Write Technology

Tid Bits (Tid Bytes?)

Just a couple quick, but important items to mention today:

First off, I'm dipping my toe into the professional blogging pool. Really. I'll be writing tech posts on Brian Solis's bub.blicio.us. If you follow PR at all, you might know Brian from his PR 2.0 blog. If not, perhaps you know him through his book, Now is Gone, with Geoff Livingston.

As a side note, in a previous post I mentioned how Twitter flattens the org chart. This is particularly true in this case. Here is an author of a book I happen to really enjoy, and a leader in Public Relations and Social Media. I followed him on Twitter. He expressed a need for a writer on Twitter, I replied, and here we are. He may be in California and I may be in Cincinnati, but Twitter flattened it all out and made everyone approachable. I love the new Web.

Next, on Tuesday we had the first Social Media Breakfast in Cincinnati. SMB was founded by Bryan Person in Boston and is infiltrating other cities. The first Cincinnati SMB included Cincinnati, Dayton, and Louisville. I took some notes, but none of them are half as great as the writeup by Jason Falls, so check that out here.

Blogging to Death

Sometimes I get so caught up in my Real World Work that I have no time to catch up on RSS feeds. That means I miss stories like this in the New York Times. Two prolific and well-read bloggers have recently passed away, at young ages, and a third had a heart attack.

While it took the NY Times to come out and say it, many are putting this towards Type A personality stress. They blogged themselves to death. Particularly in technology, the stakes are high. You want to scoop other technology blogs out there, you pull all nighters, and you survive at your computer.

There is a direct correlation between the weight I gained this year and the increased time I've spent at the computer. Now, I'm not trying to scoop someone else (heck, I can't even keep up with all my feeds), but I am trying to at least stay on top of social media. Every day there's a new app out there and I try to get a beta invite and at least familiarize myself with it. That's on top of my Real Job, which is, at this very moment, a technical documentation project.

I've taken control and made the decision to get healthy and spend less time at the computer and more time visiting the gym and eating regularly and correctly. But not all bloggers can do that - there is an amazing amount of blog fatigue and stress if you let it get to you. If I actually worry about it, the wine blog can get to me - I haven't had an original post in days. As great as it is, blogging can have a downside, but you just have to take control and maintain a work-life balance. And you have to remember that it's just a blog. The world won't end if you miss a day or two.

Unlearning

In our current [to use a buzz phrase] new media landscape, industries are overlapping. I increasingly see overlaps between marketing and learning. I find myself doing more than just dipping a toe in the marketing pool anymore, as use of social media tends to encourage a full dunk.

So I was happy to see it works both ways. I was reading Digital Next, an Ad Age blog, when I came across a post on "Unlearning" that I think is something we should consider in the Learning field.

The writer was watching his 4 year seamlessly adapt to using a Wii controller. When his mother tried it, however, she was unable to adapt.

And then it dawned on me. The technology itself isn't difficult to understand. In fact, Nintendo makes it painfully obvious that they intend to casualize the console. There is very little to retain when using a Wii. What is difficult, is the "unlearning" process. In fact I'd argue that "unlearning" is far more cumbersome than "learning." Through the eyes of my mom, I've handed her a remote control -- one that looks very similar to the same remote she may have at her house that she uses to change the channels on her television. Her use of a TV remote is a learned, patterned behavior, unbreakable and obviously indistinguishable from a product of similar form factor.

The Learning industry is facing something similar. What happens when the digital natives outnumber others in our companies? Many people will need to unlearn a lot of how we do things - how we approach things.

Right now, it's all still new enough that we sort of let it go when our attempt at integrating new media fails. For instance, I am part of a small charity committee. After our first benefit was over, I lost patience with the amazing amount of email and attachments flying back and forth. No one ever knew if they had the latest version of a document and keeping up with the changes in emails was next to impossible. So I created a wiki.

For over a month, I've been pushing the wiki. Posting on the wiki. Adding attachments to the wiki. Then at a meeting last night, one girl says, "I don't like the wiki." Why? "I'm just not happy with it. It's easier to use email."
Translation: I know how to use email and see no reason to add a new behaviour or admit there might be a better, newer solution.

Sigh. She's only 30. But it proved to me that age is not a defining factor in adapting technology. This particular girl is highly intelligent and highly organized. But she relies on paper, binders, and email. This works for her the way a chalkboard works for an older college professor. Why put the notes on Blackboard LMS when the chalkboard works just fine?  Why change what works?

We all have habits we hang onto. I just really believe that in the next few years we will all need to adapt or be left behind. We'll need to unlearn if we want to participate. We can't be afraid to unlearn. So the question becomes, how do we cope with those who don't want to participate? The girl who refuses to use the wiki?

Blogging is Mainstream

It feels like I go to a lot of conferences, although its truly only 3 or 4 per year. When the conference is learning related, I usually find myself talking about blogging, whether it's in an informal meeting or an official session. What surprises me at these conferences is that so many folks still treat blogging as a "new" technology. (Wikis, by the way, get the same reaction.)

