AFTER THREE MONTHS OF BLOGGING: THE VERDICT

Blogging has been a surprisingly good experience. I never, not for a moment, thought that I would grow into it, and then live to regret that I have mainly been talking to myself. I now see what the furor's all about, especially among those who like to write. It has been interesting to find my voice in this medium, to own this blog, to enjoy thinking about this blog as much as I have, to find myself compelled to make corrections after a post had been up a week or even two months. You never know--someone might read it.

Amazingly, I have encouraged others to begin their own blogs. Like me, they are technological neophytes--middle-aged writers and activists, and some even older. I heard myself offering to help them, surprised that those very words were coming from my mouth. "I know you'd love it," I enthused. So far, no new bloggers have entered the blogosphere at my behest.

I entered the blogosphere thinking it was peopled by the self-absorbed. (Not that I'm not. I just didn't want to expose it, but I believe I could). Instead, I found useful corporate blogs, helpful student blogs, amusing satirical blogs, diverse political blogs, edgy design blogs as well as fairly decent personal blogs, some of which were actually fabulous. The occupants of the blogosphere appear not to be any more or less self-absorbed in their writings than are people in live encounters. Like anyone else, bloggers sometimes use bad grammar, write poorly, and use too much slang. But, you can always change the channel with a click of the mouse. Now that's an advantage!

IS WRITEBOARD THE RIGHT BOARD?

I thought so. In a recent collaborative online writing effort--my first, actually--I had the opportunity to experiment with Writeboard, and I had no complaints. However, since I am a novice in such matters, my evaluative criteria is fairly simple. As long as there is a decent product at the end and no major snag that I am forced to spend hours correcting, I leave the desk with a smile on my face!

With Writeboard, no snags! As a web-based collaborative writing tool, Writeboard is an easy interface to use. Truth be told, there was one snag: the bold, italics, and other font modifications didn’t work for me. What I mean to say is that I couldn’t get them to work properly. As this was happening, I simply thought, “I must not be seeing how to do it." I am, however, happy to report that my co-writer mentioned the same difficulty in her blog. She describes the Track Changes feature offered by Microsoft Word as perhaps a more sophisticated tool than Writeboard. Until she said this, I never thought of Track Changes as sophisticated either, but I admit to being impressed by the newer version that describes the changes made to a document in little balloons that appear in the margins.

Back to Writeboard: it is a product of 37signals, a privately-held Web design and Web application company based in Chicago. They are committed to simplicity in software design, as evidenced by their credo:

We believe most software is too complex. Too many features, too many buttons, too much confusion. We build easy to use web-based products with elegant interfaces and thoughtful features. We’re focused on executing on the basics beautifully.

With Writeboard, I’d say mission accomplished. It is ideal for the non-tech team. I could easily see using it in human services and other such industries, where wikis and other online apps might add stress. More technologically sophisticated work groups might feel otherwise, but for the bulk of users, Writeboard should be fine. The following users could benefit from it:

• Students and work groups who are not physically on the same campus or worksite
• Colleagues with different skill sets or areas of expertise, all of whom must contribute to a document
• Work enviroments without the capacity to share documents
• Technophobes

A good end-product can result if participants have well-defined roles, i.e., someone who checks for accurate information, another who ensures the writing is cohesive and grammatical, and so on. 37signals seems to favor smaller work groups in their endeavors, and this might well apply to users' intial introduction to Writeboard and online collaborative writing. How big a Writeboard group before the process becomes unwieldy? That aside, it is a great way to see how others work and retain all good thoughts and ideas. Writeboard also allows you to see earlier versions of a document in progress, and gives credit to the contributor.

Bottom line: good show!

ALL SPRUCED UP FOR SPRING!

I've cleaned up the blog, making most headings, font sizes, and links consistent in appearance. Much prettier, yes? Also, with a little help from a friend, I added sidebar color as a modification to the original template. Gives the blog a little pizzazz, I hope, without compromising my commitment to fashion! See my April 14th post, Dashing Dots, for the full story.

