Knowledge work process analysis and photo selection at Sports Illustrated

Not only is this a fascinating analysis of a magazine process, it's also an excellent case study of a classic knowledge work process. What I found particularly interesting were how issues of scale were factored into the design of the process and the selection of tools.

The secret to SI's photography. The secret to SI's photography: This is perhaps the most fascinating analysis of a magazine process I have run across while doing the rexblog. It is a look at how the photographers and photo editors of Sports Illustrated use digital cameras capture the incredible images they use in each issue of the magazine.

Quote:

In 2003, Sports Illustrated's photo department processed 1,028,000 digital photographs shot by staffers or freelancers under assignment. In 2004, an Olympic year, they estimate they will process closer to 3 million. Though a small amount of the work done for the magazine is still shot on film, the vast majority of its photography is now digital.

So, there you have the secret: A few million images to choose from taken by the some of the greatest photo-journalists working today.

(via /.) [rexblog: Rex Hammock's Weblog]

Sturgeon's law and RSS

This is another of those wonderful things you discover in a world where everyone is free to post and publish their passions to the web and bloggers are there to report on their explorations and discoveries.

Sure, Sturgeon's Law still rules; but there's so much more wonderful stuff to be found. As the absolute volume of stuff out there goes up, so does the volume of the 10% that is good (and the 1% that is absolute gold). Add in those intelligent agents that make up my subscriptions and you have the option to fill your own time with that 10 or 1%. Life is good.

TV cliches catalogued. Here's a Wiki cataloguing, with cited examples, all the eye-rolling idiot plots from sitcomdom.

Gilligan Cut
The Gilligan Cut is a classic staple of comedy. A character protests vehemently, “What, you expect me to wear a grass skirt, stand up on top of Empire State Building and belt out the chorus of 'New York, New York'? Well, I'm not gonna… I'm just not gonna…” And then you cut, and see the character doing just that. The Gilligan Cut. Comedy ain't pretty.

Link (Thanks, Gnat!) [Boing Boing]

The Dunbar Number as a Limit to Group Sizes

I've certainly thrown these numbers around myself from time to time (here and here where I get my facts wrong, for example). And I've found them to be valuable heuristics to keep in the back of my mind. It's nice to see that someone has pulled together and organized much of the underlying relevant work. It will be handy to have this available.

The Dunbar Number as a Limit to Group Sizes. Lately I've been noticing the spread of a meme regarding “Dunbar's Number” of 150 that I believe is misunderstanding of his ideas. (post continues with a discussion of Dunbar's Number, the size of groups, some empirical and anecdotal experience with sizes of groups. [Life With Alacrity]

Chicago Blogger Dinner

I was certainly out way past my bed time. I do have a handful of pictures to add to AKMA’s inventive approach to the visual record. More than anything else, they confirm why Charlotte is the one in charge of recording events for posterity in our family.

Earlier in the day Buzz and I spent a good part of the afternoon talking about knowledge work and knowledge management. Next company I start, I’m putting him in charge of business development and sales (no offense to Rick)

After a quick trip to Buzz’s hotel we headed off to Ben Pao to find Rick Klau and Eric Heels already at the bar. I’m pretty sure that expression on Rick’s face is my limited skills as a photographer, not an indication of how long he’d been at the bar.

Here’s Ernie in a classic dueling digicams shot during dinner.

And finally we have Eric, Barry Bayer, and Rick. Based on their expressions, I’m guessing Buzz was in the middle of one of his pitchs of ActiveWords vs. sliced bread 🙂 Or, AKMA was expounding on why the Da Vinci code isn’t his first choice for sound theological education.

Night Out.

I figured that everyone else would have filled megabytes of bandwidth with jolly pictures of boisterous, enthusiastic bloggers at Ben Pao yesterday evening. I figured that by the time I got around to blogging about it, everyone would already know. That s what It thought; but I was wrong again. Sure, John mentions it, but no full account of the conversational free-for-all has yet appeared.

So I was wrong about everyone else, and I m not the guy to supply what is lacking. I did arrive early, in time to spend fifteen minutes or so at the bar with Rick, Buzz, Jim, Erik, Barry Bayer, and John. Then at dinner, I sat in the same corner of the table almost the whole dinner, in between Jenny and Jim (with Jack on the yonder side of Jim).

