It’s been a longer break from blogging than planned, but here’s some links for starters…
Good article in the New York Times questioning why CEOs are so reluctant to embrace the Internet, and specifically blogging, to improve the flow of information – given the chief function of a CEO is communication.. Calls out Jonathan Schwartz as a good example (CEO of Sun). Questions the silence of Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates given the blogging support at lower levels in the company and Apple’s flat ban on blogging. Dismisses the efforts of those who copy/paste existing materials (speeches, interviews etc.) into a blog.
And for those who fear content leakage through blogging, in the light of Sarbannes-Oxley and other records management issues, a sensible comment from Sun’s general counsel, Michael A. Dillon: It’s not the blogs that worry him but the employee email messages sent without the thought or consideration that goes into a blog post.
Good article in the Wall Street Journal discussing MySpace and its potential to catapult unknowns to celebrity status, blurring the traditional definitions separating amateurs and professionals. For example, uses a 24-year old cosmetologist who has gone from working on a makeup counter in mall to having a manager, a start-up jeans company and promotional deals with two mainstream consumer brands. It’s the new pyramid game that puts many job roles on
similar footing to the acting profession – a trend that had already begun when CEOs began earning mega-salaries.
Web casts from the Office DevCon have now been posted up on MSDN. Includes some useful web casts on the changes to SharePoint that make web design on SharePoint much easier than previous versions
This one could make your brain hurt (well it put mine in a rack at least), but this is a great Flash movie that walks you through understanding 10 dimensions.
Forget Big Brother, it’s the many Little Brothers you need to watch out for
O’Reilly post covering the story about how a woman tracked down the kids who toilet-papered her house by canvassing the local stores to find out which one was low on toilet-paper, viewed the surveillance videos to see who bought the toilet paper and was able to match their clothing using a high-school year book to get names and addresses. The telling comment, made by Dylan Tweney:
As YouTube proves, we are far more adept at watching each other than the
government could possibly be. In the future, it’s not “Big Brother” that
will be watching us, but millions of Little Brothers…
Good blog post by Joel Spolsky on the management style at his company, which includes employees sitting down together for lunch. The identity management method is designed to build an identity, to make people feel part of the company, and to give people the information they need to help the organisation succeed. There is a dark side to this method though. Building a strong identity can create a culture where attempts to challenge popular opinions can be dismissed or buried as trouble-making. It requires exceptional leadership to ensure that people are able to bring potentially disruptive concerns to the family table…
Gartner has released their latest hype curve of what’s hot in the technology space. No surprises – social network analysis, collective intelligence, location-aware applications and event-driven architectures continue to dominate. Information Week has also covered the announcement
A closed mind about an open world
Article in the FT (7th August 06) describing how economists are finally accepting the concept of ‘behavioural economics’. And about time too!
Joining Dots 