She's Geeky - New York City Starts Dec 5th!

Hi my name is Daniela and i am a Geek....

A 'She Geek' that is and that is why i am helping the She's Geeky organizers with the upcoming She's Geeky - Women's Tech (Un)Conferences:

She’s Geeky events are neutral, face-to-face gathering spaces for women who like to geek out. Attendees include women involved in all aspects of technology, including those who like to use geeky tools, not just coders, programmers and engineers. You don’t even have to be from the computer industry. You just have to be a woman who identifies as a geek.

If you’re any of these things, you’re invited to come to She’s Geeky to:

1. Exchange skills and learn from women in different fields of technology.
2. Discuss issues that affect women in the technology industry.
3. Connect with other women in technology, computing, entrepreneurship, funding, hardware, open source, nonprofit and any other technical geeky field.

If you want to learn more about these events, check out the faqs

HURRY the NYC event starts on Dec 5th. To register for the NYC event visit the registration page. (there is a She's Geeky bailout offer for folks who have just been laid-off or on the verge of being 'downsized'). Here is a PDF invite to send to all your east coast She Geekers!

Here is a great video montage from last years She's Geeky event in MountainView, CA- where all the She Geeks proudly proclaim their geekiness!



If you are interested in how it went down in 2007- Additional coverage from the 2007 She's Geeky event follows:

• Wired- Oct 23th 2007 She's Geeky Unconference: Cupcakes, Kids, and Whip-Smart Girl Geeks
• Beth Canter - She's Geeky: Feeling Energized, Connected, and Learning
• A Stitch in Time... - She's Geeky: Women Are Cool
  
• BookBlog- She's Geeky
• Contagious Curiosity- She's Geeky Monday
• Heather Vescent- She's Geeky Session: On Do-ocracy
• This is where I try out: she's geeky (part 1 )(part 2)-
• liz henry- Liveblogging for She's Geeky -
• Hana's Mom- She's Geeky unconference -
• Mary Trigiani - She's geeky, not angry
• She's Geeky, Future of Technology, Visual notes
• San Jose Mercury News - Insight for Women Geeks (archive subscription required)

The San Francisco Bay Area event is Jan 29th-31st and i will be posting more on that event when registration opens- but if you are going to be on the West coast go ahead and put it in your calendar now!

How the Semantic Web Will Change Information Management: Three Predictions from fumsi

[This post was originally posted on the Synaptica Central team blog]
---------
fumsi is a digital and print publication that provides resources and tools for people who "find, use, manage & share information" . They are part of the FreePint family of resources for professionals in the Information Management field. If you watch or subscribe to the Synaptica Central RSS feeds (right menu) you probably saw the recent pointer to the rich write-ups by James Kelway also published on fumsi on Creating User Centred Taxonomies. Jame's personal Blog User Pathways is also another must read blog if you want to learn about information management from a information architecture, interaction design, and user experience perspective which i believe is extremely important to do in today's user driven information experiences.

This Sunday morning's reading lead me to catching up on my multiple feeds and one that caught my attention was this article in fumsi by Silver Oliver who has a background in Library Science and is currently an Information Architect at the BBC titled How the Semantic Web Will Change Information Management: Three Predictions

Prediction number 1: a move from the pull to the push search paradigm, or more ‘context-aware’ applications

Today's information consumption, still starts mostly with information seeking and retrieval- processes that in today's fast moving, overloaded information companies and cost saving conscience enterprises are simply not sustainable in order to be competitive. If you happened to be a defrag this year and listened to my presentation on Pulling the Threads on User Data you heard me speaking about the need for context aware applications and standards to make data portable- ultimately leading to one of Silver's first predications that "The Semantic Web could assist in this area, by publishing data in a way that smart applications can take advantage of and so improve smart context aware recommendations. The right thing, at the right place and at the right time".

Prediction number 2: the battle of the identifiers or the age of pointing at things

Recently here on Synaptica Central, Christine Connors- Director of Semantic Technologies at Dow Jones, published a post that touched on this subject titled "Taxonomies are a Commodity " in which she ended her post with the following:
"I actually like the fact that taxonomies have become commoditized. Why? Competition drives improvement - in quality, in focus, in security and in usability. These are areas that the semantic web community needs to focus on - in my experience, security and usability need attention NOW. Good fences make good neighbors, and when we've got good fences, we can make more links and learn to trust. Icing on the cake!"

