Evernote...at last

I am not the worlds greatest "Getting Things Done" guy (only got half way through the book, and just could not get around to putting it into place). In a quest for lightweight but useful "To-do" managers and "Do not forget" managers, I have been through the full gamut: I even bought Bento (and have not really done much with it). The one tool I really loved and do use is delicious, but I have the collywobbles with the Yahoo announcement (withdrawal from market, and then a quick revision to "we want to sell it) and have been looking into not losing my valuable brain estate. I've been taking a peek at evernote for a while, and so finally decided to download this and work out how to get my delicious stuff into it: easy-peasy, just follow these instructions - works a dream: Instructions to import delicious into evernote...Lovely.

More reviewing...pt2

So, I've started on the first chapter of "Mining the Social Web" proper, and realise it will involve much side reading, as 1) you really do need to know python (although this is already installed in OSX, joy!) 2) you really need to read all the APIs and 3) it looks like the book is going to look to install a large number of python packages. Still, using the twitter package and pulling down the timeline content in terminal is quite cool.

I think I will probably need a once through hands-off, then a once through hands-on, as the first chapter is moving pretty fast, and making some fairly heavy assumptions on development confidence.

Starting out on the O'Reilly Blogger Review Programme

Those nice folks at O'Reilly have started a Blogger Review Programme, and kindly let me be a part of it. Essentially you commit to write a review of an O'Reilly tome in return for a digital review copy - just like I remember it from my real journalism days!

I've been insomniac the past couple of nights (it is 3:45am in Geneva), mostly churning some Measurement & Analytics annoyances in my head, so am now sitting reading the intro. to my first Blogger Review book "Mining the Social Web" (and I suppose I should really try and write this posting in hReview (but I can't be bothered)). So first thoughts are: looks interesting - looks like social network analysis for the social web, so ties nicely into some of my usual old hobby-horses. First gripe would be that all the code is in Python (which I don't know), so I'll have to get to grips with that. It looks like it might hook in nicely with the really interesting, but slightly forbidding "Programming Collective Intelligence" (which if I remember right is also chock-full of Python) - could be a useful companion piece.

Since the O'Reilly review is a 200 worder, I'll try and run a longer review chunk by chunk as I work my way through the book, and then try to some up the overall impression.

Use Casing with Your Clients - BDD or Given, When, Then...

Sitting at home, feeling sorry for myself as I am off work sick, I thought I might write a short blog post on using Behavioural Driven Development (BDD) for Requirements work with clients - a technique which I am starting to use with some (note the qualification) success.

I'm a big fan of use casing "As is" models and "To be" models to get a really nice sense of the contexts in which a system is supposed to work (and by system, I mean people, process and technologies), but this can be hugely tough unless you are working with clients who are formal, systematic, logic-driven thinkers.

And this is how I stumbled upon Dan North's BDD - as a way of reducing the formal use case methodologies (pre- and post-conditions et al.) into a very simple story formulation.
Feature: As a stakeholder, I need a something, in order to meet my goal (High level business requirement - main system "features")
Scenario: Given a starting context, when something happens to change this context, then this should be the result. (Lower-level scenario and low-level "feature" descriptions).
Note: I write "feature" as feature is a controlled word in BDD.

The greater joy of this technique is that it effectively shrinks the distance between what the client says he wants, and what your technical team is capable of delivering back to satisfy these requirements. Why? Well, as this fine blog post points out, it is because this is a business language way of describing states, event triggers and test conditions. Even more importantly, through the use of JBehave or Cucumber with Automated Testing tools like Selenium, your developers can start by writing failing tests for your requirements (requirements-driven, test-driven development), and then - if it is worth the overhead - write automated functional and acceptance tests.

I'm desperate to get this rolling from Business Contact through Business Analyst to Developers and Testers within the company I work at - but I wondered if anyone else has gone ahead and implemented this fully as an end-to-end requirements and development methodology. In the meantime, I'll get my act together and make a couple of posts (when I'm feeling better) as to a few workshop techniques which work nicely for the client-end of BDD.

My Review of Website Optimization

Originally submitted at O'Reilly

Is your site easy to find, simple to navigate, and enticing enough to convert prospects into buyers? Website Optimization shows you how. It reveals a comprehensive set of techniques to improve your site's performance by boosting search engine visibility for more traffic, increasing con...

