amherst, MA and writes on food and other topics on occasion for the local paper. Recently I got Don to name his favorite places to eat in the area which I covered last weekend. Today, he adds his favorite brew pubs. As I said, Don is an excellent cook and food critic so I am confident on these selections. They are listed in order of preference.

People’s Pint in Greenfield, MA offers good food and the best beer. They also have excellent ginger beer. It has an open mike Jazz Jam on the second Monday of each month and music on other nights, as well. It is located at 24 Federal St. Greenfield, Massachusetts, 01301 (413) 773-0333

The Northampton Brewery has decent food and excellent beer. It claims to be the oldest operating brewpub in the northeast. It is located at 11 Brewster Court Northampton MA 01060 (413) 584-9903

The Amherst Brewery offers a reasonable alternative to the top two. They also have live music. It is located at 24-36 No. Pleasant Street. Amherst, MA 01002 413-253-4400

There are also some regular small breweries in the area with great beer. The Paper City Brewery in Holyoke has tours and sometimes has tasting sessions. Two good selections are Holyoke Dam Ale and Winter Place Wee Heavy (Scotch style ale). It is located at 108 Cabot Street, Holyoke (413) 535-1588.

The Berkshire Brewery in South Deerfield has great traditional ale – the Steel Rail Pale Ale. It is located at 12 Rail Road Street South Deerfield, Ma 01373-0096 (413) 665-6600.

Toronto Restaurants: A Local’s Favorites

I recently visited my friend Cindy Gordon who runs Helix Commerce International in Toronto. It specializes in knowledge management and collaboration commerce services. Cindy is a long time resident and she gave me her favorites places to eat there. They variety of places is a good sampling of the diversity of Toronto places. I lived there in the early 19070s and remember it is a great place for many ethic restaurants.

Su Sur is an Asian/Fusion place in the King West Village area of downtown Toronto. It looks quite upscale and the chef, Su Sur Lee, has a new cook book out that you can see on their site. The site indicates that a UK restaurant magazine rated it as one of the top 50 places in the world. They have a 14 course tasting menu that diminishes in size as you go along. It is located at 601 King Street (416) 603-2205.

Joso’s is a Mediterranean seafood place in a converted old house, located on the Northern edge of Yorkville. In the summer you can sit outside which is really the only way to eat Mediterranean seafood. It is located at 202 Davenport Road, (416) 925-1903

Jump offers good food and good people watching. Frommer’s says that “Jump is, appropriately enough, always hopping. A sprawling space in Commerce Court, it can be tricky to find. Just follow the buzz -- as the decibel level rises (above romantic, but not uncomfortable), you'll know you're on the right track. Power brokers drop by for lunch or after-work drinks. The dinner scene is a mix of celebratory couples and suits in deal-making mode.” They also the food is really good. On the other hand their web site is too cute and flashy so it is hard to get information from it. We will excuse this since the food is great. It is located at 1 Wellington St. W near the King Street subway stop. 416/363-3400

Millie’s Bistro & Gourmet Market is rated by Frommer’s as best for kids with sdunny rooms and a special kids menu. It is located at 1980 Avenue Road, (416) 481-1247.

Nami is a Japanese seafood restaurant in the St. Lawrence market which is a good place to go. The New York Times quotes Foder’s, “You're likely to see a chef toss all manner of edibles on the grill: soft-shell crab, skewers of scallops and shrimp, and asparagus, which is raised to its highest potential when prepared this way.” So bring an apron. It is located at 55 Adelaide St. E. (416) 362-7373

Canoe is a long time favorite of the best places to eat in Toronto lists such as Gourmet’s. It describes the décor as elegantly minimalist with clever references to our national heritage. I could not think of a better set up for something funny to write in response but I will leave that to your imagination. It is located in the 54th Floor, Toronto Dominion Bank Tower 66 Wellington Street West 416-364-0054

Checkmates: Mobile Social Mapping Mashups Continued

Tomoaki Sawada pointed me to another mashup tool. They are springing up everywhere. This one is called Checkmates. It combines mobile phones, people, and location. Edward Ho, one of the developers, talks about it at his blog, will work for doughnuts. There is likely a lot of parallel development because it is so easy and the open APIs of Google Maps plus the utility of the links to Google Maps data.

