Although busy – and at times a little panicked – it’s exciting times.  Specifics-free background; around 18 months ago we launched an internal social collaboration platform.  I’ve been working with lots of people to explain why social collaboration matters to them, and helping to set up & run effective social communities.  Usage hasn’t exploded but is rising at a satisfactory rate, helped by our CEO becoming a keen user and frequently posting updates about how we’re doing – this gets a lot of attention!

Anyway, why am I so excited at the moment?  Well, it really feels like we’re crossing a watershed in terms of how accepted and acknowledged “all this social stuff” is.  Two current events in particular show how far we’ve come…

First of all, we’re embedding social discussion into the company’s quarterly extended leadership team meeting.  We’re going to use the social platform to record the discussions happening around tables in the meeting.  We’re hoping this benefits both the participants – as they’ll also be able to see and contribute to other tables’ discussion – but also provides a way for the whole business to join the conversation.

When suggesting this idea to our leadership team we were a little nervous. Maybe they wouldn’t want to share their discussion openly in public? (Within the company, at least.)  Maybe they’d be dubious about the technology?

Much to our surprise – and delight! – everybody seemed enthusiastic about the concept; proof of how much we’ve changed in recent times.

Then our second event running across the next couple of weeks is an company-wide engagement & discussion session, focused on our improvement programme.  I won’t go into too much detail here but there’s lots of activity planned including themed discussion, opportunity for anyone to suggest improvements – and vote for their favourite suggestions – and live microblog conversations with some of our executives.

This will be the third such event we’ve run so people are generally familiar with the concept now. The most encouraging part for me though has been our pre-event communications. In the past, essentially, we sent lots of emails!

Now?

Well, we’ve not got away from email completely – there’s still a few going out – but we’ve used internal microblogging far more to spread the word – dare I say it – virally.  It’s been really encouraging to see how people are happy to pass on the news of what’s happening.  We’re hoping this interest and activity builds up to make this the most successful event yet!

So – lots to feel positive about, but plenty more work to ensure it’s all a success.  Still, can’t help feeling good about the progress we’re making.

Check back in a couple of weeks for an update on how it all went, and the lessons we’ve learned from it…

Today my thoughts on Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy. This has been one of the hottest YA series of recent years, and a movie adaptation of the first book, The Hunger Games, is out this year.

This trilogy is all about Katniss Everdeen, a teenage girl resident in a dystopian medium-future North America which following climate change and civil war is now ruled by a brutal dictatorial Capitol. The Hunger Games themselves are the prime example of this brutality, as each district must provide two teenagers every year to compete in a televised fight to the death. Hmmm, wonder where our Katniss will end up?

I had mixed feelings about these books. They’re certainly gripping enough, and led to a couple of late nights reading. Katniss is an interesting character, and her ingenuity in dealing with the various challenges she faces is fun to read. I think it’s also laudable how the books challenge many modern assumptions concerning appearance, image and popularity.

None the less, there were problems with the narrative I couldn’t ignore. Book one is definitely better than the second and third installments, in which the plot rushes way past willing suspension of disbelief. There’s just too much going on that makes no sense, even within the world as it’s presented.

The romantic angle to Katniss’ story was also more angst-ridden and predictable than suited me.

My biggest criticism though was in Mockingjay – and it does deserve spoiler formatting – highlight to read…

Katniss’ overwhelming drive throughout all 3 books is to protect her younger sister; it’s why she volunteered for the Hunger Games in the first place. So to have Primrose die violently in the last few chapters – and for Katniss to live, if not happily at least adequately, ever after – jarred horribly.  Not sure what sort of emotional climax to the trilogy the author was going for with this, but for me at least, it failed badly.

None the less, despite some bad flaws I did enjoy the trilogy – it’s definitely better than a lot of what’s out there.  Curious to see what they make of it in the movie adaptation too…

Anyway, onto the books. Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London and Moon over Soho begin the story of one Peter Grant, Constable of the Metropolitan Police – and much to his surprise, magician. Turns out the Met has a resident detective for magical matters, DI Nightingale, who following a nasty murder takes Peter on as his apprentice. Much action ensues…

I really enjoyed these books. Very refreshing to have an adult protagonist – OK, so Peter is young and naive, but it’s something different to the tired old “Boy prophesied to save the world!” cliche.  It doesn’t hurt that he’s well portrayed as a character – he felt very familiar even after a few pages.

London obviously isn’t short of character, and in both books Aaronovitch does a good job of bringing this to life, and working real places and history in with the mythology he’s creating.  I’m not enough of a Londoner to fact-check all the details, but it certainly feels authentic.

At times there’s a nasty edge to the narrative and some pretty gruesome deeds.  It stays clear of real horror, but a few scenes did linger unpleasantly in the mind. No bad thing IMO, but perhaps worth a warning if you’re not a fan of that sort of thing…

Offsetting the nasty stuff is some really great humour, particularly between Peter and Nightingale. There were a few laugh out loud moments but mostly Peter’s first person narration delivered a dry, sarcastic wit I enjoyed a lot.

I’d definitely recommend these, and look forward to future installments.

Why would I do such a crazy thing?  Well, the 39th Discworld book, Snuff, was out, and I’ve never actually read Discworld in any kind of order.  It’s always been a case of what I’ve noticed in the library or picked up at the bookshop.  As each novel stands alone as a story that’s never bothered me too much, but none the less I couldn’t help feeling I was missing out on something.

So, 39 books, across 8 or 9 weeks.  Good job none of them are too lengthy!

I couldn’t possibly talk about each book in detail (Phew, I hear you say…) – this is much more about the overall impressions I was left with.

The first overwhelming thought is what a marvellous series Discworld is.  I’m not aware of any other series with this combination of humour, characterisation, wit and sheer storytelling virtuosity.  Really, if you’ve not already read any of the Discworld books, what are you waiting for!

That does bring me to an interesting point though… Where to start?  I enjoyed re-reading The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic a great deal, but I’m not convinced they would be the best starting point.  The books change an awful lot as they progress – I go on about this more in a moment.  Maybe Equal Rites?  Guards, Guards?  Or possibly even one of the Tiffany Aching books?  Hmmm.  Really not sure…

Talking more about how the books change; I never really appreciated this before the re-read.  There’s a huge, huge difference.  The earlier stories were far more affectionate mockery of well-known Fantasy tropes and, indeed, specific works within the genre.  It doesn’t take long though before Pratchett has worn these out and seeks instead to use Discworld as a mirror to reflect and explore many of the issues in our own world.

The experience of reading changes dramatically throughout the books too.  The earlier stories are light-hearted, absurd fun.  As you progress to later stories, the plotting becomes more intricate, the themes a little more complex, the morality more ambiguous…  Don’t get me wrong, there’s never going to be a Discworld equivalent of War and Peace (I hope!) – but none the less, this is a series that grows and develops.  I guess, to fulfil 39 books – and counting – it really had to.

One thing that hasn’t changed much is the characterisation.  A great strength of Discworld has always been the ease with which Pratchett connects the reader with the characters, and aren’t there some memorable characters in there: Death, of course, Sam Vimes, Granny Weatherwax, Rincewind…  This isn’t just through long familiarity either; you normally only have to read the first few lines about a character and you’re getting a pretty clear idea what they’re about.

Of course the books aren’t without flaws.  Does the series continuity wander around a little lost at times?  Are the plots sometimes a little trivial?  Do you ever really doubt the “good guys” will prevail in the end?  Of course not!  But none the less, the sheer enjoyment Discworld provides far, far outweighs any small negatives.

My personal favourite?  Hmmm, that’s tough.  In the end though I think I’ll have to stick with Night Watch, and as for why, here’s what I wrote in an earlier post:

There’s rarely a Pratchett book you could call bad, nor stupid – he often uses Discworld as an intriguing mirror to our world – but Night Watch reaches true greatness and had far more emotional impact on me than any of his other works.  Of course, all the humour is still there, but allied to a fascinating, driven narrative exploring the origins of Sam Vimes’ character.  Discworld books have often made me cry with laughter before – this is the first and only episode which had me shedding the odd tear otherwise.

I honestly don’t think there’s a book I’d call a least favourite… I enjoyed all of them!  And given there were 39 of them – well, that’s pretty amazing, really.

I’m still not sure where I’d recommend a complete Pratchett newbie start, though.  What do you think?

Out of sheer embarrassment I’m not going to go back and count how many times I’ve said this before, but I do want to blog more in 2012.  So I’ll be making a real effort to get at least a few posts up every week.  Stay tuned!

Say you’re self employed, and accept cash in hand for some work.  At year end, you conveniently forget to account for that money on your tax return, and hence pay less tax.

That’s tax evasion.  It’s illegal.

Say you’re saving for the future.  You take out an ISA.  You avoid paying tax on the interest earned.

That’s tax avoidance.  It’s 100% legal.

Those are highly simplified examples, of course.  Normally when tax avoidance and tax evasion are discussed, it’s in the context of corporations engaging in complex accounting to minimise their tax burdens.

But none the less, the point remains; tax evasion = illegal, tax avoidance = legal.

Thus many arguments complaining about tax avoidance are misdirected.  A corporation will obviously seek to minimise the tax they pay – and most individuals will do the same.  Many of us use ISAs or save tax-free in pensions – should we be condemned for not paying our dues to society?

Much of the confusion between avoidance and evasion is deliberate.  The media frequently imply that avoidance is “wrong” – although they’ll be careful not to imply illegality so they’re not sued.  Online opinion, particularly from partisan or anti-capitalist sources, will often make no distinction between evasion and avoidance.

This is what leads to outcry about companies “Not paying their fair share of tax” – even though everything they’ve done has been entirely within the law.

Now, does this mean I think tax avoidance is right?  No, not necessarily, and particularly not within our current capitalist system.  I’ll return to this in future posts!  But just remember – evasion is not the same as avoidance.

Thus, my admiration for Steve Jobs is a bit indirect.  It’s less what Apple has done for me, and more what I have witnessed Apple do in the world around me.

Others have summed up the specifics of Jobs’ achievements far better than I can – Tim Bray’s is the best I’ve read so far.  There’s one particular facet of Apple’s success I find astonishing, though.

It is simply this:  Jobs did not do this on his own.  He didn’t even do it working with a small team.  No; he had to achieve all this through the unwieldy mechanism of a massive corporation, with all the complexities of management, internal politics, and financial pressures that involves.

Jobs’ greatest achievement was not his vision, nor his relentless focus on user experience.  It was to forge an organisation capable of turning that vision into reality.  I’m no expert on Apple, but it’s quite obvious that it is no normal company, and under Jobs, had exceptional leadership.

Just as Apple’s products set an example and a challenge for competitors, I hope Apple itself and Jobs’ leadership become an example for enlightened organisations.  An example that shows success comes from taking risks, that “good enough” is never good enough, that it’s not enough to satisfy your customers’ expectations; you should strive to exceed them.

More and more, corporations must think like this and work like this to survive.  Sure, consumer technology might be ahead of the curve – but even in other industries, the boring stuff is getting automated or outsourced, and competitive advantage will only come from getting a bunch of smart people together and empowering them to be creative, be innovative and take risks.

Of course Apple is not the only example.  Many other organisations are also taking great strides in transforming the way they work, and reaping the rewards.  Apple is, however, the stand out success.  If its example can be the catalyst for a change in how we do business across the board…  Well, that to me is a greater legacy than any device.  No matter how shiny.

RIP Steve Jobs.

Cut a couple of carrots into fine strips and begin frying in oil in a hot wok. After 3 or 4 minutes add about 300g of cooked prawns, then 2 minutes later add 4 cloves of garlic & 2 medium red chillis, both finely chopped.

Whilst that’s sizzling away – keep it stirred! – mix about 2 cups of natural yoghurt with the juice of half a lemon. Then mix in a good handful of finely chopped coriander.

Returning to the wok, chuck in a glug of sweet chili sauce and some light soy sauce, tossing to make sure all the ingredients are well mixed. Finally, add a double handful of shredded cabbage leaves. Stir fry for another 2-3 minutes, then serve immediately with the yoghurt on the side and dark soy sauce to taste.

It was absolutely delicious – quite pleased, for a weeknight thrown-together dinner! We had it with some green veg but it would also be great with rice or noodles.

Yum… Might have to cook that again soon!

Over at Tor.com, they’ve been running a thread for the best SF/F books of the past decade.  I’ve submitted my favourites, and thought they were such good reads I’d devote a blog post to them too.

Before I dive in, I should explain I’ve been pretty ruthless with this list.  There’s probably 10-20 more books that I thought were very, very good – but I’ve chosen to take the list literally and only go for what I consider the best. Thus there’s no Iain M Banks – although Matter & Surface Detail are both good, they’re not IMO up to the standards of earlier Culture novels – and so inevitably just a very slight let down.

Anyway, enough blathering – onwards!

The Name of the Wind – Patrick Rothfuss

I’ve now re-read this – at least once and maybe twice – since my first take, and I’ve only grown to like it more – always a good sign.  I think I like this book so much because it takes all the conventions of heroic & epic fantasy, subverts some gently, plays some straight, but always with respect and without resorting to cliches.  Just as Lord of the Rings is the archetype for “classic” fantasy, this novel seems to be the perfect template for all that’s great in modern fantasy writing.

It’s also an astonishingly well-crafted book.  With the potential exception of Nick Harkaway and Susanna Clarke’s debuts – also on my list! – I can’t remember any first novels which are so tight, so well structured, and such a compelling read.  Resorting to cliche a little myself here, but it genuinely does grab the reader by the throat and doesn’t let go.

