Year: 2004

Ernie on weblogs as smart filters

Good advice from Ernie that applies to more than law students and explains one of the key values of weblogs as a key element in your personal knowledge management strategy (you do have one don’t you?).

Read the dissenting opinion first. Here’s a tip for law students: read the dissenting opinion first. Assuming you can glean the facts of the case from the dissenting opinion (and, if not, then skim the main opinion until you have the gist of the case),… [Ernie The Attorney]

Here’s Ernie’s key point:

This concept of ‘reading the dissent first’ is applicable to weblogs. In fact, I’d say it is a large reason why reading certain kinds of weblogs makes news gathering more efficient. Reading opinion blogs changes the news gathering process from one where the reader is a ‘passive receptor’ to one where she is an active participant.

Go read the whole thing, it’s worth your time.

Guide to problem based learning

I’m biased in favor of PBL based approaches to learning. It is a lot more work to design and setup, but the payoffs in terms of learning that “sticks” is well worth the initial design time. This is a nice introduction to the concept in a practical setting.

PBL Guide.

Here’s an interesting guide to problem based learning:

“This guide is based on what Queen Mary University of London does and its context. It can be used as a guide to developing a PBL system that works in your context….”

… and another one on using case studies!

[incorporated subversion]

Research on technology impact out of HP

One of the risks of following bright folks like Lilia is that you end up with all sorts of interesting and intriguing things for your reading list.

HP: How to search a social network, Finding Communities in Linear Time. Implicit Structure and the Dynamics of Blogspace and more papers from HP Information Dynamics Lab.

It’s always like that: looking for one thing you find many others.

Full paper behind Blog Epidemic Analyzer (for Anjo and Rogier 🙂 – Implicit Structure and the Dynamics of Blogspace by Eytan Adar, Li Zhang, Lada A. Adamic, and Rajan M. Lukose

And other papers from HP Information Dynamics Lab, especially those with titles that I found interesting:

[Mathemagenic] [It’s all about people and networks]

You can't rush readiness

Isn’t this the truth. And a truth that I, too, need to learn over and over again. Now, I have a handy reminder.

You can’t rush readiness.

Homeschooling parent, Sarah, reminds of a very important point when it comes to parenting:

You can t play games with readiness. That s been my one of my Most Important Parenting Lessons (and one which I, apparently, need to learn over and over again). Kids are, or are not, ready.

…

Readiness simply comes of its own accord. You can lay the foundation, but no game, no trick, no bribe can make an unready child ready. Those things are approaches or motivators; they don t flip the switch inside their brain, or body, or heart. They ll be ready when they re ready. And because we re impatient, or we believe we know better, or that we re more powerful/ influential than we are, we struggle to learn this lesson. But go ahead and learn it. You re ready.

[urlgreyhot blogs]

Technorati macro for Radio

Something to add to my “Radio” setup here. Matt Mower up to his usual tricks. Thanks Matt and thanks Lilia for passing this along.

Technorati macro for Radio.

For Thomas and others: Radio macro to get Technorati cosmos for a post (see this post in browser for an example).

From Matt Mower via IM:

I also edited macro to display “Technorati cosmos” instead of “What other blogs are saying about this post”, you’ll find it easily in the text.

[Mathemagenic]

World's greatest Wi-Fi signal finder

Innovation continues. I have both the Kensington unit and the WFS-1, which I prefer of those two. This looks to be a definite improvement over the first generation products.

World’s greatest Wi-Fi signal finder. Glenn Fleishman got his hands on a prototype of a new, tiny, Wi-Fi signal finder, and he likes it a lot. There’s a video clip of it on his site.

Chrysalis previews their WiFi Seeker, a keychain sized device for instant Wi-Fi signal finding: Chrysalis sent me a demo unit of its just-unveiled WiFi Seeker, which they designed to differentiate 80211b/g networks from other devices. Two previous Wi-Fi signal finders fell short in ways the Seeker does not.

Link [Boing Boing]

Great New RSS Primer

I was on the phone with one of my brothers the other night. He’s a long time computer user and early adopter. Yet he is very early in the learning curve on RSS and weblogs, even though he does read mine from time to time. So now I have a useful resource for him as he starts to explore this space.

