heidi go seek

Redesigning this website has been something on my mind for a long time. I've decided to go ahead and do it proper so at least I have a few things for the portfolio when I'm done. I've done the wireframes already; the overall content was the easy part because I have been contemplating this for awhile. I'm currently working on some HTML mockups which dive into the content in more detail. I do have some design elements in mind, though that stage isn't for awhile.

Home

The main focus of my redesign has always been shifting my home page away from the blog and creating more of a portal of other areas I contribute content online. A few years ago it occurred to me that anybody going to heidigoseek.com doesn't really get a full picture of who I am and where I spend most of my time by just viewing my blog. If anything my blog is my least updated area online (not a sad truth, just reality).

Certain social media links will always be at the top of the page next to the main navigation. Some basic information about me, my location, and contact details will always be at the bottom of the page. This gives me room to work with things in the main content area. The home page brings back my favorite quote (which was on a previous version of my website) and has a Twitter widget (which will always be the most current status), but the three main areas focus on where I'm most likely to contribute my own content; my blog, Flickr, and Tumblr.

About

The about page is my extended biography, but reuses the Twitter widget from the homepage. The Twitter widget has links to download my CV and my vCard. I'm thinking of redesigning my CV as well, but I haven't gone this far yet. I have decided to leave the HTML version of my CV off of the new website and just have the downloadable copy. LinkedIn is essentially my online CV and I've never been happy with any HTML iterations of my CV I've ever created.

Lifestream

The Lifestream is currently active on my website and is implemented through Movable Type's Action Streams plugin. I've already blogged about how I set this up and it's going to stay for the next version of the site. The Lifestream will capture nearly everything I do online, including links or information I share. A project on the backburner is to customize the stream output a little more; for example, I would like the Twitter feed to not include @replies, but that will take some more fooling around with Action Streams to do. The page is not where I want it yet, but it is conceptually there.

Blog

There's nothing special to say about the blog except that it will be moving to another directory. I'm keeping Movable Type, not because I'm absolutely in love with it, but because it's just what I use. The website I do next will be with WordPress, but this site is fine still with Movable Type.

Portfolio

The portfolio set of pages are all new and the second focus of the redesign. I wanted something more visually appealing, but I also wanted to include a wide range of content. It was fun trying to organize these and I think the designs I have in mind will be great here. The portfolio will contain content from up to four different areas; Deliverables & Websites, Presentations, Articles & Writing, and Coursework. Some of the content can overlap which is why I'm already considering the content strategy aspect of this area. The layout of each page is determined by the section, each is a little different.

I would like to thank Gavin for giving me the idea to put the wireframe images up on Flickr. I've been enjoying watching his progress with his own website and portfolio as well.

Facebook is at it again. It's changing things around, and a few people are noticing. I've been thinking about this post for a long time. Facebook is a very popular service, and privacy is a hot topic (especially for many librarians I know), it's bound to strike several different chords. I've heard Facebook criticized as being both too constricting (aka the "walled garden") and too open with our information. After mulling about this post for a while (maybe even since Facebook has been around), I've decided that the problem is not necessarily with Facebook, it's with us, and our lack of understanding of a service we invest so much time and throw so much information into.

When I started writing this I decided what I did not want it to be was a "why and how we need to turn off all privacy settings in Facebook" sort of thing. I am not advocating that. Facebook is here to stay, like it or not. What I think the essence of Facebook is illustrating to us, though, is where I've felt this privacy discussion has been heading for a long while... whose responsibility is it to protect our own privacy? It is ours. I may not agree to all the options in Facebook's convoluted privacy settings, but it's because I took the time to understand them that I feel better about what the world sees of me through Facebook. So what this is instead, is an approach to taking back what is yours, and to understanding what part of your soul Facebook actually owns (it might not as bad as you think.)

I spend a lot of time thinking about information, particularly how we consume it and what we do with it.  I think most people struggle with the bulk of it, surely I do anyway.  I think I do a lot more consuming and sharing than I do absorbing, which is why the "To Read" stack of articles often gets overlooked.  The tools are a big part of the process, I do use a lot of them, but I use them in a way that as signals of what I might want to do with that information later.  I share almost everything through Google Reader.  I save almost everything too, but that's so I can review things later (a second look at my Google Reader things is like going through the pile of papers on your desk and filing them appropriately).  Then things get sorted again.

• Is this a website or service I wanted to sign up for?  If it is then I take a few minutes and evaluate its worth to me... if it's more involved than a quick sign up then it might go into the to do list (Remember the Milk is the list of choice here).
• Is this information this something I want to read later?  If yes then it goes into Instapaper (and I have Instapaper Pro for the iPhone as well, which I actually prefer as a reading interface for blogs posts or articles).
• Is this a resource that I might want to use as a reference later?  If it is then it goes to Delicious.  The Delicious extension in Firefox is a nice way of accessing those later.

