On snack drama

Expect to hear more about snack drama in the future. Snack drama represents a niche product that will entertain a growing subscriber base using mobile communication platforms. Consumers’ increasing use of mobile communication for news and entertainment will provide the market momentum for this new communication product. And time poor consumers will support the snack drama format if the content is [...]

On harvesting text

In most organisations there is a plethora of text that is composed, written and sent out. Sometimes the text circulates and sometimes text comes back. We take text for granted because it is so ubiquitous. But in the digital world we can do more with text.
A recent blog post from Nancy White highlighted some techniques for making [...]

On measuring library value

I have been reflecting on some of the methods I have used in library and information services in the past to measure and report on success.
At a former workplace, we used software to measure online useage statistics and hit rates.  From memory, it wasn’t sophisticated software but gave basic information. The library was consistently in the [...]

On information research

The latest issue of Information Research is online. A couple of the articles of particular interest to me were on household information practices and Flickr: a first look at user behaviour in the context of photography as serious leisure. The sample sizes used in both research articles were quite small but the articles did prompt my [...]

On real work

A couple of weeks ago Euan Semple wrote a blog comment about real work. I made a hastily scribbled note to come back to the sentiment at a later date.
The prompt for me was the notion held by some people that social computing activities (blogs, wikis, virtual communities, social networks) are not of value for real work. And this negative [...]

On tagging and the enterprise (and RSS)

I want to conclude my blog summary from the presentation I gave last week on tagging and the enterprise. The previous three entries should be read in conjunction with this instalment, if you haven’t followed the story so far…
I used IBM’s dogear as an example of an enterprise using tagging within the firm. However, instead of me explaining all about [...]

On tagging, the grey side

My last two posts have been about tagging based on my presentation last week at the conference in Sydney, ”Enhancing search and retrieval capabilities and performance”.
I want to look at some of the perceived disadvantages of tagging that I briefly mentioned in my presentation:

Lack of specificity - refers to the fact that an item can have [...]

On the positive side of tagging

In the light of what I discussed yesterday with respect to my conference presentation on Tuesday, I want to move on to tagging. Tagging is essentially unstructured metadata that is assigned by the content creator and the readers/users of the content, the latter called collaborative tagging. The user-generated classification that emerges is called a folksonomy.
Examples of digital content using [...]

On search and tagging

Yesterday I gave a presentation at the Ark Group conference, “Enhancing search and retrieval capabilities and performance”, in Sydney. The presentation, called “Tagging and the enterprise”,  is available to conference attendees and I am rejigging some of the slides to load up onto Slideshare.
There were two key points I tried to emphasise yesterday in a conference [...]

On HR and knowledge management

One of my favourite podcast sites is HBR IdeaCast. And one of my favourite podcasts that I have listened to recently is called The new science of human capital, IdeaCast No. 76. The podcast is an interview with one of the authors of the book Beyond HR. The gist of the podcast concerns talent management within organisations. [...]

On writing abstracts

One of the illuminating insights I came across during the summer break was in relation to abstracts. Now abstracts are common in the professional journal literature as a summary of the full text article, a skill in itself with definite requirements. Abstracts are also written to collate information about articles in particular subjects for subscription-based (often online) bibliographic services. [...]

On new and simple ways to display information

I was reading the Green Guide in today’s Melbourne Age. In the Websights section I noticed a short paragraph about a service, still in beta, that combines photos, video, and music into a professional looking multimedia product.
The service is from Animoto and this is what they are about: “Each video is a fully customized orchestration of [...]

On storytelling and memory

When I was officially studying economics at Sydney University in the early 1980s, I was also unofficially sitting in on psychology lectures and reading texts and articles on perception, brain science and social psychology. I have periodically kept up that interest ever since.
I want to share my discovery some years ago about a technique used [...]

On narrative, sensemaking, and volunteering

I did promise on Saturday that my next blog post would be on narrative, sensemaking, and the volunteering project. However, Doris Lessing did come between posts with an earlier blog post this afternoon.
Looking at my notes from the debrief from the volunteering project on Friday, I took this point from Dave Snowden’s introductory remarks on complexity and sensemaking, and [...]

On vendor presentations

It has been a feature of some of the knowledge management conferences and seminars that I have attended over the years to include speaking slots for vendors. The vendor usually uses the speaking opportunity as a spruiking platform. I am not interested in conference presentations being product advertisements.
So it was refreshing to hear this morning that a vendor-run seminar proved to be less [...]