Prediction number 3: the changing role of the information professional

Silver ends this prediction with the following statement: "The skills of information professionals will be essential in populating and managing the Web of data and, to make this happen, we must make the shift from thinking repository-scale to thinking Web-scale."
Back in January 2008, i wrote a post over on my personal blog titled " Sexy Hot Trends for 2008 and Beyond- Librarians" where i highlighted some of the opportunities I saw for people with library science degrees (and no you don't need to be female and wear purple tights!- i just love that Super Librarian image!). So i obviously agree with Silver's prediction- the skill sets and experiences that information professionals can bring to the Semantic Web can be huge and I certainly hope that the Semantic Web community continues to cross-populate even more with the InfoPro communities- here at Dow Jones we are committed to doing our part to make sure that happens. Working with our InfoPro Alliance Group (headed by Anne Caputo the new SLA president ) we are looking to provide some Webinars in the new year to address Semantic Web issues that need to be addressed in Enterprise- by Information Professionals as well as other parts of the organization- so watch this space for more info as we finalize those sessions!


Image|Flickr|Leo Reynolds

Super Librarian Image above is from from the NJ State Library which includes the great Super Librarian Comic Book . You can also buy Super Librarian gear if you are so inclined.

Synaptica Has Got Its Head in the Clouds

This is a re-post from a post i just published on the Dow Jones Synaptica and Taxonomy Services Team Blog- Synaptica Central. It is based on real conversations i have been having with clients that they can have access to our taxonomy and metadata management tool as a service instead of a client hosted application (something i find not may are aware although it specifically states it on the bottom of our features list).

--------------------
The way companies are using software has been shifting- and if your head hasn't been in the clouds over the last few years i am sure you have noticed the shift to SaaS (Software as a Service) offerings and more services moving to the "cloud'. From The Economist's recent 14-Page Special Report on Corporate IT titled 'Let it Rise' focused on cloud computing, Microsoft's recent Azure announcement indicating an even bigger investment to moving services to the 'cloud', the recent discussions around Tim O'Reilly's post Web 2.0 and Cloud Computing , and of course discussions about the economics of cloud computing in today's world it is evident that these models- which are not really 'new'- are here to stay.




It is a little known fact- one that i am trying hard to ensure the marketplace knows, but Synaptica is available as a hosted application with complete access to most of all the features that are available (this includes access to robust Web Services). And just like the recent buzz in the marketplace, having access to Synaptica as a 'service' is something that recently we have been getting more and more requests about.

Who has interest in a Taxonomy and Metadata Management tool as a hosted model? Well it is not for everyone who has a need for a tool like ours, but for those who are interested it really varies. For example:

• Small to Medium, Corporate libraries or Product Manager/Marketing groups who are managing various taxonomies and do not have a lot of IT resources for bringing a tool in-house but can really benefit from a centralized taxonomy management tool that can be accessed via the internet securely by their global colleagues that work on the vocabularies collaboratively


• Companies that have an urgent need for a tool but don't have the resources to bring it in-house quickly at that specific point and chose a hosted model as a first phase to get their taxonomy development and deployment done


• Companies that perhaps have an technology architecture that is based on the LAMP Stack that Synaptica at this point can not fit nicely into


• Start-ups who are building a consumer service that requires a tool to manage their controlled vocabularies (e.g. product categories, navigation taxonomy etc.) but who do not have the IT infrastructure to host an application like Synaptica (e.g. most of their stuff is already in the 'cloud')

So with our hosted model, we can provide at whatever tier a company is at- an affordable and secure way to manage an important part of their business.

And the best part? Well coming in at the low-end, with access to a Synaptica hosted annual license (with full access to all editorial and administrative features including Web Services), you can basically choose to either use one of the premier taxonomy management tools in the marketplace or if you are so inclined- you can instead choose to spruce up your office by buying a Hyacinth Macaw Parrot, or perhaps you can buy one of your employees a nice baby shower gift like this blinged out Baby Pram or even update your office outside picnic patio area with the Kalamazoo Bread Breaker Two Dual-Fuel grill - yes, it really is your choice.

