Monday, February 28, 2011

Assessing credibility

I must dissent from Jim Horton on this one. Mere anonymity, or the more common pseudonymity, does not necessarily detract from an author's credibility.

As a reader I ask myself does the writer offer a basis for their consclusions? Are their sources on the record? Do they refer to documents that are publicly available? These are the kinds of things that weigh with me.

Health IT blogging, HIMSS edition

David Blumenthal addresses HIMSS Interoperability Showcase

ePrescribing, incentives and penalties

Lab Soft News: When to send out health alerts; it's complicated.

Fierce Health IT: HIMSS Analytics survey shows uptick in hospital readiness for meaningful use

Neil Versel: Video: athenahealth’s Jonathan Bush at HIMSS11

eHealth: Social Media at HIMSS

HISTalk: HIMSS wrap up.

From HITShpere, via Shahid Shah.

Friday, February 25, 2011

Cheap shot dot com

The Guardian
A new website promises to shine a spotlight on "churnalism" by exposing the extent to which news articles have been directly copied from press releases.

The website, churnalism.com, created by charity the Media Standards Trust, allows readers to paste press releases into a "churn engine". It then compares the text with a constantly updated database of more than 3m articles. The results, which give articles a "churn rating", show the percentage of any given article that has been reproduced from publicity material.


First of all, congrats to the PR team at Churnalism for such a great story placement.

There is nothing wrong with using a press release in a news article. The test should be the information in the press release news; that is, is the material accurate, new, interesting, relevant, and compelling. If so an editor should use it; it not an editor should discard it.

UPDATE: Shel Holtz said this so much better.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Prank phone calls

It seems a pro-union activist, pretending to be David Koch, called Gov. Scott Walker and recorded the result. How much of an embarrassment this will be I cannot say; but it demonstrates the range of activities open to online activists and the sort of thing we need to prepare our clients for.

I believe that it is illegal in Maryland and a few other states to record a phone conversation without the consent of both parties.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

The power of social media and the Internet

Clearly social media is extremely powerful, otherwise the Egyptian government would not have cut access to the internet, neither would the US government put out solicitations to subvert it.

Honestly, astroturf is for amateurs.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Marylene Dosse to play the high romantics

French pianist Marylene Dosse will preform works by Franz Liszt, Schumann, Rachmaninov, and Chopin on March 4 at 8 PM at The United Church.

I am looking forward to it.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

New to me local tech blog

Arxan CTO Musings, Discussion on the latest application security developments and issues, including piracy, code protection, application hardening and cybersecurity.

Well done Google

Quick Google Analytics Tip: Chrome debugging tool
Google recently launched the Google Analytics Tracking Code Debugger, and a new debug version of its JavaScript code, ga_debug.js. The good news is, that Google has also put together a nifty little Chrome extension for the tracking code debugger, which uses the new script so that you don’t have to re-tag any content.


Well done. Google's strength is its responsiveness to users and developers.

Wednesday, February 09, 2011

Layer 7 blogs

Layer 7, a software development company (XML, cloud computing, SOA, and so on) has a whole flotilla of blogs:

Layer 7 company blog

Scott Morrison

Adam Vincent

Francois Lascelles

Well done Layer 7.

Saturday, February 05, 2011

Dan Snyder's image problem

Dan Snyder, owner of the Washington Football team, has a very serious image problem. By a series of ill advised actions, Snyder has cast himself in the role of the rich bully.

Most recently, in response to this farcical article in the Washington City Paper, he threatened to sue the paper, calculating that the cost of litigation would force the paper to fire the reporter. It has backfired on him in a big way.

To their everlasting credit, the owners of the Washington City Paper, Atalaya Capital Management, has refused to back down. Public opinion is overwhelmingly on the side of the paper and a legal defense fund has been established.

As Bob Somerby teaches us, reporters develop narratives and follow scripts. Even before this latest blunder, Dan Snyder had cast himself in the role of the sports owner bully that everyone loves to hate. His suit does not appear to have merit and pressing it will have a devastating impact on his reputation and the franchise. If there is one thing the news media hates, it is the misuse of libel law to force a publication to fire a reporter. Dan Snyder is now in a no win situation.

It does not have to be this way. Dan Snyder does not have to be the bad guy. But in order to turn this around he needs to take dramatic action to change the narrative that has been developed around him.

In my opinion he needs to drop the lawsuit. That will not change his image, but it will end the current controversy. Beyond that, he needs to make a series of dramatic gestures to indicate that he has heard the publics's concerns and is taking them to heart.

First of all he needs to change the team's name. That would be the sort of big gesture that changes the narrative overnight and would force both the news media and general public to take another look at him. Next he needs to look at his present charitable contributions and look at ways he can communicate his commitment to his favorite causes. In addition to his present contributions, he could participate in any of the many walks for cure for breast cancer, or any other cause dear to his heart. This would show a personal commitment over an above the ability to write a big check.

Most of all someone close to him needs to explain you don't need to win every battle, just the big ones. Or, as the Rolling Stones once put it, "You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need."

Friday, February 04, 2011

KM World: Call for Speakers

KM World 2011

November 1 - 3, 2011
Washington Marriott Wardman Park
Washington DC

By co-locating with Enterprise Search Summit Fall, Taxonomy Boot Camp and Sharepoint Symposium , KMWorld 2011 provides attendees with all the essential pieces of the information engine that powers today’s effective enterprise— including knowledge creation, publishing, sharing, finding, mining, reuse, and more. Well implemented and managed, these work together to enable business problem-solving, innovation, and achievement.

Tuesday, February 01, 2011

New to me local tech blogs

Spider Strategies

Simply RFID

Aptela

Intellitrack; Inventory & AIDC Software Blog

Lawrence Wilkes on SOA, EA and AM, Commentary on Service Oriented Architecture, Enterprise Architecture, and Application Modernization

David Sprott's Blog, David Sprott is founder of CBDI Forum, a think tank specializing in practices for SOA and architecture led software delivery and management.