Phil Wolff: books

German blog books.

Mon, 05 Jan 2004 22:23:41 GMT

generation neXt reports that three new blogging books (auf deutsche) are coming out.

BLOGS! Die Weblogs – Literatur und Journalismus im Internet by a Who's Who of the blogosphere (Weblogwelt, actually).
Das Blog-Buch by Dirk Olbertz
Generation Blogger by Markus Christian Koch and Astrid Haarland

Still room for a manager's guide to blogging. Must get back to that...

I wonder if there's a readership for an annual best blog posts of 2003 book. I know they do it for poetry and short stories.

Forget the Reagan letters, catch Shakespeare's rebellion.

Mon, 22 Sep 2003 10:28:21 GMT

I'm reading a political thriller. Except William Shakespeare is the hero. And Spain occupies England. With the Inquisition and Irish mercenaries for enforcers. Ruled Britannia by Harry Turtledove. Haven't put it down all weekend.

Who Killed Daniel Pearl?

Tue, 09 Sep 2003 18:46:24 GMT

Pakistani madrasas are selling the video of Daniel Pearl's execution. I gotta get Bernard-Henri Levy's Who Killed Daniel Pearl? .

Vagablog escapes Paris.

Mon, 01 Sep 2003 03:44:08 GMT

My nominee for best named blog. By Rolf Potts, the author of Vagabonding. Not the high tech lifestyle.

Earlier this month, while traveling through France, I managed to get myself arrested at a casino in Normandy.

This is certainly not the best way to begin a day-trip to the French coast, but -- as I'd told my travel-writing students the previous week -- it is a good way to begin a travel story. Not getting arrested, necessarily, but setting the hook. Implying drama. Creating interest. Giving the reader something to come back to. And, most importantly, promising action.

Good advice for bloggers? I was reminded this week that the proper verb for creating a post is ... write.

Lunch with Mernit

Thu, 21 Aug 2003 07:42:23 GMT

I had lunch with Susan Mernit today. She found Kaimuki Grill in San Mateo, 104 S. El Camino, via Chowhound. Well prepared, unusual menu items, ambience comfortable, great service.

Some things I now know about Susan:

She's lived in New Jersey and New York. (I lived in New York)

She knows David Weinberger's brother. (I know David)

She's a foodie. (I'm a foodie newbie)

She's wise enough to value colleagues unlike herself.

She asks good questions well. And listens.

We share an interest in educational blogging. Question of the day: How do we design, package and sell blogging to teachers (not the early adopters)?

She's an alum of Scholastic Magazine, Netscape, and AOL. Keen interest in product strategy, marketing management.

And she's a born blogger. Only four months into it and she's on her second blog, written up by the New York Times, and comped to BloggerCon.

I brought some of my favorite examples of business cookbooks for show and tell (I'm such an entertainer).

CIO Insight Magazine's Whiteboards. Comprehensive project plans.
Optimize Magazine uses a real world case in each issue. The author drafts a 90-Day Plan. Lots of text charts and graphs suitable for PowerPoint.
Web Redesign: Workflow That Works, a step by step project process expanded to book lenght
The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook: Strategies and Tools for Building a Learning Organization
The Company Culture Cookbook: How to Change the Way We Do Things Around Here

btw, some of the first and best foodie bloggers: Barb Wong and Roland Tanglao's VanEats.

I loved Susan's "if only subway cars could blog" idea. "akasig"

My picks from today's Top 50 OnFocus.com books

Mon, 18 Aug 2003 07:22:33 GMT

Lies, by Al Franken

Anger is a great motivator. I'm waiting until after the California election to read this. btw, I trademarked the word "Lies".

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

I'm a few hundred pages into Phoenix but stopped to read Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West.

Designing with Web Standards, by Jeffrey Zeldman

I've been pulling this out a few times a week.

Treason, by Ann Coulter

Give me a break.

Smart Mobs

An inkling of a big thing. OK book. Excellent weblog.

What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and...

Take that, Coulter.

The Great Big Book of Tomorrow

Time to get this. Now. Not yesterday. Not tomorrow.

Fast Food Nation

I'm too scared to read it.

Why Girls Are Weird

Does it help dealing with it?

Stiff

Have you ever prepared a body for burial? I have. Nothing instills carpe diem faster or deeper.

Cryptonomicon

I had chills reading this. Scenes from my life. Right down to the sysadmins in trenchcoats with guns.

