Carlson's Chronicles

Strategy Guides vs Bosses - New gamer lingo bleeds into the workplace

Fri, 29 Apr 2005 20:35:46 GMT

Thanks Shifted for the Gaming Post - Wow Strategy Guides vs Bosses - I like the concepts

I’m late to the whole gaming and how it affects libraries thing, but I’m a total convert now and it’s something I’m going to actively track from now on. At first I thought it was just interesting, and while I did like the idea of bringing tweens and teens into the library using gaming as a social carrot, I’m gaining a totally different perspective for the way we can use the characteristics, expectations, and interplay of gaming and gamers in a “tipping point” kind of way.

The latest catalyst for this round of “gaming on my brain” is Moira Gunn’s interview with John Beck for IT Conversations. I’ve listened to the podcast of it twice in the last three days, and a couple of his points really resonate with me. In case you’re not familiar with him, Beck wrote Got Game: How the Gamer Generation Is Reshaping Business Forever, and this podcast is the first chance I’ve really had to hear him talk about all of this since Audible doesn’t carry the audiobook and I’ve never seen Beck speak in person. While listening to it, all I could think of was Brent and how much Beck totally nails him and his friends. I even made Sheree listen to the interview and she agrees with me, although we both disagree with Beck about gender differences because most of the girls we know don’t play video games much at all.

At one point in the interview, Gunn asks Beck how gamers will change the workplace, and Beck provides an example observation that in video games, there are “level bosses” that you have to beat in order to advance further in the game. So one of the things you don’t want to be in real life if you’re a gamer or the supervisor of a gamer is a “boss.” I hadn’t thought about that before, although I always hear Brent talking about bosses in a negative way. In fact, when he started playing video games years ago and he first told me he was having trouble beating the “boss,” I thought that was the name of the character he was fighting. It took me awhile to realize it was his generic term for “the big bad guy at the end of the level.” Then came the realization that it wasn’t just him using the term, it was all of his friends. Imagine his surprise when he first heard me talking about my boss in a positive way!

Beck goes on to say that in the workplace, you don’t want to be a “boss,” but rather a “strategy guide,” because that’s what gamers rely on, especially to beat the boss. And as I was listening to this, it struck me that this is an excellent description of librarians! I’ve always liked that comic drawing of a librarian sitting behind a reference desk with a sign on it that says “search engine,” but now I’ve decided that I’d rather be a “strategy guide” instead. In fact, if I could, I’d change my job title to “strategy guide.” That’s exactly how we need to market ourselves to gamers, boomers, bosses, everyone. The big question, of course, is how to do that and more and more, I think gaming offers clues for how to do that.

If you don’t really understand why this gaming stuff is important, why it will be important in the future (the not-so-distant-future), why it will affect everyone (including you) or why gamers truly are different than you or me, then this interview is a great place to start. I highly recommend you listen to it. And don’t let anybody tell you that these kids aren’t any different than we were at their age, because they’re not like us at all. I was struck by how Beck’s descriptions of gamers mirror so closely the way I talk about NetGens (aka Millennials) in my own presentations. I’m going to have to rework my stuff a bit to highlight the gamer aspect of this generation.

Oh, and if you listen to the Beck interview and get as excited and intrigued about all of this as I did, be sure to register for our upcoming Tech Summit on Gaming @ Your Library! Thanks to our Executive Director, Alice Calabrese, I get to attend the ADL Games, Learning, & Society Conference in June, after which I’m debating trying to put together a day-long symposium/discussion/whatever specifically about gaming and libraries.

[The Shifted Librarian]

Thanks Sooz for the LimoLiner review - always wondered... may be taking it in the near future.

Wed, 05 Jan 2005 01:44:06 GMT

Live review of the LimoLiner from Boston to New York City.

I'm on my way (as I type this) to New York City for this month's in-person conspiring with Josh Darden. He's a long-time friend and newish client. I usually take the cheap Fung Wah Bus to and from NYC but this time I decided to try out the LimoLiner for the trip to NYC and then take the Fung Wah bus ($15) back home. The biggest perk with LimoLiner is that they have internet access (ethernet and WiFi) included with the $69 (each way) ticket price. It's $10 less than Amtrak, too. I was going to take a photo of the setup at my seat and upload it but I put the USB cable for Michael's camera in the bag that's under the bus. Oops!

They just served lunch which was actually edible: ham and cheese sandwich (other choices were turkey and veggie), pasta salad and a chocolate chip coookie. The sticker on the outside of the bag said Boston Cafe and Catering. The beverage choices were the typical juice, sodas, iced tea and coffee served in a plastic medium-sized cup.

