Uncommon Knowledge.

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Today?s featured site: The Paper Bull.
2007-03-24 17:20:00
The Paper Bull was kind enough to provide me with a very honest, unpaid review a few days ago — so I thought I would return the favour, and point out some of the great content on the site. As I said in my last review of the JibberJobber blog, this provides some exposure to ...
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Today?s featured site: the JibberJobber blog.
2007-03-20 21:22:00
I’ve decided to start featuring a few of the sites that I’ve included in my sidebar links as featured sites of the day. It provides the sites with some exposure, but more importantly, it gives you, the readership of this site, my reasons for thinking the site might be of interest to you — and ...
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I?m not a comic book artist.
2007-03-20 17:15:00
While looking over NorthxEast’s excellent guide to guerilla marketing, I was reminded of something that happened months ago when I was setting up this site. But first let me tell you something about myself . Most people don’t actually call me Lucas (my youngest sister being one of a few exceptions). While I like the name, people I ...
More About: Comic , Artist , Book , Comic Book , Artis

26 essential knowledge management sites.
2007-03-19 15:17:00
I was asked a few days ago if I could put together a listing of some interesting knowledge management blogs and sites for someone who was interested in learning a bit more about what knowledge management is and how it can be applied. So I’ve put together 26 great resources that can help you learn ...
More About: Management , Men , Site , Sites , Knowledge

1542 spam: time for a challenge question.
2007-03-17 19:48:00
After clearing out my comment spam filter on this site this morning, I decided it was time to attempt to curb the amount of spam this site is getting. In the first few months of this blog being around, I got around 1000 spam. As of today, the site’s up to about 100 comment spam ...
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How to easily combine and email RSS feeds.
2007-03-16 17:11:00
Did you know that you can combine multiple RSS feeds together into one feed and have them sent by email to you or anyone who signs up for that combined feed? But first, let me answer the question you’re asking yourself as you’re reading this: why would I want to do that? One reason might be ...
More About: Mail , Email , How To , Feed , Comb

Why doesn?t collaborative blog ranking exist?
2007-03-15 18:29:00
At the end of a particularly insightful post on ClappingTrees, J.K. asks why the huge backlog of submitted sites can’t be opened up to everyone, Digg-style, in order to get sites approved (she’s referring to the DMOZ and Technorati backlogs here). She also points out some flaws with the Alexa ranking system (as I pointed ...
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New site features.
2007-03-14 17:14:00
Thanks to the (much-appreciated) feedback of J.K. from ClappingTrees, I’ve instituted some new features that should make searching for posts and browsing past posts much easier. The first feature is a new refinement in search, called simply ‘Uncommon Knowledge’ (it can be found at the top of the search results page, beside the other search refinements, which ...
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Legacy technology and the pace of change.
2007-03-13 20:25:00
According to my site statistics, there are several dozen people reading this site with Internet Explorer 6. With Internet Explorer 7 being only a few months old, this is certainly to be expected (my stats also tell me that almost no one — which means around 2% — of people visiting this site are using ...
More About: Technology , Techno , Change , Tech , Pace

