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MaisonBisson

a bunch of stuff I would have emailed you about

Thermometer Museum

Dick Porter, of Onset MA, has been building his collection of over 5000 thermometers since the mid-80s, though the collection has nearly doubled since 1998 when it was just over 3000. He calls it the world’s largest and only thermometer museum. He’s certainly passionate about them, and he’s been an invited speaker at more than […] » about 300 words

Harmon’s Lunch

I learned of Harmon’s Lunch from a mention on The Splendid Table a few weeks ago. I wrote down the following quote from the show from memory, so it may not be entirely accurate: They have two things on the menu, and nobody ever orders the other one. They serve hamburgers, and the only option […] » about 300 words

Collective Intelligence: Wisdom Of The Crowds

I’m here at NEASIS&T’s “Social Software, Libraries, and the Communities that (could) Sustain Them” event, presented by Steven Cohen. He’s suggesting we read James Surowiecki’s The Wisdom of Crowds. Surowiecki first developed his ideas for Wisdom of Crowds in his “Financial Page” column of The New Yorker. Many critics found his premise to be an […] » about 200 words

More NEASIS&T Buy Hack or Build Followup

First, Josh Porter, the first speaker of the day has a blog where he’s posted his presentation notes and some key points. Josh spoke about Web 2.0, and ended with the conclusion that successful online technologies are those that best model user behavior. “I think Web 2.0 is about modeling something that already exists in our offline worlds, mostly in the spoken words and minds of humankind.”

Interestingly, in findability terms, it was Josh’s post that clued me in that the event podcast was online because he linked to my blog in his post. Lesson: links make things findable.

Like Josh, I found my voice a little unfamiliar, but you can listen here (51MB) if that’s your thing.

Also, I demoed some features I’d like to see in a future OPAC, but to help people visualize them, I finally put together a graphical mockup of them here.

NELINET Bibliographic Services Conference

I’m here at the NELINET Bibliographic Services Conference at the College of the Holy Cross today. The conference is titled “Google vs. the OPAC: the challenge is on!” and there’s quite a lineup of speakers. My presentation is on “the social life of metadata.” My slides are online, and below is some background. The Library […] » about 400 words

NEASIS&T Buy, Hack or Build Followup

I was tempted to speak without slides yesterday, and I must offer my apologies to anybody trying to read them now, as I’m not sure how the slides make sense without the context of my speech. On that point, it’s worth knowing that Lichen did an outstanding job liveblogging the event, despite struggling with a […] » about 600 words

NEASIS&T Buy, Hack or Build

I’m here at the NEASIS&T Buy, Hack or Build event today at MIT’s Media Lab. On the list are Joshua Porter, Director of Web Development for User Interface Engineering, Pete Bell [corrected], co-founder of Endeca Solutions, and me.

I’m posting my slides here now, but I’m told we’ll see a podcast of the proceedings soon after the conclusion. Be aware that the slides are full of links. I won’t be able to explore them all during the presentation, but they might add value later.

Zimbra Rocks

Zach made me take another look at Zimbra, the web-based, web 2.0-smart, very social and AJAXed up collaboration, email, and calendar suite (plus some other goodies). Go ahead, watch the Flash-based demo or kick the tires with their hosted demo. I think you’ll agree that it looks better than anything else we’ve seen yet. Part […] » about 400 words

Ars on Video iPod

It’s old news now, but ArsTechnica did a really thorough review of the video iPod. I especially appreciated reviewer Clint Ecker’s opinion of the video playback capabilities. Now I’m curious about what this does to enable more video podcasts. tags: ipod, ipod video, review, video, video ipod » about 100 words

Virtual Economies

I’m not much of a gamer, but Matt got me following video game law with curious interest. And now, via ArsTechnica, I’ve learned of crazy things going on in role playing game economies. To some, the only surprise in Jon Jacobs’s US$100,000 purchase of in-game real estate is that nobody thought of it sooner. The […] » about 300 words

Second Annual West Texas Beautiful Burro and Mule Contest Held Today

The text of what appears to be the press release (online at Alpine Avalanche): The Fort Davis Merchants Association and the Jeff Davis County 4-H Club encourage everyone to come join the fun as they host the Second Annual West Texas Beautiful Burro and Mule Contest Saturday, Nov. 12. The contest will be held on […] » about 300 words

Wolfram’s Tones

WolframTones mixes hard science with social software in the form of a ringtone generator. Each click on any of the 15 style buttons yields a “unique [note: not random] composition.” Why not random? The FAQs note: Once WolframTones has picked a Rule to use, all the notes it will generate are in principle determined. But […] » about 200 words

Tech Tuesdays: Spam Management

John Martin was kind enough to lead a session on spam management Tuesday (November 8th). Here was the description: Spam is annoying and often offensive, but it’s a fact of life for all of us. John Martin will lead a discussion about how we can limit the amount of spam we see using tools running […] » about 200 words

