Knowledge Aforethought

Information sharing just keeps getting (cooler? easier? more complicated?)

I'm experimenting with TypePad's new video blogging tools. This post comes to you through the TypePad/VideoEgg tool, which lets us insert existing video clips into blog posts. I make no promise that this one will stay up, since I didn't get permission to use Yvonne's clip.

Katrina's Lesson - Can Networked People Make Government Irrelevant?

This is not a political message. I am going to make a point about how technology can help us collect and then connect the dots. Really. Read on.

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Indifference.

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Inaction.

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Incompetence.

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Irrelevance.

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The government response to the catastrophic natural disaster in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast has been an embarrassment to all Americans and an added injury to the people left for days to fend for themselves. It's not enough that those who claim to be public servants are running around telling us they couldn't have begun delivering food, water, and security forces to the center of New Orleans the day after the storm, while we watched news media and local workers reach the scene within hours after the eye of Katrina passed.

No, those same indifferent, incompetent "public servants" are preventing private organizations from doing the work for them.

Here's the politically necessary explanation from the American Red Cross website:

Hurricane Katrina: Why is the Red Cross not in New Orleans?

• Acess to New Orleans is controlled by the National Guard and local authorities and while we are in constant contact with them, we simply cannot enter New Orleans against their orders.

• The state Homeland Security Department had requested — and continues to request — that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans following the hurricane. Our presence would keep people from evacuating and encourage others to come into the city.

. . .

• The Red Cross shares the nation’s anguish over the worsening situation inside the city. We will continue to work under the direction of the military, state and local authorities and to focus all our efforts on our lifesaving mission of feeding and sheltering.

Can we find any bright spot in the dismal performance of our government? Well, maybe it's taking a very large step toward making itself irrelevant.

What's this got to do with KM, information design, collecting and connecting dots? Well, my choice of the word "irrelevant" to describe the government comes from a wonderfully optimistic view of our near future in a sci-fi novel from 1989 (NOTE: that's pre-WWW), Earth by David Brin. The society envisioned by Brin is filled with connected "interest groups" that range across scientific, social, religious, recreational, and other categories. These interest groups have evolved to the point where they identify, discuss, research, and solve problems before government bureaucracies can act — indeed, sometimes before officials even become aware of the problem. For a more current vision of what the Web can help us accomplish among groups of networked citizens visit Jon Husband's Wirearchy and Wirearchy blog.

Are we there yet? Sadly, for the people of the Gulf Coast, no.

But signs are growing out of the disaster that we may be headed in that direction. We've seen bloggers providing information from the affected areas (like New Orleans lawyer Ernest "ernie the attorney" Svenson and the annonymous interdictor - with pictures and webcams) and others discussing what the crisis means in the larger context (like Dave Pollard's Save the World). We have librarians collecting useful information links for all of us to collect more dots to help us formulate solutions (Librarians Index to the Internet - Katrina resource page).

Update (9/6/05): direct link to Librarians Index to the Internet hurricane resource page.

We know we have private organizations with the capacity to collect and apply donations (like the Red Cross, Mercy Corps, and Habitat for Humanity) — organizations that operate both on the Web and on the ground.

So maybe people - not just Americans, but people worldwide - will hear some of the angry outbursts from local officials like the Mayor of New Orleans and a local official I heard on TV (see report on Reuters) accuse the lethargic Federal government of murder. Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish, spoke out on NBC's Meet the Press program [Sunday, Sept. 4, 2005 — six days after Katrina struck], after describing how one woman drowned when promised help failed to arrive:

"[Hurricane Katrina] will go down as one of the worst abandonments of Americans on American soil ever in U.S. history," he said.

"It's not just Katrina that caused all these deaths in New Orleans," he said. "Bureaucracy has committed murder here in the greater New Orleans area, and bureaucracy has to stand trial before Congress now."

He demanded congressional hearings on what went wrong in the chaotic aftermath of the hurricane.

"They've had press conferences. I'm sick of press conferences. For God's sake, shut up and send us somebody."

Maybe people will hear and decide that governments are too indifferent, too lethargic, too corrupt, too tied up in bureaucracy and politics to act in the face of immediate disaster. Maybe we will begin to use the resources that the World Wide Web puts — literally — at our fingertips. Maybe we can begin to live the One World vision that technology makes so tantalizingly close.

Maybe government, as we've practiced it so far, can soon become irrelevant — like the ceremonial monarchies some still cling to.

Yeah!: Visual Writing

I just had to stop what I was doing and post when I had the latest CIO magazine stuck in front of me, open to an article entitled, "Needed: Good Writers" (available online). The article makes a number of good points about the importance of writing skills in work settings. But the one that jumped out at me noted the finding in a study by the National Commission on Writing that ranked "e-mail as the number-one form of writing in America, followed closely by presentation/ visual writing."

