This blog has moved

please visit: http://www.susancato.com

Thanks!

Site-seeing: Polyvore.com

For all my friends and colleagues with style – this is the site for you.

Polyvore lets you mix and match images from anywhere on the web, to create outfits, interior designs, or any kind of collage you like. It includes a browser plugin that allows your to grab any image from the web and import/edit it to include in your collage.

It is also a social network where you can make friends, share and collaborate on ideas, etc. Probably one of THE most unique online concepts I have yet to come across.

I am now addicted. I am currently using this to make a vision board for myself.

Check it out: http://www.polyvore.com

David Weinberger on the Digital Future, “blogs and knowledge”

David Weinberger is one of the few voices in the web world who makes sense. He is an inspired, dynamic speaker, and has the unique ability to take complex concepts and turn them into easy-to-understand examples.

A few years ago, he did a presentation for the Library of Congress Series: Managing Knowledge and Creativity in a Digital Context, and it is my absolute favorite. Although it is is dated – the core concepts are still very relevant, especially if you are trying to understand more about social media, or teach others core ideas and concepts.

It is a bit long and is available both in video (below) and audio format (you can also subscribe to this series on itunes). It’s a great companion during a long commute.

I highly recommend listening or watching – he helps me to better understand concepts around knowledge/information organization, concepts around voice & authority, content in the human context, and brings it all together with real examples of blogging, social networking, social tagging and more.

Great Resource: 7 things you should know about

If you are responsible for technology, or managing your organization’s online presence – Educause has put together a series of smart, useful briefs called 7 things you should know about.

Aside from liking it because I love the number 7 (it’s very Harry Potter), the series provides concise information on learning technologies. Each brief focuses on a single technology or practice and describes what it is, how it works, where it is going, and why it matters.

While the materials have an education ’spin’, they are relevant to most of us on many levels, reviewing sites, social networks, and concepts such as Twitter, Flickr, Wikipedia, YouTube, Facebook, RSS, Creative Commons, and much more.

I use these briefs to help educate and ‘enlighten’ my organization, helping to shift the fundamental attitude and culture of understanding around social networks, information management, and technologies that help support the mission.

Thank you Educause for putting this together!

Podcasting made easy

I recently launched a podcast series for my employer. Putting it together was much easier than expected. Here is the combination of solutions I used:

• A wordpress blog with a custom domain
• A $40 noise-canceling microphone with headset
• Skype with the Pamela plugin for recording phone interviews/conversations
• Some royalty free music
• Windows movie maker or Audacity
• Feedburner to create my podcast-ready feeds
• Royalty-free stock photography for header graphics and iTunes icon

all this and, Viola! A podcast was born…I am so proud.

Now for the hard part – great and compelling content that folks actually want to listen to!

History online: The Library of Congress is now on Flickr

7 areas of successful web management

I am the kind of person who needs clarity as much as possible when working towards any goal or mission, so I like things in neat, concise packages.

In my 14 years of working on the Internet, website initiatives are much more successful when we connect the dots and create clarity around the processes and structure that get us there.

With that said, I have found that this is the most natural and effective way I have found to explain the elements of a solid web infrastructure.

Strategy. Includes site goals and measurements, SEO tactics, social media strategies, content strategy, etc. This strategy is in direct alignment with the overall organizational strategy. Thinking through audiences, goals around customer interactions, content delivery, and visibility are all part of this area. This becomes the blueprint that drives criteria for all other decisions.

Content development & management. As an outcome of the overall strategy, content is developed and maintained, with editorial guidelines and process in place. It is essential to have appropriate resources dedicated to this area – without great content, your website will be just a pretty picture!

Design/usability. Once you understand the overall strategy (which includes your content strategy) it is time to get to work. A good web designer understands best practices for web design, usability, Information Architecture, Audience-specific design, as well as site optimization, etc. A good designer takes in to consideration the long-term approach for site management, maintenance etc., in order to produce something that your organization can support.