DASHING DOTS!

In case you hadn't realized it, my blog design is a template. Yes, I know. You would never have guessed it. In a flurry of ambition, I was going to change the template, then modify the new one, but these things aren't yet my forte. Instead, I have found ways to justify the status quo--something I do much better at the moment. Here goes...

First and foremost, The Philadelphia Inquirer tells us that polka dots are "in" for spring. This young woman appeared in the paper's Image section on April 15th, and she's wearing my blog template--colors and all!

Polka dots have deep historical roots. Wikipedia tells us that "polka dots are ancient. They first became common on clothing in the late nineteenth century in Britain. At that time, polka music was extremely popular and the name was also applied to the pattern, despite no real connection between them. Some believed that during the 1st World War, the British used polka dots as a place to hide morse code and other secrets without being noticed." Aha! Polka dots have obviously had pragmatic and lofty uses.

Artists and athletes of note have embraced the use of polka dots in their work. Yayoi Kusama is an example of one such artist. Then there's Dusty Rhodes.

Anyone who saw the televised celebration of the 200th Anniversary of the White House during the Clinton administration will never forget the dress Barbara Bush wore, ever--thus showing us how very memorable polka dots can be.

Speaking of memory, polka dots can be pleasantly nostaglic. Remember the comic strip Little Dot? While not my favorite, I never quite forgot Dot Polka. Last, but not least, let us not forget that classic Yellow Polka Dot Bikini song from 1960.

With all this going for them, the polka dots must remain on this blog, especially because they're in! I may modify, but I cannot say goodbye--yet. Let's just hope that summer doesn't bring us paisley prints!

OPTIMIZING READER EXPERIENCES ONLINE

Hailed as the guru of Web usability, Jakob Nielsen uttered timeless words back in 1997, when he described how users read on the Web. “They don’t,” he said. A full 79% of users simply scan for what they need rather than read word-for-word. Why would this be? Nielsen gives us four good reasons:

• Reading from the screen is tiring, and about 25% slower than reading from paper.
• The Web is a user-driver medium. Users feel that they have to move on to the next thing.
• There's competition on the Web. Users wonder if this is the page they need, or will a better page come along.
• People are busy. They get email and voicemail. They get paged, and receive text messages. If what they need online isn't right there, they move on.

How best, then, to engage users and meet their needs? Must website content play second fiddle to bells and whistles in order to grab readership? Not really. A website may gain attention for graphics and design, but content is king and will keep users coming back for more. The information must simply (or not so simply) be packaged for a highly visual, user-driven medium. Here are a few rules of thumb from Sun Microsystems, Nielsen, and other sources on writing and preparing website content:

• Think audience first. What do they need to know or accomplish? What do you want them to do? A pharmaceutical company, for example, may need to host website information for both scientists and diabetics, so they need to offer pages and visuals that are geared toward both groups. This same principle should guide the development of all website content, from the pages that comprise a large professional site to one’s personal web pages.
• Put important information at the top of the page, in accordance with Nielsen’s inverted pyramid style. Conclusions come first!
• Don't frustrate the scanning impulse. Highlight liberally so your readers can pick out what they need.
• Yet, don't cater too much to scanning! Slow readers down when you can. Bullet points and lists help accomplish this.
• Use links to move detailed information onto secondary pages. Pages that are dense with text are better off as links. If you think your users are likely to print these pages out, it’s not out of the question to use a font like Times New Roman, which is more suitable for print than a website.

Writing for the Web is a bit different than writing for other mediums. You’re writing for an interactive audience. Give them opportunities to interact. Posting print materials as pdfs usually isn’t the best way to go. If you’re putting up an annual report, for example, consider what your users want to know. Write about those items, and then link them to their respective pages in the report. For more writing tips, check out Riches Communications and Jennifer Kyrnin's web article.

