Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
RSS feeds
These are obviously useful, and a good way to stay abreast of a personalised array of developments. I suppose an aggregator could provide a convenient summary of your favourite internet places and organise updates from your favourite sites and blogs all in one place.
I suspect however that most of the time most people browse the internet intensively on a given topic, encountering a combination of sites they are quite familiar with, and sites they have never seen before - led to these latter from following links and trawling search results. When researching, they want to be on the actual sites of interest, not some intermediary.
So for me aggregators have a little in common with spice racks - that is, an organising device that is a little more cute than practical. In theory the idea is hard to fault, but in terms of real kitchen activities you may be using two or three spices almost exclusively. You might be going through kilos of pepper or cinnamon, and need them down on the bench. Not on a shelf, in some false equivalence with the out of favour cardamom and everything else collecting dust and petrifying in dinky little labelled jars.
I suspect these RSS activities skew towards the geek/anorak/trainspotter/fanboy market segment. Libraries could supply feeds on particular areas - children's activities for parents, services for seniors etc. But I suspect the majority of people planning to use a library service simply go the library's site and follow the most promising links. The closest fit I can imagine is a subset like HSC students, where for a defined period, updates advise of talks, coaching and tutoring services, seminars, changes to loan periods for related materials etc. A general libary feed is going to supply too great a proportion of material irrelevant to a given user.
I suspect however that most of the time most people browse the internet intensively on a given topic, encountering a combination of sites they are quite familiar with, and sites they have never seen before - led to these latter from following links and trawling search results. When researching, they want to be on the actual sites of interest, not some intermediary.
So for me aggregators have a little in common with spice racks - that is, an organising device that is a little more cute than practical. In theory the idea is hard to fault, but in terms of real kitchen activities you may be using two or three spices almost exclusively. You might be going through kilos of pepper or cinnamon, and need them down on the bench. Not on a shelf, in some false equivalence with the out of favour cardamom and everything else collecting dust and petrifying in dinky little labelled jars.
I suspect these RSS activities skew towards the geek/anorak/trainspotter/fanboy market segment. Libraries could supply feeds on particular areas - children's activities for parents, services for seniors etc. But I suspect the majority of people planning to use a library service simply go the library's site and follow the most promising links. The closest fit I can imagine is a subset like HSC students, where for a defined period, updates advise of talks, coaching and tutoring services, seminars, changes to loan periods for related materials etc. A general libary feed is going to supply too great a proportion of material irrelevant to a given user.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Monday, January 18, 2010
To blog or not to blog
I've been thinking about the reasons blogs are created, and why some prove popular.
They aren't as democratic as forums, being more like a personal publishing house - representing one person's view with some commentary. The currency of their information is significant. The fact that they develop and unfold as you check back on them lends a serialised dramatic aspect, which is exploited by WW1: Experiences of an English soldier, where diary entries were published at intervals to match the original events. This lent currency and personal flavour to the historic matter, inducing with vibrant and evocative detail the kind of contemplation that typically eludes a common narrative.
The other factor that can give a blog definition and attractive power is the personality of the figure behind it. Consider the blog of James Kunstler (profanity alert) - controversial and bitterly critical of social and economic policy in the United States, it contains a constructive approach to an anticipated energy and resource crisis. It becomes a matter of interest to the reader how the blogger will view a significant event. For instance, if Obama stated in a prominent speech that oil supplies were assured for the next fifty years, you might find yourself wondering what James will make of it, and then hop on to the site.
It is a difficult task for an institution to tap into the power of the blog, when potential readers are wary of 'corporate' blogs, decorated with topical ephemera, but serving a conventional agenda of self-promotion.
They aren't as democratic as forums, being more like a personal publishing house - representing one person's view with some commentary. The currency of their information is significant. The fact that they develop and unfold as you check back on them lends a serialised dramatic aspect, which is exploited by WW1: Experiences of an English soldier, where diary entries were published at intervals to match the original events. This lent currency and personal flavour to the historic matter, inducing with vibrant and evocative detail the kind of contemplation that typically eludes a common narrative.