Front-end Development. Building efficient and effective templates using best practices is critical. An efficient, optimized site will not only make visitors happy, but help to increase your organic search rankings as well as reduce overall support resources and costs. A savvy front-end developer or ‘webmaster’ must be extremely knowledgeable about CSS, Xhtml, HTML, and Javascript, as well as a rich understanding of how open API’s work in order to integrate third party widgets, feeds, and other items to make the user experience even more valuable. This person will turn a smart web design in to a highly-functional masterpiece – and also acts as a liaison when developing heavy-hitting back-end functionality.

Back-end Development. Programmers make complex functionality happen on your website. Typically these applications have some sort of database on the back-end, and are riddled with complex logic. This stuff makes my head spin – my hats off to those programmers who can take my ideas and work their magic to create flawless functionality on the web.

Hosting/Infrastructure. Having a hosting infrastructure that includes both a development and live server is paramount for ongoing site success. All changes, upgrades, additions are completed on a development server which should mirror the production server – then approved and deployed. Using some sort of source control where site managers and developers are required to check out files prior to making changes works well. This way, versions of the site are kept in a database (this is also great fro disaster recovery) and can be rolled back if need be. Finally, the hosting environment must take into consideration the overall strategy of the site, the expected traffic, and type of activity going on – in order to accommodate with bandwidth, processing power, and support resources.

Site ownership and ongoing management (non-technical). It is my opinion that every successful web initiative must have a champion – an inspired individual to oversee its success, measure activity against goals, write annual plans, and make sure the support structure is working effectively.

5 Internet-related phrases I love to loathe

For me, these are like nails on a chalkboard. Unfortunately, I am forced to use some of these from time-to-time.

1. Virtual Tradeshow: Tradeshows are meant for in-person networking, idea-sharing, collaboration.. Folks who want a virtual tradeshow online really want a very visual product directory, which is fine – just don’t call it a tradeshow.
2. Portal: My mental picture on this is a dumping ground for links to other places. Del.icio.us is much more effective, if this is what you want.
3. Social Media: This is the term I love to hate. Isn’t all media social? The problem is I have yet to find another way to describe what it is that I am doing to my colleagues. Perhaps we need to make up a word, or borrow one from Tolkien’s elvish dictionary.
4. Web 2.0: I guess I am just really tired of this one. Isn’t the web always evolving?
5. Sticky eyeballs: The concept behind this rubs against the importance of community and collaboration online. Not to mention it sounds like a disease.

Podsurfing – The Thomas Jefferson Hour

I have been a fan of podcasts for quite some time now – listening to everything from David Weinberger’s “Everything is Miscellaneous” series, to PotterCast and MuggleCast, Learning Italian, to grammar girl.

My new favorite is a thought-provoking weekly series called the Thomas Jefferson hour. Discussion topics are varied, informative and insightful – touching on life during Jeffersons era as well as his perspective on current events. I have recently become very interested in learning more about the “founding fathers” of our country – and this series is just what I was looking for. This is an ever-inspiring series that I highly recommend.

Visit the website: http://www.jeffersonhour.org/, or subscribe via iTunes.

Humanities scholar and author, Clay S. Jenkinson, adopts the persona of Jefferson each week to comment on current events and answer questions you may have about Jefferson’s thoughts on any and all topics. Clay has portrayed Thomas Jefferson for more than two decades. He is the recipient of the National Endowment for the Humanities highest award, then called the Charles Frankel Award, for his humanities-based first person interpretation methodology.

Just testing, this is Jott calling…

Just testing Jott, calling in a blog post, this is very interesting maybe I never have to type again. We will see how accurate this is when I get online after I get home.

Powered by Jott

**********************************

I called in the above to Jott from my cellphone while driving home. So essentially I called my blog. I also called in a tweet to my twitter page, and an appt. to my google calendar. It all worked flawlessly. I have learned since that you can even Jott entire groups in your contact list. Jott enables us to communicate in a variety of ways without being near a computer.

Too bad I can’t call Jott to clean my house, cook dinner, or walk the dog. Then I could transact my entire life through one 800 number. Still pretty cool though.