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http://glenfarrelly.blogspot.com/
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Glen's experience in the Internet has covered the full spectrum from coding to content, and from planning to promotion. This gives him a unique ability to help direct a company’s online strategy, while also having the know-how to lead a project to successful completion.
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Trumpeting Toronto Tech
This Monday was the first day of the Toronto Tech Week conference. The event's goal is to foster Toronto as a tech sector and help position local companies to make the most of new and emerging technology. As such, Web 2.0 was a hot topic.
Despite the much-hyped claim that Toronto is the third largest tech centre in North America, I am, however, dubious of this claim. My suspicion is that there is a lot of IT work going on here as we are a centre for corporate head-offices, but I don't know of a lot of companies doing innovative and/or wildly successful things in Toronto and the post-secondary options are limited and generally out-dated. Various speakers did point out that not enough was being done by government, education, and business to really make Toronto a viable tech centre. The Mayor of Toronto, David Miller, provided the opening keynote address, signalling the City's commitment to this issue.
Overall, the Toronto Tech Week first day had a good batch of speakers from business, academia, and government.
The day's highlight for me was a panel discussion on the Corporate Adoption of Web 2.0, which offered good tips and caveats for how companies can use web 2.0. The message from all speakers (and one I definitely support) is that companies need to decide first what they want to achieve and then decide the technology, rather than start with the technology. Web 2.0, it was agreed, is not about the technology, but rather the ability to connect companies with their customers in on-going conversations. When asked whether all companies should adopt web 2.0, one speaker, Sean Moffitt of Agent Wildfire, pointed out that for companies who aren't completely above board, it probably is best to not start that conversation, as it will undoubtedly not be good. However, Mike McDerment of Freshbooks, added that if you don't do it, your competitor will. John Meyers of Open Text noted in his experience of technology adoption, it takes ten years for new tech to be absorbed and embraced and by 2015 with web 2.0 "it'll be like why was there any discussion".
This discussion was followed by the presentation of Canada's Web 2.0 Awards handed out by Backbone Magazine and KPMG. Other discussions at the conference focused on how to help recruit technology workers, how to foster Toronto's technology sector, and how companies can best implement web 2.0.
Although this panel discussion was sold out, overall attendance at the conference seemed to be lacklustre. I feel this is due to the conference being targetted to C-level executives (who don't really have the time to attend these things) and then priced accordingly. Also, I was surprised that despite the tech sector's youthful and non-traditional workforce, the attendees were primarily Suits over 50. I feel this missed the opportunity to bring in larger numbers and diversity of people working in the tech sector.
This is the second year for Toronto Tech Week and judging by the first day they got some really good discussions started. My hope for next year is that it opens up to a wider cross section of the tech sector to help Toronto create the vitality and innovation needed to make this City the tech sector it wants (and claims) to be.
Glen Farrelly
Webslinger
Music Industry Does Not Know the Words to Digital Music's Songs
Since shortly after the creation of the digital music format, MP3, increased Internet broadband access, and the rise of peer-to-peer networks for easy file distribution, we have seen new models of interaction amongst artists, industry, and consumers; however, it has also provoked controversy and animosity.
Initially slow to react to the trend of consumer swapping of music, the "Big Five" record companies (EMI, Universal, Sony, Time Warner and BMG) eventually banded together under their industry association, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), to stop it, primarily through litigation. RIAA initially sued the first MP3 player manufacturer Diamond in 1998, but lost, thus paving the way for the ubiquitous iPod. They then sued MP3 distribution website Napster (1999), Aimster (2002), LimeWire (2006), and several Internet radio stations. Most controversially, they have sued thousands of individuals who downloaded music, including parents of children and deceased people. These lawsuits, however, caused negative publicity for the industry and have been ineffectual in stopping piracy; as Lam and Tan note, “Lawsuits are ephemeral and serve only as a delay tactic for record labels to catch up with emerging technologies. While the issue of contention in lawsuits is often the protection of copyright materials, the real concern for record labels may be the ceding of monopoly power” (2001, p. 68).
While the desire to get free music is no doubt a motivation, some downloaders feel this is a victimless crime and that music industry has a reputation for being greedy and artificially inflating prices. This reputation is not unfounded as Easley, Michel, & Devaraj found that the industry fought digital music due to a perceived threat of lower profits, as a "key economic issue for the recording industry is that the marginal cost of e-distribution of music is negligible, creating intense competitive pressure on prices and established distribution channels" (2003, p.92). MP3 is a universal, open standard, thus preventing proprietary products and corresponding price protection afforded, as McCourt and Burkart add "MP3 developed outside of the Big Five’s control, and offered no intrinsic protections against copying. MP3s therefore threatened the music industry by holding out the possibility of a business model that links artists directly to consumers, bypassing the record companies completely" (2003, p.336).
While RIAA's main efforts to combat this change appears to be litigation, they have also funded public education campaigns. On their website, they use strong language to convince downloaders of the harm to artists that their actions cause:
"It's commonly known as piracy, but it’s a too benign term that doesn’t even begin to adequately describe the toll that music theft takes on the many artists, songwriters, musicians, record label employees and others whose hard work and great talent make music possible (Piracy, n.d.)."
