Far Wise in Knowledge Management

Paper for OZchi accepted

Just before we go on holidays, I received the news that our long paper has been accepted for the OZchi'06 conference in Sydney! It is titled "An information overload study: Using design methods for understanding". It is based on the work on information overload in which I participated with my former employer (before we left for France). So I'm happy my ex-colleagues picked it up and wrote a paper about all our work, of which I'm now third author. I was so busy before we left that I didn't have time to write a paper.  And now here it is! Here is the abstract:

Information overload is not a clear-cut concept. We deliberately took this conceptual ambiguity as starting point in our study on information overload of knowledge workers in their organizational context. We used several methods including critical incidents collection, cultural probing and storytelling. These methods are increasingly used to inspire designers in designing technology solutions. However, for understanding ambiguous concepts they are less common. With this study we aim to bridge the gap between understanding human behaviour and (technological) support. Moreover, we select these design methods as in this way respondents contribute optimally to the articulation of the problem of information overload. This awareness and insight in information overload not only help respondents understand why they perceive information overload as problematic, it also inform us to come up with practical solutions that are valuable to the knowledge workers to deal with information overload.

I think my former colleagues are fighting now who will go to Sydney in November. If you are there, you can see who won.

Now I'm going to pack. Back in >2 weeks (not too tired of all the col climbing I hope).

Dictionary of interaction

Often we are struggling with the definition of terms. Then it's practical that someone already took the effort to collect a number of terms and defined them (or looked for a definition on the internet). That's why I appreciate the list Nancy White made on all kinds of terms related to interaction from various sources. Saves us a lot of time!

The art of complex problem solving

Via Anecdote, who writes:

Probably one of the most comprehensive diagrams I’ve ever seen regarding complex systems thinking

Check out the link and watch the very nice graphics.

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Last week I watched the European Championships for Athletics on tv. I was surprised to see that the French TV transmitted the whole championships, which is unthinkable in Holland (where only football seems to count). There were portrets of French atletes, guests, interviews, all very nice. One of the guests was the Swedish Susanna Kallur who won a golden medal on 100m hurdles.  She even spoke a few words in French, which made her even more popular with the presenters. Sunday, the last day of the event, she was asked again as guest in the studio. The presenter showed her a video of French atletes singing ABBA songs (even wearing wigs), and asked Susanna what she thought of it. She answered (in English): "The French better keep to French". There was a silence in the studio, for the translation had to be made. Then an "Oooh" sort of laugh. Bye bye Susanna.

One thing I learned here: the French do have humour, but they don't like jokes about themselves.

List of books

I found out I was blocked from my weblog about a week ago. The reason was that my (Dutch) credit card had been expired. So thanks to my account I discovered I hadn't received a new credit card and it took a few phone calls to the bank to get a new one.

Always looking for new (knowledge management) books, I saw this list of "Essential books for Bloggers". Quite a list, with few books that I know or already have, many more that I don't know. Suggestions for my own reading list (which seems to be only growing):

Blogging books:
One of the books on business blogging should be on the list. Maybe I already know too much about the topic, that's often the risk with these books. The title look rather the same so I pick one: The corporate blogging book from Debbie Weil.

Business books:
Difficult. I think I would go for The long tail by Chris Anderson. Reason is that I saw some nice weblog postings about this book.

Creative thinking:
This category is more intesting, I think. I'm curious to see what De Bono writes in his Six thinking hats, so that will be the first one.  Tinkertoys: Handbook of creative-thinking techniques (Michael Michalko) sounds like a useful book.

Miscellaneous:
The longest list and some familiair titles. I just finised The Tipping point of Malcolm Gladwell (in Dutch), which I liked more than Blink. Try to come back on this later. A book I read about a lot, so could be on my reading list is Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephan Dubner. I don't know much about economics, and I heared this is a very accessible book about the topic, so worth a try. Another book on the list I already have, but never finished: The wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki. I was just tired of the way he tried to convince me in the book. A totally different book from the list that sounds interesting is Discovering arguments: An introduction to critical thinking and writing in reading by Dean Memering and William Palmer. The back cover says: "...focuses on the thought processes and research involved in argumentation and provides students with the necessary background to write critically and effectively". Looking over the list in this category, I see more interesting titles, but the list for reading is already too long...

I need to make a decision what book to take on my holiday, next week. Since we are going on bikes, I cannot take too many books, every kilo counts! I have the following selection criterias: no hardcover (too heavy), not too thin (than I finish it too soon) nor to easy to read (same reason). For this year I was thinking of a not-so-easy French book. Even a thin one, without dictionary will take more than two weeks to finish!

Cycling in Paris is for the brave

We saw this situation on the Pont de Bir Hakeim, on our way to one of the geocaches in Paris.

Now I understand why cycling will never be popular in Paris..