content management | web strategy

Currently reading The Future of the Internet and How To Stop It by Jonathan Zittrain.

The basic premise: the very openness that enabled the Internet’s runaway success also threatens to be its downfall. Zittrain outlines the current trend towards services and devices (and away from PCs), and the ensuing struggle between:

• so-called tethered appliances (ie the iPhone), which in the name of consumer protection do not permit an open development model, and

• the free-for-all nature of the Internet that led to so much of the innovative software and services we enjoy today.

How we can preserve an environment of innovation, while protecting users against the “excesses and abuses of openness”?

The book opens with a history of the Internet, which can be supplemented nicely with this video posted on Jeremiah Owyang’s blog. If you’re not familiar with the fateful military, academic and grassroots events that led to our mighty www, watch this video - it’s simple, animated and fascinating.

So far, the book is great. I’ll post my thoughts once I’ve finished it.

I’m trying out DabbleDB to organize the exponentially-growing number of research papers I’m amassing for my thesis. Basically, I sat there thinking “I wish there was an easy way to store, reference, tag and filter these papers that doesn’t involve Excel.” Behold, Google gave me something to try and Twitter confirmed it was legit.

Why DabbleDB?

• It’s in the cloud, and that’s trendy. (More seriously, I can easily share my content and access it anywhere)
• It’s user-friendly, intelligent, and the RIA features are great.
• It’s got enough relational DB functionality for my current needs
• I wanted to try something different and innovative and contrast it with Excel/SQL Server.

The verdict so far is…excellent! The interface is intuitive and friendly. I’ve uploaded all my initial data. Only one or two small usability issues. I’d recommend giving this a try if you want a user-friendly relational DB in the cloud.

PS I’ve received a request to share my list of research papers. They’re all formally published, less than 3 years old, and they all focus on SOA, mashups, web architecture, semantic web, and the future of the Internet (ooooh!). If you’re interested, I’ll be posting a link to my dabbleDB database once it’s a bit more fleshed out.

Currently working on some client documentation. My goal is to make it understandable, readable, crisp, concise and utterly unambiguous in terms of scope and responsibilities. Such a thing is difficult to perfect, though easier if you’ve done it a few times.

Tomorrow, the winter semester and new work year will start - zero to sixty. It will be intense. But I’ve done something geeky and made myself a weekly schedule to keep things on track. Perhaps weekly yoga at PranaShanti will help?

But for now…it’s a brilliant, icy cold Sunday and still officially Christmas vacation. There are some small dots on the frozen Ottawa River that must be ice fishing huts (what else could they be??) and a hot-air balloon floating around - participants of both must be *freezing* and I’m grateful to be inside with a cup of coffee.

Lastly…here’s a great idea implemented by my friend Ryan North. Buy a digital picture frame and wirelessly read in an RSS feed from Flickr. Ryan’s feed does a search on particular Flickr tags of interest. The result:  random, unexpected, but always interesting, photos from strangers cycle through in your living room.

Enjoy the last day of vacation!

The Definite

• Grad course: TTMG 5003T. This course undertake an evaluation of industry trends, industry structure and competition, the identification and assessment of new business opportunities, and conducting research in these areas of management. The major course deliverable is a business plan.
• Grad course: SYSC 5801T: Web 2.0 Business and Technology. This course will cover both business and technology issues of Web 2.0. Topics include: Web 2.0 strategy, social media, user participation, syndication, mashups, and legal aspects
• Sitecore analysis/strategy work for an educational institution here in Ontario
• Sitecore analysis/strategy work (and possibly development) for a large environmental non-profit in the US
• Upcoming NLC whitepaper to be published on CMS and faceted navigation
• Attending Social Media Breakfasts , Third Tuesdays and Code Factory events
• Laying the groundwork for my thesis
• Mesh Conference 2009
• Blogging here (naturally)
• Blogging at the NLC Blog (about Reddot, Sitecore, CMS industry and trends)
• Lost Season 5
• Sims 3

The Possible

• Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing - Conference 2009
• Reddot analysis/strategy work for a government entity in Alberta
• Speaking at a local Social Media Breakfast , Third Tuesday or Code Factory event
• Trip to Western Canada/US

This morning’s Social Media Breakfast was well-attended, despite the OC Transpo bus strike, bad weather, and the fact that the speaker (Bryan Person) was stranded in Boston. The organizers rallied and pulled together an excellent session with Joseph Thornley recapping social media in 2008 and some great audience discussion. As always, lots of friendly schmoozing with the Ottawa community. Mel Gallant’s recap is here.

