Blogging for engagement in the classroom. Gregor in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 parts. From gRadio on http. This is the start of a handbook, a tutorial, a movement. Assuming prior "Blogging 101" KSAs, this is a great "Blogging Applications for Classroom Instruction" upper division course. Or maybe an instructional technology course chapter. Nicely done. [a klog apart]

Very well thought out series of posts on blogging in education that also apply in other settings. I'll be referring to these frequently.

9:09:16 PM •  • comment  

Enterprise Information Architecture is Fun. When Terry Swack asked me to present on information architecture for the enterprise at the AIGA... [Bloug]

Something to follow up on. The first edition of Information Architecture for the World Wide Web was great and I already have an order in for the second edition.

8:55:58 PM •  • comment  

I've now gotten ActiveRenderer working here. I shot myself in the foot once or twice with the install and it took a bit of tinkering before I grasped how it all fit together.

Definitely a keeper. I'll continue to make more use of it as time goes on. Right now it's managing the outline format of the home page here, as well as the blogroll on the left and the current interests section on the right.

Thanks Marc for a great addition to my toolkit!

5:43:23 PM •  • comment  

Terry Winograd - Future (Wall Displays). Quote: "Ten years from now there will be a lot more ambient computing. One of the things we're working on is a room that has wall-sized displays. If you walk into a workplace that's reasonably well funded or maybe in your home, you will see a large wall-like surface with interactive computing available on it."

[Serious Instructional Technology]

Interesting interview with Winograd about how technology interacts with use and with business opportunities. Worth thinking about.

5:33:51 PM •  • comment  

Ideas Aplenty From Idealab Head. After launching a string of famous Internet failures -- and a few successes -- Idealab founder Bill Gross hasn't given up on starting new companies. He lays out his modus operandi in a Wired News Q & A with Joanna Glasner. [Wired News]

One of the curious features of the Internet bubble was how visible everything was. Gross seems a perfect example of Linus Pauling's observation that "the best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas."

5:16:50 PM •  • comment  

Isenberg on the Telco Meltdown and Revolution.

David Isenberg's new SMARTLetter has his must-read analysis of the "utter crisis" in telecommunications, as FCC Chair Michael "Son of" Powell calls it. Isenberg puts it in perspective. For example:

Let's not call the current overcapacity situation a "bandwidth glut." Gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins. The scarcity folks — the telephone companies (and others) whose business is based on the fact that communications capacity is scarce, therefore expensive — are controlling this "glut" dialog. Nobody talks about a glut of clean air or a glut of traffic-jam-free roads. No — to an end user it is great to have a lot of cheap >network capacity.

and

Everybody believes that fiber to the home is the end game of the Communications Revolution. It is not expensive, about US$600 to $3000 per home with today's technology (and less in the future, and less with economies of massive scale). But just as Qwest's 1997 transcontinental fiber build-out fatally maimed domestic long-distance (including Qwest itself), fiber to the home would kill the Incumbent Local Exchange Companies.

Therefore, fiber to the home is not coming until the Incumbent Local Exchange Companies become considerably weaker.

and

ATM and SONET are not the only technologies that are becoming obsolete even as they're being deployed. There's DSL and MMDS and 3G and WAP and a whole lot more. Technology marches on. And it is not as if Telecom executives made the wrong decisions — mostly they made the best decisions they could at the time.

The debt movie is playing at the Global Crossing theatre and the WorldCom playhouse — but soon it will be playing at a telephone company near you. Verizon and SBC and BellSouth will not be immune ...

and

So if you hear that somebody is going to "enhance" the Internet — to make it more efficient, to Pay the Musicians, to Protect the Children, to thwart hackers, to enhance Homeland Security, to find Osama, or whatever — this is almost certainly propaganda from the powerful businesses that are threatened by the Internet. Remember that the Internet became the success it is today — and the threat that it is to existing telcos — because it is a Stupid Network, an end-to-end network.

This is the most coherent, understandable explanation I've read of what's goin' on technologically and economically. [JOHO the Blog]

Another of the Dave's in the must read, must pay attention to category. Actually here we have Dave Weinberger pointing to David Isenberg.  