My favourite book of the decade?  Probably.

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell – Susanna Clarke

Another début novel, equally excellent but very different to Rothfuss’ work.  This is the story of two very different magicians, set in a Britain during the Napoleonic wars, where magic exists and so do fairys – but as Pratchett would say, not nice ones.

This is an intricate, many layered book, not least in the copious footnotes which sometimes verge on short stories themselves!  This may not be to everyone’s taste.  I absolutely adore this kind of pseudo-historical writing, when carried out by an author of talent – and Clarke certainly succeeds in keeping it together.  None the less, if you prefer your plots and action linear and straightforward, this might be one to approach with caution.

The upside to all the intricacy is that every single page is a delight, and there’s so much reward for reading.  An absolute pleasure of a book.

Deadhouse Gates – Steven Erikson

Not a debut, this one, but the second of Erikson’s epic Malazan series, of which I’m a huge fan.  I decided to only nominate one novel for any given series for this list, and Deadhouse Gates still stands out for me as the single best novel of the Malazan series.

Erikson took the brave decision to place the second book of his series on a different continent, which a mostly different cast of characters, in a seemingly disconnected storyline.  At first glance this seems a crazy choice and I’m slightly surprised the publishers went along with it!  Good job they did though – it was an inspired decision and really gives an idea for the scale and scope of Erikson’s world.

While Gardens of the Moon was a good start, Deadhouse Gates for me is where I realised the Malazan series was going to be something special.  This is an epic, harrowing, brutal tale of warfare and struggle in the face of impossible odds.  Not a nice book, not at all – but very, very good.

Night Watch – Terry Pratchett

This is my selection from the post-2000 Discworld books.  Of course, the entire series is a joy, and I very nearly chose one of the Tiffany Aching books for their sheer delightfulness.  Night Watch couldn’t be denied though as I think it’s the absolute high point of Prachett’s writing – full stop.

There’s rarely a Pratchett book you could call bad, nor stupid – he often uses Discworld as an intriguing mirror to our world – but Night Watch reaches true greatness and had far more emotional impact on me than any of his other works.  Of course, all the humour is still there, but allied to a fascinating, driven narrative exploring the origins of Sam Vimes’ character.  Discworld books have often made me cry with laughter before – this is the first and only episode which had me shedding the odd tear otherwise.

Of course if you’re new to Discworld don’t start here – get at least the other books in the “City Watch” storyline under your belt first.  I don’t half envy you if that’s the case though – you’ve a lot to look forward to!

The Gone-away World – Nick Harkaway

Back to another debut here for an absolutely mad romping adventure of a book.  Bringing together ninjas, mercenaries, war, love, coming-of-age, politics, paperwork, and a whole lot of other stuff too – if this novel’s anything, it’s certainly not dull!

I can see this could be a bit of a Marmite book – it does dive all over the place, and alternating a past/present viewpoint could be confusing.  It’s worth putting the time in to really get the most out though as this is a book with a lot of reward.  It works on so many different levels – how many other books can claim to be a comedy, a romance, a tragedy – and do all of them well?

I don’t know how Harkaway got himself into the right frame of mind for writing this story – it must have been quite an experience! – but I hope he can equal this in subsequent works.  Very much looking forward to whatever he comes up with next…

Quicksilver – Neal Stephenson

Really difficult decision this one – whether to pick one of Stephenson’s sort-of historical fiction with a slight SF twist Baroque Cycle, or whether to go for the standalone & more overtly SF Anathem? Very close indeed.  In the end, though, I thought Anathem was just a tiny bit too experimental and as a story, Quicksilver works best for me.

This is the opening book of the Baroque Cycle and if you like this, you’ll want to follow this up with The Confusion and The System of the World.  Really all three should be taken as a narrative whole,  not separate books.  You’ll get more out of it overall if you’ve already read Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon – which would have been my choice, except it was published in 1999!

Quicksilver is another deeply intricate, intertwined labyrinth of a book, set in a period of history I’m fascinated with anyway, and I love Stephenson’s style – so I was bound to like this really.  But it’s not often a story can deliver such rich characters, such an extraordinary plot, together with an absorbing history lesson – excellent stuff.  In fact I think it’s the effortless balance between the characters, the plot, and the background that really makes this book, and indeed the series.  In the hands of a lesser author one element would inevitably have suffered, but here everything works just right.

The Stranger (Labyrinths of Echo) – Max Frei

The most recent of the lot, for me, a random choice from the library.  But it’s really rather brilliant, whimsical, and a lot of fun.

Our protagonist – also a Max – is whisked away from his mundane existence in our world to fight crime in the magical city of Echo.  Unlike many “other world” books, though, Max isn’t left puzzling things out on his own; he’s given employment, and instruction, by the splendid Sir Juffin Hully as part of the Minor Secret Investigative Force.

Unlike many of my other choices, it’s not the plot or the depth that really makes this so enjoyable, but rather the sheer joie-de-vivre and effervescence of the writing, most particularly in Max’s inner monologue as he faces various challenges, and also in the banter and interplay between his new colleagues.  Appreciation of good food and drink in a novel always goes down well!  The city of Echo is also intriguingly described, and the kind of place I want to read more about…

Confession – I do feel a little guilty submitting this as I’ve not completed reading The Stranger yet – the latter parts of the book may be apallingly bad.  If so, I’ll update this entry, but so far, it’s so good I had to put it in.

Sixty-one Nails – Mike Shevdon

Another simpler but none the less rewarding novel.  Shevdon draws on a lot of material from both folklore and history to create this intriguing story of two worlds overlaid, one we know and one we don’t.  I particularly liked how British this novel is – the descriptions of London, and indeed the majority of the folklore references, all seem unique to these isles, which as a resident I couldn’t help but appreciate.

It was also rather marvellous that Shevdon managed to find the most obscure ancient practice that’s still honoured to this day in real life – the Quit Rents ceremony – and make this an integral, seamless part of the narrative.  I love it when authors successfully blend the real with the fictional in stories like this, and it’s done very well here.

Not the most complicated story but sympathetic characters, an interesting premise, and a gripping adventure – all in all, a delightful read!

So those are my favourites.  Goes without saying, I’d recommend any of these!  If you’ve got your own SF & Fantasy favourites of the past decade, why not also contribute to the Tor.com thread?  I only hope this new decade is equally fruitful for new writing as the past one – if so, we’ve got lots to look forward to…

Happy Christmas! It’s not been the greatest run up to the festive season this year as both Claire & I have been down with a horrible cold. Still, it has kept the alcohol consumption to a more sensible level than normal…

Fortunately both a lot better now & had a good evening catching up with friends in Warsash last night. Then this morning a very frosty trip – minus 12 at times! – up to Claire’s folks in Stockport. Now looking forward to a relaxed Christmas Day, lovely food and the odd glass of wine or two.

Best of Christmas cheer to any & all readers! Hope Santa’s brought you lots of good things and you & yours have a splendid festive time.

I’m strongly subscribed to the digital activist, “information wants to be free”, open standards & open source position; none the less, while Operation Payback may have an impact in the short term, I’m concerned about its long term effects.  We’ve heard lots of hype about “infowar” or “cyberwar”; I fear this could be the start of an Internet conflict escalation.

Although obviously DDOS attacks have been around for a long time, they have tended to be shady affairs, coordinated through hackers’ semi-private forums and squarely in the “black-hat” camp.  Payback is different; it is public – until they were recently shut down, they had both Facebook pages and Twitter accounts.  It’s easy – even complete computer novices can join in the attacks.

We’re also into new territory as the attack’s targets are corporations at the very heart of the global financial system… with the power to influence legislation through various governments around the world.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe in the more tinfoil-hat conspiracy theories – but there’s no doubt that as things stand, separation of government and big business isn’t what it should be.  The lobbying power of the IP industries has already led to some highly questionable laws – the DMCA in the USA, the Digital Economy Act in the UK, and the troubling ACTA treaty.

If the financial industry are given a reason to get involved in the Internet freedom debate, they can potentially bring far greater lobbying power to bear.  This is a frightening prospect for the future of our Internet, and risks ever more restrictive laws, invasion of privacy, and limitations on individual freedom.

So what should those who support Wikileaks do?  Nothing?

No.  I believe there is a case for action, and whilst I certainly would not take part in Payback myself, I can’t entirely condemn those who do.  However, I think those coordinating the attacks need to be very careful to make their point, and then to back away.  Meanwhile, everybody who cares about these issues should take every legal, democratic action open to them to put their point of view forward.

It might seem a bit old fashioned, but, you know – writing to elected representatives, organising petitions, even coming together for protests in person – all of these have an effect.  Most importantly, these activities legitimise the process.  It’s not a bunch of criminals vandalising virtual banks; it’s a group of citizens concerned that corporations and governments are not fit to operate in the Internet age.

I am convinced that, ultimately, freedom of information and transparency will win out – but for the moment, governments and large businesses are terrified about what this means for them; hence their default stance of opposition.  Actions to raise awareness of specific issues will always have a place, just as in the real world, civil disobedience is sometimes necessary.  However, these need to be the last resort.  Above all, they need to form a coherent part of a long-term strategy, not just for the Internet but also to transform the way our societies are governed.

It won’t come as any surprise that I lost the debate, but thanks to the three people who did vote for me…

My argument was based around complexity and currency; just in time knowledge allows access to knowledge through dialogue & engagement – it’s a far better way to deal with complex and new situations, which form an increasingly large part of the work we do these days.

Of course this allowed my debating opponent – Jon Harman of Syngenta – to counter by pointing out the many very repeatable activities essential to business, where a checklist or knowledge asset comes in handy.  He also made the good point that human knowledge is fallible; where it can be captured immediately after an activity, that is more valuable than later dialogue once the memory has faded.

Jon made some great arguments so I wasn’t at all surprised I lost – and to be honest, I’d have been disappointed if I’d won!  Because of course, Knowledge Assets aren’t dead at all – and in fact, can be integrated very well with just-in-time KM to develop the best of both worlds.

One problem with Knowledge Assets is their maintenance.  Making sure content is current, valid and relevant takes a lot of time and effort – and where this is a one way process, will always lag behind the activity the asset relates to.  Applying some JITKM principles can solve this problem, by establishing a feedback loop.  If users of the asset can provide accurate and timely feedback on how useful it is, what’s missing and what’s useful – then that can make sure effort is spent where it’s most useful.

As always with KM, this requires people, process & technology.  It’s a change in behaviour to become an active partner in use of information rather than a passive recipient.  Some processes – but the simpler, the better! – will be required to establish exactly how feedback is managed.  And of course some technology – maybe in the form of ways to rate or tag content – is necessary.

Introducing a more social way of working with knowledge assets greatly improves their utility too.  A collection of anonymous documents isn’t always helpful for a knowledge seeker – even if they can be sure they’re all up to date and valid.  But if each document is linked to its owner and/or author(s), with social information about who they are, what other documents they’ve submitted, and provides a helpful way to contact them if necessary – that immediately gives the content more credibility.  Using the content as a basis to start a conversation – that’s really powerful.

Again, there’s just as much cultural as technology change required to make this work.  Many people currently see documentation as a necessary evil, and the idea that people may get in touch out of the blue to discuss something from months or years previous would fill them with horror!  So – again not news for KM people – there needs to be recognition & incentives for those who share their knowledge effectively.

Looking at this from the other perspective, JITKM activity can lead organically to the formation of very effective Knowledge Assets.  Online communities frequently produce a Frequently-Asked Questions section.  I don’t know about anyone else, but I often find FAQs are far more useful than the “official” documentation when dealing with domain knowledge…

Perhaps the ultimate example of social Knowledge Assets are Wikis.  These – done right! – are an entirely collaborative and democratic way of capturing and sharing useful information.  As many organisations are found, it’s not always easy to transfer the effectiveness of Wikipedia behind the firewall – but when it does work, it’s hugely powerful.

There’s so many other ways JITKM – and social technologies – can enhance Knowledge Assets – but I think this post is already long enough…  So I’d just say that of course Knowledge Assets aren’t dead – far from it, I think they’re in better health than ever – but they are in a continual and very active evolution.  I’m looking forward to seeing how Knowledge Assets – and our ways of working with them – develop and improve in the future!

For what it’s worth, I believe this release is welcome.  Governments for too long have been “Secrecy by default” – they believe they have the right to determine what citizens need to know.  They do not – or, where they do, they should not.  This is not to say that all information should be public – of course, some secrets should be kept.

But this must be a relationship of trust, not power.  Governments should not keep everything secret and enforce this with law; rather, they should explain to us where & how secrecy is required.  Then they should demonstrate why they deserve trust through the evidence of their actions, backed up by the majority of data being made publicly available.

That’s not really the point to this post though. Rather, I wanted to pick up on this as a good (or bad) example of how issues get polarised and spun in our modern, media-deluged world.

Predictably, everyone with even the slightest stake in this game has jumped on the bandwagon to express an opinion, all eagerly repeated by our media of course.  From governments there’s been a strong condemnation, whilst on the other side many of the usual “information should be free” voices are being raised to praise Wikileaks and demand full disclosure of everything.

My point is to say – don’t take sides; you do not have to.  Look at all the data.  Read both sides of the argument.  Seek the original sources of information wherever you can.  Above all – use your intelligence, and form your own opinion.

