Archive for June, 2002
June 16, 2002
McGee on Klogs
Jim McGee on fostering weblog use within an organiziation:
The management challenge here is a coaching challenge, not a control one. Management needs to encourage you to continue the experiment long enough for you to perceive its value. After a few instances of dumb mistakes avoided by looking back on earlier dumb mistakes and effort saved by referring questioners back to the answer that already exists in the archives, the value ought to be clear. The sharing with others will evolve naturally from better sharing with yourself.
Related to this, if the staff in your organization fear failure then they are not likely to be sharing knowledge effectively (or learning much either). People do not push the limits and try new things when they think they will nailed by management for failing. The trick is not to encourage success alone but to encourage collaborative experimentation with an emphasis on early recognition of failure and why it is occuring.
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June 16, 2002
Welcome to the MT Version of High Context
Just finished the conversion from CityDesk to Movable Type for the weblog parts of this site. The home page now has the more traditional weblog layout.
The conversion was pretty painless. I wrote a short CityScript script to export the old weblog entries into the Greymatter export format, loaded them into MT, assigned categories, rebuilt the pages and here we are. I spent more time tweaking the templates and css than I did converting data or setting up the core software.
Still to do: change the CityDesk templates for the rest of the site to match the home page.
Let me know if you spot any broken links or problems with the site. The RSS feed has the same name and is in the same location so there should be no problems there.
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June 14, 2002
RSS of the Automata
Shane McChesney is writing about some very exciting possibilities with automated RSS newsfeed generation (using his company’s product, Fetch, as an example):
“Basically, though, we’ve put a scheduling engine and a SQL query interface together to allow users — IT users, analysts, not the end-user / reader — to write and schedule SQL queries on any ODBC datasource in the enterprise.
The query results are formatted into two text strings, which become the <title> and <description> elements of an <item> in a Fetch RSS <channel>.”
The information can then be read in the Fetch reader on the desktop or they can use any reader that supports RSS. Their focus right now is on the call center but it can really be used throughout a company. Plus, you can query any system that supports ODBC. No worries about integrating with a multitude of different systems. Very cool.
I can think of a lot of applications specifically for associations:
- Total members that day compared to a year ago.
- Names of new members that day/week (with a link to more information about that person/company).
- Names of people/companies whose memberships have lapsed that day/week (with a link to their info). Or even better, members who are about to lapse in the next two weeks. Call those folks and get them to re-up!
- Total conference/convention registration numbers compared to same time last year.
- Members who were recently given an award or other achievement recognition by the association.
Now, I realize that any association management system can create these same reports for you. However, the immediacy of having that data show up on the desktops of staff automatically when they boot-up in the morning is much more powerful and likely to be acted upon than a report sitting in your AMS.
Check out the klogs group for more discussion on automated RSS feeds as well as weblogs as a KM tool.
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June 13, 2002
Rafe’s RSS Aggregator Reviews
Rafe of rc3.org just published his first in a series of RSS newsfeed aggregator software reviews. Current review: FeedReader. My favorite line:
“First, let me say that it’s the best application written by an Estonian that I’ve ever used.”
I’m looking forward to the full series.
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June 13, 2002
I’m Certifiable
This week I achieved something I’ve wanted to do for about 5 years: I earned my CAE designation from ASAE.
I put some of my study notes onto this site prior to the exam so I could do quick reviews of them during the day. They aren’t comprehensive but they might be helpful to you if you’re sitting for the exam during the next go around in November.
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June 13, 2002
Blog Becomes a Word
Editors at the Oxford English Dictionairy are looking at adding blog to their official list of words. Wow. (Found via www.scripting.com via Dane Carlson.)
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June 12, 2002
Web-based Fundraising
An article in the Chronicle of Philanthropy gives several examples of how foundations are using e-mail and the web to collect donations.
The examples in the article confirm that e-mail solicitations combined with web-based payments can be a powerful tool in the fundraising bag of tricks but they do not even come close to being able to replace traditional direct mail campaigns.
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June 11, 2002
Working on a Blog Software Switch
I’ll be converting the blog portions of this site to Movable Type this coming weekend. I need a tool that I can use to post entries from multiple computers and locations. I don’t do laptop at the moment so MT fits the bill better than CityDesk or Radio (Radio can do posts via e-mail, however, I don’t want to rely on my desktop box at home staying up 24/7 during extended trips).
My hope is that I’ll be able to convert all my entries to MT without breaking existing links from other sites. If that isn’t possible I’ll leave the original files in place as an archive and start fresh with MT.
I’ll continue to maintain the rest of the site in CityDesk.
By the way, whoever designed the css templates for MT is a true artist. Beautiful work.
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June 11, 2002
Topic Maps Seminar
There is a seminar in Alexandria next month on Topic Maps. It looks very interesting but it doesn’t fit into my budget this year given its relatively high cost for a one-day seminar.
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June 10, 2002
The Zeitgoogle
John Fraim puts forth several interesting ideas in his article Electric Symbols: Internet Words And Culture that was published in First Monday. He writes that aggregate data about searches on the Web can provide insight into cultural attitudes and beliefs. Here is how Google Zeitgeist data can be interpreted:
“While the Google Zeitgeist is interesting, for the most part the top ten Google words (weekly or monthly) simply reflect leading things and people coming and going from the attention of popular culture. The top ten words offer few surprises and little insight into the hidden forces behind popular culture.
Far greater cultural insight exists in the larger database of words ranked outside the Google top ten words. It is at the lower ranking levels that words move away from reflecting external cultural events to expressing internal attitudes.”
He goes on to write that the lower ranked words ”are closer to collective psychology and the internal world and are more expressive of the internal world.”
I think this has some interesting implications for weblogs and the sites that track them, such as Daypop. The Daypop Top 40 shows the daily froth of popular culture and news. A Yearpop Middle 100 might provide insight into common themes and values in the blogging community over a longer period of time.
Comparing analysis of distinct groups of blogs could be valuable too. Do Radio bloggers tend to focus on different issues than Blogger bloggers? How different are warbloggers and techbloggers?
Another application could be comparing the lower ranking word searches on the intranets of two organizations considering a merger. Differences and similarities could provide valuable insight to those who are considering merging the two organizations. Do they compliment each other? Are they largely redundant in their searches, showing high compatibility of organizational culture?
That is just one idea cherry-picked from the article. I highly recommend reading the whole piece.
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