The Secret Life of Bloggers

Two interesting reports/articles on the web with a similar theme about content creation and social software on the Internet:

• Picked up by Anecdote (and many others), the Guardian talks about the 1% rule - "It's an emerging rule of thumb that suggests that if you get a group of 100 people online then one will create content, 10 will 'interact' with it (commenting or offering improvements) and the other 89 will just view it"; and


• The Pew Internet & American Life Project have released a new report on the motivations and habits of bloggers - one of their findings is that most bloggers don't view their efforts as a "public endeavour" and spend on average only 1-2 hours a week blogging.

To be honest, there is nothing surprising here but it does counteract some of the hype in this space. Its also worth (again) referencing back to Figallo's practical guidence on hosting web communities, which again is still looking pretty solid even after a few years... so even if time alone is the only barrier to blogging its unlikely we will ever see everyone writing a blog because there are clearly other factors at play.

Tags: blogging, Cliff+Figallo, Pew+Internet+&+American+Life+Project, social software

Pre-paid credit cards arrive in Australia

Nice to see a bit of disruption in the Australian banking sector with the recent launch of what is claimed to be Australia's first pre-paid credit card - the Bopo pre-paid Visa card from Bill Express can be ordered online and then topped up at 3,500 newsagents.

But I find it strange that there doesn't appear to be any other way topping up the card other than going physically into a newsagent. Considering two of the proposed benefits are "To keep your bank account separate when you buy online" and "Convenient Internet-only statements" the reality is it looks more like a product for non-online consumers. For example, Visa's pre-paid Buxx card (available in the US) appears to offer more top up options.

Reviews of the new pre-paid credit card early in the year by consumer credit advocates (as reported in the Sydney Morning Herald) also suggested that when you look at the fees and features, a traditional bank debit card might offer better value and more flexability.

Still, its a good example of how technology can help to disrupt existing markets.

Tags: bopo, e-commerce, pre-paid credit card

Hands on SNA for organisations

Many people have asked about learning the practical side of social network analysis (SNA), as its much more fun if you can get your hands on the tools and work with them. Optimice have put together a 2 day hands-on course on ONA (...SNA for organizations) which will be held in Sydney in October. As a bonus they are giving participants a copy of Rob Cross and Andrew Parker's book on the "Hidden Power of Social Networks", one of the most practical books on SNA that you will find. There is an early bird offer as well!

Tags: knowledge management, social network analysis

Change of gear at ChiefTech

Just a quick note to let you know that I've decided to put Chief Technology Solutions on hold in order to take up a full-time position with CSC in Australia as an information and knowledge management consultant. While I've enjoyed working with a range of businesses over the last few years, this is an exciting oppourtunity for me to focus on consulting in projects for CSC's blue chip and government clients. Its also a chance to work with some interesting people in the information and knowledge management space like Laurie Lock Lee and Cai Kjaer.

As for the ChiefTech blog, hopefully you won't notice any real changes to what I'm posting, but I will point out that moving forward this will very much be a personal blog about technology, information and knowledge management - don't expect to find me talking (directly) about my work at CSC :-)

I'm also going to continue with being involved as a board member of Workplace Learning Illawarra, a member of the NSW KM Forum committee and a supporter of the Illawarra ICT cluster.

Tags: Computer Sciences Corporation, James Dellow

Customise me, Jessica!

In an innovative move by Yahoo's music channel, they have released a DRM-free personalised MP3 by Jessica Simpson. The personalisation is quite simple, you can pick a person's name to incorporate into the song, but provides a proof of concept. The Yahoo! Music blog provides a bit of background and feedback putting forward a point we haven't heard much about before, the cost of implementing DRM:

"Our position is simple: DRM doesn’t add any value for the artist, label (who are selling DRM-free music every day — the Compact Disc), or consumer, the only people it adds value to are the technology companies who are interested in locking consumers to a particular technology platform... It’s very expensive for companies like Yahoo! to implement. We’d much rather have our engineers building better personalization, recommendations, playlisting applications, community apps, etc, instead of complex provisioning systems which at the end of the day allow you to burn a CD and take the DRM back off, anyway!"

Great to see ideas emerging for alternative business models that use the mass customisation potiential of technology to open up rather lock down music and other downloadable media.

Tags: drm, music, personalized music, Yahoo! music

Descartes to Berners-Lee

JP blogged about Jonathan Riehl’s Digitising More Than Organisational DNA article in FirstMonday, but I just skipped to the references... from René Descartes to a 1948 paper on A Mathematical Theory of Communication (PDF) to Berners-Lee and Connolly on Hypertext Markup Language.

Tags: FirstMonday, History of the Internet, Jonathan Riehl

Meet Dandelife and Wufoo

No time for a decent blog post at the moment, but here are a couple of interesting new tools I've seen recently:

• dandelife.com, care of Many-to-Many who describe it as a social software tools for "building biographies of people, places and things";
  
• wufoo.com, care of Read/Write Web, lets you create your own online forms.

Tags: Dandelife, web+2.0, Wufoo

The best of the best in KM

Care of Knowledge Jolt with Jack, the 2006 World's Most Admired Knowledge Enterprises (MAKE) winners have been recently released. Like business awards in the general, the value of the MAKE awards has often been debated in KM circles, but I think its good to at least have list of companies to compare and benchmark your own performance against. Also, with my background in KM at Ernst & Young its always good to see them still making the list!

Tags: Ernst & Young, knowledge management, MAKE awards

DKW Wiki Case Study Updated

The case study for enterprise wiki poster child, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, has apparently been updated and it now available as a PDF (the perfect format for spreading the word around your own business)...

Tags: Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, enterprise social software, wiki

Particpant's feedback from masterclass on KM and Technology

I can't believe its been almost a week since my trip to Singapore to run my masterclass on knowledge management and technology. I've hardly had a chance to blog, but I wanted to capture what the participants reported back to me as what they saw as the key concepts and ideas we had looked at over the two days. In no particular order, they are:

• Approaches towards KM, particulary the importance of social network in corporate environments and the role of KM audits;


• Different KM concepts and perspectives, including IT as an enabler to KM within the simple framework of people, process, content and technology; and


• New technology, particulary social software and social network analysis.

As you can see social software was a particular focus, but its important to point out that our discussions were firmly grounded in its application within the firewall and the different challenges this creates.

Thanks again to everyone who attended... the reading list will be coming soon!

