Posts By John Gladstone

Come on in the Waters Fine

We’re ten years into the greatest paradigm shift in information gathering since Gutenberg. The buzz words may be ‘long-tail’ or ‘small is the new big’, but the bottom line is access is in the hands of the consumer. Our customers, whoever and wherever they may be, can get what they want, when they want it.Read… Read more »

Enterprise Innovation

From John Hagel, Harvard Business Review: The “edge” takes many forms. Generally speaking, edges are peripheral areas with high growth potential…Technology edges take shape as technological innovations begin offering new capabilities. The “core,” by contrast, is where the money and resources are today…the core symbolizes the inside of the enterprise, its principal capabilities and primaryRead… Read more »

The Net is the World’s Largest Library. The Problem is That all the Books are on the Floor

Traditionally, metadata adds structure to otherwise unstructured content. Modern systems open the possibility of unstructured metadata. Rating systems and folksonomies both fall into this category. These user generated finding aids give designers and content specialists, especially those who work in libraries, 😉 pause. We have to: * determine whether our projects would benefit from lowerRead… Read more »

The Accidental Creativist

NASA scientists surmise that this photo of Martian soil laced with silica could be the remnants of an ancient hot spring. Yes, Virgina, there was a Perrier plant on the red planet. This discovery came about unexpectedly as the result of a mechanical failure. Both Spirit and its twin rover Opportunity completed their original three-monthRead… Read more »

Usability / Y Knot?

Usability studies are not nearly as difficult to perform as rocket surgery or brain science 😉 Traditionally, usability studies were outsourced at exorbitant cost, but we’ve seen that the same results can be had using a little imagination and a cornucopia of software tools we have readily available. Your first step should be This NIHRead… Read more »

‘Even if you’re on the right track you’ll get run over if you just sit there.’ Will Rogers Here we are collaborating like mid-day mad-dogs and, as Katrina and the Waves said, ‘Don’t it Feel Good’. Pardon the buzzwords but, I think collaboration can become one of our core competencies. As we learn lessons andRead… Read more »

Free (or almost free) Collaboration Software

A few months ago I peeked at DimDim, the FREE, web-conferencing application targeting WebEx and Adobe Connect. In the intervening months, the developers have been a busy lot, adding features only found in high-end software e.g. host-transfer, recording, audio/video, MAC support, and integrated teleconferencing. We’ve seamlessly run training sessions with colleagues as far afield asRead… Read more »

Scaling the Walls of Wikipedia

Adding entries in Wikipedia that describe your agency or services is a grand idea. Foolish me. I thought Wikipedia was a free-for-all, wild-wild-west, kinda web site. Got something to post? No problem, this ain’t your momma’s Brittanica, just throw it on up there. Last week, the creator of the Animal Science Image Gallery asked meRead… Read more »