DataPortability Community Manager Volunteer Role

There are a lot of good people working day in an day out within the DataPortability Project and it seems that we are picking up steam again (more on that to follow). I am a big fan of having defined roles and responsibilities so i recently suggested to the Steering Committee that we try to recruit an official Community Manager as well as some additional roles that i will be posting soon.

I personally believe that a Community Manager role is an essential part of any web facing company or organization. It is not that active members are not doing some of the items that the role has been defined with- and that they will continue to do some of them- but that it will be great to have an individual to run with things. I also feel that the role is a great way for someone to pick up experience in a global public web organization with a lot of public exposure.

In the spirit of the DataPortability Project, this position was posted and then will be finalized when the appropriate candidate accepts the role. There are a lot of valuable things that a Community Manager can bring to an organization- and i just tried to outline them all based on other role descriptions i reference in the post. Since this is a volunteer position at this point- we want to make sure we get the right person and then finalize how they are going to contribute with their input in order to make THEM and DataPortability successful.

If you are interested you can read the Community Manager role description here and if you want to read additional thoughts from group members check out our discussion list.

Who Owns Social Media?

This evening i attended the Social Media Club San Francisco meeting on the subject of "Who Owns Social Media?". Andrew Mager over at ZDNet was live blogging from the room and also has posted some photos (darn somehow i missed the skittles!).

It was a lively conversation in the room but unfortunately the panel discussion was a bit too short- but i already hear rumblings on the internets that this conversation is continuing.

The main question that the panel tried to address was 'who is responsible for social media in the enterprise?'. As Chris Heuer posted on his introduction post to the event "Most social media ‘insiders’ would naturally say, everyone is responsible, but this is just not the reality for most businesses. Someone needs to allocate budget, someone needs decision making authority over infrastructure and major programs, someone needs to rewrite job descriptions upon which employees are measured and many more people need to understand why, where and how to engage."

I have been involved in the Social Media conversation for a while and it feels good to have these conversations- the practice of using social medial across the enterprise (internally and externally) is maturing and these issues are coming to a head with many companies and the good folks that belong to the Social Media Club around the world are the right people to be guiding these conversations.

One of the questions that i wanted to ask but did not get a chance to address with the panel but did chat with @MeHeatherD and @jacobm afterwards- is who owns the 'brand' of the Social Media leaders in your company. When they leave- how much of the Social Media they have created do they get to take and own (defining 'own' as Intellectual Property (IP)) and even if they don't take the 'content' what is the brand value that they can essentially never truly transfer and that there is no way you can write into their job description or company rules? Or can you?

Image|Seattle City Light Brochures, Seattle Municipal Archives. |via Flickr

Blog Action Day 2008 Poverty and we Prep by Hanging at the Ritz in Half Moon Bay

I have had this post opened all day (thank goodness for auto-save on blogger!) and it is getting close to the end of the day so i am forcing this out but it is an important one.
Over the last two weeks we have all been so busy and so obsessed about talking about the pain we personally feel, our employers feel, or our clients and even our neighbors in the economic spiral we are experiencing that we might forget about the folks that are already suffering because they have to think every day about how they are getting food on the table. For many this is not something new that happened over the last few weeks, they have been struggling in and out of poverty for years.

Using Twitter hashtag @bad08 i just spent some time looking at some of the other Bloggers who have been participating in the Blog Action Day: Poverty 2008 and they certainly are inspiring.

Last night a bunch of us showed up at the Ritz in Half Moon Bay for a Meetup with a focus to have conversations about how we can share best practices around the need for an 'economic turn around". I thought it was ironic that we were going to meet at the Ritz to drink wine and cheese and discuss the doom of the economic marks so i twittered "Going to: Economic Turnaround Meetup @ the Ritz where we will drink wine and cheese- rule #1 for turnaround- attitude, act like you're rich "

The meetup was organized by Robert Scoble based on his post The customers are gone, now what? Tent sale!. The night was lovely with a full moon and with great conversations as Bill Sanders's blogged about this morning- from real issues that are affecting ourselves and our families (like Robert's brother's bar for example) to the spectacular stories of Paul Allen's Octopus yatch and Space X odysseys.