Tags: enterprise social software, knowledge management, masterclass, Singapore

The Accountants View of Web 2.0

Written somewhere between Sydney and Singapore... posted in Singapore

A case of serendipity - I came across a copy of the May edition of In the Black, CPA Australia's magazine for accountants, that just happened to have a feature on Web 2.0; or as they put it "Make money out of the internet this time around".

It was interesting to read an accountants perspective on Web 2.0 - I even picked up a new concept, "inventory bubble". Basically what this means is that the some of the success of auction sites like eBay is effectively based on traders buying from other traders rather than actually selling something to the final consumer. The net result I suppose is a bit like a pyramid scheme?

However, despite this warning overall there is a suggestion - and thinking here about the classic Gartner S-shaped hype curve - that the this time around the basis of the Web 2.0 business models (or at least those people investing in them) are a lot more mature than we saw in 2000. There is also a point made that many of the viable or successful Internet business models have nothing to do with Web 2.0. So, the bottom line is just good common sense: forget the hype, is the fundamental business model sound?

PS Wollongong-based Nik Cubrilovic (See Omnidrive) also gets a mention.

Tags: accountants, Gartner, Web 2.0

Waiting at Sydney

Currently waiting to board my flight to Singapore at Sydney Airport for the masterclass I’m running there on Monday and Tuesday.

Do you know what I hate most about flying… being offline! Actually, Singapore Airlines do now offer inflight wifi internet access, but its hardly priced for the masses (just yet). If it ever gets fast enough I wonder what it will do to the inflight entertainment?

Meanwhile, I’m still trying to come up with some good words to describe the third dimension of collaboration:

• Hyper-Dialogue vs Dialogue?


• Networked vs Linear?


• Bounded (Closed) vs Unbounded (Open)?


• Consensus Building vs Chaotic?


• Crowds vs Groups/Teams

Hmm. Maybe I can come up with something better in the next eight hours or so I’m in the air.

PS If you’re attending my masterclass tomorrow, I’m very much looking forward to meeting you!

Tags: Always on, always connected, Connexion, Sydney Airport

Mistrusting Skype users

Highlighting the ongoing tension between IT departments and Web 2.0 technologies being used inside the firewall, Chris Nerney on The Datamation IT Blog points to concerns reported about Skype from enterprise IT departments:

"...Skype hasn't had as much luck is in the corporate sector. One of the main reasons for this, according to an article on CNET News.com, is inadequate username authentication for business customers. In other words, a lot of IT managers would like a better idea of who is connecting to their networks... CNET points out, IT managers are concerned that in-house users are unable to "authenticate the identity of the people they are communicating with." One authentication technique being considered by Skype is a "ring of trust," in which users are identified by a certification authority. That sounds like a hard sell to an IT manager running a large enterprise containing sensitive data.

On the otherhand an earlier article in CSO magazine, responding to a research reporting claiming to debunk the Skype hype, comments

"...there is any longer a mystery about [Skype's] risks, which have been well debated elsewhere. A number of companies have even started selling products that set out to stop the application from running at all."

So at the moment there is no middle group: either we block it or just run with it and stop worrying about the risks. Perhaps, as Nerney suggests at the end of his post, this is a golden oppourtunity for a Web 2.0 startup to solve the problem and keep everyone happy.

technorati tags:Skype, enterprise+social+software, information+security, greynets

Amazing ASIMO

A little off topic, but I have to say that Australian sci-tech TV show Beyond Tomorrow did a really good job tonight of explaining why Honda's ASIMO robot represents such an innovation. ASIMO has been developing over the last twenty years and the goal is that one day "ASIMO may serve as another set of eyes, ears, hands and legs for all kinds of people in need. Someday ASIMO might help with important tasks like assisting the elderly or a person confined to a bed or a wheelchair. ASIMO might also perform certain tasks that are dangerous to humans, such as fighting fires or cleaning up toxic spills."

Watching ASIMO in action, particulary walking and running, has to be seen to be believed!

technorati tags:robots, innovation, ASIMO

That ol'Time Shifting Argument?

I get Nick Carr's point and the complaint about Jon Udell showing people how to download an MP3 file version of an MP3 stream from a US public radio site, but isn't this just about time shifting (the same issue as recording free-to-air TV or radio) only more confusing for the consumer?

In this particular case we are given a choice between a free stream "anytime" or buy a copy so you can listen "anytime". The Website in question, for a US show called This American Life, also promotes the downloadable versions you can purchase as "high quality downloads" suggesting that its a different product anyway.

In addition, on the This American Life site they also say "Why you can't download our MP3 Files: Allowing download of those files would require us to PAY contributors for each download, as we do when we sell a CD or a show on Audible. Doing this would be an administrative nightmare, and we can't afford it."

So they themselves would rather stream because this way they don't have the administrative overhead of paying their contributors!

Tags: Jon Udell, Nicholas Carr, time shifting

Wallpaper - the future of digital music art?

Aside from issues of digital rights management, Charles Arthur in the Guardian newspaper writes about an issue I've often wondered about too - what happens to album cover art in a world of digital downloads? He asks "Whatever happened to those big 'gatefold' sleeves on double albums, where you had two feet of space to go mad? What about the photo booklet inserts that The Who used on Quadrophenia, telling a story to accompany the double album through dozens of wordless 11- by 11-inch black-and-white photos?"

I had assumed that perhaps, like books, people would still occasionally desire something tangible to represent their favourite artist (or author) and that they would live on as luxuries at least. But wandering across the MC Lars (aka Mr anthem of the MP3 generation, "Download this song") website the other day I noticed that album cover art of a sort still lives on in digital form - AIM buddy icons and mobilephone (cellphone) wallpaper. Not quite the same perhaps, but at least there are signs that art for the musical masses will live on.

I wonder what other innovations we will see in this area?

Tags: new+media, music+downloads, web+2.0

The 3rd Dimension of Collaboration

I just had one of those strange moments - often rare when you reside in a distant part of the southern hemisphere - where I'm conversing indirectly with another blogger, in this case JP Rangaswami about my last post.

I wonder, is it time to expand our classic two dimensions of collaboration (synchronous and asynchronous) to include a third? I'm not sure what to call this new dimension, but two suitable computer geek terms to position its two extremes might be serial and parallel. The blogosphere at its best is when we are talking at the same time, but to each other at the same time...

Tags: blogging, collaboration, social+software

Eating the two-dot-zero elephant

I said I had more to say about the traditional and the new wave of Web 2.0 inspired collaboration technologies, but the more I think about it the more I feel trying to get a grip on the two-dot-zero landscape (you know - Web 2.0, Intranet 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0) is like trying to eat an elephant - you need to do it in small pieces.

