Portals and KM

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.

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.

Michael Fedor’s Excellent Adventures with Mobile Mash-ups

Here is an interesting story of the power of the wireless transparency available today. Michael Fedor of the Monitor Group 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 thorugh 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.” Additionally he can send location-aware emails to friends from his phone. Here is what he did:

“The potential for this kind of technology became apparent to me as I was sitting in the back of a cab one Saturday evening. I was using Kmaps to pull up listings of the closest restaurants. I choose one based on user posted reviews, directed the driver using an attached Google Maps mash-up, and upon arrival, tagged the map with my precise location so my friend could meet me. My friend wanted to know what the restaurant was serving before they decided to come so I snapped a picture of the menu, uploaded a quick picture and note to my blog with my tagged location and was immediately called by a 3rd friend who had seen the blog post and wanted to come as well. Instead of simply consuming available info from the web, I am contributing to that information base in real time from my mobile phone.”

The increasingly easy access, coupled with rising transparency, has driven the increase in content contributed to the web by individuals to over 60% according to figures I have heard from several sources. Go to Michael Fedor's blog for the complete story.

The New Digital Life – Rick Segal

Here is a great story about how you can be connected through hand held wireless devices. It also shows how to be nice to airline people and the rewards. I used to do some of this through my cell phone connected to my administrative assistant – just the scheduling part – not the HBO part. I have also been rewarded in the same way by airline gate agents appreciating being treated nicely for a change. Curious? Go to Rick Segal’s post on The New Digital Life. I learned about it from Cesar Brea through an automatic notification in my email inbox. He learned about it from the Scobleizer.

BTW – I am hopefully returning from visiting my daughter in Jackson Wyoming as you read this (if you read it on the day it was posted), the wonders of advance posting. Perhaps I will also get some nice treatment by the airlines.

Designing the Future of the Internet – David Clark

Last week, David Clark from MIT led a conversation about designing the future of the internet at the Berkman Tuesday lunch series at Harvard Law School. The US National Science Foundation is about to announce a new research initiative which challenges the research community to conceive of what how the global network should appear in 10 or 15 years. David is hoping that this design not be seen as purely a technical discussion and he wants to draw other stakeholders to the table. David Weinberger also did a comprehensive post on this event, David Clark - Should the Internet have a future?

David Clark began working on the internet in 1975 but he does not claim to be founder, only a leader once he got involved. From 1981-1989 David acted as Chief Protocol Architect in this development, and chaired the Internet Activities Board. Recent activities include “extensions to the Internet to support real-time traffic, explicit allocation of service, pricing and related economic issues,” and other policy issues. New activities include the “architecture of the Internet in the post-PC era.”

In the 1990s he was working on bringing quality of service to the Internet and realized that it was not simply a technical issue. He discovered two operating principles. First, economic and political issues have a major play here and second, there was resistance to a vision as that might close out options. As a result, there were many wrong directions. Most of his technical colleagues try to redefine internet issues as technical questions since they are most comfortable dealing at this level. I have seen this happen over and over again in corporate IT environments as well. It always results in a failure to achieve meaningful success.

He also made an interesting observation. Many people see IT as a performance issue, (e.g., making stuff faster or with greater capacity) which he implied was short sighted. There was the same problem in cognitive psychology a few years back as many US researchers simply wanted to get children to perform tasks faster and at a younger age so there was an “arms race” over this issue much to the amusement of many European psychologists who were looking at broader issues.

Now there is this NSF grant to design the future of the internet. It should not be simply making the current reality faster or some other attribute better. David wants non-technical people at the table working on this vision which I certainly agree. He sees security as a major issue. On one extreme controls could be enacted where ISPs are required to police their users and their users PCs, eliminating free access and freedom of speech on the internet as well as any remaining privacy. On the other extreme is prospect of rampant spam, zombies, viruses, etc. The question remains: who gets invited to the table to work on this design and these issues?

Jonathan Zittrain mentioned that the line between PCs and the internet is getting blurred so there needs to be a design for the architecture of PCs, as well. Rebecca McKinnon pointed out that there is already much global concern over US dominance of the internet. David said that NSF was aware of this issue but the only fund US academics. He and others are thinking about how to get non-US involvement through other funding sources. David Weinberger expressed concern over how to keep vendors, such as Microsoft, with vested commercial interests from dominating the discussion. David Clark did point out that vendors are not likely to get NSF funding but that still leaves the issue open.

There were no conclusions except that this is a critical issue and one that requires a lot of discussion. What do you think?

Meditation (and napping) builds up the brain

What to do after the big Thanksgiving dinner? Try a nap or even meditation. Here is a story of the benefits of both, Meditation builds up the brain from the New Scientist. Thanks to Peter Flentov for mentioning it. I wrote about a related study on the benefits of napping from the BBC a few months back, Sleeping on the Job - BBC. Hope all those who celebrate have a wonderful Thanks giving.

IPods now added to Cell Phones

You knew it had to happen. Now there are even more ways to have a car crash. For those who get anxious when they run out of people to call on a long ride can now download and play music to fill the void. As the New York Times said, “Apple Computer and Motorola plan to unveil a long-awaited mobile phone and music player next week that will incorporate Apple's iTunes software…The development marks a melding of two of the digital era's most popular devices, the cellphone and the iPod…”

This also opens a new venue for podcasting. Soon there may be one device for everything. Here is a review in the New York Times, IPod Phone Isn't Perfect, but It's a Start.

