Librarian of Fortune

seen at the feed store

My parents live in a small town in an agricultural part of California. Me, I was raised in suburbia and never really thought that much about the business of raising animals. Well, whenever I visit the folks, I check out their local feed store and it always delights me to see how the real world of animal husbandry operates.

Behind the counter is a large board with prices for all kinds of feed - llama, rabbit, dairy cow, pig, etc.  And both "dairy goat" and "meat goat". Kind of takes the sentimentality out of raising goats, doesn't it? They also have self-serve dispensers for various small-animal feed, including "mice/rat chow - for pets", which assumes that the mice and rat TRAPs are down another aisle.

There are, of course, books on all aspects of animal husbandry, including "Your First Calf", and boxes of pig rings, which I have learned are used for more than, um, pig noses but also the farm equivalent of binder clips.

And there's a blackboard outside the store where people can list animals for sale. Along with the usual pea fowl and "rooster and his fine lady" was the somewhat plaintive "Rabbit -- not for food" and "2-year-old goat - has been our pet"... We're debating whether that last one translates to "please don't eat her" or "we don't want the karma of offing her, but just don't tell us if you do."

searching for other search engines

I just posted a new Info Tip, covering AltSearchEngines and Goshme, two places to help you find a specialized search engine or database to dig deeper into the web.

New SEC tool

The SEC has started using XBRL data to make it easier to find executive compensation information. Right now, there is data on only 500 companies; I hope we'll see more info as companies file their 10Ks.

The easiest way to use the tool right now is to go here, leave all the search fields blank,  and click {search}. You'll see a list of all the companies in this demo; click any of the companies, and you'll get a nice table showing the salary, bonus, stock awards, option awards, and so on for each of the top executives. Sure beats trying to suss out this information through proxy statements

Note that, according to the SEC site, this is just a test of XBRL and to see what applications can be developed. In fact, the compensation database is hosted by ServerVault.com, not the SEC.

There is also a test program to display financial information from 10Ks and 10Qs in tabular format, export the data to a spreadsheet, and generate charts. Again, this is just a test - there are only 65 companies in this program right now. But boy-howdy, this is pretty cool.

UPDATE: I wrote a column in Online Magazine going into more detail about this. Watch for the March 2008 issue.

Holy passport, Batman!

I have/had 3 international trips - one last December, one in mid-January and one in late February. And my passport expired in the middle of that last trip. I mailed in my passport for renewal last week, paid an extra $60 for the expedited service, and considered sacrificing small animals to ensure that my passport wouldn't get caught in the well-publicized black hole in the passport office.

Imagine my shock and surprise... I got my new passport (whee - complete with RFID chip to ensure that I leak personal information everywhere I go), eight days after I sent my old one in. Unbelievable.

Now I just need to get some tin foil to keep my personal info secure slightly more secure.

 

New Pew Internet report

One of my favorite sources of information about Internet usage is the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Their latest report is "Digital Footprints: online identity management and search in the age of transparency."  Although I have a few quibbles about some of the survey questions, it's a good study, looking at how aware people are about their personal information on the web.  Interestingly, 60% of adults do not feel compelled to limit how much information can be found about them online - of these, most fall into the category of "Unfazed and Inactive" - they don't worry about their person info nor do they take steps to limit the amount of info that can be found about them online. And more than half of adult Internet users have looked for other people - friends, family, colleagues, possible dates - on the web.

I was interviewed as an industry analyst for this study, although most of my priceless pearls of wisdom landed on the cutting room floor...

Google's knol project

According to the official Google Blog, Google is alpha testing its response to Wikipedia -- a collection of bylined articles on various knols (units of knowledge). Sort of the antithesis of Wikipedia, which gains its strength (and notoriety) because it allows editing by crowds. Google's knols will be "owned" by individual authors, presumably who care enough about the topic and and well enough respected that someone else would care what they say. Google says it's not vetting or editing any content. In fact:

We hope that knols will include the opinions and points of view of the authors who will put their reputation on the line. Anyone will be free to write. For many topics, there will likely be competing knols on the same subject. Competition of ideas is a good thing. [...] participation in knols will be completely open, and we cannot expect that all of them will be of high quality.

OK, that's the part where I get queasy... Yes, there are comment tools so others can rate the quality of the article, challenge it, etc. But why require that each expert create their own knol? The richness of Wikipedia is that it comprises the best from various experts. One person builds an initial article, and others contribute to it as they can. But there's still one article there, not 5 or 6 or 10 or 20. The Wikipedia editors are what make it so valuable - they keep things organized into some semblance of a reference work. That's why so many search engines intentionally separate out Wikipedia search results - it's usually valuable content.

Unlike Wikipedia, Knols definitely not built in the spirit of sharing, giving back, contributing to the corpus of knowledge or just getting known as a key Wikipedia contributor. Call me jaded or cynical, but my hunch is that most knol authors will be people who see the value of getting their names listed as the authors of knols, and in generating revenue from embedded ads in their knols.

Of course, with Google, one never knows. But I'm a lot more optimistic about Wikipedia's prospects, having heard Jimmy Wales speak at the Online Information show a couple of weeks ago. I'll post my thoughts on his talk when I get around to digging up my notes. Shoulda lugged my laptop to the presentation...

