The Memex

I am researching collaboration software as background for an upcoming talk I'll be giving at SES Standards Engineering Society, in Boston. During the course of researching synchronous and asynchronous document editing software, I found an interesting reference to a 1945 article in Atlantic Monthly describing a microfilm library, the memex, and you will have to read this yourself to understand that collaborative tools, the concept of hypertext itself, social bookmarking and much more date back to this very interesting article by Vannear Bush, As We May Think.

In part Bush was reacting to the destructive application of science in creating weapons and he conceived of a machine that would compress a whole library into a piece of furniture, allow people to create a new kind of encyclopedia and unlock knowledge. He advocates that scientists should devote their post world war efforts to the peaceful application of technology.

I particularly like this quote from Bush and I plan to use it in my upcoming talk and in my daily work advocating the use of new technology. "The summation of human experience is being expanded at a prodigious rate, and the means we use for threading through the consequent maze to the momentarily important item is the same as was used in the days of square-rigged ships."

I'll end here with a recommendation - please stop what you are doing and take a few minutes to read Vannear Bush, As We May Think.

StudioEIS

Museum Figures are sculpted for museums and public institutions around the world. Our good friends at StudioEIS have a wonderful website in Flash which showcases not only their museum figures but also many great pieces from their extensive portfolio.

Used to great effect by museums and exhibition designers, museum figures impact the visual stories museums create. StudioEIS has been creating sculpted museum figures for more than three decades for History, Anthropology, Natural History, Science & Technology museums, Sports museums and Expositions large and small.

We encourage you to get to know StudioEIS.

Find Out More About SEMPO Emerging Technologies Committee

SEMPO Emerging Technologies Committee is a forum for SEMPO members to share information about search as it relates to new platforms like mobile, voice and interactive television.

Open to participation from all SEMPO members, the Emerging Technologies committee is looking for participants with experience in new and emerging technologies.

SEMPO Emerging Technologies Committee is a worthwhile group and participation is a good way to share your experience with others. You can help:

• Develop educational website materials to demystify new technologies for SEMPO members.
• Collect case studies that exemplify successful SEO strategies for emerging medias.
• Host webinars and seminars for education and awareness.
• Conduct research and produce studies that are beneficial to members and to the industry at large. Sample topics: User Acceptance of Mobile Paid Media, Mobile Search: What Users Want and How They are Finding It.
• Develop course material for the SEMPO institute.

Relearning Semantics from Humans

So many people ask me how to optimize a page for search. What are the fundamentals? There are so many articles and blog posts on the fundamentals, but for starters I'd recommend reading the SEO guidelines directly from the main search engines. Google has great SEO advice on their site. Lycos, Yahoo and MSN have SEO advice too. Google's basic instruction is to make the page useful and trust the algorithm. While there's no substitute for good writing, it's still fun to know how Google makes its decisions.

This morning I read an article in Wired,"How Google's Algorithm Rules the Web", and I want to share it with you so you can understand how complicated and how elegant Google's algorithm actually is.

I work on search a fair amount, a lot actually, for someone who is more involved in search optimization (than  in search algorithms) for an occupation. We've tested a zillion different things with our search tools and with our data and our page layouts and content. After years of testing I've concluded there's always tradeoffs and no one way to do search "right". But at the end of the day, if you return relevant results, you've done a good job; and suffice to say that means you've got a good search if for most of the people most of the time, the results are what they want. Every kind of data has peculiarities that make one-size-fits-all approaches problematic. The Wired article refers to this aspect of search saying in effect that Twitter and Bing are trying to exploit niches where Google is not that strong.

If you are expert at search, or optimization or if you are just starting out, please read the article from Wired.

The Science of Managing Search Ads

A colleague forwarded me an article about Google AdWords from the NY Times. I especially liked this part, "For more than one million businesses, Google’s search advertising system is like a hose inundating Web sites with traffic. Managing it effectively, though, is as much art as it is science. It requires a mix of analytics and gamesmanship, a combination of skills that has become vitally important in the Internet age."

You know I agree with this and liken pay per click advertising to commodities trading. Not that I've done commodities trading personally - but there's bidding and competition and risk and return, so there's definitely similarities.

I've got the sense that most of 2009 was like a hose innundating me with information, traffic, decisions.

The intersection of art and science, gamesmanship and analytics at the tip of a firehose - what a place to be!

10 Things You Can Do with Social Media and Some Common Perceptions

Here are 10 things you can do with social media:

• join a group or invite people to join a group
• post a news item or job to LinkedIn
• write a blog article
• tweet
• post a blog comment
• mine leads, find information
• read comments
• respond to comments
• post a video
• make connections with other people

In the last two years I’ve heard many objections to social media. Here are some common perceptions about using social media

• I won’t have time: it’s playtime; there’s no revenue opportunity; I don’t get excited about cost avoidance; I’ll be better off spending time on something else; sitting in front of a computer is for people with lots of free time; we don’t want to appear unresponsive
• My audience doesn’t use social media: e.g. Facebook is for kids; decision makers don’t use social media; CEOs and top executives don’t use Twitter
• I already communicate with my audience: people should meet face to face or communicate by phone; I use listserve and email
• It should be centralized; it is a function for the Marketing Communication team; it has to be monitored; there should be rules; we don’t want public criticism

No doubt in some situations there is an element of truth in each of these perceptions. Engaging in any activity means some time commitment. If it isn’t done well, there won’t be a worthwhile revenue opportunity. It’s true Linkedin is a more likely demographic for certain target audiences than Facebook at present. Certain interactions are more productive face to face and a corporate entity has to protect its brand identity and messaging.

The flip side to this is that all of these perceptions are also partially false. I’ve actually heard people who say that there’s no opportunity reverse course and say they fear they will be flooded with inquiries and won’t have time enough to respond. Being unresponsive can have consequences but social media is not a two way dialogue between the company and the group. Group members are relying on other group members to contribute and respond as well. A good practice would be to listen to what people are saying, facilitate the discussion and correct misperceptions. Plenty of busy CEOs, board members and top decision makers at the most prestigious organizations use Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook for personal and business reasons to stay in touch with colleagues, to follow developments in their field and to keep tabs on competitors. And no doubt meetings, email, telephone and traditional media are all important but as a matter of fact, they aren’t all really centralized under Marketing Communications. On top of that, communications about your company go on all the time between your customers and competitors without involvement or approval by your company. An online forum or group gives companies a chance to be part of the conversation.

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