This appeal that the RIAA is fighting digital piracy to protect artists, spurred recording artist Courtney Love to write a column for Salon, in it she shows the copyright law engineered by the industry gives ownership to the companies, and the creative accounting companies use enables them to keep a large portion of the profits (Love, 2000). She asserts, "How dare they [RIAA] behave in such a horrified manner in regards to copyright law when their entire industry is based on piracy?" (Love, 2000). Love argues that the Internet can offer a great medium for artists to connect creatively and financially with their fans:
"Being the gatekeeper was the most profitable place to be, but now we're in a world half without gates. The Internet allows artists to communicate directly with their audiences; we don't have to depend solely on an inefficient system where the record company promotes our records to radio, press or retail and then sits back and hopes fans find out about our music.... The present system keeps artists from finding an audience because it has too many artificial scarcities: limited radio promotion, limited bin space in stores and a limited number of spots on the record company roster. The digital world has no scarcities. There are countless ways to reach an audience. (Love, 2000)"
This article was widely circulated, but the message of the dubious copyright laws is also gaining popularity amongst Internet users due to other prominent issues such as remixing, Digital Rights Management, etc., such that RIAA's appeal under this ground may be unsuccessful.
Further complicating this issue is the huge popularity of legal music download sites, such as iTunes, Amazon, Wal-mart, Real, Yahoo Music, etc. in which flat rate downloads per song are flourishing seemingly beyond the power of the industry for price control or to package songs primarily as an album, and thus make more money. In addition, the lowering cost of at-home recording equipment combined with the phenomenal success of websites such as MySpace are enabling musical artists to build direct relationships with their fans completely without any involvement of the recording industry.
RIAA and its constituent organizations seem unable to create a new digital music model or to stop piracy. Their communication strategy appears to be reactive and largely ineffective. The world is singing a new tune, but apparently those in RIAA don't know the words.
References
Easley, R. F., Michel, J. G., & Devaraj, S. (2003). The Mp3 open standard and the music industry's response to internet piracy. Communications of the ACM, 46 (11), 90-96.
Lam, C. K. M., & Tan, B. C. Y. (2001). The Internet is changing the music industry. Communications of the ACM, 44(8), 62-68.
Love, C. (2000). Courtney love does the math. Salon. Retrieved August 14, 2008, from http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/love/print.html
McCourt, T. (2003). When creators, corporations and consumers collide: Napster and the development of on-line music distribution. Media Culture and Society, 25, 333-350.
Piracy: Online and on the street. (n.d.). Retrieved August 15, 2008, from http://www.riaa.com/physicalpiracy.php
Glen Farrelly
Webslinger
Interview Questions for Prospective Website Managers
Before I left my previous job, I was asked to come up with some questions on what would be good job interview questions to ask of a prospective website manager. This is for a jack-of-all-trades and hands-on kind of manager that needs to know a lot of things to run a website. Here's what I came up with plus some new ones I just though of (in no particular order):
Can you describe a situation where you helped make a website more user-friendly? More client focused?
What would you say is a good measure of website performance that might not commonly be thought of?
Describe your experience with web analytics?
What are you thoughts on interactive media? Any success stories? Any caveats?
Which web authoring software do you use?
How proficient are you with HTML? With CSS? JavaScript? XML? ASP or PHP?
What methods of troubleshooting a problem with a webpage do you use? How do you uncover buggy code?
What's your favourite browser and why?
- When testing which browser do you use?
- How do you gauge if an online effort is effective?
- Tell me about your experience soliciting feedback from your users? Which methods did you use and tell me which you found most effective? Any inexpensive or invaluable methods you recommend?
- What is your graphic design experience or training?
- What image editing software can you use?
- What is the secret to effective web design?
- Tell me you favourite website and why?
- What's your least favourite website and why?
- Which websites do you go to every day and what can we learn from them?
- Do you have any experience with content management software?
- Do you have experience with Adobe Acrobat? Making PDFs? Making interactive forms?
- What's your level of familiarity with search engines? How important do you think they are?
- What's your experience with email list software?
- Any tips or caveats for email marketing?
- Tell me about a successful use of social media that you worked on?
- How familiar are you with databases and SQL?
- What are some security issues should a website be concerned about?
- Are the websites you previously worked on accessible? If not, why?
- Tell me about how you used information architecture to help make a website more effective?
- Have you written any article for print or online? Can we see samples of your work?
- How proficient of a copy editor are you?
- Give me an example of good or bad web writing?
- How did you acquire your Internet skills? Self taught, on the job, school?
- How do you keep in touch with trends in the industry? With new technical standards & software?
That seems like a daunting array of skills to have, but I know many website managers who are proficient at most, if not all, the above.
Every website will have unique needs, based not only on software used but also resources available, but I think I have got some standard items. This list is certainly not definitive, so I'd love to hear some suggestions.
Glen Farrelly
Webslinger
Making the Most Out of LinkedIn - For You & Me
Now that I'm no longer employed by my former company, I have updated my LinkedIn settings. I also registered glenfarrelly.ca yesterday and thus am now qualified to join Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA), so I added that to my profile as well.
LinkedIn offers a lot of features that are really promising. However, many of these features depend on network effects to make them useful. Lots of people I know have registered on LinkedIn and many have developed good networks, but otherwise I don't see many people doing more than that.
This short, informative video by CommonCraft outlines how to make the most out of LinkedIn.
Internet Usage in Canada for last year
Statistics Canada recently released their new report on Canadian Internet usage.