Sure, the US government have an angle and an agenda.  In all probability, so does Wikileaks itself, and so does everybody else commenting – certainly I do!  That doesn’t mean you can discount everything they say, though – it just needs to be approached with both an open mind and a smattering  of scepticism.

Of course there’s a fair chance anything repeated in the media will be serving somebody’s agenda – but that doesn’t mean the conspiracy theories about that media’s bias are all true either.  It’s NOT a them-or-us world, it’s a thousand shades of grey – and every time you parrot somebody else’s lines without putting in the effort to work out your own opinion, you’re serving somebody else’s agenda.

Is that really what you want to do?  You have brains for a reason – use them!

First of all, for those unfamiliar with KM terminology – what does this all mean?  Well, a Knowledge Asset (KA) is an information resource based around a common theme, topic or activity.  So, for example, an IT company might create a KA for data centres.  If implemented successfully, anyone in the company who needed to know something about data centres would use the KA to find the right information and could happily get on with doing their job.

In “traditional” KM, KAs are an essential part of a properly structured knowledge organisation.  They’re technology agnostic, so a KA may be a set of paper documents, a manual, a web page, a Wiki…  It doesn’t matter.  What is essential are some activities to curate & maintain the KA, which should be carried out by its owners or administrators.  This role is three-fold; they should seek out new information for the KA, they should ensure the KA is available to everyone who needs it, and they should regularly review existing content to ensure the resource remains current.

As this useful description from KNOCO shows, a good KA shouldn’t just be a collection of documents, but should include any and every useful learning resource around its topic.  These may be the outputs from lessons learned activities, interviews with experts, anecdotes from past projects – anything to help the information seeker work in that area more effectively.

OK, so that’s a Knowledge Asset.

Just-in-time knowledge is a different way of doing things.

Just-in-time knowledge (JITK) is all about context.  It’s the process of gaining knowledge through dialogue – whether face to face or intermediated through technology.  A classic example of JITK would be a craftsman’s apprentice.  The apprentice doesn’t know much, but what he can do is seek help and ask questions of the master craftsman.  The apprentice doesn’t ask these questions in the abstract – rather, they are entirely within the context of the work being carried out.  This is a very effective way for the master to pass on knowledge, as it’s immediately obvious why it’s useful – “show, don’t tell”.

The apprentice model doesn’t scale well.  One master can only train a few apprentices, after all.  There’s also timeliness.  Carpentry or stonemasonry haven’t changed all that much over the past few hundred years – the same definitely can’t be said for, say, web programming languages!  These days, experts themselves need to be constantly learning to stay up to speed.  Finally, diversity of knowledge also has an impact.  For a “knowledge worker” today, there may be an wide range of technical, social or management skills required – today’s expert advisor may be utterly useless in helping with tomorrow’s challenge.

Despite these problems, JITK has always remained popular – many people would still respond to an unexpected challenge by phoning a useful contact for advice.  However, recent developments in social technology greatly extend this capability.  The ability to create personal networks, to join online communities, or to connect with experts across the globe – these are all powerful enablers of JITK.  The fundamental efficiency of this form of knowledge transfer remains, though.  It is still context-based dialogue, solving the specific problem being faced.

That’s the infodump section of this post done – thanks for reading this far, if you’re still with me.  Now for your part!  Of course, for the debate I’ll be arguing for JITK, and against KAs – but I’m not so lazy as to ask you to make my argument for me.  (Unless you really want to…)

No – what I’d really like to hear from anyone is examples of where either of these types of learning have helped you out – or failed to do so.  I’m already doing some research, but it would be great to have some new examples to use in the debate on Wednesday.  Of course you don’t have to stick to examples.  If you want to get stuck into a detailed discussion of the differences between these types of knowledge transfer – be my guest!  And if you want to just leave a single sentence comment, that would be fine too – any contributions will be very welcome.

I will post an update following the debate on Wednesday to let you know how I get on – should be an interesting experience.

I’m not sure the world really needs a new satirical rip-off from a popular series, but it did make me chuckle.

Update: Well, no, it didn’t work – the earlier version from the iPhone had once again taken out my apostrophes. Grrrr!

Update 2: After a little more research it appears this may not be either WordPress or the app’s fault, but rather the version of PHP and libxml my host is running. I’ve tried installing a plugin that tried to fix it, but that doesn’t seem to be working… Time for an email to the hosting company I think.

Update 3 – Fixed it! After yet more digging, I realised that the plugin may not have been working as my host was using version 5.2.5 of PHP, and as per the comment thread in the link above, that plugin only recognises some older versions of PHP.  So I opened up the plugin file libxml2-fix.php in an editor; sure enough, there was a section

if (
LIBXML_DOTTED_VERSION == ’2.6.27′
|| LIBXML_DOTTED_VERSION == ’2.7.0′
|| LIBXML_DOTTED_VERSION == ’2.7.1′
|| LIBXML_DOTTED_VERSION == ’2.7.2′
|| (
LIBXML_DOTTED_VERSION == ’2.7.3′
&& version_compare( PHP_VERSION, ’5.2.9′, ‘<’ )
)
)

I’ve simply added a line to this as follows – making sure it’s in the right place between the brackets, of course!

|| LIBXML_DOTTED_VERSION == ’2.7.5′

I also noticed that the plugin only catered for ampersands and angle brackets – both the apostrophes, my initial symptoms! – and double quotes weren’t being handled.  So I added two more lines of code:

$HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA = str_replace( ‘&quot;’, ‘&#34;’, $HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA );
$HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA = str_replace( ‘&apos;’, ‘&#39;’, $HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA );

Looking at the PHP source file for yourself – it should be fairly obvious where these go!

Once complete I saved the file & uploaded it back up to the plugins directory on the server; deactivated & re-activated the plugin through the WordPress interface, and sure enough – it works!  Thank heavens for that – and many thanks to Joseph Scott for the original plugin that steered me in the right direction.

As the blog post linked above points out, though – the proper solution is to have the latest versions of PHP and libxml installed on the server – so my hosting company will still be getting that email…

These have been around for a while now – a little behind the times here.  But wow, what a handy gadget!  Of course we always thought we made an effort to turn off our various electricals, but now we can actually see the difference – and that makes it a lot easier to change our behaviour.

The monitor helps out by showing the change – in both watts and cost – any time you turn something on or off.  Startling to see quite how much the kettle costs, let alone an electric shower!  It’s now become something of a game for me to see how low I can get the power – record to date is 130W – sure there’s a few more devices I can turn off somewhere…

So, the morale of this story?  If you want change to happen – try to find ways to see it happening!

Fifteen years ago I was a pimply faced school kid, trying not to get into too much trouble with my mates – or at least, not get caught!  Thanks to my mother I was already an avid reader; while the other kids were sneaking out of school to smoke or flirt, I would more often head to the library.  I was already a SF & Fantasy devotee, but had previously avoided the Wheel of Time books due to shockingly bad cover art – even by SF standards.  One day, however, I realised I had read everything else – so, how bad can they be?  I’ll give them a go…

Well, safe to say I was blown away.  At that young age my reading tastes were pretty indiscriminate but the Wheel of Time stood out – the world was vast, deeply imagined and vividly described.  The characters were engaging, whether heroic or villainous, and above all the plot gripped me and didn’t let go.  I went through all six books in the space of a week; then “What?!  It’s not finished?  Well, OK.  When’s the next book out?”  Hah!  The irony of hindsight…

Luckily book seven, “A Crown of Swords”, came along almost immediately, but after that?  Oh dear…  A two year wait for book eight, slightly longer for book nine and then, horribly, a three year wait for book ten.  Despite the wait did the story seem to be reaching a conclusion?  Well, not really.  The plot that had grabbed me so tightly seemed to be spinning out of control, secondary characters were proliferating alarmingly, and the pace had slowed to a crawl.  How on earth would this ever sort itself out?

Luckily, during this period of time I headed off to University… where they had computers, and access to Usenet.  Much to my delight, I discovered there was an active newsgroup – rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan – devoted entirely to the Wheel of Time – with the nature of the books, there was an awful lot to talk about, and crazy theories abounded.  Amazing!

Although I’d used the Internet before, of course, this was my first real exposure to any kind of online community.  Flaming, trolling, in-jokes, FAQs – well, acronyms in general – all these were new to me and I got my fingers burned a couple of times before really getting the hang of the place.  Once I did, though, it was a fantastic arena for discussion – both of the books, and increasingly about anything else, as the gaps between books grew longer.  It was a true community, and I’ve got the group to thank for such a positive introduction to what was, effectively, an early kind of social technology.  That experience has helped me out a great deal since then – although looking back on my old posts I have to cringe, I was so naive!

Despite the vigorous discussion of the newsgroup, though, there was no denying that book ten, “Crossroads of Twilight”, was a definite deterioration in form.  It actually stands up better now when re-reading, but after a three year wait, it was just too slow paced and meandering.  After this volume the newsgroup seemed to sadly, gradually, die away as people lost interest – including me.

Book eleven was released in 2005 and, although not up to the standard of the earlier volumes, was still a welcome improvement.  I can’t remember if I even bought this on the day of release, however, I was that disengaged by that point – although I do at least have it in hardback!

Far more sad, and serious, was the news shortly afterwards that the author had been diagnosed with cardiac amyloidosis.  Despite working with incredible determination both to fight the disease and to complete what he intended as the final volume of the series, Robert Jordan passed away in September 2007.  The fate of a fantasy series seems pretty inconsequential in comparison with the loss his family suffered, but none the less, I was sad we’d never know how the story would turn out.

However…  Jordan’s publishers and his widow, Harriet, decided later that year to appoint another author, Brandon Sanderson, to complete the Wheel of Time.  I certainly hadn’t expected this!  I was thrilled that the series would see its conclusion and couldn’t wait for the new book.  I was nervous, though – how would another author take on Jordan’s epic?  Would he get the nuances of the characters right?  Could the action be as exciting, with a different hand to the pen?

With the announcement of Sanderson’s involvement to complete the series, the online fandom for the Wheel of Time seemed to experience a healthy revival.  Although the newsgroup never recovered, other sites like Dragonmount and Theoryland picked up in activity and popularity.  Tor books also launched their community platform, Tor.com – one of the most popular items on which is a Wheel of Time re-read from the beginning, hosted by Leigh Butler.  I wasn’t alone in my trepidation though as we approached the release of the new book – could this really work?

Volume 12, “The Gathering Storm”, was released a year ago – and I soon realised I needn’t have worried.  What a return for the series!  The pace was back, the action was back – all in all, a great sigh of relief that the Wheel of Time was finally back on track and heading towards its conclusion.

So, I hope that goes some way to explaining why I am so excited about book 13 – out tomorrow.  The prologue and several chapters have been released already on the Internet – obviously I’ve devoured these immediately!  Discussion and speculation online has reached fever pitch.  Several advance spoiler-free reviews have confirmed we’ve got a lot to look forward to with this one.  It’s a series I’ve grown up with, and this time I’ve no doubt Sanderson will have done a good job.  15 years of anticipation – I just can’t wait…

The irony, of course, is down to Twitter itself.  Now that we’ve got all these amazing time-shifting TV technologies, what also arises?  Yep, that’s right – another technology that’s the most virulent spoiling mechanism the world’s ever known.  As I discovered last week, inadvertently checking on Twitter last week whilst watching The Apprentice on a 20 minute delay.  Ooops!

Funny how these things come about, isn’t it…?

So, what’s coming down the line soon?  First up is book 13 of the incredibly long-running Wheel of Time series, Towers of Midnight – out on the 2nd November.  I make something of a re-read exemption here as I must have read the earlier books 10 times each or more!  So only – heh – 4 or 5 door-stopping volumes to get through on this one…

Then I have to confess, I’m a bit of a Harry Potter fan.  So next it’s all 7 books in advance of the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows movie, out on the 17th November.  One re-read will have to do for both this and the second part of the movie – I’m not doing it again in time for July!

Finally it’s another epic series, Steven Erickson’s Malazan Book of the Fallen. Possibly the best example of an enormous multi-volume series that’s stayed on track and on schedule!  The final and tenth book, The Crippled God, is out in January, so there’s nine lengthy books to get through before then.

There’s more to look forward to next year too, with new books from Jim Butcher, Scott Lynch, and Patrick Rothfuss.  Lots of new book goodness!

If you’re remotely into SF writing – or even if you’re not! – then I’d recommend any of the above.  All very different, but all good.

More importantly I’ve finally realised I have to post some more so my hopelessly wrong hostage-to-fortune post on Nick Clegg gets shoved down the page a bit – too honest to delete it completely, but damn, don’t I feel like a fool.

So, anyway, consider me suitably humble & penitent.  More posts to follow shortly – quite a lot of news really!  Later…

A Lib Dem coalition with the Conservatives would immediately alienate many to the left in the party, and would create a grave electoral threat in Labour/Lib Dem marginal seats.  However, this shape of coalition would hold a good working majority in Parliament and could get things done.  The public mood appears (and I use that cautiously!) to be slightly on the side of the Conservatives, so I reckon Clegg would be supported by most “non-partisan” voters.

An alliance with Labour, on the other hand, would be a much shakier arrangement.  The two parties alone would not command a majority in Parliament and would be forced to seek votes from minority and regional parties, who would no doubt demand special treatment in return.  The Lib Dems would also face annihilation in close Tory marginal seats, and would disgust those who thought they were voting to get Labour out of office.