Then we've got David Reed, Dave Winer, Doc Searls. Are there others? Maybe I should change my name?

5:03:11 PM •  • comment  

Wal-Mart CIO Interview.

Wal-Mart is the world's largest company and one which has consistently used technology as a competitive advantage.  In this article, their CIO talks about how they manage IT systems.  He has three key philosophies behind his IT strategy:

1. The first philosophy is to run a centralized information system for our operations all over the world, and we run that from Arkansas.
2. The second is to have common systems and common platforms.
3. The third is to be merchants first and technologists second.

In this day of XML standards, one might question why someone cares about (1) and (2) until you start asking about cost.  I like to say that an engineer is someone who can do for a dollar what any fool can do for two.  I've also learned, the hard way, that XML is great for interoperability when you can't control both ends of the system (or don't expect to in the future).  When you do control all the pieces, however, XML is a whole lot of parsing for nothing. 

Its hard to get people to see the wisdom in the first two philosophies.  There's a natural tendency to autonomy, decentralization, and disparate systems.  Many confuse these statements with geographic or system centralization, which is not the case.  I'm sure, for example, that Wal-Mart has both people and systems spread out around the globe.  What they don't have is fiefdoms.  I've written a white paper on IT organization that speaks to how I'd like to see IT functions organized in Utah. 

[Windley's Enterprise Computing Weblog]

According to a study by McKinsey, Wal-Mart's effective use of information technology has been one of the core drivers of productivity growth in the U.S. economy. As Phil Windley points out, it isn't fashionable to talk about centralization of information and information systems. The reason it isn't is that it's devilishly hard to do at all, much less do well.  However, if you look at the organizations that have succeeded with making IT an integral part of the business strategy, you'll find successful centralization more often than not.

1:39:39 PM •  • comment  

PopTech

 

The last two years I have been going to what I think is the best conference in the country, i.e. PopTech.

 

Robert Scoble and I are going to create a PopTech weblog that will begin shortly, using Rick Klau's weblog template, and which should be jammed with great stuff about PopTech, the speakers and Camden, Maine. But to give you a sneak preview....

This year's PopTech website is at ...
 
http://www.poptech.org/home.jsp

 

The Weblog that we did last year is at ...
 
http://poptech.manilasites.com/

 

Last year ' s site is at ...
 
 http://www.poptech.org/CTC_2001/Public/home.cfm

 

 And if you really want a sense of the excellence of the content streaming video of last year is at ...
 
 http://learnonline.umaine.edu/live/

 

You can also take a virtual tour of Camden at

 

http://camden.villagesoup.com/Tour/

 

I have been telling all of my friends about it, and the good news is that there are 500 seats, the bad new is that they go fast.

 

PopTech this year is Oct. 18-20, the weather is usually wonderful, with leaves in full color, Camden is a picture perfect town, and the whole experience is over the top.

 

After you have been once, you will probably think it's the best thing you have ever done.

 

I hope you can make it, as I would love to everyone there. Also, we are going to try to figure out how to hold a blogging event in conjuction with PopTech, so stay tuned for bulletins, and if you want more specific information, let me know.

[Buzz Bruggeman's Radio Weblog:]

Buzz keeps encouraging me to put this on my calendar. It's tempting.

1:21:52 PM •  • comment  

Knowledge workers, information workers. Microsoft's rechristening of the "knowledge worker" as an "information worker" -- which has been the Jeff Raikes message for a few months now -- keeps surfacing from a corner of my mind at odd moments. At the Fusion event in LA, Raikes suggested that "knowledge worker" is an elitist term, and positioned "information worker" as, basically, the rest of us. ... [Jon's Radio]

More insights from Jon Udell. The distinction is important and Jon shows why.

12:17:27 PM •  • comment  

Paolo wonders. Paolo wonders if there is or was a rule that Web writing can't change. I responded in the comments section of his post. [Scripting News]

More tempest in a teapot debates about what the "rules" of weblogginr are or aren't. But Paolo has a wonderful email "disclaimer" in his post that I want to be able to get back to later.

12:09:06 PM •  • comment