Field Producers Needed for World Event Village

World Event Village (WEV) is an online community that lets you travel every the globe using Web and Internet technologies. Sony sponsors this effort. Besides the pure education and entertainment experience and community, it is provides a rich cultural, civil society and documentary experience.

Field Producers are filmmakers, photographers, producers and other media professionals around the world who contribute their work. More are needed to use their individual points of view to create new cultural experiences for the World Event Village. On-the-scene experts and artists are needed to create the images and atmosphere of each locale across the globe. The World Event Village can loan equipment and will provide support. Payments and other support for filming content for WEV are dependent on skills and previous experience. Check this out. They also have a World Event Village blog.

Thanks to John Maloney for sharing this.

Coming Home

My blog stops on July 10 until today which is not normal for me, and those last few posts were done on the 7th in anticipation of other things on the weekend. Then, on July 7th I had a ruptured appendix and emergency surgery. It had actually ruptured two weeks before while I was in Italy and was misdiagnosed. The treatment they gave me on June 25 in Italy kept it under warps for a while until it re-emerged before the 7th. I have been in the hospital since then and away from email and long distance phone. I just came home this weekend and I am recovering fine. There will be a complete recovery with no long term effects.

I amazed at the human body. Now off all medicaton, I am making the most progress just letting my body do its natural healing. In a few short hours after getting home, I also went from the mentality of a hospital patient, to being almost a regular human being. I am sure this is speading the healing process. I know it does not always work out this way and my body could certainly not overcome the original problem on its own. But I feel lucky that it is making the recovery work well so far (knock on wood).

This is certainly a sobering event, having been used to good health all my life, with the exception of various sports injuries. I was fortunate given the possibilities and thankful for help from some friends and family. It was also a strange feeling being cut off from many people as I could not contact everyone and had no access to email or the internet. When I went to the hospital I had no idea that I would stay for more than a hour so I did not prepare for a long term stay and had no phone numbers with me. I spent time over this weekend after returning home emailing several people who wondered where I disappeared to and explaining some missed appointments.

Now I am back blogging and hope to continue on a regular basis. Fortunately, my co-author, Amanda Watlington, took my spot at the July 15 KM Cluster in Dallas. I have heard that it was well attended and there will be a second one in October and I plan to participate in the program.

Hard vs. Soft Science – Crooked Timber

In Isolated Social Networkers, Eszter Hargittai writes on Crooked Timber about the foray of physicists into social networks, apparently ignoring much of the prior work in the area done by social scientists. This, of course gets the social scientists, including the writer, upset at the hard science snobs. There is a very interesting graph on her blog showing the lack of inaction in the citations in work on social networks by physicists and social scientists.

But then did not Einstein seem to imply that there is no real hard science anywat. I wrote about this recently in One Hundred Years of Uncertainty – Einstein’s Legacy. I will repeat a quote from Brian Greene I included then:

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

Einstein could not accept this uncertainty and tried to argue against it unsuccessfully, even on his death bed in 1955. As a social scientist, I just say to those physicists, were all soft so just get over it. As an aide, it is great how the links to New York times that you put in your blog appear to remain after the normal two week cut off.

Hiking and Climbing in Jackson, Wyoming

When I recently visited my daughter Katie in Jackson, we went on hikes everyday. The spring weather did provide some constraints. Early May is actually the off season as it is past skiing and before summer hiking. Mud and leftover crusty snow are the major obstacles so we selected walks with this in mind. It is still an amazing area at this time of the year. Here is what we did.

The center piece of the area is Teton Range, a 40-mile-long mountain front within the Grand Teton National Park. The range includes eight peaks over 12,000 feet including the Grand Teton at 13,770 feet. There are seven lakes that run along the base of the range. More than 100 alpine lakes can be found in the backcountry along with lots of wild life. We hiked up to Taggart Lake through some snow on a foggy day. We could see the lower foot hills and peaks at the bases of the larger peaks. The lake was partially frozen. Just as we started a large female moose crossed the trail in front of us. She stopped and looked at us for a while. We passed by quickly, trying to not get within the critical distance of concern. The next day the sun came out and I went back to Jenny Lake in the park. There I could see all the Tetons from top to bottom. It was impressive. A trail led along the lake on a stony beach with drift wood and boulders.

There are many hikes near Jackson. Cache Creek Canyon is a popular jogging and skiing trail just out of Jackson. It is lined with birches and aspens and views of snow covered peaks. We went up there late the first afternoon I arrived. The National Elk Range also offers some good walking this time of the year in open meadows. It is across the street from the log cabin were Katie is living. On what started as a sunny afternoon we hiked up a trail on a high hillside in the elk range that offered great views of the Tetons in one direction and Jackson in the other. As we got near the top we saw a rainstorm come up from behind Jackson and move north in front of us covering the Tetons. It stayed to the west of us. We saw a coyote in the woods near the top but no elk or mountain lions. Then as we walked down the hill side another rainstorm caught us. Another day I went for a drive up to Curtis Canyon just beyond the elk range. Mud and snow on the road prevented me form going to the trail at the top of a hill. I could still do some short walks with great views down on the elk range and Jackson Hole with the Tetons beyond, in and out of the clouds.