Six Weapons of Influence

Ken forwarded me this podcast of Robert Cialdini speaking on his Six Weapons of Influence, which he lists as

  • Reciprocation
  • Commitment and consistency
  • Social proof
  • Authority
  • Liking
  • Scarcity

Cialdini’s book is in its fourth edition, and has apparently been adopted as a text for more than a few classes and the concepts have worked their way into everybody’s marketing seminars. Motivation speaker and marketing yakyak Patricia Fripp summarizes those six weapons like this:

  • The Old Give and Take–and Take
  • Hobgoblins of the Mind
  • Truths Are Us
  • The Friendly Thief
  • Directed Deference
  • The Rule of the Few

Academics often feel uncomfortable mixing marketing in their fields, but isn’t it worth a look?

Library Integration Stuff

I’d meant to point out these two articles from Library Journal ages ago, but now that I’m putting together my presentations for next week (NEASIS&T & NELINET), I realized I hadn’t.

Roy Tennant writes in Doing Data Differently that “our rich collections of metadata are underused.” While Roland Dietz & Carl Grant, in the same issue, bemoan the dis-integrated world of library systems.

How To Survive a Robot Uprising

So there I am trying to read things I can’t possible read and I stumble across a link to Daniel H. Wilson’s How To Survive a Robot Uprising: Tips on Defending Yourself Against the Coming Rebellion. From th Amazon book description: How do you spot a robot mimicking a human? How do you recognize and […] » about 400 words

Digital Library Systems Group Shows Wares

I was in Cambridge today attending the Digital Library Systems Group presentation on their fancy scanners and imaging workflow software. We have no digital collections program going yet, but we’re part of a university system plan to acquire either Ex Libris’s Digitool or ENCompass for Digital Collections (sample sites). But getting the collection management software just creates another problem: we don’t have any imaging resources to use to fill the new digital archive.

It’s not an area that I have much experience in, so all I can really say is it might be a good way to spend $75,000.

IKEA Comes To New England

Hey, doesn’t the IKEA near Boston open today? Sure does. The company has 226 stores worldwide.

According to a story in the Pheonix:

Oddly enough, IKEA flopped when it opened its first US store in 1986. But by making concessions to American expectations (softer couches, American bed sizes, good thread counts) it gradually won over low-budget consumers attracted to its upmarket design, with its subtle implications of class mobility. That they were willing to bruise their toes lifting those deceptively heavy boxes speaks to the brand’s participatory appeal […]. It’s all part and parcel of IKEA’s goal “to create a better everyday life for the many people.”

Internet, Interactivity, & Youth

Jenny Levine alerted me to the Pew Internet & American Life Project report on teens as both content creators and consumers.

It turns out that teens, and teen girls especially, are highly active online IMing, sharing photos, blogging, reading and commenting on other’s blogs, and gaming. An especially strong trend in this group is the use of web technologies for collaboration. Interactivity, increasingly, is being defined by the teen’s ability to ask questions, comment, or contribute. Take a look at this quote, (found via this BBC report):

These teens would say that the companies that want to provide them entertainment and knowledge should think of their relationship with teens as one where they are in a conversational partnership, rather than in a strict producer-consumer, arms-length relationship.

Jenny calls this the “4Cs,” for conversation, community, commons, and collaboration. Clearly, services that allow those 4Cs are preferred over those that don’t. Competitively, where do you stand? How well have you embraced the 4Cs in your online services.

Reva “ElectriCity Car”

How crazy is it that we can get neither flying cars nor (affordable) fuel efficient cars today? Anyway, the Reva (shown above) is a tiny little electric that seats two adults, can go 50 miles on a charge, and fully charges in five hours (two hours gets an 80% charge). It’s an Indian company, but […] » about 200 words

Pen-Based Computing Loses The Tablet

Via Engadget I found mention of the LeapFrog FLY, a pen with embedded computer that reads your handwriting. Need a calculator? Just write out “2 + 2 = ” and hear a response from the pen computer’s synthesized voice. Need to schedule something? Write out the date. It’s targeted at kids, and the company has […] » about 200 words

Devil’s Horn

On NPR’s Weekend Edition today: an interview with Michael Segel, author of The Devil’s Horn, subtitled “The Story of the Saxophone, from Noisy Novelty to King of Cool.” Adolph Sax’s instrument seems to have been controversial from the start. Other manufacturers tried to assassinate him, the Pope declared the church’s opposition to the instrument, Ladies […] » about 100 words

I Get Love Letters (about Bill Bennett’s racist remarks)

“John B,” from Omaha, NE writes regarding my post about conservatives, Freakonomics, and Bill Bennett’s racism: [I]f you had actually listened when Bill Bennett made the comment you quote, you would see it was NOT intentionally racist. You’ve taken the quote completely out of context. I’m willing to bet that you know you’ve taken the […] » about 700 words