Archive for December, 2005
December 22, 2005
2005 Best of High Context Blog
I just went through my archive of posts for 2005 and have collected links to the entries I think are the most interesting or I’m the most proud of. Here they are in reverse chronological order:
Can You Get a Bad Grade on a Wikipedia Entry?
From just this week, where I mea culpa on making an error in the unconference entry of wikipedia. This got me a link from Dave Winer, which provided about 700 pageviews of that entry in 24 hours. A new record!
Conference vs. Unconference
This post was inspired after reading about several recent conferences that let the attendees drive and provide the content rather than it being delivered top down. With the help of a few others, I compile a comparison list of attributes between traditional conferences and unconferences.
The 15 Minute Web Plan
Create a plan of action for your web site in 15 minutes.
5 Ways to Improve the Online Dues Payment Process
A list of tips on improving the dues payment experience online. The tips focus on the goal of making it as fast and easy as possible for them to pay you money.
Associations Blogging Katrina
A round-up of blogs by associations covering the Katrina disaster. I think the most compelling stories by associations on this issue were told via blogs in the immediate aftermath of the hurricane.
I Read My News via HTTP
How RSS will eventually be used so widely you won’t even realize you are using it.
Content Garden Hoses
A favorite analogy of mine on managing web content flow in a large, decentralized organization.
KMpings is Dead, Long Live del.icio.us/tag/km!
Retirement of the KMpings trackback service after a run of a couple years.
Announcing High Context Consulting!
This one was personally important to me, obviously. It has been a great first 6 months of business since my launch. This experience has exceeded my expectations. Thanks to all of you who have supported me!
Managing Logins for a Members-only Web Site
General recommendations on managing member logins based on years of painful experience. :)
Association Weblog Round-up
Another round-up post on association blogs around the web. Some by associations, some by association people.
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December 21, 2005
Give Me Unified Login or Give Me Death!
A question came across the ASAE Technology Section list this week about how to manage multiple logins for a variety of web-based services offered to members of an association. I chose to deliver a bit of a rant rather than a direct answer. I’ve posted my note below:
I think the time has come where any serious vendor in the association market should support authentication from another system for their product and associations should begin to demand it.
As others have posted, this level of integration is relatively easy to achieve via web services. Sure, each association/system will have its quirks that may require some tweaking but the basics are well defined.
Hostile user/login management systems immediately cripple your ability to create member value on the web. We, as an industry, shouldn’t tolerate it any longer.
I think that people these days are willing to create a new login for organizations/companies that they interact with and receive value from. One login. Unless the value you provide is incredibly high, most will not be happy to create multiple logins for just you and many will not bother. Vendors take note: you’ll be at an increasingly greater competitive disadvantage the longer you fail to support external authentication mechanisms in your services and products.
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December 19, 2005
Can you get a bad grade on a Wikipedia entry?
I believe that Dave Winer would give me a low one based on his reaction to my incorrect attribution of coining the term ‘unconference’ to him rather than Lenn Pryor in the unconference entry I started. Sorry about that Lenn!
John Robb points out that Dave could have easily made the edit in addition to just complaining about it. A few folks have jumped in to clean up the entry some more since Dave’s post.
I think the point here is not that I didn’t approach writing a wikipedia article like writing a research paper. The point is that I got the ball rolling in about 5 minutes for a topic that really deserved an entry. 20 other people can each spend five minutes improving it and eventually you’ll have a nice solid piece. Is this a bad thing?
Update: Dave responds in the comments to John’s post discussing his concerns with Wikipedia.
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December 12, 2005
Lean XHTML and Precise CSS
For those of you employing or exploring standards-based designs using CSS (and this should be all of you!), check out this post on Lean XHTML and Precise CSS. Looks like a good method for organizing your stylesheets. CSS files can get pretty complex as your site develops, so having some organizational method will make life easier down the road. The article also reviews the benefits of keeping presentation code in CSS and out of your page markup.
(Via 456 Bereas Street blog.)
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December 3, 2005
Better Bring My Doctorow
Just got off the phone with Disney reservations, double checking that I did in fact book a room for myself at the Great Ideas conference in Orlando. Good news: I did! Listening to Disney hold media for 10 minutes to do so made me realize I need to brace myself for the full Disney experience. Maybe I’ll re-read Cory Doctorow’s book while I’m there.
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December 2, 2005
Association Glogging
I am participating in two group blogs (glogging?) at the moment.
One is the Great Ideas Conference Blog, developed in conjunction with ASAE’s Great Ideas conference. It is being written by several folks who will be presenting at the conference in Orlando starting this Sunday.
The other blog is one that I am writing with several association consultant colleagues that we hope to eventually publish as a short book. We’ve Always Done It That Way: 101 Things That Associations Must Change. Our premise is that doing things the same way as you’ve always done it probably isn’t working out too well these days. We are helpfully providing a few changes (101) you might want to consider. Jamie speaks for me in his post about the group of folks we are working with on this.
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December 1, 2005
E-mail Woes
This week I’ve had reports from clients and colleagues that messages they sent to me were not making it and that my web host (which had been handling my e-mail as well) had been placed on a blacklist for suspected spam activity. I know they work hard on dealing with those issues, but I’d had enough and my e-mail is worth an extra investment to keep up and running. So, I signed up with an e-mail hosting service where that is all they do: webmail.us.
I came across this company a few months back when I had first researched the issue. I also found a blog by their CEO, Pat Mathews, which I subscribed to. In the intervening time, Pat came across as level headed and very passionate about his company via his blog posts, so I decided to give them a shot. Good example of blog marketing at work.
So far, their IMAP service is BLAZING fast compared to what I had before. Their tech support was also very responsive when I sent in a couple suggestions on the registration process. I’m very hopeful this will be a good investment for me ($120/year for five 1GB mailboxes).
Update: I won’t bore you with details but I inadvertently blew away my MX records at my DNS host, which means the Internet doesn’t know where to send my mail. I have reset it so hopefully it will be back in order soon. If you sent something to me today and have not received a response, please resend in the morning (Friday 12/2) or e-mail me at davgam at mindspring dot com.
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December 1, 2005
CSS/Standards Link Roundup
Here are a few standards-related links I’ve been meaning to post. Hope you find them useful!
- High Accessibility is Effective Search Engine Optimization
Nice ALA article. It is completely true, as well. If you make your site highly accessible it becomes more accessible to search engine indexers as well as the visually impaired. - Visual Studio to Support Standards
Based on my own personal experience, I’ll believe it when I see it. I believe they intend to do it but MS does not have much experience paying attention to standards in the past so I’m sure it will take them a while to get it right. - Tantek on CSS Hacks
Great review of the state of CSS, hacks needed to implement, and future directions for browsers. - Printing a Book with CSS
Another ALA article on how CSS could be used to format text appropriately for printing a book.
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