b.cognosco
Where leaping to conclusions is my primary form of forward motion.
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My New Scanners Are In! My New Scanners Are In!
Holy Sh#t! Guess Who's Tracking Your Downloads
Sen. Earnest Hollings Should Be Removed from Office
Digital Asset Management -- A Disappearing Act
Visible KM
Windley on Blogs for Sprawling Organizations
Klogs Get Official Support in Utah
Knowledge Networks for the Cost Conscious
LinkBack to List Referrers Locally -- More Ways to Weave the Blog
Gaining Parity with e-Mail
Readerware -- Fan-freaking-tastic!
Recycling Does Not Improve Government
Monday, July 22, 2002
Update: Talk About Roundabout
More Synchronicity -- go read Atlanta blogger Daniel Taylor at Dreaded Purple Master.I know this is old hat to you long-time bloggers, so forgive a newcomer's enthusiasm. Phil Wolff over at a klog apart made a post on job searching -- which I should be doing, but I'm not. If you are smarter than me (and less convinced of your own infallabillity) read the whole thing.
What I want you to read is here:
Jay Manifold, Project Manager, Kansas City, Missouri..I like Jay's blogging voice. His blog, A Voyage To Arcturus, is a delightful blend of philosophy, astronomy and space, and life.
Will Project-Manage for Food[a klog apart]
I got laid off. OK, it ain't up there withwhat happened to this guy, but it shut me down for a few days. Not moping -- updating a résumé and networking like mad. [...] [aka bloggers for hire]
Buried unceremoniously in this post from Phil, which he got from someplace I never heard of, quoting someone else I never heard of, who puts in the line what happened to this guy, is a link to fellow Atlanta blogger Daniel Taylor, aka Dreaded Purple Master.
Taylor is <strike>funny as a crutch</strike> laugh-out-loud funny. Why I followed that particular link I'll never know. He has apparently been writing forever, reads stuff I read, watches the one TV show I watch, and lives just a couple of miles from one of my favorite parts of the city.
I don't know him, and would likely never meet him. I just find it insanely cool that this blogging business leads to this sort of thing.
And I was a gen-yoo-whine blogging skeptic. Someone pass the crow. Maybe I'll even make it to one of them Blogger Meet-Ups real soon now, ya hear.
Update: I've been brought up short and had it pointed out to me that had I spent more time watching the 70s TV show Happy Days I would have known the phrase "funny as a crutch" was not a compliment. Well, what do I know. I'm from Texas.
So here's to Daniel Taylor -- funny as whoopie cushion; funny as a 24-hour Jonathon Winters TV marathon; funny as a Gallager Sledge-O-Matic skit; funny as a ... well, you get the point.
My New Scanners Are In! My New Scanners Are In!
Is the Internet cool or what? On Wednesday I made a post about a personal library app. On Friday Jim McGee responded. On Saturday I picked up Jim's post in my News Aggregator and immediately went to ReaderWare to check out the software.By 10:3O AM EDT I had decided I needed this software and a barcode scanner. Readerware suggests a CueCat and suggests eBay as the place to get them. By 11:00 AM I had scrounged eBay, found a likely source, and did a Buy It Now! for 2 CueCat USB scanners for a total of $8. I paid via PayPal
By 4:00PM I had an e-mail from the seller saying he had the money and would ship that afternoon if he could find a Post Office open. At 10:30AM this morning my new CueCat barcode scanners arrived!
This is as close to instant gratification as I can stand to get. I'll be a book scanning son-of-a-gun by tomorrow afternoon.
Thanks again to Jim McGee of McGee's Musings.
Holy Sh#t! Guess Who's Tracking Your Downloads
Gimme a C! Gimme an I! Gimme an ...Ugh. I wish this was a surprise. But there's no conspiracy here. Really.
One thing I don't get about the EFF. Why don't they blow the trumpet on comScore? This company has tricked millions of people into "download accelerators" and other trojan horse software that tracks their traffic, credit card usage (it actually captures numbers), and more -- all in the name of so-called research. Most of the download accelerator software providers they use are front companies.Hey, this is one of the worst violations of privacy I have ever seen and nobody knows about them. You know why they don't? Here is the address of the company:
Reston Office (headquarters):
11465 Sunset Hills Road, Suite 200
Reston, VA 20190
Telephone: 703-438-2000
Fax: 703-438-2051
Yahoo Driving DirectionsIf you don't get the implications of this, ask someone what government agency is based in Reston VA. BTW, comScore just bought Media Metrix and now own the online consumer data market.