Blogging isn't new. I've been blogging for at least 5 years now and I was, in my opinion, a late adopter. Companies have blogs. There are personal blogs. There is a blog for any topic you can think of. Bloggers are no longer the techies that walk around your business casual conference in t-shirts, jeans, and long hair. Bloggers are anyone and everyone.

Blogging is mainstream.

To prove this point, the International Olympic Committee has approved blogging by athletes for the Beijing games. Apparently, so many athletes were already blogging from both the Turin Winter Games and the Athens Summer Games that it was easier just to cede control. But not all control - athletes can now officially blog, but there are rules:

"It is required that, when accredited persons at the games post any Olympic content, it be confined solely to their own personal Olympic-related experience," said an IOC statement.

Posting confidential information about other people is also outlawed.

"The IOC considers blogging... as a legitimate form of personal expression and not a form of journalism," the Olympic authority said.

"Blogs should be dignified and in good taste."

The IOC guidelines follow concern that the games could become highly politicised, with China's human rights record, its treatment of dissidents and links with Sudan becoming major issues.

They're taking a chance, trusting that people won't blog little political statements, but I do appreciate that they're opening up the floor. I disagree that blogging isn't a form of journalism (and I'm sure my wine blogger friends would concur), but it's a start.

Now, if I can just figure out how to use my blogging credentials to get into the Democratic National Convention ...

Twitter Humour

I love this cartoon from the prolific Hugh at the Gaping Void:

Click the image to view in full size.

Hugh posted this back in April. I think that's around when I first found Twitter, although it took a lot longer than that to allow my micro-blogging to often substitute for my real blogging on one of my personal blogs. I do blame Twitter for my lack of blog posts. All my thoughts now get written, stream of consciousness style, to Twitter. The cartoon, however, is incredibly dead-on. Makes you wonder about 2008.

You Just Need to Know How to Type

One blog post can affect everything from marketing to spamming to other bloggers. Wired has taken the time to detail the blogging ecosystem in an interactive (read: Flash-based) flowchart. Check it out - it's very accurate with one exception. No matter how many keywords and tags I use, it tends to take anywhere from a few hours to 1 day in order to pop up on Technorati and Google and the like. Now sploggers (spam bloggers) and scrapers seem to move much faster.

Check out the blog ecosystem here.

Ning: Build Your Own Social Network

Last week I heard about a couple of sites where you could build your own social network. Pretty fascinating stuff. I checked out Zude and Ning.

Zude is cool, but I didn't find it user friendly. It's one to watch, though, as I think those ease of use features are coming. It's still too obviously a content management system for my taste and truthfully, some experiences I had with some open-source CMSs have instilled a slight fear in me of the CMS.

Ning, however, is incredibly user friendly. I re-designed our family web site, KevinandShel.com, using Ning. For me, it was useful to bring in several of my blog feeds and my photos - all in one place for our family to see. That is really one of the minor benefits to Ning. I failed miserably at explaining it to my husband because I used it, used it well, and yet used none of the really cool features.

With Ning, you can build your own community. In a way, you're building your own Facebook.

If I ran a book club, or owned a small store, or had a knitting group or any sort of group, I'd want to build my site on Ning. First off, it's free. Second, they have amazing technical support. I got incredibly fast and personalized responses. (I found a bug, now fixed.)

What does it offer? Basically Ning is a content management system. You can build pages and sections for your actual web site. You can also have a forum. You can bring in RSS feeds. Your readers can join, becoming part of a community. They can comment on pages, on photos. Once someone is a member, they can then contribute their own information. You can create groups within your network. Each member gets their own blog. If you as an admin want to feature their blog or their photos, you can. Your own member profile can be used for whatever Ning community of which you are a part. You can customize your profile for each Ning community, pulling from your basic information, but changing the look and feel per network.

It's quick. It's easy. And I'm really impressed. It's an easy way to bring a Web 1.0 web site into Web 2.0. Ning specializes in customization/personalization for each user. And that is a huge part of Web 2.0.

The beauty of any social network is the ability to have your members/users interact not just with you, but with each other. Ning allows that through forums, comments, photos, and more. It's worth checking out.

Some great sites using Ning include the Wine Spies, Broadway Space, and Ask a Ninja.

Guest Bloggers

Every year I write blog posts during and after my Learning 200x event. This year, I've invited several colleagues to join me in the blogosphere.

I thought hearing from other conference attendees would offer you, my readers, differing perspectives on the conference. Plus, with so many sessions to choose from, there's a fantastic chance we'll all be attending different ones.

The first person to accept my guest blogging offer was Gary Wise. Gary is the Senior Director of Learning Architecture at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. Cincinnati Children's is one of the finest hospitals of its kind in the nation, and their education and training program keeps up with the reputation. Gary is also the forum leader of the local ASTD eLearning Forum. He has a fair amount of knowledge in LMSs and CMSs, among countless other things. He also likes a good glass of cabernet. Hopefully, Gary will find some time to post to the blog while he's at the conference or right after he returns. I look forward to it!

