Blogfish

	Tuesday, August 13, 2002

Isn't There a Word for This?

There must be a word out there that describes this:

When you have something new, this is especially common with gadgets, there is a lopsided histogram path of enthusiasm towards that thing. When one is riding the left taller part of the curve, one has no crediblity to give recommendations. It's almost like a conflict of interest, but not quite.

Example: I caught up with my friend Sylvia this summer. The last time we had met we were struggling with the Tomcat-Apache configuration files on her machine ("just work, damn you!"). This time she informed me that she hired some whiz kid down the street to iron it out for her. He also had set up Ant.

"Have you tried Ant?" Sylvia asked me. I had seen 'Ant' mentioned all over the java google groups. No, I told her I hadn't tried it but am curious as to what Ant is.

"What is Ant??? ANT, my friend, is absolutely anything you want it to be. AND, on top of THAT, if you don't make Ant into something - [now she is whispering] there is the Default Ant which already does everything for you."

Sylvia was too new to Ant to give a credible recommendation. Ant is very cool, by the way.

I bring this up because I am consciously keeping my lips buttoned when the subject of weblogs or personal websites or (god forbid) Radio Userland comes up in face time conversation. I am still riding the upper curve of the lopsided histogram. If someone were come up to me right now and ask if I find that this k-log or weblog or thing called Radio useful for knowledge management, this would be my reply:

"Is it useful? Oh absolutely. You see: klogs...or generally keeping a weblog, - it makes you smarter than you really are."

Credibility: blown. Better wait a couple months to start evangelizing.

[Update]: BJ, my coworker, says he is super close to an Ant configuration that brews him a cup of tea.

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