And as i drove home from the event last night, i thought about the long day at work i had ahead of me today with back to back calls and thought about all the people out there in the world that unfortunately are not tossing and turning like me at night because of the big presentation they are doing, the pitch they need to nail, or they contract they need to get their client to sign- but tossing and turning about how they are going to get food on their table for their family the next day. I hope events and communities like the Blog Action Day continue to make people aware of these issues and help us understand how we can help.

Image| Bill Sanders

Bringing Pictures Alive: A Storyteller at the Library Of Congress

Watching this video this evening was the most enjoyable thing i did all week. (even if it had been just a regular week when i didn't need something to distract me i think this would have won out!)

I just finished watching Robert Scoble's Getting USA's Treasured Images Onto Flickr video on Scobleizer.tv with Helena Zinkham, who runs the prints and photography division of the Library of Congress. In the video, she talks about how they get images from the library onto Flickr and what that’s done for the library itself.

Since the Library of Congress went live with this project i have been a great fan- and i have been waiting for an update on the status of the project so this video was extremely interesting to me.

Helena is a great story teller- watching the video i felt like i have known her all my life.

She starts off by pointing out that the Library of Congress's (LOC) objective is to preserve knowledge so people can use it and take it beyond the LOC walls- lucky for us.

Part of the conversation is about the actual work to do the digital images (although i thought at one point she mentioned that she was going to show Robert the room but that never comes up in the video. see technical FAQs here if you want to learn more about the how). The LOC's aim is to take the original image and provide a neutral representation- the digital image should look like the actual original photo. They get comments from people who want the LOC to do the colors nicer/brighter/darker- but the LOC is not in the optimization business because that is "very judgmental" Helena says- so they keep the artifact as close to the orginal as possible letting others ("outside the wall") optimize for what they need the photo for such as prints, posters etc.

At one point in the video Helena shows the earliest known photographic portrait of a person which is absolutely beautiful it is of Robert Cornelius ~stunning. (however it is not on Flickr through LOC).

So how did the LOC get to Flickr?

They knew that allowing people to tag content might be useful to get through the over 40,000 pictures that had not been fully cataloged. So they thought about building a web 2.0 application internally for use with the public- but what Flickr brought to the table, was an existing photo friendly, photo loving community. Working with George Oates at Flickr, starting in May 2007 they worked together that summer to put together a process to get the pictures into Flickr.

Flickr had to create a special type of account for the LOC that is now being used by eight public photography archives through their 'The Commons' program - something i did not know existed but looks to have some gems.

The LOC are the stewards of these collections and Flickr had to provide a special Copyright status that means that the Library is unaware of any restrictions on the use of the image.

So what does it mean that they are Bringing Pictures Alive?

Helena talks about the fact that what this has done is bring the collection 'alive' by allowing people to not only add tags- but comments on the pictures that tell personal stories or point out facts about the photo that due to resources catalogers would probably never get a chance to research.

Here is a perfect example from today's new uploads- this picture of Evelyn Nesbit was posted and within hours a colorful story of her life and times developed in the comments.

During the video, Helena tells a story about this picture of Weavers at Work at the The New York Blind Association and this House in Houston where people went beyond identifying the place that shows how indeed this process is bringing value for the LOC as well as the public.

The one thing that Robert doesn't dig into is how they are going to take the tags and comments specifically to enhance the existing catalog. I would have liked to hear a bit more about some of the results of this additional metadata on the collections outside of Flickr- how are they specifically being incorporated back into the original 'artifacts', what work effort is required? How valuable are the current tags? does it really save catalogers time? or does the metadata noise actually cause more work in the long run?

Helena briefly mentions that the LOC have very gifted catalogers (they do!) - but the volume is just too large to be able to catalog down to the level that the flickr users are doing. It does seem that the LOC is 'manually' enhancing their catalogs, for example this comment where the LOC is corrected and states that they would "update the source data and reload the description".

I have no doubt that the LOC will be sharing more of what they have learned about user tagging collections- but to date there seems to be some real value for both the LOC as well as the public!

And one last note, there was some sound issues late in the video with the volume turning up really loud that gave me a startle so beware!