As you’ve probably noticed by the different look to Anyway, I’ve upgraded to version 1.5 of WordPress. It will take a little while before I have everything implemented the way I want it; in the meantime please let me know if anything is broken!
Category: Technology
Corporate Blogs and Wikis
I’m writing an article for the Gilbane Report on the uses of blogs and wikis in the corporate world; if anyone has experience with this (apart from for PR) I’d like to hear from you!
I’m writing an article for the March issue of the Gilbane Report on some of the uses of blogs and wikis in the corporate world. The Gilbane report appears monthly and concentrates on enterprise content management and related issues at a management level. It used to carry a fairly hefty subscription charge; since January 2005 the articles are now all available free of charge. I wrote an article for the Gilbane Report back in October 2002; the curious may wish to look at The Role of XML in Content Management.
As part of my research for this article, I’d like to hear from anyone who can tell me more about what blogs and wikis really are be used for in the corporate world. I have enough information about PR aspects or, more generally, outward-facing aspects of using blogs, but not enough real information about real companies using blogs or wikis internally. I asked about Using Blogs for Project Management and got lots of “nice idea but we couldn’t quite get it to work” emails. I can think of lots of uses for blogs but what I’d like to be able to highlight are things that people in companies are actually finding useful, rather than nice ideas that might work. Ditto for wikis — they seem to have lots of potential but is anyone realising that potential?
If you are using blogs and/or wikis in the corporate world (apart from for PR; I have lots of people to talk to about that), please let me know. You can send an email, or use the comment form on this site.
Note: when I write an article of this form, I combine things that people are saying into my own interpretation. If I quote someone directly, they will be named with the quote. All sources are listed in the acknowledgements. Once the article is published, I’ll email all sources with the link to the article, and I’ll blog it as well.
Browser Blues
These days I typically use Firefox as my browser; it’s quick, supports a goodly amount of CSS, and seems less virus-prone than some of the competition. Unfortunately, there are still web sites out there that only support Microsoft Internet Explorer and older versions of Netscape Navigator for some useful functionality (when the site requirements read IE 4.0 and Navigator 4.0, you know you’re in trouble). In my experience, sending the support people email suggesting they upgrade their site to support other modern browsers only elicits a response along the lines of “you’re using the wrong browser so it’s not our fault”. Then I found out about the IE View extension. Problem solved.
Virtual Cubicles
Being on instant messenger all day is like being in a virtual cubicle.
One of the worst things about being an independent consultant is that you don’t have a lot of colleagues in the formal sense of people who work at the same company. You have people you work with on projects, and you have friends, who are often people you work with on projects, or have worked with, or will work with again. It’s easy to get lost in your own world when you work on your own, only coming up for air when you notice the sky outside is getting darker and it’s not just that it’s raining. Getting a cup of coffee is not the way to take a break and talk to somebody; it’s just a way to get a cup of coffee.
Instant messenger (of multiple brands) fills that gap for me, and gives me a sense of working in a group. It’s like being in virtual cubicles. I can see if people are around, I can see if they don’t want to be disturbed. I can knock on their virtual door to see if they have time for a quick chat. And when the names start to dwindle on the buddy list, I can tell it’s time to knock off for the day.
Tungsten Toy
Moving from the old PDA to the new one — things have improved over the last couple of years. But web sites still are extremely optimistic about delivery times.
Just got my new toy in the mail — a Palm Tungsten T2. For some reason it doesn’t show up on the site any more. Maybe I got the last one they had ;-). Pretty slick packaging, colour screen, and bluetooth. I figured I didn’t really need the wireless connectivity that you get with the T3 (well, not for the extra money it would have cost). Ideally I would like a Treo but balked at the cost of that as well. Maybe in a year or two when the prices have dropped. Mind you, I do quite like phones that act like phones, where you don’t look like quite as much of a dork when you’re talking to it. So I’ll have to weigh that up against the convenience of all-in-one, and the inconvenience when your all-in-one dies suddenly.
Field Trip to Boeing
The W3C Advisory Board meeting was at Boeing this week. Ann Bassetti managed to get us in for a factory tour at Renton (near Seattle), which was a lot of fun as well as being informative.
I’m on the W3C’s Advisory Board (which, as its title suggests, gives advice to the W3C Team on various matters, as well as proposing edits to the Process Document for W3C). We hold a few meetings each year, mostly timed to coincide with larger W3C meetings such as the Technical Plenary week, or the Advisory Committee meetings. This week’s meeting was two days, just for us, and hosted by Boeing (thanks to Ann Bassetti, who put in an immense amount of work to find the right facility!). And Ann managed to get us on the last factory tour that was allowed to go on the factory floor. Future tours will only be allowed to watch from the mezzanine level.