Among the most interesting findings:
- Almost three-quarters (73%) went online for personal reasons last year - up from just over two-thirds (68%) in 2005
- Ontario is above national average at 75% (Alberta & BC beat us)
- Among people who used the Internet at home, 68% went online every day during typical month
- Digital divide persists amongst those with lower income, lower education, and older – though gap continues to lessen gradually
- Not a significant gender difference – but men tend to use the Net a bit more often and for a bit longer
- Vast majority of Net users (94%) use it at home, 41% from work, 20% from schools, 15% from libraries
- 88% of home users have high-speed connection
- Approximately 50% of Canadians (Internet users or not) were very concerned about online credit card use, 44% about online banking and 37% about online privacy
Most common Net activities (of home Net users)
- Email: 92%
- General browsing for fun or leisure: 76%
- Obtain weather or road conditions: 70%
- Travel planning & arranging: 66%
- View news or sports: 64%
- Electronic banking: 63%
- Window shopping: 60%
- Ordering goods or services: 45%
A new question this year was how many had contributed content (blogs, photos, discussion groups), which was 20%. Considering how popular Facebook is in Canada, I think that figure may be off as people probably didn't think of social networking activity as creating content.
A big change in this year's survey is StatsCan added data from 16 and 17 years olds this time which they admit skewed results in comparison to prior years (eg. a huge jump in cyberstalking totals for Beyoncé and Justin Timberlake). There was also a huge spike in the use of instant messaging, use for education, downloading music, and watching TV online - no doubt due to this new teen influence.
Playing games remained at 39% from 2005 to 2007. So apparently, teenagers aren't wasting their time in their rooms playing games online; they're studying it would seem - and IMing of course.
Of the activities that can't be explained by the new teen influence, almost none of them experienced significant gains (i.e. more than 2-3%) since the last survey. Has use of the web pretty much hit the peak for most activities?
Glen Farrelly
Webslinger
Databasing the World
One of my textbooks for my current class is the e-Book Structures of Participation in Digital Culture (free to download). This book is an amazing read, with almost all the articles being pure gold.
I already wrote about danah boyd's Friendster article and another fascinating article in the book is Geoffrey Bowker's "The Past and the Internet". I'm greatly simplifying his work, but I think I have drawn out the key concepts.
Briefly, he posits types of communication that deal with memory, the traditional oral and the more recent electronic. This manifests itself into two means to disperse memory, the database (of which the Internet with its vast unordered, storage of data would be one) and the narrative, and quotes Manovich (pg. 2):
"the database represents the world as a list of items and it refuses to order this list. In contrast, a narrative creates a cause-and-effect trajectory of seemingly unordered items (events). Therefore, database and narrative are natural enemies. Competing for the same territory of human culture, each claims an exclusive right to make meaning out of the world"
Bowker lists benefits of this "databasing the world" (p. 22) beyond the obvious memory aid to allowing more freedom for "holding past experience" (p. 24) as the past previous rigid structures of classification that confined, shaped, or locked out events that didn't fit the schemes and thus lead to
"relative paucity of tales we could tell about our past, today the traces have multiplied and the rigid classifications are withering. (Who now does a tree search using Yahoo categories in preference to the random access mode of Google?)" (p. 24).
Due to the vast wealth of knowledge our societies have now accumulated we now rely on computers for storing knowledge, for our memory. This has dangers as then our past can be reconstructed to justify the present (reflective of the elite's agenda). Yet, Bowker argues for balance between the two forms of memory for the sake of our future:
"The information tools of empire (i.e. statistics, databases) lend a certain sense of inevitability to all the changes we witness - we are either enthralled by the spectacle or deadened by the difficulty of imaging change. Seeing our own past as open, so that our present is not completely determined, is therefore a political act." (p. 34)
Glen Farrelly
Webslinger
Social Media Explained
I'm in the process of researching the role of users in creating content and noticed that CommonCraft had recently produced a video on social media. CommonCraft's videos are the best - explain new concepts in ways easy to understand and remember.
Glen Farrelly
Webslinger
Canadian Job Posting Sites for Internet Professionals
In six weeks I'll be leaving my employer of six years. I've gave six months notice (666 - yikes!) and over the last few weeks, I've helped them revise my job description. Recently, they asked me the best places to post a job.
So I compiled a list of the best Canadian web site posting jobs for Internet professionals and have subsequently added a few.
They all appear to free for job-seekers to read. Rates for employers to post jobs vary greatly, from free (CaseCamp, Craigslist) to expensive (Workopolis, Monster).
The Big Ones
These sites have a large number of Canadian jobs overall, and Internet jobs in particular. One can post one's resume here and create alerts to have postings emailed to you regularly.
- Workopolis
- Monster.ca
- Yahoo's HotJobs.ca
- JobShark
- Craigslist (just postings though no extra features
- LinkedIn (social networking for careers and job posting site extraordinaire - not many Canadian jobs, however)
Internet and IT specific
- Casecamp.org
- Sitepoint
- Backbone
- ProBlogger (jobs for bloggers)
- Dice (Canadian & US jobs)
Communications sector (including New Media)
- JeffGaulin
- Applied Arts
- IABC (I hear they have jobs, but you have to be a member to see them)
Non-profits
- Charity Village - usually has Internet and IT jobs posted
- Ontario Public Sector Careers
Misc.
- Guru (for freelancers of various professions, including Internet)
That's all I'm aware of, but let me know if I missed a big one or a particularly good one.