As well, you can find my recap of the Gilbane conference in Boston, which I attended last week, here.

Okay so I had to use a couple of our cats to round out the troops. But seriously, Elf Yourself is pure gold.

Back in September I wrote about Twitter conference hijacking, which is made possible by intensified attendee tweeting during conferences - par for the course these days. This Twitter “backchannel” allows participants to engage in silent, realtime commentary via the power of the hashtag. It’s the voice of the people, responding to the voice on the podium. Most people, including myself, enjoy it - it’s social comparison, groupthink and the inside scoop all rolled into one. At the Gilbane conference, I had a great time following and contributing to the #gilbane Twitterstream. But it’s not all roses.

Today, Joseph Thornley (CEO of Thornley Fallis in Ottawa) blogged about a speaker who took offense to the Twitterstream that erupted during his talk at a recent event. It seems this particular speaker was making some controversial claims that caused disagreement among audience members, who hashed it out on Twitter. Unfortunately, being on the podium at the time, the speaker was unable to follow the tweets and defend himself or argue his points. An angry email ensued, and so did a fascinating discussion.

I encourage you to read the blog post I referenced above, and especially the comments. Some of them were really eye-opening for me. I’ve quickly summarized some new pros and cons that caught my eye about tweeting during conferences… not absolute, but definitely food for thought.

Pros

• Benefit from others’ perspectives - speech itself + Twitterstream combined offer maximum value
• Allows others to tune in to the conference buzz - from a different session or from across the country
• Enables impromptu meetups, tweetups and recommendations
• Brings a sense of community to the conference
• A great way to meet new people (or at least find new people to follow in your industry)
• Allows the speaker to retroactively benefit from honest, spontaneous feedback

Cons

• If everyone is busy tweeting, it might detract from real interpersonal interaction between panelists and audience members. More importantly, it is disrespectful not to give the speaker - who has spent time and energy preparing - your full attention
• Tweets do not (cannot?) convey context and are always written with the Tweeter’s bias
• Commenting negatively on Twitter but not taking advantage of a natural discussion forum (a conference session) is a waste of a great opportunity for debate
• Unlike blog comment conversations, Twitter conversations are ephemeral and spontaneous. Linking tweets to later rebuttals is difficult even with a hashtag - Twitter is not a good platform for threaded conversations

So I read the first Twilight book yesterday, to see what the hype was about. Yes, it was engrossing, BUT.

Main gripes:

• Takes the obsession/stalking thing way too far. I felt suffocated by Bella’s entire life revolving around being with Edward and his “cold skin”. Edward, in turn, stalks her and eavesdrops on her relentlessly. He sneaks in her room and watches her sleep. Um, textbook psycho?
• Juvenile storytelling - Bella’s first day of school is excruciatingly drawn out over many many pages. She got in her truck. She drove to school. She went to class. She met people. She went to another class. She had lunch. Etc etc etc. Get on with it!
• Twinges of an abusive relationship. Edward dominates Bella completely and she is completely helpless against his whims. She only grows a (small) backbone when her parents’ lives are threatened.

The only props I’ll give:

• Some unique twists on vampire mythology
• A semi-realistic conversation about human-vampire “intimate relations”

My opinions seemed to be widely echoed in the Amazon user reviews, although the 1 stars were vastly outnumbered by the 5 stars. Inexplicable?

Last night’s class project presentations were diverse, ranging in topic from Mars Rover communications (did you know there was a Deep Space Network? And that there is a 1.5h delay in transmitting to Mars?) to Google Earth technology.

One of the most interesting focused on Parlay X, which is a specification that allows third-party applications to communicate directly with telecom networks. In a nutshell, this means your application could send and receive text messages or phone calls or hook into mobile device location-awareness, among other things.

With Parlay X, developers do not need to worry about the underlying telecom details involved in actually sending or receiving a text message. Of course, this requires the cooperation of all the big telecom networks, such as Telus or AT&T. And they won’t just let you start hacking into their systems - Telus, for example, enforces a strict vetting procedure on would-be developers.

However, there are some great test suites that emulate networks behind the Parlay API, so you can build and test to your heart’s content. Once you do pass the vetting, you’ll be able to launch your app, which could be doing any of these cool things:

• Location awareness - traffic information delivered as per your current location
• Alert receipt - when a device is turned on/off or crosses a geographical boundary
• Machine-to-machine communication - broken elevator places call to repair service
• A “call-me” button on a website
• Call the closest mobile within a group - your family, for example

PS. Props to my colleague Eduardo and his group who presented on Parlay X.