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Knowing good info from bad - how do we?

This posting inspired by the latest Gerry McGovern newsletter - read it for his views We vote. As an example, that's the power of Google search - it uses the concept that web pages with the highest 'vote' get put at the top of page 1. The 'vote' is a weighted one using the number of pages that reference it multiplied by a lot of clever algorithmic type activity - highly technical insight from Google themselves . In essence you voted me top of the "mike riversdale" Google list by linking to me. However, voting is spreading through the web in many more ways than simply linking to pages and I believe the driver is that people are starting to use the tools to group themselves into communities. In the good ol' days before " Web 2.0" (say before mid-2005) there were many informal methods of finding the 'best* content' - we would send emails to our mates pointing out cool sites, read about it from dedicated "Best of the Web ..."

#bigness

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What I found searching "bigness NZ" I have a theory ( another one ) - and this one I call Bigness , or on Twitter #bigness. Here in New Zealand, a country with a population of 4.471 million, living on land bigger than the UK (pop: 64.1m) we have many cultural attributes that are uniquely Kiwi, just look at the reaction to the flag debate and how people are expressing their, "This isn't us!" to see it in action. Many of these Kiwi attributes are awesome but one, that I have labeled #bigness, is a problem. It is an attribute that slows us down, holds us back and ties us to a thinking we don't need to. New Zealand is, to all intents & purposes, a Western-ised, predominantly white (male) country. When it looks to role models it immediately gravitates to those like it, Australia, UK, USA and Canada (the Five Eyes ). When we look for help, guidance, "lessons to be learnt", processes to copy, institutions to emulate it is to these that we a

The 3 C’s – Communication, Consultation and Collaboration

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[this is an old WaveAdept post archived here] You've got the technology (be it Google Apps, SharePoint or whatever) and your IT people have integrated it, patched it, set you up and handed it over... now what? Well, for a start, sit back and congratulate yourself that your organisation is: Saving costs (NZ$2 million per year for NZ Post with their Google Apps roll-out, and they've just started) Freed up your IT staff to concentrate on your company's particular 'secret sauce' No longer have to wait to benefit from the latest features Instantly given access 'anywhere, any time and (almost) any device' Really, celebrate that you have switched from old to new. But once the party is over you're going to have to get back to work getting the true benefits from your new toolset. And before you dive into the full on, "let's all collaborate, be open with everything and change the world" maybe planning out some interim steps to world domination

barCamp - one under the belt

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[Updated with a few more links - at the bottom dear heart] Well, the BarCampWellingtonNZegov was a giggle in many ways! Having spent a good part of Friday afternoon assisting Hannah and Kara with sticking up posters, ensuring WiFi was available and shifting chairs Saturday morning came around a little quick. Of course it started with Meg, progressed directly into England v South Africa before a cab ride into to open up the Fronde Queen's Wharf offices for the un-conference. After much milling, a few coffees and some slight guidance around 70 people plotted an agenda of 5-6 blocks of 4 concurrent sessions during the day. All very easily, no pain, no real hassle and certainly no "You must talk about ...". Post-Its, large pieces of paper and pens ... the best agile equipment in the world. It started brilliantly with a packed out room talking around "what is it that the Government needs to 'enter into' when we talk about "2.0"". Oh, before I con

The future of IT Departments

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Again, working my way through my Google starred items I have four articles that talk about 'the future' of a lot of IT related things. The four articles cover the whole range of "IT" starting at the top with an overview of where we're at and where we are potentially going descending all the way down to the future of software development. I see the articles linked together in a happy wee circle, with the large strategic future being driven by the way consumers/organisations want to use the apps which are created by developers which are driven by the large strategic future ... and around we go again. And so, let's start at the the big picture with a look at the evolution of where we were as well as where we might get to... Web 2.0 Explorer: A simple picture of Web evolution This article and the diagram it talks about highlight quite succinctly the challenge for IT Departments have. The move away from 'user' interacting with 'installed application'