Hillary Clinton Memoir

I'll wait for the movie.

No Logo

Strident. Makes the case.

Pattern Recognition

If you liked "No Logo"...

Purple Cow

Selling the book was more creative than the book itself. But worth it just to grok deeply that your best marketing bang comes from a product, and not its promotion.

Bobos in Paradise

I have it. I can't remember why.

The Weblog Handbook

Buy in volume. Give as stocking stuffers. Require as a classroom text.

Sleeping With the Devil

Was this a first lady's biography? If so, which one?

Google Hacks

Yay, Rael!

The Chicago Manual of Style

It's red! What happened to the classic orange?

The Gunslinger

I'm waiting for the TV movie.

The Da Vinci Code

I'm waiting for the movie.

Traci Lords

I'm waiting for the movie. No, wait...

Neuromancer

To understand the times, the effect of technology, read this yarn.

Emergence

Huge idea. Pretty good explanation. Needs a fieldbook.

War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning

I'd rather get my meaning in a can, please.

The Best Democracy Money Can Buy

Is this a how to guide?

Atlas Shrugged

A reality distortion field. Read with care.

How to Be Good

Anything to do with Good to Great?

American Gods

I liked it, but not worth that much fuss. Try Icelandic sagas.

Snow Crash

If only for the pizza delivery!

Cascading Style Sheets

hmmm. Maybe there's more I could do.

Northern Lights

Find the hidden allegory.

Nickel and Dimed

Anguish. Struggle. Not getting by on minimum wage.

Linked

I studied the math. This is the context. And the game play.

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

Only five?

Good to Great

Boils down to "You'd better pick lucky parents."

Seabiscuit

Saw the movie.

Tivo Hacks

Just bought it.

I pre-ordered Emotional Design. Is it here yet? Is it? Is it here yet?

Thu, 14 Aug 2003 23:46:57 GMT

I can't wait for Don Norman's new book to arrive. Emotional Design: Why We Love (Or Hate) Everyday Things. It's a skinny paperback. Norman posted drafts of the prologue (500k pdf), chapter 1: Attractive things work better (245k pdf), and Epilogue: We Are All Designers (200k pdf). Wouldn't it be cool to understand why people love me but hate my blog? Or vice versa? Perhaps a companion piece to Fogg's Persuasive Technology: Using Computers to Change What We Think and Do?

Chinese blogging book?

Fri, 25 Jul 2003 00:31:23 GMT

Can you apply Theory Of Constraints to Human Capital?

Tue, 17 Jun 2003 07:08:33 GMT

Frank Patrick (one of the deepest thinkers on project management in our time) catches the new chapter on Critical Chain Scheduling in Ed Yourdan's new second edition of Death March. The book is mandatory reading for every project worker.

I like one of Yourdan's anecdotes:

My colleague Tom DeMarco likes to tell the story of consulting clients he visits, who ask him, "If we could do just one thing to improve our project-management situation, what would it be?" Tom's answer is often simple: "Stop assigning people to work on five or six unrelated projects simultaneously; give everyone one project to work on, and leave them alone until they finish that one project." Invariably, says Tom, the response is, "Well, yeah, that sounds very rational. But you don't understand, that just wouldn't work in our organization -- because in our organization we have constraints A, B, and C, and we have to deal with political problems X, Y, and Z, so give us another one thing that could make all of our project management problems go away." Any suggestion that attacks the dysfunctional behaviors in the organization is almost certain to be rejected with the phrase, "Well, maybe that would work in a perfect world -- but in the 'real world' where we operate, it could never happen because of X, Y, and Z" And the organization eventually finds a "pill" -- a new development tool, a new systems analysis methodology, a new buzzword -- that may bring short-term relief, but rarely attacks the underlying problems.

Changes, deep ones, important and worthwhile, shake us.

The chapter is about more than change. It is about applying Goldratt's Theory Of Constraints (TOC) to project scheduling. It requires a different set of values, behaviors, incentives, measures, and project controls. So this calls for extensive change.

Human Capital Constraints

How can we apply the Theory Of Constraints to workforce planning and recruiting?

Where are the bottlenecks to be overcome?

Can the system design be reconsidered in light of the TOC?

What assumptions and dogma are worth challenging?

What new values, behaviors, incentives, measures, and controls will lead to more of what we want?

