Evolving Web

Choosing The Wrong Technology

Sweet beautiful irony.  In this blog entry on ZDNet David Berlind interviews Ross Mayfield from SocialText about blogs and wikis and when to use which technology.  They have a long chat about it and, in the end, Berlind ends with the statement:

OK.  So, if you didn’t know what a wiki was before, but are ready to get one now, raise your hand.

This is because the interview itself is circular and confusing.  Mayfield is commenting on how it's sometimes hard to grasp which technology to use in a given circumstance.

But the irony here is that he conducts the interview with Ross entirely over IM.  And then reprints that chat. So, he used the wrong technology to interview someone about the appropriate uses of a given technology.  This was apparently clear enough to Mayfield that before the interview was published, he blogged what he was really thinking.

IM rewards terse verbiage.

So what came from Ross in the ZDNet interview was a smarmy, off-the-cuff set of answers that were obviously made to economize typing and not to communicate subtleties.  His follow-on blog entry is much more thoughtful.  It is likely that in a voice interview, some of his statements would have been different.

Certainly, check out Ross' blog entry above.  It's a very good read.

True Terrorism

A bit off topic for me.  Being a thinking person, I watch very little television.  That I do watch is pretty focused.  In the morning, while I'm doing the opening blogging, I usually have CNBC on to get an idea of how the markets are doing.

The VCR today came up on a channel with Peter Popoff talking on it.  He was hawking his "Miracle Water" and had testimonies where people said they had all sorts of awful afflictions and ordered his miracle water and were saved!  All because the water was truly blessed by Jesus Christ.

It is people like this, that prey on those who are desperate and weak of spirit, that are the basis of all terrorism.  This man is a true vulture.  I am still stunned at the bald-facedness of it all.  Read the testimonials on the web site.  Follow Peter Popoff and be rich and healthy!

What a horrible way to start the day.

Throwing out the Wiki with the Blogwater

In this Tech Republic article Ramon Padilla, Jr. misses the ball. Mr. Padilla, Tech Republic’s eGovernment writer, wrote this article to mini-extol the virtues of the wiki over the blog for Government. He believes that blogs are not good for government.  I disagree.

Probably a hint of his misconception is this statement:

…giving government employees a bully pulpit on the intranet would probably result in a negative cost-benefit analysis.

This is the crux of his argument for both internal and external use. Government cannot be effective if government employees are allowed to make statements that may contradict the “official line” of government policy.  ... That government cannot be trusted to blog.

But government already does blog. (Mayor Tom McMahon of Reading, PA, Cuyhoga County Planning , etc. ) And they don’t do it enough.

(To continue reading click the link below)

IBM Gets It

IBM has taken some time to come up with their guidelines for employee blogging.  These guidelines will likely become the basis for the standard for all employee blogging world-wide.  The guidelines are clear, fair and in the spirit of new business.

Above all, these guidelines encourage IBM employees to be thoughtful, respectful and good citizens of the Internet.  They encourage people to be honest, to not pick fights and to understand the power of their own voice. 

Know your fellow bloggers. The most successful bloggers are those who pay attention to what others are saying about the topic they want to write about, and generously reference and link to them. Who’s blogging on the topics that most interest you? On the Internet, a quick way to find out who’s saying what is to use the search tools on Technorati, DayPop or Blogdigger. Drop your fellow bloggers a note to introduce yourself and your blog. There is also an informal community of IBM bloggers, so you can quickly find out which of your peers are part of the conversation.

It is fantastic how these guidelines reflect what is good about blogging and other collaborative tools.  The guidelines themselves do not preach, do not overstate their case, and do not threaten IBM employees.  Employees need to know the general rules that govern what IBM employees do anyway, but they are trusted here to understand their roles and the use of these new tools.

As we move further along in this ethic of information sharing for mutual benefit, direct corporate communication and contact will become the norm.  How close do you feel to GM or to Ford?  Odds are, not very close.  Today, however, we're all a lot closer to Big Blue.

I urge anyone wondering how to use these collaborative tools to give the IBM blog policy web site a once over.  There are guidelines here of value to all.

IBM Blog Policy: Technorati   | Google News

I met Jimmy Carter!

Now 25 years ago, I was involved in a natural disaster of epic proportions.  Several tornadoes came and levelled my flat, featureless hometown, Grand Island, Nebraska ... making it even more flat and featureless.  It was pretty astonishing all the way around. They made a cheesy movie called "Night of the Twisters" about it.  Since the film was made in Canada, there was a lot of trees in the movie that we didn't have in real life.   Now there's a web site for we survivors of the tornadoes, all 34,993 of us (seven people perished).

