Like much else I've written about groupware, that paper focused on tools (discussion forums, group schedulers, bloggers) and technologies (WebDAV, RSS, SVG, MathML).
Because I am a technologist, and work with other technologists, I tend to believe that problems -- like the information chaos that surrounds knowledge workers -- will succumb to the right mixture of tools and technologies. If only it were easier for most people to create topical websites, reorganize and filter messages, create and use metadata, manage time-ordered streams of information, and so on. It's always about the tools and technologies. Except that, really, it isn't.
Mainly what matters is telling the story. Bloggers, WYSIWYG HTML editors, and content-management systems can make the job much easier, just as software tools for publishing, video, and music can make those jobs easier. But the truth is that these tools are optional. It all boils down to just three things: a storyteller, an audience, and a venue.
Tale Of A Project WeblogFor knowledge workers in cyberspace, as I've said, the venue consists of a messaging medium (e-mail) and a publishing medium (the readable Web). At the intersection of these two media there is a niche for a storyteller to occupy. The story that needs telling is a project weblog. Here's a sanitized picture of what I mean.
Here's what's happening in this project weblog:
Time line. In the weblog tradition, recent items appear at the top, and older ones rotate out to archive pages.
Commentary. Entries on the time line refer to, and comment on, landmark documents.
Categorized items. The time line generates narrative flow, but it doesn't categorize items along other important dimensions which are, at the moment, hot issues to resolve, and agreements on how to resolve them. So, these appear in their own columns, and expand on the teasers that appear in the time line.
Extending Enterprise Value with Web 2.0 In this webcast we will talk about how to simply build and quickly remix Web 2.0 applications and the role of the IT department and how they support mashups. We will discuss how IBM can help IT teams adapt existing enterprise systems as well as develop unique ones that can support end user driven mashups in a reliable, scalable and secure way. We will highlight a simple scenario adapting an enterprise information source for mashups and how to test it. We will also cover how IBM can help you build agile, fast and simple web applications based on dynamic scripting languages that dramatically reduces development time. Wednesday, September 24, 2008 - 12pm PT / 3pm ET
2008 International Mathematica Conference Dr. Dobb's interviews Wolfram Research's Theo Gray, co-founder and Director of User Interfaces, and Roger Germundsson, Director of Research and Development, about the upcoming 2008 International
Mathematica Conference.
In this volume of Best of BYTE, we explore the emergence of some heuristic algorithms. Although we have only scratched the surface of this intriguing subject, we hope we've suggested the potential of the synthesis of heuristics and algorithms.
