How do you know that?

QR codes

2009-09-28T17:05:00.002-04:00

Finally getting through my stack of CIO magazine's. Although I monitor over 100 rss feeds in bloglines daily. There is still a place for paper in this world. I appreciate the fact CIO has moved to a smaller cheaper feelin paper. Hopefully that's not as harsh on the environment.

Anyway, happened across the early adopters column on QR codes. I'm thrilled to say I was completely unaware of this and very impressed with this approach to combining technolgy. I'm wondering if we are already using it in our records management environment, and what kind of security hurdles we would have to cross in order to use some variation thereof.

Open source cms

2008-12-05T13:43:00.003-05:00

I finally got around to listening to James Roberstson's excellent presentation Open Source WEB CMS Selection as usual, I am very impressed by the pragmatic approach he takes. I'd have to say the most compelling thoughts I'm left with our his observation of the deterioration of pricing for CMS software in general. I appreciate the way he immediately emphasizes that original cost is rarely the best indicator of the full project cost. I can personally attest to this reality.

Also his recommendation on selecting a cms approach with a sunset date in mind. This makes great sense and could probably be expanded for other classes of software. I think the KM space is just now seeing the first generation of software live past their easily maintainable stage into the cranky, buggy inflexible stage. Roberstson is wise to point out that anticipating this atrophy should be part of the decision.

Giving

2008-08-25T22:19:00.003-04:00

Kind of off the topic, but important. I've been doing my best to tell everyone I know about Heifer International. We are approaching the holiday season, file this away as the perfect gift.

LinkedIn - Competitive Intelligence

2008-08-14T13:54:00.002-04:00

Law.com makes a good point regarding the thought process that should go into a lawyer's use of linked in. I'm sure there will be information leaks at major firms in the near future and a series of legal confrontations shortly thereafter.

I would offer up that the participation of linked in ought to be addressed in firm policy. Security and business development ought to be seriously considered.

Collaboration presentation

2008-08-05T11:53:00.003-04:00

James Robertson was kind enough to post a recent presentation he did entitled Ten tips for succeeding at collaboration. I really appreciate his emphasis on the necessity to define a clear purpose for a collaboration to succeed.

I often explain this as 'the loop', the phenomena one experiences where you see the results of your input returning greater than the effort required. For example, a user agrees to share his/her contacts with a centralized CRM system and as a result is able to see who else in the firm has a relationship with that person.

polling

2008-07-01T16:22:00.002-04:00

Randomly I get a request for various functionality. It seems that the awareness of web 2.0 type functionality is sorely lacking behind the corporate veil.

A recent request was for a quick poll utility for an external facing web site. After a quick discussion of requirements and security I was happlily able to recommend a http://www.micropoll.com/ . This was a clear win and what I'm beginning to feel is going to be the future of information technology.

RSS reader in Outlook 2007

2008-05-28T08:51:00.002-04:00

I'm sure I'm way late to the party on this one. But I just tried using the RSS feature in outlook 2007 and I have to say that I'm not impressed.

I exported my feeds from bloglines into an opml xml file. Outlook imported the 189 feeds, but ignored the folder structure I had set up.

Next I noticed that outlook was treating the individual stories in the various feeds as mail messages. This may work for some, but I think the distinction between a public news story that I'm monitoring is fundamentally different from an email message addressed to me. This was enough for me to initiate removal of the feeds.

I also noticed that outlook was running extremely slowly at this point. Each of the feeds was being processed individually it seemed.

Final complaint, I couldn't highlight multiple feeds and delete them, I endeded up highligting each rss feed and deleting. Somewhat annoying.

This is the second time I tried using a client based news reader. Aside from the issues raised above, I think this is a case where the cloud is a better location for the functionality. More on this at a later date.

The Rosetta Stone ?

2008-04-02T10:29:00.002-04:00

I'd love to hear if others have encountered/addressed the issue of unversal entity identification successfully:

;;;;;
We want to use external data sources in conjunction with our internal data in order to have a richer understanding of our customers

We have our own numbering scheme to identify our customers. Most external data sources have their own identifying elements.

