Sunday, August 18, 2002

Fixing intranets with klogs. Fixing intranets. It's interesting how the same issues seem to come up in bunches. Over the last month, I have now talked... [Column Two] » James has written an interesting post about some of the common problems with intranets that he encounters with his clients.  As someone interested in how klogging (I'll use the term for now!) could affect the role of intranets and content management his issues seem particularly relevant to me.  In preface to my remarks I should point out that I am choosing to address static content rather than the possible dynamic web applications you might find on a typical intranet. The issues, re-ordered slightly to suit my responses, are: The intranet has grown over time. Manual processes (using Frontpage or Dreamweaver) are used to publish pages. A lot of information has been published, but the site isn't being used. There is little high-level structure, and users are not able to find information. 1. If you want a logical hierarchical structure then organic growth is a problem.  It's like running water, it flows down along the path of least resistance and doesn't care about the direction.  Same with people, they'll squirrel stuff anywhere that makes sense today (have you taken a good look at your my "My Documents" directory lately?).   Of course if you're klogging then this organic growth is part of the package.  Whether that bothers you is probably a factor of points (2), (3), and (4).  2. This is most obviously solved by klogging software.  It's one of the fundamentals. 3. Hard to say but I guess much of the information published may be of low quality.  In my experience no matter how hard publishing to an intranet can be, creating information is harder still.  This leads to variable quality in that information.  Variable quality leads to low usage.  Low usage provides little incentive for new information to be created and so on. Klogging address this in two ways I think: When you have something to publish it's dead easy: click, type, click. You can publish in bite-size chunks.  This means that if you have a small but useful piece of information you can just klog it.  You don't have to pad it into a long document to make it worthwhile.  You also don't have to find "just the right place" for it to go, it just gets klogged.  That chunk can exist in it's own right, waiting for the day someone needs it. Which brings us rather neatly to (4) 4. As it stands klogging is a decentralizing technology that doesn't encourage a formal hierarchical structure.  You klog and, if all goes according to plan, people will subscribe to you and they will link to you.  Will they be the right people?  Does it make information any easier to locate?  Not automatically no.  But then hierarchical structures don't necessarily make life any easier.  Once a hierarchy is more than about 2 levels deep it can cause it's own navigation issues. Some people might argue that a healthy klogging culture coupled with a Google search appliance (or any search engine that has a pageranking algorithm I guess) could well make it easier to find what you're looking for.  I think theres something to be said for that. My own approach is to allow for easy metadata-enabling of klogs.  My hope is that combining klogs with topic maps will allow new structures to be grown from them automagically.  This can complement the pagerank based search and provide new ways of finding and traversing group knowledge. So should you scrap the intranet and replace it with klogs? I don't think so.  But perhaps you should think carefully about what you want your intranet to achieve and whether some of your goals for information publishing and dissemination couldn't be better achieved with a klogging strategy. [Curiouser and curiouser!] 6:48:32 PM    trackback []     Articulate []

New Architect: Making Mistakes Well. Online or offline, it's impossible to be perfect. But while offline customers can appeal to an actual human being for help, frustrated online customers usually just give up. That's why Web sites must learn to make mistakes well. [Tomalak's Realm] 5:57:38 PM    trackback []     Articulate []

A List Apart: 10 Tips on Writing the Living Web. New, at A List Apart, Eastgate impresario Mark Bernstein offers 10 Tips on writing the "living Web." I'm quoting tip number 8 as a cheap way of following the advice in tip number 8: Be sexy You are a sexual being. So are all of your readers (except the Google robot). Sex is interesting. Sex is life, and life is interesting. The more of yourself you put into your writing, the more human and engaging your work will be. If your writing is a personal journal, and if it is honest, you will have to write about things that you find embarrassing to describe, feelings you might not want to share, events that you wouldn't mention to strangers (or, perhaps, to anyone). Decide now what you will do, before it happens. Undressing, literally, figuratively, or emotionally, has always been a powerful force in personal sites and web logs. Pictures don't matter in the long run; what matters is the trajectory of your relationship with the reader, the gradual growth of intimacy and knowledge between you. [Radio Free Blogistan] 5:43:44 PM    trackback []     Articulate []