One day we went over to Idaho to hike on the other side of the Tetons. We stopped at a coffee shop in Victor, Idaho for advice. After much debate about snow and cold stream crossings, we opted for mud instead. We went up to Mud Lake on a very muddy jeep road. At the crest, the road flatted out in some lovely alpine meadows. Mud Lake appeared to be man made was there was a slight ridge at the base creating a dam. It was surrounded by aspens. We saw no one on our hike. There were nice views back down into the Idaho side and the mountains beyond. Clouds prevented us seeing the views toward the Tetons which I imagine are quite impressive. Signs of moose and deer were present but we did not see any on this walk.

Perhaps the most novel for me was my first attempt at wall climbing. I have hiked up mountains for many years but never did anything technical. Katie took me to her climbing gym, Teton Rock Gym. There I roped in and she belayed me as I went up to the top of the thirty feet wall. I was surprised at how quick it was to get to the top. The hardest part was letting go at the top and have Katie ease the rope out as I dropped back to the loose gravel floor. I see why people like it. It can be like a vertical ballet. I quickly learned to go up first with your feet and not your arms. Then you move your arms to new holds to stretch out again. This way your legs do more of the hard work. It also gives you the dancing on the wall feeling. I even went back and did it a second time while in Jackson.

Alpinist Magazine – The Climbing Life

Alpinist is a quarterly publication with great photos devoted to serious mountain climbing. The office is in Jackson, Wyoming. The editor is Christian Beckwith, both climber and writer. There are detailed articles on expeditions and major mountain profiles. Some features are over 10,000 words. It is now over two years old and about to produce issue 11. I was introduced to it by my daughter, Katie, who works there as a copy editor and translator. She translates submissions by French climbers. Katie also rock and ice climbs. She writes stories based on climbing that have appeared in several publications. When she was much younger, we spent many weekends hiking in the White Mountains in New Hampshire. She has a story coming out in Alpinist 11.

The publication aims for quality writing, as well as to promote the more pure forms of mountaineering. There was a feature on it in the March 2005 issue of Outside Magazine, titled, the Purist, by Bob Buchanan. Buchanan writes that Alpinist is “a throwback to a simpler era, one in which readers actually had time to read. Its thick, gleaming paper, arresting photos, hyperclean layout, and almost eerie lack of ads make it what magazine pros call a "dream book"—the publishing world's equivalent of a concept car.”

The Outside article provides a detailed story of the founding of Alpinist but the best thing to do is get a copy of Alpinist itself. Subscriptions and back issues are available on the Alpinist Web site. It is truly aesthetic photography book on the beauty of climbing, as well as a vehicle for good writing about the sport. It also has excellent short fiction related to climbing. The issues are ones that you will want to save.

Alpinist 9 includes a profile of Mt. Hunter in Alaska with a history of major climbs with photos and diagrams of routes. There is also a feature on climbing expeditions in Pakistan with a related editorial on the subject. As Beckwidth writes in a well crafted editorial titled, Fear Itself. “To us, the experiences of American teams in Pakistan are important, because only firsthand knowledge of a place, a people, a culture can dispel the ignorance that is a natural bedfellow of fear.” The climbing teams encountered some very wonderful people in northern Pakistan and, of course, the pictures and the climbing accounts are awesome.

Alpinist X profiles the mountain, Ama Dablam, in Nepal. There are also features on Canadian rock climbing, some important new climbs in 2004, and long, fully illustrated article by Steve House, a well known climber, on his experiences on some unclimbed peaks in the Himalayas. I am looking forward to issue 11, out June 1.

The Wired 40 – Masters of PR

Thanks to Jozef Imrich for pointing me to Duff McDonald’s Wired 40, “They're masters of technology and innovation. They're global thinkers driven by strategic vision. They're nimbler than Martha Stewart's PR team. They're The Wired 40.” These are the innovatove companies that are moving ahead in the connected world. Apple tops the list this year with its iPods. I am a convert. I remember doing work for Apple as a consultant in the early 80s. I was the project lead on a National Accounts sales trainign program when they were still selling Apple 2s and 3s. The materials are still on my book shelf. Perhaps I should cart them off to eBay to augment my retirement fund. Then I got to see Lisa 6 months before it was released to develop some of other early dealer training. The GUI interface was nothing like anything I had ever seen until then. The company was the vision of innovation at that point. Your place in the organization was in inverse relationship to the formality of your attire but they were picky about the logo colrs we used on’the training materials. They slipped for awhile after Jobs left but have found new ways to return, especially now with iPods. I recently got one and am a convert. I even stuck the Apple logo that came the the iPod on the back of my Windows Dell.

Next in line is Google, last year’s number one. They own Blogger and have introduced ways to search your desk top. These are two ways of organizing and accessing your personal knowledge. I am sure they will duke it out with Microsoft and Yahoo (number 5) over the search space and the winners will dominate the desktop space. Search is the number two Web acivity after email and RSS will likely cut into the spam laden, and hard to search, email. Amazon is number 4 and it’s the shopping mall of the Web. Its going after Micorsoft and Google with its new search engine. Meanwhile number 5, Yahoo, is the top RSS service with its My Yahoo.