Introducing our Mobile Sites

Write Tech mobile is now available at http://writetech.mobi, with a link to this blog in "mobilized" format.

The My Wine Education blog is now available at http://winegirl.mobi.

We won!

Well, it looks like my Wine Blog (My Wine Education) actually won the aforementioned competition. I'm not sure if I'm one of the Best Blogs in Cincinnati or Best Cincinnati Blogs, but it's one of the two. There was one Chamber member winner and I tied with another excellent blog for community winner.

We all three won iPhones. It's a pretty cool honor. And while it doesn't necessarily mean I know anything about wine, at least I can feel confident about my writing and design aesthetics.

What does this mean to you? An up-close and personal review of the iPhone by the end of the week.

Cheers!

Blogs named content winners

Cincinnati Top 10 Blogs

As far as personal issues go, 2007 has been a rotten year. But professionally, especially on the Web 2.0 front, 2007 has rather rocked.

From being voted VP Technology of our local ASTD chapter, co-facilitating a Learning Lab at ASTD TechKnowledge, both this blog and the wine blog being recognized as Typepad Featured Blogs, to big things in store at Learning 2007 - well, I can't really complain.

And things just got a bit better. My wine blog, My Wine Education, has officially been recognized as one of Cincinnati's Top 10 Blogs. I found it in the Enquirer online edition, but apparently it was even in the hard-copy paper as well. (Do people still read that? ) I don't get anything for this recognition except a warm feeling in my chest, which is fine. It's really cool just to be recognized.

There is still a slight chance that tomorrow I'll win an iPhone. But the competition is stiff. The Cincinnati Blog is darned good (I've read it for a long time) and there's a girl blogging about fighting cancer. How do you beat that? But it really is an honor just to be nominated.

CincyTechUSA, Chamber Pick Region's Top 10 Blogs

Tag, you're it!

I was shocked today when I realized I hadn't ever written a post on tagging. At the ASTD TechKnowledge conference, when I explained Web 2.0 to a group, tagging was an integral part of the conversation. But tagging requires you to take a step back from the web, and consider how you think.

Folksonomy: a type of classification system for online content, created by an individual user who tags information with freely chosen keywords; also, the cooperation of a group of people to create such a classification system (Webster's New Millenium Dictionary of English)

When we're tagging things, we're creating a folksonomy. The key word in the definition above is individual. That's the key to tagging - it's your individual thoughts and thought processes defining the things in your world. In fact, I've bet you've used tagging and you didn't even realize it. According to the Pew Internet Project, in December 2006, 28% of Americans had tagged online content. According to David Weinberger, in an interview for the Pew Internet Project report,

"Tagging lets us organize the vastness of the web ... using the categories that matter to us as individuals.
...Tagging also allows social groups to form around similarities of interests and points of view. If you're using the same tags as I do, we probably share some deep commonalities."

Tagging in the Real World
Let's back up a little further and go off-line. When you're arranging things in your planner, or your file cabinets, perhaps you categorize them. You assign key words that make sense to you, based on the content in the folder. Assigning that contextual key word allows you to find that folder again easily. You've just created a folksonomy - you've just tagged.

Tagging Online
Now, let's take that concept online. For each blog post I create, I try to also create tags, or descriptive key words. Why? Tagging blog posts provides several things - it allows me to better search my own posts and it also allows search engines to better search my posts. Tagging adds findability to something.

Within the last year, Amazon added tagging to its web site.

In the above example, people have tagged the new Harry Potter novel with tags such as "harry potter," "magic," and "best book ever." These are all individual tags, reflecting the individual thoughts and feelings on that book. Do you want to find more items tagged "magic"? Just click on the tag. View the most popular tags used across Amazon.com. Add your own tag to this or other items.

I often tag items on Amazon.com. My tags may or may not be useful to you. If I'm searching on curtains for my new home, I might tag an item "new house," which I can then search on later.

Tagging is beautiful in its simplicity. It's something we've been doing all our lives. We're just moving it online. A large part of the Web 2.0 and collaborative learning movement is understanding that we have a lot to learn from each other as individuals. Web 2.0, through its varied tools, gives us the opportunity to share that knowledge. Tagging is only the beginning.

After the jump, see some more examples and uses of tagging, as well as the sites that depend on it.

The Blogosphere Grows Up a Little

Everyone has growing pains as they progress from toddler through to adulthood. The blogosphere is a living, dynamic thing and it's no different. It was inevitable, of course. That's not to say it's not painful for some, and emotional for many.

I debated on even mentioning it, but when it was picked up by the New York Times and the BBC (here and here), I had to investigate further.

To understand it, you have to acknowledge that as in any industry or field, there are certain high-profile folks. In the blogosphere, we have our own "stars" or "celebrities." People like Dave Winer, Robert Scoble, Kathy Sierra, just to name a few. These folks are incredibly high profile, speak at many events, are public figures that express their views on widely read and well respected blogs. The rest of us are just regular bloggers and the rest of us make up the majority of the blogosphere. In fact, for many of us, these blog stars exist on the periphery of our blogging existence, if at all. So, why are their problems important?