Glen Farrelly
Webslinger
Negotiating Multifaceted Identity Online in Social Networking Websites
Our real-world identities can be multifaceted and contextually fragmented - we behave one way at work, and another when drinking with friends. Yet social-networking websites collapse “relationship types and contexts into the ubiquitous ‘Friend’” (Boyd, 2007, p.134). Thus one’s online social network friends, regardless of context (e.g. work, family, church, school) all receive, by default, the same information. This online flattening of offline relationships has progressed without adequate means to negotiate this experience. For example how to present one facet of personality, or persona, to one's friends vs. one's workplace colleagues. Some users have responded by replacing “cool” customizations with those more appropriate for business, thus sacrificing facets of identity to present an overall safe, sanitized persona (Boyd, 2007, p.143). New methods of encoding and decoding online identity/identities, whether new societal norms or technological solutions, are required to allow people to enjoy these websites and avoid clashes of real-world and online identities.
Many of these issues were documented by danah boyd in her study of the rise of Friendster, the first prominent social-networking website and inspiration for the more popular MySpace and Facebook. Friendster, boyd noted, by offering users a standard template to populate allows users the experience of “writing yourself into being” (Boyd, 2007, p.145) but within defined parameters. Yet truthfulness in these profiles has varied. Some users, boyd found, enjoyed exploring aspects of their identity through degrees of fiction; others assumed full truthfulness from those in their network (Boyd, 2007, p.150).
This unresolved tension continues to hound social-networking websites as seen by the recent Story2Oh! Facebook controversy. A Toronto writer, Jill Golick, created fictional characters and set up corresponding Facebook profiles, all labeled fictional (Golick, 2008a). These characters then sent friend requests to Toronto’s web community. While such a friend request allows one to view that person’s profile, some indiscriminately “friended,” missing the fiction label and then “didn’t realize till later that these were characters and not real people….The blurring of the lines between reality and fiction caused a lot of furor” (Golick, 2008b). Some responded by indicating feelings of betrayal and transgression of online norms; Facebook responded by deleting the accounts. Similar events were found by boyd in the “Fakester” controversy, highlighting that while profiles may allow for “performance of identity” (Boyd, 2007, p.141) all users are not yet accustomed to this.
Norms and technology are developing to address these issues. In March 2008, Facebook introduced the ability to group friends by user-defined type and designate what they can see (Gleit, 2008). While this resolves boyd’s issue of singular relationship types and collapsed context, this feature only allows users to remove details from view, it does not allow one to tailor online identity as one can in the real world. Offline, people can share certain photographs with friends and other sorts with family, but this feature either turns photographs on or off based on type. Still, technical features such as this and developing user norms, such as not friending strangers, begin to enable people to express multifaceted identity through a singular website.
References
Boyd, D. (2007). None of this is real: Identity and participation in Friendster. In Karaganis J. (Ed.), Structures of Participation in Digital Culture (pp. 88-110). New York: Social Science Research Council.
Gleit, N. (2008). More privacy options. The Facebook Blog. Retrieved May 11, 2008 from http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=11519877130
Golick, J. (2008a). Deleted from Facebook. Story2Oh.com. Retrieved May 09, 2008 from http://story2oh.com/2008/04/30/deleted-by-facebook
Golick, J. (2008b). I hear ya. Story2Oh.com. Retrieved May 09, 2008 from http://story2oh.com/2008/05/01/i-hear-ya/
Glen Farrelly
Webslinger
Aftermesh
I should be sleeping, but I figured I would just be recapping in my head the take-aways from the Mesh conference I attended today and yesterday, so I might as well blog it. Mesh is without doubt Canada's web conference, attracting Canadian speakers and attendees doing some of the coolest online work.
This is my second year attending and overall I loved it. It really is great to meet and talk to other people working in the same sphere.
This year as I'm both a grad student and a part-time website manager, I decided to bill myself only as a grad student. Glad I did, as this meant that I could actually talk to people without them trying to convince me how great their product/service is. Frankly, I just want to take a pee without getting pitched.
I was going to recap the sessions I attended, but then I noticed an attendee blogging during the sessions, so check out Connie Crosby's blog for an excellent summary of the key points (and as it turns out, we attended almost all the same sessions).
The first day with its focus on online media and society seemed to me to offer more insight on how people are using the Internet, online issues being tackled, and the possibilities for the future. Whereas today's discussions on marketing and business felt a bit like textbook information for those who don't take the time to read the textbook in the first place.
It was great to hear from Canadian Internet success stories StumbleUpon and Club Penguin. But there were many others at Mesh doing innovative, creative, fascinating work in or with the Internet. The company I work for, on the other hand, is pretty staid and low tech. So attending this conference is bittersweet as I watch the parade passing me by.
I also found it ironic that at an Internet conference, I went into serious Internet withdrawal as I had no online access for most of two days. I was dying to check out the sites mentioned, blog about issues raised, check my email, etc. I did get lots of enjoyment looking over others' shoulders to see the extent of fellow attendees' ADD (only Connie seemed to be doing anything on her laptop related to the conference). I was a bit horrified at the widespread Twittering going on (What the hell are people twittering anyway? "My ass hurts from these crappy chairs./ I think I'll go get another free Red Bull./ Mmm cheesecake squares. / Should I go for drinks afterwards or go home and sleep?").
Thanks to the organizers of Mesh for bringing another great line-up of speakers and assembling a much-needed forum in Canada for this sector.
Glen Farrelly
Webslinger
Oh CanCon! Should it stand on guard for Canadian Internet content?
