Thursday, April 24, 2003

Meg does ETCon Another "wish I coulda been there" moment: Etcon 2003. Here's my presentation from the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference, "From the Margin of the Writable Web" in your choice of Powerpoint [112 KB] or HTML. Enjoy! And thanks again to everyone who took the time to offer suggestions. I'll try to post all of those when I get a chance later this week. [megnut] The slides are rather sketchy, so there must have been a lot of talk to flesh out the thinking--but there's enough to pique interest. Meg mentions Micah Alpern, who was part of the blogging SIG at CHI, and may also be at DUX. I wonder if we can get Meg to present off-track at the STC conference next month? I think at least a blogger's dinner is in order. But I have no time/energy to planning it right now. 10:42:04 PM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

The challenge I'm committed to attending and supporting DUX, of course, but if that wasn't enough reason to be in SF June 6-8, here's another: DUX vs. Planetwork: Throwdown. Not that I'm anticipating it, but if DUX is no good, I'm definitely going to check out the Planetwork conference,... [Brightly Colored Food] 12:13:48 PM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

The New Normal I thought I'd invented the term "the new normal" a few weeks back when talking with friends and family about adjusting to life after losing a child. The connotation being that I don't know what's "normal," the life we had previously was by no means "normal," and there's no telling if the new life will be anything like "normal." As someone smarter than me once said, "Normal is 98.6." But along comes Fast Company magazine, which documented, if it didn'te help create, the dot.com frenzy and concepts like "The New Economy"--they even published a supplement attempting to define the new rules of the new economy--and the latest issue puts the concept of the new normal right on the cover and claims ownership of the term. The New Normal. From Boom to Bust to Whatever Comes Next: Polly LaBarre interviews superstar investor Roger McNamee, who defines the new era of business and finance and shows where the smart money is headed. [Fast Company] Forgive me if I seem suspicious. Fast Company used to tout the new economy, now it's touting the new normal--how much confidence are we supposed to have in their analysis? I used to think they had one of the best magazines out there, but now, despite ownership by the AOL/TW cartel, I think Business 2.0 has more relevant content. But hey, what do I know? I didn't get rich during the boom, and I'm not getting rich now. 12:08:47 PM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

Knowledge blogging? Lou Rosenfeld checks in on knowledge blogging, as does Michael Angeles via ia/: Blogging K-logging. I'm bumping into some great stuff on k-logs (knowledge weblogs used (mostly) inside organizations). K-logs promise to be inexpensive, lightweight, and valuable knowledge management tools, especially for teams. Any IAs (or others) have any experience with k-logs you'd like to share? Oh yeah, what I found: Giles Turnbull has a nice brief introductory interview with John Robb in writetheweb. The piece is about a year old, and John goes out on a limb and predicts that k-logs "will be huge,"... [Bloug] K-Logging: Supporting KM with Weblogs. I wrote an article in Library Journal that may interest some ia/ readers. Here's the abstract from Ebsco: Discusses a type of weblogging called knowledge logging or k-logging. Information that can easily be put onto web sites; Organizations that can communicate knowledge easily with K-logs; Software that can be used for k-logging; Librarians who should provide content, share knowledge, and provide access. [ia/ - information architecture news] The concept is attractive, but it seems to me that the key to a knowledge blog being useful in an organization lies in how good the search engine is that would have to be used to find the information. Such blogs could grow to tremendous size if used consistently, so finding info could be a real task. 11:37:13 AM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

Disciple of Experience Good Experience: Leonardo da Vinci, Disciple of Experience. 500 years ago, da Vinci understood the power of experience. Academic pedigree is fine, but a direct grasp of experience is essential. Analyzing and learning from direct experience is innately more powerful than hiding behind obscure academic methods. [Tomalak's Realm] Which may have some relationship to Ben Shneiderman's new book, Leonardo's Laptop, which I picked up at CHI and had Shneiderman himself autograph. But I have yet to read it, so it's in the pile of vacation reading, which is now ready to topple over at the least breath. 11:32:51 AM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

I'm complaining, Jef, I'm complaining! So it shouldn't be news that I'm complaining, but after this week's episode with the Wintel hardware, I must take issue with Jef Raskin's statement: "Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the usual way. This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody thinks of complaining." Jeff Raskin. [Quotes of the Day] I'm so fed up with the Windows world that I'm ready to buy a PowerBook. I need a backup machine, I need a laptop that's mine (not the employer's), and I need a reliable computer. If any of you out there have experience or thoughts on which flavor I should buy, ping me real soon, cuz I'm getting itchy to make the deal. 11:29:49 AM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

QOTD "I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves." Ludwig Wittgenstein. [Quotes of the Day] Teenage son vehemently disagrees with Ludwig: attempting adolescent philosphy, he's decided that the only reason we're here is to pursue happiness (without defining happiness). Ah, youth, wasted on the young. 11:24:30 AM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

R.I.P. Edgar Codd Edgar Codd, Key Theorist of Databases, Dies at 79. Dr. Edgar Codd laid the theoretical foundation for the standard method by which information is organized in and retrieved from computers. By Katie Hafner. [New York Times: Technology] When I first started to understand how relational databases worked it seemed so obvious I didn't comprehend that we hadn't always done it that way. Then I learned that relational databases are not only relatively new, but that one man working at IBM had developed the mathematical basis for their use: Edgar Codd. Now I know. 11:18:22 AM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

I'm baaack redux OK, I'm back again, I think. . . The Win2K box became unusable on Monday, when we swapped out both mainboard and processor and it wouldn't boot. It's now running on the third mainboard/processor combination, with a new 80 GB hard drive (required to get it to boot) and the original 40 GB drive as slave. Which means I shouldn't have lost any data, but do have to reinstall software to the new C: drive. So far, so good. Now we'll see if this will post!! 8:09:46 AM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

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