b.cognosco
Where leaping to conclusions is my primary form of forward motion.
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Print, Perception, and the Brain
Knowledge workers and productivity tools
Props to Weblogger.com
Idea Management
Canadians Have Too Much Liberty to Suit U.S.
NewzCrawler
Getting Conversant with Easy News Topics
Scientific, Medical, and Engineering Texts Online
Friday, May 16, 2003
Homeland Security Fiasco
Just how much of the TSA/David Nelson fiasco can be accorded to teething pains for the newly-formed Transportation Security Administration, and how much is due to blatant bureaucratic abuse of basic civil liberties is unclear. But one thing is clear -- the TSA isn't meeting its stated mission:
TSA's Mission, Vision & ValuesMission
The Transportation Security Administration protects the Nation's transportation systems to ensure freedom of movement for people and commerce.
Vision
The Transportation Security Administration will continuously set the standard for excellence in transportation security through its people, processes, and technologies.
Values
Excellence in public service through:
- Integrity
- Innovation
- Teamwork
Perhaps if we can get a few more Congressional names on that "selectees" list -- names like Robert Bennett, Joe Biden, Chris Bond, Robert Byrd, Hillary Clinton -- we might make a little more progress in getting America back where it belongs.
oregonlive.com - David Nelson, could you step aside for a few moments?If your name is David Nelson you can expect to be hassled, delayed, questioned and searched before being allowed to board aircraft anywhere in the United States for the foreseeable future. [Privacy Digest]
Print, Perception, and the Brain
Much of my professional career has been spent in the publishing and graphic arts industries -- dealing in the production and manufacture of images and print, or studying the tools and technologies that made it possible. For the past 15 years that has meant lots of time in front of computers -- reading, writing, and doing myriad other functions.In all that time I'd come to feel that information I take in from the computer screen just doesn't stick with me the way it should -- the way I thought it used to. I have to keep referring back, looking again, or maybe printing it out to take it with me. It seemed like my memory used to be better, but I just thought maybe I was getting old.
Now comes Richard Restak, M.D., in his book Mozart's Brain and the Fighter Pilot, to confirm my symptom but not its cause. Restak is a prolific author, having written 12 books on the brain, and is a clinical professor of neurology at George Washington University. In his chapter on attention and concentration he provides a scientific explanation for my dilemma:
[...] Although you probably never thought of it this way, reading and writing on a computer actually has a lot in common with watching television. Both television and computers incorporate a mosaic of images, backlit screens, and near instantaneous speed. All three of these attributes, especially in combination, tend to engage the right hemisphere and thus generate emotional involvement. This, of course, results in conflict since words -- at least the words employed in business communications -- are intended to involve the rational, processing characteristics of the left hemisphere. Further, when words appear on a computer screen, the right hemisphere is called into play in ways that would not occur when you're writing or reading the same words on a page. Indeed, expressing one's opinion on the computer screen engages a different part of the brain than when writing or typing out the same sentiment on a piece of paper. [...]
Restak goes on to postulate that this left-right conflict has also resulted in the shortening of our attention span, something raised by Eric McLuhan in Electric Language: Understanding the Message. Both McLuhan and Restak point out that computers make it more difficult to distinguish raw data and information from knowledge (an area I think weblogs can provide some help) and fill our brains with the logical equivalent of bric-a-brac.
Restak isn't anti-computer. In a later chapter he discusses how they are becoming our outboard brains and how we can best use them. He suggests keeping a laptop within reach at almost all times, and a Palm device whenever a laptop isn't available. But without regard to whether computers are good or bad, they are clearly affecting the way we perceive and process information.
Restak's background for my own (perceived) information processing deficit has given me a new perspective on the situation, and new language to explain my long-standing regard for print. While we may eventually move to the paperless society, our brains are still clinging to the tangible, logical universe. And print will be with us for a long time to come.
Tuesday, May 6, 2003
Knowledge workers and productivity tools
Jim McGee is on a roll with his most recent short essays on KM. Having recently attended Training 2003 here in Atlanta (I go every year) I am struck by just how much energy gets put into technology training -- what buttons to click, how to submit, how to follow instructions, etc. -- but how it is often left to the individual to figure out just how all that button-clicking, link-making, screen-grabbing stuff really helps them. As Jim points out, it's our responsibility to figure that out. But we need to be sure spread that knowledge as widely as possible once we have it, clueing in as many friends, co-workers, and colleagues as we can. Only in sharing the pathway can we reach the goal of collaborative productivity.Knowledge workers and productivity toolsBy the way, this is my first post from NewzCrawler using the RPC metaweblog api built into Radio. Pretty cool.[...] The fundamental challenge, and opportunity, is that we've been content to focus on increasing the power and flexibility of our technology tools while assuming that knowledge workers will figure out how to take advantage of that power. As knowledge workers it's our responsibility to do more of that figuring out. We need to stop counting on the marketing promises of technology vendors and start learning how to use the tools we've already got. [via McGee's Musings
Props to Weblogger.com
A quick note of thanks to Erin Clerico over at Weblogger for prompt, personal service when I made a dumb mistake and shut down my weblog site.Whilst mucking about with some Radio stuff I managed to errantly delete my index.html page. I'm not sure how that happened, but earlier in the day I had a weird Radio glitch and went diving into Radio.root to do some ill-advised house cleaning. For the most part it worked out ok but I'm guessing somewhere in all the confusion I lost count and fired only five shots, instead of six. My home page never got re-rendered and upstreamed properly, causing my site to give an access error.