Number ten is eBay, fifith largest “employer” if your count the people who make there living through it. It has, in essence, outsourced employement, while gaining the revenue. Now its PayPal is becoming the online payment standard. What’s next? In a recognition of the enterpise market, SAP is placed at 11. They are actively using blogs for marketing and customer support. Good for them. At 13, Cisco is characterized as “ embracing middle age more like George Clooney than Mickey Rourke.” Then IBM follows at 14, gving kudos for its re-invention toalign with the on-demand, connected world. They also are experimenting a lot with blogs and wikis. Dell is 16 so my computer support is safe for awhile. I kept looking for Microsoft and found it at 28, down from last yaer’s 27. Costco is 30. I recently went there to get below market price, but decent wine, and you do not have to be a member to buy spirits. My internet, phone and cable provider, Comcast is 31. Please try harder. My credit card provider, Citicorp, is 36. This is starting to look like a personal provider list. Where’s Am Ex?

Journal of Community Informatics - New open access journal

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

One Hundred Years of Uncertainty – Einstein’s Legacy

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

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

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

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

New Ways for Innovation – James Surowiecki

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

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

He offers this thought towards the end.

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

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

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Many celebrations are being held today to honor St. Patrick. I have my green sweater and will likely do a bit more after the Berkman blog meeting tonight. This day has special meaning for me as sixty years ago today my parents married in St. Louis. My father was still in the US Army, having just returned from the South Pacific and my mother worked for the Army in administration. Like many post-WWII couples, they started a family right away and I was born ten months later in Oklahoma, where they moved after my father's discharge from the military. The luck of the Irish to all of you.

Post script - Here is a link to the Best Read on St. Patrick's Day that I got from Euan Semple who writes the blog, The Obvious.

Cambridge Parking Part Two: Waiting with the Crowds

As if the snow was not bad enough, I took part in an annual spectator sport on Monday, standing in line on with all the others who waited until the last day to get their 2005 Cambridge resident’s parking permit. I had tried to avoid this and went early on the previous Friday afternoon to miss the last day, only to discover that they take off at 12:30 on Fridays. Good idea and I should have called ahead.

So I took the morning paper, the two recent letters to my Cambridge address, along with last year’s permit, and walked to City Hall Annex past a number of cars still covered from the Sunday snow fall, eight days prior. As I settled into the line that snaked all around the lobby, I noticed on a sign that you also needed your car registration. No use waiting here, back to my car.

I decided that this might be the morning rush so planned to return mid-afternoon after the lunch crowd. I took Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians as appropriate reading material. Going through the front door I was dismayed to see the line still snaked around the lobby. The afternoon rush was even greater as this time the line also went up the back stairs and into the upper lobby. I should have brought Suroweicki’s Wisdom of Crowds. We had enough in the lobby to out smart a lot of experts.

There was great camaraderie in this crowd as people shared stories of parking struggles in the snow. Several people recounted episodes of the snow rage on their street that I referred to in part one of this epic. Some creative ways to save your space were shared. One winner was the use of garage the trash collectors will not touch such as broken computer monitors, a plentiful resource in Cambridge.

I considered bagging it but then we all agreed the meter maids will be running wild on the first day of the new permits. All those snow covered cars will be easy targets as it would not be impossible for them to have the newer stickers in place. Two hours later, and half way through Coetezee, my time approached. Did I have everything? I went through the careful interrogation and, fortunately, they accepted my papers. As I left, precious permit in hand, I noticed the evening rush was even longer.

Post script - I noticed that the meter maids were indeed out and all the cars on my street with old parking stickers sported new tickets. One person whose car was still totally buried - took just enough snow off the back window to show the proper sticker.

Winter Parking in Cambridge – An Oxymoron

A plague has descended on my town of Cambridge, Massachusetts and our neighboring towns in the Boston area – over 40 inches of snow. As I look out my third floor window on a small side street in Cambridge, half of the cars are still buried from Sunday’s 38 inches. Only a few simply have yesterday’s six inches and the smallest share is actually clean. The street is lined with auto shaped “snowmen” forming a series of crenulations between the narrow street and the side walk.

My friend, Kathleen Gilroy spent several hours digging out her car on the street but is afraid to go anywhere. Someone will take her spot, squandering her sweat equity. I am in the same boat, a pedestrian because there will be no place to return my car. Perhaps this is another government plan to reduce our dependency on foreign oil.

In our town it is nominally illegal to reserve your parking spot after spending hours shoveling it. Breaking this law is a tradition in certain Boston neighborhoods with everything from lawn chairs, old couches, and trash cars covering your “spot.” An old toilet was reported in one space. There are also many sightings of the uniquely Boston area phenomena “snowrage” as people retaliate against those who dare move into a spot they shoveled. Tires have been slit and fights erupted, another sure sign of the apocalypse. I can next envision mercenaries hired to sit shot gun in those lawn chairs and couches.

Signed, Carless in Cambridge

Remembering Elvis and Car Games

I first heard Elvis on the radio doing Heartbreak Hotel in August of 1954, riding in the back of my parents’ 51 Plymouth. We were driving from New Orleans to Florida for a summer vacation to escape our hometown heat. This was before children’s car seats, seat belts, and back seat DVDs. I was eight and still small enough that I had to look up at the grey blank back of the front seat and above that to the back of my parents’ heads engaged in adult speak. Instead, I preferred to sit on my knees and lean just slightly out the window, making up imaginary events occurring in the passing scenery.