So I suppose to some extent it comes down to the electoral maths – what would hurt the Lib Dems most, losing in Tory/LD or in Labour/LD marginals?  However, there’s also another couple of factors in the equation…

From the first leaders’ debate, Clegg’s image has been extremely shiny and he’s had a very warm reception from the electorate.  Now, however, that image is tarnishing rapidly – and will continue to do so the longer this haggling goes on.  He also hasn’t helped himself by appearing to go behind the Tories’ backs to deal with Labour, regardless of the realities of the situation.  The longer this drags out, the worse he looks – and, correspondingly, the lower his credibility becomes to carry his party with him.

The other factor is the reality of electoral reform.  Labour are making big promises now, but the truth is that any changes to our electoral system will almost certainly take years to implement.  And in a Labour-Lib Dem alliance, there almost certainly won’t be years to spare before they are forced to call another election – at which the Tories stand to win in a big way.

However, there is another option.

Having flirted with Labour, Clegg could well return to the Tories and agree to support them on a so-called “Confidence and Supply” arrangement.  This would not bind the LDs into a formal coalition – they would simply agree to support the Conservatives’ Queen’s Speech and budget, but could maintain freedom to oppose policies they disagree with.  This seems the only option that will preserve the LD’s integrity, and their chances of increasing seats in another election under the current system.

Cameron almost certainly wouldn’t budge on PR, under such an arrangement – and would probably not commit to a fixed term agreement.  This would mean that the Tories could set the date for the next election, potentially setting them up again for a big win.  But the Tories would have to take some very unpopular decisions, and yes, there will be cuts.  Staying out of a formal coalition may give the Lib Dems just enough distance from these decisions, and a principled stance of “support the bare minimum, in the national interest” might just win them greater support.  It’s a big gamble though.

None the less, I can’t see any better options for Clegg right now – although even this carries the risk he will be seen as indecisive and sitting on the fence!  Not a happy place to be at all…

1)  A Labour – Liberal Democrat alliance would have legitimacy due to share of popular vote!

Oh dear, where to begin?  Many seem to think that as Labour and Lib-Dem votes added together exceed those cast for the Tories, then this gives legitimacy to a Lib-Lab “Progressive Alliance”.  Errrrm… No.  Our democracy is not based on popular vote, but on seats in the House of Commons.  The Lib-Lab seats added together would not have a working majority in the Commons, and would be forced to rely on regional minority parties to pass legislation.

Now, by all means this could be taken as an indication we need a more proportional voting system – fair comment.  But this election is running according to the current rules.

2)  The majority of people voted against the Tories, so they shouldn’t get into power!

Even more nonsensical.  By that argument, an even greater majority voted against Labour, so they shouldn’t get into power either.  There seems to be a lot of confusion around this “Progressive Alliance” concept.  Many people are assuming that because both Labour and the Lib-Dems are left-wing-ish, and the Tories are right-wing-ish, then it makes more sense for Labour and the Lib-Dems to work together – right?

Well, no.  All three parties are pretty close to the centre ground – there’s nothing like as much differentiation as there used to be.  Sure, Labour & Lib Dems share some values – but so do the Lib Dems and the Conservatives.  Having said they share values, the three parties are all different in philosophy, worldview, and policies.  If I was a Lib Dem right now, I’d be pretty irritated to just get lumped in with Labour automatically.

So much for the “natural progressive alliance” idea.

3)  It doesn’t matter that we haven’t elected our Prime Minister!

This first reared its ugly head when Gordon Brown first became PM.  It’s true that in the UK, by convention the leader of the party in government becomes the PM, and is not elected in their own right as PM – they merely have to be elected as an MP.

(In the past, they didn’t even have to be that.  Up until the early 20th century, PMs were relatively often unelected members of the House of Lords.)

(Edit:  Ooops, I forgot about Lord Home, chosen as PM from the Lords in 1963.  However, he was previously an elected MP, and subsequently renounced his peerage and stood as an MP in a by-election to give him legitimacy as PM.)

Due to this electoral quirk, as when Blair resigned, it’s entirely possible and correct for a PM to be selected according to the rules of their party constitution, without any direct mandate from the electorate.  Again this is something we might want to review, but under current rules that’s how it works!

If you’ve been hiding under a rock and not heard, Brown has now said he will step down as PM – presumably to make the idea of a Lib-Lab alliance more palatable to the Lib Dems.  Again, this is all strictly speaking OK by the conventions of Parliament.  He has said that he will give way to another leader of the Labour party chosen according to their rules.

However… This means that at a time of great economic turbulence, whilst we are at war in Afghanistan, the country would once again be led by somebody who has not even led their party through a General Election and won the right to form a government.  As with the MPs’ expenses, this may be within the rules, but it’s not right.  The person a party selects as its leader says an awful lot about that party, and we the public deserve to know who will be running the show when we vote.

So, strictly speaking this isn’t a fallacy – there isn’t anything by the rules wrong with David Miliband, Ed Balls or anybody else taking over as PM following a Labour party leadership contest.  But I cannot think of much that would do more to anger and disillusion the British public than having yet another PM who has never won a General Election.

That’s one piece of electoral reform I’d wholeheartedly support – some way to give the public a referendum on choice of PM if this doesn’t happen at a General Election.

That’s probably enough for now!  I’m sure more will emerge over days to come – if you have a particular pet hate political fallacy, why not drop me a comment?

The real flaw seems to be the breakdown of the relationship between national vote-share trends and local constituency results.  This relationship was always a bit strained but now appears to have no relevance to the results at all.

So I reckon in future GE polls will have to look a lot more closely at sampling results within constituency boundaries.  It’s going to make polling a lot more complicated…

An amusing side effect of all this during this evening has been that for much of the BBC coverage, many highly skilled (and paid) pundits and pollsters have been forced to cover up they don’t have a clue what’s happening, either.  Priceless!

Nigel_Morgan Conservatives hold #Newbury. Benyon 33,057 votes. Rendel, Lib Dem, 20,809

That’s a huge swing back to the Tories – so it doesn’t seem the Clegg effect has changed much in Newbury after all!

More comment on this later – will just note though that Twitter got the result out a lot quicker than the traditional media!

Congratulations to Benyon and his team – commiserations to the other candidates.

It sounds as though part of this is down to turnout exceeding expectation – a good thing!  But not so good if the infrastructure of the election can’t accommodate it.  To their credit, the Electoral Commission have already promised a full investigation.

So what should they do differently next time around?

For a start, getting the administrative details wrong is unforgivable.  Nobody should be turned away because paper lists of registered voters have not been updated, or find that there are not enough ballot papers.

I also think there’s going to have to be some review of opening hours for polling stations.  It will be hard to organise, but maybe opening for 24 hours, from say 0600 one morning, would make more sense?  There’ll also the perennial option of weekend voting…

One thing I’ve not seen much mention of is communication to voters.  Here in Newbury, there’s not been all that much information sent out from the electoral officials or the council – were I not a politics junkie, I could easily have missed it!  People need better and clearer advice on both registering to vote, and practical tips for the day – such as arriving in plenty of time.

With my geek hat on I’m curious how new technologies could help us out with this.  Obviously authentication is a huge issue, but wouldn’t it be nice if we could have some sort of online voting?  Or at least use some more social technologies to communicate with the electorate!

Whatever happens – I think there’ll be huge demand for this to change next time around.

As the sad politics geek I so clearly am, I’ll be staying up through the night to keep up with events – did this for the US elections back in 2008 so can clearly do no less for my own national elections!  I’ll be posting about anything I find especially interesting on here and tweeting on @jimmillen

Do get involved and @ reply or leave a comment here, if you’re also staying up – be great to hear from you!

Right – now off to Sainsburys to lay in supplies of food, coffee and Red Bull.  Think I’ll just have time for a power nap before the TV coverage really gets started…

But let’s be very clear about this; Murdoch will support what’s good for Murdoch.  He more than anyone is no idealogue but a brutal, ruthless pragmatist.  Not a very nice man, all in all – but pretty much guaranteed to do what’s in his own best interests.  Sometimes this is to support right-wing politicians – but not always.

It seems to have slipped a lot of peoples’ minds in the recent UK election campaign that in the past three elections of 1997, 2001 and 2005, Murdoch’s media outlets were either neutral or supported Labour.  He has spent just as much time courting senior Labour figures as he has Conservative – like any businessman, he is covering all his bases.

So by all means let’s discuss disclosure and illumination of the murky and dubious practices of lobbying and media influence on Government.  But can we please stop trying to claim that voting Tory will somehow hand the country over to Murdoch?  He will have no more influence than he did on Mandleson or Blair – too much, perhaps, but not something that splits along party lines.

A little late in the day perhaps, but a reminder that you should go and vote!  Polls are open till 2200 in most places, so make the most of it & exercise your democratic right.  No matter who you vote for, make sure your voice is heard.

I will still be keeping an eye on the Newbury election campaigns & plan to write a couple more posts about the hustings, but they might be a bit delayed!

Overall no candidate had a “Clegg” moment and really seized the initiative.  From the occasional applause I suspect the audience – mirroring the constituency – were largely Lib Dem or Tory supporters so I doubt anyone’s changed their mind.  Benyon and Rendel, as expected, were in general the better performers.

Questions were delivered through the moderator and covered the following points:

• Whether it is morally right to sell weapons abroad
• If no party has a majority in parliament, will that be “hung”, or “balanced”?
• Do the candidates support the Westminster Declaration?  If not, what do they disagree with?
• Is it right for government policy to enforce detention of asylum seekers’ children?
• Nuclear weapons, and in particular the candidates position on Trident
• Approach to farming in the UK and food security

I’ll just pick out a few points of the discussion that I found interesting.

I’d not heard of the Westminster Declaration – follow this link for more information.  It’s essentially asking supporters to pledge their commitment to the Christian approach to the protection of human life, marriage, and freedom of conscience.

The candidates were split  – all supported freedom of faith but Rendel, Hollister, Yates and Cooper were concerned about the Christian focus, believing that the Declaration implicitly excludes other faiths and creates divides.  Benyon, Burgess and Black were unequivocal supporters and happy to pledge their support for the Declaration.

The biggest issues I can see coming out of this are those around marriage.  The Declaration’s wording states:

We pledge to support marriage – the lifelong covenantal union of one man and one woman as husband and wife. We believe it is divinely ordained, the only context for sexual intercourse, and the most important unit for sustaining the health, education, and welfare of all. We call on government to honour, promote and protect marriage and we refuse to submit to any edict forcing us to equate any other form of sexual partnership with marriage. We commit ourselves to continue affirming what we believe as Christians about sexual morality, marriage, and the family.

There’s clearly some concern for LGBT people about discrimination in there, to say the least!  I wonder if Cameron supports it?

The comments on food security were broadly in agreement and looked at the need to reduce regulation and red tape, and support farmers to actually make money providing good local produce.  All candidates agree it’s crazy to import 40% of our food requirements and we need to change this.  Benyon – having been a dairy farmer himself – was passionate about this and attacked the EU regulations, “gold-plated” by Westminster, that has made dairy farming so tough as a business.

There was the obligatory discussion about nuclear weapons and Trident.  Rendel, Benyon and Cooper essentially made the same arguments as on the radio on Monday – I won’t repeat unnecessarily!  The other candidates were split on the issue, Burgess and Black both supported our maintenance of a nuclear deterrent whilst Hollister and Yates opposed it.

The question about a hung parliament became a discussion of whether this would be a good or bad thing.  Again the candidates from the main parties very much reflected their national party line – Lib Dems in favour, Tory and Labour opposed.  Rendel put the case for making better decisions in a government supported by a majority of the electorate – this went down well and got a big round of applause.

The opening and closing statements from the candidates were all fairly similar – emphasising their local roots, explaining their belief in the power of community and so on.  David Yates broke the mold a little in his introduction by focussing on the financial straits the country finds itself in – I was quite enjoying his argument but in the end he was curtailed by the moderator!

None of the candidates disgraced themselves or made any really awful gaffes that I spotted.  Brian Burgess did very well and I felt some of his views – particularly on the Westminster Declaration and crime in Newbury – went down well with the audience.  Adrian Hollister also made some strong points, particularly on food security.

Probably the most extreme argument of the evening came from David Black, who suggested that with the expansion of European powers this may be the last general election the UK ever gets – and apparently the Queen is no longer the Head of State!  I’d be eager to see some disentanglement with Europe myself, but that was all too sensationalist for my liking.

I think future hustings would be better served by having more driving from the moderator – a bit more like the televised leaders’ debates.  Getting through only six questions plus opening and closing statements in 110 minutes seemed a bit inadequate.

Still – it was a good event and well worth attending!  I’ll probably go into a bit more detail on some of the points discussed when I’ve caught up on some sleep – in the meantime there’s a few more photos of the hustings on my Flickr here.

I’m eager to find out how polls react over the next week – will the “Clegg Effect” continue?  I’d be surprised if the Lib Dems continued to poll quite so high, but we’ll see.

Now for the rant, and it’s about Twitter.  Is it making us more closed-minded?  I haven’t seen one tweet – not one – which show any evidence of people changing their mind on the #leadersdebate stream.  It was hard enough to find any tweets that treated the debate objectively!

Not only that, but the vitriol and abuse against the party leaders was disgusting – and lazy.  It appears most people can’t even be bothered to think up their own criticism, but instead simply re-tweet banal and trivial comments to support their own opinions.

