Designing Information at IxDA

On January 30, 2008 By RachelIn conference, designLeave a comment

Two of my colleagues, Anh Dang and Nirali Patel, are going to be speaking at a conference called IxDA Interaction 08 in a few weeks. We recently had a preview of their presentation, called Designing Information. I don’t want to give too much away, for those that may be attending the conference, but I really enjoyed hearing about it because it converged nicely with my own interests.

The aim of their talk is to discuss their point of view on how to present data in a way that’s meaningful – not just cool or interesting looking. There are some sites that present really beautiful infographics, but they don’t necessarily tell you anything. More suitable for hanging on the wall than for providing illuminating knowledge or understanding. I think that’s just wasteful.

I’m not a designer, myself, so in my line of work I generally collaborate with someone who is. Ideally, I bring insight on the full range of data and the story that it wants to tell, and the IA or designer has the tools and techniques to make that story come to life. Anh and Nirali have a great perspective on the thought processes, insights, and strategies needed to make those techniques really work, and I’m glad to see them contributing their ideas to the discussion.

Creative Commons is not “carte blanche”

On December 22, 2007January 3, 2019 By RachelIn content strategy, digital rights2 Comments

A recent Pew report states that 47% of Americans have looked themselves up on Google or some other search engine. I like to practice a more specific form of vanity search – I use a couple of blog search sites to see where my flickr photos have been used. All my photos are posted under a “by-nc” Creative Commons license which states that they can be reused for non-commercial purposes, provided that I’m giving credit for the image.

I’d like to point out that I’m not doing this vanity search to check up on people, I just really enjoy seeing how my photos are used. It’s fun to see my images of celebrities, New York landmarks, comedians, or even something as mundane as cherry blossoms adorning someone’s blog post. Generally the authors attribute the photos to my screenname and link back to the originals on my flickr account. Some people even get in touch with me and ask for permission beforehand, though that’s not required with the CC license. I don’t really even pay much attention if the site has Google ads, even though, strictly speaking, that qualifies it as “commercial” usage.

There’s still the occasional shock, though, and the latest one is so deeply ironic I can’t really even comprehend it. I discovered a photo I took of the IAC building that was used, without any attribution at all, on a website called paidContent.org. Despite the “.org” in the name, this is clearly a commercial website. On the page that contains my photo, I counted 16 ad spots, 3 sponsored channels, and 3 calls to action to “ADVERTISE ON PAIDCONTENT.” On top of that, the article is about a Pre-Conference Reception being held by paidContent.org at the IAC building, and it features a prominent button inviting readers to buy tickets to the conference (plus 8 additional links to sponsors of the conference). So, not only is my photo being displayed on a commercial site, but it’s directly being used to promote the sale of tickets to an event (well, it was – the event is now in the past).

The most troubling part about this is that these are not people who can claim ignorance. This issue falls right in their area of expertise, which according to their site is “global coverage of the business of digital content.” Plus, their own website is published under a “by-nc-sa” CC license, which means it has the same restrictions as my photo, but also that if you reuse the content, you can only do so under the same license (in other words you can’t put their content into your own work and then copyright it).

Although, maybe they don’t understand Creative Commons as well as I would expect them to, because right under the message that says “This work is licensed under a CreativeCommons License.” there’s another message that says “Copyright ContentNext Media Inc. 2002—2007.”

Being, as I am, a Content Strategist and a consultant, paidContent.org seems like it would be exactly the type of organization that would appeal to me. But this experience makes me question how they could possibly claim to be experts in the field of digital content.

Semantic Technology Conference 2007 Recap

On December 10, 2007January 3, 2019 By RachelIn conference, semantic webLeave a comment

I suppose it’s very old news, but I recently stumbled across this short recap I wrote of STC07 last summer. I didn’t publish it here at the time because I thought it was going to be used elsewhere. Since that doesn’t look like it’s going to happen, I figured I’d post it now in honor of those submitting proposals for Semantic Technology Conference 2008. Due date for proposal submission was today.

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Two Semantic Webs

On November 16, 2007November 27, 2007 By RachelIn semantic web11 Comments

I was reading this post by Nova Spivack when I finally understood that there are two semantic webs. Nova calls them The Intelligent Web and The Data Web. (I think this is in some way related to the longstanding debate about Semantic Web vs. semantic web, which never really made any sense to me before). To put a slightly different spin on it, I like to think of these as the Orderly Semantic Web and the Chaotic Semantic Web.

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Planting Seeds for the Semantic Web

On November 4, 2007 By RachelIn semantic web1 Comment

Eric Miller

A couple weeks ago I brought Eric Miller (of Zepheira and W3C, among other things) into my office to lead a workshop on the Semantic Web. Many of my colleagues are interested in the subject, but with varying levels of familiarity. And none of us are really sure what to do with it yet. My goal in organizing this workshop was to activate and deepen our group’s knowledge, excitement and involvement, vis a vis the semantic web.

For a good five hours we listened and discussed, as Eric gave us some background, presented case studies, told anecdotes and responded to our questions. The information was great, and the inspiration was even more valuable. Eric combines deep knowledge with a keen business sense. He’s able to be visionary while keeping it all in perspective. This is not always true of the brilliant people I’ve met in this industry.

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Enterprise Solutions Summit 2007

On November 3, 2007November 3, 2007 By RachelIn conference, content strategy, semantic web, social networkingLeave a comment

Last week my office arranged a summit on Enterprise Solutions. The first day was employees only, so we could discuss the current and future practice of Enterprise Solutions at Avenue A | Razorfish. It was a day full of animated discussion.

Having a strong interest in Content Strategy, the semantic web, and knowledge management, I’ve thought a lot about how these elements could be put to use within an organization, to help support the goals and needs of an enterprise. But I hadn’t had a chance to discuss it with a lot of people that I work with. The summit was attended by people from all different disciplines – technology, strategy, client relations – and I got to see a wide range of perspectives on the issues.

The second day included clients, and we had a range of speakers and use case presentations. Jimmy Wales (founder of Wikipedia) gave a keynote, though in some ways it was more interesting talking to him at the cocktail party the night before. Kind of a mysterious character. He must have people talking to him all the time about their favorite topic, and they’re stunned when he doesn’t have the entire body of knowledge represented by Wikipedia at his immediate disposal.

I say this because I saw him, a couple times, respond to people with what can only be described as pride about his ignorance of some topic or other. I can only imagine that he’s developed this technique as a defensive measure against people who would otherwise say, “But how can you not know about [insert nerdy topic of interest here]??”

I’m as guilty as the next nerd, in this respect. One of my colleagues enthusiastically mentioned that I’m interested in the Semantic Web and Wales responded that he doesn’t get it, and he doses off every time he tries to read the article. I prodded him a little bit, and asked what he thinks of people using Wikipedia to extract concepts and generate ontologies. He said he thinks it’s pretty cool, since, after all, it’s the biggest collection of human knowledge ever.

I had a feeling that was about as far as it was going to go, so I told him that if the movie The Fifth Element were made today, Leeloo would have learned about human life by speed-reading Wikipedia (instead of absorbing encyclopedic video feeds). He seemed to like that idea.

You can read a more thorough account of the highlights of the Enterprise Solution Summit over on Shiv Singh’s Workplace Blog. He also gives a good account of Jimmy Wales’ keynote and the very lively panel that closed out the day.

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