Checkmates sounds like what Michael Fedor of the Monitor Group did. He writes about how he linked his Treo smart phone to other services to extend Google Maps’ functionality through "Location Aware Services,” adding a new dimension to how he can us his cell phone. He does this through the mobile mapping program Kmaps. It allows him “to tag locations on a map, snap photos, edit notes, and upload location-based photo blogs to the web with the click of a couple buttons.”

Michael gave a nice story of its use that I wrote about a few weeks ago, Michael Fedor’s Excellent Adventures with Mobile Mash-ups. Now what Edward and his friends are doing is also a good thing. It also seems that Checkmates is continuing to extend its functionality. I see all this as cumulative innovation as people keep connecting applications in new ways and building on what others have done.

Beth Shankle (see yesterday) also told me about another twist on this theme,. “Helio users will be able to do such things as use their phones to take a photo of themselves at a club and post it to MySpace with an invitation to join them. Users will be able to use their phones to post blog entries on MySpace or access their MySpace contacts and photos.”

You can run but you cannot hide. The mashups will catch up and tell everyone what you look like and where you are. Now there might be a lot of creative applications of this capability.

Chronicles of Beth

I discovered the blog, Chronicles: The life and resources of Beth, when the writer, Beth Shanke, made some useful comments on my blog. Beth is the Director of Knowledge Management for Aretao, an organization that provides training and other organizational development services. In response to my Digg post she sad that “the website Digg is great, but the podcast Diggnation is even better. The hosts of the podcast (both were on TechTV and one helped start Digg) review the top stories on Digg from the past week while sampling strange beers.” I went to the full interview and found it interesting. Diggnation is one of the most popular podcasts on the iTunes Music Store

She also talked about mashups in response to another post and pointed me to "Helio, a cellphone venture targeted at affluent young people that is to launch this spring, announced an exclusive partnership Thursday with the popular social-networking site MySpace.com... Helio users will be able to do such things as use their phones to take a photo of themselves at a club and post it to MySpace with an invitation to join them. Users will be able to use their phones to post blog entries on MySpace or access their MySpace contacts and photos.”

There will continue to be many mashups in the internet. I think there are also some great possibilities inside the firewall. Last week I discovered some very interesting mashups that IBM is doing within their enterprise space. Some are similar in concept to the Helio one, except for project team members and with locations and Google maps instead. Others cover integration with a variety of their tools for more complex business initiatives. More on this later.

I found some useful posts on her blog, including this SNA Link Round-up. Her post on the Oscars had a link to Rotten Tomatoes which provides you the chance to review movies and see what others are saying, another example of participatory web. There is more.

Wikis at Work at Helix Commerce

Wikis are becoming more common. As most people now know, they are server software that allows users to freely create and edit web pages. Anyone can edit any page and it works best within a trusted environment. The Wikipedia, has developed thousands of volunteers who police the site. Attempts to spam or deface it are often corrected within minutes without most users not even noticing. However, this is not possible or practical for most internet applications. The vulnerability created by the openness of wikis largely disappears behind the firewall where there is more control over access and participation. As a result, there have been many and varied applications of wikis within enterprise intranets.

It seems that once wikis appear behind the firewall their ability to save time quickly gains converts and they proliferate. Here are a few examples I have read about recently in an article, Wikis at Work. At Nokia, wikis were first brought in by the corporate strategy group to make the task of storing and distributing corporate intelligence more efficient. Now there are many applications across the organization. A similar sequence occurred at the Canadian Meteorological Centre. An engineer first brought in a wiki, convinced his boss of its value. Soon a number of additional wikis were operating. The publisher Ziff Davis installed wikis to accelerate project cycles and found they reduces group emails from 100 per day to zero. The Gennova Group, a Boston based association of consultants had similar results as I wrote in Working with Wikis: Part 2.

