Month: May 2005

Tim Porter hits on why MT may not be the best blog platform for those who prefer to spend more time blogging than tweaking a complex environment. [here]
I use b2evolution, and it just works. I only play with it to tweak the design. The rest of it is handled internally.
What platform do my readers prefer? What makes that platform appealing to you?

Rick Segal goes on a riff about blogs and conversations, and how many execs don’t get it.
Earlier today, I talked about how Scoble was lucky. [here]
What kind of company do you work for?

If you thought this was bad, SAP strives to exceed its previous level of obsfucation.
Nicholas Carr quotes from the transcripts at the Boston SAP Sapphire conference.

Let’s look through this thing. Remember we had the fridge. We decided to retire the fridge. We’re going to talk about a new metaphor from now on. What is NetWeaver and how does the whole thing come together? We talk about what we call the body of information. If you think about how the body of information is constructed, there are multiple pieces in there. It’s the mirror, if you want, of what we had with the fridge. The only difference from the fridge is that all the pieces have to work together. The face is the portal. If you think about the brain behind the face, there are two halves. The analytics, the structured side; knowledge management, the unstructured side. The brain is critical not only for storing information but for processing. Anything that comes through the brain gets context. Through this brain, and what’s supporting it, is probably the backbone of your body of information: master data management. If you don’t have master data management, your body may be there, but it may not be able to move. And that’s very critical to understand. Every information that goes through, every transaction that goes through, at some point in time touches master data, and if you don’t have a coherent master data strategy and a coherent master data management server, you will not get an agile body. MDM is one of the biggest things that is happening right now in NetWeaver. Through the backbone, you get a lot of events. The events contextualize themselves through master data into the brain and then get back and thrown into the rest of your body. That network is like your nerve system.

Brain. Melting. I. Must. Follow. Blindly.
Via Chris Selland

My copy of Business Week came today, and promptly went in the trash. It contained a scent sample, and made the whole house curl up their noses.
And then, when I went to their site to express my displeasure, and was greeted with this.

TODAY IS MAY 21, 2005!
Business Week: please get your act together.

Tyme hits for six with this posting about how Scoble is unique in the world of corporate blogging.
I have to agree with her on her opinion. In discussing the possibility of establishing a blog at our company, the conversation between myself and the other contributor came down to one final point: could our company handle the content that is necessary to make a corporate blog work?
In most companies, blogging about work, even if you don’t talk about futures, financial, and other company confidential information, would most likely get you removed from your desk by a large security person.
And before I get flamed, we all know it’s true. Companies, despite lip-service to the contrary, don’t like transparency, because they cannot control the message.
As an example, if the corporate commandos at Microsoft discover who Mini-Microsoft is, he will be looking for a new job. I have no doubt about that.
So, Scoble, be glad you are unique. Live in the moment. But keep your resume up to date, because somedy you will need it.

Travis: play with this beast!
Via Travis Smith’s Flickr Stream

Ok, Ricky has come up with the coolest little GTD/iBook hack. [here]
This is astounding. Very simple. Very elegant. Extremely useful.
Ricky, I salute you!

In his usual eloquent way, Mini-Microsoft sums up the hiring of new dev folks at Microsoft:

# High quality people don’t want to work for Microsoft.
# Low quality people are swelling our interview loops to the degree I’m really worried some of them are slopping up on deck and joining the crew.
# The good quality people we do give offers to get hired elsewhere for much better pay (just pay, not benefits – I don’t think anyone on this green earth can do much better than Microsoft’s benefits).
# Some colleges produce graduates who don’t know what a pointer is let alone how to use one.
# H1B visas aren’t going to be unfettered anytime soon.

Why does this give me concern for the state of Longhorn and Office 12?

Gates: ‘Information overload’ is overblown
Of course it is, Bill! We all have a staff of 50,000 people to do our bidding so that we can sit back and dream up visionary statements like this.
Bill, thanks to Outlook and Exchange, no one can be free of work at anytime! With information transferred to Mobile devices, we can now forward vital e-mails with FYI to anyone in the world!
Long live productivity! Long live technology slavery!
I can’t believe Gates is so far removed from the reality of what his products have unleashed. Maybe it’s time to have a Send Bill Gates to Work Day!
And, did I mention that Gates says that Office 12 will solve everything? Or was that Word 6.0?