Don’t get caught up in the naming of things with words, it gets confusing.  Words change the very nature of how we think about something.  It is “this”, therefore it is “that”.  Now, a tree is a tree and a rock is a rock, unless you are in some altered state on consciousness, but we won’t go there. I’m focused on the newcomer words that are still in flux.   Too often it is herd mentality that gives  new things their name.

Today I stared on my iPhone, Blackberry, GPhone and Palm pre on my desk and ask myself  “what are these?”

Cell Phones, Mobile Devices or Mobile Computers?

My company, Broadlook is developing software for mobile devices and I needed to have all of them.  I’m also a gadget freak, so I enjoy having all of them. Perhaps the collection of them, together, was odd and put me into a bit of a trance.

“What are these?”, I asked myself again.
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Tag Cloud

I’ve had some recent fun with Tag Clouds.  These are the sections of blogs that show the most frequently used words in blog postings; the most used words are shown in larger text, less frequent in smaller text.

Tag clouds are great summary tools.  In my next presentation at the Specialized Information Publishers Conference in DC,  I am presenting on The 7 laws of Internet List Generation.  I thought it would be fun to start the talk with the first slide that shows a Tag Cloud of the most frequently used words in the PowerPoint presentation.

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For about two years now, I’ve been getting calls to act as a consultant for several of my clients.  Normally, this is not my role.  My role at Broadlook, historically, has been envisioning the business logic behind a technology solution, building the product, and then evangelizing the hell out of it.

Sales and recruiting teams, in 22 countries, are power users of Broadlook software solutions.  They are thinking of new ways to leverage technology that I dreamed up…in ways I never dreamed of.  Cool. They are creating their own internal Broadlook corporate training classes, building corporate wiki’s and flying Broadlook Black Belt trainers on-site for advanced training classes.  Very cool.

Here is what bugs me:  They are not talking!   Many clients see the Broadlook tools as a confidential trade secret and an integral component of their business process.  So they won’t talk about what they are doing. Not cool at all.

Here is what happened recently: Read the rest of this entry »

Having worked with many databases as well as having extensive experience in searching the Internet, I thought I’d share some thoughts on the differences between the two.

When I observe people searching the Internet, there is a common mistake I see them making.  Most people search the Internet like they are searching a database. Don’t get me wrong,  the Internet does include databases. Thomas Register, Spoke and Zoominfo are examples of different types of databases. Via different methods, information is added to these data sources and some sort of query mechanism is provided the subscribers. Can you use the Zoom query on Thomas Register and visa versa? No, these are proprietary systems that have search methods specialized to the content inside them. Each of these databases is limited, incomplete, but stored in a homogonous fashion.

The Internet, in its entirety, is not homogonous.
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“Data normalization” is a phrase that leaves a blank stare on most peoples faces.  Here is a secret:  it is really simple.

Here is the inside scoop:  Technology people have a secret club, complete with handshake and everything.  It’s a club that we don’t want outsiders in.  So we create these long phrases that make peoples eyes glass over.  Why?  Because if everyone understood what we do, then we wouldn’t make the big bucks.   Being a recovering technologist, I’m on a continually journey to lose my geek speak. So get ready, here is the skinny on Data Normalization Read the rest of this entry »