1) We must analyze the identifiers of the external data source and find the correct match in our own internal system.
2) We must store this relationship in a way that will allow us to re-use it
3) We must periodically review the relationship to make sure that the identifier retains its meaning (e.g. the company presented by the external data source is still the same as the one we are identifying internally)

The Hypothesis
1) An extensible data structure could be developed to store the mapping between internal and external business entity identifiers in such a way that the maintenance of these relationships would be most efficient.
2) This structure could be made available to the public so that customers of these data sources could pool resources to keep the COMMON mappings up to date. ‘Common’ refers to all data sources except the internal data identifiers.

Searching for advanced search

2008-01-21T16:33:00.001-05:00

Advancing Advanced Search - Boxes and Arrows: The design behind the design Stephen Turbek offers a good summary of some of the problems with various design approaches. I would recommend this summary to anyone wrestling with the problems of precedence retrieval in the legal environment.

Of primary note is the fact that today's advanced search functionality is the realm of the fanatics - the obsessive and research librarians. I would concur that these are the constituents that drive our searching designs, and often paint the technology into the corner rather than hitting the sweet spot of wide usership.

What is 'Knowledge Management'?

2008-01-05T11:00:00.000-05:00

When asked what I do for a living, I tell people my title is Director of Knowledge Management. Often the response is something like the scene in Mel Books' History of the World Part 1 where Mel tells the vnemployement office that he is an unemployed stand up philosopher... Ohh a bullshit artist! she replies with recognition.

It's not that bad, and people do start to catch on when I discuss some of the concrete things I do to help capture information and make it available for use. But I think the label 'Knowledge Management' has been severely damaged by overselling. CRM, Document Management, Search, XML all are very worthy classes of software - but the reality of implementing and realizing true value are difficult.

I'll be looking back on some earlier posts in the next few weeks/months and see what insight can be gained....

From Worlds Best Movie Quotes

"occupation?"
"gladiator."
"did you kill last week?"
"no."
"did you try to kill last week?"
"yes."
"now listen, this is your last week of unemployment insurance. either you kill someone next week, or we're gonna have to change your status."
"occupation?"
"stand-up philosopher."
"what?"
"stand-up philosopher! i coalesce the vapors of the human experience and change it into a viable form."
"oh... a bullshit artist! did you bullshit last week?"...
-history of the world part I

Humility:::Leadership::: coincidence?

2007-12-21T23:14:00.000-05:00

Grechen over at the Happiness has a great post on humility or 'how not to be a bore'. Excellent advise/guidance on how to really benefit from working with other people.

2007-12-11T17:16:00.000-05:00

Just finished reading The Future of Management
by Gary Hamel

An interesting read. There are a lot of good thoughts in here, particularly noteworthy to me are the stress on alternative reporting structures and decision making structures. The discussions of Gore, Google and Whole foods were enjoyable, but not particularly shocking. Overall, I'd have to say that the ideas put forth were very familiar.

Hamel points out that many of the innovative management enhancements have come from 'non-traditional' managers. By this he means those of us who have not gone through the vetted business school manager factories. This fits my profile exactly (I have a degree in arts and letters). To me, the read was a exposure to a few new techniques, not a revelation of a new paradigm.

Congrats to Dave Winer

2007-04-01T10:42:00.000-04:00

Scripting News has its ten year anniversary today. This has been my ideal of what a web log should be. Always relevant, usually interesting. Dave always had something additive to say. Thank you Dave!

asp.net user control for date range

2007-03-13T21:47:00.000-04:00

To save someone a little time in the future, here's the asp.net user control code for a start date and end date control with validation:

<%@ Control Language="VB" AutoEventWireup="false" CodeFile="ucDateRange.ascx.vb" Inherits="ucDateRange" %>
Start Date:

End Date:
ID="valSummary" runat="server" />
Display="None" ErrorMessage="Start Date is required">
Display="None" ErrorMessage="End Date is required">
runat="server"
ControlToValidate="txtstartdate"
MaximumValue="1/1/2012"
MinimumValue="12/31/1988"
Type="Date"
Display="None"
ErrorMessage="The start date must be between 12/31/1988 and 1/1/2012">
runat="server"
ControlToValidate="txtEnddate"
MaximumValue="1/1/2012"
MinimumValue="12/31/1988"
Type="Date"
Display="None"
ErrorMessage="The end date must be between 12/31/1988 and 1/1/2012">
runat="server"
ControlToCompare="txtStartDate"
ControlToValidate="txtEndDate"
Display="None"
ErrorMessage="End Date must be after first date"
Operator="GreaterThan" Type="Date">

asp.net rss

2007-02-25T20:52:00.000-05:00

via my kiwi friends... This looks like a promising rss toolkit.