Visual writing.

As I've written before, adding graphics to writing can greatly enhance both the clarity and the brevity of the text. I hope this isn't too "male" an example, but think back to sandlot football and how much it helped in getting the play called quickly and clearly to have the quarterback diagram the play in the dirt.

Where did you see my proposal?

I know, I know, I've been neglecting this blog terribly. Most of my professional and blogging time has been devoted to helping Yvonne (see my last post) launch WME Books, the Author Services division of her business. The related blogs are A-ha!: Authors helping authors and Business Blogging Boot Camp.

But, speaking of Yvonne, I've been meaning to follow up on the serious side of the semi-serious/semi-playful post in which I asked her to marry me. The information design point I wanted to make related to the power of images to connect to the emotional side of the reader's brain.

Take another look at the picture in the post and think about where you envision it happening. If you're a sports fan, I bet you're in a stadium. If not, perhaps a park, or an ocean beach.

The point here is that the words alone might reach the emotional level for those who've experienced a marriage proposal personally, but have less impact on others. By adding an image, we can both expand the range of people who have some experience with the kind of message and to some extent direct their attention toward the kind of experience we intend -- in this case the joyful, exuberant delivery method shown may succeed in carrying that message even for readers who might have had less pleasant experiences themselves.

So, please forgive me for using a personal example and for letting my attention stray from this blog for so long. I can't promise how often I'll be able to post, but I have no intention of abandoning this blog and the wonderful conversations it has enabled me to take part in.

"Talk" with you soon.

Getting the Message Across

I'm going to use a personal example/experiment to test my contention that adding graphics to your writing helps your audience understand the message better and faster.

The Story

Recently a good friend came up to Yvonne and said she'd just heard that congratulations were in order. Yvonne was puzzled as to which recent event the friend had in mind (we've been pretty busy starting a new business, a new blog, and so on). So Yvonne was even more puzzled when it turned out to be our engagement.

We've been engaged for more than a year. So, to clear up any confusion or failure on our part to tell any of our other friends, I thought I'd do the whole thing over:

The Message

Now, because we're both bloggers I can easily go to Yvonne's blog and pick one of her recent posts, Female-Friendly at Home (which I certainly try to be :-)) and use the track-back link to send her a "ping" and get her attention. Just in case, though, feel free to send her an e-mail or comment on her blog to let her know you saw something here that she ought to take a look at.

Once she gets here, how long do you think it will take for my message to be seen and understood?

What will she say?

Stop back and check the comments.

Blogs and KM: an Invitation to Chris Harris-Jones

I got an introductory copy of the newly re-titled Inside Knowledge (formerly Knowledge Management magazine) and was enjoying the new design and the familiar, high-quality articles (with KM luminaries like Verna Allee, Leif Edvinsson, and Karl-Erik Sveiby). [Full Disclosure: I've also been published (book review) in the former Knowledge Management magazine and the Ark Group's sister publication for law firms, Managing Partner, but please don't hold that against them.]

Then I came to the Trend tracker article Blogging (full text online for paid subscribers only), by Chris Harris-Jones, who is described as the "research director, information management" at Ovum. As a blogger myself and given the focus of this blog, I dove in with enthusiasm. I was please to find confirmation that Chris is seeing blogging used in corporate environments. He asserted that "collaboration vendors" are beginning to include blogging software in their suites. But as I read on, I began to wonder if Chris, or the vendors he wrote about, have ever seen a real blog.

Here's the killer paragraph that still has me wondering what sort of "blogging" tools he's been exposed to:

The big problem with blogs, at least as they are currently defined, is that they are read-only for everyone except the author. Blogging is designed purely to push information out to others; they do not allow for discussion or even comment. So while blogging has its place in organisations, preferably as part of a controlled collaboration suite, it is only one component. Technologies like discussion groups allow for a greater degree of interaction. Just like IM, blogging is great at some tasks, but is not a solution for everything.

Say, WHAT???

Read-only? No discussion, or comments? It's hard to know what to write in response.

Chris, blogs "as they are currently defined" by the rest of us, inherently allow and encourage discussion and comment. My blog tool, TypePad, would allow me to set up as many authors as I like, for a work group or project team. Unlike the discussion lists I've been part of, blogs allow authors and commenters to include graphics in their writing, as well as upload full documents (PDFs, images, html files). The communication is rich, visual, and multi-directional. For an example, take a look at my prior posts (here and here) that sparked a vigorous, international discussion of the nature of "knowledge" (personal vs. social).

Because the posts are archived, can be organized into subject categories, as well as by title and date, and (in TypePad) are full-text searchable, the blog itself becomes an extremely useful personal and organizational KM tool. They can be much more, of course.