[John Robb's Radio Weblog] [Ye Olde Phart]
Sunday, July 21, 2002
Sen. Earnest Hollings Should Be Removed from Office
In a sad case of a politician who has lost all contact and credibility with his constituents, Sen. Earnest Hollings of South Carolina has written a letter to the FCC demanding they implement a broadcast flag requirement whether or not Hollings can get his despicable legislation passed. I wonder just how many millions Hollings has pocketed in campaign funds from Hollywood? "Hollings: Broadcast flag now, by FCC mandate" [Daypop Top 40]Digital Asset Management -- A Disappearing Act
Is Digital Asset Management (DAM) losing its value? According to this article in CIO:Digital asset management (DAM) products may be a hot topic now, but a January report by Stamford, Conn.-based Meta Group predicts that by 2004 or 2005, such tools will likely evolve into nothing more than a set of features inside more complete enterprise content management tools." [CIO]
In 1999, while working for print industry consulting firm CAP Ventures, I wrote a fairly extensive research paper on Digital Asset Management for the print industry. (While a bit dated, you can still read the executive summary from that paper.)
Even back then I concluded that any discussion of DAM was incomplete without considering a much broader media context. But there is still a need for properly handling files for print, and many in the print industry can still use smaller systems than those sold by Artesia or Bulldog/Documentum.
This brief article is a good summary of the current state of DAM, covering several applications and giving a brief overview of the wide variety in price and features that today's products offer
Visible KM
Hugh Madison at American Invisible provides a thought provoking post on what it takes for KM to really succeed. Hugh has clearly been there before.KMSome personal thoughts on Knowledge Management. [American Invisible, Inc.]
Hugh's RSS feed didn't include some key points from his story, so I've listed a few below:
A successful KM initiative needs:There's a pattern here. See it?
- A compelling reason why each employee should buy in - rewards are called for
- training so that everyone appreciates the value of context. [...]
- training so that people learn to write for an audience outside their own group of contacts. [...]
- training so that people understand that most knowledge is specialized. [...]
- Someone VERY senior to champion the KM cause.
As Robert Buckman said in the interview John Robb posted yesterday, 90 percent of the effort put into the Knowledge Sharing system at Buckman Labs was spent encouraging people to share. And as I wrote in The Power of Knowledge Sharing, while some people will refuse to do this, most people simply don't know how.
The fact that the cost barriers for KM tools have plummeted means that those of us who already want to share can do so with less effort and less dollars. Now, how do we get those don't already want to, to join the group and be effective?
Windley on Blogs for Sprawling Organizations
Enterprise Development in Utah.On Wednesday, I spoke to the enterprise development group on my principles for enabling web services. The enterprise development group, or eDG as they call themselves is a group of specialists from across our IT organizations that meet regularly to share expertise and develop some de facto standards for multi-tiered applications in Utah.
I'm very supportive of these kinds of groups since I think they represent our best hope at building community in an IT organization that is best described as "sprawling." We have talented experts buried deep within the organization and, often, the biggest problem we face is being able to get the right people on the job. When an issue comes up, we likely have someone who knows just want to do, but no way to get that expertise to the job. Building overlapping communities of specialists and communities of interests seems the best way to attack this problem. My open offer on blogs is an attempt to jump start some of those communities.
[Windley's Enterprise Computing Weblog]Klogs Get Official Support in Utah
K-logging at the statewide level. Top down endorsement for klogging..The Utah State CIO made this Offer to Utah State IT Employees.
I believe that the 900 or so IT employees of the State of Utah would benefit from speaking and listening to each other more. I think we need groups of specialists inside various departments to communicate with others in their specialty and without. Consequently, I'd like to see more people writing blogs and communicating their ideas through an open forum like the one blogs engender. To that end, I'm willing to pay the licensing fee to Userland for the first 100 employees who start a blog. Here are the conditions:
- Download the software and begin using on the 30-day free trial. I'd like to see you get a start before I pay the fee. Let me know when you're up and running.