As for graphics, once again, let users be your guide. Firstly, decide if the visual is really necessary? If the answer is yes, then what do users need to know or do? If they need an overview, a picture can be most helpful, as we find on this page of Milton Roy's website. If, on the other hand, readers need to know how parts fit together, then using an illustrated cross section, a phantom view, schematic, or wire diagram should be considered. Graphs can be a great way to clarify and reinforce textual information, as we see in Milton Roy's section on metering pump characteristics. Finally, to show how parts relate to the whole, use an exploded view, cutaway, blueprint, or a photo of an individual part. Photos also work well if you need to show a pattern, as do videos and realistic drawings.

The long and short of it is to make readers the focus of your website. In so doing, you show respect for their time, needs, and goals--something we should all enjoy and aspire to!

THAR'S GOLD IN THEM THAR HILLS!

Business Applications for Social Networking

Another article from The Economist...this is a short one that I found in their April 7-13, 2007 edition, and it looks at business uses for social-networking sites. One obvious application would be the marketing of products or services. Ted, whom we assume (and hope) is a fictitious Pizza Hut driver, has a profile on MySpace where he alerts friends of the chain's promotions: "Dude, I just heard some scoop from the Hut." Hmm. In all charity, what can I say? They have guts? Well, how 'bout that they're still up and running. Not so for Walmart. They just got booed off the stage and closed down a site devoted to teens, but Reuters is looking to jump into the fray with a site for those in the financial-services industry. Safe to say that many more such ventures are on the horizon.

The article goes on to discuss social-networking as a job recruitment tool. On sites such as LinkedIn and Jobster, members pass suitable vacancies on to friends and colleagues, and refer potential candidates to recruiters. This is, at present, social networking's greatest value to companies. Need we say how very valuable this is to the social-networking sites? Here are the figures cited for LinkedIn: ten million members and $87,500,000 in revenue. Well, the article didn't exactly say $87,500,000. What it said was that more than 350 companies pay up to $250,000 each to advertise jobs to LinkedIn's expanding network. Meeoow--a very long tail indeed!

Another interesting and, I would imagine, very lucrative application for social-networking is "knowledge management." Apparently, IBM has just floated out "Lotus Connections," a platform that allows company employees to post detailed profiles about themselves, team up on projects, and share bookmarks. The article cites that one manufacturer is testing the software by using it to put inexperienced members of its customer-services team in touch with the right engineers. That sounds pretty good, as does the software's capacity to identify in-house experts. Quite frankly, if I were working at such a company, I'd be more than a little watchful. My fear? After the company makes participation on the site mandatory, I am sure I would open my big mouth about something that would allow them to nail me with some horrible task and banish me to the metaphorical hinterlands. Yes, I know. I'm a cynic, but I've seen and experienced it, and probably for lesser disclosures.

Lastly and most curiously (at least for me), The Economist article discusses the work of VisiblePath, a New York-based start-up that analyzes email traffic, calendars, and diary entries to identify a company's strongest relationships, both inside and outside the company doors. This can generate sales leads. But, the author of the article asks the following question: will sales people, driven by commission, share their best leads with their colleagues, or will they hide them with their cloaking devices? I wonder about this as well. We know where this leads: one person does the work, someone else closes the deal, and worker bee gets screwed out of a commission. Happens every day, without the benefit of the software. That aside, the article concludes with a nod to the software's obvious potential: if who you know is more important than what you know, this product's on to something.

I pretty much summarized the article, but if "Joined-up thinking" is still online, you may read it here in full (and without commentary). Otherwise, you might try the VisiblePath link above, to see if they're still hosting a link to the article.

TAGGING REVISITED

Tagging—that’s what I did when I worked for a drycleaner, many long years ago. I tagged, sorted, and bagged clothing, among other perfectly dreadful tasks. From what I can tell, not much has changed in the dry cleaning business, except that these days my dry cleaner’s cash register thanks me and says goodbye. As for the Internet, so much has changed that it’s a little daunting to keep up with it. Which brings me back to tagging. On the Internet, I tag once again, but it is much more fun than it was at the dry cleaners!

