John Robb

I just finished some documentation on Radio UserLand for K-Loggers.  I am going to include how to set up a Radio Community, more concepts about K-Logging best practices, and other tips soon.  Let me know what you think.

How to spend your first half-hour. Not so much for kloggers but for anyone. I'm working on a version of my own, something to use when I sit down and walk a blogging virgin through their first experience. 

Important: Deliver and celebrate moments of joy early and often.   

Blunt Force Trauma on... 

Teaching the Next Generation of KM Leaders
This article in Searcher Magazine discusses the changes taking place in Library and Information Science education and a study of current curricula at accredited institutions. It's written by a professor of Information Sciences at the University of Tennessee.

By 2017, some 68 percent of today's librarians will have retired, according to recent estimates in the news (Lynch). President and Mrs. Bush have launched an initiative through the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to recruit "a generation of librarians." Since schools of library and information science traditionally attract second or third career professionals, the aging of the information professions is a cause for concern. In addition, many new information-related jobs outside libraries now attract LIS graduates and compete with libraries as employers.

This poses several key challenges for the 56 ALA-accredited schools in North America. (For a list, check out the ALISE site at http://www.alise.org.) These schools must keep curricula vital for new professionals in a variety of settings, attract enough young recruits to fill the vacancies caused by retirements and to fill new types of jobs, and provide choices and flexibility in scheduling that appeal to full- and part-time students, both those pursuing a first career and those changing careers. It is a great time to enter the information professions, but one that poses challenges for LIS schools and employers, as a new generation of information professionals comes on the scene and prepares to tackle jobs in a variety of environments. [...]

I've been looking for a grad student in LIS to help me think through some business information flow issues, so this caught my eye. I know moast small businesses don't have the resources to hire an information professional but, from my experience, small businesses need information help more than anyone. And the article discusses how LIS programs are more frequently showing students all the possible career paths they can take.

The careers that attract students to LIS programs aren't always what they end up pursuing. In fact, many of them come into the program without realizing all the career possibilities. One current student told me he started with an interest in special libraries, but, "as I have progressed, I realized that the skills that librarians have of analyzing information sources, or organizing information, and in researching are vital not only in libraries but in government and private business." His new goals are "to use the skills I have acquired to begin a career in knowledge management or competitive intelligence," with the ultimate goal of being in a position that will "have an effect on strategic planning."

Now that's the kind of person I'm looking for.

Alison Fish of Blogfish wished for a:

Glossary of UserLand slang, jargon, terms not found in a dictionary. Could be expanded to a general glossary viewable alphabetically or by category (Userland jargon, PDA jargon. etc.)

XML format could include

• term (word being described)
• definition
• category (userland, pda)
• alternate spellings [optional]
• origin (who coined the term) [optional]
• etc.

update: add this term (and its definition, if found) grok usage: "I wrote a technical background piece for people who grok XML"

FYI, Alison...

grok

/grok/, var. /grohk/ vt. [from the novel "Stranger in a Strange Land", by Robert A. Heinlein, where it is a Martian word meaning literally 'to drink' and metaphorically 'to be one with'] The emphatic form is 'grok in fullness'. 1. To understand, usually in a global sense. Connotes intimate and exhaustive knowledge. Contrast zen, which is similar supernal understanding experienced as a single brief flash. See also glark. 2. Used of programs, may connote merely sufficient understanding. "Almost all C compilers grok the 'void' type these days."

Source: Jargon File 4.2.0

[aka Blue Sky Radio]

Graham Leuschke wonders how to make his blogging count in his coming job search. I know Leuscke from his blogging but never knew he was a mathematician (although that makes perfect sense). He has a curriculum vitae (CV), a commutative algebra site, and his weblog. 

How do I, or more importantly, a hiring/promotion committee, determine its scholarly value? And how do I best explain that value to people who may not previously have considered its existence?

He cites Steven D. Krause's Where Do I List This on My CV? Considering the Values of Self-Published Web Sites:  

"Given the high value that most institutions put on scholarship that appears in refereed journals or in books produced by well-respected presses, how are innovative, intellectually valuable, well-researched, self-published Web sites to be counted in the processes of promotion, merit, tenure, review, and recognition?"

Weblogs are just coming on the radar. Ask around, you'll hear them treated as "alternate media" projects, like demo reels, home brew projects, performance art.

One factor in candidate evaluation: comparability of materials. I can compare Mary's CV with Bob's CV, compare essays, dissertations, theses, interviews, transcripts, references. How do you compare weblogs? Or include one person's weblog when the other person doesn't have one?

The nature of blogging makes comparison and assessment harder. It isn't organized. At least not in a way that helps. How does your blog help someone quickly answer:

• What does this person know? How much? How well?
• How has this person been growing professionally?
• What can this person do? Do for me?
• Who does this person connect with in the profession?
• How well does this person communicate in writiing? Good enough to get published in peer review journals? In respected industry rags?  

In usability terms, this is a different persona than the one usually consuming your blog. This persona's purpose is crisp (answer the above questions), noise sensitive (don't waste my time, answer the question).

Navigation and abstraction are vital. Do you expect the evaluator to wade through your 3000 posts to find the 10 most relevant? If you don't already, please:

• categorize your posts
• use titles
• create a master index of posts
• start using a spell checker if you need it
• write short abstracts linking to your many posts on key topics.  

People enter your home page, then read your last dozen posts or so; ten minutes' worth. Good luck if you've been posting drivel, personal, or controversial stuff (like that never happens!)

Back to Graham's CV.

It  is one web page, organized, easy to scan, read and print, lots of white space.

You'd know better than I: would potential employers or colleagues want to read your "Finite Cohen-Macaulay Type" dissertation or your undergraduate thesis on "Profinite Groups and Galois Cohomology"? No links there. Not listed with your research papers. 