Today, JP Rangaswami's post about Web browser standards within the enterprise provided a useful distraction in respect to one piece of that elephant. I added a comment that referred to a point referenced by Tim O'Reilly is his Web 2.0 explanation about the idea of "software written above the level of the single device". This is infact a quote from a short essay written in 2003 by ex-Microsoft developer, Dave Stutz. I note in his bio he mentions at the end that he has "always tried to highlight product development paths that lead beyond standalone PC software to the far larger opportunities that exist in networked software".

This is in part, whether Web 2.0 or Intranet 2.0, what the two-dot-zero world is all about. The problem then with proprietory software from this perspective is not about cost, but the barriers it creates in determining how, with what and when the end-users - or to quote Jon Udell, the "amateurs" - get to do useful and innovative things with it. And here is the risk with some of the enterprise-level wikis I see emerging, they too may eventually lock you into a single interface and this will ultimately limit participation and we'll be back where we started.

UPDATE: Read JP's follow up post - he is spot on where he describes a "plethora of sources, working within an ecosystem approach to standards, market-driven, market-maintained, community-enriched... With the right things done in terms of identity, permissioning, authentication."

Tags: intranet 2.0, open standards, web 2.0

c:>rename bill.gates ray.ozzie

Even outside of geekdom, such is the importance of the Microsoft empire that Bill Gate's planned transition (retirement?) next July even made it into the local paper (but not important enough to make it into their online edition, where its topped by Lack of train amenities loo-dicrous).

But what hasn't had so much attention in the traditional media is that But it has taken the traditional media a little bit longer to pick up on the other part of the annoucement, that "Chief Technical Officer Ray Ozzie will immediately assume the title of chief software architect and begin working side by side with Gates on all technical architecture and product oversight responsibilities".

The Guardian speculates that, "Mr Ozzie's influence is expected to push Microsoft further into highly developed web applications and knowledge sharing programs, areas where Microsoft is feeling the pressure from such companies as Google.

technorati tags:Ray+Ozzie, Bill+Gates, Microsoft

When doesn't a wiki make good cents?

In response to a blog post by Bill Ives about IBM's Quickplace collaboration tool, Andrew Mitchell asked about the value of traditional enterprise collaboration tools when you consider that you can get "more bang for the buck" from the latest generation of enterprise wikis.

I responded in turn to Andrew's wiki 2x2 collaboration matrix (JPG, 14KB) that he included in his post by commenting:

"I get a little uncomfortable in trying to distinguish between “wikis” and tools such as Quickplace simply on face value. It really comes down to the functionality available and how it actually gets used in practice. Lock down a wiki tool and you end up with just a basic WCMS. In terms of your model, tools like eRoom and Quickplace can integrate presence and conferencing (same time, different place) but may have additional functionality... Also, you can give wiki-like access to users in these tools if you want, you just have to setup the space in the right way."

Andrew replied that wiki software still represents better value for money, even if they only give you 80% of what you need, so why would you bother?

Many organisations still pick traditional collaboration tools over the new wave of enterprise wiki software because they make their total cost of acquisition and ownership decisions from different perspectives, particularly when the pre-existing infrastructure and specific business requirements are taken into account. However, this is why I see a big difference between adopting wiki technology because they are cheap software tools versus using them as part of a strategic decision to move towards creating enterprise 2.0.

Also, as the we've seen in the Motorola example, it can sometimes be cheaper and quicker to use the wiki (and blogging) functionality in an existing platform (in their case, OpenText).

I have some more to say on this, but it will have to wait for another time. BTW In the meantime, I looked at the issue of enterprise wiki software in an IDM article last year, and I wrote a case study on Ernst & Young's use of Quickplace in this book.

And here is another question for another time - when does wiki software stop being a wiki? As we've seen in the past with knowledge management technologies, do we risk labeling every piece of software that provides an edit button a wiki or have we lost sight of the original quick, quick intention?

PS - And yes, this was Flock blogged!

technorati tags:enterprise+social+software, wikis, Quickplace

Is it time to Flock?

I've started to hear a bit of buzz form around a new Web 2.0 friendly browser, called Flock. Euan Semple made some positive noises, but Luis Suarez has a bit more detail on why he likes it and what it does. Their 0.7 beta release is currently available - Euan thinks the benefits of Flock outweigh any bugs you might find in this beta release.

As I started to read about what it does - for example integrate easy photo sharing, rss and blogging - I started to think, isn't this something you could just build a Firefox extension to do? Well, as I looked further I discovered that Flock is in fact built on the Mozilla's browser engine... it makes Flock even more interesting, because like the Mozilla suite it also supports the concept of extensions. So Flock has solid browser engine, is Web 2.0 friendly and lets you hack it with more extension. Yes, I'm already downloading it to try myself :-)

Tags: flock, web 2.0, Web browsers

Mash and Play - New Tag Cloud

Like many blogs, the ChiefTech Blog is a mashup of different services built on top of the basic blogging engine - RSS feeds, email subscriptions, usage statistics, tags, etc.

I added a tag cloud back in October 2005, but recently it broke. That's life when you mashup - occasionally things will stop working. Luckily we can just mash and play... so I now have a new tag cloud (you'll need to scroll down the page to find it) mashed up from ZoomClouds.

Setup was very quick, easy and straight forward. The only downside of the new cloud is that it is built from my RSS feed which only includes recent posts, so please be patient.

Tags: mashups, tag cloud, ZoomClouds

Scoble: I didn't do this for the audience

Enough people have been blogging and talking about Robert Scoble leaving Microsoft for a social software startup that it leaves little for me to add. However, I did enjoy this bit of reflection on his blog:

"Will I lose my audience? That's a question I've seen on the blogs. Yes. Huh? You will unsubscribe if I don't give you a payoff. For many of you Microsoft was that payoff. Yes, Microsoft is still an interesting company for many many people in the world. When I was at my mom's funeral, what did we end up talking about at lunch afterward? Microsoft. Everyone had an opinion about Microsoft. Everyone knew who it was. What it did... Over the next few months if I don't give you a payoff you'll leave. That'd be OK with me, I didn't do this for the audience."

Tags: microsoft, robert scoble,

The third attribute of intranet discussion forums

James Robertson (via his blog) provides some ideas on "it sounded like a good idea at the time" intranet discussion forums. He identifies "two critical success factors for intranet discussion forums: a clear purpose, and a common community."