We stopped at the Hilton in Framingham where they picked up additional passengers. A small television in front of me is playing Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I can't remember what the second movie is going to be.

There's a small meeting room in the back where a handful of people are seated at a table and the comfy chairs we've got in the rest of the bus.

It's pretty damn amazing to be able to do work while online enroute to New York. I'm surprised that no one around me has a computer in front of them. The age range of most people on the bus seems to be 40-60. There might be one or two people closer to my age (31). I'll upload a few photos tonight.

[The Life & Times of Sooz]

One thing leads to another in reverse chrono order - Here's Elegant's reference to Victor Lobardi's quote from Niti Bhan's article on the changing playing field of design

Tue, 04 Jan 2005 23:14:28 GMT

While you were out: changes in the global design industry
by Niti Bhan

Brad Nemer saw the future of the design industry when he arrived at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago in January 2002. Next week during his commencement exercises, Brad will not only receive a Master of Design degree but also a Master of Business Administration degree. After completing this grueling and unique dual degree in only three years, he will work in portfolio planning at Motorola.

"I chose the dual-degree path for two reasons. After working in several high-tech startups, where the product essentially is the company, it became clear that no matter how grand the vision, design is managed in the context of business." He said as he explained his choice of degrees, "So it is critical to understand the basic forces of accounting, marketing, and organizational management, because otherwise even the best designs in the world will go nowhere. The much-celebrated divide between "designers" and "suits" is not only counter-productive to success all around, it's inaccurate. Once you demystify business fundamentals, they become just like any other design constraint, and are no more insurmountable."

And he isn't the only one recognizing the changes occurring rapidly in the design industry. Victor Lombardi, a consultant in New York, resigned his fulltime design management job to co-found The Management Innovation Group, a new breed of management consulting firm. "My partners and I view design as a way of thinking which is applicable far beyond the design of products" he explained. "Our clients want to explore innovative business strategies, ways of collaborating, and ultimately to develop their own innovation capabilities." So while Lombardi's firm thinks like designers, they work with executives to help them explore the options a more creative approach can offer. "It's not easy for people to stretch their thinking to encompass both business- and customer-centric points of view, but ultimately this is what we need to do to create innovative, human-centered organizations." His blog has an area earmarked for the intersection of business and design.

Increased competition in the industry, improvements in the global technology infrastructure, relentless pressure to lower costs in every industry are just a few of the forces leading a major shift in the field of design. Where earlier, design was the department brought in after marketing or sales or the advertising agency decided that a "new and improved" product or brand extension was required to penetrate a target market or increase profits for a brand. This usually resulted in incremental improvements in product and profits. Notes Sharon Reier in her article When looks count the most, companies are now increasingly seeking to integrate design as a strategic tool for creating shareholder value. These companies understand that the real value in design is using it to improve the entire user experience, where advertising specialists and marketing managers focus more on the buying decision alone.

In Redesigning American Business, BusinessWeek's Bruce Nussbaum underscores this shift, he says, "Design in America isn't about form but innovation, in the guise of new products and services." With the design industry's shift in core competencies from drawing to thinking, from styling to innovating, from shaping things to visualizing new paradigms, what are the opportunities for designers today?

Traditionally, the majority of the design profession considered itself above and apart from "big business", perceiving it as obsessed with numbers, dollars and the bottom line. To successfully pitch themselves as an innovation resource, as consultants for change, this thinking is the biggest hurdle to overcome. The language of design itself is evolving to incorporate terms usually bandied in the halls of business schools, such as ROI (return on investment), NPV (net present value), Porter's five forces and Kotler's 4 P's. Few design schools teach the basic elements of business, less so in undergraduate programs. In the meantime, business schools are quickly catching on to the importance of design thinking, and integrating parts of it into their curricula.

Where does it leave the traditional product designer or studio? Michael Winnick, Head of Business Development at GravityTank, a strategic product development adds "..with the increasing commoditization of the back end, low intellectual investment portion, a service that most OEMs in China can now offer as part of their service, industrial design firms need to restructure to focus more on the product definition end, the early research, the strategic design planning and platform innovation end of the development cycle in order to generate revenue and stay profitable." Nussbaum implies an evolve-or-go-under scenario for smaller design firms. Evolution implies a strong willingness to adapt to changing scenarios, "prototyping" so to speak. As designers, change, flexibility and adaptability should be easier than most to achieve. While there are no quick fixes, there are short term and longer-term solutions worth considering.

In the short term, design firms can partner with business strategy consultants to offer new and expanded service offerings above and beyond the norm. Expanding their services, hiring marketing and product management professionals with business degrees and incorporating them into their design teams will allow them to present complete solutions to their existing clients as business cases for new products.

