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News for March 2004
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 28 March 2004 |
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| How to Make a Faceted Classification |
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I have long been a student of classification and taxonomies, starting most clearly when I was a biologist. Even then, I saw weaknesses in strict unidirectional hierarchies of classification. Faceted classification is an alternative that allows multiple views of the same information. My company Social Ecology, implemented faceted classification for InWeb, its now-defunct document management tool. Well, it's finally catching on. William Denton has written an excellent primer called How to Make a Faceted Classification and Put It On the Web.
Posted: 3/28/04; 10:56:05 PM # |
| The Honesty Virus |
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Clive Thomson's The Honesty Virus is an exploration of the mechanisms that contribute to people being more truthful with each other online. I think there are countervailing factors, but it would be wonderful to harness some of these mechanisms for social movements.
Posted: 3/28/04; 10:54:28 PM # |
| The Social Enterprise |
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I read much of what John Udell writes. This piece on The Social Enterprise is an excellent take on the relational aspects of content and the field of knowledge management.
Posted: 3/28/04; 10:54:05 PM # |
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22 March 2004 |
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| 5 Days That Shook the World: Seattle and Beyond |
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I have to admit that it was with a certain pride that I read 5 Days That Shook the World: Seattle and Beyond. I am indeed proud of the role my city played in helping the nascent international democracy movement coalesce into a major force. If you are interested in that movement, in the many organizations that are playing a role in it, or in the very dramatic history of that time, I recommend this book. Plus, it is a fast and gripping read.
Posted: 3/22/04; 9:50:40 AM # |
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17 March 2004 |
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| Why Employees Don't Share What They Know |
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I just dropped in on the Knowledge Management conference of Grantmakers for Effective Organizations. I feel like most of us are still focused too much on taxonomies and data storage. I wanted to share this article with the conference attendees: A summary of a Harry Scarbrough article on Why Employees Don't Share What They Know. It contains a fabulous table of knowledge cultures and recommended interventions.
Posted: 3/17/04; 4:51:19 PM # |
| A Year After Iraq War |
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Tomorrow is the anniversary of my editorial on the tragic U.S. attack on Iraq. I take little satisfaction from having been vindicated in many of my arguments by subsequent revelations about the cost of the war and its false justifications. But I do want to share with you the Pew report on A Year After Iraq War. Being an advocate for some basic principles of civil society, it makes me very sad to be a citizen of a country that has lost the trust of so much of the world.
Posted: 3/17/04; 4:51:11 PM # |
| State of the News Media 2004: Eight Major Trends |
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A report on the State of the News Media has identified Eight Major Trends that are, in my opinion, important to anyone in the business of information. In short, those trends are: 1. A growing number of news outlets are chasing relatively static or even shrinking audiences for news. 2. Much of the new investment in journalism today - much of the information revolution generally - is in disseminating the news, not in collecting it. 3. In many parts of the news media, we are increasingly getting the raw elements of news as the end product. 4. Journalistic standards now vary even inside a single news organization. 5. Without investing in building new audiences, the long-term outlook for many traditional news outlets seems problematic. 6. Convergence seems more inevitable and potentially less threatening to journalists than it may have seemed a few years ago. 7. The biggest question may not be technological but economic. 8. Those who would manipulate the press and public appear to be gaining leverage over the journalists who cover them.
Posted: 3/17/04; 4:50:44 PM # |
| My Social Networks Are Broken |
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Stuart March rants effectively that his social networks are broken. All these new software sites are trying to own the mapping of your relationships when, in fact, open protocols based on communication tools we already use would enable us each to own them, and not have a dozen sites to search through.
Posted: 3/17/04; 4:50:31 PM # |
| Dust or Magic 2004 |
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I wish I were going to England later this month and speaking at the Dust or Magic 2004 Conference. Aside from having a wonderful name, it has a lovely purpose: "Dust or Magic is a conference about how people do 'good stuff' with computers: games, hypertexts, web sites, interfaces, software tools. It's for everyone who's seriously concerned about the fate of creative work and creative workers in the 'new-media' workplace. We talk about software and hardware, design, industry economics, workplace politics, psychology, each others' work, and the practicalities of making things that delight, as well as making a living."
Posted: 3/17/04; 4:50:21 PM # |
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14 March 2004 |
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| Pategonia and Word of Mouth Campaigns |
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Marketing Sherpa has some advice from Patagonia on seven steps towards building a word of mouth campaign. The advice is pretty smart: Learn where your word of mouth comes from. Develop cross-channel customer visibility. Encourage cross-channel interaction. Develop ROI models that reflect channel interactions. Refocus communications from the transaction to the relationship. Avoid basic site problems through usability studies. Avoid explicit solicitations and over saturation.