Website Optimization

Diverse, related topics in one place

By thristan from geneva, switzerland on 11/22/2009

 

4out of 5

Pros: Concise, Helpful examples, Easy to understand

Best Uses: Expert, Intermediate

This is a hugely useful read, particularly if - like myself - you have a range of responsibilities for managing online assets ranging from design, deployment and testing to site promotion and marketing.

Much of the information on each vertical section can be found elsewhere - for instance SEO, PPC and performance optimisation - and individually, each section provides solid information which might not surprise.

The real advantage of this book is that it forces the reader to think of each of the diverse threads as being intimately related in the customer's experience. If you are a UML geek, think of it as an answer to an end-to-end use case (find site, load site, explore site): if you are a marketeer it will expand your horizon in understanding how technical, offpage elements can contribute to satisfaction, bounce rate reduction and improved conversion; if you work in application deployment or support, it will give you some useful pre-launch direction to load and performance testing and gain you brownie points with your Sales and Marketing customers.

So, short order review is that while individual sections on their own may not deliver any surprises to someone with existing expertise, the overall remit of the book will expand the horizons of most who read it.

(legalese)

Corporate Programme Management for the Web

I've worked for a number of blue-chips for a number of years, and am continually surprised by the fact that - since online is not a primary or secondary revenue base - sensible, value-driven approaches to managing a Web portfolio are few and far between.

Many larger companies play lip service to the concept that the Web is (or can be) a hugely important component in the process of "doing business": they show initial interest (in terms of capital investment) in a couple of pilot projects, and then seem to rapidly lose interest in keeping up with the Internet as a "going concern".

The complexity of stakeholders, risk management, the "agility" of a larger corporation, and - of course - competing (core) investment concerns all play a role in making it difficult to apply a longer-term, strategic programme approach to online activity, and ensuring that this is delivered according to best practices.

Benchmarking helps, but - funnily enough - when speaking to colleagues working in related roles for different companies, I find that this is, in fact, an endemic problem. So this is a call for comment, input and assessment from anyone working in an internet management role where the core product is not sold online, but where the Internet is "considered" a core component of business activity - correct me if I am wrong, maybe share successes and failures, and indicate the righteous path forward...

Disentangling blended feedback

Having just been working on a project where workforce and audience acceptance of a mix of new hardware, software and content needed to be assessed & tested, I'm keen to find out the best way of gaining a blended system acceptance view without confusing the feedback for the separate elements. I know this should focus on asking precise questions, and directing users to complete specific targeted tasks, but users often seem unable to disentangle feedback in one dimension from another... (usually blaming hardware or software for eveerything). Does anyone have any helpful advice? I must confess that I'm not used to adding the hardware angle.

This Blog is still alive...!

...just.

Having just logged into Blogger, I now realise that it is only a week shy of a year since I last posted to my blog.

In case anyone is still out there occasionally reading the blog (it's been a while since I checked out the analytics also), the main reason behind this has been moving countries, and then trying to move house.

While this isn't inline with previous post content, I suppose it does count as "information" to be shared: if you are moving to Geneva, make sure you give yourself at least 6 months to find accommodation (unless you are so wealthy, you can gazump the market!). It actually took my family 8 months to be able to move from temporary accommodation into a permanent home - and this was with sizeable local knowledge, friend networks and work & family support...phew!

If anyone is interested in knowing more, leave a comment, and I'll add some detail, otherwise, my next post will be back to normal themes of IA, KM, usability and needs analysis.

PRINCE2 and Agility

Over the past couple of years, I've dabbled around the fringes of agile programming/project management mostly looking at XP, but I have to confess that I've always struggled to reconcile agility and the structured control delivered by PRINCE2. I've always erred towards early, hands-on prototypes (whether paper or digital), prioritised requirements lists, and facilitated, collaborative meetings, so I was delighted to discover that all three of these feature strongly in DSDM. I've now taken the plunge, and am reading (the - so far - excellent) short tome on merging DSDM with PRINCE2, "Agile Project Management" by Keith Richards. I'm starting to come around to the idea that web projects might be ideally suited to a stripped-down mix of the two (perhaps something more PRIDE on the PRINCE2 side). Certainly the inherent difficulties of managing rapidly moving web projects within a PRINCE2 change management framework appear to be addressed by such an approach, as would integrating early and frequent usability tests.

