ASIST SIG Blogs, Wikis, Podcasting

"Feds look to ants, wikis and blogs"

Interesting comments at the E-Gov KM conference last week in Washington, DC.

The intelligence community anticipates a quicker response and improved information sharing through the use of these collaborative tools.  "It's about letting employees be free to share and act," says Calvin Andrus, chief technology officer at the CIA's Center for Mission Innovation.  "Wikis and blogs allow us to stand on the shoulders of others and have brilliant ideas we would not have had otherwise in the service of protecting our country."

Let's see of the DNI can put break down barriers, eliminate policies that inhibit information sharing, and encourage information sharing in the National Intelligence community.

Federal Computer Week by Michael Arnone (April 21, 2006)

"Leave a Reply: An Analysis of Weblog Comments:

There will be a presentation at the WWW2006 conference that sounds fascinating.

Large scale analysis of blogs conclude among other things that

• comments constitute approximately 30% of blog posts
• comments are indicators of popularity of the page
• comments can be analyzed to determine the level of controversy of a topic

This is an interesting computational study classifying text for disputes

• frequency counts ("i don't think that", "you are wrong", and so on)
• extreme punctuation (!!!!!!!!!!!)
• polarity (disputes more likely to have a negative tone)
• referral (disagreements usually include references to previous content or authors)
• length of post (disagreement usually were in longer threads)

Link to Gary Price's ResourceShelf for the draft paper from Dr. gilad Mishne, University of Amsterdam and Natalie Glance from Buzzmetrics http://www.resourceshelf.com/2006/04/new-research-paper-analyzes-weblog.html

15 minutes on terrific applications

I'm linking to it now so you can put this on your calendars.  As soon as Megan Fox gets back to Simmons College to post her presentation from Computers in Libraries 2006, be one of the first to open and view it, particularly speaker notes if she includes them.  If she doesn't, spend the $89 on conference proceedings to get a copy of the session.

My head is still reeling with the possibilities.

Why aren't all colleges passing out ipods with all course reserves pre-loaded on it?

If you can "push" content to students via cell phones, why can't you turn off the ringers when the students are supposed to be in class.  <tee hee>

If Widener's library is circulating ipods with tunes instead of cds, what's the long term cost/benefit analysis for this media?

More to come from this excellent conference over the next few days.

The best ideas ... and the worst

Thought you would like to see some of the great applications for podcasts and blogs ... and some failures.... as food for thought.

Pillsbury will podcast from the Bakeoff and show you the cook preparing the award winning recipe.  Not only sounds yummy, but I get a free cooking lesson. http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060321/ART06/603210305/-1/RSS05

AbFab account at the UN of what you really see behind the scenes if you're paying attention.  How the UN will outsource some operations to Kinko.  What you just can't read via prime time media outlets. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060320/ap_on_re_us/nat_un_weblog_1

What every institution needs ... an I-Dream Team.  Can we excite students into doing more homework and spend classtime discussing ideas?  Can we avoid tedious spoon feeding during precious one-on-many class hours (please view the movies you've downloaded before you show up to class)?  Does your campus have a "PodFather" who pioneers new twists to ipod integration into the college classroom?

http://www.kansas.com/mld/centredaily/business/14118784.htm?source=rss&channel=centredaily_business

And just to balance the story (since the Washington Post has recently been bashed for adding a conservative blog to be more fair and balanced) let's spot the loony in GM's approach to FastLane blogging.  Who in corporate America really wants customer complaints posted in a totally open, unfettered environment for all to see? http://www.line56.com/articles/default.asp?articleID=7446&TopicID=6

Students with Ipods driving the curriculum

All incoming freshmen at Duke University receive IPods in this national experiment to transform delivery of curriculum and content.

http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/49376.html

Seen as a subversive way to get them to do more, IPod and MP3 players INCREASE class attendance because they get excited about the class.  And students are encouraged to create their own podcasts.

Check out how the six school pilot project is going.  And ask yourself if students are driving the curriculum.  How can they in future?    Is this a bit like home schooling where you're exposing students to ideas, some textbook instruction, practical experience, and watching how the curriculum expands?

Measuring the Blogging impact on elections

Yes, everyone believes the power of the blog and the internet can influence politics.  Ask anyone who believes Howard Dean's success was attributable to just such activity. 

The question is how do bloggers assess their own power, in order to best direct it?  Are there conscience raising consequences of influencing elections simply for payment.  Do five pieces of silver buy a person these days?  http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-314bloggers,0,575327.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines

I wonder if this is swarming will produce a negative effect, just as an irresponsible plague of locusts trying to flex their wings.  Yeah, cool, see what we can do?  Or aw, dang it, look what happened?

Newspapers expand their approach

The UK Guardian and Observer newspapers are expanding into a Slate - like environment, blogging the news in a major venture called CommentisFree.  http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/georgina_henry/2006/03/welcome_to_comment_is_free.html

In trying to retain their venue for promoting opinion, public discourse, debate CommentIsFree pulls major contributors in a "most ambitious" group blog.

I notice any comments posted include a link at the bottom to allow readers to mark it as spam, offensive, abusive.  Perhaps the wave of the future for all public blogs, no?

Seems the print media wants to harness the resources, immediacy, and free contributions of the blogosphere to retain their relevancy in the fourth estate.

But frankly, I just don't see it

Yes, but....http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060314/nyfnsp01.html?.v=7

Podcasts can be marketing tools, ways to package advertising or marketing material.  Just as tv commercials are inserted into content people will watch, podcast marketing must have a way to insert themselves into valuable content in order to catch the attention of the public.

How people marketing themselves via podcasts is an interesting approach to traditional dating. http://www.courant.com/features/lifestyle/hce-tuesdaypoddate.artmar14,0,7118628.story?track=rss  Why wait for someone to stumble into your life?  Release "The best of Me 1.0" on video, and push yourself to the masses.  Or offer "Relationship Savvy" advice via a relationship-cast to establish a venue to the next generation "Dear Abbey".

College sports downloadable video

I love the fact that I can avoid satellite tv costs, subscription services, and download a particular game of my favorite team through ITunes as a podcast! Frankly, there isn't much my pod can't do for me now..... except putting out the trash.

http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/stories/2006/03/13/daily6.html?from_rss=1

The podwaves are replacing the airwaves with selected dissemination of media content.  No longer do I have to purchase the monthly package. I can't possible get my money's worth since I do have to work some times.  Now I can pay just for the game of the team of my choice.  Ah, the life of a 21st century consumer!

Business value of enterprise blogs and wikis

http://www.line56.com/articles/default.asp?articleID=7419&TopicID=7

Cisco and Amazon have found some unexpected value in the enterprise blog and wiki collaborative tools.   These collaborative spaces facilitate

• the spread of institutional knowledge
• group mentoring of new employees
• a low cost knowledge base

http://www.newmediazero.com/Articles/27065/Honda%20to%20sponsor%20new%20blog%20network.html

Honda hopes to foster better customer relations and improve products.