This week, in my class, the topic of the America’s domination over global culture was debated. While it's often American movies, tv, & music that is most often discussed, there are clearly implications for the Internet. With only one of the top twenty websites visited by Canadians actually being Canadian (source: Alexa), perhaps it's time to consider regulations or incentives for Canadian online content?
Here's some background on the situation.
I think it's safe to say that American entertainment companies use some predatory practices (foreign dumping, block-booking, vertical integration) not to mention their irresistible cultural products. To protect a semblance of national culture, various countries have responded by enacting legislation requiring a certain amount of domestic content to be aired. In Canada, this legislation is Canadian Content Rules, known as CanCon.
CanCon remains controversial, yet as the authors of Mondo Canuck state "Despite opposition to CanCon, which persists even today, the fact remains that initially the system was like a shot of pure adrenaline to a national recoding industry which had barely registered a pulse". Certainly, many Canadian recording stars owe their success in a large measure to CanCon, and Canadian music listeners have certainly benefited from it.
CanCon has sparked controversies, such as its checklist approach that determines what is deemed "Canadian". A famous example of this was Bryan Adam's hit "Everything I Do," which wasn't considered Canadian as it was co-written by a Brit and recorded in London (see 1992 CBC interview with Adams on this controversy).
The film industry does not have to follow CanCon, although some argue it should. There are however, various grants and tax benefits that have over the years encouraged Canadian cinema. As a result of very generous tax benefits in 1979, Canada produced 50% more movies than Hollywood on per capita basis, according to the authors of Mondo Canuck. Out of this, came some of the worst films ever made here and some of the best (Atlantic City - artistically, and financially Porky's and Meatballs).
But checklists of what counts as Canadians can impede our sense of national pride in our cultural products, such as the recent controversy over the film "Juno" , which while filmed in Canada, by a Canadian with two Canadian leads, would not have been considered Canadian for the Genie awards, as it was bankrolled by Americans.
To further indicate the problems with defining Canadian content, a classmate, Sherry, responded: "We are so permeated with American media, how do we determine and measure what Canadian content really is?" Truly, some content made in Canada by Canadians hasn't seemed particularly Canadian (e.g. Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda).
It seems an impossible task to define Canadian content, but I do think it is important for fostering Canadian artists and taking pride in their work. So I'd define what's Canadian as if it was made by a Canadian, it's Canadian.
So into this the CRTC, has recently been reconsidering its decade-old policy to not regulate Canada's Internet (read Toronto Star's March 22 article Can we police Canadian content on the Internet? ) with a full report due this month and public hearings to follow. This has come up now as the CRTC found there was "minimal investment in producing ancillary or new online broadcasting content".
I have seen good Canadian online content, but I certainly wouldn't say the industry is as healthy as Canadian music, literature or film. So what's the solution? Regulate the amount of Canadian content or offer incentives or subsidies?
I eagerly await the outcome of the CRTC's public hearings. In the meantime, please share what you think should be done. Regulate? Subsidize? Nothing?
Harnessing the Power of a Brainstorm
A frequent occurrence in many workplaces is for a group of employees to gather in a room and free-flow ideas on a specific topic. Developed by Osborn in 1953, brainstorming flourishes in workplaces, despite research that found individuals working alone are more effective. Alternatively, collective brainstorming via a computer, known as electronic brainstorming (EBS), has been shown to be more effective. While it is possible that the novelty of the technology and the desire of participants to please the testers can account for some of these gains, the difference found was quite dramatic, particularly as group size increased. Connolly found the main improvement was the lessening of production blocking; the real life (RL) constraint of only one person able to speak at a time does not apply in EBS. EBS can thus be seen offer greater productivity than RL brainstorming.
Production blocking is not the only brainstorming liability, as evaluation apprehension (not fully participating due to fear of being judged) and loafing/freeriding (not fully participating due to perceived low reward or allowing others to do the work) are possible factors. For example, EBS allows anonymous participation and Connolly did find this increased performance. Furthermore, it is possible that the individual act of sitting in front of a computer to do EBS encourages otherwise free-loaders to participate.
Electronic brainstorming does not make sense for all situations. Anonymous EBS would probably not make sense in situations where receiving monetary or reputational credit is a determining influence. If businesses have goals other than idea generation, EBS can be inferior, as Dennis found in a study that showed “if you want to build a good team, strengthen the relationships and allow for opportunities for mentoring and individual growth, verbal discussion is better [than EBS]” (Vlahakis). If the goal is number and quality of ideas, however, Dennis concludes EBS is more advantageous.
These improvements results from EBS lessening production blocking. Given that RL brainstorming sessions have a finite time and are constrained by the ability of only one person able to speak at a time, RL brainstorming suffers from the fact that some participants will not be able to fully contribute. Moreover, in the time when participants wait for their turn to participate, participants may forget ideas or lose focus. RL brainstorming also suffers from participants having to listen to someone else, which may distract from their own contributions or derail possible lines of thought. RL brainstorming can be sidetracked by overbearing participants or by a group fixation on a limited number of topics. EBS removes these limitations. By each participant working individually on a computer but participating collectively, not only is there no down time, but many distractions are removed and participates can pursue ideas that inspire them and disregard those that do not.
Connolly found not only is EBS more effective, but gains are more pronounced with more participants. Compared to RL, adding participants would increase production blocks, whereas EBS does scale up. With more participants not only does this increase overall output, there is a greater statistical likelihood of recruiting more effective people. RL sessions are, by necessity, often smaller; this limits participation to a smaller range of types of people. By enabling larger numbers more diverse types of participants from a larger cross-section of an organization can participate and have the opportunity to add their unique perspective and ideas . The RL production blocks of space and time constraints also do not apply to EBS, as sessions can be available remotely or, through asynchronous methods, at user-determined times.