Math always poses a problem with the web. MathML isn't ubiquitous so most professional mathematics publications wind up in Acrobat, PostScript, and dvi. Makes it harder to read on the web and difficult for Google and other search engines to find.

I like Graham's description of his research, list of people who do things like I do and the  Mathematics Genealogy Project. But they are not near his CV.

Do you have an objective for your next gig? Even if not on the CV itself, it is handy to have it written up in your cluster of career pages.

Nothing on the leuschke home page, log home page or About G that (a) clearly indicates your availability and (b) points where to find out more about you.

Let Graham know if you have more suggestions, especially if you work in academia.

 [aka Bloggers for Hire]

1. Catalyst. Alpha blogger. Someone who klogs well, leads by example, provokes and inspires others to join a klogging community. If you've used Blogtree, naming your inspirations, you know what I mean.
   
2. Coach. The person who helps newbies, builds internal FAQs, nurtures laggards, acknowledges great posts. Soft skills, communication and social skills, are not evenly distributed. The coach helps everyone join and get better. Chief metablogger.
   
3. Armorer. Works with IT to develop configs, scripts, integration with enterprise apps and messaging services. Power macros. Engaging templates. Technologist and architect.
   
4. Practice leader. Informal leaders of subcultures in larger organizations. The one in legal who drives the whole department to start klogging. The rep in the Cincinatti sales office who gets her colleagues to start customer-specific blogs. Watch for lists of like-minded colleagues. They may also connect to like-minded communities at suppliers, customers, and the wild blogosphere.

Mix and match.

Recruit for excellence in one or more.

Hire ringers if your community is large enough.

One other point: I beleive (without hard numbers) that blogging and klogging can improve your personal marketability. I'm exploring this at Bloggers for Hire. Suggestions welcome.

[aka klogs]

Mountain Light is the official Galen and Barbara Rowell memorial page.

A chip off the old BlogTree.com via Daniel Berlinger: 

Ars longa,vita brevis

Moose Peterson, one of the worlds foremost wildlife photographers reports this sad news:

"Galen and Barbara Rowel were killed in an airplane crash Sunday morning in Bishop, Ca. One eye witness said the plane just fell out of the sky. An investigation is under way at this time. Take a moment from your day and think of them and next time you're out shooting, take a frame for them."

Almost anyone who has read "Outdoor Photographer" will have read one of his columns. Galen's work can be seen here, and he has written many remarkable books -- Galen Rowell's Vision: The Art of Adventure Photography and Inner Game are two of my favorites. The lessons in those books apply beyond the boundaries of photography. No matter what you do, there are great things to be learned in these books. I'm far less familiar with his wife's work. But in reading the books it became clear that they were partners in every sense of the word. They'll be missed.

Steven Bourelle of SierraVisions DailyCam:

I just went out for drive to collect my thoughts on this very sad day here in Eastern Sierra; it is hard to know where to start writing this. Galen Rowell was such a huge influence on my photography. When I started getting serious about nature photography about 13 years ago it was his book Mountain Light that really helped me to understand what nature photography was all about. His philosophies on photography were, and still are, very instrumental in my development as a photographer. And his amazing images of the Sierra Nevada and the Eastern Sierra still provide me with so much inspiration in my photography. When I am in one of my funks, and can’t seem to get a good photo of anything, Galen’s pictures always seem to get me out of that funk and on my way again.

I think one of the must important lessons I learned from reading Galen’s books is to take my time with my pictures. It is very easy to rush yourself when you are shooting with a 35mm camera. Galen said to act like that small camera is a large format camera and make the shot count. Whenever I catch myself rushing I remember this, and instead of running up to the shot and shooting quickly and running to the next shot, I stop and take out my large format 35mm camera and lug it to the shot, and then set up my huge tripod and heave the camera up on it and take my time with the composition and make sure I get it right the first time.

You know, not only did we loose a wonderful photographer, but Galen was very instrumental in the mountaineering world too. He has many first ascents in Yosemite, the Sierra and the world. And his pictures from these climbs are very famous themselves.

I also feel that Galen was one of the first people to capture the beauty of the Eastern Sierra and give it to the world. He had a very deep love of the Owens Valley and many of his most famous images were taken in places that I visit regularly. I will never forget the day I found the spot where he took his famous picture that appears on the cover of Mountain Light. It is up in the Buttermilks, off of the beaten path in an area that isn’t that popular. I was just thrilled. I had looked for that rock for years and just happened on it one day.

Man, this a hard day. Unfortunately I never met Galen or Barbara Rowell. The few times I went into the gallery here in Bishop they weren’t in. I should have just went in more often I guess. I always wanted to let him know how much he influenced my photography and thank him for it. Now it is too late. Oh well, I do tend to procrastinate too much.

Well Galen I guess I will just have to say it here. Thank you for all that you have done for my photography. Thank you for all that you have done for the Eastern Sierra and the Owens Valley. It was great to see you walking down Main St. from time to time and to know that you lived here in Bishop. I wish I could have known you, but through friends of mine that did know you, I feel I did know you a little.

God bless and rest in peace.

My heart and prayers go out to all the families and friends of those that lost their life in the tragic crash yesterday. And also to the family and friends of Mark McNally who was killed in a skateboarding accident yesterday in Mammoth. I know many people that were good friends with Mark.

Steven Voss's What does not change:

I've read nearly every word he's written on photography. His adventures have inspired me to have adventures of my own, and to capture them with a camera. His luminous photographs of distant mountains blazing with alpen glow have made me want to visit the far ends of the earth in pursuit of this light.

The photography world is smaller today, because of the loss of one of its pioneers, Galen Rowell.

[aka obituaries a la blog]