I just heard about a cool new blogging tool that sounds ideal for people who want to blog but need that process to be as simple, efficient, intuitive, and flexible as possible. And even better, it’s permanently free of charge.
Check out Qumana. It seems to offer all the core features a serious blogger would want, using a simple non-geeky interface.
From my perspective, it only has one major drawback…
As I mentioned earlier, I’ve abandoned my “grab bagâ€? approach to recommending cool or useful stuff to check out online. Instead, I’m listing those links on my del.icio.us page – a popular “social bookmarkingâ€? tool.
I know many CONTENTIOUS readers are unfamiliar with del.icio.us, so I thought I’d provide a taste of the kinds of items I’ve been posting there lately…
The more I use the social bookmarking tool del.icio.us, the more I’m getting to like it – especially when it saves me work.
One task I’m particularly compulsive about is sharing with CONTENTIOUS readers links to interesting sites, articles, tools, and books. For awhile I’d been presenting these as my “grab bag” articles, but that process was too labor-intensive for me to maintain.
So now I’ve figured out how to use del.icio.us to keep you up to date on all the cool content I’m encouraging you to explore…
(UPDATE, Apr. 20, 2005: Furl and Del.icio.us: Almost Perfect Together)
I’ve reluctantly come to the conclusion that my current approach to providing lists of interesting links (via “grab bag” articles) is not sustainable. I’m forever behind. I’m serious. In archive, my CONTENTIOUS-to-do category was up to nearly 225 items!
Also, while it helped simplify presentation to group items into topical lists, that approach also has disadvantages – namely, I could only assign categories to the list as a whole, not to specific items in the list.
My goal with my grab bags has always been to enable my clients and readers to learn from my never-ending learning process. However, it simply takes too much time to write a blurb on every item I discover that’s worth sharing. If I fall too far behind in noting useful items, some of them lose the value of timeliness.
So here’s my solution: del.icio.us – an amazingly useful online tool I’ve long overlooked…
Here are several items on the topic of how we categorize information (labels and metadata) which caught my attention today…
TOP OF THIS LIST: D’Arcy Norman’s Feb. 4 audio post on loosely bound metadata. (Right-click that link to download the MP3 audio file. It’s 3.7 MB and run just over nine minutes.) I’ve heard the neologism “folksonomy” floating around in various circles lately. It sounded vaguely interesting to me, but since I’m already suffering from chronic learning overload, I’ve been pushing it off my radar screen.
…Until I listened to what Norman had to say on the subject, that is. Now I’m totally jazzed and motivated to learn more about folksonomies. I even decided it was time to create a new CONTENTIOUS category called labels and metadata (this grab bag is the first entry in that category).
Here’s a brief excerpt from Norman’s audio post which got me all worked up:
“I love that people are really starting to think about loosely defined metadata in addition to (not to replace) the taxonomy-based metadata that librarians use. Most people don’t really want to enter metadata. They have trouble doing it properly. Now they shouldn’t have to enter it properly, that’s the point. Librarians are good at entering structured metadata, so that’s kind of people who should be entering structure metadata. People like you and me and the rest of the world are better at putting labels on things. Labels are tags, they’re keywords. If we can let people do that and then aggregate all of those labels and tags and keywords together, we end with something that approximates (not replaces, but approximates) the kind of structured metadata that librarians use…”
YES! I love the concept of metadata and what it can do, but actually working with formal taxonomies feels like I’m trying to force my brain to act like a computer. That’s not entirely a bad thing, but it just doesn’t feel human or natural. It takes a lot of effort, and it’s very picky, painstaking work. I can’t say I enjoy it, which means I don’t do it as much as I should. I think that informal, loose metadata systems (folksonomies) not only have greater mass appeal, but also a huge untapped potential. Writers and editors especially could benefit from this, since most of us are good at organizing information but bad at thinking like computers.
Read the rest of this list…
Here are a few items on the theme of media, journalism, and news that have caught my attention lately…
TOP OF THIS LIST: Out of the Rubble, A Public Housing Drama Rises, a three-part video feature from the Washington Post, Dec. 22, 2004. First-rate storytelling that works well on a very small screen.
Now that we’re entering the age of TV programming delivered to mobile phones, I hope more news organizations start producing and deliver more of this kind of content.
Read the rest of this list…
Here are a few cool tools that have caught my attention lately…
TOP OF THIS LIST:
Mind mapping: See what you’re thinking, by Dave Pollard, How to Save the World, Jan. 5. Lately I’ve grown to adore mind mapping tools. This article is perhaps the best introduction to the topic, with no hype.
Excerpt: “Recently I’ve started playing with mind maps as a personal thinking out loud tool, to organize my thoughts and think creatively all by myself. I’ve always learned best by writing, synthesizing and distilling books and other voluminous materials down to their essence: the message, the meaning, and the necessary actions. So perhaps this learning by writing down style is the reason I find mind maps useful.”
YES!!!! That’s exactly why I love mind mapping tools, too.
Read the rest of this list…
Here are a few items on the theme of e-learning that have caught my attention lately…
TOP OF THIS LIST: Experiencing knowledge to succeed, by Michael Jones, Yafle.com, Dec. 13, 2004. Excerpt: “Many in education – and especially many in e-learning – forget a simple truth. It’s not what you learn, it’s the process by and environment in which you learn it…
“Those who attempt to boil down information to a set of standardized learning objects that can be consumed interchangeably and acontextually risk losing sight of the contextual and collaborative elements of learning. Now, for some types of learning (e.g., procedural training), it’s perfectly correct and efficient to simply transfer information from A to B. This is simple knowledge transfer and acquisition. More complex learning, however, is essentially experiential and deeply contextual.”
Read the rest of this list…
Here are a few items on the theme of writing, editing, and content rights that have caught my attention lately…
TOP OF THIS LIST: Any fool can learn to write for an audience, e-editor, Nov. 29, 2004. I’ve worked on a lot of style guide projects, and this article nails precisely a key point which is wholly omitted in most conventional in-house style guides: The first duty of the author is to write for the audience. A skilled editor is needed to handle the rest. Editing (real editing, not just proofreading) is not optional! It’s a mistake, usually, to expect most writers to be their own editors.
Excerpt: “Producing business text to suit a particular audience is a thoroughly misunderstood process. Getting the content right for the reader is the responsibility of the author. And in 99 cases out of 100, that is exactly where the limits of the author’s responsibility should be set. Presenting that content to the reader in its most accessible and striking form – honouring every nuance, but striking out every windy cliché and cavalier contradiction – is the other half of the exercise. That depends on editorial skill and judgement, and on the editor having the humility and stamina to check all those names, facts, details and dates the author couldn’t be bothered to question.”
Also, don’t miss e-editor’s Dec. 9, 2004 followup article. Excerpt: “Even after the skilled e-editor has done his or her worst, cutting and polishing like some dedicated craftsman in an Antwerp diamond house, the shorter, clearer, stronger piece that emerges should still have something of the author in it.”
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Here are some items related to webfeeds that have caught my interest lately…
TOP OF THIS LIST: E-mail v RSS, let us move on… by Alex Barnett (Online Customer Experience Manager with Microsoft UK), May 22. Useful matrix, with links, which demonstrates why the now-perennial debate over whether e-mail publishing is dead should be laid to rest. Bottom line: E-mail and webfeeds are complementary.
Read the rest of this list…
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Amy Gahran's news and musings on how we communicate in the online age.