What?s your problem?
2007-03-12 19:10:00
Problems are like debts — everyone has them, but no one really wants to talk about them. But being specific about the problem you’re trying to solve can be a great way to get solutions to that problem. So before trying to list solutions, ask yourself: what problem am I trying to solve? Creating a problem ...
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What?s the purpose of simple knowledge?
2007-03-10 04:13:03
While some say that Wikipedia is actually against promoting real knowledge, it would seem that Wikipedia also promotoes simple knowledge. This may be old news to some — but I was actually quite surprised to come across simple.wikipedia.org. The idea behind Simp le English Wikipedia is to provide a way for people who read little English to get the same knowledge that more proficient English readers would get from the regular Wikipedia (this is just as useful to kids, who may not understand all of the definitions on regular Wikipedia). If you look something up on Wikipedia (say for example, the word ‘encyclopedia’), you’ll get a definition that (including sources) is 3472 words long. That’s lots of information and detail to tell you what an encyclopedia is. Contrast that with Simple English Wikipedia’s 272 word definition of what knowledge is: if you just want to understand what an encyclopedia is, the shorter version is much more efficient. Contrast...
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Uncommon Knowledge: the story so far.
2007-03-09 16:12:02
I was discussing this site with a few people yesterday and for the first time, stopped to realize how much I have learned while creating and promoting this site. I talked about defining and differentiating your site the other day, but I wanted to take a moment to both stop and reflect on the past of this site, as well as its future. So as of the writing of this article, we’re up to around 85 feed subscribers. To everyone reading this through the feed, thanks for subscribing! If you haven’t subscribed to the site yet in a feed reader, it’s free and easy to do. Below this paragraph is a live icon telling you how many subscribers we have so far. So what’s next for Uncommon Know ledge ? If you’ve been reading for a while, you probably know that the site has went through many, many redesigns (I like to play with designs, even if I’m not that good at it — but I’m trying to brush up on my XHTML and PHP). I’ve been quite happy with the cu...
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6 ways to improve on knowledge management.
2007-03-08 04:10:01
What does the phrase ‘knowledge management’ mean to you? Unless you’re someone who works specifically in information or knowledge services, probably not very much. The concepts behind knowledge management however, can make a big difference to you and your business — and best of all, they don’t cost you any money. Here’s a few ideas on how to make knowledge management not only matter, but also to integrate it into the way you do business. 1. Stop calling it knowledge management. It’s a bit of a misnomer. While fields like records management and information management are really about managing the things they describe, ‘knowledge management’ is much more about knowledge sharing than any kind of management — and sharing makes people feel that they can and should contribute to the process. 2. Think about people, then technology. Instead of focusing on what cool technologies can do for your business, think about the basics of ho...
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Google?s email woes: the power of a name.
2007-03-06 16:08:02
Did Google ’s mail service kill another product line? Shane Smith, CEO of Independent International Investment Research (IIIR) claims that it did. According to Smith, “Google have made a monstrous mess of their intellectual property requirements around their GMail product.” IIIR apparently had another product called ‘GMail’ before Google did — and claims that Google improperly acquired the GMail trademark. IIIR wants Google to change the name of its email service (although they are not going to try to lay claim to the gmail.com domain). Considering all of the branding that Google has put into this mark already though, they would more than likely just look for monetary damages against Google (the GMail trademark is apparently valued at between $48 and $64 million dollars — although one has to take that with a grain of salt, considering it’s the number that IIIR has come up with). (more…)
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11 ways to define your brand, blog or site.
2007-03-06 16:08:02
Over the course of writing this blog for the past few months, I feel I’ve learned a thing or two along the way about what it takes to make your blog, site or brand stand out from others. I thought I’d share those ideas. Here’s 11 ways to make sure your blog, site or brand gets noticed (especially when you’re a small fish in a big pond). 1. Imagine where you want to be. Without a plan, you’ll be lost before you know it. But before creating a plan, you need to think about why you’re doing what you’re doing — and imagine where you want to be a month from now, two months from now, and a year from now. 2. Identify your target audience. Know who you want to speak to. If you don’t have a clear understanding of your audience, you won’t know what messages will resonate with that audience. Clearly spell out who will be listening to you — think of every piece you write as if you were standing up before that audience to read it &...
More About: Blog , Site , Your , Brand , Ne Yo

Blog ROI: the murky future of blogs and feeds.
2007-03-01 16:04:03
I recently came across the diagram below, which attempted to explain how feeds, blogs and various other parts of the content syndication process were interrelated. While this diagram was created to reflect the blog, feed and syndication situation in 2005, has that much really changed since then? (more…) Technorati Tags: blog roi, blogging return on investmentblog roi, blogging return on investment
More About: Future , Blogs , Blog , Feed , Logs

Google Custom Search is back.
2007-02-28 04:02:10
A while ago, I introduced a Googl e Custom Search box on this site that searched all the major knowledge management and technology sites. I’ve received a few messages asking me where that box went. So you’ll be happy to know (admit it, you’re happy) that I’ve reintroduced Google Custom Search. The idea behind this search box is to extend search beyond Uncommon Knowledge to other KM- and technology-specific sites. The search box is at the top of the sidebar on every page (if you’re reading via RSS, please just visit the site). (more…)
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Business, Technology and Knowledge 0.6.
2007-02-27 04:01:04
Welcome to the February 26, 2007 edition of Business , Tech no logy and Knowledge . We’re featuring a post today from GameProducer.net which tells us why 80 Percent of Companies Won’t Fail Within 5 Years (posted, of course, at Game Producer). The article points out that not all claims about business success and failure can be backed up by empirical evidence — and even the claims that do have legimitate research backing them can often be patently false. Statistics are often misleading — and one of the most often-overlooked components of statistics is the definition people use for what they are talking about (OK, I don’t have any empirical evidence to back that up). In this case, if 80% of businesses were defined as ‘failures’ after 5 years, who exactly is definining what is a failure and what is a success? Failure is a very subjective word that has to be very precisely defined in order for the statistics to mean anything. You can read the rest of...

