According to an article at Lighthouse on the Web text-based chat isn't proving to be as attractive a customer support option as many hoped.
Even beyond all the hype (replace phone operators; serve more customers with less), an experiment at a home loan operation in Australia showed that very few web site visitors actually chose to use chat.
We never got into double-digit figures. The message was clear: invest our time and energy in our Web site, telephone help and face-to-face service, which we know people like.
iCivilEngineer.com, an internet portal for Civil Engineers has a special section on the World Trade Center.
Topics include:
I can't actually define this site. One pointer refers to it as a meme catalog
You'll have to visit yourself. . . .
The Edge Foundation, an outgrowth of a group known as The Reality Club, exists:
to promote inquiry into and discussion of intellectual, philisophical, artistic, and literary issues, as well as to work for the intellectual and social achievement of society.
Their website features The World Question Center. This year's question to the 'great minds' is "What is the Question...and Why?. Questions that Edge contributors ponder include:
The SXSW Website Competition Finalists
Categories include:
SXSW is a conference and festival company based in Austin, TX.
Clive Shepard, in his article, In Search of the Perfect e-Learner, explores the possibility that some people are better suited to e-learning than others. IT literacy, access to high-quality networks and hardware, a desire to think over responses, and different social needs may all contribute to e-learning success.
Different people sign up for classes for different reasons. Even the same person may want something different when it's a different topic or they're in a different stage of life. Sometimes skimming a topic gives the learner everything they're looking for. Sometimes deep immersion, lots of discussion and frequent testing are called for.
Tools that are useful in broadening the appeal of e-learning: dialogue, tutoring, regular assessment, a 'live' instructor.
Here's an article in the October, 2001 Washington Monthly that says that Qwest, the telecommunication company, and the other 'Baby Bells' are one of the big reasons the economy isn't doing so well right now.
The article also discusses the lack of understanding in the current government for the differences between technology/telecom companies and energy companies, massive overbuilding of telecom infrastructure, slow adoption of broadband technology, and subsequent bankruptcies from companies failing to deliver.
Interesting read.
--Write simply
--Get to the point
--Stop when you're done
In an article called, The Need For Simple English on the Web, Gerry McGovern says that, "complexity is often a mask behind which the writer who doesn't quite understand what they are writing about hides."
In these days of too much information, it's even more important than ever before to communicate in a clear accessible way. People have a ton of other places they can go for information besides your web site. If yours is annoying, hard to understand and full of unnecessary words, they'll go elsewhere.
eLearning Forum, a community of practice interested in elearning and the issues surrounding its adoption and practice, holds regular webcast meetings of its members. Most webcast vendors currently assume a one-to-many metaphor--virtual lectures--or one-to-one--virtual coaching with an emphasis on formal planned presentations. But remote meetings can take other forms, particularly a mix of both formal presenations and open discussion.
Based on experiences with webcast meetings at eLearning Forum, the following are some strategies for making remote meetings work:
Other important things:
According to an article in Fast Company, a spin-off from the University of Nebraska's Division of Continuing studies, class.com, is making a success of offering e-learning to students at approximately 4,200 high schools around the country.
It's an interesting article though it doesn't offer much detail about how class.com's success might be measured.
In addition, the impression is that its ongoing strategy for success assumes infinitely expanding time on the teachers part (let's add more students, expand the time they can expect you to respond to them, emphasize as much personal contact as they want, constantly restructure the course), no stress and/or an unending supply of non-burned out eager young teachers to replace the ones used up in the previous round of classes. E-learning done this way may work for the students, though the findings aren't yet conclusive, but we will need to develop a system that works for both teachers and students if we want it to be sustainable.
The Lumina Foundation has recently issued a report entitled, Funding the InfoStructure, which discusses the disparities in technology infrastructure at different colleges and universities and the need to fund technology as a regular part of doing business rather than an 'add-on' expense at the end of the year.
The report lists four factors that impede financial planning for technology:
Larger universities have generally done better than smaller institutions at integrating technology and developing and maintaining a technology infrastructure. They have greater resources and more flexibility in how technology is financed.
Revenue options discussed in the article include:
In an article called, Information Architecture for the Rest of Us, John S. Rhodes discusses what information architecture is and what it can do to help visitors find their way around an organizational web site.
The keys to information architecture are:
Orientation
Helping people know exactly where they are
On the web this is achieved through things like logos, URLs, breadcrumbs (where is this page in relation to other pages), page footers (who published this, when was it published)
Navigation
Helping people figure out where they want to go
Tools include: back/forward buttons, breadcrumbs (where did I come from?), search engines, top of page markers, visited pages
Routefinding
Helping people get from point A to point B
Aids include: effective header links, effective contextual links, search engine results, recommended pages, most popular pages, email this page.
