b.cognosco

Great post from Rick on some issues with weblogs in the business environment. A lot of thought has been going into this lately, as numerous grassroots advocates try to find the value proposition that clicks. I can't wait to see Rick's report on the internal blogging effort. And I'll be adding Ross' weblog to my subscription channels.

Weblogs and Leaky Pipes.
Ross Mayfield writes:

1) The time cost of email is driving adoption of other modes of communication like blogs and online communities like Ryze.

2) Blogging is at the early adopter phase. Today the majority of users are programmers or writers. For blogging to cross the proverbial chasm, the whole product needs to support the needs of business users with leaky pipes in information management.

The great thing is that some customers realize they can both fix the pipe and scale plumbing expertise. [Ross Mayfield's Weblog]

Ross identifies a couple of big issues that persist in the weblogging-as-KM arena. One is that the market is ripe for a solution - e-mail is creating far too much noise. But the second point - that blogging is really geared to writers - is one that needs work. I'll be posting my own observations as we just wrapped up a month piloting an internal weblog project at my comany, but I think the hammer-in-search-of-a-nail problem is real with respect to weblogs.

It's also nice to see Ross adopt the "leaky pipes" mantra from Geoffrey Moore (at least that's where I got it from!). The leaks are real. Weblogs may be an answer, but they need to more specifically address those leaks rather than take a more generic "we'll make things better" approach.
[tins ::: Rick Klau's weblog]

Wireless Authentication for Win2K

4:48:41 PM

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Not sure how to use this or quite how important it will be to the average user but it seems like something to note.

Microsoft releases 802.1x support for Windows 2000; 98/Me/NT 4 to follow: Microsoft now offers a supplicant (or the client-side software) necessary to handle 802.1x authentication within Windows 2000. The page noted says that Windows 98 (all versions), NT 4.0, and Windows Me support is to follow. [via Jim Thompson] [80211b News]

Building an Information Supply Chain

4:40:19 PM

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I like this paper from Deloitte. It's a nice overview of important strategic and business considerations in content management, eschewing strict technical analysis for a focus on usefulness, value, and planning. As Martin recommends:

This report is only a fraction of the length of the Content Management Bible, but it should be a potent weapon for any manager faced with senior managers who can't (or won't) grasp the value of content management.

One of my favorite quotes from the paper:

Smart organizations have realized that success rests not on getting content into a database, but on getting the right content out [...]

I had trouble getting through the Deloitte site with either of my non-standard browsers -- Opera and Phoenix -- and finally had to resort to MSIE to actually get the paper. But it's well worth the free registration and highly recommended.

Deloitte perspective on content management. This is the 100th blog entry. Well over 100 of you are reading the blog on a regular basis, which is gratifying, and makes the effort of creating the entry well worth while. My subject for today is enterprise content management. [...]
[...] One of the final paragraphs reads "In today's highly competitive and continuously evolving global marketplace, how you manage information will make or break your business. Content management can no longer be regarded as an offshot of IT. Rather, your content management approach must be indivisible from your company's overall strategy. An intelligent approach to content management integrates content assets and workflows into an overarching enterprise-wide information supply chain that can be adopted by employees, utilized by suppliers and understood by customers".
And that is a very good way to end blog entry 100. [Intranet Focus Blog]

#prefs.txt Directives

3:14:40 PM

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Brief IM discussion with Phil Wolff on managing Radio's Categories and Channels. Phil suggested I take a look at the directives for the #prefs.txt files and see if some of those might meet my needs. Here's a pointer to Radio's Built-in Directives.

Guerrilla KM

2:11:35 PM

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GuerrillaKM looks to have some very useful content, but the blue links on red and orange backgrounds vibrate my eyeballs something awful. The Case Studies section has a useful relevancy ranking to guide the reader. And there are a number of interesting-looking papers in the Thought Leaders section, again with relevancy rankings.

Guerrilla knowledge management. I've just become aware of a website created by Greg Searle devoted to Guerrilla Knowledge Management. This consists of a weblog, articles and other resources around growing the use of Communities of Practice. There's a fair bit of good stuff... [Column Two]

Training for Bloggers

12:27:23 PM

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The first-ever how-to course for webloggers. I would love to have some stats on response and attendance. The €495 price for two days isn't bad. Here are a few highlights from the course outline:

Introduction to blogging - server Vs desktop
Best Practice
Uses of blogs
Syndication
Anatomy of a blog
Blogging Tools - Radio, Movable Type, Greymatter, LiveJournal

There's also a signifcant focus on Radio:

Installing Radio USerland
Introduction to the interface of Radio Userland
Using the outliner
Advanced Radio - Overview
Advanced Radio - Outliners
Advanced Radio - Shortcuts

Essential Web Journaling. Wow! A 2 day weblog course from XI:BLUE, an Irish training company. The first weblog course I've heard of! [Gurteen Knowledge-Log]

One moment please while we check your settings...

11:54:44 AM

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Actually, all I get from MovieLink is that simple, insulting message. I guess they don't like my proxy filter. As for Windoze support, could this be because MS is the only OS vendor openly supporting the Hollywood cartel?

Earth to Hollywood: go adjust yourselves.
Movielink is here. Eric Norlin: the arrogance of this site is palpable.
And he's using Windows (I assume). Here's whatcha get if you don't:
Thank you for your interest in Movielink. We want you to take part in the powerful Internet movie rental experience that Movielink delivers; however, you currently do not meet our minimum system requirements. You will need to adjust the following:
You Need Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP
[The Doc Searls Weblog]

Super Tool: Domain Dossier

9:49:24 AM

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A very cool domain lookup tool from Martin Schwimmer.

New and Improved!! Four Domain Name Tools In One!!.
The new and improved DOMAIN DOSSIER (permalink on the left side of the
Trademark Blog home page) is four domain name tools in one.

First, enter a string and it provides a Whois for all five major TLDs (comnetorgbizinfo).

Second, it provides a link to an active website for that name, if one exists.

Thirdly, it tells you whether there is configured email for that name. This is important, because many trademark owners when investigating a domain name, don't see a website and conclude that a name is being warehoused. The name may in fact be in use for email.

Fourth, as a bonus, it porovides the top 5 Google hits for that string.

Give it a test-run. Famous trademarks provide an interesting tet, as do commonly used sexual expressions. It's querying several sources at once, so the search takes about a minute.

I would call this tool the Swiss Army Whois but I would get demand letters from Wenger, Victorinox and the Swiss Army itself. For now we're calling it the Domain Dossier.
[The Trademark Blog]