Day: February 22, 2008

Jeffrey’s Twitter Updates for 2008-02-22

  • Getting ready for the Northern Voice opening dinner. Anybody out there going to it? #
  • @nancywhite Cool! Staying at the Pacific Palisades Hotel on Robson. How about you? #
  • @nnoakes And me, too, Nick! #
  • @cogdog and @fncll and @jimgroom I could not get into Hampton, so went to a #Kimpton hotel, Pacific Palisades, on Robson instead. #
  • At the #NorthernVoice opening dinner. #
  • @pumpkiny Is nv08 the tag for this year? #
  • @leelefever You missed a great opening dinner! #
  • Great opening of #NorthernVoice #nv08 tonight! #
  • @pumpkiny Sounds good then. #NV08 it is! #
  • At Northern Voice 2008 #nv08 now. Attending Blogging 101 in the Internet Bootcamp thread. #
  • The sky suddenly got blue and beautiful here in Vancouver. Weather seems to help people’s moods at a conference. Perhaps I am projecting? #
  • I just added the Share This widget to my blog, as it was suggested during an earlier session at #nv08. #
  • Wow, lunch already? I am exhausted with liveblogging and processing all this information. #
  • It is wonderful the #NorthernVoice folks arranged to have lunch and coffee and water for lunch. Score one for thoughtful planning! #
  • Just uploaded more #nv08 photos to Flickr http://flickr.com/photos/jeffreykeefer/sets/72157603961926409/ #
  • Listening to Stewart Mader discuss wikis and how (and why) to use them within organizations. #
  • Listening to Gene Smith discuss tagging at nv08. #
  • I talked about his book when I read it http://tinyurl.com/2m7fve #

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Tagging 101 In Northern Voice Internet Bootcamp

Gene Smith is speaking about tagging at the Internet Bootcamp today, and he just mentioned that he recently wrote a book on tagging, entitled Tagging.

Tagging is a simple and quick way to add metadata to stuff you’re interested in, like photos, videos, blog posts and bookmarks

I read Gene’s book and commented on it on my blog, and am really glad to be able to hear him in person discuss tagging.

He presented a screencast movie about tagging with del.icio.us, which really started the craze toward tagging. Tagging is all over the place, and in the world of Web 2.0, tagging is becoming ubiquitous. Even Windows Vista has tagging!

Somebody just recommended the WordPress widget, Ultimate Tag Warrior. Another person mentioned Simple Tags.

I asked Gene the question about how to navigate the use of multiple words in tags, such as making phrases all one word, use spaces, underscores, hyphens, and the like. I find that I often make use of all the combinations and feel I do too much work to try to cover every base. His two-step response was exactly what I was looking for in an answer — do whatever you are doing and keep doing it consistently, as well as see what others are doing and continue to follow that (such as nv08). That is what I wanted to hear. With a lack of consistent standards out there, navigate it on my own.

To get started, tag your own blog posts, and then post / tag them to del.icio.us, and then follow the tags to see other people who have also tagged them similarly. Then, begin to see communities with your tags, such as nptech. Coordinating them with others, such as what we are doing here with nv08 for use at Google or even Flickr.

Gene will try to post these slides to SlideShare. Good idea!

Wiki 101 at Northern Voice Internet Bootcamp

Stewart Mader is presenting on Wiki 101 during the nv08 Internet Bootcamp. Somebody asked him about what a wiki is, and he quoted a Business Week article that discussed various purposes of wikis. He mentioned that organizations are often hesitant to using wikis since there is fear about open access with rights.

Organizations can use wikis for keeping and updating agenda items, posting meeting minutes, and team participation with ownership of maintaining and revising content.

Stewart then spoke about a number of wiki tools and programs. I wish he would have had the names of the programs written on a slide or on the blackboard since I could not keep up with all them. I did catch wikimatrix.org, which helps people and organizations select which wiki tools to use.

He suggested running a pilot within organizations when bringing a new tool. Get a few people to begin using a tool and then spread it with a small group. This reminded me of the work in some of the quality and practice improvement work I do in my full-time position.

Wikis, to work, should begin with a BarnRaising so everybody begins together with using the new tool. This seems to be very collaborative, but my experience is that many people within organizations want the work to get done and assume others are “assigned” to do it.

He is using a number of “patterns” of wiki adoption, or rather terms that are used to describe the successful implementation of the wiki within an organization.

“If your staff is doing all this, then what value are you bringing to the organization.” If this is the case, then it seems that level of middle management is not valuable or really needed. This was in reply to a question I had about motivating hierarchical organizations to share in the collaborative environment of wikis. This is similar to the challenges of implementing and using knowledge management applications within organizations.

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Using Virtual Collaborative Spaces

I like the idea of creating space for virtual collaboration, something available within the Intranet, so everybody can access it. This is related to paramedics and having a space for them to collaborate.

They are suing SharePoint, which has a document library as well as discussion space, etc. They have issues with access to their site.

Somebody just interrupted her and asked her to move on so there could be interaction. I just shared a comment about creating content there first, and then trying to sell the system to users. People will not go to the SharePoint system unless there is a reason to go there first.

They are having challenges with encouraging collaboration on their site. A person who used to be an academic shared how there is a body of literature with suggestions for addressing these issues.

Another person shared the concept of starting with the personal and then moving to the professional.

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Using Blogs for Progressive Political Change and Agitation

Kathleen Milberry who blogs at Geeks and Global Justice is speaking about her blog and how it is related and integrated into her dissertation research. She stated that blogs are really amenable to political activism.

Marc Lee then spoke about his work at his website, The Progressive Economics Forum. Marc uses Dreamhost and likes it, which certainly is counter to many of the other recent complaints I hear about the host. He finds this useful for real-time commentary, especially for reaching the blogosphere before things formally hit the media.

This session seems to be about sharing what Kathleen and Marc do with their blogs for political and research reasons. As a session in the Unconference, it did not have a specific and formal “point” outside of sharing their work and vision.

Interesting DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) in the US that allows people to contact a domain host to effectively stop people from using stolen content. Somebody stated that people who are doing political blogging should be familiar with this, since people can complain about things and then the host can shut down the domain very quickly.

Somebody just recommended Alex King’s Share This WordPress widget. Will have to check it out.

People are sharing a lot of great Canadian / American concepts and content. What an open group of people with a wide variety of expertise who are willing to share and help one another. This is one of the reasons why I am so fond of Northern Voice!

Kathleen just mentioned that political and activist blogging is a great act of empowerment. That fits so well with my blog name, Silence and Voice!

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