The other factor that can give a blog definition and attractive power is the personality of the figure behind it. Consider the blog of James Kunstler (profanity alert) - controversial and bitterly critical of social and economic policy in the United States, it contains a constructive approach to an anticipated energy and resource crisis. It becomes a matter of interest to the reader how the blogger will view a significant event. For instance, if Obama stated in a prominent speech that oil supplies were assured for the next fifty years, you might find yourself wondering what James will make of it, and then hop on to the site.
It is a difficult task for an institution to tap into the power of the blog, when potential readers are wary of 'corporate' blogs, decorated with topical ephemera, but serving a conventional agenda of self-promotion.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Cultured Vegetables
Must look into this Perfekt Pickler. It looks like a device to allow CO2 to escape during fermentation.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Welcome to my blog!
I'm hoping through my explorations to get some ideas about how emerging on-line services might be used to promote public libraries. It's interesting to observe that the uses of a technology frequently evolve beyond the anticipated. Or that the initial conception comes to encompass a new audience - like the internet itself, whereby a military/academic tool spawned a phenomenon which is becoming global in every sense.
I read recently of a new or emerging use for blogs. In the financial sector certain companies sought to measure the anticipated advantages of providing predictable time off to their employees. The existing culture called on staff to work up to 10 hours a day, 7 days a week. For an additional 25 hours a week, mobile devices like BlackBerrys were monitored. The contention was that firmly enforcing planned time off would yield measurable benefits to both company and employee.
The main difficulty was that employees had become 'silos' of information within a project. With any team member absent, the project could grind to a halt on the basis of that unavailable knowledge. The solution was to build duplication of knowledge into the team, so that, even if the main player was away, there was a back-up - who could at least give an outline, or a time-frame. Teams came to use blogs to keep a record of the latest developments - as a way of handing back to the expert. Even the smallest incidents were noted - such as corridor conversations.
Broad benefits came to accrue to the team as each member held a greater sense of how the project was internally structured. Teams with predictable time off came to be preferred by the company's clients for the speed and completeness of communication offered.
Frequently however a technology gains adherents for rather vacuous reasons. To demonstrate awareness or skill, or simply because, for the first time, it's possible to do this particular thing, or do it in the car, or hands-free. Devotees want to display their bleeding edge creds. When a technology offers little other than this reward, it is likely to fall back - at least until a more substantial use comes along. And by substantial I mean corresponding to the convenient performance of a task with some flavour of necessity.
Twitter seems to be a case in point. With shades of the viral forces that suddenly grasp an expression like 'old school' for the national idiom, many citizens older than you might think couldn't resist posting fewer than 140 characters on any departure from their morning routine. Perhaps they thought they were keeping up with the kids - but the kids weren't doing it.
I read recently of a new or emerging use for blogs. In the financial sector certain companies sought to measure the anticipated advantages of providing predictable time off to their employees. The existing culture called on staff to work up to 10 hours a day, 7 days a week. For an additional 25 hours a week, mobile devices like BlackBerrys were monitored. The contention was that firmly enforcing planned time off would yield measurable benefits to both company and employee.
The main difficulty was that employees had become 'silos' of information within a project. With any team member absent, the project could grind to a halt on the basis of that unavailable knowledge. The solution was to build duplication of knowledge into the team, so that, even if the main player was away, there was a back-up - who could at least give an outline, or a time-frame. Teams came to use blogs to keep a record of the latest developments - as a way of handing back to the expert. Even the smallest incidents were noted - such as corridor conversations.
Broad benefits came to accrue to the team as each member held a greater sense of how the project was internally structured. Teams with predictable time off came to be preferred by the company's clients for the speed and completeness of communication offered.
Frequently however a technology gains adherents for rather vacuous reasons. To demonstrate awareness or skill, or simply because, for the first time, it's possible to do this particular thing, or do it in the car, or hands-free. Devotees want to display their bleeding edge creds. When a technology offers little other than this reward, it is likely to fall back - at least until a more substantial use comes along. And by substantial I mean corresponding to the convenient performance of a task with some flavour of necessity.
Twitter seems to be a case in point. With shades of the viral forces that suddenly grasp an expression like 'old school' for the national idiom, many citizens older than you might think couldn't resist posting fewer than 140 characters on any departure from their morning routine. Perhaps they thought they were keeping up with the kids - but the kids weren't doing it.
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