Despite the popularity of RL brainstorming, researchers had largely discounted its productivity. Now with the advent of EBS, the key limitation of brainstorming, production blocking, can be significantly lessened thus allowing for the optimal and intended free-flow of ideas.
More info:
Connelly, T. (1997). Electronic brainstorming: Science meets technology in the group meeting room. In S. Kiesler (Ed.), Culture of the Internet.
Vlahakis, G. E-brainstorming? Retrieved April 1, 2008, from http://www.homepages.indiana.edu/082004/text/technology.shtml
Glen Farrelly
Webslinger
Rehabilitating a killer app: How Gmail & Outlook help address email’s shortcomings
While email is often called the killer application of the Internet, it is not without flaws, leading a researcher to declare: “E-mail is a serial-killer application! It is seriously overloaded and has been co-opted to manage a variety of tasks that it was not originally meant to support” (Ducheneaut & Bellotti, 2001, p.37). In a seminal study by Whittaker and Sidner, they found email was “overloaded” by three user functions it was not designed for: task management, personal archiving, and conversations (Kiesler, 1997, p.278). This critique of email is applicable today. However, a critical examination of functionality currently available in Microsoft Outlook and Google’s Gmail demonstrates that these applications offer innovative ways to address these critiques.
Task management refers to the ability of reminding a user of outstanding tasks, recalling related details, and tracking progress and deadlines (Kiesler, 1997, p.278). Whittaker and Sidner found that a crowded inbox makes task management difficult, yet users were reluctant to file or delete messages to alleviate this issue. They proposed that email software should allow the flagging of actionable messages (Kiesler, 1997, p.292) and permit users to set reminders. In a comparison between Outlook and Gmail, Outlook surpasses Gmail in this regard. Gmail allows users to flag messages by clicking on a star icon or colour-code incoming messages based on user-specified filters, not only does this help visually prioritize messages, thus allowing users to keep messages in their inbox, but draw attention to those needing follow-up. Outlook takes this functionality further - allowing messages to not only be flagged, but also permitting users to specify a due date and seamlessly integrates with a calendar and specific task management application.
Email’s second problematic area is personal archiving, which Whittaker and Sidner state is “cognitively difficult” (Kiesler, 1997, p.285). While some users studied kept all messages in their inbox or only periodically filed, this resulted in inboxes so full that retrieval became difficult. They recommended full-text search and automatic message threading. While both Gmail and Outlook offer full-text search, only Gmail makes archiving less cognitively challenging. Gmail, by giving a large amount of free storage space and by offering prominent one-touch “Archive” functionality, allows users to park messages that can be retrieved easily by clicking “All Messages”. Additionally, Gmail offers users the choice to “label” and thus group emails by one or more terms. This improves archiving by allowing users to store a message in multiple places. However, if too many labels are applied, message retrieval could be complicated.
The final issue regarding user functionality itemized by Whittaker and Sidner is conversations. Conversations may involve many overlapping multi-person, multi-topic messages that can be difficult to follow. Whittaker and Sidner cite the lack of convention in including message context; this has been addressed by Outlook and Gmail by defaulting to include a message’s history when replying or forwarding. Again, Gmail goes further by offering the ability to “file an entire thread, but leave a representative message from that thread in the inbox” (Kiesler, 1997, p.292). Gmail does this by automatically grouping messages on the same thread into one message in the inbox. Thus not only is inbox clutter reduced, but conversations can be more easily followed.
Despite this retrofitting of email applications to accommodate actual usage, I believe ingrained user behaviour will be hard to change. Users will still likely struggle with overloaded email. Users can look to Gmail and Outlook for assistance – two email programs that finally address the problems identified by Whittaker and Sidner in 1996. While Gmail is free and generally outperforms Outlook in the above functions, Outlook might be more useful to business users for its close integration with calendar and task management applications.
References
Ducheneaut, N., & and Bellotti, V. (2001). E-mail as habitat: An exploration of embedded personal information management. Interactions, 8(5), 30-38. New York, N.Y.: ACM.
Whittaker, S., & Sidner, C. (1997b). Email overload: Exploring personal information management of email. In S. Kiesler (Ed.), Culture of the Internet (pp. 277-295). Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.
Glen Farrelly
Webslinger
User Tagging Effective Aid for Online Searching
Due to an ever-growing abundance of online information, there is increasing difficulty in finding useful information. Currently, most web data is coded to instruct browsers to display data, without regard for meaning. By adding metadata to denote what data means, search engines can offer more useful results. While there are limitations with metadata approaches, user tagging appears to offer the greatest potential for improving online searching.
Metadata can be split into two main types: 1) tagging – the act of appending keywords to web resources (e.g. del.icio.us, Flickr, StumbleUpon), and 2) semantic web data – coding conventions to describe the data (e.g. RDF and microformats). Metadata can be added by, or in conjunction with, four groups: 1) creators, 2) programmers, 3) information specialists, 4) users. Metadata is useful for retrieving resources already found, (e.g. del.icio.us’ use of tagging), or for filtering of content to read pertinent areas. Yet, it is the use of metadata, specifically tagging by users, to aid searching that offers the most potential.