I'd like to add a third, but I can't take credit for the idea - Cliff Figallo in the ultra practical book, Hosting Web Communities, has a brilliant model that describes online forums using the following attributes:

• Interactivity


• Focus (or "clear purpose")


• Cohesion (or "common community")

The additional attribute, Interactivity, is particularly useful because it can help to put the success or failure of a community into perspective. If we expect high levels of interactivity, clear purpose and common community as James explains them are definitely a critical factor. However, a community can still be successful in Figallo's model even with low interactivity - we either see that as a starting point for moving towards greater interactivity or build our forum approach around those attributes of a particular community.

Tags: Cliff Figallo, intranets, online communities of practice

Success with social software: Critical mass, not the tools

Ever since I started talking about there being a grey area of difference between social software and other types of groupware, collaboration and other information management tools I've been convinced that its not just about the software but how we choose to use them. Luis Suarez, in his elsua blog, puts forward similar idea but adds that the difference now is the critical mass behind them:

"the key message towards the successful adoption of both wikis and weblogs, amongst other social software available out there, is not the tools themselves, although there have been huge improvements about usability, scalability and accessibility all along, but more the people themselves. That critical mass of knowledge workers that I have talked about in the past and which are the main responsible parties of this hyped social media tools all along... It is that same critical mass the one that is helping push the adoption of those tools because they themselves are acting as technical facilitators as well in the acceptance of such technologies amongst the non-tech savvy folks out there so that the initial technical barriers can be overcome and people get a chance to share what they know and collaborate with others."

Yes, I agree - IT innovation is an important factor in the successful adoption of KM and other collaborative technologies, something I discussed in my 2004 case study (PDF) on Ernst & Young with reference to the following paper:

Nambisan W, Agarwal R & Tanniru M, 1999, 'Organizational mechanisms for enhancing user innovation in information technology', MIS Quarterly, vol. 23, no. 3, pp. 365-395.

Well worth a look if you can get hold of it.

Tags: critical mass, IT innovation, knowledge management, social software

Liked the article? Then visit the workshop...

If you enjoyed my last IDM article, you might be interested to know that at the moment I'm preparing to run a repeat of my successful (and apparently popular) masterclass on Enabling Knowledge Management with Technology in Singapore at the end of the month. Contact the Ark Group for more information.

Tags: knowledge management, Masterclass, Singapore

The quiet approach to enterprise social software

A three hour road trip from Wollongong to Newcastle yesterday gave me a chance to listen to Dan Bricklin's interview with Toby Redshaw from Motorola.

Redshaw emphasises that Motorola's experience with implementing enterprise social software was a bottom up effort. Using the capabilities in their existing OpenText deployment, they "quietly launched wikis and blogs" last May. Since then take up of the new tools has followed a tipping point pattern and now 5%-10 of 60,000 Motorola's employees actively contribute content.

Sounds too easy? Well, that's Redshaw's point - implementing wikis and blogs at Motorola was very easy. Unfortunately while this is a good story the only clue we have to that success is that wikis and blogs are easy to use, but I'm left wondering if there isn't more to it?

Tags: case study, enterprise social software, motorola

More wiki case studies

Talking of KM and IT, the new Melbourne KMLF group's blog has a great short case study on the use of wiki (and forum) technologies to support collaboration in an Australian government organisation. They have encouraged and supported bottom-up take up of their technologies. They also believe "Sandpits are both necessary and fun additions" that allow people to explore how and why they might use a paticular tool. I find their approach very much reflects my own experiences with using IT to support KM (have a look at my own 2004 case study on Ernst & Young's approach to supporting collaboration).

Meanwhile, Bill Ives tells us about how Novell has been using Wiki technology inside the firewall for collaborating on projects, sharing information across the enterprise and even facilitating event planning and management. Ives observes "I think, in some ways. wikis are even more effective behind the enterprise firewall as security is much less an issue and generally the trusted environment where wikis work best is in place." Ives also points us to podcast on Motorola's experiences with wikis and blogs (sounds good, but I haven't listened to it yet).

Tags: case study, enterprise social software, wikis

Knowledge Management and IT

"The demise of knowledge management has been predicted by many, but while we may be uncomfortable with what has to be one of the most poorly defined management concepts, the fact is that the 'knowledge' problem in organisations will not go away."

My recent feature article on KM in Image and Data Manager (IDM) magazine is now available to download from my articles archive or you can currently read it online over at the IDM site.

In this article I provide a brief history of KM, myth bust the Data > Information > Knowledge paradigm and provide a couple of simple frameworks to help you start analysing how information technology can really be used to enable KM.

Tags: image and data manager magazine, knowledge management, knowledge management systems

Wow. P2P backup?

A couple of people have lost data recently - Andrew Mitchell's hard disk died while JP Rangaswami's hosting company had a major failure and his blog was lost.

Both were able to recover content from backups - what makes Rangaswami's experience interesting is that content was salvaged not from the hosting company's backups (they failed too!) but from content cached in other blog mashing services, search engines, the Internet archive and even user's RSS clients. To quote Rangaswami - "Wow. P2P backup?"

So while we worry about the risks of the mashed up Web, could this also be a strength? I won't stop backing up just yet but lets keep working on this idea...

Tags: backup, mashups, p2p backup

Talking up dotmobi

Remember me talking about mobile friendly m dot websites the other day? Well, the "industry" has gone the other way and launched a new top-level domain, .modi (or dotmobi). The purpose of dotmobi is to make it easier for mobile web users to find mobile content and to give them some assurance that the sites they visit are optimised for a mobile web experience.

However, despite a bit of PR effort and a swish website complete with a blog, not everyone is switched on to dotmobi. Mr WWW, Tim Berners-Lee, has made it clear he is not a supporter of dotmobi as he believe it will fragment the Web. The W3C also presented some arguments against dotmobi back in 2004 as they saw it as "Inconsistent with Device Independence Principles". On a more practical level, someone points out that dotmobi is just another domain to remember and needs more keypresses than .com.

Either way, don't get too excited just yet - from the few example dotmobi sites out there the dotmobi experience is looking pretty dotboring. If dotmobi continues on the basis of the lowest common denominator then it may be a case of too little too late as mobile technology power and screen resolution increases over time. As always, only time will tell - this pragmatic approach to mobile content could be a winner in the long run.