It’s especially depressing as the people I follow on Twitter are for the most part delightfully rational and objective.  So why when we get onto politics do the knives come out and suddenly it’s bitter partisanship all round?

Nobody’s going to change party allegiance overnight, still less announce it on Twitter!  But like the worst of football supporters, it seems that to acknowledge strength in your opposition, or weaknesses in “your team”, is tantamount to treason.

Twitter makes it all too easy to surround yourself with those who echo and reflect your own views, and too easy to dismiss those who disagree.  Maybe 140 characters or less are not sufficient, or adequate, for grown-up political discussion.

I’ve found Twitter an enlightening experience in general, and even a force for good.  But when it comes to politics, it seems to amplify the worst of sound-bite politics, spin, and negativity, rather than helping people come together and resolve their differences.

I’d be really interested in any of your thoughts about the debates and the live Tweeting that goes on!  Do get involved in the comments, maybe I’m just being too pessimistic…

In a very positive step for a local campaign, the hustings will feature all seven candidates – not just those from the major parties.  I think it’s great that the smaller parties and independent candidates also get the chance to put their views forward!  Having said that I hope Brien will be able to keep things moving along swiftly, so there’s a chance to cover a good range of questions.

If you’re interested and would like to attend & ask a question, CTNA are asking people to email them with your question in advance.  Do get involved – it’s one of the few opportunities we have to ask questions of those who seek to represent us in Parliament!

It’s also worth taking a moment to browse the other leaflets.  Fascinating to see what the parties are saying across the country, and how much their message might differ depending where you live!

The quote in the leaflet is as follows:

“We’ve lived through this mistake for 60 years now…  The reality is it hasn’t worked – it has made people iller…”

It is credited to “Top Conservative Dan Hannan on the NHS”, next to a bullet point suggesting the Conservatives support “Privitisation of some existing NHS services”.

Sounds suitably alarmist doesn’t it?

However, this is misleading.  Hannan is a Tory, but he is a MEP, not a MP.  He is not particularly close to Cameron, and has little input into Tory policies.

Most of all, Hannan does not speak for the Conservative party and does not represent their position on the NHS!

Thus for Rendel to use such a quote to scare the electorate into thinking the Tories would threaten the NHS is pure spin.  He’s not lying – but he’s certainly not giving the full picture.

[Note: post now updated from my earlier version with links and the Dan Hannan quote.]

It was a lively session, including discussion on Trident, small businesses, maternity care, immigration, and local traffic.  David Rendel and Richard Benyon came across well and did their causes no harm; sadly Hannah Cooper for Labour came a bit unstuck at times.  There were cameo phone-ins from the David Black of UKIP, David Yates of the Apolitical Democrats, and Brian Burgess as an independent candidate.

All three candidates were polite, mostly explaining their own policies rather than sniping at the others.  There was the odd spark though, such as when Benyon accused Rendel of misleading the public about the Tory policy on NHS cuts. Sounds like Rendel might have been guilty there – haven’t seen the leaflet in question, but apparently it’s citing one Tory MEP (Maybe Daniel Hannan?) rather than official party policy.  Benyon rightly pointed out that all parties have some wingnuts on the back benches (not quite in those terms!) and that it’s the manifesto policy that counts.

I was struck by how much consensus there was on Newbury hospital – no real differences between the three parties, all agree that there’s no money to provide a full-service hospital including maternity care.  I was interested to learn that apparently a population of 250,000 is required to justify a major hospital, and West Berkshire is only about 140,000 or so.

On immigration there was another clash between Rendel and Benyon, with the latter criticising the Lib Dem’s plans for localised immigration caps – i.e. immigrants receiving a work permit specific to an area in the UK.  The Lib Dems plan for this to be enforced through the employer, who must ensure that they only employ workers with a right to work in that region.

I must confess I also have some problems with this policy.  It puts a lot of responsibility on the employer and is bound to increase the cost of doing business.  I also don’t understand how it will work for skilled and professional immigrants.  What if a client assignment requires them to relocate for 12 months?  If this policy is implemented, I can see a lot of dodgy dealings with respect to contractural location versus actual location.  And what about working from home?  Will these work permits dictate where immigrants can live?

None of the three candidates really made sense on how to cap overall immigration – there’s definitely some pandering for votes going on with this topic.

There was plenty more – if you’re a voter in the constituency I’d recommend you give it a listen in a quiet hour.  There’s no bombshells in there but certainly helps to understand a bit more about each candidate!

[Update - a good summary of the Trident discussion here.  My personal take is the £100 billion figure is somewhat dicey - there's no way we'd save all that money even if we cancelled Trident today!  Can see both sides of the argument though - what do you think?]

In tune with the wellbeing theme, the chefs’ dishes weren’t just being judged on taste & expertise, but also on how healthy they were – something that’s often neglected with restaurant food.

The proper media have already reported on the event if you’re looking for all the details.  I can only add it was a really great event – lots of interest from people around the marketplace, a very positive and cheeful atmosphere – and of course some very delicious food!

Some pictures of the event are below…

Jean-Marc Bidegain from the Compton Swan sharpens his knives.

The judges – hard work, but someone’s got to do it!

I’m truly sorry that I didn’t catch this chef’s name, but his dish of scallops on – I think – a wilted lettuce puree looked delicious.  Didn’t get the chance to try that one!

Congratulations to Graham White, of the Plough Inn at Eastbury, who took first prize overall for his two dishes.

“Must be something to do with the election”, I thought, so went over to have a word.

Turns out he’s called Barrie Singleton, and stood for parliament as an independent in 2005.  He’s on the interwebs here.  Had an interesting chat for ten minutes…

Barrie is unimpressed with our political system, suggesting there’s a sickness in Westminster and that it’s “an incestuous distillation” of all that’s bad in human nature.  His “Spoil Party Games” approach is aimed squarely at all mainstream politicians, pointing out how similar the parties are and how little real choice voting really gives us.

Despite the Lib Dems enjoying a sudden surge in the polls, Barrie was equally dismissive of Nick Clegg – reckoning he’s just as much a product of the Westminster system as any of the rest of them!

I enjoyed chatting to Barrie; I didn’t realise he was a poet when we spoke but it certainly helps explain his loquaciousness and snappy turn of phrase.  His website has plenty more on his political views.

Barrie’s view of politics speaks a lot of uncomfortable truths.  But given it’s almost impossible for independent candidates to win elections, is there any realistic prospect of changing the system?

Well, there are reasons for cautious optimism.  All three main parties have promised recall laws, providing measures for constituencies to dismiss MPs who aren’t doing a good job.  There’s positive talk about more open government, devolved power and accountability.  Meanwhile political blogs and social networks such as Twitter give us less biased – and frequently more accurate – information about what’s actually going on.

But behind the facade of parliamentary process and legislation, will anything really change?

Well, not if it’s left to the politicians, no, it won’t.  Unlike some of the more vociferous anti-politics brigade I don’t assume those in politics are especially corrupt or evil – with the odd exception, of course.  But once they’re caught up in the Westminster system – like any human who becomes part of a complex system – they begin to lose track of what is normal, or right, in the world outside that system.

So it’s our job to relentlessly, tirelessly remind our elected representatives that we won’t accept dodgy expenses.  We won’t accept back-room lobbyist deals leading to flawed legislation such as the Digital Economy Act.  And we won’t accept a system that allows MPs to forget who they really work for.

The tiniest of chinks has opened in the closed door of politics; initiatives such as www.mysociety.org and 38degrees.org.uk, as well as many campaigns on social networks, have started to connect the electorate with their MPs in a way that’s never happened before.

Change won’t happen overnight – it will be the work of decades.  And it will only happen if many of us stay engaged, stay involved, and keep letting our politicians know exactly what we will and won’t stand for.

So rather than take the nihilistic disengagement or “protest vote” approach, I’d encourage anyone disillusioned with politics to cast their vote for a party with whose policies they most identify.  But don’t see that as the end of the process – it’s only the start.

Don’t fall prey to the modern curse of apathy.   It might be naive, it might be optimistic, but I honestly think if enough of us listen, educate ourselves and act, then we can make a difference.  Get involved – and stay involved!

When road signing goes a bit wrong… Once again finding that the iPhone is actually a pretty good camera for random street photography.

Claire and a friend were off for a night out in Newbury and were drinking Rose while getting ready.  Little did they know that they’d left me a perfect photo opportunity!

We visited Claire’s relatives in Lytham St Annes over Easter – this is St Annes Pier.

Selling olives, I think, at Newbury Market.

Riverboat reflections on the Kennet and Avon canal, on a lovely sunny evening.

Not been a bad month so far – hope there’s more of the same to come!

It was an interesting format; tightly controlled by Alistair Stewart with formal question-answer-rebuttal structure.  At first it seemed artificial but as things heated up, it was clear it would have degenerated into argumentative scrapping otherwise, so a success there.

My first take on the candidates’ performances – very even, actually.  Clegg was probably best in tune with the studio audience and the fact he had equal time and billing counts as a huge positive for the Lib Dems.

Brown came across a lot better than I expected – he was articulate and refrained from the monotonous, staccato fusillade of statistics he’s been so fond of in the past.  He even managed to crack a couple of decent jokes!  He still smirks horribly whenever Cameron is speaking though – not very statesmanlike.

Cameron seemed quite frustrated and wasn’t really able to bring his best performance for the debate.  Not as much enthusiasm, fire and passion as he is capable of.  None the less, he delivered solid answers and held his ground.

With regard to actual policies, the debate was a frustrating exercise.  How can we expect to get a sensible discussion of complex issues in such a short time?  This debate was focused on domestic policy so covered finance, health, policing & immigration amongst other issues.  To do these subjects justice really requires debates measured in days, not hours!

I consider myself to be fairly well-up on most policy issues, but by no means an expert – but even I could tell most of this debate really was boiling the issues down to the most divisive, soundbite-worthy chunks.  Is this really how politics should be?  And if not, what can we do about it?

The most irritating element of the discussion for me was Brown and Cameron on government spending.  There’s so little honesty around the truth of state waste and inefficiency – truly depressing.

So, in overall debate performance terms, I’d call in a score draw – probably with Clegg drawing ahead if I’m honest.

The real question, however, it what difference it’ll make to the votes?

From dipping into the furiously busy #leadersdebate stream on Twitter it didn’t seem to be changing the minds of those who are already party supporters – far from it!  Indeed, it seemed to be reinforcing prejudices.  Bit of a shame, that and depressing to see the negativity, sniping and bitterness being expressed.

But what about undecided voters?  It will be very interesting to see how the polls go.  My gut feeling is that Clegg will benefit most – we’ll see…

Overall it was quite compelling viewing and an intriguing addition to our democratic process.  But I do wish we could get a more rational and less emotive discussion of the issues!

When I started these election posts, I searched at length to find out how the Newbury candidates were engaging with the electorate online.  I’ve already posted some of my findings – would recommend you check out the links there.  But how effective are these online presences for the candidates?

Let’s have a look at usage on the main Facebook groups for David Rendel and Richard Benyon:

Richard Benyon Supporters’ Group – 138 members, at least a year old, 16 main wall posts since the 6th April

Richard Benyon Campaign Page – 38 fans, only created this week, 9 main wall posts

So how effective are these pages?  Well, it was a good start that Richard already had a supporters’ group on Facebook – this has no doubt condensed some support.  Although there are only 138 members, they’ll probably tell their friends and families in real life about the campaign and drive further votes for Richard – all good news.

However, I’m bemused by the decision to create a separate fan page weeks before the election.  Potential supporters may now be split between the two – sure, there are links, but there’s very little to be gained, and much to be lost by confusing your supporters.

Having said that, Richard is now posting some interesting notes & links back to his blog talking about his experiences on the campaign, who he has been talking to and so on.  These help to explain what he’s about and strengthen his credibility.

David Rendel for Newbury – 96 members, not clear when created, apparently not “official”, only 3 wall posts

David Rendel campaign page – 145 fans, at least a month old, 3 main wall posts since start of campaign

David’s campaign page is being used effectively to present information about the campaign, including links to Liberal Democrat leaflets and their party manifesto.  There’s also a powerful video on there about tax policy – all good stuff that helps present the candidate well.

Again, though, there are two Facebook locations.  In this case it seems one of them may have been set up by supporters, and not directly by David’s campaign team – I’m surprised nobody has added a link to David’s official page though.

So both candidates have support on Facebook – that’s good, right?  Well, yes… but it could be a lot better.  What’s missing?

• Above all else, activity.  Social networking thrives on frequent updates that draw in supporters and keep them coming back to find out more – and when they do, often their contacts visit too.  With 3 weeks to go till polling day, I’d expect at the very least 4 or 5 updates per day from the campaign teams.
• Interactivity – there’s not much for supporters to do other than post wall messages.  Why not start polls, start discussions, get people involved?  Again, it’s all about pulling people in, engaging them honestly and keeping the campaign firmly in their awareness.
• Tell people about what you’re going to be doing!  I’m amazed that neither candidate is talking about where they’re planning to be, or what events they’re planning to hold.  Surely if you want to engage with people and encourage their support, they need to be able to find you?
• Online integration – there are some links to the candidates’ websites, but this could be made much more visible.  It’s also notable that none of the Facebook pages directly explain to people how they can help support – why aren’t there clearer links to donation or volunteering information?
• Offline integration – it would also help to have website and Facebook group details included with other campaign publicity such as leaflets.  That way people who might not think to search for the candidates can be drawn in and get involved in online activity.
• A broader spectrum of online campaigning – have a feed on Twitter, have a channel on YouTube, create a group on Flickr – the list goes on.  Facebook is the biggest, but it’s not the only social media in town.  Reaching across as many channels as possible, tied tightly into a coherent campaign, will involve the greatest number of people.
• It’s a bit late now… but start all this earlier!  Building communities and dedicated support online takes time, and a four-week general election campaign is not long enough.  For next time, I’d hope to see groups supported and grown over several years to really hit the ground running for the elections.

