Sensemaking

Presenting at Tata Steel-7th December

2005-12-04T07:08:00.000-08:00

Im off to Jamshedpur for the next few days to attend the KM symposium at Tata Steel.Im presenting a research paper titled "Collaborative KM" along with two of my colleagues.It focuses on the need to balance formal KM processes with a more informal community based approach.Will be blogging again from Thursday.

RSS Readering

2005-12-01T18:41:00.000-08:00

Stowe Boyd writes about the shortcomings of the current generation of RSS readers.

He says: "I need support for active reading, or "readering" as I dubbed it, which is a very social activity, not a solitary one. I am no pigeon in no cage.".

Leadership Lessons-From Andy Grove

2005-11-30T22:38:00.000-08:00

If you are thinking of a start up or just looking for some inspiration,read the cover story in Fortune-The Education Of Andy Grove.

Some snippets from the story :

1.Grove has escaped natural selection by doing the evolving himself. Forcibly adapting himself to a succession of new realities, he has left a trail of discarded assumptions in his wake

2.Begin your lesson in leadership the same way Andy Grove attacks a problem: by setting aside everything you know.

The New Buddha?

2005-11-30T22:07:00.000-08:00

An article in Washington Times says: "Thousands of pilgrims are pouring into the dense jungle of southern Nepal to worship a 15-year-old boy who has been hailed as a new Buddha". Mysterious!!

via [Marginal Revolution]

Meditation-Literally Builds your brain!!

2005-11-30T19:11:00.000-08:00

A report in New Scientist says researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, US have found that "meditating actually increases the thickness of the cortex in areas involved in attention and sensory processing, such as the prefrontal cortex and the right anterior insula."

Interesting!!They go on to say that yogis “aren’t just sitting there doing nothing". :)

My Blogroll

2005-11-30T19:01:00.000-08:00

I hope to get my Blogroll in place over the weekend.

Why do you blog?

2005-11-30T18:50:00.000-08:00

This post by Seth Godin is interesting.He speaks about the "Hobby Economy".

He says: "More and more people are spending more and more time (and money) on pursuits that have no pay off other than satisfaction."

What drives you to blog,use flickr,delicious and the rest of it? I remember reading a intro to Web 2.0 by O'Reilly where he says we need to design "architectures of participation" - wherein we satisfy selfish interests of the individual first and this as a side effect has positive implications for the community as a whole.

Technorati For Podcasts?

2005-11-30T18:30:00.001-08:00

Check this news item in Wired

It says:
"Podzinger and blinkx scour audio content for keywords by translating the audio into text and creating an index for quick searching."

Interesting Links

2005-11-30T18:18:00.000-08:00

Interesting articles via Digg.

Survive Worst Case Scenarios

Top 10 Javascript Functions of all time

For all you comp sci undergrads looking for a job:

Unemployed Computer Science Graduate

Western Catchment-Nilgiris

2005-11-30T08:29:00.000-08:00

Here is a the Flickr Stream of Western Catchment-A lovely place in Nilgiris,Tamil Nadu.These are Shola Grasslands.

Photos shot by Balachander [Nexuzinteractive]

India & China- Revisited

2005-11-30T08:12:00.000-08:00

Read this.Very disturbing.(Please avoid if you are sensitive)

China has more to learn from India than vice versa.

Freedom is golden!!

I dont want to say anything more.

Wikifying SuperGlu

2005-11-30T07:55:00.000-08:00

Dave Pollard writes about the next tipping point-Wikis. He outlines how Wikis could turn out to be a "kind of giant tableau of all our stuff". He goes on to say:

"So your wiki would then have three 'flavours' of content:

* stuff that you created (more or less) yourself
* stuff that others created that you have taken for your own, your 'accepted wisdom'
* stuff that is 'shared wisdom' that you and others have inseparably created in common"

I left a comment in his blog.Thought I should write it here as well.

Extending these ideas a bit I guess a Wikified SuperGlu would address all three flavours.