But, since Chris has apparently never actually used a real blog tool, I'm going to invite him, both here and via e-mail, to come and post a comment. As we heard from several speakers at the New Communications Forum Blog University, in Napa, California, last week, it's time for corporations to follow the lead of Microsoft (e.g. Scobleizer), Sun Microsystems (look at blogs.sun.com, bill as a space "accessible to any Sun employee to write about anything"), and General Motors (Fast Lane blog), and engage in the conversations that are going on out there about you and your company.

With or without your input.

And no, as Chris wistfully seems to desire, the company cannot control the conversations. Employees will blog. Inside the firewall, if you encourage and support it. Outside the firewall, whether you like it or not. The company can only choose whether or not to participate and then guide its part in the conversation.

So come on, Chris. Engage. Post a comment right here and feel what it's like! I promise to respond.

A better kind of wave

As we end 2004 and start 2005, it's heartening to see how quickly people in general and Americans in particular have responded to the disaster caused by the tsunami in India, Sri Lanka, and all around that region. According to the American Red Cross, by Wednesday it had received about $18 million in donations to its International Response Fund in the three days since the waves struck.

From all I've read and seen, a lot more will be needed. The American Red Cross, with its links to local Red Cross and Red Crescent organizations in the affected countries, seems like one of the best ways Americans can get the right kind of aid to the people who need it.

You can help by making a donation and selecting the International Response Fund. This link will take you to their donation page where you can use the online form or click on the "Donate by phone" or "Donate by mail" links for other methods.

Let's send them a wave of relief!

Before you go paperless ...

Last week's USA Weekend magazine ran an interview entitled Computer Counselor featuring Kelly Chessen. She's a psychologist now working as a "data crisis counselor" at DriveSavers in Novato, California.

Kelly used to work at a suicide prevention hotline ... and maybe she still does. An article posted on the DriveSavers site describes her job as

comforting poor souls whose computers have been melted in fires, dropped into rivers, run over by cars and in one case, shot. "Sometimes people will threaten to throw their computers out the window," says Kelly. "Hard drive failure happens every day, but it doesn't happen to everybody every day," she continues.

While DriveSavers can do a lot with severely damaged drives (visit their Museum of Disk-asters) and Kelly exudes confidence that most such disasters can be fixed, she states the success rate as 90%. For the other 10%, the implied advice might be longer term counseling.

The lesson for knowledge management professionals all starry-eyed about technology "solutions" for storing and retrieving important information comes in Kelly's Final Answer:

Q: Where do you keep important data?

A: My trusty yellow pad of paper. I hear horror stories all day. Do I want to lose all of my financial information? No!

As I've urged in prior posts (here and there), if you're considering a move to a "paperless office" you first ought to read The Myth of the Paperless Office by Abigail Sellen and Richard Harper (MIT Press 2002). There you'll learn at least a half dozen reasons why yellow pads and other forms of paper outperform computers and other digital media for some information storage, retrieval, and manipulation tasks. The authors studied a diverse set of knowledge workers in a wide range of settings. One or more should trigger ideas helpful in your own situation.

If you haven't read it, don't argue with me (or Kelly). Keep your yellow pads handy. And seek help from a qualified professional.

Making the Top 10!

Thanks to Joy London for including Knowledge Aforethought in her list of favorite U.S. "blawgs" (those are blogs written by, directed at, or somehow related to lawyers; I confess I'm one of them) in an article just posted in the December 2004 issue of Legal IT.

Actually, she lists nine U.S.-based blawgers, but if you place her in Allen & Overy's NYC office and add her own blog, I've made a Top Ten list! (See how that lawyer training comes in handy, when you need to rationalize a result?) And what great company she's put me in, too!

The article itself provides a very good summary of the evolution of both blogging and one of the very best blawgs online.

Joy's excited utterances has been one of my favorites since I first heard of blogging (back in pre-historic 2003). For anyone concerned with knowledge management, organizational learning, and the like, especially in relation to lawyers and law firms, her blog and its rich treasure of archived material are an essential resource.

Way, Way Beyond Crayons

Wecome to new blogger, Nick Duffill and his Beyond Crayons blog, which focusing on "mind mapping" tools for visualizing information. His tag line is "Businesslike visualization for late adopters."

Nick's initial post, Time for reform in mapping legislation, compared common problems seen in PowerPoint presentations to similar information design issues in mind mapping. Here's a taste of his excellent insights:

... the threshold at which decoration interferes with content is quickly reached, and you find yourself wondering if the decoration is a substitute for content.
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... decoration must pass a simple test - does it carry any information? If it doesn't, then don't be tempted to use it.

Visit Nick's blog and you'll likely add it to your link list and RSS subscriptions, as I have.

The only thing I'd like to see him add are some visual examples of his mind mapping ideas. The MindJet software site (which Nick uses and recommends) gives some examples of mind maps, but it would be great to see just how Nick uses it in his own thinking about improving the information design of mind maps.