How can we get more of the right people on our radar? Spend more time spent in meaningful conversation and less on paperwork? Shorten our cycle times while increasing our quality?

Along the way, can we take some of the strain out of the process?

Now on my reading list:

P.S. When I was a kid I wanted to grow up to be a systems engineer. In high school I wanted to be an operations research analyst, reading Naval Operations Analysis. By nineteen I was working for the Naval Supply Systems Command as a civilian operations research analyst. My favorite book in the whole world was Quick and Dirty OR. Just to explain the utter and complete geekiness of this post.

Speed Up Your Site.

Fri, 13 Jun 2003 16:45:46 GMT

from meryl's notes:

I had forgotten to post a review of Speed Up Your Site because I ended up in the hospital about the same time it was published. It's a must-have for every designer and webmaster's library. There isn't anything out there like it and it's important because our attention spans are short thanks to information overload.

I agree enthusiastically. Imagine if all the blog hosting services doubled the speed at which blog pages load. What might this do to readership? To adoption and abandonment rates? To cost of operation? Support costs? Satisfaction? Word of mouth?

Speed is a reason many corporate career sites suck. The company may be zippy but the jobs@ site makes you look like slothful, sluggish, lazy beasts. Hey, it's your reputation. Buy a dozen of King's book and leave them as brazen hints on your CIO's desk. More people find jobs and complete applications accurately when pages load fast.

Speed rocks.

Sound familiar? Where in the world?

Tue, 25 Feb 2003 01:53:08 GMT

Opening lines from a documentary:

It was a time of great unrest.
Seeds of rebellion and conflict are sprouting everywhere.
Rulers cling to their thrones of power.
While people in the streets shout jihad, blow themselves up with suicide bombs, and demand a regime change.
For years it has been the epicenter of conflict.
For years, factions have fought for control of a vital resource.
For years, the environment has paid a price.
Paid a price while leaders to gain control of the resource and the power that comes with it.

Ripped from today's headlines.

But Susan Sarandon was introducing something else.

This epicenter is Arakis, Dune, home of spice, the most treasured resource in the universe, and the setting for SciFi channel's epic miniseries, Frank Herbert's Children of Dune.

So, if the vital resource is oil...

Literary classics make sense in any era.

Tue, 18 Feb 2003 06:51:35 GMT

Use paper to make your blog faster.

Wed, 05 Feb 2003 03:28:22 GMT

Andy King's new book is out. Web Site Optimization.

Not for normal bloggers.

Site designers. HTML and CSS template designers. Javascript coders. Photoshoppers. Marketing folks. People who pay hosting bills (mediabloggers). People who care about the cost of servers, rackmounts, and webapp scalability.

My traffic went up when I followed these principles. I need to do it again (darn it) so pages load fast on a dial-up and so my site feels fast enough to be interactive. I didn't know you could optimize CSS but it should have been obvious that you can optimize JavaScript.

Dear CIO/CTO, optimize when things are quiet because you won't have time when things pick up.

By the author of one of the first news aggregators.

AKMA reviews Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom.

Mon, 13 Jan 2003 18:33:34 GMT

Again, this is on order. AKMA's review makes me want to read Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. Cory is witty in person, prolific online, and I can't wait to see what he does with a novel.

What's after next?

Mon, 13 Jan 2003 17:49:52 GMT

TechTV's Catalog of Tomorrow, by Andrew Zolli, feeds my inner futurologist. The childhood visions of what is possible. I've ordered my copy and can't wait.

This is why I majored in Finance, to understand the business world's way of modeling possibilities.

This is why I studied forecasting methodologies, like the Delphi method, and dived into stochastic modeling and simulation. To model the world to understand what may come.

This is why I ate up scenario planning, the one discipline that asserts the future is unknowable.

This is why I go to Foresight gatherings and Nanoschmooze events, feeding my craving for the unfolding patterns that I will live through.

Once in while I uncover sites like Edge.org, people like Greg Rothfuss, and ideas like the Singularity that reshuffle my expectations.

And then I sigh.

24: The House Special Subcommittee's Findings at CTU.

Fri, 03 Jan 2003 09:18:08 GMT

Artifacts are fun. The Fox TV series 24 is one of my two broadcast addictions (West Wing is the other). I'm eagerly awaiting 24: The House Special Subcommittee's Findings at CTU. According to Rich Sands' book review in TV Guide, it looks like an imaginative recap of the first season and the 18 months following. Full of reports, memos, autopsies, news clippings worthy of the series bible. Coming in three weeks.