My return to tagging occurred just this past week, as I spent time on a site familiar to many, but new to me: del.icio.us. Wikipedia defines del.icio.us as “a social bookmarking web service for storing, sharing, and discovering web bookmarks." It is now part of Yahoo, and its acquisition by Yahoo remains the highest profile acquisition of its kind. At the risk of stating the obvious, del.icio.us is not the only social bookmarking web service in the land. There are others such as Furl and Shadows, many with a more targeted focus, and most of them unknown to me at this point in time.

del.icio.us, like Furl and Shadows, may be described as a broad folksonomy tool, which to my understanding means that there is a lot of tagging. Unfettered tagging promotes personal refindability and creates value for users. So says Thomas Vander Wal who is credited with coining the word “folksonomy” to describe what was happening on the Web. Wikipedia tells us that “a folksonomy is a user-generated taxonomy used to categorize and retrieve items from the Web, such as Web pages, photographs, links, and other Web content.” Obviously, a folksonomy is not a professionally developed taxonomy with a controlled vocabulary. From what I see on del.icio.us, that would be correct. With the exception of labeling suggestions that del.icio.us users are free to ignore, there’s nothing controlled about the labeling process on the site. Moreover, folksonomy should not be confused with folk taxonomies. True. According to Wikipedia, folk taxonomies are “culturally supplied, intergenerationally transmitted, and relatively stable classification systems that people in a given culture use to make sense of the entire world around them, not just the Internet.” What goes on at del.icio.us does not, at this time, appear to be a classification system for the ages. It seems more like a random cataloguing process that’s done by us, the folks, as George Bush 2 calls us. This process has its hazards. But, if you keep in mind that people like me are still writing down URLs or forgetting sites entirely, it’s a real boon to be able to tag and store web content in one tidy spot, and then share this information with others.

Ok. So what did I tag and why? Well, I tagged sites and articles—ten of them—that I thought might interest technical writers, of course. Have a look at my del.icio.us favorites. You’ll mainly find resources for web design and usability. Writers Write is a resource for all writers, including technical ones. I liked This Is Broken, a site where users can air problems of all kinds—bad experiences on the Web, bad customer service, maybe even bad directions produced by technical writers! I loved librarian.net. The feisty blog author, Jessamyn, has been “putting the rarin’ back in librarian since 1999.” Jessamyn focuses on the intersection between libraries and technology, and I tagged her blog because she said something somewhere in there to allay my worries about Web 2.0 and the seeming hodge-podge that is social bookmarking. In response to the question raised in the video, The Machine is Us/ing Us, and that is, who will organize all the anticipated content on the Web 2.0, our friend, Jessamyn, confidently answered “librarians will.” I was much relieved. While I love the idea of a read/write Web and especially enjoy bookmarking for my personal use, we just can’t organize the Web in this way, can we? Don't we need an electoral college of Web 2.0 to control the masses?

Well, maybe not. Maybe our collective wisdom will allow the cream to rise. Also, as regards to social bookmarking, think of the knowledge that may be shared worldwide by professionals, academics, and students, not so much so on sites like del.icio.us, but in other more scholarly bookmarking communities.

Yes, of course. But just as I am gaining confidence in all of this, The Philadelphia Inquirer publishes an article entitled, Wikipedia pioneer launches a 'better free encyclopedia.' I always wondered about Wikipedia. It's ok for some purposes, but it's no Encyclopedia Britannica. I don't think it's even the Funk and Wagnalis encyclopedia I tried to collect as a kid, diligently buying one volume a week at the supermarket, and hoping I didn't miss any. At any rate, you'll find the full article about Wikipedia among my del.icio.us favorites. Read it, and find out who killed and ate JFK!