It's similar to how when high-profile chefs focus in on certain foods. Maybe Emeril makes a jambalaya extra special and showcases it in his restaurant, cookbooks and TV show. Eventually, that same style of jambalaya, in a cheaper, less artistic, and less tasty version will filter down to the regular and inexpensive restaurants of the world, such as the Cajun place in the mall food court. It's slow, but the high-profile folks have an effect on the rest of us.

Let's get to the situation at hand. Kathy Sierra, of Creating Passionate Users, received several threatening emails and comments on her blog. At the same time this situation was escalating, another site called Mean Kids was launched. Personally, I don't get the vision behind Mean Kids, as it does seem rather juvenile to me. But I don't know the thought process that went behind it. Maybe it was intended as a sardonic and witty comment on our society. Maybe they were just being mean. Having not seen the site, I am not qualified to judge. However, it is public knowledge that one of the Mean Kids, posting anonymously, actually turned mean, and crossed a line from humor to threatening. Someone on that site posted death threats and rude comments about Kathy Sierra and others. The site came down. Another site that was similar in content went up instead, perhaps with the intent to exercise more control. The experiment quickly got out of hand again. In the end, Kathy Sierra was faced with threats of all levels from multiple sources. It scared her, and she has withdrawn from the E-Tech event and from blogging. In the process of revealing this information, a lot of names got dragged in and out of the mud and prominent bloggers all commented.

As the blogosphere, or at least the high-profile part, reeled from all this, Tim O'Reilly (yep, the guy who puts animals on his tech books) decided to step in. I concur with many bloggers out there that his actions as "hall monitor" are slightly misguided, no matter how well intentioned. O'Reilly has issued a draft Blogger Code of Conduct and suggests blogs have badges - those who subscribe to the Code of Conduct and those who have an "Anything Goes" badge. Basically, Anything Goes means that any sort of comment can be posted on the blog.

It raises valid questions. Are bloggers responsible for the comments posted to their blogs? Can we censor the comments, and is it censorship? What information do we actually own, when it comes to our blogs, and how accurate are we expected to be? Should we allow anonymous commenting? Are we responsible for the people who choose to remain anonymous?

I don't have answers, but I do have an emotional reaction to the whole thing. I think it was bound to happen to someone at some time. Human nature dictates that when there are a lot of people engaging in an activity, at least one person will act like an idiot. (I can't scientifically back up my idiot theory of course.) In this case, the idiot scared a lot of people in the blogosphere. The reactions have run the emotional gamut. After all, it's not like bloggers are a quiet, repressed bunch. We blog because we like to share.

It's my blog and I'll post what I want. I don't need a badge to advocate basic rules of being polite. I am polite and I expect it from my readers on each blog I run. I encourage people to disagree. It's great and it creates a dialogue. That's what Web 2.0 is all about - sharing, learning, collaboration, growing your own viewpoint by being exposed to others. If someone disagrees with me, I'm not going to delete the comment. However, if someone posts something that truly offends me, be it language or violence, well, I'm going to delete it. It won't see the light of day. I moderate the comments and I always will. It's my blog. I don't want to be offended and my other readers don't want to either. I don't need a Code of Conduct to tell me that.

I also don't allow anonymous posts, but truly, I do that because it cuts back on spam.  For a while, the spam was so bad I turned commenting off. That's been changed, but there are certain restrictions I keep in place, such as no anonymous comments and the CAPTCHA to curtail it. By the way, the only offensive comments I've ever deleted from any of my blogs were posted by blatant spammers. When it comes down to it, you can read a blog, and read the comments, and decide if that blog is right for you. If it's not, you don't have to read it. That, folks, is common sense, and doesn't require a Blogging Badge.

I'm not the only one rather conflicted and coming out against the Code of Conduct. I really don't think it will fly. People like Cory Doctorow and even Robert Scoble are uncomfortable with the whole thing. In fact, the best dissection of the proposed Code was written by Tristan Louis. There is also an odd kind of pressure those folks are feeling, like disagreeing with Tim O'Reilly could hurt their career. I suppose the high profile folks will work it all out. I encourage everyone to contribute to the conversation though. If you're a blogger, express your opinion, either way, about the Code of Conduct. It's not like writing your congressman. In theory, the call of the blogging masses in this dialogue will set standards for the future. And just like restaurants, the ideas at the top will trickle down to the rest of us.

In the meantime, down here in the middle-class blogosphere, we'll just stick with basic tenets of human kindness and common sense, and occasionally deleting the spammers and idiots.

Technorati Tags: Code of Conduct, Blogosphere, Web 2.0, Growing Up, Growing Pains

"Encylodictionalmanacapedia"

I have a wonderful new blog widget embedded in this blog, as well as my other blogs, called Answer Tips. I'm pretty thrilled with it, and it's given me some neat ideas for implementing it in a corporate environment.

