b.cognosco

Of course you should write your weblog in first person, everyone but Bob Dole should do it. After all, I'm reading your weblog. I expect you to speak. People with a problem with first person writing are either overly pompous or have their underwear too tight.

I seem to be breaking a cardinal rule of starting a lot of sentences and paragraph with the word I and using the I-word frequently throughout my posts. [...]
[...]The publisher of Coffeehouse made us rewrite the introduction and interstitial material because it was written all in first person (singular and plural). The backlash against memoirs and first-person nonfiction writing of all kinds (such as the {fray}) generally criticizes the I speaking as self-involved or solipsistic.
Comes with the territory, I say. [Radio Free Blogistan]

Share More, Get More

9:33:38 PM

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Knowledge isn't like money, when you give it away you don't have less. Ron Lusk points us to a wiki page on knowledge sharing started by Denham Grey. Denham is out there, often on the way, far, celestial event horizon of knowledge management, but he comes up with some excellent stuff. This page is a great resource with case studies, strategy papers, essays and fruitful links on every aspect of knowledge sharing.

KnowledgeSharing. Wanted to bring this page (last updated a few days ago) back to mind for all of us.
Asking WIIIFM before you share defeats the objective, you are starting off on the wrong foot. In the same vein, asking you to enter a password protected space with the aim of sharing should send up the warning signals. If your CEO comes back from a KM conference and sets up Lotus Notes with complex access privileges you should question if they have really got the message. Is giving in the knowledge economy just being naive? How about the groupware vendor that sells tools, but sponsors no work on understanding collaboration, group processes or conducts no ethnographic research? Do you believe they have collaboration at heart or are they just selling more software?
[Ron Lusk's Radio Weblog]

User-Friendly Web Services -- Making them Accessible

9:23:16 PM

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Riff on the Digital Dashboard. I don't usually quote a post in its entirety, but John Robb's riff on making Web Services easily accessible through Radio Shortcuts is good and needs to be read in full.

I've been looking at how RSS and weblogs can be used to make operational systems more accessible, and therefore more useful. The idea of preloading sets of shortcuts for simple web services could give tech averse users an easy way to get job-critical info and make their life easier. I like it.

Note to Radio users. If you haven't started using shortcuts yet, give it a try. It is really powerful feature. With Radio running go to this page. This page allows you to create shortcuts to pictures, bookmarks, files, stories, etc that you can name and include in your daily posts. To include a shortcut, just type the name into the editing area and put it in double quotes ("...."). For example, I did this with a bomb graphic that I use for mindbombs. When I type bomb in double quotes I get this: Shortcuts should be used for things you use a lot and couldn't be bothered to remember or type in the link. Here is one for Dave: Dave Winer
Note to developers. This is even more powerful if the shortcut is connected to a Web service like stock quotes, sports scores, supply data, etc. So if I was working in a company and wanted to point out that we were short on the supply of Ethernet cards, it would be a very powerful thing to be able to type in "Ethernet Cards" and get the most recent supply stats that I could annotate with a request to purchase more and add to my K-log.

It would also be a great way to build a digital dashboard in a way that was natural for users. A preloaded set of shortcuts that connect to Web services would allow me to populate and edit my digital dashboard in a very simple way. All I would need to do is type in the item I want to watch in double quotes (selecting them from a prefabed list). When I want to remove it, I just delete the word.
As long as I am riffing on this, I would think that this would also be a simple way to add business logic to a digital dashboard. A simple process that would send me an alert via IM or e-mail on a drop of supplies below a certain level could be built into a tool on Radio. To select the item to watch, I would type the name of the item in double quotes into the form. Radio would get the data from a Web service, process it against my business rule, and send me an alert when it dropped below a certain level. How easy is that? It would also be easy to post the alerts to a category specific weblog for general consumption automatically.
It all starts with a very simple step DIY web services. [John Robb's Radio Weblog]

F'edCompany Gets Screwed

6:10:22 PM

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Roundup of the week's hottest copyright and patent action. So many battles, so little time.

RIAA gets hacked
Ford screws with F**kedCompany
Apple Computer is not your friend
ZD opens your wallet, and theirs
Microsoft opens up, a little
and more...

The week in review: Copyright fights. CNET Aug 30 2002 2:58PM ET [Moreover - IP and patents news]

ImageX Files First Suit to Test Patent Strategy

9:45:34 AM

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The fine folks at ImageX have filed their first test suit to try and establish a legal precedent for their patents. Selecting the financially strapped iPrint as the first target seems an irrational choice if the goal is to prove lost revenues and recoup damages.

As noted before, this company appears to be developing the foundation for a series of law suits against industry players, and is carefully building a base of both commercial and legal precendent by targeting smaller players.

ImageX Files Lawsuit Against iPrint for Patent Infringement
KIRKLAND, Wash., Aug. 29 -- ImageX (R), Inc., the leading provider of online solutions for distributing, managing and producing sales and marketing materials, today announced that it has filed suit in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington against iPrint Technologies, Inc. for infringement of U.S. Patent number 6,429,947, which covers technology that automates the prepress process. ImageX also has filed a preliminary injunction motion requesting an expedited hearing, citing that iPrint should be prohibited from continuing its use of its online print technology.
"We are taking this action after informing iPrint on multiple occasions that its product is likely infringing of our patents and after receiving no response from iPrint," said Rich Begert, president and CEO. "ImageX has made a significant investment in developing cutting-edge technology that is revolutionizing the print industry. We intend to take all necessary steps to ensure that this investment is fully protected and its full market value is realized. We believe we will prevail on the merits if compelled to litigate this action in court." [WhatTheyThink?]

With luck, ImageX will not get a pass on this suit. Although it's unlikely, let's hope that iPrint forces the issue and places ImageX in court where a thorough analysis of their patented technology can take place.