This week in links - week 36, 2008
Just to be clear. Chrome is not a savior for SOA/WOA. Its value is that it considers the use of Web delivered applications, and Web-delivered services, within the architecture of the browser. It's not an afterthought. This is a huge shift in thinking, and something that is desperately needed as we drive toward the use of services for applications and composites where the browser plays a key role. In essence, Chrome will become a valuable piece of the architectural puzzle, perhaps a missing piece.
"The psychology of bloggers" by Daryl Pereira:
Can you figure out who in your organization should be blogging?
Research released by the Computers in Human Behavior journal may help you identify these folk upfront. What are the most important traits? According to the
extract:
“The results of two studies indicate that people who are high in openness to new experience and high in neuroticism are likely to be bloggers.”
"Why is it so hard to get smart people to share?" by Gia Lyons:
Because human beings typically share their precious knowledge only with people they trust. Not a software application.
The whole point of social software, from the perspective of retaining corporate wisdom, is to make a wisdom holder’s surface knowledge available to a general population, so that other people can do the following:
- Be aware that this knowledge exists in the organization, and who has it.
- Determine with whom they should collaborate, if they even need to.
- Begin a trusted relationship with someone.
"Master Data Management: Whaddya Mean It’s Not About the Data?" by Loraine Lawson
Fisher [president and CEO of DataFlux] replied that MDM is about business processes and improving those processes – data is just the setting for the discussion. So, as with all major IT initiatives, your starting place should be identifying what business problems you’re trying to solve. Then, the next step should be to ask what business processes are part of the problem. It’s like tracing water — it’s more efficient to start at the source and work your way to the streams.
If you start with the data, you’re starting at the wrong end – and most likely, you’ll just wind up building another data silo, this time called “MDM.”
"Breaking the email compulsion" by Suw Charman-Anderson, The Guardian:
Back in the early 1990s, email was a privilege granted only to those who could prove they needed it. Now, it has turned into a nuisance that's costing companies millions. We may feel that we have it under control, but not only do we check email more often than we realise, but the interruptions caused are more detrimental than was previously thought.
We may think email is simple, but its ease of use is deceptive...//...If you find your mouse straying towards the "check email" button far too often, try these tactics:
- Turn of intrusive alerts. Anything that pops up, flashes, or goes "ding!" will interrupt you when you're trying to focus and will trigger a response to check your email.
- Set your email client to display just the title and first few lines of the email, so you can easily decide if it really is important enough to deal with right now.
- Use other tools. Twitter and instant messaging (IM) are both better for asking short questions of chosen groups. Wikis are better for collaborating on documents. Blogs are better for publishing information and having informal conversations.
- Send fewer emails. Do you need to hit "reply to all"?
- Schedule your email. Set aside time each day to deal with your inbox and ignore it for the rest of the day. Most people check first thing in the morning and late afternoon.