First, a little exercise. Pick a non-hyperlinked word in this blog (ANY WORD) and double-click it. A little pop-up window should appear with the definition of that word. If the word is near a recognizable phrase, the phrase itself will be defined.

Now, think of the implications for learning. Humor me, and imagine you don't have a firewall and your students can always access the magical world of the Internet. Picture Answer Tips embedded in an elearning course, internal or external web site, or group wiki. It's an effective, just-in-time delivery of learning, right there at your user's fingertips - meaningful, memorable, and relevant.

It gets better. Answer Tips is a widget provided by the free service, Answers.com. Answers.com allows you to integrate their tool into your desktop, so much so that the pop-ups are even available when you read your email. It's all free. Even more importantly, they are using licensed content from brand-name information providers. The academic in me loves that they give you the tools to offically cite each piece of information you find in APA or MLA format.

Downsides? Well, I haven't yet installed the desktop tool, so I haven't yet read the license agreement. I don't know how much of your life they may - or may not - be paying attention to. In theory, they should be tracking what information is referenced in order to bulk up the most popular areas. In theory, they are also doing this with anonymous user data, which is good.

Other downside? You're stuck with Answers.com. I couldn't find anyplace on their web site where they mentioned internal customizations. If you're a healthcare company, for example, with specific and difficult terms and phrases, wouldn't it be wonderful to build your own customized content and have that information pop up for your employees? Just in time learning, when and where they need it.

Overall, Answer Tips and Answers.com is a nifty, free toolset. Spread the word. A tool like this has great potential, but we have to use it!

Technorati Tags: Answer Tips, blog widgets, Answers.com, Web 2.0

Web 2.0 is friendly - I promise

Don't be scared of Web 2.0. It's like that big shaggy sheepdog that you love. It's big, but it's cuddly and friendly. More importantly, it wants to love you and be loved in return.
Poor analogy, eh?

So many times this week I had to stop and explain Web 2.0, so I thought I'd pop those thougts onto the blog as well.

Over the last decade or so, the Web has been this wonderful, evolving creature. Most of us go to the Web to get something, be it travel information, a book from Amazon, weather reports, news ... The Web gave and we took away. Just like a living creature, however, the Web has evolved. Now there is the opportunity to give something back. The world just got smaller. In Web 2.0, there is a give and take on all sides.

Blogs and wikis are the current big tools of the Web 2.0 revolution. Why? Well, with a blog, there is commentary on an editorial. Except a blog is usually moderated, and it becomes sort of a conversation in regards to the most recent post, or editorial. Wikis are even more collaborative. Wikis are dynamic, with all users participating, contributing their knowledge. Conversations can happen in the comments, but the actual knowledge grows and changes with each edit to the page. Are wikis always accurate? No, but they are self-correcting. Eventually, a wiki will become accurate.

Does that help at all? The point of these tools, and others like them, is to leverage existing knowledge. We've all got knowledge locked away inside our heads. This allows us to get that knowledge out there, share it with our friends and colleagues. Imagine the power of all that existing knowledge applied to learning!

Changes, they are a-comin'

The ASTD TechKnowledge Conference recently inspired me to make some changes within Write Technology. These are changes I've been thinking about for a while, but the time has come to start the ball rolling.
I want to move forward from creating standard eLearning for my clients. I want to start pushing them forward into collaborative learning, using blogs, wikis, RSS, and other tools to harness the existing knowledge surrounding them. I've got some great ideas as to how to implement this in a corporate environment.
Am I advocating switching from traditional elearning entirely? No. Just like I believe that not all training works best electronically, all learning does not always lend itself entirely to group collaboration. At least, not yet.
So, watch the Write-Tech main site in the next few weeks for some changes on the front and training pages. The world is changing. Several speakers at the conference pointed out - the world is changing. Adapt or die and learn.

Blog Guilt

I don't know how many of you only read blogs and how many of you maintain blogs as well. But I've noticed something about blogging.

When you first start blogging there is a passion for it. You post frequently, and most of the time your posts are useful, meaningful, and relevant to your topic. As time passes, you blog a lot, but certainly not as frequently as in those first few months. Eventually, life gets in the way. You blog when you can. For me, this happened after about 2 years with the blogs.

I actually run four blogs: a personal blog, a family blog, a wine-related blog, and this one. It's a lot to handle, although it seemed like a good idea at the time. When I don't post for a while, I get an overwhelming case of blog guilt. Will I lose my readers? How often is often enough?
So I was curious, am I the only one out there who gets blog guilt?

Blog Blog Blog

I was at a professional gathering this morning where the topic of discussion was using blogs, podcasts, and wikis in adult/corporate learning environments. However, the meeting ended up being more for introducing these Web 2.0 concepts than discussing, in detail, their uses.

I could wax on forever about the joys and advantages to blogging and wikis. (I'm not really a podcast person, as they don't tend to hold my multi-tasking, short attention span.) I can also go on forever about the benefits of a wiki as a supplement to either traditional or eLearning.