(Yes, it's been a while since I've posted here. But I've had a few other projects running which I'm sure would be visible to those who cared to nose around.)

Deep geek asp.net 2.0 portals

2006-05-05T14:38:00.000-04:00

Ok, way annoying... In asp.net using the new portal architecture. I've created a page with several web parts that consume a variable from one provider. I use the webPartManager control and create separate static connections. Everything works perfectly right out of the box. Make a change on the provider and it shows up in all the consumers... But wait..

Not that easy. As soon as you close one of the web parts and use the catalog manager to bring it back the connection is gone. I'm sure others are enjoying this little feature. Solution to follow (as soon as I come up with it).

Remember Me?

2006-04-13T22:52:00.000-04:00

Been a while...Been way busy.

I'm doing a re-write of my personal site here. Stay tuned for notes on the conversion and the resulting adventures of migrating from the asp.net community kit to a somewhat custom version of the asp.net 2.0 Personal Site.

Google again

2005-11-14T09:01:00.000-05:00

Wow! Google is going after the site usage market with

http://www.google.com/analytics/

. This looks very promising.

Windows Work Flow

2005-10-16T10:04:00.000-04:00

Biztalk has always been an intriguing, but daunting beast. Microsoft is bringing it closer into the main .net developer toolbox with windows workflow. Stephen Thomas has a great video with a basic sample. It's an excellent introduction.

Tech - Site management

2005-09-30T07:08:00.000-04:00

Here's the requirement: We have two servers servicing our external web site. One at our main location, another at our remote data center. We need to insure that they are completely in sync at all times. Files may only be moved via secure ftp.

I've done a lot of looking, and there doesn't' appear to be a simple way of doing this. The real kicker is that the servers are on two different networks.

I'm building a utility that will do the following:
1) Installed on each server will be a piece that scans the desired directories and builds an XML file containing all the directory names, files and file sizes
2) Ftp scripts will retrieve these from all servers
3) console utility will compare the XML files and create a list of directories to create/delete and a list of files to copy
4) rinse
5) repeat

I'll probably post it over on my other site. It seems generic enough that the world may be interested.

Protecting against Input Attack Vectors in ASP.NET

2005-09-07T21:41:00.000-04:00

It's always worth reviewing another set of articles regarding input validation for asp.net applications. SecureCoder.com by Anil John - Protecting against Input Attack Vectors in ASP.NET

Hey NY, let's give it back.

2005-09-05T08:30:00.000-04:00

I lived four blocks from the trade centers during 9/11. In the aftermath of the attack, the world poured in aid in various formats. It made it all made things easier to bare.

Certainly with the tsunami, and now with Katrina, I think it's time to return the generosity. Let's give as much as possible.

Personally we received some help from FEMA. We'll be giving that back to the Red Cross:

I hope all my neighbors will consider doing the same.

Portal framework for asp.net 2.0

2005-08-30T07:00:00.000-04:00

Introducing the "Web Part Framework" For Microsoft .NET Microsoft is introducing yet another approach to portal creation with the next release of .net and visual studio. Thom Robbins overview article lays out the basics. I've been meaning to replace our custom solution here at big law for some time now. My alternatives appeared to be sharepoint, sharepoint portal, dotnetNuke or a new custom solution. This new set of technologies appears to be worth exploring... More observations as they appear.

Reading: What the Dormouse Said: How the 60s Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer

2005-08-28T08:48:00.000-04:00

I've picked up 'What the Dormouse Said' and I'm finding it fascinating. Markoff makes the events and personalities involved with early personal computing come to life. He really attempts to get at the question of 'how did they come up with that'. Very entertaining.

Carbon dating...

2005-08-26T21:51:00.000-04:00

Ordered a rio carbon the other day. It arrived from Amazon with in two days. On opening the package I was impressed by the finish and design of the product... Until I tried to adjust the volume... The volume wheel was broken straight from the packaging.

Amazon's on-line return processing was almost too easy. Within three minutes I had the pre-paid ups label printed. I later got an email that it would be a week before they can re-send the replacement... Arrghh!

I'm really hoping it will arrive before I take the flight to LA for PDC.