20 Jun 2002

Thu, 20 Jun 2002

John Robb prescribes a news aggregator and k-log pill to organizations

John Robb. How to boost employee productivity by using a news aggregator. [klogs]


A small change in the way we work could shave 45 minutes off of the average workday.  That small change is to use a news aggregator to get news instead of gathering it by hand.  Applied across a 200 person company, that 45 minutes of savings could be worth $1,650,000 a year.  The wild part is that the cost to implement this is only $8,000 and requires little if any support from the IT department. 


If we are going to really boost productivity, we are going to need to focus on those improvements that provide the most bang for the buck.   Small changes in work habits can have amazing results.  To get at these nuggets, companies need to spend time really watching what people do with their time.  If they did, they would find that much of the time they spend is wasted on simple tasks that could easily be automated. 


Other things to focus on:


1) Auto-categorization of e-mail.


2) Integrated search (desktop, LAN, K-Logs, Web) with all proprietary doc formats revealed as HTML.


3) Voice mail on the desktop PC. 


4) Accurate K-Logging of current activities:  status, thinking, plans, projects, etc.


5) Online presentations, to-do lists, project plans via outlines. 


6) K-Log personal portals that integrate all connection info (e-mail, IM, phone, address, bio, resume, picture).


Very simple stuff can yield big results. [John Robb's Radio Weblog]


But are organizations ready to swallow this bitter pill on a large scale? I don't think so. John's got some interesting ideas that I largely agree with on a small scale. However, the 200 people example is not as simple as it sounds. The underlying problem is not one that software can easily solve. That is, the sociological change required by most organizations to implement a technology such as news aggregators or blogging is fairly massive. Just because some of us really enjoy documenting everything doesn't mean that the passion or skill is widely distributed amongst the population. If the 200 people being referred to are all enthusiastic technology professionals, then you might succeed, but this still assumes that they have great communication skills - not a valid assumption from my experience.


I would estimate that the training costs of such a migration could be far greater than the cost of the software. Further, the support and maintenance costs could be even greater than that. I don't mean to rain on John's parade since I like Radio; however, right now, I don't believe Userland is set up to handle the support burden that volumes of naive users entail. And if you think a company will deal with the operational mistakes from Userland that some individuals have tolerated, you're sadly mistaken, no matter the price.


In time, the kind of organizational software adoption that John describes will be possible and profitable for some organizations but a large number of organizations will remain unable or unwilling to adapt (see Geoffrey Moore). I would expect the rate of adoption for RSS news aggregators to happen more quickly when they are integrated in tools that already have broad penetration such as email clients (see Ximian Evolution for an example).  Broad adoption of weblog tools is likely to be slower.

Posted at: 18:41 | permalink

Team grows blood capillary network to manufacture organs

Boston Globe.  Boston team grows blood capillary network—necessary for manufacturing organs.

>>>The new blood vessels are the product of an unusual collaboration that coordinates the work of doctors, chemists, physicists, and engineers in a local organization founded in 1994, the Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology. This project, for example, is headed by a surgeon but relies on advanced fabrication technology used to etch circuits into a computer microchip.<<< [John Robb's Radio Weblog]

Posted at: 18:15 | permalink

Buy your best man speech for the upcoming wedding on the web

Are you the best man at an upcoming wedding and you can't think of anything clever to say to toast the married couple? Buy your speech. ;-> [msnbc.com]

Posted at: 17:57 | permalink

Sneezing is now a crime

This poor truck driver may be charged for crashing as a result of sneezing according to this article.

Posted at: 13:29 | permalink

Take me out to the ballpark

Take me out to the game... My wife and I attended our first Pittsburgh Pirates game at PNC Park tonight. This was really beyond our expectations, particularly the sense of intimacy with the field. Thanks to my agent, Chris LaCamera at Raeder Landree, for inviting us and providing the tickets. It's an awesome experience - highly recommended.

Posted at: 00:39 | permalink