Digital disposability: will spam eventually die?
2007-02-27 04:01:04
We all hate spam — but if you’re like me, you also hate getting all those annoying messages from sites that you have actually signed up for. Enter services like Guerilla Mail: a temporary email address that works for 15 minutes (you can extend the use of it for another 15 minutes by hitting a button if you need to). Other similar services exist, such as TempInbox and MailExpire (the nice thing about MailExpire is that you can specify the amount of time you want to use the disposable address for). Most of the time however, we give up our real email addresses in order to get login information to sites. However, Bugmenot will allow you to get logins for various sites without requiring you to bother with confirmation emails and the like. (more…) Technorati Tags: digital disposability, guerilla mail, mailexpiredigital disposability, guerilla mail, mailexpire
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Organizing the organizers: sorting metatags.
2007-02-23 15:58:02
Robert Berkman has a post on his blog about Serph and TagFetch — two new metasearch engines that will search multiple blog search engines and tag aggregators (including Technorati, Flickr, Digg, YouTube, Google Blog Search, Bloglines and Newsvine). The growth of these types of sites demonstrates the need for an overarching metadata strategy for the web — which cannot possibly come from one central entity. Instead, in has to come from the users who create that content, thus making distributed tags the only feasible metadata solution. (more…) Technorati Tags : blogs, metadata, search engine, serph, tagfetchblogs, metadata, search engine, serph, tagfetch
More About: Organizer , Organize , Sorting , Sort

5 principles for knowlege sharing: why I write.
2007-02-22 03:56:02
I’ve been tagged. All Tips and Tricks has tagged me to respond to the ‘5 reasons why I write’ meme. As I said before, memes are an interesting way to get people to share knowledge. Instead of me just listing why I write, I’d like to list 5 principles for why knowledge sharing matters (and makes me feel the need to keep writing here). 1. Shari ng knowledge is important. Fundamentally, getting the right information at the right time is what we’re all struggling with. Anyone in today’s economy would be hard-pressed to say that knowledge sharing doesn’t impact their job or, in a broader sense, their life.  2. Know ledge sharing can be done by anyone. Everyone knows something that is valuable to someone else. Sharing your knowledge with someone else is a personally rewarding experience that (to me, anyway) outweighs monetary benefits. 3. Sharing knowledge through technology should be easier. While technology has become increasingly prevalent and im...
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Successful online business models.
2007-02-22 03:56:02
Collis has a great series of posts over at North x East about what it takes to start a business online. These articles also apply very directly to other online ventures such as blogs. The posts so far have delineated time and focus as two essential attributes for starting an online business (which I would absolutely agree with). If I can elaborate a bit on Collis’ points within his article, I think there is a model that all successful online businesses share. An online business’ success often hinges on the ability to either establish or create a community (that could be cat lovers, cycling fans, whatever) that has something they wish to share (cat grooming tips, exchanging spare bike parts — use your imagination). Anyone who has attempted to either build a community or get a community to start sharing something they previously kept to themselves knows its a challenging undertaking — once you have a community established, you’ve got the hard part out of ...
More About: Business , Online Business , Models , Success , Model

To follow or not to follow: a ?nofollow? experiment.
2007-02-22 03:56:02
I’ve often wondered how effective the ‘nofollow’ tag is in blog comments — does it actually stop spammers from targeting a site (if you don’t know what ‘nofollow’ does, check out the short Wikipedia definition)? Since I’ve launched this site, it has received 804 spam comments, versus 99 legitimate comments (including my own replies to comments). In my own subjective calculation, I’d say Akismet has caught around 99% of my spam (of 804 spam comments, I think there have been 3 that have not been caught in the filter). So I ask myself: why do I need the ‘nofollow’ attribute in my comments? I came across this great list of ‘dofollow’ plugins (found through Weblog Tools Collection), and decided it was time to implement one. I decided to just drop ‘nofollow’ altogether by installing DoFollow. So what does this mean for you? Simple: leave a comment here and you get a real link back to your site, plain...
More About: Men , Experiment , Peri , Rime , Nofollow