Tags: dotmobi, mdot, mobile content

MS to bring automated social networking inside the firewall

In the late 1990's some of us working with Lotus Notes got very excited about a product they developed called Raven. It promised to provide an automated expertise locator that would enable you to find people in an organisation based on the relationship "between people and topics based upon authorship and activity.". I'm not sure really what happened to it or if anyone started using it. However, now Microsoft have annouced plans for a similar product called Knowledge Network for Office SharePoint Server 2007. Just like Raven promised, it will let you "search for people by automating the discovery of the business relationships and subject matter expertise of everyone in the network."

Could this be the influence of Ray Ozzie at play? Well, I hope this time around Knowledge Network makes a greater implact than poor old Raven.

Tags: enterprise social software, Lotus Raven, Microsoft Knowledge Network

Magnetic drives are dead, long live solid state

I'm not really a hardware fanatic, but this story from Engadget about a new laptop from Samsung is worth mentioning. This new laptop features a 32GB solid state "flash" drive rather than a traditional hard disk.

Engadget tell us that the "32GB [flash drive] reads 300 percent faster (53MB/s) and write 150 percent quicker (28MB/s) than normal hard drives while offering better protection against shock, 25-50% faster boots and sleep recovery times, longer battery life and reduced weight all in a completely silent, fanless package. Hoozah!".

What we can expect to see is the gap between PDA, mobile phone and laptop only shrink further.

Tags: mobile computing, solid state disk

Danger: Mashups Ahead

Social software and the like appear to always follow a kind of "S" shaped risk hype curve, so its only natural as interest in mashups becomes more popular we see questions about the risks they present. JP Rangaswami's (CIO of DrKW - the Enterprise 2.0 case study) reflects on a critical article in the New Scientist that warns about the dangers mashups. They are particulary concerned about privacy, but also our reliance on data for which integrity can not be assured.

However Rangaswami comments "We need to ensure that the weeds of DRM are not allowed to choke the mashup flowers. Let a thousand mashup flowers bloom. We need new answers to identity and access, but we are not going to get them by constraining new ways of doing things with old ways of stopping things."

Tags: information security, mashups, social software

The e-Working Class

Via Techdirt, BusinessWeek looks at the appearence of "digital factory jobs":

"Behind the seemingly magical offerings of the Internet are thousands of human beings madly inputting data around the clock. The work ranges from the slightly creative, such as... crafting sentences for ads to snag search traffic, to the rote -- typing in descriptions of hamburgers for online menus."

Another reminder that we can't always predict the impact of technology on society. Will it be just a question of time until even these digital factories are superceeded by technology or cheaper "imports"? And what will happen to the e-working class?

Tags: computers and society, digital factory jobs, technology in the workplace

Use your voice

The Australian Flexible Learning Framework website is an excellent resource, even for those that might not consider themselves having an interest in e-learning. Thanks to Nancy White for spotting this new resource on using your voice online. This resource focuses "on online voice technologies and the new practices in innovative e-learning that they make possible", however there is definitely broader applications for collaboration and knowledge management for tools such as voice boards, voice chat, voice email and audioblogs. I particularly like the idea of voiceboards - these are online discussion boards that use voice posts rather than text - because I can see a steady progression away from hypertext to hypermedia taking place as information and communication technologies converge and evolve.

PS Also check out the KnowledgeTree electronic journal.

Tags: audio, elearning, social software, hypermedia

The need for speed

Care of Corporate Engagement, it would appear that while big PC monitors make staff more productive, "ageing and unreliable office computers are making workers unhappy and more likely to claim sick leave". Good to know, but what I'm really interested to know is if these users are being influenced by their own experiences of using PC technology at home?

Tags: technology in the workplace

Contemplating Your Digital Life

Did you dig a little deeper from my last post and have a look at Mary Czerwinski’s page of research? If not, take another look as there is a great discussion piece where Czerwinki and some other researchers look at the past and future of what has been called "life caching".

In this article, titled In Digital Memories in an Era of Ubiquitous Computing and Abundant Storage (PDF), they look at why we might want to do it and the problems or issues this might create, including how we might go about retrieving such digital memories later.

It turns out that the idea of storing our life histories isn’t so radical after all - they reference a 1945 article in the The Atlantic Monthly by Vannever Bush called As We May Think – luckily, thanks to the miracle of modern technology you can read it online (you’ll need to skip to the end for relevant part).

Tags: Life Caching, Microsoft Research, Vannever Bush

Technology isn’t the bad guy here

There is a lot of advice floating around about technology and productivity, particulary for managing email overload. Taking a slightly different appraoch, with the help of Dr Ben Searle from Macquarie University, the ABC's Catalyst science tv show observed an office worker and gave them a "workplace makeover".

They conclude that "Technology isn’t the bad guy here" and people should:

• Pay attention to your ergonomic set up (use a bigger PC monitor - they point to research by Mary Czerwinski at Microsoft).


• Minimise excessive stimulation, like television and music while you are working; and


• Favour the phone over email - it’s simply faster.

But while there is some good straight forward advice here, and while acknowledging that this was just a short piece in a TV show, it really only scratches the surface of dealing with technology in the workplace - for example, how do we improve the productivity of people working in different roles and distributed teams?

Tags: abc catalyst, email, information overload, technology in the workplace

Beta Mobile Search

Ok... I didn't scroll down to the bottom of my mobile Google search results. These guys are just one step ahead of me... Mobile Search is already in beta.

Tags: m dot sites, mobile content, mobile search

Searching for m dot

If you are PDA or smart phone user who goes online wirelessly, have you noticed that some sites are now offering alternative URLs that are mobile friendly? They all start with http://m. (for "mobile") and some popular sites I've found include:

• Google and Gmail;


• Technorati; and


• CNET.

I'm sure there are more out there, and plenty yet to appear. Unfortunately I have yet to find a way of locating or searching for the sites. Even googling "site: http://m." is a bit hit and miss.

However, I did discover this mobile content proxy from Google (not sure how official it is?) - mobile Google uses this automatically when you browse frm search results. I suppose the question is, do we need alternative sites for small screen users or just better standards- and XML-based web design that will work anywhere?

Tags: mdot, mobile content, mobile search

Are you taking the Miki?

Earlier in the month corporate social software company, Social Text, launched it's mobile wiki or "Miki". Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, the bank that served as a case study for McAfee's Enterprise 2.0 article, has apparently been beta testing it.