My thoughts on how this map onto the three flavours:

* stuff that you created (more or less) yourself--->Your RSS Feeds(Blogs,Photos,Bookmarks etc.,)

* stuff that others created that you have taken for your own, your 'accepted wisdom'--->RSS Feeds I have subscribed to

* stuff that is 'shared wisdom' that you and others have inseparably created in common--->This is where a Wiki would play a crucial role. The SuperGlued content would be the substrate on which a wiki style collaboration can add value.Wikis would allow the remixing of content and lead to a shared understanding of the subject matter.

RSS in Yahoo Mail

2005-11-30T07:05:00.000-08:00

I have to write about this.Too much of excitement around RSS integration with Yahoo Mail.More here.If the email client is your "context" it makes sense to drive integrations into it. Zimbra is another great example of invoking functionality of disparate systems from within email.For instance,Zimbra could recognise a product order number and pull out relevant details on mouse-over.NextPage,about which I have written earlier allows you to work as usual from your email client while cleverly managing document versions in the background.

Company Takes Internet Address Names Beyond Dot-Com

2005-11-30T06:53:00.000-08:00

Unified Root has started assigning internet addresses that can end in any word like .anything,.whatever,.whathaveyou. It claims to be working in parallel with ICANN.

via [Digg]

India-A Mexican Perspective

2005-11-30T01:56:00.000-08:00

Here is what one my Mexican colleagues has to say about her experiences in India:

Well, yes, we don't appreciate the beauty of being in India... as the saying tells, u don't know what u have 'til u loose it. So I want to pin point what I appreciate and will miss about Inida:
As i will try to do this dynamically i will write 23 points... ONLY:
1. Actual deep conversations in the train... in hindi
2. (Ladies compartment only) Whenever a woman points @ u and u have to respond clearly and loud in which station ur body mass gets off
3. (Ladies 2nd class compartment only) Fashionable products needed at any point of time: from earrings, bangles, anklets, sponges, combs, bags, sarees, saree's skirts, towels, scarfs, books for kids, cooking books, cosmetics, nail polishes, nail polish remover, exported watches, samosas, chickis, cucmbers, tomatoes, carrots, etc, etc... Ranging from panch rupeea to 150...
4. Ppl unity, in the train specially
5. The colors: color of the fruits, sarees, eyes, food, gandhis... i am refering to money...
6. How to court a rickshaw driver so he can drop u to ur place... difficult to do when u get harsh rejections and some hand signals
7. Negotiating skills: food, rickshaw rides, tips, haircuts, days on leave, taxis, clothes, entrance to clubs, persons allowed in one trainee house, rent,.... u name it...
8. Changing your conceptions... mainly on beauty (beauty standards)... starting to see a moustache VERY attractive, beginning to prefer brown skin rather than dull white skin (sorry for the scandinavian prospects but yes... sometimes that is true), questioning why ppl in my own country don't apreciate the beauty of beard (moustache-less), what punjabi suits or colors (like fucisa, yellow, electric green, jaded blue) would be a hit in your own country, despise britney spears and start paying atention to bollywood movies so u can perform on the dancefloor and YES, impress fellow trainees showing how much u know about hip indian culture...
9. Starting to prefer veg food like paneer, samosas, idlis, pav bahjis, aloo parathas, cheese nans, jeera rice, papads, gobis... and if u want continental food: jain veg sandwiches, mango lassis, jam toast, plain coffee, mixed thalis... Eliminating cow from ur vocabulary and using mutton for the non-veg strange dishes...
10. How u can b fed in a second class sitted train, paying that ticket by mistake maybe, by all the ppl going to a place further than u do...
11. Singing in any kind of train... silence is not an option
12. The smell of inciense whenever a temple is around
13. Any mosque 5 times a day singing
14. Pure and raw milk that only lasts 2 effective days
15. CHAI!!!!!!!! No more words
16. Stares to white ppl whenever they make a small group in the streets
17. Insistent kids following you for maybe 20 blocks asking you for ur umbrella, food, water or money... hey! they have taught me how to ask for a raise and my future allocation... NOW U KNOW MACIEJ!!!! BUT also the smiles and excitement of kids (and ppl in gral) whenever a digital camera is around.
18. Normal cows and elephants in the streets
19. Appreciation of combs and hair style mainly from men
20. Food smells at any time of day... making you wonder, why indians are so thin...
21. Grace and intrepid women in saree / salwar kameez and chapals in hill stations... usually they manage better than any trainee with special equipment like hiking tenis shoes, shorts and lowering body mass...
22. Family union and picnics in any touristic place... as well as agressive monkeys that r prepared to claim any food and water from stupid tourists...
23. Typical relational questions: r u married? if not, r u virgin? when r u going to b married? @ what age regularly u get married? will ur parents will arrange marriage? which country? any indian familiy? Is Mexico near moscow? Congo is in rusia? How do u like india? Sorry, but u look so very indian... sorry u cannot make any promotion... u look too indian...