I was surprised, as I am repeatedly surprised, at how many people are oblivious to the advantages of Web 2.0 tools, from RSS to tagging to wikis and blogs. Last year, I attended Learning 2005 hoping to learn about cutting edge technology and instead, everyone was still learning about blogs and wikis. Many folks haven't even heard the term Web 2.0! Why am I surprised? Because the mainstream news media refers to blogs as sources or allows blogs to affect their journalistic angle (whether that is appropriate or not is another question). Because there are over 12 million blogs and counting in the blogosphere. Because Microsoft is integrating both blogging and RSS into it's new version of Office.
So many reasons to be aware of the blogosphere, yet, I bet my Mom couldn't tell you anything about a blog, let alone wikis, tagging, and RSS. It's a funny juxtaposition - I feel incredibly behind in technology because of all the changes with PHP, various new Flash programs, and all sorts of software I'm unfamiliar with. Yet, I'm cutting edge compared to a lot of people because of my knowledge of, and embracing of, Web 2.0. Is is generational? Will Web 2.0+ be simply a fact of life for Gen Y and those graduating over the next 5 years? Who knows where the Web will be in 5 years? Will I still be keeping up?

To bring the conversation back to learning, the one Web 2.0 feature I just don't quite buy into for adult learning is a blog. I could go on forever about the advantages of blogs for marketing, product announcements, and getting personal with your customers. But learning? More specifically, interactive learning? I don't want to hear about how you can comment and others comment and a discussion ensues. If you ask me, you can get that from a threaded discussion board. So tell me, how would you, or could you, apply blogs to learning?

Comments are back!

Thanks to an upgrade by my blogging host/software, I've now re-instituted comments. Granted, they never really went away, but they did get a lot harder to post. You are no longer required to be a Typekey member to post, nor do you have to wait for me to approve the comment before its visible. Now you just need to pass the CAPTCHA test and prove you are a happy reader and not an evil 'bot. In theory, this combats comment spam.

The downside of a CAPTCHA is that it is not Section 508 compliant. If you are visually impaired and want to post a comment, simply email me your comment and I'll make sure it gets posted.

One caveat to this: I still have the Power of Delete. If you post an anonymous comment or comment with obviously fake contact info, I will most likely delete you. Sorry!

Evangelism and Blogging

Guy Kawasaki is now blogging, which seems like perfect "synergy" to me. For those of you who don't know, Guy Kawasaki was the first Mac Evangelist (that was his job title at Apple). In 1989 he published a great book on product evangelism and business models at Apple called The Macintosh Way. I have an autographed copy of it somewhere.

Why is it such great synergy? The way I see it, the new method of evangelism is via blogging and the Internet. It makes perfect sense that the man who originally defined product evangelism has segued into the blogosphere.

From his first post back in December:

Welcome to my first attempt at blogging. Admittedly, I’m three years behind the bleeding edge, but I had to get over the inherent arrogance of blogging: that people would give a shitake about what I have to say.

A book every two or three years is one thing, but a daily blog? (Not that I’m committing to daily blog.) However, many people pounded on me, so here goes. Not that you can hold me to this, but I’ll write about entrepreneurship, venture capital, innovation, public speaking, Macintosh, and hockey.

From time to time, I will also discuss things that I do not “know,” but I’ve never let ignorance get in the way of expressing an opinion—and clearly, very few bloggers do! So let the good times roll…

A rose is still a rose ...

Via Boing Boing, I found a great article over at AdAge.com, positing that a blogger is just a writer with cooler software. The creative force is the same - the medium is just changing. Therefore there's no such thing as a blogger. Much to my surprise, I found myself agreeing.

So why does the idea of the blogger as The Other continue to persist? Because many bloggers, of course, like the idea of being all alterna; it’s a point of pride, a tenet of the “blog community” (whatever that is), that bloggers are superior to the musty, lumbering, out-of-touch traditional media. And for traditional-media types, blog/blogging/bloggers are variants of a sort of linguistic armor -- labels that allow old-school-ists to convince themselves that they are the true professionals, and they needn’t radically alter the way they work (i.e., work way faster, interact constantly with readers, be vastly more voracious, etc.) to compete with the amateurs, the arrivistes.

In case you want more, you can read the whole article after the jump.

Learning 2005 Blogs & Podcasts

Even if you don't have an opportunity to attend Learning 2005 in a few weeks, you can still access some of the content. Elliott Masie and The MASIE Center have several public, themed blogs with attached podcasts. Several of the Podcasts have associated PDFs to read instead of listen. (By the way, you don't need an iPod to listen to Podcasts. You only need a computer, a program such as Windows Media Player, and working speakers.)

Channel 1: Learning 2005 University
Channel 2: Learning Authors Interviews
Channel 3: Learning Rants, Raves, & Reflections
Channel 4: Learning Research Conversations
Channel 5: Learning Notes from Other Fields

Technorati Tag: Learning 2005

Blogs, Wikis, & the CIA

Here is the abstract from a white paper by D. Calvin Andrus on how the CIA is using Blogs and Wikis in a secure environment.