I had a very helpful conversation with Jenny about my upcoming keynote at the Theology and Pedagogy in Cyberspace conference. I m working on an argument that the changing information environment leaves most theological teachers persistently losing ground to circumstances that obstruct or deflect their attempts to engage new technologies productively. (That reminds me that I owe my mother-in-law a post about why even small rural churches should have websites, and what they should do, but I won t get to that tonight. Sorry, Pat! I ll try tomorrow.)

Case in point: almost all scholars who now conduct theological research online learned the craft of research in a physical environment. I describe some of the research strategies I used as a seminarian, some of the cues I looked for when seeking reliable information. Very few of those strategies transfer effectively to online research. But now many of my students conduct a great proportion of their research online; how shall we help shape their research initiatives, and how shall we learn from them how we might better teach (and conduct our own research)?

I mentioned to Jenny my seeded-search idea (middle of the linked post), and she suggested some helpful follow-ups, and put RSS into my mind as another tool I might invoke in the discussion.

Then Buzz came over and cleared Jim McGee out of his chair, and we talked a long time about David, Doc, PopTech, ActiveWords, Central Florida, and Pentecostal theology. Then he cleared me out so he could talk with Jenny; I fell into conversations with Jack and Rick, mostly, the rest of the way. Rick wants me to read the new Greg Iles book, and I agreed to add it to my list (but I didn t tell Rick how long the list was).

Before Jim took Jack and me home, I had a chance to talk with Ernie, and even begin a polite argument about pseudonymity, before Jim dragged me home.

People were taking pictures and comparing Treos all through dinner; I m surprised that no photos have showed up online yet. I did manage to get copies of several shots that Jenny attempted with her (flash-less) Treo:

That s me, on the right, taking a bite of the delicious garlic tofu in that lower picture.

[AKMA s Random Thoughts]

An ActiveWords blog debuts

Here’s an excellent bit of news for fans of ActiveWords. Marjolein Hoekstra, an active and avid ActiveWords user in the Netherlands has started a blog on ActiveWords and how to use it more effectively. Only a handful of entries right now, but based on her contribution to the ActiveWords mailing list, this one is going to be a keeper. The RSS feed is here.

Building an ActiveWords Library. This hands-on column deals with my latest thrill: writing ActiveWords scripts. Be warned, I consider it a highly addictive habit. Designing active words scripts has almost become second nature to me these last few months. I’d like to use this… [AWesome]

David Allen Blogs

This is great news. Buzz and Scoble have pushed David Allen into blogging. Allen’s work is “must read” if you have any interest in being more effective as a knowledge worker at all. There is an RSS feed – Subscribed!

David Allen…”Rocks”….. Last night Robert Scoble and I spent about an hour talking with David Allen. I had been chatting with a reporter with the WSJ, talking about blogging, showing him some ideas, and I was just looking to see where traffic… [buzzmodo]

Happy St. Patrick's Day

A suitable thought for St. Patrick’s Day:

May the most you wish for be the least you get.
May the best times you’ve ever had be the worst you will ever see.

Blogger dinner in Chicago

Looming forward to this next week. I did see AKMA this past weekend and, unfortunately, he won’t be able to make it.

Blogger dinner in Chicago.

Care to join a group of smart, attractive, witty, well-connected bloggers for dinner in Chicago? (I m not saying those traits apply to all of us. We each get to pick two.)

Details: Wednesday, March 24. So far, confirmed to attend: me, Ernie, Buzz, Jenny, Jim, Dennis, AKMA, and Jeff. I spoke with Buzz today and I think others are coming but I lost track of the others he named.

So if you re going to be in the Chicago area on March 24 and would like to join us (Buzz counted close to 20), use the comments to RSVP. Look forward to seeing you! (We ll pick a spot soon.)

By rick@rklau.com (Rick Klau). [tins ::: Rick Klau’s weblog]

Bruce Schneier's Crypto-Gram now has an RSS feed!.

This is excellent news. Schneier is one of the most cogent thinkers about risk and security issues and having Crypto-Gram available in RSS will make yet another improvement in my productivity. Compared to RSS, email newsletters are increasingly lame. I find I rarely get to them in any kind of timely way.

Bruce Schneier’s Crypto-Gram now has an RSS feed!.

If you have any interest in information security you’ve got to be reading Schneier. Now you can read him in your RSS aggregator.

Schneier.com: Crypto-Gram: March 15, 2004

NEW: Crypto-Gram now has an RSS feed:

Anyone who’s having trouble getting Crypto-Gram through a spam filter might want to consider this option.

[Marc’s Outlook on Productivity]