With my own interest in social software and mobile knowledge management I thought that this would be something worth taking a closer look at…

Well, basically it appears the Miki is a stripped down version of Social Text's core wiki product. I'm not entirely sure the name will take off, but that's the least of my criticism because I'm not really sure how much of a breakthrough this it…

I don't know about you, but my PDA has a full colour screen and a rich user-interface – so why do I want a stripped down tool on my PDA?

Well, lets look at Google’s Gmail for inspiration as they offer a PDA and mobile phone Web-browser optimised version. I want to see this level of functionality and integration in my mobile wiki before I get too excited!

Tags: enterprise social software, mobile knowledge management, Miki

Enterprise D'oh

While McAfee might be excited about the potiential for social software in the enterprise, Jason has embarked on listing the 10 things he hates about wikis. But don't worry, it all constructive criticism. Also check Rami's requirements for the perfect wiki (from 2004!).

From my point of view its about the difference between social software form and function. We should aim to improve the form without changing the function so it stops being social software.

Tags: social software, usability, wikis

More comments on Enterprise 2.0

Over the weekend I finally had a chance to look over a copy of the Enterprise 2.0 article. At the same time I was also re-reading The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage. A odd combination you might think, but a good way of ensuring I don't get myself caught up too much in the hype - one of the messages in Standage's book is that technologies never quite have the "utopian" impact we think they will, but they still have an impact.

Ok. Very briefly this is what I like and don't like about McAfee's Enterprise 2.0 vision:

• His framework for enterprise social software is defined as SLATES - Search, Links, Authoring, Tags, Extensions and Signals. We could probably debate his terms and definitions, but I think he has caught enough of the essence of what makes an enterprise social software architecture different.


• He identifies the critical role of managers in facilitating the adoption of social software inside the firewall but also recognises that this may also create conflict because "These tools reduce management's ability to exert unilateral control and will be used to express some level of negativity."


• Further he also concludes that there will "significant difference in companies' abilities to exploit them. Because of the opportunities the technologies bring, these difference will matter a great deal." Or in other words, its not the technology but knowing what to do with it and how to do it that counts.
  

On the other hand I was disappointed not to see some mention about the consumer driven innovation seen in the Internet social software space and the impact this pressure will put on organisations to change their approaches to IT. Similarly, while McAfee notes that centralised intranets hinder effective search because such intranets lack the dense links that we find on the World Wide Web, he does not link this to his point about management control that he raises later. I've discussed some of these things in the Intranet Imperative last year.

Finally - and perhaps this is a little out of scope - a mention of the issues that the ideology of self-service within organisations has also created in terms of information and knowledge sharing might have added some further context to the discussion around the challenges of getting knowledge workers to use this stuff. Why would we expect everyone to contribute in the same way as their peers? Think about The Tipping Point and the different roles of Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen.

Tags: enterprise 2.0, enterprise social software, intranet imperative

Podcasting - evolutionary or revolutionary?

I have to admit that I don't really listen to Podcasts, primarily they don't really fit my way of working but also I don't find them very interactive. The fact that Podcasts aren't really hyper-linkable yet by the masses makes them an interesting but still just a one-way content distribution system. Taking this a bit further, Steve Rubel, in his Micro Persuasion blog, asks if Podcasting is evolutionary or revolutionary?

"Podcasting is an important medium, no doubt. It changed how people listen to audio and where that content comes from. On the other hand, podcasting is not very social. It's largely unidirectional. It's about democratized distribution. In five years time podcasting will be seen as evolutionary while Wikipedia, social networking and blogging will be viewed as revolutionary because they are dialogue driven, scannable and searchable in mainstream Web search engines."

However, perhaps its just a question of time as we see tools like Podzinger emerge that let us search Podcasts and zero in on what interests us. Podzinger is google for audio data that converts speech to text so it can be indexed.

Tags: social software, hypermedia

Update on tech-etiquette challenges

Care of Lifehacker and Micro Persuasion, Christian Science Monitor discusses the latest etiquette challenges of our always on, always connected world including ipods and wireless headsets ("The first question when you greet someone in our office is, 'Are you on the phone?' They don't know, with wireless headsets.").

This article talks about a room full of publicists at a lunch forum, all tapping away at their PDAs and Blackberries rather than listening to the speaker. I remember when this used to be a common occurrence at internal meetings in organisations, but now it looks like this bad tech-behaviour is leaking outside as wireless connectivity becomes even more wide spread.

Tags: always on, always connected, tech-etiquette, technology in the workplace

Small World! now available for download

My November/December 2005 Image and Data Manager (IDM) magazine article, Small World!, is now available for download from my articles and papers archive:

"The influence of social network concepts continues to manifest themselves in many different areas of business. From understanding who knows who to viral marketing, organisations are finding legitimate uses for putting conversations and informal connections to work in the search for competitive advantage."

PS I'm in the process of reorganising my articles archive page, so you may need to scroll down to find my list of IDM articles.

Tags: image and data manager, social network analysis

Ok... Not quite the dawn?

Always good for a counterpoint, Nicholas Carr's gives his point of view on McAfee's Enterprise 2.0 article:

"Managers, professionals and other employees don't have much spare time, and the ones who have the most valuable business knowledge have the least spare time of all. (They're the ones already inundated with emails, instant messages, phone calls, and meeting requests.) Will they turn into avid bloggers and taggers and wiki-writers? It's not impossible, but it's a long way from a sure bet."

I don't disagree with Carr's assessment - KM needs to be human-centred not technology driven. In May last year I blogged about the grey area that social software exists in - there is nothing magical about social software unless people use it as social software.

Tags: enterprise 2.0, enterprise social software

The Dawn of Emergent Collaboration

Continuing on the theme of my previous post, Harvard Business School academic Andrew McAfee has a new article in the latest edition of Sloan Management Review where he argues why enterprise social software "may well supplant other communication and knowledge management systems with their superior ability to capture tacit knowledge, best practices and relevant experiences from throughout a company and make them readily available to more users."

I haven't read the full article yet, but there is some good commentary by Ross Mayfield in the Many-to-Many blog and McAfee continues the discussion on his own blog.

McAfee builds on his article to identify three trends why is Enterprise 2.0 is now an appealing reality:

• Simple, Free Platforms for Self-Expression


• Emergent Structures, Rather than Imposed Ones


• Order from Chaos

Tags: enterprise 2.0, enterprise social software, sloan management review

The art of social software inside the firewall: First, avoid the IT department

Trevor Cook, reacting to a post by Shel Holtz, weighs up the both sides of the argument about how IT departments can block the take up of social software within the firewall:

"IT departments... have to let go because we're entering the era of the user as controller. If IT departments don't let go - the HUGE productivity gains to be had from things like RSS feeds and aggregators will be lost.