The warm wind on the side of my face also felt good as we drove through southern Mississippi in the August heat. Elvis’ music penetrated my daydreaming and directed my thoughts to some of the run down hotels we saw on the road to Florida. I could picture a neon beer sign hanging at an angle in the window, half of the white paint gone from the wooden siding, and old guys sitting on the front porch looking back at the passing cars with a bottle of Dixie.

Elvis finished and I moved on to other images. For me his music remains forever linked to driving along the Mississippi coast in the August heat looking at the crushed, chalky white shells that used to line the two lane highways and thinking of some broken down hotel.

On our travels, as my powers of self-entertainment broke down, my parents and I would play car games. These moments also provide some great memories.

When seat belts were introduced some people fought any requirements for their use. They felt it violated their freedom of choice. Fortunately, group good trumped individualism in this case. When back seat DVDs came in, parents now seem pleased with the pacification they provide but what memories will be generated in today’s back seats?

Where will the video gamers go to re-live their childhood?

We did not have video games. I was a city kid; we played baseball in front of my house. The intersection provided our asphalt infield and the opposing street corners contained our bases. Intense arguments arose about the safety of most base runners. Eddie, the lawyer’s son, usually ended our debates in a commanding manner so the game could continue.

On off days we went up two blocks to the Carrolton Cemetery. The tombs were raised above the swampy New Orleans water table, providing a child size village, neatly laid out in grids with miniature “streets” mostly made of chalky crushed white sea shells. The only grass in our playground came up unwanted through cracks in the concrete. Grey and green lichen added texture to the family names etched in the front of tombs, and glass jars, often filled with wilted flowers and decaying brown vegetable matter, sat watch beneath the names.

Here we re-enacted battle scenes from World War Two, our combat de jour, less than ten years over. The sounds of “I shot you first.” “No, I got you first,” filled the air as we argued over who really fired the first shot in our games and who really died. Unlike baseball, we usually didn’t stop to resolve the questions but just started our game over again. My father lent me his Army cap, along with some of his ribbons from the re-invasion of New Guinea.

On rainy days we crawled under Ronnie’s house where we built a small city in the dirt, played cars, and staged massive car wrecks. Since no adult ever went under the house, we were able to keep our city intact for days. In the summer it rained almost every afternoon. The rain cooled things off a little. After really big rains, my friends and I played with our toy boats by the side of Lowerline as the poor drainage formed a lake next to the curb. Tall monkey grass grew in the space between the curb and the sidewalk. This area functioned as our jungle along side the boat traffic on the lake. We hid toy solders under the grassy canopy and let them attack our unsuspecting boats.

Since we created our own play fields, we controlled them. We knew they were only products of our imagination. As we got older we easily transitioned from war games to team sports and left our guns behind.

I no longer live in New Orleans but I have gone back several times to the Carrolton Cemetery to look at the battlefields of my childhood. Where will the video game generations go to re-live their childhood?

Teamwork Trumps Star Power Again

There is fresh snow in Cambridge this morning, brought in by the sports gods last night at game time to set the proper stage for a playoff re-match of the MVP lead Indianapolis Colts and our New England Patriots. a team with no media proclaimed all-stars. The pundits picked the Colts. Our fans felt differently and displayed signs that said, MVP – “make vacation plans,” a clear message to the individual record setting Peyton Manning.

When the formerly ego-centric Corey Dillon joined the Patriots this year he noticed that no one wore either of their two Super Bowl rings. That was the past. They were focused on the future and they were not about individual achievement. Fortunately, the perennial All-Pro player adopted the spirit of his new team mates. This year he did not get selected as an All-Pro for a change, but he did play in the first playoff game of his career. In his initial post-season effort Corey played a major role with 144 yards rushing, keeping the ball in the Patriots hands and out of Peyton’s grasp. His defense teamates chanted from the side lines "clock killing Corey" as he drove the ball down the field, making their job easier. I am sure these new reviews meant much more than past media raves.

MVP Peyton Manning has never beaten the Patriots in their home. Tom Brady was, once again, not selected as an All-Pro. Tom has never lost a post season playoff game against anyone in his entire career. In the end both streaks remained intact and Peyton is talking to his travel agent.

When the Detroit Pistons beat the LA Lakers for the NBA title, NY Times wrote, Teamwork Trumps Star Power and said at the time: "The Detroit Pistons, the essence of teamwork, the essence of grit, manhandled the built-to-win, built-to-gloat Los Angeles Lakers."

Sound Familiar?

Test Your Nerd Factor

There is a nerd test going around. I found it on McGee’s Musings. While Jim scored 93, I am in the opposite direction and only got 6. Faced with this low score, I did not even attempt to paste the icon with my score into my blog post. I knew I would need technical assistance.

NetLab on Changes in Communication

John Maloney pointed me to an interesting article by Howard Reingold on research in online communities. Reingold writes on the research of Barry Wellman and colleagues at U. of Toronto’s NetLab. He writes:

“One of the findings of their long-term study of "Netville" challenged earlier researchers' claims that online communication alienates face-to-face communications; Hampton and Wellman offer evidence that neighbors who communicate more regularly online also tend to see each other in person more often. And when Wellman, Miyata, Boase and Ikeda compared the social networks and Internet usage of Japanese who use Internet-enabled mobile phones, those who use PCs only, and those who used both, they found "the more the more: Those who use both Internet media have larger networks and are more involved with the Internet."

