Month: April 2003

Business 2.0 corporate weblogs article

Weblogs in organizations and finding voice.

An interesting little piece in Business 2.0 about corporate use of weblogs

Business 2.0 – Web Article – Management by Blog?

Most of the companies I’ve observed using blogs are trying it on their customers before unleashing it internally on their staffs. The external need, apparently, is more pressing. Many businesses already have other systems in place for managing internal information, ranging from simple brown-bag lunches to overkill knowledge-management regimens.

I disagree that the external need is more pressing. I suspect that the truth is that the external weblog strategy presents less risk in the eyes of the implementer. Or to put it differently, internal weblog experiments feel risky…The chronological structure of short posts encourages and gently forces continuing practice…Helping weblogs to succeed inside organizations has little to do with technology features. It depends instead on nurturing a grassroots process of tentative practice evolving into confident process. Think Harold Hill in The Music Man not General George Patton in Patton [McGee’s Musings]

I agree with McGee. At least in our firm, blogs offer a way to move knowledge capture closer to the source–it’s a more organic approach to KM than our previous efforts. I do agree with the article author, though, that it really depends on the culture of the organization.

Search for Radio using Google API

Here is an EXTREMELY cool way to add search capabilities to your blog using the Google API. All you really need to do is sign up for a Google key (for your Google API searches) and use this code to add a nifty little search box to your blog. I’ve added mine below the calendar in my theme. [Tom’s Blog]

BOOYAH! Great find, Tom. I tried this once using the advanced search through the google search site but I didn’t have any luck. I’ve been looking for a reason to futz with the Google API and I need to search my blog so this kills two birds.

Spent the night on the boat Friday night with grandpa and the kids. The kids seemed to have a blast. I didn’t sleep too well–the berths on the boat aren’t too comfy for the over 6 foot crowd. The kids had a good time, though. Saturday morning we tried to do some sailing but the winds were too light. Probably a good first outing for them, though. This evening we went back out to a much stiffer breeze. We lost a couple of hanks off the jib. A lot of the steel on the boat is corroded from years of saltwater in California.

Lotus certifications are being converted to IBM certifications. May 5th webcast:
http://pentonevents.webex.com/pentonevents/onstage/g.php?d=661557402 .

May 8, 2003, The New IBM Software Group Certification Program — How Does Lotus Fit In?
 
http://webevents.broadcast.com/slides/3690/4931/forms/register.asp .

Old and new certification names posted on the Lotus Certification Web site:
http://www.lotus.com/services/education.nsf/35ed29d961be6ad0852566da004c5cbb/af0260977a3cdc8185256d05004da486?OpenDocument .