Abstract:    
US policy-makers, war-fighters, and law-enforcers now operate in a real-time worldwide decision and implementation environment. The rapidly changing circumstances in which they operate take on lives of their own, which are difficult or impossible to anticipate or predict. The only way to meet the continuously unpredictable challenges ahead of us is to match them with continuously unpredictable changes of our own. We must transform the Intelligence Community into a community that dynamically reinvents itself by continuously learning and adapting as the national security environment changes.
Recent theoretical developments in the philosophy of science that matured in the 1990's, collectively known as Complexity Theory, suggest changes the community should make to meet this challenge. These changes include allowing our officers more autonomy in the context of improved tradecraft and information sharing. In addition, several new technologies will facilitate this transformation. Two examples are self-organizing knowledge websites, known as Wikis, and information sharing websites known as Blogs. Allowing Intelligence Officers and our non-intelligence National Security colleagues access to these technologies on SIPRNet, will provide a critical mass to begin the transformation.

The white paper is licensed under Creative Commons and is a free download (PDF).

Comment Spam

With all the blogs available on the web, it was only a matter of time before spam spread to Blog Comments. Comment spam is a blog comment, usually containing an offensive URL, that has no relation at all to the blog or blog post topic.

Due to an influx of irritating and offensive comments from spammers, I have needed to do two things to improve security on this blog:

1. Moderate Comments. All comments are emailed to me, where I will hit the big orange "Approve" button unless it is comment spam. This means that if you comment, you won't see the results of your comment until I check my email. I know this might be frustrating, but I promise - unless I'm out of town or you're a spammer, your comment will be approved within 24 hours.

2. Authenticate Commenters. My blog is hosted by six apart, which provides a service called Typekey. Basically you get a user name and password and you can sign in to any number of Typepad and Moveable Type blogs that require authentication. Sign up for my blog and have access to thousands. I know this is a pain, and I apologize for that. However, spammers are less likely to go through the effort of creating a user name and password.

Yes, the comment spam problem is that bad. Again, I apologize for any inconvenience to my readers.

Blogmeister

Blogmeister is a blogging tool created specifically for the education market.  The biggest difference between blogmeister and any other blogging tool is the ability for the teacher to review the student blog entries before the entries are published.

But blogging is also showing up in schools, where teachers have known for a long time that students  develop better communication skills when they are authentically communicating. A number of educators are helping their students developing their writing skills by having them publish their work as blogs, and then invite comments from people in the outside.
There are many freely available tools that facilitate blogging, but none seem especially suited for the classroom. That is the reason for BlogMeister. This online blogging tool is explicitly designed with teachers and students in mind, where the teacher can evaluate, comment on, and finally publish students' blog articles in a controlled environment.

I have long been an advocate on the use of blogs in education - especially in creative writing classes.  For a teacher to be able to control what is then published to the outside world, as well as provide private comments and guidance, is the next step in an emerging and useful technology.

Blogmeister

Fear and Laptops on the Campaign Trail

The New York Times Magazine did an article on bloggers as they relate to politics. It's an interesting article on the people behind "the new media." It's also much more positive than I tend to find articles in that particular magazine.

In a recent national survey, the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that more than two million Americans have their own blog. Most of them, nobody reads. The blogs that succeed, like Kaus's, are written in a strong, distinctive, original voice.
...Early in 2002, Joe Trippi read on Armstrong's blog, MyDD, that Howard Dean might be running for president, and after Trippi joined the campaign as its manager, he helped bring the Dean movement to life online, in part through the campaign's massive community blog, which connected Deaniacs all over the country, helped them organize and became the access point for the $40 million that fueled Dean's explosive run. The Dean phenomenon drew so many new people to the grass roots (or ''netroots,'' as the Dean bloggers used to call them) of presidential politics that a kind of fragmentation occurred in what had been, until then, a blog culture dominated by credentialed gentlemen like Kaus, Andrew Sullivan and Glenn Reynolds, a conservative law professor whose blog, Instapundit, is read faithfully at the White House.
...But at the same time that blogs have moved away from the political center, they have become increasingly influential in the campaigns -- James P. Rubin, John Kerry's foreign-policy adviser, told me, ''They're the first thing I read when I get up in the morning and the last thing I read at night.''

It's an interesting look at how the Giants in Politics are paying attention to the blogs. And whether or not the bloggers care.

New York Times Magazine: Fear & Loathing on the Campaign Trail

Blogging for Business

An MSNBC article talks about Blogging for Business. They seem surprised at how effective a blog for business can be, and discuss several ways of using blogs. Blogs can be used by employees on an intranet, providing an avenue for employees in a corporation, especially a large corporation, to better get to know one another. Blogs can also be used to publicize a business, sort of like this one! I use this blog to inform you of the latest happenings in technical writing, editing, elearning ... but in the process, I'm generating leads to my main site, I'm linking to other sites, and people are linking to this blog. With every hit and every link, my search engine score improves. The higher I am in a search engine, the more likely customers will click on me and eventually, hire Write Technology. (You knew there was a business benefit to this blog, right?)

