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Tuesday, June 11, 2002 |
MONITORED TASK LISTS
For organizations that place the customer first
Several new add-on's to traditional business management systems focus on the tasks that must be done to satisfy the needs of customers and the business. These aren't merely delegated lists. They are derived from the business data and rules that an organization sets up to serve customers. As a by-product of normal business processing, tasks can be created that, when completed, eliminate the risk of surprising a customer or a manager with bad news. Say you have a customer that has placed an order for overnight shipment. New tools permit the sending of acknowledgements and shipping data as the order passes through each depot or checkpoint for the shipper. Rather than forcing the customer to enter a tracking number and check the status of his/her order, the supply chain is providing real time data about the transaction as its status changes.
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: ... [Jon's Radio]
6:58:04 PM 
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EVEN IF YOU'VE BEEN USING RADIO USERLAND'S NEWS AGGREGATOR
for months, you'll find this worthwhile reading. It only makes me wish that so many excellent weblogs had not disabled their RSS feeds. For those interested in writing, managing the content on a web site and learning from others, the news aggregator is nearly perfect!
A news aggregator is a piece of software that periodically reads a set of news sources, in one of several XML-based formats, finds the new bits, and displays them in reverse-chronological order on a single page. [Scripting News]
11:12:11 AM
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FOOTBALL? YOU SAY BLOGGING IS FOOTBALL?
What blogging really is. In addition to its intrinsic fascination, Stavros's essay on the nature of identity provoked an unexpected insight: blogging can't be journalism because... blogging is football! [Jonathon Delacour]
No, Jonathon, blogging is Op-Ed. 
Just kidding. This fascination that so many of the people I read regularly have with comparing technoblogs and punditblogs or BigPub and blogging or journalism and blogging or professionals and bloggers is a mystery. It's as if people are crying out for legitimacy.
It seems to me that when you put a blogging tool in the hands of anyone, you have essentially handed them a blank stenographer's notebook or an empty sketch pad. What they do with it determines what it becomes and how they are labeled - if we must label everyone and everything. Put a stenographer's pad in the hands of a new graduate of journalism school and send them out to cover some local breaking news. What do you get? You may not know for several years!
10:11:09 AM
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+/- A MILLION YEARS OR TWO?
I want to learn more about how these folk are dating their finds. It's been a while since 7th grade science, and I need a refresher in how we know something is x million years old. What is the premise we're starting with. At one point in this article they mention a plant that they know was alive y million years ago. How? I'm not skeptical; I just want to understand the methods!
Fossils point to asteroid causing dinosaurs' demise. Analysis of ancient leaves boosts claims that a massive asteroid strike obliterated 70 per cent of life 65 million years ago [New Scientist]
9:53:28 AM
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THE ESSENCE OF CRITICAL THINKING
I haven't been reading Eric Raymond's weblog. Today, I begin. With ten bullet points for his objections to liberals and ten bullets for his objections to conservatives, Eric has done the difficult work of thinking through what he believes - critically.
Unfortunately, we live in a world where too few people are prepared to do the difficult, logical and critical thinking that allows them to build their belief system. Charles Munger has referred to this as a "latticework of mental models from a wide variety of disciplines." Encountering any news item or current event, those with such a latticework have a basis for critical thinking and consistency with past decisions.
(I only wish sites such as this had RSS feeds for our news aggregators!)
9:41:54 AM
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SIGNING OFF TONIGHT WITH TOO MUCH TO THINK ABOUT
I find myself in disagreement with two people I've grown to respect a great deal. The first may not be so much disagreement as lack of understanding. Dave continues to use the word journalism when talking about weblogs. I simply cannot see that the vast majority of weblogs are much more than Op-Ed pieces about subjects from cats to dogs to gardening to politics - oh yeah, and technology. I do believe that one can find some weblogs with writing that surpasses any periodical I read anywhere else. Using the news aggregator, you can get your consumption focused on the signal and not the noise. That's great!
John has spent a great deal of time developing his theories about a new economy. Today, he talks about managing companies differently in a new economy. I didn't quite see the new economy he describes, and therefore I don't see the need to manage differently.
Drucker is still right on the money with work done decades ago. Buffett has spoken before of the tiny group of companies run by scoundrels, but he knows that a similar number or percentage of companies are at the other end of the spectrum.
These companies turn in outstanding performance year after year and are generally listed as the great places to work. Both extremes are tiny compared to the vast number of public and private businesses that exist under the bell of the curve!
I still like the software product you guys have developed!
12:08:07 AM
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© Copyright 2002 Steve Pilgrim.
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