On sailing ships and dodos

Dave Snowden told a good story at a knowledge management conference a couple of years ago about the sailing ship.  In the early 19th century, mighty sailing ships with giant masts and sails were the dominant form of sea transport in the modern world at that time.  Along came ships constructed of iron and powered by motorised engines which were [...]

On advertising and web 2.0 for knowledge management

Just received my latest UTS Alumni email newsletter.  I completed two postgraduate degrees from UTS.   I was pleasantly surprised to hear that the The Fred Hollows Foundation won the world’s best not-for-profit television advertisement at the International Fundraising Congress in the Netherlands.  Readers may recall that I did a nine month contract with The [...]

On Information Online, London

Firstly, apologies for the late posting since mid-November. I am actually overseas (on holidays) at the moment for a few weeks and didn’t get around to updating the blog!
Nevertheless, I refocused some attention on information and knowledge management at the Information Online Conference in London today. The keynote speaker was Clay Shirky and he had some [...]

On why marketing and communication matters

Via my latest Working Knowldge newsletter from the Harvard Business School, I found my way to this blog post from John Quelch about how marketing won Barack Obama the recent Presidential election in the US. The key message for me was that marketing matters – big time.  And the news isn’t lost on me in terms [...]

On new ways to connect – the three minute soap

I was reading today’s Sydney Morning Herald online when this article caught my attention. The article is about a new web-based soap that will launch on Bebo next month. Mind you, this is not the first time I’ve commented on this type of thing – see a previous post on snack drama.
The really interesting thing [...]

On ABC’s iview full screen television streaming

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) has recently launched full screen internet television via their iview web site.
I tried out iview last night on my computer with the episode of The Gruen Transfer from last week, before watching last night’s final episode on TV. The Gruen Transfer is a great programme about television advertising; informative and funny at the same [...]

On digital games

In late 2006 I met up with Euan Semple over a few hot beverages at the hotel I was staying in for my London visit to Information Online. As part of our discussion, Euan recommended the book, The kids are alright, by John Beck and Mitchell Wade (actually somewhat dated now). I bought the book [...]

On upcoming conferences – 2008

As anyone who has followed my blog should have noted, I think that particular conferences are exceptionally fruitful as networking and learning experiences. It should therefore be no surprise that I am eyeing some upcoming conferences.
There are five that I have my eye on at the moment, although I won’t be able to go to RMAA in [...]

On Ning and things for educational resource development

In my current role at The Fred Hollows Foundation I am working with my community education co-ordinator to put together a teacher reference group to provide input and comment on development education materials aimed at school students.
I am exploring Ning at the moment to get a better understanding of its capabilities as a potential tool [...]

On the value of online communities and social networking

I was alerted today to this blog post from ReadWriteWeb on social networking. The blog post cites some media commentary on a study that says that social networking is a waste of money. The report is based on a survey of over 100 US businesses. Despite spending millions of dollars, the companies could see little tangible benefit from [...]

On cognitive edge

I have been very busy of late so my blogging has suffered. I start the new financial year here a tad late, but afresh with some key insights from recent educational learnings.
Most recently, I have just completed the Cognitive Edge accreditation course with Dave Snowden in Sydney. The three days were intellectually intense and fascinating. Whilst [...]

On information architecture (2)

A couple of people asked me today what I thought about the information architecture (IA) of Google and Amazon. I think they wanted me to say that the IA was weak and rather boring in both cases.
I happen to think, from the user’s perspective (forgive me Gerry for using that term), that Google has a great [...]

On information architecture

I have been doing some studies in my Masters degree covering information architecture. I really love the subject but wish I had more spare time to give it some really solid attention.
I found a couple of items on information architecture that I really enjoyed:
Keith Instone’s IA Summit 2008 notes
Oz Information Architecture 2007 (some great podcasts)
Matt’s [...]

On cleaning out the fridge

Here at work we just had a big clean-out of the refrigerator in the staff kitchen. The cleaner would have been kept very busy. 
Since I am relatively new to the organisation, I am unsure when the last fridge clean-out took place, but it was clear to me that the time had well and truly come [...]

On participation

I was listening to the radio this week when I heard an interview with a film producer on triple j. Of special note was the comment by the female dj that perhaps casting for movies should be done the same way as decisions are made in those reality tv shows. Just sms your vote! The film producer was [...]