David Kluskiewicz

“Narrating your work.” That’s the real change that current technologies are enabling. On his last appearance on the Gillmor Gang, Jon Udell put today’s technology in context.

The opportunity that blogging, social bookmarking, and podcasting offer is not efficiency, but the realistic flow of information.Unlike a book, or brochure, these channels help us understand not just outcome, but process. That’s something that’s hard to know, unless your conduct is very transparent. Think about elections – personality, life story, behavior and voting record are all considered before making a decision. In many cases, there’s no difference between two candidates’ positions. What differs is how they got there. The process.

“How did you come to that conclusion?” Any time I hear someone tout a piece of conventional wisdom, I ask that question. Regularly updated channels, like the ones Udell suggests are windows to the elusive processes of how people come to complex conclusions. They won’t have all the answers, but they will definitely add perspective that polished statements lack.

Blogging and other related personal publishing technologies are all rivers of information. Updated regularly, they can provide better information on which to base decisions. Udell suggests that blogging could even replace the CV or resume. Though this method of narrating one’s work may not have caught on yet because of the inevitable humility that comes along with not being right, it will over time. There are so few truly new ideas, that it will be difficult to stand out. What will make us stand out is how we got there.

Scott Ginsburg has a contagious idea that could break a lot of people out of their inertia. By simply brandishing a stock Hello, my name is… nametag, Scott bucks the system of formal introductions, proscribed networking and trite business interactions.

Sure, it takes a lot of people out of their comfort zone of privacy and guardedness, but there are many instances where a viral icebreaker could save a lot of time and effort. Think about seeing nametags when you move to a new neighborhood, start a new job, join a new club or participate in a community activity. The mere presence of a name badge indicates that you (outsider) might be welcome. The absence would definitely show that someone feels threatened by you.

The clutter on the web is overwhelming. Search has helped us filter
down to only result that are relevant, but it only goes so far.
Hundreds of billions of pixels are merely filling up space, often with
outdated and  erroneous information. This might inspire the
algorithm writers at Google to new heights, but for the average user,
the clutter decreases much of the productivity he gained when he got
access to the world wide web.

Some ideas that came to mind to resolve this problem are:

• Webocratic oath – sort of like the Hippocratic Oath
  doctor's take. Instead, web publishers, from webmasters to cat
  bloggers, would make a commitment to their fellow man. “I shall publish
  no crap, regardless of the price of storage.”
• Web Day – As with Earth Day, where good citizens make a noble
  effort to clean up their home planet, denizens of internet would take a
  few hours of their time to remove what is no longer useful. 5 blog
  posts that really didn't make any sense. That free home page that came
  with your earthlink account. That copy of your department newsletter
  from 1998? Let them go. Let them all go. Didn't that feel good?