Of Tom Gilbert and K-logs. A while back, I had offered a challenge for McGee to pass along to his students. He did so, but none of them stepped forward. I was disappointed, but am willing to accept this as an indicator of their intelligence. :-) So I guess I'll have to do the heavy lifting, and that means all this will dribble out over some time. Bad for my readers who might want to get this in one chunk; Good for me to have more time for reflecting about this. I'll start off with a direct quote from Tom Gilbert's Human Competence: Engineering Worthy Performance, p178-9. BTW, if you are interesting in management, Human Performance Technolgy, KM/KS, behavior analysis, or performance improvement, you should get two copies of this book (one to keep clutched tightly in your hands, and one for loaning to others). Principles of Information Flow The requirements of an information system sensibly designed to give maximum support to performance are absurdly simple, and they can be summarized in eight steps: Identify the expected accomplishments, mission, responsibilities, and duties. State the requirements of each accomplishment. If there is any doubt that people understand the reason why an accomplishment and its requirements are important, explain this. Describe how performance will be measured and why. Set exemplary standards, preferably in measurement terms. Identify exemplary performers and any available resources that people can use to become exemplary performers. [Gilbert defined (p40) "exemplary performance as the most sustained worthy performance we can reasonably expect to attain." So an outlier achievement (e.g., an NFL running back having back-to-back 1,000+ rushing yards seasons) should not be held up as a standard, since it is unlikely to be sustainable.] Provide frequent and unequivocable feedback about how well each person is performing. This confirmation should be expressed as a comparison with an exemplary standard. Consequences of good and poor performance should also be made clear. Supply as much backup information as needed to help people troubleshoot their own performance and that of the people for whom they are responsible. Relate various aspects of poor performance to specific remedial actions. These steps are far too simple to be called a "technology," but it may be that their very simplicity helps explain why they are so rarely followed. I suppose that people tend to look for more complex reasons for seemingly complex problems, and therefore more complex solutions. I believe the following about these principles: It is indeed a "technology", just as the socratic method might be considered a technology of learning. A k-log could certainly be used to help accomplish some of these steps. These are precisely the things a good manager should be doing (and more importantly, has direct control over!), to promote an efficient and effective work environment, whether they use a k-log or not. [gRadio] 4:24:45 PM    trackback []     Articulate []

I will take one of these too. I do not need the Game Boy though... Convergence. Ray Ozzie's gone off on a tangent about his favorite new digital camera. My camera is the Canon digital Elph and I think it's great. Small, easy to use, decent resolution, etc. Honestly, I don't think I'll be buying another digital camera anytime soon. I'm waiting for convergence, really. Very, very soon we're going to see all the little electronics in the same device, and personally I can't wait: Mobile phone PDA Multimedia: MP3s, etc. Digital Camera / Video Camera Game Boy All with a massive hard drive like the iPod and 3G/Bluetooth/802.11 connections. It'll be your world. You'll take it to work and plop it next to your terminal and it'll have all the data you want on it communicated to the PC wirelessly. It'll have room to store every conversation you make, every picture you take, videos, all the programs you can think of, etc. It's not going to be long before one of THESE is standard for everyone. IBM already is working on something just like it. Everything's getting smaller, it's just a matter of time before it's all in the same box in your hand. -Russ [Russell Beattie Notebook] 3:50:38 PM    trackback []     Articulate []

IBM does bioinformatics. IBM is making a run for the biotech market.  They've set up a toolkit, located at http://cbcsrv.watson.ibm.com/Tspd.html.  It's not half bad for a free bioinformatics toolkit.  As well as providing a server, they are working on some new bioinformatics routines, like pattern discovery and annotation.  Yeah, OK.  Everyone's doing annotation. Anyway, it's worth checking out if you haven't seen it before. [A Blonde on Bioinformatics and Aromatherapy] 1:05:32 PM    trackback []     Articulate []

