Friday, June 1st, 2007
NEW TO THE BLOGROLL
Work has been kicking my ass, hence the lack of posts this week. Things should pick up starting tomorrow. In the meantime, I’d like to welcome the following blogs to the ‘roll.
Archive for the ‘blogging’ Category
Saturday, May 19th, 2007
EXTENDING THE CONVERSATION
One of the most pleasant aspects of blogging for me is receiving high quality feedback from readers or other bloggers. Oddly, it’s impossible to predict which post is going to produce a high volume of comments or links so it is even nicer when a post that I feel is important strikes some readers in the same way. Even moreso as the feedback came from across the political spectrum
I’d like to highlight the responses to the recent “Applied History” post:
From Art Hutchinson at Mapping Strategy:
Art is a premier strategic thinking consultant with Cartegic Group who specializes in scenario planning. He doesn’t post all that frequently, so I was very pleased to find that he had delved deeply into the topic of “Cognitive Maps of Future History“:
“What’s needed to turn the seeming surprise of today’s urgent corporate decision into an historically rooted, deeply contextualized choice?
Exactly the same kind of context-setting, “map-making” capability and cross-functional engagement (deciders with academics) that Mark observes to be lacking in the higher echelons of government.
Cartegic does that with modular scenarios, wherein each scenario-building component references analogous situations faced by other industries, in other markets, with other technologies, by other clients and/or at different points in time. (Side note: the dot.com era, as most now appreciate, did not “re-invent” the rules of business; it merely made some business models more viable–and some less viable–than they had been before.)
With the view of the historian (whether geopolitical, industrial or technical) seemingly open-ended, highly uncertain, “new to the world” decisions without any apparent guideposts can be brought down to earth and seen as natural (if imperfect) analogues to things that have gone before.
As the saying goes: “there’s nothing new under the sun”.
From Nonpartisan, the guiding spirit of the up and coming, left of center, group blog ProgressiveHistorians in the “Friday Open Thread ” Nonpartisan welcomed Stewart Brand’s historical call to arms:
“At ProgressiveHistorians, we’ve been advocating this sort of direct policy action on the part of historians since our founding, but it’s nice to see the liberal icon who founded the Whole Earth Network taking up our cause. If there’s one thing that unites everyone at this site, I think, it’s their agreement with some portion of Brand’s thesis. It’s encouraging how many of us see the meaning in this logical extension of our profession.”
In the comments section of ” Applied History” I am indebted to Shane Deichman, Managing Director of The Institute for Technologies in Global Resilience and Federal Historian Dr. Maarja Krusten, formerly of The National Archives, for their thoughtful observations, such as:
Deichman:
“Policymaking, on the other hand, is not about asserting truths — it is about influencing action. Therefore it is an inherently social and, dare I say, “complex” phenomenon that defies linear, reductionist logic. So it is perfectly understandable (even acceptable) for the policymaker to “cherry pick” conclusions that support their objectives (e.g., yellow cake from Nigeria; hostile naval action in the Gulf of Tonkin; the fictitious “Tenth Army” in WW II). This is why I believe so few historians are apt to get involved with policymaking.”
Krusten:
“Many thanks for posting this interesting essay on a subject that deserves more attention than it usually receives among academic historians.
There are, of course, federal historians (of which I am one) who work in civil service positions (the so-called GS 170 series). There are others who work as archivists or in other history related job classifications. (When I worked as an employee of the National Archives, screening Richard Nixon’s tapes to see what could be released, most of my colleagues had graduate degrees in history.)
Since your posting centers on applied history and policy, you might find interesting this article by Victoria Harden, “What Do Federal Historians Do?”
( Note to aspiring history PhD’s – make friends with a professional archivist or academic librarian *before* you begin your dissertation. The cites they can pull off the top of their heads on the most obscure topics imaginable are stunning. They are to historians what historians are to the general public)
Thanks again for the excellent feedback!
Monday, May 14th, 2007
EN FUEGO
The shadowy bloggers of Kent’s Imperative have been busy of late.
“The money quotes, in our opinion, for understanding the future of the disconnect between talent and management: “Heh,” I joked. “I bet the first time my boss finds out where I am is when he sees my photo on the front page of his own website.” and But the best punch line was that … he didn’t find out when it was on the front-page of his website – he found out when I posted that fact to my blog! “
Hey Tom ! Isn’t that what happened to you at NWC ???
UPDATE:
“How did Watman know I was conducting my secret negotiations?
My dean followed it obsessively on my blog after numerous professors told him they were fans of it and he became concerned I was growing beyond his control.
When I was confronted by charges of this conspiracy, I replied, “Yes, we were all in it together, me and my tens of thousands of readers.” Clearly, I would have made a terrible spy.”
Hat tip to the master of webmasters, Sean.
Saturday, May 5th, 2007
A NEW GOOGLE TOOL
StatisfyZenpundit
Located on the sidebar above the blogroll. A hat tip to Matt at MountainRunner.
Wednesday, May 2nd, 2007
SIX DEGREES OF PARTICIPATION
Tech guru Ross Mayfield has an important post “Social Technographics and a Power Law of Participation” that would be of interest to most serious bloggers. In it, Mayfield analyzes the results of a demographic study that examined the nature and degree of interactivity of participation on the Web, displayed in the visual hierarchy below:
A closer look at Mayfield’s visualization can be found here at Flickr
An excerpt:
“I still contend that a more ideal community is scale free in structure. What I wonder is if you could benchmark these levels of engagement against a power law — not just to test Forrester’s findings, but to help a given company realize — “we are under-weighted in critics!”
LOL! I agree. Try to love your critics. Even when they are dead wrong they are the ( sometimes irritating) guides toward truth.
On a personal level, I am a creator and a critic foremost, followed closely by spectator. I dip my toe in being a joiner and I am not a collector at all. I’m not sure why this is. I had a bloglines account and then a blogbridge aggregator and both fell into immediate disuse. I don’t subscribe to a single RSS feed and I’ve been told that mine malfunctions a lot. I don’t do digg or that delicious thing and I understand neither. Recently, eerie, the mistress of the group blog Aqoul indicated she kept track of about 240 blogs(!). My hat is off to her, I can’t muster that kind of interest.
How about you ?