My own personal experience would agree. I find that on both a personal and business level, email supports and enhances synchronous communication in personal and on the phone.

Reingold quotes Wellman and his colleagues on the impact of wireless communication.

"Changes in the nature of computer-mediated communication both reflect and foster the development of networked individualism in networked societies. Internet and mobile phone connectivity is to persons and not to jacked-in telephones that ring in a fixed place for anyone in the room or house to pick up. The developing personalization, wireless portability and ubiquitous connectivity of the Internet all facilitate networked individualism as the basis of community. Because connections are to people and not to places, the technology affords shifting of work and community ties from linking people-in-places to linking people at any place.”

This is very true for those who make the shift to personal wireless communication and leave their phones on. Many of us, myself included, are not ready for this change. Perhaps it is a generational issue.

The AICPA Top Technology BOOK – Anne Stanton and Scott Cytron

Anne Stanton of the Norwich Group and with Scott Cytron of Cytron and Company have written a new book on the top technologies of 2004 just in time for Christmas for those techies on your list, or for those who follow technology. As the site summarizes:

AICPA’s Top Technologies 2004 is a resource guide and summary of the AICPA’s Top Technologies project in which technologies are considered, recommended, voted on, and ranked by CPA.CITPs and members of the AICPA’s IT Membership Section. The top ten technologies, selected for 2004 and covered in this guide, are:

1. Information security
2. Spam technologies
3. Digital optimization
4. Database and application integration
5. Wireless technologies
6. Disaster recovery
7. Data mining
8. The virtual office
9. Business exchange technology
10. Messaging applications

There Is No Open-Source Community – Cesar Brea

Cesar Brea recently shared some interesting thoughts on Open Source. As Ceasr wrote, he was invited by Professor Jerry Mechling to be a guest instructor in his "Leadership for a Digital World" course at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. As part of the class, he interviewing Massachusetts CIO Peter Quinn on the state's priorities for IT-enabled initiatives. Peter is a well-known proponent of open-source software alternatives for the public sector, and a primary force behind the Government Open Code Collaborative.

Cesar starts with a helpful explanation of the way software is distributed. He adds, “The proliferation of open-source software licenses -- check out http://opensource.org -- illustrates both the vitality of the open-source world, but also the myriad and widely-varying interests and strategies being pursued by its participants. Which brings me to the principal point of this essay, namely, that there is no such thing as "the open-source" community.”

He goes on to talk about criteria for software selection and offers that will there is no single open source communities, there are many specific ones, each with its own unique and competing interests. These competing interests compromise the altruism that one might expect in open source. He concludes that potential open source users, especially in the public sector, should make the requirements open to get best out of potential providers.

Getting Ahead of the Curve – Part Three: Visualizing Setting Up Equipment

This post is the third in a series on getting ahead of the technology curve inspired by Jim McGee’s Five Thoughts about KM, Rushing the Technology Curve and Failing. In this case, we will look at guidance on how to set up equipment and install software.

The advent of the desktop and personal computer caused many problems for the mainframe and mini-computer manufacturers. I have seen the ups and down of local vendors Wang and Digital and even did some projects for each on both sides of their growth curves.

Another computer company that survived this change came out with its own line of low cost desktop computers in the very early 80s. However, they were used to sending out an on-site team to install their expensive systems. With these small and relatively low cost machines, the economics were not there for such personal service. So they decided to try self-installation guides and issued an RFP to a number of training vendors.

One of our competitors suggested using the newly emerging interactive video disk technology to show people how to set up the machines. On one hand, this made sense as you could clearly visualize each step. This was the solution this firm offered to every problem. The only problem here is that you would have to provide a video disk player which cost the same or more that the equipment you were setting up. I suppose DVDs make this possible now

At the time we had a few laughs over this attempt and used it as a humorous opening to sales pitches for a while. Our firm was successful in getting the contract by proposing the somewhat new format of computer based training. The difference was that our training ran on the same machine they were setting up so there were no additional hardware costs. We just had to create good visuals to show the buyer how to get the machine going enough to install the CBT. This worked well and got our small company off the ground.

However, we thought there was a market to sell the tools we used to create the CBT. So we spent time and money making a product out of our tools. While a market did develop, it never reached the revenue goals we had in mind. Instead, our custom business (where we used the tool ourselves) continued to expand. Large companies wanted you to do the CBT for them rather than hire staff to do it themselves.

It was too early for mass tool use.

Getting Ahead of the Curve – Part Two: Finding Where You Are

This is the second in a series on getting ahead of the technology curve. Thanks to John Maloney for pointing me to Five Thoughts about KM, Rushing the Technology Curve and Failing that interviews Jim McGee and his thoughts on the topic. In this case we will look at location providers before there was GIS.

A well known investment company also had a limo service. Like the rest of the industry they had a problem with high turnover. Training drivers on how to find their way around cities was difficult. The head of the division that included the limo service was a smart guy. He talked to us about using interactive video to possibly display maps of the cities and overlay training on these maps. It was a good idea but GIS was not around yet and there were also bandwidth issues so everything had to be hand crafted, manually updated and displayed on unique devices that would be built to fit within the cars.

Like the system for visualizing interiors, it was clearly it was a good idea ahead of its time. In the first case on interiors, the technology was close enough to build a prototype and sink some costs. In this case, the technical obstacles were too many to get beyond the discussion stage so little investment was involved beyond everyone’s time.