I'm no longer a snow chain virgin.

Wed, 01 Jan 2003 06:05:21 GMT

Road trip.

Travels with Charley, without Charley.

Oakland to Bellingham, 900 miles.

Towns... Weed. Talent. Medford. Eugene. Portland. Yakima. Seattle. Bellingham. Fairhaven. Ferndale.

Air green with pine, feeling the rain on my face, stepping in muds of a thousand textures, clouds ricocheting off frost dappled cliffs.

Kinkos along the way, feeding my virtuality jones.

Twin Towers. Gangs of New York. Drumline. Two Weeks Notice. Star Trek Nemesis. Catch Me if You Can.

An exceptionally fine family experience. Good hugs. Odd cousins. New in-laws. Tasty omlettes. Experiments in gift giving (odd segue from Chanukah to Xmas giving patterns).

And back. I5 all the way.

Rain storms. Floods. Snows.

Crisp and soggy night driving, Motel 6.

No place like home.

So glad to be back.

ISBN Inside(tm) a few thoughts on RFID and books.

Wed, 20 Nov 2002 09:24:12 GMT

The Shifted Librarian is thinking about Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) for libraries. RFIDs work by sticking little chips on things you want to track. When exposed to the right radio signal, a chip broadcasts a little bit of data for a short distance. Really big in logistics where they want to eliminate all sorts of time spent on inventory, statusing, and clipboards.

My paranoid fantasy...

So we stick RFID tags in every book, starting at the publisher; ISBN Inside(TM). I check out of the library and go about my life.

I'm walking down the street and get scanned. The police are scanning the street for people carrying the Anarchist's Cookbook. Cult members accost me because I'm carrying Judaica. Merchants tailor signage. Republicans stone me. Beggars ask for more money.

These are books inside my knapsack, my pocket, my car; hidden from view.

If the books I'm carrying are hooked up to my mobile phone profile, you might get just-in-time book salons and lunch meetings. Lovely Smart Mobs stuff.

But privacy doesn't stop at the library doors.

Just something to consider.

Small people, loosely joined.

Sun, 10 Nov 2002 04:39:46 GMT

From Seb's Open Research:

Wired has a list of books that are similar to Smart Mobs. Related books include:

Digital Biology by Peter J. Bentley, 2001

Beyond Chaos by Mark Ward, 2001

Emergence by Steven Johnson, 2001

The Moment of Complexity by Mark Taylor, 2001

Linked by Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, 2002

Nexus by Mark Buchanan, 2002

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, 2000

Six Degrees by Duncan J. Watts, 2002

The Wired article summarizes the main contribution of each book. The general theme is that the role of the connections between objects in emerging networks can account for everything. Remember back to dynamic systems, differential equations and probability, no, well these are the basis along with biology for a new generation of patterns and ideas. [David Crow]

Do we need a book on emergent behavior in the blogosphere? On "klognets"?

Gonzo Marketing in my own words, after a few drinks.

Thu, 07 Nov 2002 19:00:28 GMT

I asked a fellow Ryzer, a PR veteran, what he thought of the ideas behind Rageboy's Gonzo Marketing book. "Frankly, I thought Cluetrain Manifesto was a waste of trees.... They guy sounded like a cranky hippie, not a real marketing consultant."

Here's my description of Gonzo Marketing.

Lots of garbled rhetoric, a few gems here and there. This was Locke applying Clueful thinking to a practical business problem.

Key observations:

Orgs communicate poorly, impersonally
For every marketing or PR person with an axe to spin, a firm has dozens or thousands of employees, each with their own voice
Authentic voices connect with customers in ways that are real, deeper, and longer lasting [sounds like a breath mint!]
Organization boundaries aren't firm, fixed borders; they are open and porous since workers have outside lives and interests and minds of their own.

So:

Sponsor tools, like bulletin boards, weblogs and listservs, so that everyone in your company can publish to the web. To the public web. Separate places for internal use too.
Don't put restrictions on content beyond "be legal". You want to encourage people to blog about their interests and work, so their passions come through and they find their voices.

