mostly research stuff
some big surprises this year when i read the econtent 100 list…ever read it? it’s online now, and cleanly organized by category…some big surprises and some changes as well: this time around it looks like the judges aren’t just letting the incumbents hold their spots without some kinda actual innovation…the result? no mention of hoovers - but are you really surprised? what has hoovers actually done in the past few years beyond change a few colors on the home page and raise prices? exactly (read: good decision judges)…so here’s some additional commentary regarding the shit that shoulda been on there, my own “econtent 100 additions” - if you will:
skyminder - this company didn’t make the short list for fee based services? come on! what are these judges smoking?
wordpress - what the shit? they’ve got feedster and six apart, which is good - but google and askjeeves and no wordpress? have they even seen any of the wordpress releases this year?
drupal and mambo - how can you have plone - and not drupal or mambo? this confounds me…and how could you skip right over sugar crm?
…and what about quintura for search? hello??? elgoog in multiple categories, but no mention of quintura? and absolutely no mention of lucene or nutch? clearly these judges are asleep at the wheel…
…and what about esnips, from the folks behind net snippets (also not on the list)? or yahoo for mobile content? or pagebites for specialty search, or indeed (both of those are super new this year)?
once again this list seems to fall as short as truman capote giving madame dame a hug… and it feels like yet another one of those rankings where winners are regular advertisers (pure smud, as defined here)…well, at least there’s next year….btw, any other great ones that i’m missing? there must be dozens of others…
it appears that after decades of portraying librarians in the wrong light, some filmies (including writer/director ann seidl) have separated folks from money and put a film called the hollywood librarian into real production…from ann, “The idea for this film came to me in 1995, when I was entering graduate school in library science. I, like many librarians, have found a conflict between the way I see myself as a librarian and the way others perceive the library profession. The handful of films that exists on this topic neither examine the image and stereotype of librarians, nor portray the real work that librarians do. I want to make a film that does both.”…you can see who has already been interviewed in the ‘production schedule’ at the site, which is a cool thing to make available…
honestly, i’m only concerned that without some of the following key elements, the film might go the way of other obscure documentaries. these possible ideas include (are you reading this ms. seidl?): the love/sex angle - librarians who have had affairs with patrons (sex scenes would be cool); violence - librarians who have totally lost it (aka ‘going postal’ but with staplers and super-sharp microfiche things); and perhaps (on a serious note) the impact of death - like when long time local librarians pass away in small communities (that applie pie element)…add some cg to turn librarians into cool hero/villain types with action sequences and maybe this thing could topple the harry potter empire….
The Hollywood Librarian: Librarians in Cinema and Society is in production already, and from the site it looks like it’s gonna be an outstanding watch, “The Hollywood Librarian: Librarians in Cinema and Society, now in production, will be the first full-length film to focus on the work and lives of librarians in the entertaining and appealing context of American movies… Films such as Sophie’s Choice, Philadelphia and It’s a Wonderful Life show librarians as negative stereotypes. The librarians in Lorenzo’s Oil, Desk Set and The Shawshank Redemption, on the other hand, are competent and professional. Dozens of interviews of real librarians will be interwoven with movie clips of cinematic librarians and serve as transitions between the themes of censorship, intellectual freedom, children and librarians, pay equity and funding issues, and the value of reading. ”
…there are even gonna be a coupla interviews with celebrities who have played librarians, including tim robbins and goldie hawn (too bad goldie’s super hot daughter kate isn’t gonna be feature…) - and supposedly ray bradbury is being interviewed for it too…hey, thanks to amelia for turning me on this upcoming documentary via the buslib list!
…and help me win some kinda cool prize (best overall is a trip to vegas from jobster) …to vote, just goto the surveymonkey site (or email blogawards@recruiting.com with passingnotes in there (in the subject line) and maybe add some kinda cool comment…this is from the folks behind recruiting.com, and there’s a full entry with all nominees at the recruiting.com blog awards posting on the site…being updated regularly
why is passingnotes being nominated? probably just ’cause i’m the shit…well, to clarify, back in the day i was actually a part of the recruiting industry, and i still train a lotta researchers who touch human capital (many are over at researchzilla now), and as a corporation, my own firm clew llc consults to a number of corporate hr organizations (though really all competitive intelligence projects, but whatever)…and as a result, a lotta people from the old passingnotes listserv and recruiting research related website are avid blog readers…
…so yeah, that’s the skinny…the voting page for surveymonkey is easy…and you will rule the earth if i win, ’cause i’ll use the free harbucks prize to stay all hopped up on caffeine and keep the writing up..
…so yeah, the working title was originally ‘forget about executive pay and start worrying about leadership names’ - but it was a mouthful…you know, when i was kid i used to get razzed about my last name (it’s ‘carpe,’ pronounced like the fish)..it was the 70’s, so kids were singing commercial tunes, as in “love my carpet” or just swapping a letter (david crap)…then i grew up (after a few years back there where i kinda blamed my parents for my bad habits)…but you know, it could be worse, you could have a really whack name like these people below…
…honestly, people piss and moan about how much leaders in industry get paid, but they never seem to tease them about their names…why? are we supposed to outgrow that need to make fun of names? i don’t think so…to me, compensation is of far less concern than the message corporations and universities send to the world by employing leadership types with absolutely ridiculous names…hopefully, there’s gotta be at least one reader out there as immature as i am when it comes to this kind of super-critical research…yeah, so here’s my list of “dave’s top ‘bad names in industry, 2005′:
and the honorable mentions:
…who, btw, supposedly now hides out in the romanian village of clit
…who, btw, works closely with kerina cheesman..
..damn, gotta go! i can’t believe that i wasted so much time on this…btw, if you want to waste your own time on research, plug some of these names into zoominfo and you’ll be pleasantly surprised…
okay, duh, it’s because of me…you all know that i crap all over elgoog with a fair degree of consistency, and i return to each crap-on-goog post with a renewed vigor and enthusiasm each and every time some corporate action pisses me off - like when base offers a back door to porn, or when they bullied jerry at javeo, or when they unwittingly helped tons of drug dealers, and when they said dumb stuff in their playboy interview…
…but when it comes to gmail, i am actually floored - this is a killer application, imho, and i’m using it out the wazoo to manage the flow of messages to multiple personal accounts, older emails (e.g. university alum crap and so on) - and i even used it to run a little experiment in which i archived every email ever sent back and forth between me and this girl i was going out with for ages…
how much do i love it? well, i ran out and grabbed www.gmail.pro and set up a web site that tracks every tool, hack, code item, implementation, major news bit and so on - all neatly organized and easy to understand with direct links to the developer download and support sites…there are literally dozens upon dozens of people working for free to improve and extend gmail and gmail.pro offers a way to see who they all are (and ideally, give ‘em your own money)…which of course means that i can get mail at the @gmail.pro suffix (neat-o!)
…oh, and btw, even though you can email me personally now at dave (at) gmail.pro, i’ve only given out a very, very small handful of alias accounts to people who have helped with the site…if you really want one, then maybe i’ll hear your case, but i do not want to piss of the green giant over there in california…that ain’t what this is about…
this blog is mostly safe for work, though i sometimes throw around a 'fuck' or two. you'll find a bunch of my articles from CI Magazine, SCIP online, other research pieces and some other crap. enjoy. there's lost of content here related to getting information about, around, from and through people and organizations...