- I'm biased toward IT employees, but other are welcome too, particularly if they're interested in eGovernment.
- You're responsible for what you post. If you're going to talk about things that shouldn't be public on Userland and need to be kept behind the state firewall, let me know and we'll set up a place inside the state network for that. We could even set up an authenticated area, if needed.
"It is good to be king." Royal suggestions cut through all kinds of trust issues and formal decision making. I've been asking for prerequisites to success on various knowledge management lists. Uniformly the top answer is "senior management endorsement, buy-in, enthusiasm."
UserLand's hit a sweet spot too.
- Low price point cuts risks of trying and eventual rollout
- Newbie-friendliness gives immediate satisfaction (egoboost, social affirmation)
- Syndication/etc. amplifies social networking effects, reinforcing current participation and bringing in new users
One other thing: you can see from Windley's post there is something real about the sense of ownership and control you feel when the tool and your writings are on your desktop. Radio gives you this. The tradeoffs of remote access and managed desktop are also real, but have much less emotional investment. These feelings of control worth of attention as the klogging meme spreads.
I'll have to encourage my buddy Bill Kendall, who's in the Salt Lake City D.A.'s office, to look into this. (Granted, that's city and not state government, but wouldn't it be interesting to see that combination as well?)
[tins ::: Rick Klau's weblog]Knowledge Networks for the Cost Conscious
Creating affordable Knowledge Sharing networks seems to be a theme these days, given the unmitigated failure of big-buck alternatives. David Gammel of High Context goes the final mile and provides a nice overview of creating an almost no-cost KS network.
Low-cost Klog NetworkThe level of investment required for really excellent km tools, such as weblogs, has gotten so low that it is much easier for a relatively low level employee to start a grass-roots movement within the staff if they are motivated. Given the failure of enterprise level KM initiatives and the burst .com bubble, this could be the perfect time to stealth in some web-based knowledge sharing tools.
In this article I will discuss how you can create a low-cost knowledge weblog (klog) network using free and/or donor supported software. This method is well suited to the stealthy introduction of weblogging as a knowledge management tool. All you need is one server to host the klogs and you can be off and running before senior management has a chance to quash your initiative. Or take credit for it. :) Read more... [High Context]
There are very important ideas in this:
- With no investment chances are you can sneak this into your Dilbertian department without raising suspicion. You still need a bit of a geek to set it up and run it, but you can do it for almost free.
- Even small enterprises can now afford this stuff. In fact they can no longer afford not to have it.
Young, entrepreneurial companies eat away from the bottom of the big Dilbert-company markets, but to do so they have to move fast and spread themselves thin. Most struggle to reach across geographic boundaries for anything more than marketing or a little customer support. True knowledge sharing across the country is just about impossible for the small- to mid-sized enterprise. ASPs, Salesforce.com, and MSOutlook's Public Folders haven't really helped. Most still get by on sheer luck and determination.
What David describes can be done by almost anyone with access to a geek. And not an uber-geek. Probably any 17-year-old with a knack for Python or pearl will do. That's still too techie for me, but even if you have to shell out $40 for Radio it's still an affordable way to get started.
This is great stuff, David. Thanks for bringing it to us.
Saturday, July 20, 2002
LinkBack to List Referrers Locally -- More Ways to Weave the Blog
Looks similar in concept to TrackBack and kmPings (you guys will correct me if I'm wrong), but based on specific referral pages. I'd sure like to see someone do a write up on just what all these things do, and how they relate/interact with each other.
Linkback Referrers.I spotted Stephen Downes Referral System via www.davidwatson.org.
Very cool little script. I have added it to my templates here on high context. It will display the referrers to each individual page. So if you link to anything on this site your page will be listed on the sidebar as people follow the link.
One small bug I've discovered with Mozilla is that a local referral within the same site creates an unexpected value for document.location in the javascript code. No problems in IE so it must just be Mozilla. [High Context]
Gaining Parity with e-Mail
This posting from Jon Udell on collaboration technologies that have caught the eye of Esther Dyson. I note among them is Parity -- a venture I believe is being headed by graphic arts visionary Paul Trevithick. Seems Paul is, as usual, on the leading edge and drawing attention from some big names.