The leading hurdle for semantic web data is its highly technical nature, which limits use primarily to advanced web developers. Two XML/XHMTL solutions, RDF or microformats, are too advanced for many web developers, let alone lay web users. As a veteran web developer, I found the syntax of both to be intimidating. Until web-authoring software simplifies adding semantic data, it will remain a good idea left largely unimplemented.
There are essentially two limitations with the use of metadata by information specialists. For one, there is far too much web content to address. Yahoo, for example, abandoned a manual process as too time-consuming and costly. Secondly, while information specialists are good at classifying resources based on official schema or taxonomies, which work well in smaller environments such as an intranet, their work may not necessarily address the needs and lexicon of users in a wider community.
Tagging by content creators also faces the limitation that the creators do not fully know users’ needs and lexicon, even though they know the content well. In addition, tagging by content creators offers the opportunity for abuse – both intentional and unintentional. Unintentional abuse can derive from ignorance of standards, lack of accurate self-appraisal, or cultural or language differences. Abuse can also be intentional, as typified by spammers and phishers who use false metadata to lure people to their sites.
Tagging by content users offers the most potential for web searchers. Group tagging draws on the theory of the wisdom of crowds, wherein collective action by a diverse group results in better information than even specialists could provide. When a resource is tagged by a sufficient array of users, it overcomes minor discrepancies and represents what the resource actually means to most users. Users know the terms they associate with a resource and can use their own words to identify it; they are not apt to misidentify for selfish gain. Also, most tagging services are free, and they are quick and easy to use, compared to semantic web data.
Tagging services are not yet standard offerings in browsers and require time to learn, which may be why these services lack widespread adoption. However, as more and more users tag web resources, this situation will improve and will offer even more aid to web searchers.
Glen Farrelly
Webslinger
Del.icio.us questions I can sink my teeth into
My current course is covering tagging this week. As such, I posted this blog's prior del.icio.us primer to my class forum. There were two responses that offer interesting concerns about usefulness and safety of del.icio.us.
Value of del.icio.us
From S.C.:
"I used to be a information junkie and file folder fanatic, the literal sort, collecting information in case I ever needed it. But then I realized that I was a collector and not a user, so I threw away my files and downsized my cabinet ... all except my favorite ten. So this phenomenon really intrigues me and would love to know how the info that is tagged gets used, as opposed to collected."
My response:
First, I agree that a lot of people tag things on del.icio.us that they will in all likelihood never retrieve again. But that doesn't mean it doesn't have value.
For one, conventional tree-system bookmarking via your browser gets limited very fast, particularly if you have a lot of bookmarks, bookmarks hard to classify, or, like me, you think more in terms of keywords rather than rigid classification structures. Even if you only return to very few of your bookmarks, knowing you can find them again fairly easy is worth the effort. Of course, if you're fairly good at googling you can retrieve things that way - but sometimes I forget everything about a bookmark, except a vague sense of the topic, so keyword tagging is great for that. Also, del.icio.us gives you a search engine for your bookmarks, which no browser has.
Second, when you bookmark via del.icio.us you automatically share your bookmarks with the rest of the wired world. You can opt out of each individual tag by clicking the "do not share" option, but that defeats a lot of the value of it, which is social bookmarking. You contribute to the classification of scattered, overly-abundant online information when you tag on del.icio.us. So others can benefit from your findings and one day computers will be able to read these tags effectively and then we'll have a search engine that will probably beat Google for its accuracy.
You can do other things with your tags too. My favourite is sharing a specific tag automatically on my blog. So I get a Reuters-type feed of Internet news on my blog automatically by reading the news (as I normally do) and tagging them. A friend set up a del.icio.us account for all research by their communication team, so that they can all share their findings.
So there's lots of uses for del.icio.us even if you don't retrieve your bookmarks very often.
Privacy concerns
From S.T.:
"When I show (and show off!) my del.icio.us site to my co-workers, the first question that comes back at me is 'what about security and privacy?"
My response:
Security concerns would be along the lines of can someone hack into your account and if you have a good, long alphanumeric password then I wouldn't worry any more than I would when registering with any online service.
Privacy is a more complicated concern. When you bookmark on del.icio.us or many other similar sites , you are by default (which can be changed), making all your bookmarks available to the public. Furthermore, search engines index your bookmarks page and this will bring more exposure to your bookmarking.
So if you do not want all your bookmarking public,ere are some tips:
- When bookmarking/tagging in del.icio.us, you can always click the "do not share" button for any or all your bookmarks and it is private. You lose some of the benefits of social bookmarking, but then you do get better privacy and can still use the service for your own bookmark organizing.
- If you still want to participate in social bookmarking but are a bit concerned, don't chose a username that can be identified with you.
- Choose to make any bookmarks that can be identified with you or your life (eg. your hometown website, your portfolio, the company you work for, etc) as "do not share".
- Under account settings "edit profile", indicate that you don't want your name or a url used.
- If you don't want to others to see those in your network - you can choose to have that not display. This is also done in account settings under "network privacy".
I don't want to scare any one off as I have never had any problems with del.icio.us and I am as open as possible on it. But I wanted people to know about the privacy options as they are important considerations.
To close, I'll include a quotation from a classmate on my del.icio.us knowledge that was cyber-candy to me:
'Your knowledge of del.icio.us is astounding! I am learning so much, thanks! You could be a tagging consultant, make oodles, retire at 40 and live in the Caymans!'
I intend to start a custom tag, "Tagging_to_Caymans" and put all the ways I can make money from this trivia.