So – that’s my advice for the local candidates, should they read this!  I’d love to hear any feedback or your thoughts on this article – either drop in a comment below or ping me @jimmillen.

I’ll be following this up with further posts about how social media is being used for the national election campaigns, and the contrast between national and local – check back soon!

[Footnote 1:  For more social media election goodness, Nigel Morgan has an excellent post here and also recorded a short interview with Newbury Sound.]

[Footnote 2: None of the other candidates for Newbury appear to have local Facebook groups or other social media presences.  Adrian Hollister of the Green Party has a Twitter feed, but this is not dedicated to his campaigning activities.]

Unfortunately tomorrow night is also a “Meet the Candidate” event for UKIP in Newbury, at the same time. My gut feeling is that I should cover this event – after all, these posts are meant to be about local candidates and issues!

So tell me – what would you rather read my ramblings on – the debate or the UKIP event? In the spirit of people power, you decide!

Leave a comment or ping me @jimmillen on Twitter, and I’ll make a final decision tomorrow afternoon…

I won’t go into detail about the manifesto contents – just head to the BBC or Sky News websites for far more information than you’d ever need to know!

No, my point with this post is to refrain from political geekery and question what relevance these manifesto launches have for the average voter, outside the Westminster and national politics loop?  Sure, they say important things about the philosophy and direction of the parties concerned, but do you care?  Do they matter?  Or are you more concerned with what your local candidates think?

The balance of power between national and local campaigning is one of the key themes I’d like to explore as I cover this election.  I think there’s a big disconnect between the two at the moment – it certainly doesn’t feel as though any of the Newbury candidates are really using their national party’s advantages to a great extent.  Although maybe they’re also avoiding being tarnished with the same brush!

I’d love to hear what you think on this, and whether the manifesto launches have made any great impact on your views.  As always, please get involved in the comments!

Finding Grayling on the campaign trail is really hard because ever since he said Christian B&B owners should “have the right” to reject gay couples, the apparatchiks have kept him in a locked cupboard in Central Office and fed him pancakes they slide under the door. I only wanted a bit of colour for the blog. My “mummy blog” which is pink. I’d have been quite happy with a bit of a chat and carry-on-campaigning-Chris. But they weren’t that happy to see me at Berwick Tories HQ. Not at all happy.

I’ve just caught up on her older posts, and was chuckling much of the time – she writes with a rare humour and striking insight.  She’s covering much of the elections for her part of the world and I’d recommend you check her blog out!

Note for Twitter, use the hashtags #GE2010 and #Newbury combined for election tweeting – the more who get involved, the better!

Newbury Today Forum – a robust discussion already well underway about the election there!

Morgan PR – has a series of excellent election articles, and offering the chance to ask questions of the candidates

Richard Benyon Supporters’ Group on Facebook

David Rendel Fan Page & Supporters Group on Facebook

All of these Facebook groups are more quiet than I would expect – room for improvement here…

Newbury Forum, also on Twitter

And finally a few national initiatives:

The Straight Choice – comparing election leaflets across the UK

Winkball Election 2010 – capturing video messages from all the candidates – no Newbury ones as yet…

The Digital Debate on Facebook and YouTube – great use of social media!

(I found these last ones on Rory Cellan-Jones’ excellent BBC blog)

That’s all for now, I may well edit this post if and when I find out about anything else!

UPDATE 14/04/2010:

Richard Benyon now has a fan page on Facebook.

Adrian Hollister, the Green party candidate, is also on Twitter.

I still think there’s a great deal more all the candidates could be doing, including engaging in more conversations online – not much time left now though I suppose!  I’m also astonished that neither of the two main candidates appear to be announcing their campaign schedules – surely if you want people to vote for you, you should let them know where you’ll be so they can meet you and ask questions?  Maybe I’m just missing the announcements?  If anyone knows more, drop me a line.

It’s clear that Nick Clegg and especially Vince Cable are seen as strong plus points for the Lib Dems – Cable’s performance on the Chancellors debate was mentioned at least once.  This rings very true to me as a politics geek – I think Cable is impressive, though I might not agree with him!  Whether this will really influence people’s choice of vote remains a question to be answered…

I was slightly surprised at one comment from Bearder: “Just do what you’re told” in relation to campaigning.  By all means a campaign should stay on-message, but I’m not sure that’s a healthy attitude to one’s supporters, even if clearly meant as a joke…

After Bearder’s speech I chatted with a couple of the Lib Dem supporters there helping to stuff envelopes and prepare campaign material.  They were a very friendly bunch!  Spirits were high and they clearly have confidence in Rendel as their candidate.

It was noticeable that most of the Lib Dem supporters there were of somewhat advanced years.  This is far from unique to the Lib Dems; the other parties also struggle to attract younger supporters, a sad reflection of voter apathy and disengagement with politics.  This came up in conversation yesterday, and it’s clear the Lib Dems would love to get more young people involved – it’s just working out how that’s difficult.

I was a bit surprised at how low-tech the campaign HQ was.  Sure, I’m maybe an outlier towards the techy end of the spectrum, but I would have expected to see at least the odd laptop or some evidence of technology!  I got the feeling that not too many of those present were on Twitter.

It wasn’t the kind of event where actual issues are discussed, but I did speak briefly with David Rendel.  He’s happy to carry out a short interview with me at some point – so I’ll be looking to get some clearer answers on his position then.  If any readers would like to suggest questions, please contribute in the comments – I’d be particularly interested in questions on issues that matter to you locally.

So the Lib Dems at least seem very fired up for this campaign.  Hope to get some more news about the Tory campaign shortly…

[Non-election footnote: I also spoke to Catherine Bearder about ACTA, and her views on proper democratic scrutiny of any agreement that might be reached.  I was pleased that she is strongly in support of such scrutiny, wants to see more information on ACTA made available and will continue to vote to support such openess in the European Parliament.  Good!]

The Newbury constituency I live in will be contested by candidates from the Conservative, Liberal Democrat, Labour, Green, and UK Independence parties.  That’s not taking into account any independents who may yet choose to run.

For some time I’ve been interested in politics, but mainly at a national level – I’ve never really had much to do with local parliamentary or council elections.  As this election approaches, that seems a daft approach – policies might be national but seats are won or lost in constituencies!

So I’ve decided I’m going to be paying quite a bit more attention to the Newbury election – in fact, I’m going to try and cover it as closely as I can.  Why would I waste my time on such a daft idea?

• I’ve been looking for a project that really requires me to get some writing under my belt – this is it.
• Equally, I hope to find opportunities through the election to develop my journalistic photography.
• To my shame, since moving to Newbury last year I’ve not got involved much in local affairs and issues.  I’m keen to be more active in my community, and I hope that by following parliamentary candidates, I’ll also gain an appreciation for what matters to my neighbours here.

How am I going to make this work, especially as a non-accredited, non-professional journalist with no contacts, no sources, and a full-time job?  Well, that makes me the same as most other voters, and that’s the approach I’ll be taking.  I am just an average Newbury resident – so I’ll be writing from the point of view of a keen, interested, citizen.

The only sources of information I’ll have are the Internet, mainstream media, and any information the candidates choose to share with me.  Of course I’d also be extremely interested in any information from other Newbury people – more on that in a later post…

I plan to attend as many campaign events as possible – where conflicts exist, I will prioritise Tory & Lib Dem events, but hope to cover many of the other parties’ events.  I’ll note down all that I can about the candidates’ positions – asking questions if I get the chance! – and will keep this blog up to date with everything I find out.  There’ll probably be a few pictures as well.

As with any journalism, it’s important that you know my biases and influences.  Honestly – right now I’m planning to vote Conservative.  I’ll go into the reasons for this in future, but it boils down to the fact that I believe we need a change in government, and the Tories are the only realistic alternative.  HOWEVER! I’m not closed-minded about this.  If I find myself more in agreement with other parties, during the Newbury campaigns, then I’ll certainly consider the options – and I will do all I can to avoid bias in my writing.

With regards to my reporting on this blog; I commit absolutely to report factually about events, communications, the candidates’ views and any other campaign matters.  Inevitably some posts will reflect my opinion, but where this happens I’ll clearly indicate so.  If I’m writing about events I didn’t attend, I’ll either seek double sources and verification, or make it very clear where the information is coming from.  I expect I’ll make mistakes occasionally – if you spot any errors, please get in touch and I’ll correct as soon as possible.

I hope that adequately states my position!  Look out for more posts to follow shortly, particularly about how I hope to hear from more people who live in the area!  In the meantime feel free to drop me a line or via @jimmillen on Twitter.

It was a striking and memorable experience. McCullin is one of the great war photojournalists and the exhibition drives home precisely why.

Any one of these photographs taken alone would still carry strong emotion and impact; taken as a collection, it was powerful stuff.

As an aspiring “maybe one day” photojournalist, McCullins work is both an inspiration and a sobering reminder of the dedication, allied to technical expertise, that is required to really do justice to your subject.

One feature I appreciated was the inclusion of some photos McCullin has taken recently on the streets of London. Whilst not as dramatic as the war pictures, these photographs still carried emotion and a message. A good reminder that photographic interest is everywhere, if you have the eye to see it!

If you have any interest in photography, and can make it to Manchester, then this exhibition is not to be missed.

(As a closing aside, its also worth a stroll around the nearby Lowry and Salford Quays – some fascinating industrial architecture.  A couple of pictures now below, more on Flickr here.)

It appears that Google Reader displays posts sorted by the date at which it picks them up.  So for my feed, containing a bunch of items imported from my old Blogger site, they all showed up at more or less the same time, and so were presented in a weird and random order.

Although you can see the published date by hovering over the date in Reader, this still seems an odd decision for Google to have made.  The proper blog post date should be the date it was published, surely?  Or even give an option to use published date to sort on – how hard can that be?

All very strange.  I have now created a new Feedburner feed and this one seems to be displaying correctly in Reader, but really – that step shouldn’t have been necessary.

It’s simply the photography of people interacting with their environment, and trying where possible to tell a story with the image.

However, I struggle with confidence when taking photos of people.  This happened today in Newbury – the market was in full swing and there were any number of good photo opportunities.  Yet I couldn’t bring myself to take many photos at all!

I’ve been trying to examine why is, and I suppose it boils down to concern over what people might think I’m up to.  Will they be suspicious of me taking photos?  Will they resent it?  Or am I worrying over nothing and they wouldn’t give it a second thought?

Part of it comes down to the situation.  Where there’s an obvious reason for photographs, such as at a public event or wedding, no problem.  (Although the drinks at a wedding don’t hurt either!)  But where it’s just an everyday situation in which I’ve spotted some photographic interest, it’s really tough.

Since this is a style I’m passionate about and want to develop, I’m not just going to avoid taking these kind of photos.  On the contrary, I need to build my confidence & get more comfortable in these situations – not least as nervousness isn’t a great frame of mind for taking good pictures!

So how do I get better at this?  I’ve got to admit, I’m short of ideas.  Is there any way of improving other than just forcing myself to take more photos in these kind of situations?  How do professional photographers do it, especially in the highly charged environments they commonly work in?

I’d love to hear any suggestions, advice, or even just to discover if anyone else has trouble with this kind of thing, so feel free to comment!

]]> http://jimmillen.co.uk/2010/02/on_photographic_confidenc/feed/ 0 http://jimmillen.co.uk/2010/02/on_photographic_confidenc/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/JimMillenBlog/~3/Hip6lAhYJhM/ http://jimmillen.co.uk/2010/02/housekeeping-blog-feed/#comments Fri, 12 Feb 2010 10:38:34 +0000 Jim Millen http://jimmillen.co.uk/?p=202 Apologies – I’ve just realised the feed for this blog is all messed up. Think it’s because of importing entries over from my old Blogger site. Will investigate and see if I can sort it out…

EDIT: Now sorted – it wasn’t the feed at all… (JM 18/2/2010)

First step on the road back to fitness was a run the other day.  Nice easy flat course around Newbury.  2k, all good.  4k…  Hit a brick wall.

Legs aching, no energy at all, out of breath – oh dear.  Had to walk the remaining 2km home!

Probably was overdoing it at the start, but still not a great performance.  Going to go shorter the next couple of sessions – 3 or 4k – and take it easier.

I also managed to get to the pool for a bit of swimming this morning.  30 lengths, 1 in 3 front crawl and the rest breaststroke.  This was better, although was still more tired than I’d expect afterwards.

So – setting myself some targets for the end of March.  Running – comfortable 10k, ideally under 1hr.  Swimming – 20 lengths crawl or 60 lengths 1-in-3.  I’m also thinking about some gym work for strength, and pilates for flexibility – now just need to find the time – oh, and sort my diet out, but will talk about that another day!

So far I have to admit I’m really impressed. Main reasons for getting this phone were to stay more in touch with my various social networks whilst out about, and also have better on the go access to weather forecasts for windsurfing.