When I first noticed it I figured it was a few minutes of server maintenance or something and ignored it. Several hours later it was still down and I began to try and figure out what was wrong. I failed.
I sent an e-mail to Erin about 10:15 EDT. In about 45 minutes my phone rang. Erin was calling to point out that my weblog directory didn't have an index page.
Doh!
In short order I restarted Radio and republished the Home page. All is well. Thanks to Erin. If you need good Manila hosting, reasonable prices and good support check out the folks at Weblogger.com. They're good people. And from what I hear they have some very exciting things on the horizon...
Idea Management
New RSS feed from Corante led me to their IdeaFlow blog. Several interesting pieces on the site that warrant follow-up reading. The first to catch my eye was this piece on idea management.Making idea creation and management explicit is something well worth doing. There's a whole range of thought on facilitating structured innovation. (One example is Robert G. Cooper's Stage Gate methodology, profiled in Product Development for the Service Sector.) A good KM system should intuitively reinforce both effective ideation (idea creation) and efficient development of good ideas. But designing in such capabilities isn't as simple as collecting documents or messages.
This Idea Management resource listing is a good place to start the thinking process for building such a system.
Creativity + Knowledge Management = Idea Management
OK. Let's assume you're creative and innovative, and so are your employees. So what do you do with all of this creativity, all these ideas? You manage them, perhaps with the help of the concepts and software emerging from the growing subset of innovation management known as idea management. Idea management can also be thought of as the crossroads where innovation intersects with knowledge management. As usual, Chuck Frey at InnovationTools.com is already on this: he's launched an Idea Management Resource Center that's worth checking out. [Corante: IdeaFlow]
Monday, May 5, 2003
Canadians Have Too Much Liberty to Suit U.S.
Damn Canadians! Where do they get off placing personal liberty ahead of surveillance and police issues? Don't they know we're at war?U.S. says Canada cares too much about liberties
"The [U.S.] State Department report on global terrorism for 2002 suggests that while Canada has been helpful in the fight against terrorism, it doesn't spend enough on policing and places too much emphasis on civil liberties." (5/1/03) [Canada.com]
NewzCrawler
Rick provides a short review of NewzCrawler in the context of his daily usage. Very helpful. Take a look at the feature/function list he provides. I may be looking for a new aggregator myself pretty soon, so this sort of overview is always helpful.
NewzCrawler as Aggregator. In making the switch from Radio to Movable Type, I needed to find a replacement for my News Aggregator. I tried several - including Amphetadesk and NewsGator - before deciding on NewzCrawler. Some of the key features that make NewzCrawler... [tins ::: Rick Klau's weblog]
Getting Conversant with Easy News Topics
There was some great discussion last night in one of the Conversant beta-test groups regarding Easy News Topics and the inclusion of metadata into RSS datastreams. I'm looking to have an ENT-compliant capability in my Conversant-based intranet/extranet.It looks like a pretty straightforward (though not necessarily simple) project to include basic ENT-style metadata into a Conversant system. The folks on the beta list grokked the ENT concept right away after looking over the spec and saw some interesting possibilities for their own KM/KS activities. I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes.
Scientific, Medical, and Engineering Texts Online
I had high hopes when I saw Jim McGee's pointer to this collection of quality scientific reference material. Having recently read The Next Fifty Years, edited by John Brockman, I've grown more interested in reading the works of scientists who "are writing for, and engaging, their peers in other disciplines" and "attempt to make the latest scientific research understandable within science itself as well as to a wide audience." The Next Fifty Years has 25 great essays along those lines, if you like this sort of thing.A quick browse through the National Academies Press categories page indicates a number of interesting possibilities, but trying to view any of the titles online quickly squelches any enthusiasm. The books are all presented online as scanned TIFF images -- images that were quite blurry on my 19", 1152x864 monitor screen. I tried a couple of different resolutions to make it better but it didn't help. Looking at any of these for very long will give you a headache.
The books are also presented one page at a time -- similar to what you see in an online book store where the intent is to give you a chance to check a few pages before buying. There are printable PDF files available for every page -- but they are individual, single-page files.
I really thought the NAP listing would be similar to the Open e-Journals in Education project, but I was disappointed. The NAP does some nice things, like provide pointers to similar books, but their intent is clearly to sell the hard copy versions of these papers and to make it as inconvenient as possible for online readers.
After having already paid for this stuff with my tax dollars, I'd like a little more consideration as an online reader.
Online texts from National Academies Press.Free Science, Engineering and Medical Books Online. I am not lying. The National Academies Press which was created by the National Academies to publish the reports issued by the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Research Council, all operating under a charter granted by the Congress of the United States, has more than 2,500 free, searchable, high quality books online. Some random examples: The Genomic Revolution: Unveiling the Unity of Life Strange Matters: Undiscovered Ideas at the Frontiers of Space and Time Who Goes There?: Authentication Through the Lens of Privacy Microbial Threats to Health: Emergence, Detection, and Response [kuro5hin.org]
A useful resource to have handy
[McGee's Musings]
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