The true power (and cost) of global collaboration.
2007-02-22 03:56:02
A while ago, Matthew Stibbe talked about the real power thinking and acting collaboratively. Matthew explained the concept of crowdsourcing — which is basically just user-driven and user-created content (although some people would argue that ‘crowdsourcing’ is more a cost-cutting measure than anything). Yet when it comes to user-created content, the subject of compensation always seems to crop up somehow. Having just purchased YouTube, Google has been accused of contributing to copyright infringement. Everybody wants a piece of the action. But as a content creator, should you be compensated for the content you create? Or is your content like a letter to the editor (which the publication can print, reprint or not print as they see fit)? YouTube (since being purchased by Google) seems to think paying content creators is the right way to go. It would seem that Google has decided to ‘do the right thing’ and pay content creators. But wait a second. Just like...
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MyBlogLog now integrated into this site.
2007-02-22 03:56:02
In the spirit of providing a greater sense of community on this site, I’ve integrated the MyBlog Log Recent Readers bar into the lower right column. If you’re a MyBlogLog user, you can now see your image show up every time you visit this site. MyBlogLog is a great way to promote your own site, as readers who see an original logo show up on MyBlogLog are likely to click on it and check out your site. I’m new to MyBlogLog, and thus haven’t developed a community yet. Anyone who’s interested in joining my community is welcome.
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Opening up social networking.
2007-02-22 03:56:02
Social networking sites like MySpace and LinkedIn have consistently grown in popularity (measured of course, in the amount of users that they have). But are they about to hit an adoption plateau? Some people think so — and they’re concluding that the next logical step for social networking is opening up their data so that other sites can use it (the original BusinessWeek article is here). Certainly, a critical element of YouTube’s success in building its user base has been the fact that you can post a YouTube video anywhere — it’s hard to imagine YouTube without that feature. Yet YouTube has a very appealing and specific type of content (video) that people are willing and interested in reproducing on their own sites — but who’s going to want to post someone else’s LinkedIn information? And more importantly — YouTube is not a social networking site. While there is a social component to YouTube, being social and connecting with oth...
More About: Social , Social Networking , Networking , Work , Open

Thinking about a new Wordpress theme?
2007-02-22 03:56:02
If you’re in the market for a new Word press theme, you might want to consider one of Smashing Magazine’s 83 Beautiful Wordpress Theme s You (Probably) Haven’t Seen. This way you don’t need to be John Chow to get a unique theme that works for your site. Gridlock (#4 on the list) is a particularly nice-looking and clean theme. I’ve changed themes on this site quite a few times before I found something I was happy with, but Greg’s offer to give me a hand with a custom Wordpress theme should mean a new design soon.
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KnowledgeCog launched!
2007-02-22 03:56:02
Just a quick note to say that I’ve just launched Know ledge Cog, a site that will focus on quick, easy, step-by-step ways to save your small business, non-profit or library time and money. KnowledgeCog’s focus will be on creating a community-oriented knowledge sharing hub that will connect those who know with those who don’t — providing knowledge on everything from software to collaboration to setting up a blog for your business or non-profit. I’ve started the site with a few basic steps on setting up useful free software (nothing you’ll see on KnowledgeCog will ever cost you anything). Please stop by the site and take a look — and feel free to leave a comment here as well.
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Plugins, standards and validation.
2007-02-22 03:56:02
I stated a few days ago that I had now integrated MyBlogLog into this site. You may have noticed that MyBlogLog didn’t last very long here. Don’t get me wrong, I like the concept of MyBlogLog — it does contribute to a sense of community. While it’s a great idea, the HTML that they provide doesn’t validate very well. Getting XHTML-friendly code to integrate into this site has proven to be tough to do. (more…)
More About: Standards , Plugins , Plugin , Standard , Validation

The semantic web: remixing information.
2007-02-22 03:56:02
The semantic web will allow us to recombine information in ways we never thought would be possible. But how do we get all of that information in a form that all of us can use? I was asked recently to explain how Web 2.0, the semantic web, and metadata are related to each other, and what these concepts might mean for the future of the web. Here’s my (not overly brief) take on it. If you haven’t heard the phrase ‘the semantic web’ before, this is what it is in a nutshell (thanks Wikipedia): “…an evolution of the World Wide Web in which information is machine processable (rather than being only human oriented), thus permitting browsers or other software agents to find, share and combine information more easily.” Obviously, most of the information that’s on the web today got there by being marked up in HyperText Markup Language (a.k.a. HTML). Yet HTML has been around a long time (since around 1993), and has some inherent problems. We can a...
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