Suddenly I felt I have been ignoring so many small things that add richness to life here.

Are you a IT Versatilist?

2005-11-30T00:30:00.000-08:00

A Gartner report says that IT Versatilists would be in demand in the coming years compared to IT Specialists.They define IT Versatilists as "employees who not only specialize in IT but who demonstrate business smarts by handling multidisciplinary assignments".Hey,I guess you should just follow your dream...to hell with industry trends.That doesn,t mean you stop learning. It means just do what drives you. Everything else will follow...See my point?? Gartner analysts do what drives them-"predicting the future"... :)

Future of text books

2005-11-29T23:10:00.000-08:00

Vinod Khosla speaks about Web 2.0 and touches upon the future of text books.He speaks about the need to improve critical thinking skills of school children and proposes that all text books should use Wikipedia style open source formats that can be edited by anyone.
Very relevant to a developing country like India. If PC and telephony penetration is substantial this would be a very low cost way of delivering quality content that children need to master.

Wikibooks is a step towards this dream.

Tamil version of Wiki Books here.Possibilities are tremendous.

By the way here is a free Physics textbook for download. Found this via Digg.

Search Engine Experiment

2005-11-29T22:48:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Seth Godin for pointing to the Search Engine Experiment. So which search engine do you "think" returns the most relevant results?

Seth goes on to say: "Music sounds better through an iPod because we think it does. Design matters. Stories matter most of all. "...Interesting.

Tips for your first VC Meeting

2005-11-29T22:26:00.000-08:00

Ed Sim offers some interesting insight for your first VC meeting.

NextPage-Next gen Collaboration using Old Ways!!

2005-11-29T22:00:00.000-08:00

For those of us who live in the email client for 16 hours a day and for those who dont want to use collaborative workspaces to manage and keep track of document versions, there is NextPage . Did a quick evaluation of this. Seems really good.Its like tracking documents with RFID tags :).There is no central storage.This is a hosted service.Interesting from two perspectives:

1. People can continue messing around with document exchanges through email.

2. Using smart technology they have bypassed the need for central storage...So your documents are pretty secure.

This service is worth watching.

Broadband through Gas Pipes

2005-11-29T21:53:00.000-08:00

For those of you who had missed this earlier-- Really mind boggling stuff:

Broadband over your gas pipe.Im serious!!

The World is Flat-Practicing what you preach!!

2005-11-29T21:32:00.000-08:00

Thomas Friedman is considering a wikipedia style edition of "The World is Flat".

A report in FT says : "It's been suggested to me that we actually turn the book into an open-source product. Just put it up on the web like Wikipedia [the collaborative online encyclopedia] and let people add to it," says the New York Times columnist, who is working on the second edition of his bestseller on Ã‚Âglobalisation.

This would be an interesting experiment to watch.

Text-To-Voice Services--->Talkr Vs Botcast

2005-11-29T18:34:00.000-08:00

Both are very interesting text-to-voice services.
You can get a quick feel of how Talkr and Botcast fare against each other,here. The Botcast feed sounds like Terminator 3 :).

NDTV RSS Feeds

2005-11-29T18:17:00.000-08:00

Why does NDTV want people to register to read their RSS feeds? Why can't they syndicate and publish content like the rest of the world? Lower the entry barriers. I would have subscribed if there were orange buttons on relevant pages.

Firefox Extensions

2005-11-29T18:14:00.000-08:00

Interesting collection of favorite Firefox extensions.