My last post mentioned that Conversant supports unlimited metadata (categorization) vectors for each post.

Coincidentally (I think), Brian Carnell just wrote about his use of this feature under the topic, "Wikis+Blogs=Conversant".

While working on the new weblog plugin this weekend, I found that (as is too often the case) there were a few things that could either be done "right" or "fast," but not both.

I opted for right -- maximum flexibility -- but was more disappointed with the performance than I expected.

The solution was macro caching. The output of a macro can now be stored after the macro has run. The next time the macro is requested, the cache is returned (almost instantly) instead of running the macro again.

With only a few lines of code, Conversant's slowest macros can now be made its fastest. For example, the insertQuery macro (which searches the database and renders the results into the page) -- perhaps the coolest macro Conversant has (so far) -- was occasionally also the slowest. With caching, it's one of the very fastest. The insertQuery macro is a great tool for knowledge management, and its new speed should make it even more popular among Conversant administrators.

Yesterday John Robb posted a piece about communications efficiency to his "K-Logs" marketing list on Yahoo Groups.

I tried to respond, twice, but my response never went through. Rather than remain silent, I'm posting it here.

("K-Logs" are John's idea for knowledge management: weblogs written by professionals in a given field, usually within an organization and primarily for an intra-organizational audience.)

For context, I recommend reading John's message first.

On 6/7/02, John Robb said:

>200 e-mails:  3-4 hours (relevant e-mails only, including
>inefficient repetitive replies due to a lack of viewable
>archiving).

Use a system like Conversant that integrates email responses into your "klogs", and you get a spam-free system that allows people to read your "klog" entries in their browser, Radio, or email, and then discuss the items via email either privately or publicly ("publicly" meaning on the the site's integrated discussion list).

Now you have email archives that are integrated with your "klogs", and any email which deserves it can even be published to your klog!

>50 K-logs with 10 posts a day (500 entries): 20 minutes to
>scan.  20 minutes to post responses.

So we're able to basically read and respond to "klogs" more than 10 times faster than email, huh? Is that an inherent trait of "klogs"?

Seth Dillingham
http://www.truerwords.net/

John Robb writes a lot about "K-logging," which is short for "knowledge logging", which is the phrase John uses for a sort of tightly-focused weblogging. John promotes "K-logging" as a partial solution to knowledge management in corporate culture.

Some of the stuff that John writes is right-on and easy to agree with. Some of it is, in my opinion, totally off-the-wall.

Jim Roepcke has taken one of John's recent pieces and responded to it in piecemeal fashion. His basic points are:

• that email isn't so bad if you're using a good system (Yahoo Groups is not such a system)
• that IM isn't so bad if you have the self-control to to sign off or set the "away" preference when you're busy
• that instant outlining is a good idea but which still needs a lot of work in order to be useful in the long term as a workgroup product

I know I'm being boring, but I agree with most everything he's said. I have a lot more to say on the subject, especially about email, but no time to say it right now. Go read Jim's comments.

Hopefully, John will take Jim's words in the way I believe he intends them: constructive criticism.

Scripting.com this morning linked to a story about weblogs (and about Dave Winer, the author of scripting.com) at the National Post. The author (James Cowan) sucks up to Dave, which would be a little over the top if it weren't for the fact that he's right: Dave did a great job covering the events of 9/11.

While discussing the effect that weblogs have had on traditional media, Mr. Cowan quotes Dave,

"If you want information about a certain [computer] product, you'll find it on a Web log," Winer said. "You won't find it in a 600-word review in The Los Angeles Times. The newspaper will skim the surface and tell you a little bit about what the product does but will probably skip the details."

As if to prove that his article isn't part of the 'traditional media', Mr. Cowan's story is more than twice that long. (It's a little too long.) Unfortunately, he doesn't seem to get the real point of weblogs. I'm not sure if Dave meant that a 600-word review was long or short, but the great thing about independent weblogs is not their length. It's their focus and their independence.

If you want to "understand" weblogs, you first need to ask yourself who or what you're interested in. There are weblogs on nearly every topic imaginable. This is independent publishing: people write about what they know and live.

I certainly don't maintain the best weblog, but I have some regular readers because they're either interested in me (like my family and friends), or the technology I work with every day. My stories about Conversant, or Mozilla, or Radio, or my last vacation, or the smorgasbords Corinne whips up, might not be as well written as 1400 words in the National Post, but you'll learn a lot more about them here because I spend more than a few hours writing these stores. These are the things I know best, things I'm an expert on, and that's a huge advantage.

It's not that "amateur journalism" is better than professional journalism. The "point" about weblogs is that the experts (in every field) no longer have to depend on the biased, often clueless "professionals" to tell their stories. We now have our own voices.

I should have had a weblog during my days at R.R. Donnelley, trying to help a big company and all of its customers make the transition to CtP. The media, and even RRD's own sales people, just didn't get it. Unfortunately, that was before weblogs.

Examples

Here are some examples of experts writing about their own "knowledge domains". It's woefully incomplete, as there are thousands to choose from.

• Duncan Smeed is a teacher of Computer Architecture and Design. He writes about computer processor technology, lower-level programming, and teaching at a university.
  
  
• David Carter-Tod is an educator. He writes about "serious instructional technology".
  
  
• Brian Carnell is, perhaps, the exception that makes the rule. He's the sort of weblogger that defies categorization other than to say that he's an "information junkie". He runs weblogs and discussion forums on Animal Rights, Equity Feminism, world over-population, and many other topics, and many of his sites are referenced by "bigger names" in the traditional media.
  
  
• Jim Roepcke is a Canadian WebObjects programmer. He writes about hockey, the evils of the U.S., and of course web programming.