Because the town was levelled, Jimmy Carter flew in on a plane ensuring that I met him twice.  Once at the white house in 1976 and once in Grand Island in 1980.  He looked a lot older the second time.

Can you spell Liability?

Okay, I try not to blog here too much about these types of things...

But each day I get a report telling me about government projects across the country.  I sift through hundreds of pages to find things that are relevant to my team and we submit proposals.

Some of them are pretty funny to read, oddly enough.

Today's, however, included an entry that took the cake for the "What are you thinking" category.

Here it is ...

Project Name Stainless Steel Travel Mugs
Owner New Hampshire Liquor Commission

Collaborative Religion

I have been waiting a while to interview a priest in Wisconsin who is the head of a parish that used to be three parishes.  They had a crisis where they were forced to consolidate the three parishes.  In the past there would have been six to nine priests serving that population.  Now there is only one.

To deal with this, the parishoners themselves had to step up and take on many responsibilities formerly dedicated to the clergy.  This had the effect of giving the parishoners ownership of their own faith.  This ownership strengthened the parish.  In short, less leadership created a stronger community with a stronger faith.

Recently Ulises Ali Mejias presented at the Los Angeles Latino Muslim Association's annual meeting this discussion about the intersection of collaborative technologies and Muslim believers.  Despite the fact that at this echo the two comments engendered were not favorable, I find it very consistent with the Catholic experience above.

Ali Mejias is noting that when religion becomes closer to the person, closer to the heart, practitioners of a faith are forced to come to terms with the intersection of that faith and how they live day to day.  In most cases, these examinations are most effective when done with a community.  While the danger of group think is always possible, the benefits of peer review and support often outweigh.

In this case, the parallel between open source coding and religion, I feel, is apt.  Persons of faith need to work at home on the own (introspection) and need to collaborate with others (community) in order to provide a good product for themselves and society as a whole.

Environments to Cooperation or the Role of Leadership

A few weeks ago I wrote this entry about the fragility of any community and how changes to its foundation, no matter how small, have impacts on the functioning the cooperative group.  I'm in Phoenix this week for a conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems.  I used to work a lot in Phoenix and would come to town once a month or so.

During that time I discovered the underground Phoenix art community, which was very vibrant.  During that time I befriended Peter Ragan who ran an establishment called Metropophobobia.  Peter's place was part of a larger scene, although during the scene's ebbs and flows it was around to re-seed future activity.

A contributing factor to the success of the Phoenix underground art community was cheap rent.  Rent was cheap in downtown Phoenix because it was totally ignored and undervalued by the wall-community residents of the greater Phoenix area. 

Phoenix is so fond of walls, in fact, that when they wanted to encourage people to live in downtown Phoenix (to "enlilven" it), they built ... yes ... a walled community in downtown.

However, due to some random development in downtown (easily less than 1% of the development region-wide), land owners in downtown Phoenix raised rents and evicted artists.  Their thought was that new and chiq restaurants would open in their place.  They did not, because the only reason people had to go downtown was to go to the art venues.

Now, a convention goer such as myself, has a very hard time even eating dinner in downtown Phoenix because everything (even Starbucks) closes at 5 pm. 

In the interim, the once-thriving Phoenix art community is in at best a hibernation mode.  The community has strong leadership which now has art shows in vacant lots (of which downtown Phoenix has many).  So you can see performance art, music, exhibits ... in vacant lots. 

In itself, this is a great protest, but a strain on the community.  Rumors are that the community will try to regroup in Glendale, a Phoenix suburb with a nicely walkable downtown that is now becoming affordable because of the shopping malls that have opened in the area.

This is important because of the element of leadership in cooperation.  Cooperation rarely occurs because a group of equals spontaneously erupts in a cooperative frenzy.  Cooperation occurs because someone or some group of people set out to build a cooperative environment, which allows others to participate.

In this case, the arts community was dealt a devistating blow, but the leadership of the group in Phoenix would not let it die.  They had the foresight and wisdom to understand that they couldn't go on with status quo, but there were all sorts of ways they could continue to exist with a little creative problem solving.

Chats with community members indicate that this was not a process without pain or a process without casualties.  Several people, several leaders, became disillusioned, angry, or defeatist and left.  But others stuck it out, keeping their cooperation active while they regrouped to acheive what they had before.

To punctuate the strife in transition, here is a pretty good post detailing the demise.