le mal du siècle

In 19th Century French literature, the term “le mal du siècle” (the malady of thecentury) described a sense of loss, disillusionment, and melancholy.
In the 21st Century, our mal du siècle might refer to the diseases of not sharing our knowledge nor making a personal contribution to dealing with the issues that we all face.
So, what are these “diseases” [...]

The Paste-eater

I have a 22 month old son. His name is Ty.  For some time I’ve been concerned that my son would turn out to be “that kid.”  The paste-eater.

After his bath I put baby lotion on him.  Every time he comes he rubs his stomach to get the lotion and immediately sticks both hands in his mouth [...]

Cult of Personality

How we present ourselves to the online world has been very fascinating to me recently.  Personally, I’m a conflicted beast. I have “Business Dave” and “Private Dave” (kind of like Good Kirk/Bad Kirk or, more accurately,  Ren and Stimpy) that dichotomy endlessly to come to some kind of compromise with everything that I post.

Private Dave say: “oh man…that’s some funny/awesome/scary sh*t.  Gotta [...]

“Boy Eats Own Face” (a.k.a. How to get my attention)

If you want to get my attention and you really need something done, take a lesson from the micro-blogging world:  Get your MAIN message across in under 140 characters.
If you want me to take action, don’t bury the action items at the bottom of a 3 page email.  Put them at the top!!!  Give me the [...]

The more things change, the more they stay the same

Just stumbled on this blog post which quotes a Knowledge@Wharton piece from 2001: Measuring Returns on IT Investments: Some Tools and Techniques.
It’s the date of the article that I find interesting…and to look back and remember that we’ve been struggling with the same attitudes around quantification of the value of collaboration software for so many [...]

Canadian Lotus Geekdinner (Aug 19th, Markham)

C’mon out and spread the word…the summer is short and Lotus Software is HOT!!
This is an Open invitation to IBMer’s,  customers, Business Partners…basically anyone interested talking about Lotus stuff in an informal atmosphere.

Luis Benitez will be in Markham to to deliver a Lotus Connections PoT with our team on Monday and Tuesday so we thought it would be [...]

“Lovable Fool” or “Lovable Star”

Some of you may have seen this grid presented that has four quadrants based on “competence” and “affability” which is based off of this study : “Competent Jerks, Lovable Fools,and the Formation of Social Networks,” by Tiziana Casciaro and Miguel Sousa Lobo in the June 2005 issue of Harvard Business Review.”

Based on the presentations that I’ve [...]

“The medium is the message; The content is the people”

A little spin on Marshall McLuhan’s  famously paraphrased “quotation.”
I don’t pretend to “get” McLuhan…I’m just using the words for illustration.
In a recent conversation about how wikis are NOT a social-computing tool (in and of themselves) I came to understand something:
The medium (the wiki) houses a collection of writing that a bunch of people opt to contribute.  [...]

Wikis Social Computing

Hate everything about “Social Computing?”  Want a tool that is completely anti-social but still allows people to collaborate without ever having to communicate with another human being?
Wikis might be the answer.
Traditionally, the  basic path to how we, as human beings, get to the point of collaborating might look like this:
Discover -> Connect -> Communicate -> [...]

Enterprise 2.0 Conference: IBM v MS in the press…IBM clear winner

If you weren’t following the mayhem of E2.0 on twitter, then here’s a little background on the excitement for Lotus Connections this week.  I have YET to see a single comment from an analyst or casual observer that even put MS in the same arena.

Enterprise 2.0 Face-off: Microsoft Lags Behind IBM in Social Software

“While [...]