One example he gave: Enough folks working at General Motors were interested in gardening to create a vibrant community. They branded themselves but GM had a quiet and clear "sponsored by" logo. They drew others interested in landscaping and gardening. The discussion fora produced suggestions about improving the design of the pickup to better haul the bags of mulch etc. that these homeowners often do. New features, better sales. Side effect: within this community you got to know people through their online personality. So you felt safe asking them questions about your car or truck. And people did; person to person, outside of the usual channels. And GM workers were pleased to represent their firm, answered questions without scripts, and became agents of GM customers trying to find their way through the bland polished exterior corporate wall.

In the world of journalism, the idea is that out of 200,000 employees you should be able to find a handful that have deep knowledge on exactly whatever you want to talk about. Someone is the expert on tire wear in mountainous country for your Denver Post article. PR teams are usually experienced as a barrier (delaying but usually ineffective) to sources. The gonzo marketer (gonzo referring to authentic, personal voice) embraces this: exposes and acknowledges the diverse humanity of his firm.

Macromedia is trying something almost along these lines, a pilot I think. Each of their product ombudsmen (5 I think) started public blogs, writing about updates, new releases, common problems, competitors, most of it triggered externally by readers and and other bloggers. No draft-edit-review cycle; straight to web. (Sean Carton article)

Also the notion that when bloggers from your firm start hanging out online with the public, you create opportunities for new partnerships and alliances with the employers and friends of all those people. Might lead to joint ventures, communities of practice, sales, who knows.

My take:

Not intellectually rigorous or proven by evidence/experience. But the model appeals to me.

So is it hogwash? [I shudder to think where that term comes from.] Or clueful?

Thu, 17 Oct 2002 19:05:14 GMT

steampunk

Mon, 07 Oct 2002 02:24:12 GMT

This is my new blogchalk:
United States, California, Oakland, Adams Point, English, Phil, Male, 41-45. :)

You want to buy this book. You want to buy this book. You want to buy this book.

Thu, 03 Oct 2002 20:08:33 GMT

MindControlMarketing.com: How Everyday People are Using Forbidden Mind Control Psychology and Ruthless Military Tactics to Make Millions Online. Number two on today's Amazon list. Why? Could it be Mark Joyner using forbidden mind control psychology and ruthless military tactics?

Something silly about this. But i feel strangely compelled to buy this book...

The library service I want: an Amazon alternative.

Mon, 30 Sep 2002 18:57:43 GMT

Jenny, who would build something like this?

Version 1

Pass two elements:

ISBN
ZIP code

This might look like:

http://cardcat.com/isbn/1234567890/zip/94610/

Return:

The book description and a list of libraries in or near the location that have this book in their collection. Availability info too. Link to each library's page for that book.

Later releases:

Follow the Amazon SOAP API.
Extend to non-western languages and non-book holdings.
Compare prices at local independent stores and on Amazon.
Pass a report of queries to acquisition desks at local libraries (what's hot that you don't have on the shelf).

In the spirit of ISBN.nu.

Klogging and cyclical employment.

Sun, 29 Sep 2002 15:48:04 GMT

Industry cycles are hard on knowledge.

Your workforce sucks up knowledge as it expands.
It bleeds experience when it contracts.

Do you want knowledge continuity?

Try "klogging".

Easier capture. Blogs are the post-it notes of KM. Easy, fast, simple. So they are used and useful.
Better handoffs. You want to hand-off a process to the new guy? Point to the chronology in your weblog.
Smoother coworking. Joint blogging works too. Examples abound.
Lower stress. Blogs become your backup brain. Don't worry about it; just blog it.

Why now?

If you had layoffs in the last 24 months, you stressed the survivors. You put more work in fewer hands. And more kinds of work in fewer hands. You and your colleagues have been learning, coping, figuring stuff out. Pick their brains!

Now is the time to start capture, before you start hiring again. When you do, you will be ready to have the new folks read up on their predecessors, learn the ropes, come up to speed faster. This may help you hire more slowly and hire better people, since each new hire will carry their load that much sooner.

Hiring booms follow busts. The semiconductor biz comes to mind as an incredibly cyclical industry. Any sort of KM tool will preserve operating knowledge. Today, klogging is your fastest, cheapest, most accessible KM vehicle. Take it for a spin.

p.s. Knowledge continuity may not be all it's cracked up to be. Creative forgetting may be a survival tactic. It gives each generation a blank slate, a clean page. So you reinvent the wheel in a new cycle's reality, without preconceptions. This approach challenges the value of prior knowledge. If all before you were useless idiots, this tactic's for you.