I'm not here at the moment, but...

I'm on holiday and paternity leave at the moment, enjoying the French Alps, and learning to live without sleep (I'd love to know when babies biorhythms start to match those of their parents). A couple of days before departing, a colleague in our Human Resources department asked me to deliver a presentation on the corporate intranet (as a communications and knowledge management tool) to our graduate work placement intake...two days into my break.

However, I hesitated to decline as there would not have been anyone to do this in my stead. So, as quickly as possible, I cobbled together a variation of the absentee acceptance common to awards ceremonies ("Kirk Douglas cannot unfortunately be with us today, but he recorded the following message...").

The limiting factors were time and the need for the presentation to be delvered in a known format (as the HR team would be delivering the presentation). However, armed with a couple of pieces of software, a headset and webcam, it was just over an afternoon's work to put together.

• Microsoft Powerpoint to advance the slideset (using insert > movie and embedding Flash movies using the activeX Flash object and the Flash rewind plug-in);


• Blueberry software Flashback Express to record the video screen-capture and voice over;


• A Logitech webcam to record a few short video introductions;


• Snagit for some static screen captures as slideshow graphics

I settled on using Flashback Express for the main voice-over as I found the quality of Powerpoint's record narration function to be severely limited (although given the time constraints, I didn't have the chance to check out whether this is a known limitation or an indication of my own inexperience with the function).

The great thing is that I was able to hand the HR department - 5 minutes before heading off on holiday - a single package where the only input required from their team was to advance the presentation slide-by-slide. I haven't yet heard how well the presentation went down, but in the absence of available time and a replacement speaker, I would recommend this as a very useful tool, which, once you have got into the screen-casting habit can be very rapid.

Change in status...on becoming a dad

I haven't had the opportunity yet to write up my thoughts on KCUK, as my wife and I have been busy with our new son, Theodore, who chose the auspicious date of 07/07/07 to mark his entry into the world.

There are very few "Thristan"s in the world (obviously not including the Christian name), so I think Theodore may take us up to a count of about 15 worldwide.

I will blog on KCUK and other things soon, but in the meantime, may try to catch up on some sleep!

Knowledge Management Presentation

I was over at Ark Group's Knowledge and Content UK this week, along with a colleague, and will try to write up a lengthy post regarding this within the next few days. However, given that it's my wife's due date tomorrow, and she has already been having contractions, it may take me a few days to find time to gather my thoughts and reflections and get them up on the blog.

My presentation went pretty well, although - as I had a graveyard slot - the audience was perhaps smaller than anticipated (but appeared pretty engaged with the discussion on best practice management).

This year's conference seemed generally to mark a refocus on the "people" elements of KM with a healthy dose of social software and Web 2.0 references sprinkled in. I would have liked to hear a few more tactical KM war stories, rather than so many similar strategic approaches, but there were some excellent speakers, and I had some engaging discussions during the breaks.

MyBlogLog and Wink

Idly meandering through the Yahoo Developer Network, I clicked on MyBlogLog - which I signed up for ages ago, but never did anything with. It's an interesting conceit - so if you do read my blog, feel free to sign up to say you do...Likewise, I'm trying to sort out a Wink profile as I like its use of MicroID - again, feel free to engage!

Web Project Management Best Practice

I was contacted to take part in an e-consultancy review of Online Project Management a short while ago, and received a link to their report on best practice in this area today. [UPDATE 16/05/07 - Linus Gregoriadis, Head of Research at e-consultancy, let me know I was pointing to a link for survey participants only, so - just in case you have bookmarked this, the link has now switched.]

I have to say, having skim-read the first-half, that it very much matches my experience. For instance, as a PRINCE2 qualified practitioner, I would have to agree that the PRINCE2 "exception"-led model of change management (and over-reliance on detailed specifications) can work against managing rapidly moving Web projects (where XP and other Agile methods build this into a rapid and iterative loop).