Last week I was up in Toronto to visit my friends at Helix Commerce. One of their major service offerings is Collaborative Commerce and Cindy Gordon, their CEO recently co-authored a book on the subject, Winning at Collaborative Commerce. As a good example of doing what you encourage and advise others to do, Helix deploys wiki solutions to improve its own collaboration with clients for project management and integrated communication needs. It provides a means for them to model collaborative solutions. Wikis are used to store proposals and contracts, all working matters of client delivery, project meeting notes, project plans, client deliverables, and iterative communications. Helix has found that clients appreciate the integrated environments as it saves them time in accessing email records, and having an audit inventory of all project communication practices in a central and secure repository. This also allows Helix to easily leave the wikis in client hands to continue to evolve and sustain project initiatives used the wiki, as Helix moves onto future client relationships.

Who Links to Whom – Stuff for Blogs Stats Addicts

Thanks to Jozef Imrich, the Media Dragon, for a link to this site, Who Links to Whom. Jozef is always finding interesting stuff and sharing it which I greatly appreciate. This site aggregates a number of the blog stats sources. You just put in your URL: and they come back with a variety of ranking. What is not surprising, but frustrating, is the wide range of numbers. Who Links to Whom provides the following range for my blog:

Google page rank: 6
Blogrolling.com has found 13 blogrolls that contain this link.
Yahoo! has found 18,700 links to this site.
MSN Search has found 164 links to this site.
And links to these sites which indicated the results shown
Alexa Traffic Details: traffic rank: 715,720
Technorati Search: Rank: 14,980 (187 links from 107 sites)
Icerocket Search: 148 links

Then other sources indicate the following:
Google shows 1,310 linking to the blog
Site Meter shows currently over 300 visits a day and over 400 page views
Feedburner has a circulation of 184 RSS feeds – There are other ways to get my feed so this is not the total. My Index to Cities and Towns with Restaurant Picks is the post with the most click throughs which is not surprising.

So where is the real picture? The links go from a low of 13 in blogrolling to a high of 18,700 in Yahoo!. Who Links to Whom showed the 13 from blogrolling and I know that many are missing here. I would also trust the Google links at 1,310 more that the 18,700 in Yahoo. Ice Rocket, MSN, and Technorati were fairly consistent (148, 164, 187). It is my understanding that Google shows all the active links while Technorati only shows more recent ones were you ar eon the front page of a blog. My rank with Technorati and Alexa Traffic is quite different.

Post script: I went back to Who Links to Whom a few minutes later to pick up some links for this post and the numbers for some had changed while MSN stayed the same. Clearly they need to work on consistency here but it is an interesting concept. I may check in a few weeks. Both times they also said “WhoLinksToMe.com results are currently disabled while we work some bugs out w/ the latest crawl.” I also still not sure what all this means but it is nice to know that some people read this blog. I would do anyway it to store my thoughts and links

Blogrolling.com has found 0 blogrolls that contain this link.
Yahoo! has found 91 links to this site.
MSN Search has found 164 links to this site.

Marketing in the Networked Blogosphere: Opportunities for Value Creation and Value Destruction

Kate Erhlich recently pointed me to this long article, Marketing in the Networked Blogosphere: Opportunities for Value Creation and Value Destruction by Constance Porter that appeared in Centrality which describes itself as the relationship capital journal. It goes on to say that it is “a journal in blog format, tracking the business value and underlying science of relationship capital, published by Visible Path.” Visble Path is a software tool that looks at relationship capital issues. There is an impressive list of contributors including Stowe Boyd. Constance Porter is an assistant professor in the Marketing Department of University of Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business.

Constance starts with the claim that during 2005 “blogging has migrated from the domain of a few technojocks and political gurus, to the world of business--and marketing, in particular.” I agree so far. She continues, “fewer than five percent of Fortune 100 firms are using blogs strategically, this number is expected to triple over the next two years…This grow is expected mostly because managers fear that if they do not find profitable ways to embrace the blogosphere proactively they might find themselves in a defensive position--trying to stop the bleeding caused by a so called blog mob.” Now I think this is a bit overstating the fear and trembling part. Many people simply see blogs as an effective alternative communication channel. I have yet to run across someone who has acted out of fear but perhaps I have not talked to enough people. I was approached by one lawyer who wanted some advice as bloggers were attaching her client but this has been the only example I have directly seen.