What's free and what do we sell

One thing I love about the Online Information conference is that I have the most thought-provoking conversations with random people. I believe it was Kate Arnold, of NHS Direct, who mentioned to me how interesting it was that musicians now sell ringtones and give away music. Who would have thunk it 5 years ago? Similarly, Gen Yers buy DVDs just to see the "extras" - they love seeing the back-stage information. She asked me whether I thought writers would see a similar transition -- what could we sell to support our writing? Would novelists give away e-books and sell the story of how the characters were developed?

I'm not sure, but then I read an article in the December issue of Wired, profiling Doug Morris of Universal Music Group. He's the one who called MP3 players "repositories for stolen music", and he is quoted as defending aggressive DRM and other clueless activities by saying "If you had Coca-Cola coming through the faucet in your kitchen, how much would you be willing to pay for Coca-Cola? There you go. That's what happened to the record business."

Whoa! What comes out of my faucet right now? Water, virtually free and, living near Boulder, it's actually great-tasting water. But the bottled water market is strong and growing. People are willing to pay more per gallon for water than they do for gas. Why? Convenience, quality, cachet. I'd probably pay for Diet Coke even if it came out of my tap, for the same reasons (well, maybe not the cachet, but certainly the carbonation).

Likewise, we are willing to pay for content that is available in some format for free on the web. I prefer reading Wired magazine in dead-tree format so that I can tear out pages, write notes in the margin, and toss the pages in a folder for reference later. I get the print copy of the Wall Street Journal because it's easier to read at the breakfast table or in front of the fire. Any industry that sells content (whether in atoms or bits) has to be willing to give away content in order to generate revenue for a truly value-added version of that content.

And yeah, I write lots of stuff for free, and I get paid to create fresh content for workshops and speeches, which I generally don't give away for free.

</rant>

The Facebook Generation panel at Online Info

I just finished a panel presentation with Roo Reynolds, Metaverse Evangelist at IBM UK, and Ewan McIntosh, From Learning & Teaching Scotland. Roo is definitely the most charming and articulate person I've met lately, not to mention a great speaker, and he gave a great presentation about 3-D worlds (Second Life, of course, but also the internal IBM metaverse). A few of my notes from his talk:

World of Warcraft is the new golf. It's got its own specialized rules, etiquette and clothes. And - just like golf - it's used to make deals and to establish/broker relationships. Extend this analogy to Second Life and other virtual worlds...

IBM's internal employee directory (which really understates the tool) allows people to tag other people's entries. It's a cool way of seeing how other people find you useful / noteworthy / weird / whatever, as well as being a way for you to find that person who worked with you on a project two years ago.

We need a context in order to spark conversations. Give people in a virtual world a place to play, and it will spark conversations. So, for example, Roo set up a labyrinth in the metaverse, as a way to get people interacting. This reminds me of how I learned how to use a mouse way back in 1980-<mumble> - my new laptop came with a bunch of card games pre-installed and that gave me an incentive to figure out how to use the damned thing.

I also learned about "sport stacking", which I see from Wikipedia has been around since the 1980s... Hard to explain and completely fascinating to watch played, the idea is that you start with a stack of cups (think of plastic beer cups), which are then stacked into pyramids and other configurations in a specific order. There are loads of YouTube videos of the top players; search for cup stacking.

My presentation was on the impact of the Millennial Generation (Gen Y / Digital Natives) on information centers. My PPT slides are here.

Why I {heart} the UK's NHS

I'm in London right now, doing a bunch of speaking at the Online Information show. On Monday, I was stepping down from the speaking platform and I managed to fall and twist my foot. Three hours later, after I finished the workshop, the medical folks looked at the egg-shaped lump on my foot and sent me to the emergency room to have it x-rayed. I was in and out in under two hours, having seen a doctor and gotten two x-rays, and the total cost I incurred was cab fare there and back. In the  US, there's no way they would even see me without first making sure I had adequate insurance or a healthy credit card, and my co-pay would have easily been several hundred dollars.

As always, no one here can understand why, in the US, we tie health insurance to an employer. We don't do that for any other kind of insurance, and IMVHO it's not something that an employer should be providing (or not providing, or providing only a crappy option). 

12/9/07 update:

Ah, now I appreciate my sprained foot. I had to request a wheelchair to get through airports on the way home and I managed to get off the plane, through Customs and Immigration and into the United Red Carpet lounge in 30 minutes flat.

Business Zen

One of the joys of being a one-person business is that I'm not in an office, with all the distractions that come with it.
One of the challenges of being a one-person business is that I don't have colleagues to help me get un-stuck when I'm having trouble thinking through a difficult project.

I recently found a site that provides little zen-like nuggets, intended to help you think differently about something. Go to the site and hit your browser's {refresh} button to get a new message. The last time I used it, I got suggestions like:

• Cut a vital connection
• Instead of changing the thing, change the world around it
• Once the search is in progress, something will be found
• What were the branch points in the evolution of this entity?
• How would someone else do it?
• Get your neck massaged