Along with retooling their service offerings, smaller firms can look at developing new markets for their areas of expertise. Most major research universities have technology transfer offices that specialize in the commercial applications of nascent technology emerging from their laboratories. Partnering with such local offices to offer product development services to shorten the path to market and commercial viability of inventions benefits both partners. Good design increases the likelihood of the patents being licensed by large corporations and leads to new avenues for revenue generation.

In the longer term, American and European firms can seek new clients and partners abroad. Increasingly, Asian OEM suppliers are moving towards building their own brands and leveraging their cost advantage to enter developed markets. A major opportunity exists in designing products for Asian manufacturers for the North American and European markets. Attending consumer electronic and consumer product trade shows in the Far East is one way to reach new clients. While local design talent may be cost effective, Asian manufacturers are limited by their lack of exposure to the American consumer and the American market. This experience is a significant advantage for American design firms.

Many options for continuing education exist for mid career design professionals seeking to enhance their professional skills for the changing market situation. There are short courses on business fundamentals available in local community colleges, focused workshops and classes at business schools, part time programs in business or for those really looking enhance their marketability, fulltime graduate programs such as an MBA or the Master of Design Methods.

Fresh graduates, already concerned with the increasing competition for product design jobs and shrinking design market for traditional services, can begin to apply the same skills they honed as designers to reposition themselves as innovators, creative thinkers with the ability to think out of the box, a trait in short supply in business at the best of times. Areas such as marketing, advertising, promotions, event management, while not traditional design jobs, are all avenues to gain valuable work experience if the right design job is not available. Meanwhile, these industries offer opportunities for creative work without the job title of "Designer", to build your portfolio, and to explore other areas of business, all of which can add value to the designer's resume. For example, Motorola's Consumer Experience Division has advertised a position titled "Marketing Manager" but the job description and requirements point towards a communication design professional with the ability to visually communicate brand and marketing concepts with clarity. Continuing on to graduate school is, of course, an option, and here is a quick look at what you need to consider if you take this path.

The playing field in the design industry is very different today than it was even ten years ago. If you are a current student you should take care to ensure that your education is not preparing you for a game of baseball, because upon graduation you'll be playing futbol. For young designers five to ten years into their careers, you should familiarize yourself with your employer's plan to remain competitive over the next five years, and make sure that the plan includes a position for you. And owners of design firms should understand the forces at play and take care to develop plan to remain viable, before your employees start asking about it.

Niti Bhan is a global nomad, neither fully immersed in the West nor entirely at home in the East. With background spanning engineering, business and design, Niti is most adept doing what no one does best. Her present incarnation is as Director of Admissions at the Institute of Design, IIT.

Concise of design - from 80's branding to its weak resurgence today

Tue, 04 Jan 2005 23:06:39 GMT

One Response to the Elegant Hack post (below)

================================

It seems like the 80s all over again. The focus on design in the to late 80s, mostly with unified branding and creative practices formally brought in-house. There was a lot of push around design, mostly labelled branding (nearly the exact same discussions, but slightly different terms). Much of this was around the brandhouses like Landor. The business community embraced the results and tried to incorporate the creative culture as part of their own.

What happened? The innovators were bought by large advertising or public relation firms and the firms changed their industry term to communication companies. Companies created corporate communication divisions (comprised of adversising, PR, branding, and other creative endevors) and had high level management visability.

By the early 90s the corporate environment had largely subsumed the communication into marketing and business schools that has embraced the creative mindset followed suit. Today marketing is often what trumps design and there is no creative in marketing. The creative departments by the late 90s had been gutted by the web craze. This left business types with little creative craft understanding as those driving what was once good.

It is not suprising that currently named "design" is taking off, as what was good about the creative was gutted and most companies lack central design plans. There is tremendous waste in cross medium design, as few sites are built with an understanding of the digital medium, let alone cross platform design or true cross media design. Part of the problem is far too few designers actually understan cross-platform and/or cross-media design. There is millions wasted in bandwidth on poor web design that is using best practices from the late 90s not those from today. There is no integration of mobile, with a few exceptions in the travel industry. There is still heavy focus on print, but very little smart integration of design in the digital medium. This even applies to AIGA, which is a great offender of applying print design techniques on the web. How can we expect business design to get better if one of the pillars of the design profession has not seemed to catch on?

Posted by vanderwal at December 27, 2004 12:01 PM

Elegant Hack "The MFA is the new MBA" - maybe a bit of a reach, but onto something here.