Not really tested weather forecasts yet, but for staying connected the iPhone is awesome. Having added a few apps, I’m now easily able to keep up with email, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and my RSS feeds – not to mention posting to the blog of course.

Geek alert: also now able to remote desktop to my PC from the phone – sweet.

Must admit the touchscreen is for now slower than texting on my old phone, but reckon that’ll improve with practice. Otherwise very happy with the thing!

I had a great break, nice to unwind for a while and really good to catch up with friends and family.  On my travels a bit, visiting Warsash, Lytham St Annes, Manchester and south Wales.  Phew…

Back to work now of course, slightly worried about how much there seems to be to do!  All exciting stuff though and actually pretty keen to get back on with things.

One tentative new year’s resolution I do aim to keep up is to post more here!  There seems to be a lot to witter on about, from the recent #uksnow to the Google Nexus One.  So expect one post per week minimum – we’ll see how that goes…

That last blurred car picture is heavily inspired by Jez Coulson’s crazy taxi pictures.  I love Jez’s work & have followed his blog for a while now.  Well worth checking out!  I took a few today but still have to master hand-held panning, I think…

More pictures from today on my Flickr stream.

In other news, the Rage Against The Machine campaign is still going strong and has reached nearly 700,000 members on Facebook.  Go join, then buy the song from Monday if you want to help avoid the X Factor being Christmas No 1 – again!

That song recalls happy memories from my youth – specifically, a school “talent show” degenerating into a sweaty mosh-pit as one of the bands kicked in with a bit of “Killing in the Name”.  I’ve no idea if the teachers turned off the power ‘cos they thought it was going to turn into a riot, or if they’d somehow got wind of the lyrics to the final verse…  Either way, a horde of frustrated and fired-up teenagers were left with nothing to do but go and lurk around on Southsea Common, trying to look cool.  Ah, good times!

Somehow RATM’s eponymous debut album seems to have eluded any transferral to digital, so I’ve just downloaded a copy and given it a listen.  Was on my own in the flat so able to turn it up good and loud!  I was mainly being nostalgic but on listening, I was surprised to discover again what a good album it actually is.  Being honest, I liked it at the time due to the swearing and some vaguely defined spirit of rebellion; it’s actually pretty damn impressive, in music and lyrics.  Well worth a listen and certainly doesn’t sound like it was released 17 years ago…  Now I feel old!

Anyway – back to the campaign.  It’s all started off in disgust at the seeming stranglehold the Simon Cowell “entertainment” juggernaut has on the Christmas No. 1 spot.  Two good people on Facebook, Tracey & Jon Morter, came up with the idea – what better way to protest against mass produced, bland, musical pap than getting its complete antithesis to number 1?!  The Facebook group is up to well over 350,000 and growing fast.  All of us are going to buy the single NEXT WEEK – no point buying it now! – so just maybe, there might be a chance to stop the X Factor single from reaching the top spot.

For all the details go to the Facebook group, or check out #ratm4xmas on Twitter.  Go on, get involved!

Very nice they were too – more pics of the whole baking experience linked if you click above.  It was a lot of fun, but did rather remind me of why I don’t make pastry too often – it’s a right mess!

After it was up, I discovered that taking photos of Christmas decorations is quite difficult! Had the tripod up and was taking some seriously long exposures, with mixed results. Think some more practice will be called for here…

That’s a pretty controversial statement amongst web 2.0 and social media folks. Why would anyone not want to have more control, more responsibility? Why would anyone not want to choose the ideal tools to get their work done? Simply because we’re all different.

It’s all too easy to forget that many people just want to go to work and do their job. They don’t want to waste a day comparing browsers, or installing different Twitter clients. They certainly don’t want to be responsible for re-imaging their PC when it’s corrupted and virus infected!

The cultural expectation of most employees is that their employer provides them with technology that enables them to do their job – and the employer bears the responsibility for it working properly. At the moment, this entails restrictions on what the employee can do – sure, this might hurt productivity, and it makes us early adopters furious. But I honestly believe that for a majority of workers, they’d prefer stable and supported technology over the latest innovative tools.

So when considering the use of IT at work, the main point I’m trying to make is that it’s not about the individual versus some monolithic, faceless corporate entity. It’s about the attitudes, expectations and culture of the organisation’s people. If we want a change in the use of technology in the workplace, we need to convince a majority of our colleagues why this will be a good thing!

How might we do this? Trends over time will help – although I don’t agree that technology use is driven by whether you’re a baby boomer, Gen X or Gen Y, there’s little doubt that the constant flow of younger people into the workplace will drive cultural changes. There will also be change over time through ambition. Once people realise that social software isn’t just a toy but a tool that can transform their performance – and hence, their prospects of reward – they will be much more enthusiastic!

Technology developments may help too. Again looking at current trends, there’s lots of room for improvements in technology stability. Why are computers still so prone to failure? Specifically for the workplace, I think virtual machines could be a way forward. If made easy enough to use, why not provide a personal VM environment within which people could use social or personal productivity tools, whilst keeping the host system clean and stable?

To finish, then, I’d like to point out that us web 2.0, social technology evangelists are on the leading edge of this change. I think we tend to forget that! Early adopters will be frustrated during change – there’s no avoiding that. This shouldn’t stop us advocating use of social tools, far from it! But we should recognise that change may take years, or decades, to truly sink in. We should aim our efforts at the audience that matters – not some corporate entity but rather our colleagues and friends who remain dubious about the whole idea. Obviously the opinion of top management in any organisation does make a difference! But ultimately, the combined opinions, expectations and culture of the individuals making up that organisation have to be convinced before we can expect widespread change.

I’m going to try and semi-live blog to record my thoughts – obviously as KIN is a membership organisation I’ll be self-censoring for any material that seems sensitive, but will try and capture insights and general opinions.

There’s a good programme for the next couple of days so should be interesting – starting off with a session this morning on “Communities of Practice: A social discipline of learning”, with Etienne Wenger – looking forward to it!

Admin note – I’m using “KIN_Autumn_2009″ to tag all relevant posts here, and have created the Twitter hashtag #KINWorkshop for live tweeting during the event. Do get involved…

[EDIT] Over a month later now, and as you can probably tell my live blogging idea didn’t really work! In the spirit of KM I’m going to write a post soon talking about why this was, and whether it’s a problem. Stay tuned…

I have been to a couple of very useful KIN events, the first an inaugural general meeting for the Enabling Technologies SIG and the second a Communities of Practice roundtable. Both delivered a lot of interesting thoughts, material, and most of all connections with smart people. Might post a bit more about these at some point soon…

On the personal front I actually managed to get out windsurfing a couple of weekends ago, which was nice – but good grief, am I unfit. This morning saw me try to do something about it – in retrospect, 20 sec sprint intervals after almost 4 months of no exercise was a mistake! I will try to keep up more frequent training but maybe take the intensity down a little, at least to start with.

I’ve been taking a few more photographs here & there, and might do a couple more posts on here – in the mean time if you’re interested check out my Flickr. I’m particularly pleased with my most recent set!

Furthermore to photography, anyone with an interest in wedding photography should head over to the photo.net forums, where Jeff Ascough is running a Q&A through this week. It’s illuminating stuff.

The Gargoyle, Andrew Davidson 4 / 5

Enjoyed this a lot – might not be for you if you’re squeamish though. An ordinary story – boy meets girl. However, here the boy is nearly dead, horribly burnt & disfigured following a car crash which rather curtails his career as an drug-addled adult film star. The girl, meanwhile, is a fey and mysterious stone carver who claims to be seven hundred years old…

Davidson does a great job of weaving a convincing & engaging story with real depth to the relationship between the two – backed up by enjoyably imaginative storytelling and a veneer of the fantastical.

There are definite flaws to this book – the author heavily researched historical background for the story, and sometimes the depth of historical verisimilitude jars with the narrative. It’s not a happy book either – and I wasn’t sure the ending really worked for me.

None the less, I enjoyed it a lot and it made quite an impact on me – the kind of novel I imagine I’ll return to for second or third readings and find more in it each time. Considering it’s a début from Davidson, pretty impressive!

The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss 5 / 5

Another début novel, happily even better this one. Grabbed in some haste – I was in Solihull and needed something to read, and this was on the “Employee’s Picks” section in the Borders there. They have great taste!

In “The Name of the Wind”, Rothfuss (He blogs!) has done a great job of blending the exuberant and exciting elements of fantasy with some gritty realism. A more grim and gloomy tone is not unknown in fantasy, particularly in recent years, but for me this one gets the balance just about perfect – whilst creating a convincing world and characters, there’s still a real element of wonder and enchantment.

This book tells the story of Kvothe, born into a troupe of roving stage performers and minstrels, who clearly from the book’s context goes on to become a famous – or, perhaps, notorious – hero, swordsman and magician. Much of this is still to come though, as this is the first of a trilogy. By the end of this volume Kvothe has suffered tragedy, met with both adventure and romance, and shown his potential for the arcane – so there’s certainly lots happening. None the less, there’s a lingering feeling that things will really get going in the next book!

This book isn’t perfect – at times Kvothe does verge on the wish-fulfilling ‘Mary-Sue‘ of legend – but it’s without doubt the best fantasy I’ve read in the past couple of years. If you like fantasy – particularly of the ‘epic’ sub-genre – then I can’t recommend this enough.

The Last Colony, John Scalzi 3 / 5

I’m a long-time reader of John’s blog, Whatever, but have tended to only pick up his novels as & when I find them over here in the UK – which hasn’t always been often. So I was happy to find a copy of ‘The Last Colony’ the other week.

This third book is a sequel to Scalzi’s previous ‘Old Man’s War’ and ‘The Ghost Brigades’ and continues the story of John Perry, the septuagenarian soldier fighting humankind’s battles on faraway planets. Although not carrying on immediate plot arcs, the book does rely heavily on the earlier two and I would suggest you catch up on those first.

In ‘The Last Colony’, Perry agrees to lead a new colony settling on a new world. Unfortunately for him, in this universe there are many alien races who object to humans grabbing all the prime real estate. And they’re the easier part of Perry’s problems, as he also has to contend with his own government.

Above all this is a fun book, which I rattled through reading with great excitement. This is wholly in keeping with the previous books and, indeed, reminds me of early Heinlein works that Scalzi has openly acknowleged as an inspiration. The narrative is warm, witty and rapidly paced.

However, I was a bit disappointed at the lack of depth and detail I found. I’m not sure this would bother everyone, but to a certain degree I felt that the broad outlines of a world were being painted, but there wasn’t anything to back them up or develop a real depth of connection with characters.

So whilst I finished the book at breakneck pace, and thoroughly enjoyed it in the process, I can’t really say it made much of a lasting impact on me. I’ll still look out for Scalzi’s books when I see them – but I’m not going to be ordering them in hardcover…

Night of Knives, Ian C Esslemont 3 / 5

I am a huge fan of Steven Erikson’s ‘Malazan Book of the Fallen’ series, so I was curious to see what this new novel, set in the same world but from a different author, would be like. Ian and Steven did develop the Malazan world together from the outset and describe it as a wholly collaborative endeavour, so this book shouldn’t be seen as any sort of spin-off or exploitation!

‘Night of Knives’ is a fast-paced action novel, and does that extremely well. The characters are what they need to be, there are plenty of fights, chases, battles of magic, strange trips between worlds… You get the idea – there’s a lot going on. Esslemont has done a great job of plotting and weaving a coherent narrative to describe one very chaotic night.

I realise it’s not fair to compare the two authors, but based on this book I remain unconvinced that Esslemont can bring the same balance of action and feeling that Erikson manages – part of the appeal the ‘Book of the Fallen’ series has to me is that it conveys the full range of human emotion, from joy to despair to rage to desperate sorrow. And Erikson surely doesn’t have any problem writing big, dramatic battle sequences either.

As I say, it’s harsh on Esslemont to judge his first novel by such high standards – in my book it’s a fine first novel. There is a second one – ‘Return of the Crimson Guard’ – out now, and I plan to check that out soon. So definitely not a bad book – just has a lot to live up to!

The Gone-away World, Nick Harkaway 5 / 5

Yet another first novel, this one from – I discovered after finishing it – the son of the great author of spy fiction, John Le Carre. Also a really excellent book – I literally finished it two or three hours ago and am still buzzing a little with excitement!

Unlike the other books in this post, ‘The Gone-away World’ is written in an overtly comical and stream-of-conciousness style which at times seemed to be channeling a potent mix of Neal Stephenson, Douglas Adams and even maybe Jerome K Jerome. The plot also has its absurd moments, featuring as it does pirates, ninjas, and the most unlikely romantic assignation I have ever read.

Using this style is interesting, to say the least, given that the book is about the end of the world – in a way – and addresses head-on some deep and uncomfortable questions about love, war, corporate culture and philosophy. I won’t give away any plot points, but there are also big surprises towards the end, spun in by the author in quite elegant fashion.

Again, there are a few problems – although the comedic style works most of the time, it sometimes meets its limits and crosses the line into farce. Although I enjoy complex and flowery language, Harkaway takes it a bit too far here on occasion and would maybe have benefitted from some further editing. I notice he credits Dumas in the endnote and indeed, the verbosity is reminiscent of something like ‘Le Comte de Monte Cristo’.

Summing up, however, ‘The Gone-away’ world is a cracking read with lots of action, a sizzling plot, good characters and an innovative way of telling a story. Highly recommended!