What if being non-communicative weren't an option?This Fortune article on Esther Dyson was cited on a private mailing list. It's interesting to see where she is placing bets:
A big challenge for managers will be encouraging employees to share information instead of hoarding it. Dyson has made investments in several companies that help employees communicate with one another continuously and effectively, especially by e-mail. One, called Tacit Knowledge Systems, has software that (with user permission) reads and categorizes e-mail sent within an organization. Anyone needing information about a topic can turn to Tacit to find an expert and forward a request to get in touch. Another company, Parity, has a so-called "commitment-management tool" that lets the sender specify the action an e-mail requires. The software helps the recipient meet deadlines--like responding to a customer by tomorrow afternoon.I think I can see the handwriting on the wall. Groupware has failed forever because people by and large don't want to communicate continuously and effectively. Opting out of that flow may cease to be an option. If so, jumping on the weblog bandwagon for internal corporate communication looks like the offense that is the best defense. If your flow is a corporate asset that's going to be managed anyway, wouldn't you rather control it yourself? [Jon's Radio]
Readerware -- Fan-freaking-tastic!
How could I have missed this? If I die tomorrow the blogosphere will have made my life complete with this response from Jim McGee. Well, ok. Maybe that's a little dramatic. But I have wanted something like this a long time.Now excuse me, I have to go scrounge on e-Bay for CueCat.
Readerware - personal library app.[McGee's Musings]How About a Personal Library App. Maybe it's just me, but I never saw any way Amazon was going to be profitable until they took over the e-Commerce and web operations for Borders. [Blunt Force Trauma]Terry is looking for a program that will let him build and maintain a database of his personal library using the data available from Amazon and elsewhere on the web. It already exists and it's called Readerware. I now have over 3,000 books catalogued using it. It also supports CD and video libraries. Recommended. Less than $100.
Recycling Does Not Improve Government
I was terribly unhappy about the bumper crop of experience-free children the Clinton Administration ushered into the White House in 1992. Now I'm equally unhappy about the seemingly endless stream of political retreads being rounded up by the Bush Administration.Sometimes I just want to opt out...
Thanks (I think) to Dan Rosenbaum for this one.
Fool Me Once, Shame on Me. Fool Me Twice.....Semi's gonna have a ball with this one.
There's a new director of the Pentagon's new Information Awareness Office, part of the DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. (It was DARPA's organizational predecessor that gave the world the Internet. But I digress...) This new director is one John M. Poindexter.
Yes, that John Poindexter. Ronald Reagan's National Security Advisor. The one who was convicted in the Iran-Contra affair. Remember? He sold weapons (illegally) to Iran, and used the cash to (also illegally) fund the Contra insurgency in Nicaragua. Ollie North's buddy. It was in all the papers.
Poindexter was convicted of conspiracy, lying to Congress, defrauding the government, and destroying documents. The convictions were overturned; Poindexter had been given immunity before Congress (after invoking his Fifth Amendment rights). His testimony, though public and nationally broadcast, was inadmissible, courts said.
So here he comes sliming his way back into public service, this time running an office that is supposed to:
"create a new intelligence infrastructure to allow ... agencies to share information and collaborate effectively, and new information technology aimed at exposing terrorists and their activities and support systems.... The key to fighting terrorism is information. Elements of the solution include gathering a much broader array of data than we do currently, discovering information from elements of the data, creating models of hypotheses, and analyzing these models in a collaborative environment to determine the most probable current or future scenario."To me, this sounds a lot like what the NSA is supposed to be doing. If you read the IOS's page closely -- and there's no way to read it casually -- it looks like IOS is developing ways to massage and pass around raw data that the NSA and the National Reconnaissance Office and all that crew develops.Which is not a bad thing. And it's surely a comedown for a past National Security Advisor to have an office that's probably deep in the bowels of the Pentagon, far from corridors of power. And it speaks well of the man that he still wants to be in public service.
But still. John Poindexter should be in jail, not in the Pentagon. He waged a private war that was contrary to the policy of the government he swore to serve. He should not be pulling a government paycheck -- much less with a high security clearance. Here's a ton of links about Poindexter and Iran-Contra. Thanks to bOing-bOing for the original link. [Over the Edge]
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