Tue, 04 Jan 2005 22:47:52 GMT

The User Experience Community is Thinking too Small
Posted in :: User Centered Design ::

Reading OK/Cancel: The User Experience Community is Thinking Too Big all I could think was dudes, can we collectively move on now? How small and petty is the community if we even ask questions like "who owns user experience?" (though admittedly it packs the seats) At the multi-organization panel on the previous question, I joked that fairly often IA has owned it, mostly because they tend to do what nobody else is doing (like neatly organzing pages), and often no one has bothered to think about the overarching experience. Odd, that.

But does the discipline of IA own UX? Nah, it's not possible. In fact, UX doesn't own UX. The best work ever for the "user's experience" is done by multidisciplinary teams and by multidisciplinary team I don't mean a designer and IA and a researcher, I mean the real kind in which programmers and product managers and marketing gets their hands dirty in the brainstorming and visioning and making and playing.

Still worried about the ROI of design? It's done, people-- read businessweek as well as alistapart for a change, and you'll see everyone is already on board! Hass and Standford are adding design to their curriculum, the MFA is the new MBA, and so on and so on.... They are sold on what you do: now you have to actually live up to their expectations. Scared yet?

It's time for all the usual suspects to stop sniping at their neighbor in the next cube, and start making-- making new products, making new relationships, making new learnings, making new markets, making new ways of business.

Don't worry about the professional organizations that are blooming like mushrooms in the rain-- enjoy them, and grab some of the juicy templates and articles that show up on AIGA and AIFIA and so on. Don't bag on the usability people, ask them to find out some new stuff for you to work with, and hey, ask them what they think of blue, anyhow. Design's not so precious a power that you can't ask for someone's two cents.

YOU AREN'T YOUR TITLE, and if IA becomes the standard title, or ID, or IxD or whatever, who cares... let's go design some cool new stuff.

The presentation I gave in Scandinavia reminded me of how exciting things are right now.... not since '99 have we seen so many new interesting applications of data, technology and knowledge. Do you really want to be wasting your time fighting over who gets to choose if it's a drop-down or a radio button when you could be jamming on the next flickr or newsmap?

Please.

[IA? EH.]

I Like the NewsMap - derivative of the investment maps

Tue, 04 Jan 2005 22:43:58 GMT

visualize this
Posted in :: Information Design ::

10x10 / 100 Words and Pictures that Define the Time / by Jonathan J. Harris is an interesting visualization of the news, but not nessarily a visualizationtool-- the imagergy iscompelling, but not meaningful. Compare to newsmap
where size + attention, and you can slice and dice based on country. Which is a understanding interface, and which is merely colorful?

[IA? EH.]

Another one tries Last.fm - thanks for the introduction.

Tue, 04 Jan 2005 21:57:22 GMT

music networks (last.FM and Audioscrobbler).

One of my favorite parts of the academic interim period is that i can catch up on all of the things that i have put on the queue as unacceptable procrastination devices. I sent my computer in to be fixed (damn optical drive), bought a new iPod and have been organizing my music.

Amidst this, i finally dove into Last.FM and Audioscrobbler (even later than Liz). Aside from the fact that it's fascinating to see what all i listen to, it's absolutely intriguing to see what others are listening to and to be able to listen to their music as "radio." I've already found two new DJs that i *love*.

Music is a social tool. Most people get their music through their friends and social networks say more about music than anything else. Of course, many of my older friends are still listening to what they loved when they were in college because they no longer have access the diverse networks that introduce them to new music. And we're not even going to begin discussing the weaknesses of radio. When Napster collapsed, my music explorations collapsed. The only thing that fixed that was a server my friends have that allows you to stream music. Folks in our crew upload music and we can all stream it. That is a fantastic way of connecting to interesting music that my friends have found. This is effectively what Last.FM is doing on a larger scale

Of course, i found songs that i liked, tried to buy them at the iTunes store, realized that they didn't exist (because they aren't so mainstream) and then re-downloaded LimeWire to find them. It's frustrating because many of the CDs i listen to go out of stock relatively quickly or only have a few runs. It's sooo important for me to find other people that have them and i'm still cranky with the RIAA for making it hard for me to find rare songs that they don't even cover anyhow.

I'm very curious what will happen once more folks get on it (particularly youth and alternative cultures). I'm already pleased to find out that there are more than 100 psychonauts out there. This certainly looks like the type of sharing-driven social networking tools that i love.

[apophenia]

Playlist - not enough details with one Genre field - Thanks Apophenia

Tue, 04 Jan 2005 18:09:50 GMT

In this post by Apophenia - there is the sense that Genrefication is the solution - but I think the "would you make me a dub-mix" line is the key - it is the play list you want to listen too - not just the Genre's - genre's cannot be specific enough if there's only one field of information - even within one artist - there's too much variety to pack into a single genre, let alone mood, and setting.