There is much more in the article and some useful links to relevant articles but I do think that the fear part is overdone. But then fear does make for interesting media stories. web 2.0 marketing

Shakespeare Meets the Soho Grand or How Romeo and Juliet Got Goth

I went to a see Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet at the American Repertory Theater (ART) recently. Like many ART shows there was a lot of attention paid to the stage. It this case it was a minimalist sand pit surround ed by metal runways. There is also a ladder leading up to some scaffolding. The characters are dressed in black in a sort of modern gothic and occasionally punk rock style. They could easily be the black clad staff at New York’s Soho Grand Hotel and the stage matches the hotel’s modern industrial décor. The only exception is Juliet who prefers pastels. She likes to run around trying to seem purposeful but is mostly petulant. There is also no romantic chemistry between the leads. As the Boston Globe reviewers said, they were more “Sid and Nancy.” One wonders why they might want to die for each other unless it was for angst.

As side from these major flaws it was an interesting play with some good acting by the bit players. I was glad I went and was generally entertained. The Capulets and Montagues dance to James Brown in the sand pit in one scene. And I thought the music worked for that scene. If you want to see Shakespeare in the bleak, this is the show for you. It you want to see and ambitious attempt to update Romeo and Juliet that does not quite work but has some good moments, this is a show for you. It goes through March 25 so there is still time.

However, the prior production at the ART, Sartre’s “No Exit” did a much better job on the bleak theme, being more true to the original. I liked the one prior to that, Chekhov’s Three Sisters even better. Here it was Chekhov meets Becket as the sisters seemed to be waiting for something meaningful to happen. I reviewed it earlier, I guess this is the year for bleak at the ART, but a good year nevertheless

Pioneer Valley (Amherst) MA Area Restaurants: A Local’s Favorites

My friend Don Lesser lives in Amherst, MA and writes on food and other topics on occasion for the local paper. I have linked to a few of his writings before such as In Search of Fresh Pasta, Laissez les Bon Temps Roulez, and Portuguese Cape Cod Cooking with Fado. I was out there recently and got Don to name his favorite places to eat in the area. Don is an excellent cook and food critic so I am confident on these selections

Chez Albert is a French Bistro in Amherst, MA. Amherst downtown calls, it, “a piece of Paris in the heart of Amherst - seasonal French country cooking tapping locally farmed ingredients, cocktails and artisan wines.” It is located on 27 S Pleasant St, (413) 253-3811

Pintu is the best Indian restaurant in the area. It is located in Springfield, MA and the food pundit reviewers like it. They also supposed to have a very talented belly dancer. 217 Elms St. West Springfield, MA (413) 788-4929

The Great Wall in Florence, MA (outside Northampton) is the best Chinese place. It provides gourmet Chinese, not the standard fare. There is dim sum on the weekends. It is located at 176 Pine Street, Florence, MA, 01062 (413) 582-0399

Frigo’s is an Italian deli in Springfield that has counter service for lunch. It is located at 90 William St, Springfield, MA 01105 (413) 732-5428

The Blue Heron is located in the old town hall in Sunderland, MA. It offers modern American food in what used to be the auditorium with a stage at one end. 112 North Main Street, Sunderland, MA 01375 (413) 665-2102

I will add that the Iron Horse in Northampton, MA has great brunches on the weekends and it is one of the better music venues in the area. It is located at 20 Center Street, Northampton, (413) 584-0610.

If you drive a little north to Brattleboro, Vermont try T. J. Buckley’s located in an old diner. It provides wonderful upscale food. Frommers’ says that it is “Brattleboro's best restaurant, and one of the better choices in all of Vermont.” It only seats around 20. Buckley’s is located at 132 Elliot Street, Brattleboro, VT 05301 802-257-4922

Good search is good knowledge management: James Robertson

Here is a good brief article on the importance of search for effective knowledge management. James Robertson writes, Good search is knowledge management, as one of a series of reports he produces at Step Two designs, an Australian content management consultancy. In “Good search is knowledge management,” James also links to two earlier useful reports on the subject: Intranet search reports and Search engine 'best bets.'

He makes several good points. First he says that “search is often implemented as a 'second thought' within organizations. First the intranet or document management system is installed, and then search is added to help users 'find stuff' within the growing repository of information.”

I have seen this happen many times. I have also seen poor search capability listed as one of main reasons intranets and knowledge managements systems are not used. This even occurred for one major telecom where there was documented evidence that people performed better using the knowledge management system. It was just hard to get some to use it because they were frustrated with the search and the interface.