So now cars can help you find you way. It’s been around for a while. However, they are still behind the system my grandfather had when he was a country doctor doing rounds 100 years ago. When he got tried after all the rounds, he simply threw the reins over the side and the horses knew the way home. So he could sleep. When he got the first car in the area, he kept falling asleep at the wheel. Fortunately the infrastructure still matched the old means of transportation and his car just stalled in the ruts. He was ready to give up the car when he got the idea to train one of his young daughters to drive for him so he could sleep.

Getting Ahead of the Curve – Part One: Visualizing Interiors

Sometimes we are just ahead of the times or the technology. Thanks to John Maloney for pointing to Five Thoughts about KM, Rushing the Technology Curve and Failing which interviews Jim McGee, director at Huron Consulting Group. Jim talks about the use of digital video for record expert advice. A good idea but the bandwidth problem of the day limited access to places the audience did not want to go, namely out of the field and into the office. He said that the jazzy use of video provided for great demos but the product died a slow death as it never got implemented.

In my former employer, a large consulting firm, we created a similar video-based demo that featured the wisdom of insurance claims agents. It was probably based, in part, on the work of some of the same people at Northwestern. Like the Diamond Technology work, ours also provided jazzy demos that we all liked to give but I do not believe it ever got implemented with a real client.

Jim’s remarks bring back memories of other instances of getting ahead of the curve. I will present three of these instances in a series since the mini-cases get too long for one post. I will present them in likely order of investment costs wasted on the premature time around. Increases in bandwidth and other technology make them all practical now. Company names will not be used to protect those involved. In each case I was an outside consultant.

Visualizing Interiors - In the late-80s a major supplier of building materials for offices commissioned my firm to develop a video-based system that allowed architects and interior designers to visualize different carpet options as they designed new office space. You could change the carpet colors and design to try stuff out. They thought that this would give them a major advantage with these design firms.

This seems common place now. Today, I can go to most paint and carpet stores and do something similar to this. But then it was new. We hand crafted a video prototype. The major challenge was how the computer screens conveyed color as there was variance between each one

We then took the prototype on the road to get responses from major interior designers. The client said these designers liked upscale surroundings so we stayed and demoed at places like the Ritz in Washington, the Crescent Court in Dallas, the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills and other such spots. Great fun was had and good food was provided. The designers loved it.

However, since this technology was new, the production system also had to be hand crafted and the expense was too great for the client to absorb. Especially since the color matching issue remained a challenge we only partially solved. So the idea lingered until it was picked up through cheaper technology and is now widely used.

Tomorrow I will cover Finding Where You Are before GIS.

World Wind – NASA

Do you want to look at anywhere in the world to the resolution of 1 meter? Download an interesting application from NASA – World Wind. Thanks to Gregor Rothfuss of the Apache Software Foundation for pointing me to NASA’s World Wind. It is a very large file that takes a long time to download and even more to install but is gives very interesting views of the world form varying heights.

Sleeping on the Job - BBC

Thanks to Gautam Ghosh for spotting this story in the BBC News. The article states:

“Some 30% of people have their best ideas in bed compared to just 11% who have them at their desk, according to research by the East of England Development Agency (EEDA). It is calling for companies to install beds in the workplace, in an attempt to change the way we work for the better. According to the authors of The Art of Napping at Work we live a "napaphobic culture", but attitudes are changing and the bed could soon become part of the office furniture. Bill and Camille Anthony say workers are "nap ready" and often sneak a snooze anyway.”

I have always found that my creative ideas come from when I am at period of relaxation like waking up in the morning. Now that I am mostly working in my home office I have the opportunity to participate in the authors’ suggestion on occasion.

There is much more on napping and famous nappers in the BBC article.

"Brain-Stem" Sales & Marketing Tactics - Cesar Brea

Cesar Brea offers some useful tactics for sales and marketing. As he summarizes:

“This article presents a simple (hence "brain-stem"), actionable framework I've used in the past to establish new tactical programs and to tune existing ones. It's organized into five simple buckets of things to think about, with a few principles and heuristics to help assess whether things are working right in each bucket. Most importantly, it's cross-functional, so everyone in marketing, and beyond, can use it to understand the process and each person's role in it. The five buckets are Connecting Strategy to Tactics, Collateral Development, Customer Targeting, Channel Approaches, and Counting Results.”

Howard Rheingold in Business Week

Kathleen Gilroy links to an interesting article with Howard Reingold in Business Week On-line on how new ways of connecting are fostering new forms of value and new business models. She offers several samples including the following:

Q: Can you give me some specific examples of what you mean, beyond the market?

A: Google is based on the emergent choices of people who link. Nobody is really thinking, "I'm now contributing to Google's page rank." What they're thinking is, "This link is something my readers would really be interested in." They're making an individual judgment that, in the aggregate, turns out to be a pretty good indicator of what's the best source.