Someone in a position of authority (read Steve Jobs? or an appropriate iPod minion) needs to think about this for a while and come up with a list of fields - 2.0. I know there are a few solutions out there, but none seem to do it quite right. So maybe there's an opportunity for Apple or Creative, or Red Chair, to come up with the solution that will take this whole thang to a new level.

====================================

music genres and moods.

One of the reasons that i loved Napster was that you could see how people labeled their music, particularly the genre. In music, i use genre like i use tagging in Gmail, del.icio.us and Flickr, only i'm a bit more obsessive about keeping them organized. My playlists are all automatically created based on my idiosyncratic genre labels. The labels are not for you, but for me and i don't care if PsyChill doesn't really exist - it's the label that ties together things like bluetech and Shpongle.

Due to 1) my new iPod, 2) the barfing of my Mac, 3) the scanning of CDs and 4) my obsession with last.FM, i am diving deeply into my music collection to re-genrify things. It is this attribute of last.FM that is given me the greatest curiosity. Last.FM is full of people with - shall we say - "interesting" tastes. I'm sorry but there is no playlist in the world that should have Gwar and Nina Simone together. Wrong wrong wrong. And why is Elliott Smith on the top artists page of the genre Breaks? No no no.

Of course, i'm part of fucking this up. I love Elliott Smith and i love breaks. Since i am in the breaks group, my listening to Elliott Smith is affecting that genre page. This is a problem. I know better when i manually genrify my music. Elliott Smith is is the MaleNeuvoFolk genre (which is effectively equivalent to Sadcore except can also be listened to when not depressed). I would never recommend Elliott Smith to a breaks aficionado.

I'm worried that this diverse listening pattern is messing up all the data. After three days of listening to non-stop chillout, goa and breaks, i should not be getting recommendations for Rancid and Ludacris. The problem is that there's a big gap between Beth Orton and Son Kite and i fear that trying to resolve those two listening patterns will result in abysmal results. The system should know that i'm listening with two different faceted patterns - the chill danah and the dancey danah.

When i ask a friend for music advice, i don't simply say "give me anything you listen to." I know better. But i would ask "could you make me a dub mix?" or "what would complement Dr Toast?" Or think about the Back to Mine series (collections based on what musicians chill out to). I want my last.FM to understand that there are moods. All of my playlists get this. All of my genrification gets this. Now it's time for last.FM. I should be able to play everything that userx thinks makes for "coding music" or for "chill out" or for "getting ready to go out." I want to be able to cluster my music. I want to be able to inform Audioscrobbler to only tell the genre group "PsyTrance" about things that i've marked Full-On, Melodic, Scando or PsyChill. Or tell them about a playlist or two. Tag the genres so that i don't blush when i see my love of Johnny Cash appear as appropriate for other Trip-Hop fiends.

[apophenia]

Happy New Year

Tue, 04 Jan 2005 17:46:31 GMT

Just a quick happy new years message.

I had the delightful and surreal experience this year of running into my high-school girlfriend and her family while on Chirstmas vacation with my wife and family. Everyone was on their best behavior and it was not too awkward - my guess is that once the ice was broken, and everyone hugged everyone else then the tension was released. But in fact it was a wonderful gift to see her again after all these years. She looked great, and her family (parents and daugters) looked great - it was like no time had passed at all.

Back up NOW!

Thu, 11 Nov 2004 13:57:24 GMT

Just a quick entry to check the system. Been a long time... Computer Crashed - now it's pretty much restored, but what a pain.

Advice to the masses - Back Up.

I do like the maxtor backup solution - OneTouch. But the onetouch script doesn't back up everything just data files. So do a Complete backup on some removable media in addition the OneTouch - then you could do a two stage restore if you have a catastrophic crash.

Mon, 09 Aug 2004 23:50:15 GMT

Now I've got OneNote on my new and awesom Toshiba m200 convertable, but I have barely done more than launch it and install the keycodes. So maybe I need a book to inspire me to explore its functionality - particularly for taking notes (with sound) during meetings.

============

Take Note.

Todd Carter's Microsoft OneNote 2003 for Windows - 50 Book Challenge.