The great thing about a Web project is that you can manage the overall project with one methodology and branch off (in a controlled manner) software development, for instance, in a slightly different direction. I think it pays to be cute and take a pick-and-mix approach, rather than try to adhere to a monolithic approach, all in the name of getting things done. I don't think this has to be at the cost of losing control of time, cost, quality and associated risks; this is one of the reasons that I enjoy Basecamp as a Project Management tool: it helps me control the project while being flexible enough to stand setting up PRINCE2-type methods, controls and stages as categories.

Note: prince2 link updated on 10/03/2010 thanks to helpful comment.

Recognise pattern, fail to change

I'll probably write this up in more detail when I have two minutes to myself, but reading a recent copy of Wired last night on the plane from Geneva to London, I was just very aware of one very major strength in the human psyche, and another - related - weakness.

It's not a surprising revelation, but I feel that sometimes it is worth stating the obvious: people are great at recognising patterns, but hopeless at turning these patterns into action. I think that therein lies the failure of many a great, intellectually cogitated strategy.

So much for digital whiteboards

Via Mike Kuniavsky, here's an interesting toy which allows you to interactively project drawings in real-time. I know the intended audience is for kids, but this is a very cool way to make a big drawing in real-time when you don't have a whiteboard available. Just project on the wall.

This very much reminds me of a play of a Neil Gaiman book called "The Wolves in the Walls" which my wife did some digital compositing and projection work on where an After Effects animation was composited and projected onto the stage using Watchout software. The effect was to enable the actress to "draw" on the stage in real-time. Depending on the artistic skills of the actress, this toy would have been a simple replacement for this one effect. Scientific Progress does not always go "Boink" to mis-quote Calvin and Hobbes.

Scrollable, multiple selection checkboxes

Via Bim Egan of the RNIB, and passed on to me by my colleague, Sonia Carter, is this nice little accessible solution to multiple checkbox selections and saving space (i.e. "making it look good") at the same time.

This was, as pointed out by Bim, discussed on the webaim discussion board a while ago - to be honest, I was stuck back in the days of thinking that CTRL+ multiple option selection was fine for the "select" element. But, care of Bim is this neat solution on C82: "check it, don't select it". I really like this - neat and easy to code.

Screen Recording - Flashback Express

Having trialled Techsmith Camtasia Studio as well as Adobe Captivate (both great tools, fully featured, but costing $200 plus), I've been on the look out for lower cost replacements for a while.

While I haven't fully trialled this yet, Blueberry Software's Flashback Express looks like it could be a useful alternative (at $49) if you're interested in recording .swf or .avi demos. It's been pretty easy to use thus far, and works nicely with a headphone/mic set-up on my laptop.

Sheer Marketing Genius from the Fitzwilliam

In a perfect example as to how to make the best of a bad deal, the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambrige (UK) - my personal favourite museum - has launched a jigsaw postcard. "So what?" you may be thinking to yourself: well, the genius behind this is that the two priceless Chinese vases (I forget which dynasty) were accidentally shattered into hundreds of pieces by a clumsy/unlucky visitor. This pratfall hit the headlines in the UK (particularly as there was CCTV footage of the incident), and I think it is a masterstroke to allow visitors to buy a postcard so that they can piece the vases back together again themselves...!

As an additional note, if you are ever in Cambridge, do drop into the Museum, it has a great Hogarth before/after painting, a beautiful Picasso drawing of Lydia Lopokova, and many other treasures.

[UPDATE]: It's Qing dynasty, and you can purchase the cards at the museum shop online!

Social Networking Silver Bullet

Via Headshift and via Marc's voice, I came across Social networking: Time for a silver bullet, which comes to some similar conclusions that I came to a couple of years ago. Namely, personal profiles (secure, of course) to represent a changing "you" and XFN or some other standard to establish the connections (or "predicates" in RDF speech, "verbs" to the rest of the world!) between them. It would be better to have "entity profiles" and "entity predicates" rather than remaining people-based as this would also allow organisations to keep an up-to-date profile (potentially with individual "person profiles" indicating a staff member relationship). It's all pretty interesting to see what direction the social networking and semantic web space is taking - although I dearly wish for the removal of the "Web 2.0" nomenclature, it really irritates me - personally, I like microformats as a first-footing into the space, and tend to agree with the KISS factor (keep it short and simple) which has led to RSS actually having an impact in this space.