Month: March 2006

You might have noticed that I’ve started adding Technorati Tags to each of my posts as my contribution to the social bookmarking movement. Before you ask why, let me explain that I’m not even sure that I understand what the heck they’re doing. But it’s a cool way to look for information on sites like Technorati, where you can search the blogosphere for just about anything.

I’ve also started posting items to del.icio.us, which you can check out and follow yourself. Those items are also tagged.

And I have a Flickr account, where some of my pictures are tagged, although I’ve just started adding tags and most of them aren’t there yet.

All of these sites are considered part of this Web 2.0 phenomenon, which I’ve written about before and plenty of others are writing about all the time. (See this Technorati Search on Web 2.0)

Despite all of the above, I don’t have a great handle on what’s going on, but it’s fun to be playing along. Today, I came across an interesting post (thanks to BlackRimGlasses.com) which pointed me to a blog called Eirepreneur, and a post called How Social Bookmarking can lead to the Semantic Web. Talk about a lot of cool connections, and I don’t even know any of those guys’ names!

OK, so now we’ve moved from social bookmarking, which I only kind of understand, on to the semantic web, which I really don’t know much about. But as I read the post, I became fascinated by the discussion. Just how do we identify, sort and act on information? What kind of markers can we use to pass along our knowledge, and can we find ways to do it that work even when we don’t realize what’s happening? That’s what seems to be happening with Social Bookmarking. It’s happening, although we aren’t quite sure what “it” is.

This is a dynamic post (to coin another popular phrase.) That just means I don’t have a conclusion — I’m just watching what’s going on to see where it goes. In the meantime, consider how Social Bookmarking, or Tagging, or Linking, or whatever you want to call it, might fit into your own world. And don’t be afraid to start using it. It’s pretty cool and you might even make some new friends along the way. Next, I’m sure we’ll all be creating our own MySpace pages.

I’m sure there will be more to come in this area. And, by the way, feel free to add your own thoughts to this conversation by commenting on what I’ve done here.

As a former resident, I can’t resist linking to this video of someone in Regina, Saskatchewan (apparently outside the SaskPower building, from what I can tell) throwing boiling water into the air at -40C. The result is pretty cool.

As crazy as it sounds, this is actually becoming a popular fad in Regina in the cold weather. A couple of years ago, I was in Mexico during the winter and one of my travel companions noticed that the CBC Morning show back in Regina was talking about people doing just that very thing (at -30C). So we came up with a great plan to throw a cup of water up in the air at +30C, capture the results on video and e-mail them back to Saskatchewan. Alas, the video camera didn’t work and then it was happy hour and after a couple of Margaritas, we forgot about it. Just as well, since we were planning to send the video to a radio program anyway!

And thanks to Cory Doctorow at Boing, Boing for pointing out the story.

There are two threads to this post.

First, it seems really easy to get a story in the media about how if you don’t keep a close watch on your employees, they’ll screw your company. The vehicle of choice usually seems to be giving them Internet access.

Over at Techdirt today, there’s a good post about how the latest survey purporting to support that idea is once again shown to be sponsored by a company with an obvious conflict of interest.

As the post points out, there are so many reasons why employees should use the Internet at work that it’s hard to know where to start:

But, did they bother to look at whether or not that personal surfing was actually damaging? Nah. Did they look at whether or not that personal surfing helped give employees a much needed break that helped them be more productive while working? Nah. Did they look at how people who were blocked from personal surfing found other ways to waste time? Nah. Did they look at how those who are allowed to personal surf at work often use it to take care of tasks that would otherwise take them away from work? Nah. Did they look at how so many companies today expect employees to be on call so that work invades their home as well? Nah. Did they look at how allowing personal surfing at work tends to make happier, more loyal employees? Nah. Or did they look at any of the other research that has shown that employees who do personal surfing at work tend to more than make it up by doing work at home? Nah, of course not.

The second thread is similar. We are too obsessed with “security,” these days. It’s become much easier to slap a “restricted” label on something and limit access than to assess it realistically and figure out who should see the information. In fact, that’s the wrong way to look at information. Instead of “who should see this?” it should be, “Who should not see this?” In most cases, there is really no good reason to restrict access, beyond the obvious “because.”

It’s ironic that as tools proliferate to allow us to access more information, there are so many people convinced we need to restrict access. It’s not that simple. As Adam Curry puts it on his weblog, “There are no secrets. Only information you do not yet have.”

We need to make sure that people have access to the information they need to do their jobs better. But we also need to make sure that they continue to have access to as much information as possible, without arbitrary restrictions that are based more on the old “information is power” paradigm so many people still subscribe to.

I know there is a lot more to this story. We could get into protecting personal information, financial information, etc. I don’t mean to negate the idea of security. But I do think that the knee-jerk “secure this” has become a crutch for many people. We need to rethink all of our access to information provisions, both public and private.

Seth Godin has a pointer to a hilarious video on YouTube – microsoft ipod packaging parody.

As he puts it, “If you’ve ever worked in a place with more than three marketers, this is so accurate, you might cry.”

So true…

UPDATE — If you didn’t catch this video when I posted this note, you’re out of luck now. It’s been removed from You Tube. Sorry…

Wow! I got two posts mentioned in the PR briefs note on the Mutually Exclusive PR weblog. Now I know I’ve really arrived.

Actually, Eric Eggertson, who runs the blog, is an old friend of mine from Regina and one of the best PR bloggers around. His insights and wry humour inject a note of Prairie reality into the sometimes rarified air of corporate communications. Since he entered the realm last year, he’s become one of my must-reads. And he’s also been kind enough to send quite a few readers my way.

Thanks Eric. And keep ’em coming!