OTH, I continue to be amazed by the absolute IT illiteracy of most people, even people who use computers all day seem completely incurious about how they operate...

Perhaps, if I worked in an IT dept and had to deal with this level of ignorance all day I too would be a paranoid, control freak."

So is it just ignorance or good IT managament practice? This is something I've discussed in the past. IMHO rather than rolling up the shutters, IT departments must engage with this new technology.

Tags: enterprise social software, intranet imperative, technology in the workplace

The World Is Round

Talking of information vs knowledge, Jack Vinson picks up on some commentary from Bill Brantley about a new HBR article by Laurence Prusak.

Prusak's article challenges the "conventional wisdom that the Internet has made the world flatter."

Brantley's summary tells us that "Connectivity and information technology alone are not the solution to realizing the benefits of innovation and thus countries must spend time and resources to creating knowledge" while Vinson reflects back that "Throwing a bunch of knowledge workers together via the internet does not automatically create a smart organization. Organizations still need a goal and leadership. People need to know how they should be smart and what is expected of those zillions of interactions that are possible."

Tags: HBR, Larry Prusak

Tackling one of the big KM debates - the role of IT

I'm very pleased this month to be the cover feature article in the March/April 2006 edition of Image and Data Manager (IDM) magazine. The article, titled Knowledge Management: How to separate the wheat from the chaff, tackles one of the big KM questions – what is the role of information technology in knowledge management?

Just to get you thinking here are a couple of dot points I use in the article to consider information vs knowledge:

Information

• 1st generation knowledge management was really about using information technology to enable a paradigm shift from controlling and limiting access to information to one of sharing information so that anyone who might need it could freely access it. Fundamentally this approach to knowledge management was really about employing the right information management practices to better reflect the needs of knowledge workers.


• In next-generation knowledge management, information is treated as a valuable resource for learning, providing context and providing evidence of the past.

Knowledge

• The philosophical debate about what is “knowledge” has raged for centuries. We have to accept that it is unlikely that this debate will ever be resolved and instead focus on the activity of knowledge management.


• Knowledge workers need more than just information to help them make non-routine decisions or manage non-routine activities. Next-generation knowledge management involves managing the organisational environment not only so that information can be freely shared, but to help knowledge workers learn from and connect with each other.

Let me know if you have any comments about this or the article!

BTW I’ve recently moved most of the articles I have available for download, including those previously published in IDM, to this page on my main website. You'll also find a few more related to Web and Intranets here. to here.

Tags: image and data manager magazine, knowledge management, knowledge management systems

Redesigning the KWeb

Another new'ish Ernst & Young "KWeb" (or EY/KnowledgeWeb) case study (PDF), this time documenting their recent user-centered design project to improve user satisfaction.

What's so special about this? Well, other than the fact I used to work as part of the KWeb team at Ernst & Young in Australia, check out the graph on page 6 of this case study and note that E&Y's knowledge management intranet is more than a decade old. In this time it has gone through more than 6 iterations meanwhile some organisations are still trying to get their first or second iteration off the ground.

PS You might also want to have a look at this other case study from December last year looking at how Factiva is integarated into KWeb.

Tags: ernst & young, intranets, user-centered design

The story of our quest to communicate better

I stumbled across this nice little virtual museum site from the UK, called Connected Earth:

"Connected Earth is the story of our ongoing quest to communicate better, from the first simple messages to today's sophisticated global communications.

Established by BT, Connected Earth lets you explore communications past, present and future both here online and at a network of partner museums around the UK."

For the nerds out there, also have a look at the archives section of the main BT website where you can also browse photos and film from the history of telecommunications in the UK.

Tags: british telecom, history of telecommunications

Wikis at WIN TV

I'm always on the look out for examples of Australian organisations making use of social software within the firewall, so here is one from a report by Rodney Gedda in ComputerWorld on Wollongong-based WIN Television.

This report actually talks about WIN TV's use of open source in a number of areas, but I was interested in how they are using a wiki internally to share information. According to this report WIN TV's former IT manager, James Purser, has created created three wiki-spaces - one for their production departments, one for IT and another to provide general information to users.

Tags: enterprise social software, WIN television

Email software is "socially inept"

Don't take my word for it, this comes from Marc Smith a research sociologist who works for Microsoft. He was recently interviewed by the UK's FT newspaper and while he pretty much covers old ground about email productivity, he makes a good point:

"He says e-mail software just does not give people enough help. He calls current software socially inept: 'It simply has no conception of human relationships.' His team is working on ways of making software 'socially savvy' so that it can take more of the load."

Also, check out these associated articles on enterprise social software and email.

Tags: email, information overload, marc smith, social software

When technology goes wrong

Okay, I know you may have been expecting to hear some more on CeBIT but in the meantime have a look at this great spoof Pizza ad from the American Civil Liberties Union about the potiential abuse of personal data and data mining.

Tags: aclu, pizza, data mining

CeBIT in Germany

Just spent the last 2 days at CeBIT in snowy Hanover, Germany. I'll post a bit of a summary in the next few days. However some highlights include RFID in supermrkets, GPS, and outsourcing of IT.

Tags: CeBIT, Hanover

Virtual writing on the wall

I'm currently in the UK on route to the CeBIT exhibition in Germany and noticed a great technology story in the paper yesterday about author Margaret Atwood and her virtual LongPen. She uses the LongPen to sign her books without bothering to travel to the bookshop where the signing is actually taking place!

Atwood is also the brains behind the LongPen and she created a company called Unotchit in late 2004 specifically to develop it. The LongPen reminds me a little of Nokia's Digital Pen which I'm sure could be made to do the same thing.

Tags: margaret atwood, LongPen

Are you in the inner circle?

You might expect because of my interest in knowledge management and social software that I would be an early adopter of networking tools like LinkedIn.

In fact quite the opposite - I was slow to signup exactly because my background in knowledge management tells me relationships are built on more than just loose online connections. However, I did eventually sign up but to be quite honest it was out curiosity around social networks rather than aiming to find business opportunities.