The article also quotes from a Microsoft blog, without giving the blogger credit. Heather's blog can be visited here, and is an excellent example of a corporate blog, by an employee specializing in recruiting marketing talent. Recruiting is a fantastic use of a blog for business purposes and Heather helps give Microsoft a "friendly face" with a sincere, down-to-earth delivery. In essence, her blog helps humanize Microsoft. In addition, she has a communication line into the tech community, giving her an advantage when searching for new "talent."

Heather's 'Marketing at Microsoft' blog
MSNBC/Reuters: Business and Blogging moving mainstream
The Empire Blogs Back

Into the Blogosphere

This online, edited collection explores discursive, visual, social, and other communicative features of weblogs. Essays analyze and critique situated cases and examples drawn from weblogs and weblog communities. Such a project requires a multidisciplinary approach, and contributions represent perspectives from Rhetoric, Communication, Sociology, Cultural Studies, Linguistics, and Education, among others.
Into the Blogosphere

How Blogging can affect, well, everything ...

I find web logs fascinating. What is a blog exactly? At its most basic, a web log - or blog - is an online journal. I have friends who use blogs simply to write about their day. Many blogs are political, or news-based. Still others focus on gadgets, gizmos, movies, television, film ... the list goes on.
Blogs are everywhere in the news lately, as more and more people (mostly in the 20-40 yr old age bracket) are getting their news and information from blogs. I read 20+ blogs, and a lot of times I'll have information hours, or in some cases a full day, before I hear it on the local or national news. With the advent of blogs, news has become a 24-hour cycle - a constantly changing thing. On the flip side, with the advent of blogs, news has become biased and opinionated. Bloggers are not actual journalists. Bloggers are people, with opinions, who are under no obligation to present all the facts or to not bend the facts. The readers are under no obligation to seek out an opposing or neutral viewpoint either. Imagine if we all get our news from blogs within 3 years - everyone's take on the news will be biased.
In recent events, the DNC invited bloggers to their National Convention at the end of this month, providing them with journalist credentials. Ana Marie Cox, otherwise known as DC blogger Wonkette, has been invited by MTV to cover the convention. Bloggers, like Cory Doctorow and Xeni Jardin of Boing-Boing are becoming Internet celebrities, respected for their opinions and ideas.
A Time Magazine article, Meet Joe Blog, recently had this to say:
We may be in the golden age of blogging, a quirky Camelot moment in Internet history when some guy in his underwear with too much free time can take down a Washington politician. It will be interesting to see what role blogs play in the upcoming election. Blogs can be a great way of communicating, but they can keep people apart too. If I read only those of my choice, precisely tuned to my political biases and you read only yours, we could end up a nation of political solipsists, vacuum sealed in our private feedback loops, never exposed to new arguments, never having to listen to a single word we disagree with.
How can blogs affect technical writing and elearning? I would think in a number of ways.
Take secondary education, for example. In high school, every year a teacher asked me to keep a spiral notebook as a journal. And every few weeks we'd turn in said notebook for a grade. This was to help develop our writing skills. The thing was, we would all write every entry in our journal the night before it was due. We did a lot of back-dating. Imagine if that same teacher had assigned us all blogs, hosted on a school server. The teacher could check in on the blogs periodically. The blogs could be password-protected, for sharing, or they could be interactive. Other students could post to a blog with comments. A whole new world of interactivity is opened up for teacher and student. And that's just one example.
What about technical writing? I don't think blogging is as obviously a useful tool to technical writers. I think, as with any group, a blog is a fantastic place for like people to gather, obtain information, and chat. You can do that with emailing lists and discussion boards too. What about a blog? Let's say that company A has released Cool Software Package, complete with documentation. Imagine if the developers blogged the progress along the development path, taking suggestions from readers. Once Cool Software Package is released, the tech writers can monitor the blog, informing the world of addendums, updates, and such. The Help Desk could chime in and direct folks to the correct places for support. Suddenly, the manual, support, and development process are all very interactive. The users are part of the process.
Just some thoughts. I think blogs are here to stay, and it's time we all got familiar with them. Here's some great articles for you to peruse:
Linked Out: Blogging, Equality, and the Future
Lead Blocks to Web Logs (Xeni Jardin)
Hail to the Blogs:a new movement in journalism
Blogs Welcome at Democratic Convention
Bloggers Suffer Burnout
Notes from Technorati Meeting on Blogs
Bloggers Landing Book Deals

Welcome!

Welcome to the Write Technology blog! Since I'm having a lot of trouble with the monthly newsletter software, I thought I would just go straight to a blog instead. Feel free to subscribe via the RSS feed. (I recommend Bloglines for an RSS reader, but a Google search also provides many options.)

I hope to provide links and comments on the newest innovations in technology and business as it affects technical writing and education. So stick with me as we get up and running!

-Michelle