December 2003 Archives

In case you haven't seen this potential tool, Spike Hall mentioned PurpleSlurple as a way to get better URL's in your writing, so that readers need not hunt around long pages to find a specific reference. Another Weblogging (and Knowledge-Making) Tool: Purpleslurple I add PurpleSlurple to the weblogging tools I find...

In an excellent discussion on the CriticalChain Yahoo Group, Larry Leach mentions a point I hadn't put together before. "If you do not have a statistical basis for predicting the project end date, you have no basis at all." Essentially, even with a "unique" project, the elements of the project (the...

Thomas Vander Wal found an interesting article on a prototype e-notebook (not a lab notebook, software to record web-notes): Building a Web Based E-Notebook The Journal of Digital Information has an article on Implementation Challenges Associated with Developing a Web-based E-notebook by Yolanda Jacobs Reimer and Sarah A. Douglas. This Journal...

Denham Grey talks about PKM (personal knowledge management) PKM to me is a paradox - knowledge in my world is socially constructed - it is not about organizing your thoughts, learning to use tools or developing individual competencies - it is about dialog, community and collaboration. He has some interesting comments...

Lilia Efimova, aka Mathemagenic, is doing PhD research on weblogs and the connection to personal knowledge management.

In Jeff Angus' ongoing series on The Seductions (& Giant Sucking Sounds) of Metrics: The Average is Not the Territory, he talks about how it is easy to get distracted by The One Great Number (TOGN). Tip # 44: Don't be fooled. The seduction of a TOGN is understandable. And TOGN...

I had an interesting conversation the other day. An organization that does both research and manufacturing wants a system that will help them see knowledge across all their products. Does anyone know of such a monster?

End-of-year family activities have me checking my aggregated news from a dial-up connection. I suspect I will be posting less frequently than I like until the end of the year.

On November 17, 2003 Michael Shafer's computer found the 40th known Mersenne prime, 220,996,011-1! Michael is a chemical engineering graduate student.

This will be a short entry. Abbott Laboratories are the biggest Chicago-based pharmaceutical company. With all the trouble at Baxter and the departure of Pfizer (Pharmacia / Searle), they are pretty much the only large drug research firm in town. The only current reference to KM at Abbott is the work...

At an upcoming meeting, there will be talk about how good data management can support ongoing research. IFPAC04 Detailed Program (near the bottom of the page) Knowledge Management and Continuous Improvement Chairs: Ali Afnan, FDA and Chris Watts, FDA Real time or near- real time measurement tools typically generate large volumes...

Lee LeFever has been trying to figure out how to get better recognition for his business via his blog, Common Craft. Case Study: Using a Weblog to Achieve #1 Rankings in Google This is a case study documenting best practices in using a weblog to achieve #1 rankings in Google. Below...

Derek Lowe mentions the amazing trail of names that have ended up at GlaxoSmithKline, and has a suggestion in Naming of Names: Someone should do a family-tree chart of all the mergers and buyouts over the years in the drug industry. Judging from this example, though, I don't think that someone...

The Chicago Tribune had a below-the-fold article today on FBI hits glitches as it joins digital age (registration required - here is the same article at the Biloxi Sun Herald) The new system is already months behind schedule and more than $200 million over budget, and its backbone component will not...

Brian Nielsen spoke on "Knowledge Management in the University: Emerging Technologies and Trends at Northwestern" this evening to a very small crowd of KMPro regulars. Nielsen has been at Northwestern for 20+ years, spending the first part of his career in the libraries (Ph.D from UNC). He is now working with...

My home computer meltdown over the last week seems to have stopped. Stop reading here, if you don't care about technology. The source of the meltdown was our attempt to use the multiple users "feature" of Windows XP to allow different setups for my wife and me. Primarily, I wanted to...

During the AIChE conference last month, and during many such conferences, the question of what is it to "do" chemical engineering arises. I've always liked to think of it as using chemistry, math, physics to develop salable goods and services. Even this doesn't fit all people who do chemical engineering.

Sorry about the lack of posts lately. My machine had a meltdown, and I am just getting back up to speed....

The email issue appears to be fixed. Don't know quite what the hiccup was, but I lost about two days' worth of incoming mail....

From the announcement (paraphrased): Brian Nielsen will speak about "Knowledge Management in the University: Emerging Technologies and Trends at Northwestern" at the December 9th KMPro Chicago chapter meeting. He will also provide an overview of a number of projects in the works at Northwestern. He will show some software projects in...

Jeff Angus talks about situations where a deal seems too good to be true in The Mets: Keep Your Eye Off The Prize I had a client that had been shopping for a computer system to manage her "traffic" for a long time. The analysis we did said the systems available...

At the AIChE meeting, Cawas Cooper from Air Products talked about a project that evolved from their Innovation Week, where people were encouraged to come up with new ideas and collaborate with their colleagues to sell the idea to their respective management. Those projects that get management blessing are pursued.

More from the AIChE meeting. Jonathan Worstell of Shell Chemical in Houston talked in a a number of sessions about the importance of Concurrent Engineering. In Worstell's view, the basic problem that Concurrent Engineering solves is that projects are too complex and too long for traditional serial engineering, where each phase...

Judith Meskill points us to an article that mentions some new technology for knowledge workers: knowledge management barriers... The following article is really about getting spammed on a continual basis, finally flipping your proverbial 'bit' and sending an email to the offending spammer threatening them with bodily harm and getting arrested...

If you are trying to contact me via email, there is something seriously amiss with my mail server. It seems to be bouncing mail to the senders, and it is not letting me send mail out. I have other mail servers, so this isn't the end of the world. Hopefully, my...

Some more thoughts about designing experiements based on talks at the AIChE annual meeting.