I'm pushing the new site design across all the categories, hence this post into every category. Apologies for its off-topicness outside of 'metablog' and 'radioactive'. Or rather, let me make it on topic, by discussing my categories a little, which I have just rationalized. While the mission of this blog is to talk about blogging, the nature of blogging is such that I want to be able to do other things in this space. I could keep them off the home page when not about blogging, but I'd rather use my discretion about when something belongs on the home page (most of the time) and when to just send it to a category or two.  Rather, I'd say that if you're reading this blog just for the news, tips, and comparisons of blog products, then consider going to the 'metablog' category as a matter of course (or subscribing to its RSS feed).  This will filter your Radio Free Blogistan flow to just posts about blogs and blogging. I will try to implement a dynamic filter so you can view or hide different categories all on the home page, but I'm not there yet. In the meantime, a brief explanation of my categories as they currently stand:  metablog Blogging about blogging, and blogging about blogging about blogging, but never blogging about blogging about blogging about blogging, I promise! knowhow What does blogging tell us about content and knowledge management in the enterprise space? syllabus Required reading about weblogs and the state of writing online. memewatch Counting memes by candlelight. All are dim but one is bright. fireweaver Dreamweaver, Fireweaver, web design and web practices. radioactive Radio questions channel aggregated by dws. outspoken Occasional intemperate outbursts. salonika Salon, Salon blogs, blogs.salon.com x-pollen X-references to and from my other blogs. RSS Monkey help me. [Radio Free Blogistan] 12:31:55 PM    trackback []     Articulate []

Do not overlook the obvious.. McGee comments on Roland's discovery of Bernie DeKoven's Userland-based Technography site. Bernie later went on to create technography.com, which has since gone lights out, but was a very nice resource (check the wayback machine for details). Bernie recently started a blog over at his DeepFun.com site, though, and it's definitely worth a read. Rethinking mundane processes. Technography: Meeting Checklist. Major competitive advantage for companies that follow the items on this checklist!Evaluate the "intelligence" of your meeting system by exploring each stage of your meeting process. There are a total of 23 measures, each of which could lead to more productive communication. [Roland Tanglao's Weblog] As you go through this list, it's worth reflecting on the opportunities for great leverage in revisiting mundane processes in organizations and thinking about how to make them better.  While the opportunity is great, there is also a major barrier in getting people to adopt new practices, particularly in areas where they are unaware of their practices to begin with. Folks, a gentle reminder that it is entirely possible to do all 23 of the things on this list, and still remain mired in inefficiency -- this list of tasks is strictly about improving communication. The people involved in the meetings must also be committed to actually making decisions, not merely discussing situations. Also important is to assign action items to individuals or groups, and then giving those folks enough information, control and power to see things through (and holding them responsible for success). Seems like common sense, but how many workplaces don't always perform according to common sense? [gRadio] 12:29:52 PM    trackback []     Articulate []

From Jonathan Delacour Jun'ichiro Tanizaki, The Makioka Sisters Richard Ford, The Sportswriter Isabel Allende, The House of the Spirits Saiichi Maruya, A Mature Woman Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude Alberto Moravia, Boredom Fumiko Enchi, The Waiting Years Soseki Natsume, Kokoro Naoya Shiga, A Dark Night's Passing W.G. Sebald, The Rings of Saturn Ivan Morris, The Nobility of Failure Allison Fell, The Pillow Boy of the Lady Onogoro James Salter, Burning the Days Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle Henry Fielding, Tom Jones Eudora Welty, Collected Stories Dorothea Brande, Becoming a Writer Joseph Mitchell, Up in the Old Hotel Taeko Kono, Toddler Hunting Julio Cortazar, Hopscotch Akira Yoshimura, On Parole 11:31:57 AM    trackback []     Articulate []

The only upside to the current business climate is that business owners are finding it easier to hire people, and many say they're paying less than they did a few short years ago. Yet it's still difficult to fill key positions. The number of small businesses with hard-to-fill openings has peaked this year.  # [John Henry on Business] 11:30:29 AM    trackback []     Articulate []