Posted: 3/14/04; 12:19:03 PM # |
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10 March 2004 |
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| Peter Singer's Ten Ways to Make a Difference |
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Peter Singer is a brilliant, controversial philosopher, best known for his work on animal rights. He has written some advice for activists called Ten Ways to Make a Difference. In short, the ten ways are: 1. Try to understand the public's current thinking and where it could he encouraged to go tomorrow. 2. Select a target on the basis of vulnerabilities to public opinion, the intensity of suffering, and the opportunities for change. 3. Set goals that are achievable. 4. Establish credible sources of information and documentation. 5. Don't divide the world into saints and sinners. 6. Seek dialogue and attempt to work together to solve problems. 7. Be ready for confrontation if your target remains unresponsive. 8. Avoid bureaucracy. 9. Don't assume that only legislation or legal action can solve the problem. 10. Ask yourself: "Will it work?"
Posted: 3/10/04; 11:59:34 AM # |
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9 March 2004 |
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| Conceptual Maps |
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Juan Dursteler has written a clear introduction to the use of Conceptual Maps. As big a fan as I am of mapping, when it comes to explaining concepts, I often forget what a powerful communication tool this can be.
Posted: 3/9/04; 10:47:27 AM # |
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8 March 2004 |
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| The Guide to Effective Participation |
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I believe that we live in a time of a crisis in democracy. So I was pleased when David Wilcox recently reminded me of his 1994 Guide to Effective Participation, a manual for activists and professionals seeking to get people involved in social, economic and environmental projects and programmes. I particularly enjoy how he challenges many of the easy answers toward which most of us seem to gravitate.
Posted: 3/8/04; 11:03:27 AM # |
| Learning in Communities |
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Stephen Downes has written a nice little article on Learning in Communities, with some excellent links to other resources. He makes a strong case for community as a key element in a successful learning project.
Posted: 3/8/04; 11:03:02 AM # |
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4 March 2004 |
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| Engaging Big Media: A Question of Methods? |
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I'm thrilled to see CNN's Aaron Brown take email campaigns to task for producing cookie cutter messages that are easy to ignore, except for their ability to annoy. They may still be effective in some sense, but in some cases I'm certain that they undermine the very relationships that activists are trying to build.
Posted: 3/4/04; 4:18:16 PM # |
| Communications Decision Tree |
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I have yet to meet Dave Pollard, but I sure want to. (Maybe I'll be able to do that when I go to Toronto for the Council on Foundations Conference this Spring.) Take a look at his Communications Decision Tree which is an excellent first stab at what sort of content and relationships are suitable for which communication tools.
Posted: 3/4/04; 4:18:00 PM # |
| NYCLU sues SAlvation Army over religious liberty |
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One of the largest charities in the world, the Salvation Army, is being sued by the New York Civil Liberties Union for discrimination based on religion and for imposing religious requirements on charitable programs funded by the government. It seems pretty clear to me that they are proselytizing with public money.
Posted: 3/4/04; 4:17:47 PM # |
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2 March 2004 |
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| Nonprofit Online Classifieds |
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Throughout the seven years in which we have published Nonprofit Online News, hardly a week has gone by without someone asking to place an ad with us. We've always refused these requests. Nonprofit Online News has always been an Internet inspired, noncommercial vision and remains so as we approach our eighth year. But we have found a way to meet the demand for ads without compromising our editorial standards. We are launching Nonprofit Online Classifieds. Rates are very steeply discounted for the first few months. We hope you'll make it part of your regular workflow.
Posted: 3/2/04; 6:01:58 PM # |
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1 March 2004 |
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| Register for workshop and we'll pay your NTEN membership |
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As many of you know, I was the Founding President of the Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Network and I remain a supporter of that organization. By way of support, we are offering to pay NTEN's individual membership fee for anyone who wants to join the organization for the first time and who registers for our upcoming Frictionless Fundraising workshop by March 12. In other words, sign up for the workshop and you can join NTEN for free!
Posted: 3/1/04; 6:15:07 PM # |
| Personal Content Management |
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For some great thinking about knowledge management from the point of view of the individual user, I recommend Dave Pollard's piece on Personal Content Management. He touches nicely on the intersections with the social networking sphere as well, which is entirely appropriate since it is content (especially conversation) that mediates relationships.
Posted: 3/1/04; 5:19:21 PM # |
| social software: representing relationships |
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Diego Docal has done a little thinking about representing relationships and how that might apply to social software. He also has pointers to some of the recent conversations about such software. Those of us who are looking to build online communities of practice should be following some of these threads.
Posted: 3/1/04; 5:18:14 PM # |
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