Microsoft OneNote 2003 for Windows (Visual QuickStart Guide)
Carter, Todd W.
A useful quickstart to using OneNote, particularly given that you're likely to get OneNote without a manual. Like most of these "manual replacement" books, the emphasis is on walking you through all the menus and options. What it doesn't provide is much in the way of guidance about how you might want to use OneNote as a component of your day-to-day work. While there appear to be books coming out now that address that issue, I would suggest you start with Chris Pratley's WebLog as a source of real insight into OneNote
[McGee's Musings]

I've been using OneNote a reasonable amount lately, particularly for taking notes at conferences (I don't have the luxury of SubEthaEditing). If I have a complaint about OneNote it's that it doesn't provide the flexible output options that I would like -- I guess I'm still waiting for TinderBox for Windows really.
[Curiouser and curiouser!]

Ditto - Congrats on the New Position Werner!

Mon, 09 Aug 2004 23:31:52 GMT

Werner and I met at BloggerCon 2003 - where we stood outside and had a cigarette with Adam Curry. Since then, I've been following him via my aggregator and those of people around him who know him better than I do.

Hope to reconnect at some point - but this position sounds like it could be really cool and fun!

====================

Go Werner!.

Go Werner!

Werner Vogel's heading to Seattle to work for Amazon as Director of Research -- I'm thrilled for him. [Halley's Comment]

Thanks again David Gurteen - for a series of interesting Social Network Links

Mon, 09 Aug 2004 22:45:19 GMT

Unlocking Human Potential Through Social Networking. By David Gurteen

I was just looking to learn a little more on Social Networking for my upcoming Exploiting Social Networking in Organizations conference in September and stumbled across a post by Robin Good on his weblog where he raves about a paper from Lee Bryant on the topic. Now it just so happens I have seen Lee speak, the last time at the Social Tools Symposium conference in London last week and was so impressed with his deep understanding of the subject and the people issues that I 'signed him up' to speak at my conference.

In Robin Good's words: "the paper entitled Smarter, Simpler, Social - An introduction to online social software methodology is an absolutely brilliant and well referenced resource to understand and appreciate the forces at work in our communication efforts."

Robin is spot on. The paper is brilliant. [Gurteen Knowledge Log]

The Zuboff Clamshell - reigns again. Shoshana was one of my Profs at HBS - Let me plug her book sight unseen til now.

Mon, 09 Aug 2004 22:43:18 GMT

The Support Economy. By David Gurteen

A week or so ago John Maloney e-mailed me a weblog entry of Bill Ives on the book The Support Economy by Shoshana Zuboff and James Maxmin. I loved the opening premise:

"The Support Economy starts with a compelling premise: People have changed more than the corporations upon which their well-being depends. In the chasm that now separates the new individuals from the old organizations is the opportunity to forge a capitalism suited to our times and so unleash a vast new potential for wealth creation."

And then at the week-end, although the book was published in 2002, it was the fist book I come across in my local bookshop. So of course I just had to buy it. Its not light reading and I have only got through the first 30 pages or so but the concepts are awesome. Here is another quote:

"The last fifty years have seen the rise of a new society of individuals, but corporations continue to operate according to the logic of managerial capitalism, invented a century ago for different people, different markets, and different needs. Today's individuals seek psychological self-determination. They are the origins of their own meanings, not a passive mass audience."

I like that phrase "psychological self-determination". To me its another way of saying that people are becoming more responsible for their own lives and learning to be themselves. [Gurteen Knowledge Log]

Link to excerpts of a leaders guide to storytelling by Steve Denning

Mon, 09 Aug 2004 22:41:09 GMT

And know thanks to david gurteen - here it is...

New Weblog from Steve Denning. By David Gurteen

I have learnt that Steve Denning has got a weblog - thanks to Lilia Efimova and Carla Verwijs.

This weblog contains advance excerpts of his next book "A Leaders Guide to Storytelling" to be published in 2005. [Gurteen Knowledge Log]

Reminds me of the HBR article on storytelling a month or two ago...

Mon, 09 Aug 2004 22:37:39 GMT

Storytelling and KM.

Bill Ives takes a look at storytelling and knowledge management in six parts.

[elearningpost]

Corporate Social Networking is Datamining in disclosed, High-Trust Networks - It is not moving beyond the Horizon.

Mon, 09 Aug 2004 22:27:45 GMT

Good example of business networking through social knowledge management. This is a case from Interface Software's files from a Boston-based accounting firm.

Concept: Query Partners for personal relationships with CEOs -> Prepare direct mail piece -> Insert personal note from Partner with the relationship.