James suggested that one of the first steps is to implement search reports. He says that the two most useful are: “most popular search terms” and “failed search terms.” This will let you see what people and want and what they need to paraphrase the Stones. Taxonomies also help with the standardization of key words. This was one of the initiatives we did to improve usages on the underused telecom knowledge management system mentioned above.

I recently met with Carl Frappaolo and Dan Keldsen from the Delphi Group which offers workshops on developing taxonomies, along with many other good things. They agree with James’ point that you cannot just plug and run search engines to get the most effective results. Here is one of their events, Proving Ground for Information Architecture & Taxonomy: Introduction to be held in Florida on March 7-9. Dan has an interesting new blog, BizTechTalk from the Edge to the Core.

The Strength of Internet Ties – New Pew Report

Jeffrey Boase, John Horrigan, Barry Wellman and Lee Rainie created the recently available Pew Report, The Strength of Internet Ties. It is based on the findings of two surveys on Americans' use of the Internet done in the Spring of 2004 involving over 4,000 individuals.

Among other things, it looks at how email supplements, rather than replaces, the communication people have with others in their network. It also shows the internet has largely increased communication between friends and family and detracted from it. The survey finds that “internet users are more likely than non-users to have been helped by those in their networks as they faced important events in their life.” This makes sense to me. I have a number of family and friends networks. The people who do not have email are left out of a lot of communication. I also communicate much more with these people than prior to email.

Barry Wellman, one of the researchers called the rise of "networked individualism." He says that “users of modern technology are less tied to local groups and increasingly tied to looser and more geographically scattered networks.”

He goes on, "The internet and the cell phone have transformed communication: Instead of being based on house-to-house interactions, they are built on person-to-person exchanges.This creates a new basis for community. Rather than relying on a single community for social support, individuals often must actively seek out a variety of appropriate people and resources for different situations."

The report also indicates that 45% of internet users - about 60 million Americans - say that the internet has played an important role in helping them deal with at least one major life decision in the last two years, a 33% increase from a similar survey in early 2002.

The full report at can be obtained at the Pew Site.

More on Google and Privacy from the Electronic Freedom Foundation

Here is a story on the Electronic Freedom Foundation’s blog, Google Copies Your Hard Drive - Government Smiles in Anticipation. They raise some very important thoughts. Before I get into some of these, I do not want to be bashing Google for this. It is my understanding that Google is resisting efforts to make their data available for the wrong reasons. I also want to state that I used Google to find the online version (and thus the link for this post) of this article when I was sent the content without a link from a friend, Allan Denchfield of Carrier & Ives Move & Relocation Management..

There were many other mentions of this title in the Google search as a lot of others have written on it or taken the title from what I believe is the original one to use this title. While Google is certainly not to use the data it gets to make money, it is my understanding that they use it to target their ads and offer it in an anonymous and aggregated way to others to for marketing research. But all this increased transparency can be used for not so nice purposes. I asked before in Google’s Expansion into Wifi: The Empire Reaches Out. Of course, I used my Google site search on my blog to find this post from the over 1,000 ones that exist. Thanks to you readers, I am even making a some money on my Google Adsense.

In this latest case, the Electronic Freedom Foundation writes, “If a consumer chooses to use it, the new "Search Across Computers" feature will store copies of the user's Word documents, PDFs, spreadsheets and other text-based documents on Google's own servers, to enable searching from any one of the user's computers. EFF urges consumers not to use this feature, because it will make their personal data more vulnerable to subpoenas from the government and possibly private litigants, while providing a convenient one-stop-shop for hackers who've obtained a user's Google password.”

This is enough to convince me not to use it but then I am not a tools guy anyway. On the other hand, Google stores a lot of other things on its servers simply to do the services it provides to us. The web is very powerful but I also assume that anything that is exposed to it is discoverable whether in a personal email, a Google search, or a blog. I do not have any deep dark secrets but I consider my hard drive as more protected. The current laws seem to feel the same way as the EFF article says that you have more privacy rights to what is on your hard drive than to what you send through an email. The article concludes that the privacy laws need to be updated to reflect the growing transparency of web 2.0 (they do not use these exact words not I am interpreting what they say). I agree.