I remember then thinking it was very US-centric (not surprising). Now I've noticed an increasing number of people who are bit more local, but that I don't actually know already. In fact here are the stats from LinkedIn tonight:

* San Francisco Bay Area (11%)
* United Kingdom (10%)
* Greater New York City Area (6%)
* Netherlands (5%)
* Brazil (5%)
* Australia (4%)
* Dallas/Fort Worth Area (4%)
* Greater Boston Area (3%)
* France (3%)
* Washington D.C. Metro Area (3%)

Apart from the US, does anyone have any ideas why LinkedIn is so popular in Brazil???

BTW If you're thinking of inviting to link up with me in LinkedIn but we don't already know each other, please don't be offended if I decline the invitation.

Tags: social networks, LinkedIn

Omnidrive, made in Wollongong

I'm always happy to give ICT companies based in my adopted home town, Wollongong, a bit of support. So if you're looking for an intersting startup that plans to offer "a service that gives people the ability to store all their files online, making them available from anywhere" take a look at Omnidrive.

The two brains behind Omnidrive are Geoff McQueen, who already has a well established Web software company called Internetrix, and Nik Culbrilovic (who also has his own blog - check out his post on the The Economics of Online Storage). You can read Geoff's write up on their adventures in the US where they have been chasing some venture capital. Yes, these guys are serious!

The only thing I want to know is what kind of open API's are they going to offer so that the Web community can mash up some interfaces to Omnidrive?

Tags: omnidrive, Wollongong

Collaborative Advantage

HBS' Working Knowledge reviewed a new book on collaboration, called Collaborative Advantage: How Organizations Win by Working Together by Elizabeth Lank.

I like Lank's argument that says by collaborating companies are "creating competitive advantage that is difficult to replicate... [and it] cannot be bought, copied, or stolen; it must be created from scratch in competing organizations."

What I'm not so excited about is that she has created yet another bit of jargon, "collaborative capital"!

Tags: Elizabeth Lank, collaboration, knowledge management

G'Day from Singapore

If you are looking for me at the moment I'm currently in Singapore running a 2-day master class on enabling knowledge management with technology. Participants include people from Singapore, Thailand and Hong Kong who represent a range of industries, covering government, healthcare, resources and logistics. Its an interesting mix and I know from the comments so far on day 1 that some people are finding my approach to KM and information technology is already challenging some of their original assumptions.

In day 1 we looked at a brief history of KM, discussed some key concepts - including the Australian KM Standard, Collaborative Infrastructure and Strategy - plus a case study on Ernst & Young. Tomorrow we'll be looking at social software, some more on collaborative infrastructure and change management.

Tags: knowledge management, Singapore

More PowerPointless Wisdom

We never get tired of talking about leading practices for using PowerPoint. This Australian newspaper article has some good advice, including the 10-20-30 rule:

"a PowerPoint presentation should have 10 slides, last no more than 20 minutes, and contain no font smaller than 30 point".

Personally I actually try to present with rule of thumb of around 1 slide per 5 minutes. And occasionally I've even been known to use none ;-)

Tags: PowerPoint, Technology in the Workplace

End of the road for the dot-dash world

There have been a number of interesting reports, including this one from Wired, about the rather quiet and uneventful end to Western Union's 150 year-old historic telegram service the other day.

In the age of email and other instant communication tools this had to happen. However, its great to see that the significance of the telegraph networks in understanding the impact of information and communication technologies on society hasn't been lost - if you don't understand what I'm talking about, when you have a moment take a look at Tom Standage's book, titled The Victoria Internet.

PS For a bit of fun also have a look at the William Gibson/Bruce Sterling collaboration, The Difference Engine!

Tags: telegrams, victorian internet

Light layer of collaboration

You might remember that last year I went on a bit about the history of Lotus Notes and how it links with the current evolution of social software out on the Internet. Well, IBM are holding their annual Lotusphere conference where according to a report, IBM "showed off plans to infuse its entire collaborative software lineup with so-called social networking technology such as blogs, wikis and syndication feeds."

In the report IBM'er Duncan Mewherter - and one of the people behind a preview (released last August) of a Weblogging component that can plug into Workplace platform - is quoted as describing social software as a "light layer of collaboration". Hop over to IBM's alphaWorks for more information.

Of course the cynics will say IBM (and others) are just jumping on the bandwagon. Now while we should expect a bit of hype from the vendors, overall for enterprises I think this is a good thing.

Tags: enterprise social software, Lotus Notes

Strange, but true: Email supplements social networks

I haven't had a lot of time so far this year for blogging, or even keeping up with what else is happening out there. However, a new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project did grab my attention today - one of its conclusions about the impact of the Internet on society is that "email
supplements, rather than replaces, the communication people have with others in their network."

Have a look - it certainly challenges the assumption that there is nothing that compares to face-to-face communication. But really my take away from this report is that technology augments and expands our abilities to communicate and maintain connections with people.

Tags: email, Pew Internet, social software

Inaccurate Web

I've had a bit of Wikipedia moment this last week while trying to research a problem with my Palm TX resetting itself. Of course one of the first things I did was check out the user forums on the topic. But if I had believed all that I read online it really would have been quite misguided.

As it turned out, the Palm TX uses a different type of memory from past models meaning there can be incompatibilities with older software, causing it to reset. And yes, I had simply moved a lot of old software from my old Palm and added some more without appreciating the consequences.

However since resetting the Palm completely (a "hard reset") and being a bit more careful with what I install it has been trouble free so far (fingers crossed).

Unfortunately the message I was getting from the forums was that the TX was a flawed piece of hardware. Eventually I discovered some support advice from Palm, but it was hard to find since I was searching for a solution based on symptons.

On the positive, there is some helpful user generated advice out there, such as some user generated compatibility lists (Palm Focus and Palm Facts) - however, even these should not be take as fact. So, the lesson is clear - social software is great, but when it comes to accurate content it still remains a case of buyer beware.

Happy new palm!

Happy new year everyone. Despite the apparent silence during my summer break (this is the southern hemisphere remember), I am actually back on the job. However, I've been a little distracted with setting up my new Palm TX.

This Palm is a long way from my first PDA, a Psion Series 3, which was followed by a disappointing experience with a Psion Series 5, and more recently of course a Palm VX. One of the big changes of course is the amount of memory and data storage available that really makes them closer to PC capabilities that an electronic organiser. However, the major change for me is that the Palm TX comes with Wifi built-in.

In theory this means I can connect to any public Wifi hotspots when I'm out and about - in fact this blog post was published via a public Wifi hotspot in Sydney CBD.

Of course theory isn't quite the same as practice... A combination of Wifi hotspot access limitations in Sydney CBD and the Palm's Web browser have a created a few challenges, but I'm getting there!