"The marketing team queried the system and determined that partners had existing relationships with fifty percent of the 200 CEOs on the new prospect list. A high-end mailing piece was sent to each of those 200 CEOs, along with a personal note by the internal relationship holder. “The results were phenomenal,“ said Jill Hulsen, Vitale Caturano’s director of marketing. “Twenty-three of those two hundred companies we mailed to have since become clients, with resulting revenues in excess of 5 million,“ she added. “We could never have expected results like this from a mailer without the advantage of knowing about those personal relationships in advance.” [thanks to Scotsman.com]"

Now, is it necessary to have internal corporate social networking software to do this? I suppose the abilty to do the query is greatly enhanced by scanning the social networks (rolodexes) of the Partners without the effort of having to ask each of them to do it... In fact this is probably the key advantage of the system.

So why not ryze or LinkedIn? I suppose it comes down the the issue of people not putting their whole rolodex into the system - or, maybe more accurately their TRUSTED social network. I'm guessing that this example worked because the 200 or so CEO's known the the partners of the accounting firm were truly known, not just acquantances (at least a good portion of them). And as a result, you could offer a reasonable, quality service from people who were known quantities.

So, where am I going with this... There are at least two types of searches in social networks - the first is a specific search for specific information where there is usually a small number or even a single target that is unknown to the search initiator. The first type of search usually follows a path longer than 2 links - that is beyond the network horizon. The second type of search is to "mine" the data within the network horizon for contacts that have some need, want, desire or capabilty in common. Then you use the resulting subset of contacts for a targeted communications campaign.

Bottom Line - Mining Data within the Horizon, or Searching Beyond the Horizon. I suspect both are facilitated by an environment (corporate or otherwise) in which trust is high enough that people will disclose their high-trust social network information.

Hard Currency is still important in the knowledge Economy

Mon, 09 Aug 2004 12:41:28 GMT

Yes, I agree Time is a currency and is important. But the push for faster access to knowledge and people and communication and resources - in general greater efficiency is primarily in service of greater profits. Of course greater profits serves the mission of the organization - often to serve or provide some benefit to customers or constituents. Now the bottom line is Hard Currency remains an important, if not critical element in the knowledge economy!

Time is the currency in the knowledge economy, not money. I love Larry Prusak ever since In saw him speak at a KM conference a few years back. He tears into our conventional and stupid ways of thinking about things and the crazy things we do in our business life. Take a look at this article on Time and Space. [Gurteen Knowledge-Log]

Halley-Brilliants - 9 AM Monday Dance Break!

Sun, 08 Aug 2004 23:38:07 GMT

Must Do in Schedule, Pattern interrupt! You are a font of Museful Ideas!

Monday Thing.

Monday Thing

I have this theory that people try to get 85% of what they need to do for the entire week done on Monday. This makes them half nuts and very unpleasant to be around. (Once I started working on my own, I realized this was a good reason to crank up rock and roll very loud around about 9:00am on Monday and spend the first hour of the week dancing. This, correlated with the fact that the highest rate of heart attacks take place allegedly at 9:00am on Monday, seemed a much more healthy response.)

When I worked in real offices, Monday mornings were often spent in sales or marketing meetings where the boss was yelling at the staff like an angry dad and the staff was stuffing themselves with pastry and coffee to feel better like unhappy children eating sticky treats.

Then on Tuesday, people do the last 15% of their week's work and fix mistakes they made from rushing around like crazy people on Monday. Then Wednesday, they see what really matters that week and what they would have been better off focusing on right from the beginning to be really effective. Thursday they rest because they start thinking about the weekend. Friday they don't do anything because it is Friday after all, Thank God! [Halley's Comment]

Quick Weber eDesogn votes on Usability and Layout.

Sun, 08 Aug 2004 23:28:30 GMT

Usability News.

The current edition of Usability News newsletter has some interesting articles. There was a study on the affect of different layouts on online reading. It was found that "the use of margins affected both reading speed and comprehension in that participants read the Margin text slower, but comprehended more than the No Margin text. Participants were also generally more satisfied with the text with margins. Leading was not shown to impact reading performance but did influence overall user preference. "

There is also a study done on the role of interactivity in online learning materials. The study found, as would be expected, that "students in the most interactive group (proactive) made significantly larger learning gains than those in the least interactive group (reactive)."

[elearningpost]

Wrote, Don't think! Let tem know they matter. thanks again Halley!

Sun, 08 Aug 2004 23:22:10 GMT

Halley, you are always expressing thoughts that so many of as have-but fail to Say!

i woke up in a hotel room this morning, and flipped on the TV after getting out of the shower. there was this movie w/Sean Connery, where he plays an author. He is helping maybe Denzil Washington to learn to write, and spends the whole fame saying: Write Don't think! Something I need to do! In this way You Capture raw ideas and at least say staff that ends up being meaningful to your self, your family and as you do anther post-tell people they mean something to you. Even of you don't do what you say yon should or ought to do.

Wouldn't It Be Nice?.