Glen Farrelly
Webslinger
Academic Research Online Is a Walled Garden
I've been consumed for the past three weeks researching and writing papers for my Master’s program. I managed to write one paper an Internet topic (a semiotic analysis of folksonomies) and added as many Net references in the others as I could.
In the process of researching online on online topics, I noted two critiques of academia:
1) vehicles for searching online resources are inadequate
2) academic research remains too cloistered
The last few weeks were the first time ever for me that I was exposed to the wealth of electronic academic research. I thought there was lots of information on the Web before, but I was stunned by the quantity and quality of academic information available to students (the databases require log-in and an individual subscription is prohibitively expensive).
Royal Roads University has one of the largest electronic libraries in Canada, which is fitting as it is primarily an online university. Electronic information there takes the forms of:
- e-books
- online journal databases
- electronic theses
I haven’t made the most of e-books, due to my dislike of reading for a long time onscreen and that e-books can’t accompany me to many of my regular reading places. The theses seem promising, although due to Royal Roads being a comparatively young university they don't have a lot of theses available.
Online academic resources a treasure, albeit hidden & sans map
I did extensively use online academic journals and this is where I was overjoyed and overwhelmed. I had no idea how many journals there were, some of which, believe it or not, aren’t completely esoteric.
There are essentially two problems that I discovered with online searching of these journal databases. Problem one is that there is a bewildering array of journal databases. Second, the search engines for pretty much all these services are, well, crappy. Granted, graduate students do require more advanced search skills than a normal online surfer would need, but still the search tools are unnecessarily complicated, buggy at times, and just plain miss things. I found a lot of instances where I was searching the entire body of articles and certain results would not appear, but later, having found these articles via other means, I would find the terms appearing prominently.
The journal database search engines were so generally poor that I had to use other means, serendipity being the most painful method for time-pressed procrastinators such as myself.
Google Scholar helps save my day
Fortunately, someone turned me onto Google Scholar. I found it retrieved items from academic databases better than the databases own search, plus Google Scholar pulls up other applicable information as well. Truly a very handy tool - thank you Google!
Ivory towers cloister useful research
My final complaint is that while I was also surprised by the quantity and quality of academic research on Internet topics, I was miffed that I never saw any of it before. I’ve worked in the Internet for years, have read books and articles, and been to conferences and was never exposed to this research before.
Granted, it is possible that this research could have come to me via other authors and speakers who digested and regurgitated it. Also, it's not like the research is fit for wider application as can be exceedingly and, I might add, unnecessarily obtuse and elitist (another complaint, sorry). But some research is fine for everyone working in the field as is, and in other cases the findings could be repurposed for wider distribution.
Frankly, I think that too much of academia is infatuated with itself and doesn’t make enough effort to share their research to the outside world. With this attitude one ends up with research for research’s sake. And those, like me, who can benefit from the information don’t get it.
Glen Farrelly
Webslinger
Cyberchondriac or healthy surfing?
The CBC, my favourite online news source, ran a story three days ago on how people obsessively look up their medical ailments on the Web. The article, while pointing out some legitimate concerns, tended to depict these people as crackpots and hypochondriacs. Indeed, the article was even called Cyberchondriacs.
The article, I believe, missed some critical points:
- People are forced to turn to the Internet as our current medical system is so inadequate. For one, doctors spend scant minutes with a patient. Even our current doctor, who is less hurried than most, does not spend more than 15-20 minutes per visit at the most. There is little time for doctors to even get all the symptoms, let alone spend time educating their patients on the issue, full treatment options, and alternatives. Actually, alternatives are rarely mentioned - it is just pop a pill and call me in a few days if things don't get better. Information on the Web, and there are some great health websites that present reliable information, gives the details doctors do not provide so that patients can make informed decisions about their health. Maybe I have a trust issue, but just getting a pill and going on my merry way doesn't work for me - I need to know the issue in more depth, like should I avoid certain foods, not travel, try this natural remedy as well, etc.
- The article points on those who constantly think they are sick, but there are those who don't seek medical attention either at all or in timely fashion. Getting a sense of the severity of an issue from online sources can help encourage someone to seek medical attention.
- Second opinions - why our society think doctors are gods is beyond me. They are human and apt to make mistakes, not have time to fully look into something, or not know about all the details or latest research of certain issues. While one is often encouraged to "get a second opinion," it's not so easy to get another doctor and not practical for more minor issues. The Web can help be that second opinion. My wife has many times successfully diagnosed health ailments online that were later confirmed by the doctor. This made me trust the doctor all the more.
I'm not alone in looking up health info online, as CBC points out: "Well over half of online Canadians — 58 per cent — search the Internet for health information from home, up from 46 per cent five years ago, according to Statistics Canada."
I do see the problems cited by the CBC. Among the problems of researching health issues online are people relying on inaccurate websites and also those who decide to treat themselves and don't go to a doctor.
Another problem, which I experienced two months ago, is that it's easy on the Web to find worst case scenarios and horror stories. When my daughter had to be put under anesthesia for dental work, we found stories of children dying as a result of similar work. It did make me REALLY worried. But we were able to contextualize the rarity of these situations and to ask the dentist about precautions. The dentist, unlike some others, had taken extra steps (eg. hiring two extra specialists) that reassured us that he was better option than other dentists who did the procedure alone. I'd rather have known the risks and accounted for them than to not have known at all.
Without the Web, we would have been in the dark on this issue and many other vital health concerns.
Glen Farrelly
Webslinger
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