Routefinding tends to be very personal. People want to move through things in their own way. Some people like one search engine better than another or find one site incomprehensible when someone else thinks it's simple and easy to use. The ultimate goal is to make your site as useful as possible for everyone who comes there.
According to a report from Step Two Designs, the most important thing to consider when evaluating Content Management Systems (CMS) is what organizational goals will be achieved by adopting the system. A clear understanding of what goals will be met helps you to evaluate different systems and to evaluate your success down the road.
Once you're clear on your goals, you will need to define the requirements of the system:
Before you get too far down the road on determining requirements, you should be sure you understand what content you're producing and what its purpose is.
The total cost of running a CMS includes the skills and resources needed, not just the initial dollar outlay for the CMS software.
If you've been thinking that the new iMac is ugly or you never really liked the look of the original orange iBooks....well, you haven't sufficiently considered the possibilities.
Intel has an ongoing project called Concept PC, part of their Ease of Use initiative.
Take a look. It's. . .interesting.
Build your own or buy and customize? This question arises with all large IT projects, including Web Content Management (WCM).
There are upwards of 70 Web Content Management software companies currently. In general, people are buying WCM for a combination of interal and external purposes. Different needs require different solutions and for some companies this may be 'build-your-own' and for others it will be 'buy.'
Key questions to ask if you're looking to buy a Web Content Management system:
Particularly these days, demand to see proof of the vendor's financial status—not just income and profit, but how much cash is in the bank, how many customers it has and so on. When doing your due diligence, you are well advised to treat all WCM vendors as start-ups, no matter how long they have been in business.. . . .Johanna Ambrosio
...from Managing Web Content in ADTmag.com
In October, 2000 Step Two Designs won a contract to provide a knowledge management solution for the Road and Traffic authority's help and information desk. They have recently pubished a case study on the project.
Goals for the project were:
Final conclusions in the case study:
There are many aspects to a knowledge management project, the least of which is perhaps the technology. In this project, the team:This took some time (six months), but all these areas (and more) must be addressed if a project is to be successful. Of these, the most important issues are those relating to users. If they are not happy with the system, it will fail.
- Created an authoring team
- Established a working environment for the team
- Designed and deployed a technical infrastructure
- Determined user requirements
- Structured the information
- Conducted usability testing
- Captured tacit knowledge
- Improved and reworked existing explicit knowledge
- Developed a review and sign-off process
- Deployed a publishing system
- Developed a communication strategy
- Created and implemented a training plan
- Marketed the project
- Ensured user acceptance
Will McCarthy, in a recent article in Scifi Weekly, says that if we wanted to, we could make the One Ring that Frodo went to so much time and trouble to toss into the fiery pit from whence it came:
Many people write to me asking, "Hey, Wil, couldn't we make one of those One Ring thingies using technology, and rule the world in an orgy of stupefying eeevyil?" The answer, happily, is yes.The most notable characteristic of the One Ring is that it turns its wearer invisible. . . .NASA and the U.S. Air Force have already experimented with "video camouflage" which places cameras on one side of an object and video screens on the other side. The object "disappears" before our very eyes, like the alien trophy-hunter in Predator, and with the hoped-for advent of projective holography, this technology can only improve.
The One Ring also seems to extend the lifespan of its owner, while causing gradual behavioral changes such as irritability, light-sensitivity, modified diet and megalomania. . . .This effect is consistent with various forms of heavy metal poisoning, combined with a slow release of the chemical superoxide dismutase (SOD), which has been implicated in the long lifespans of certain genetically modified worms.
Of course, McCarthy goes on to say, if we were to make an object with the One Ring's capabilities using modern technology it would likely weigh in at several hundred pounds and be way too big to wear on your finger. It would be better incorporated into something like, say....a Humvee.
Want to foster a creative environment in the workplace? Encourage people to defy their superiors and fight amongst themselves.
According to an article entitled, Think you Manage Creativity? Here's Why You're Wrong, in HBA Working Knowledge, some of the most innovative breakthroughs at companies like 3M (Scotch tape) and HP came about when employee's ignored orders to stop working on a project.
In addition, truly innovative work is often best done in isolation and, in particular, far from critical, evaluative eyes and outside ongoing concerns about money.
William Coyne, former vice president of R&D at 3M, remarked in a speech at Motorola University, "After you plant a seed in the ground, you don't dig it up every week to see how it is doing." In an age of customer centricity, this may border on the heretical. But if you want to develop new products and services, I urge you to keep your creative people away from your biggest customers—and for that matter from critics and anyone whose primary concern is money.
Finally, in a creative organization, the only 'bad' thing is not doing anything. According to research by Dean Keith Simonton creativity results from action. People recognized as creative don't have a greater percentage of successes, they have more total attempts.
So, what are you doing in your organization to foster creativity?
Elegant Hack is a web log devoted to information architecture.
If you're interested in user-centered design, usability, understanding what the web is good at, and other elements of creating usable, functional web sites, it's worth checking out.