The article goes on to say:

“Then you look at Amazon (AMZN ) and its recommendation system, getting users to provide free reviews, users sharing choices with their friends, users who make lists of products. They get a lot of free advice that turns out to be very useful in the aggregate. There's also Wikipedia [the online encyclopedia written by volunteers]. It has 500,000 articles in 50 languages at virtually no cost, vs. Encyclopedia Britannica spending millions of dollars and they have 50,000 articles.”

eBay is, of course, the poster child of this new economy. In theory, the Encyclopedia Britannica spends more on fact checking than the wikipedia and a magazine that offers music reviews or The New York Review of Books offer more thought provoking reviews. However, free is a nice price and then the determination of quality is left to the reader. If you go to the Britannica site you only get a brief introduction to an article, unlike the wikipedia. For example, there is an article on the early Newport Jazz Festival and how it help set the stage for the rock concerts of the 1960s. But then you need to sign up for a free trail of a paid subscription to get the rest. This coming weekend you can read my posts on the same topic for free. I will let you judge the relative quality. But then, unlike Britannica, I do not have pop-ups and other ads.

I took a look and, unlike Britannica, The New York Review of Books offers a lot of indepth content for free but they might not cover the book you want like Amazon. They do sell the great David Levine prints on-line.

On a related note, Dan Gillmor's We, the Media, attracted some well known reviewers on Amazon. Here is what Joichi Ito said:

"Dan is one of the few professional journalists that really understands the impact of blogs and other new technologies on journalism. It's amazing how many professional journalists I know pooh pooh blogs and keep on chugging like nothing is changing. We, the Media is a excellent book that should be enlightening and humbling for professional journalists. It is also a great guide for us little"j" journalists about what the possibilities are as well as what the difficulties will be. Anyway, it's an amazingly important book for anyone interested in journalism and democracy. It goes well with Lawrence Lessig's Free Culture and Howard Rheingold's Smart Mobs."
'

Free Culture is Free On-line

Al Essa’s blog, The Tatler, provides links to obtaining Lawrence Lessig’s book, Free Culture free on-line through the Creative Commons license. Al recommends that if you read one book this year, this should be the one. I guess I will need to follow his advice as I have few others cued up like The Support Economy that I suspect is compatible. I will now have to read both to see if that is really the case.

Water Skiing Squirrels on Tour

I noticed that my post: "Most Water Skiing Squirrels Take Early Retirement." was getting as lot of hits through Google searches, It links to an article my daughter, Sarah Ives, wrote for the National Geographic Kids page. When I mentioned this popularity to her, she said that Twiggy, a famous water skiing squirrel, was on a national tour and that was probably generating new interest. She hopes people click through to her story as the site can use traffic and its a good one.

Beat LA! Beat LA! Beat LA!

I was in Mendocino during the 1987 NBA Finals. For those too young to remember it was the Celtics vs. Lakers, the last time Boston was in the Finals. I went to a local bar with a friend to watch the game. I commented to a person next to me that we would probably be the only ones there rooting for Boston, he said, “Are you kidding, This is Northern California,” seeming shocked that I would even consider this possibility. “We (dislike) (----ing) LA up here. It’s a different state.”

I was thrilled when the Celtics took out the Pistons in the 2002 playoffs but they are now my surrogate team. Here is a great site for the Bad Boys 2.

This morning a chant builds in the heartland spreading to the north coasts in both directions, “Beat LA!” "Beat LA!" "Beat LA!"

Most Water Skiing Squirrels Take Early Retirement.

A recent article “No, You're Not Nuts—It's a Water-Skiing Squirrel” by Sarah Ives mentions that most squirrels only ski for about four years before they retire to relax at home. I wonder what the plan is for knowledge capture and transfer. The article features an action picture of one of the skiing squirrels.

The Next Generation of Big Ideas

My daughter, Sarah Ives, sent me an article she recently did for the National Geographic web site that describes an event that encourages those who may bring us the Next Big Idea. The Odyssey of the Mind, a contest about creative problem solving, celebrates its 25th anniversary this weekend. Students are judged on their ability to solve problems and perform in a creative way. The world finals at the University of Maryland in College Park will bring in more than 700 teams for all over the world, many from Asian countries. This would be a great event for web log reporting, perhaps there one or two bloggers will cover it.

Early Encryption Technologies: Stories About Managing to Keep Knowledge Hidden Through Quilts

One of my daughters, Sarah Ives, writes for the National Geographic web site. She recently sent me an article, “Did Quilts Hold Codes to the Underground Railroad’ that provides evidence of a very smart way to encrypt messages, using the materials at hand, to prevent them from being accessed by the wrong people. In the book, Hidden in Plain View: A Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad, published in 1998, Jacqueline Tobin and Raymond Dobard suggest that slaves in the US South used quilts to convey messages to help other slaves in their move to freedom. For example, a wrench pattern meant that is was time to gather your tools and get prepared to leave. However, there is a bit of controversy over the existence of this practice since it was never written down and only discovered in interviews. There was no quick reference guide to the code because of fear that it would fall into the wrong hands. Instead, it is claimed that generations passed it down verbally.

She also writes for the National Geographic kids’ web site. One recent article, completely unrelated to knowledge management, covered the annual competition to see who can grow the world's largest pumpkin. The current world record belongs to Steve Daletas of Oregon. His pumpkin weighed 1,385 pounds. She wrote that participants mentioned that to get one this size, you need the right seed and the right soil—and a lot of hard work. One of the contestants is quoted as saying, "You have to have a lot of dedication. It takes a real commitment," he said. "It's like a baby. You look at your baby every day." Sarah has given me pointers on writing for the web which I will share in another posting.