Wouldn't It Be Nice?

My Monday mornings, as much as they get jam-packed full of things to do and places to go and people to see and ALL THAT, are still emotional and lush and human.

But even on those hustle bustle Monday mornings, I would like to remember to let the people I love know one thing -- that I love them and appreciate all the nice things they do for me. Wouldn't it be nice if we could all take time to do that? [Halley's Comment]

The Singularity is approaching - Brain with 20 Bill Neurons...

Sun, 18 Jul 2004 13:35:23 GMT

An Artificial Brain with 20 Billion Neurons.

A California-based company founded in 2003, Artificial Development, is developing neural network cognitive systems and wants to introduce "the first 5th Generation computer to the world." According to e4engineering.com, the company recently completed a representation of a functioning human brain. This project, named CCortex, has vast ambitions. The company hopes that their "software may have immediate applications for data mining, network security, search engine technologies and natural language processing."

This software runs on a Linux cluster with 1,000 processors and the CCortex system has 20 billion neurons and 20 trillion connections. The company says this is "the first neural system to achieve a level of complexity rivaling that of the mammalian brain." For more details about this project, please read this overview.

[Smart Mobs]

I am a books and language snob...;-)

Sun, 18 Jul 2004 13:31:27 GMT

Took the quiz - got the same result...

I too am a books and language snob - although drinking, music, art and travel are up there too...

L33tspeak.

Saw this quiz on somebody else's LJ and thought it looked cute.

You speak eloquently and have seemingly read every book ever published. You
are a fountain of endless (sometimes useless) knowledge, and never fail to
impress at a party. What people love: You can answer almost any question
people ask, and have thus been nicknamed Jeeves. What people hate: You
constantly correct their grammar and insult their paperbacks.

What Kind of Elitist Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Not entirely true, but close enough. [By the way, do people like these quizzes? I've seen several others I've been taking, but I'm not sure whether to post the results, or if it will just bore the heck out of you all.]

My writing plan for this morning didn't work. I polished up the conclusion, but that one scene still escapes me. I can visualize it, but I just can't seem to write it. I wish I could do like Terry Moore and just have the story switch from prose to comic-style illustration for a scene and then back again. Meanwhile, the rest of the story has reached the point where it's starting to feel like overworked bread dough. I shouldn't tinker with it any more. But nyarrgh! <gnashes teeth? And I can't focus on that any more for the day, since I need to continue jobhunting.

Finally, through that Jay Leno quote I posted yesterday, I discovered that Associated Press runs a daily column, Comedians on the political campaign with excerpts from Leno, Letterman and Craig Kilborn (no Jon Stewart, alas, but he usually puts at least one video segment from the Daily Show on the website). At any rate, this link will take you to Google News where you can conistently get the latest day's column. Enjoy!

[Riba Rambles:]

Praying's a lot like sex...

Sun, 18 Jul 2004 01:24:22 GMT

Halley.you've done it again! Praying is alot thee sex. As You Said , it was meant to do everywhere and always improves the day!

places I've done it :

Piano-on top/underneath

Camero

Cadillac-Lots of Cars

Kitchen -Bent over an oven

Ina bathroom -Shower/toilet/Floor...

Couches Chairs File Cabinets Desks

Boats -Sail/Power /Paddle

And the list goes on and on...

My Friend Rob.

My Friend Rob

I have a friend who reads my stuff and sends me thoughtful email and I got a great note from him this morning about my son being ill and how sometimes praying can take the edge off -- I totally agree.

I completely misread something he wrote, however.

He wrote this -- about how his kid's illnesses could "send me into the closest church to pray."

And I read it quickly as, "send me into the closet church to pray."

And I thought, wow -- THE CLOSET CHURCH -- he prays in the closet sometimes too? Okay, so now I have to explain that I pray EVERYWHERE any old time and I have a big closet and sometimes, it's a great place to pray. Praying's a lot like sex that way for me -- I figure it was meant to do everywhere and anywhere and always improves the day.

And I wanted to answer that other question Rob asked -- why do I always wear black in all my pictures -- and the answer is -- I don't know, just because that's what I always wear when I get dressed up I guess.
[Halley's Comment]

Toshiba m200 Tablet PC

Sat, 17 Jul 2004 20:32:06 GMT

This is my first post since getting my Toshiba M200 tablet PC. Will see if it actually works after moving everything using PC Relocator. In fact I've been pretty impressed with everything about this whole relocation process.

BTW this whole post is being translated on the fly by the Tablet PC input panel of the Toshiba! Great handwriting recognition, or is it great handwriting? Also -Great Wireless WIFI!

Well Got to Run