Great New RSS Primer.

Fagan Finder provides us with a Great New RSS Primer: Before you go any further, realize this: RSS is really simple. Just because it is an acronym doesn t mean that it s complicated. Don t get scared away, there s really nothing to it. I said it was an acronym, but depending on who you ask and what version of RSS you are speaking about, it may stand for Really Simple Syndication, Rich Site Summary, RDF Site Summary, or a variation on one of those. None of that matters to you anyhow

By dhenry@howdev.com (Daniel Henry). [Lockergnome s RSS & Atom Tips]

Blogging mindfully

The following three items turned up in sequence in my aggregator this morning.

While it’s starting to shape up as another A-List/Power law debate, I think something else more interesting is going on that Dina is highlighting. There are new cultural norms taking shape here influenced, as always, by key characteristics of the technology. At the same time, as Finkelstein points out, these norms are also shaped by predictable aspects of human nature.

It can be a struggle to tune into the nuances of this debate. You can choose to listen to a small set of voices all saying the same thing. You can choose to seek out diversity in sources and perspectives at the expense of having to develop your own synthesis. Most importantly, you can choose to do so mindlessly or mindfully.

1. Revenge Of The A-List(er/ers).

Feel the floor, I mean being flat on the floor, while a very few have the floor. [Seth Finkelstein’s Infothought]

With this key graf.

What I am saying is that bloggerdom is as gatekeeper-constricted as other Big Media. It’s a gatekeeper of audience, not a gatekeeper of production, but this makes no different in the final result. To be charitable, people keep responding to that observation by saying anyone can pitch a story to the editors, I mean the gatekeepers, and that they are unmoved by insularity and clubbiness. Which, by the way, is exactly what Big Media claims too, and I think is about as true (note the implication there – people can think conections count for more than they in truth do, but denying they mean anything at all seems over-idealistic)]

Scoble is responding to Finkelstein’s earlier post. Or more precisely, he’s using his take on Finkelstein’s post to make his own point. But the nice thing about blogs and linking is that we can easily go look for ourselves.

2. Finkelstein notes that he isn’t in the A list.

Seth Finkelstein says that the A-list isn’t linking to him. Or something. Seth, you miss the point. How did I get to the supposed “A list?” By linking to everyone and by reading more than 1000 blogs. Seriously. Why does that matter? The more you link and the more you read, the more likely people are to link to you and talk about you. Here’s a question for you Seth: have you ever linked to an A lister? Here you do and you get linked to by two of us.

Here’s my top blogger tip: if you want people to link to you link to them first! A link is a gift. Everytime I get a link it tickles my soul. Plus, it shows up in my referer log so I notice you did it. How do you think I found out about your blog?

I have a saying. Everyone gets one link for free. But you gotta earn the “n” link. So, the stakes go up next time. Next time you’ll have to be interesting. Sorry, but that’s sorta how it works. (Yeah, my boss ignores me when I go in to ask for a raise too and mubles something about how my coworkers are writing more code and doing more cool stuff to help customers).

Oh, and look at my experimental aggregator blog. What percentage of those posts are from the “A list?” See, you don’t need to be an “A lister” to get noticed.

I’ve only been blogging for about three years. It doesn’t take long to get onto the A list if you wanna be there (here’s a hint, it isn’t as interesting as you might think). Just write something that other bloggers find interesting. Don’t know what that is? Well, then visit Technorati and read some more blogs.

Oh, one rule that an “A lister” taught me very early on: don’t beg for links. There’s nothing more uninteresting than that. [Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger]

And Dina finds an interesting perspective on community that is worth considering.

3. Blogs Grow Community.

Another way of looking at community …. Why the Amish would like Blogs.

“The Amish way of life is actually a means to prevent interaction with outsiders. Oddly this is precisely why they are such supporters of community……………………..

The problem with the Amish method of community or the beauty of it depending on how you see it, is that there is not really any growth. The only way you get more Amish to have kids. That limits the growth to a pretty slow number. The same is true of Separatist or Elitist communities. If you aren’t trying to actively convert users, or working on ways to have communities interact you aren’t likely to grow your communities.” [Brandon Wirtz’s Digital Mix]
[Conversations with Dina]