Much of this appears to have kicked off following an interview with Dave Snowden and Larry Prusak last year. Luis Suarez’s post here has an excellent round-up of links and further discussion. I’m not going to attempt a comprehensive point-by-point argument here, but rather put forward some of my thoughts, particularly based on my own experience.

My first response to “KM is dead!” was to ask – “What do you mean by KM?” and indeed, this does seem to be the key to the debate. In general, those saying “Yes, KM is dead!” aren’t doing KM any more, oh no. They’re doing Social Media, or Knowledge Sharing, or something equally flavour-of-the-month – yay!

The other side – “No, KM’s still alive” – tend to still call what they do Knowledge Management, like myself. It can’t be dead, because then we’d be out of a job. Maybe your idea of KM is dead – not mine. Nuh-uh. Vive le KM!

What I’m getting at is that at some level this is all a squabble about terminology. Call it what you will, but we’re all working towards the same end – improving the ability of people to be more productive, perform to a higher standard and make better decisions. We believe we can best do this through making changes in the way people develop and use knowledge.

An aside – I should make clear that this is about driving improved business results – we’re not doing this to make people happier. Sometimes KM – and recently, social media – people seem to miss this point and assume empowering people, having open conversations etc. should be goals in themselves. Not so – they should all be in pursuit of higher performance. Blimey, I sound like Alan Sugar! However… it’s no coincidence that happy, empowered people & high performing businesses go hand-in-glove. Aren’t we lucky to be living in a day & age where we get a chance to have fun at work and be high-powered and successful? That’s the idea, anyway…

Anyway – back to my main point. Whatever we’re doing in this space, it is all about changing the ways people develop & use their knowledge. Is that knowledge tacit or explicit? Can it be held in a document? Can knowledge exist at all outside of people’s heads? KM experts would happily argue all of these points – hence I propose we ignore them. Does it really matter? Some people love taxonomies and file systems, others won’t touch anything formally managed and controlled, preferring instead informal networks and conversations. News! Both of these are KM, and in my opinion anyone claiming to be a Knowledge Manager should acknowledge this.

This is a key point in making useful progress from this discussion – people are messy and inconsistent, and any effective approach to improving knowledge work has to recognise this. IT and IM types can find this a horrific concept – people left to their own devices will inevitably produce a mess of stuff. But people are also pretty good at resolving ambiguity and sorting the useful from the dross – if they’re empowered to do so.

The flip side of this, is that some situations, problems and types of people are best dealt with through formal processes, structures and management. Yes, all you social media, Web 2.0 hipsters – some people do actually like doing things in a structured, routine manner! Crazy, I know. Not my cup of tea, but as KM experts we need an approach that embraces all the many ways of doing things, rather than imposing any one solution.

So – what I guess I’m trying to say is that KM is not a consultancy methodology, or a programming language, or a scientific theory. I don’t believe it can “die”, or be discredited, or debunked. No – KM is simply an approach which recognises the importance of both individuals and knowledge, and develops a wide, varied and above all pragmatic set of practices that help improve knowledge working effectiveness.

I realise I’ve just fallen into my own trap and developed yet another definition of KM. Not what I set out to do, but never mind – I will plough on regardless.

Going off on a slightly different tack now – I will wrap up this post soon, I promise – I’d like to address another angle of the “KM is dead” argument – the impact of past failures. It seems to be suggested that as KM has “failed” in the past, it is tainted beyond recognition. Well, for a start I don’t believe it has failed – KM has delivered notable successes. More importantly, if we value knowledge – and we do – then how can we fail to manage it?

I think it’s relevant to compare to other management practices here. Risk Management. Safety Management. Financial Management. All of these have a range of tools & techniques. All have had spectacular failures. (Hello, credit crunch!) But nobody argues with their basic principles – I will minimise my risks, I will increase safety, I will run my business on a sound financial basis. Why not also – I will maximise value and performance through management of knowledge?

So I believe it’s incumbent on us as KM experts to embrace past failures, learn from them and promote Knowledge Management as a holistic, pragmatic way of increasing performance. If the most effective way to do this in your organisation is through managing documents and file structures, great. If it’s by setting up knowledge plans, communities of practice and so on – again, great. You may drive huge improvements by effecting cultural change, implementing social tools and empowering your people – excellent! But whatever you do, focus on the individuals, the knowledge, and how your actions help to improve their way of working. That is what KM is all about.

So anyway, herewith some pics…

It was really rather dark & gloomy by that point of the afternoon and I think the AF in the camera was struggling – these photos all seemed a little blurred. I was shooting in Tv mode at about 1/640 or faster to freeze the motion but the images were very dark – I had to really ramp the brightness up in Lightroom. This has introduced noise, unfortunately!

This chap was kind enough to sail straight at me whilst pulling off a neat body-drag – quite an old-skool trick but still looks good.

The next morning at Hayling Island was a much nicer day – very unexpected sunshine but still cold for May, I was in my winter wetsuit and nowhere near too hot! I had a good couple of hours sailing before running out of energy – several months of no exercise hasn’t done me much good. At least it gave me the chance to take some pics and have a chat with some mates from the Boards forums…

I really liked the forward loop sequence of which this photo is a part – a brighter day, fast shutter speed, AF Servo and continuous shot mode delivered good results. However, I still need to get more conscious of framing when tracking moving subjects – this would have looked a lot better with the whole sailor, board & rig in the shot!

I was lucky enough here to get the brightness of the sun in the foreground, and especially off the sail & the spray, whilst the background was conveniently darkened by a passing cloud. Very useful!

That’s all for now but there’s plenty more photos so stay tuned for a Part 2 – and some pictures that aren’t of windsurfing!

This is clearly a 21st century webpage – blog – yep, video – yep, photo gallery – yep – of course these are sparsely populated as yet but all present and correct, with separate RSS feeds for the various content streams. Wonderful, and added to my Google Reader. Overall it’s a nice website design too – clean and sophisticated.

Perhaps more important than the technological bells and whistles is the motivation and driving ethos behind the website. As spelled out in this new blog post, the incoming administration wants to improve communication, transparency and participation between the people and government – not exactly news to those who followed Obama’s campaign, but welcome nonetheless. I was particularly taken by the pledge to publish non-emergency legislation for public review – although of course this doesn’t give the public any authority over legislation, it’s an interesting development to say the least.

There’s probably plenty more to discover, but for now I’ll just finish with what’s on Obama’s agenda for technology. Network neutrality? He’s a fan. Online privacy? Again, sounds like he’s firmly in support. Finally – a President who seems to get this stuff. About time!

First thing that occurred to me was that Netiquette is a highly nebulous concept at the best of times, both in the specifics and at a high level. For example, what’s acceptable on the 4chan /b/ board would be wildly inappropriate for a comment on an internal corporate blog. It’s always been hard to pin down exactly what consitutes the rules for good netiquette, and Web 2.0 has only made this harder!

However, I’m going to avoid the temptation to write a lengthy discourse on this and just put down my list of good web – whether 1.0, 2.0, or x.0 – behaviours. Please feel free to jump in with your own suggestions, or add them back to Liam’s original post…

1) Don’t be an idiot. Many people seem to suffer from a disturbing tendency to lose any semblence of rationality or decency when interacting with others online. Don’t do this. OK, so you don’t have to act like you were talking to your mother, but at least show the level of respect you’d give to a stranger you were chatting to in a bar.

2) Attack the argument, not the person. It’s easy to cop out of actually answering points in a discussion by ignoring them and attacking their proponent – it must be, as politicians do it all the time. Show you’re better than that, and if you can’t adress the point in hand, stay quiet. This is sometimes hard when you’re the target for personal attacks, but sinking to their level rarely ends well.

3) Blend in. You wouldn’t go into a pub and expect to jump straight into a conversation with the bunch of regulars at the bar – yet this is what many people seem to try and do online. Wait for a while, read through the archives, lurk. That way you’ll get a better idea of what people expect and won’t sound like such a clueless n00b when you do write that first post.

4) Respect private correspondence. This could be controversial, but I believe that if someone emails, IMs or PMs me, they want to communicate privately. I don’t believe that it’s fair or right to then repeat that correspondence in a public forum, unless the sender has given permission. Posting the contents of an email in public tends to make you look bad, not the sender of the email.

(Caveat – That last one can IMO be excepted for official and impersonal correspondence from public figures, government or companies.)

I probably could go on, but that’ll do for now. What I’ve just realised is that there’s very little there that’s specific to web 2.0 – it’s all pretty recognisable from Usenet days. Does this matter? No, I don’t think so. Basically, it all seems to be about how you interact with other people. Whether this is via Twitter, blogs or face-to-face, it’s always a good idea to be nice, engage your brain and pause before you post.

So apologies Liam – not sure I’ve really answered the question you were asking! But it’s my thoughts on the matter anyway, and as always would welcome anyone else’s input…

So, I thought I’d update a particular Wikipedia page with this news item – all very properly linked back and citing the computing.co.uk website – and thought not much more of it. I’ve made a few minor Wikipedia edits like this before so didn’t really think it was a big deal.

The funny part came throughout the afternoon. By the time I left for the day I had heard at least 4 separate individuals at work mention the Wikipedia article, giving it far more authority than I would have expected! On further review, it seems the page is top result for an obvious Google search – suddenly all becomes clear…

Given that the only way these people could have been alerted to the Wikipedia page was through Google searches, it’s a pretty dramatic example of how quickly the informational grapevine works these days. And also a surprising example of how quickly one little edit can get a great deal of attention!

I’m starting to feel a little short of reading material and thought I’d turn to the Internet for inspiration. So, recommendations please!

What do I like? Well, I’m big into SF and fantasy, but most definitely prefer books that take a realistic approach to the unbelievable, if that makes sense. Some of my favourite authors include Steven Erikson, Stephen Brust, and Neal Stephenson – don’t suggest Bakker though, tried it and found it too grim for my tastes.

I’m also keen on any recommendations for any other sort of fiction, although I doubt I’d have much truck with a romance novel… I’d be interested too in your thoughts on non-fiction in any of the following areas – Photography, Travel, Knowledge Management, Generic Business Wisdom, Military History.

I hope to use this as yet very young blog to talk more about what I read in the future, so it would be great to kick off with some suggestions – please get involved! Thanks…

On the subject of insight, I went for my first personal coaching session through my company’s scheme yesterday morning. It went really well and was a fascinating example of how changing your environment or actions can help you make progress. My coach didn’t offer any amazing advice or wisdom – but by helping me shift out of the worn paths of my thinking, I was able to get a new perspective on things. Very useful, and I’d recommend it to anyone who wants to improve their performance, whether in the work environment or to improve in a hobby or sport.

I’m curious about the relationship between Twitter and blog posting. The general verdict seems to be to use your blog for lengthier more essay-type pieces, whilst all the one-line links and sarcastic comments get stuck on Twitter. However, most people also seem to tweet a link to their blog postings. This approach works for me, I think, and I’ll try to keep going that way. How else do people see Twitter and blogs working together though? Any other thoughts?

I think this is a vital thing to understand when dealing with people in any business where you can’t supply everything they wish for. It’s easy to dismiss people who say they want something to work “just like Google” or who complain that their laptop isn’t as sleek & stylish as a MacBook. To a certain extent this is justified – as a business, we certainly can’t afford to kit people out with the latest cutting edge gear every 6 months!

However, we should recognise that when people talk this way, they aren’t necessarily talking about the functionality or features of the technology. They’re talking about their own stories for how it makes them feel. For example, Google search isn’t infallible – but they’ve done an incredible job of framing their offerings around you, the user.

If we want people to buy into what we can do for them – and I feel this applies to both KM and internal IT – then we need to understand how these sorts of stories work. We can’t compete with Google or Apple in marketing terms. But there’s no reason why we can’t understand our users and develop stories around them that make a powerful case for what we offer.

NB: This is an edited version of a post to a corporate internal blog.

However – of course, being British I don’t have any say in the election and arguably shouldn’t even care. So is this weird, that I’m so caught up? Not sure, really, but pretty convinced I’m not going to quit compulsively refreshing the “Politics” folder in my Google reader feed anytime before Wednesday morning my time!

Katherine Jenkins, the classical singer, has revealed she took cocaine, ecstasy and cannabis in her younger days. This was apparently to pre-empt a story about to be broken in the gutter press about it. Really, does anybody care? Should anyone care that it was illegal? Why is this news when other celebrities drug use is far more obvious and blatant? Very strange.

In other news, our internal changes continue to rumble on… All up in the air and no way of saying for sure where it’s all going to land yet. Trying to keep focus on business as usual, but somewhat hard to focus under these circumstances.

Obviously can’t go into detail here, but it certainly makes you think about the future and where you want to go when something like this happens! Will just have to wait and see what happens over the next few weeks, I guess.

On the bright side – it’s unlikely this will be this only such evolution I experience in my working life. Best start learning now…

On the bright side did buy a new camera – it’s fantastic! Think I’m going to be getting a lot more into photography and it may well come to be what I write about the most here – we’ll see.

I’ve also of course been facing varied interesting challenges in my work. I’m part of the Knowledge Management team at a large IT services company, and right at the moment I’m mainly focussed on exploiting the functionality available in Microsoft SharePoint 2007. I’m also looking into ways to apply more Web 2.0 tools in the workplace, and as I come from more of a technical background, I’m attempting to learn more about the people side of KM – after all, that’s the bit that really matters…

I’m not going to make any big promises about future posts – particularly as I’ll also be posting to our team’s internal blog… But will do what I can to increase the frequency here a bit!