My feed reader has turned into a stream of information like Twitter has.  I don't fret if things go unread.  I peer into my feeds when I have a few minutes and I share or mark the things that look interesting.  The Feedly extension helps me manage items that don't appear in my feed reader the same way (basically it turns the entire internet into my reader).  Things found on Twitter or Facebook can be added to the information stream just as easily as things already there.

Of course this isn't a fool proof process, things that I know I read go missing.  Search becomes important in these situations.  Since I save almost everything to Google Reader as a shared item then I can usually start there.  Did I put it somewhere else?  FriendFeed can often help me out if I did (lifestreaming isn't always about sharing with others, it's about remembering what you did).

So far this is a pretty reliable process for me... that is until I get to the "To Read" stuff.  Let's be honest, it never gets read, no matter what your method.  I'd like to change that.  I opened Instapaper today and realized most of things I have saved here are really great articles having to do with IA or UX topics.  Things I should be reading!  Not just reading though, absorbing and understanding.  I'm going to try to build it in to my to do list as a once a week thing (as well as reviewing my saved items) and hopefully save or synthesize the information as I see the need to.

I do think there's value in learning how to skim the surface of information.  We can filter, pick, and choose what is relevant to us quickly and very efficiently.  However, this should be balanced with some of the more traditional skills of picking apart and analyzing the information we do find useful.

Traveling can be expensive.  While I'm feeling less of a tourist in the UK, having been here for about five months now, I'm well aware of the limitations of being in a different country while relying on technology to get around efficiently and cheaply.

I do love the convenience of my iPhone and the many apps I have installed, but if you use an iPhone (or any other smart phone) and rely on a data network in your own country (for me the United States), you become quickly aware of how reliant that device is on data access once it's stripped away from you.  This makes using the device a challenge when you're outside your network trying to find your way around or discovering interesting things to do.

I don't plan on giving up my US based iPhone any time soon, so most of my days in the UK are spent on free wifi access points or rationing my 20MB of international roaming data (which I do quite successfully most months).  This isn't the US though, free wifi can be difficult to find, and trying to load up the built-in Maps app will eat your roaming data very quickly.

I recently spent a day in London.  I considered it a touristy day, basically roaming one part of London and taking photos along the way.  The goal of the day was to spend as little money as possible, which I thought would be a fantastic challenge for a city as expensive as London.  I may blog about the entire experience some other time, but for this post I wanted to focus simply on the technology.

Features that make a good travel app include offline access with full use of the phone's GPS, and an easy to use interface.  Not everybody may require offline access, but it's good to consider, especially if you plan on using underground transport, or areas where you think there may be no wireless signals present.  I'm focusing on a few apps I downloaded for London, but I hope to take what I learned there to discover different apps for visits to other cities in the future.  A good way to test how an application will work offline is to try it out in airplane mode first.

Travel Guides

I still like to take a paper travel guide with me, but I like to keep them small.  This is because I prefer to plan trips out before I go and don't like carrying giant travel tomes.  I've also been burned on GPS signal in big cities before, tall buildings can interfere with getting an accurate reading on your device.  If you rely too much on the technology it could get you lost.  I prefer the Fodor's '25 Best' Series if I can find it for any city I visit.  It's thin, it only contains a few highlights of the best attractions, and it has maps both inside the covers and a bigger fold out map (oh and it's also cheap).  Having a nice and easy to use paper based map is still a good idea, even when you are traveling with a device that has a digital map.

I relied on my paper map the first time I was in London back in August, though this time I seemed to want to forget I even had it... even when I needed it.  I think it is easier and faster to pull out the iPhone than it is to mess with a map, which is why I try to plan on having both on hand.

I admit I didn't use my iPhone much for travel guides during the trip, I did look at a few before though.  Here's a few I found that I did like:

Free & Budget London - $1.99

If I liked one travel app the most it was this one.  I'm thrifty, what can I say?  It was the most expensive of all the apps I purchased, but I think it was worth it.  The interface is really nice and there are some unique tips and ideas for exploring London on the cheap.  I also liked that there was an average price for restaurant options.  The app works nicely offline, but you do need access to a network to view places on the map.  The distance option does work with the GPS and the phone offline, so it's possible to get nearby options on the fly.

London Map and Walking Tours - Free

This application has a nice interface for walking tours.  Even if you're not into doing an entire walking tour it could be useful for finding places nearby to go.  It also has a map that can be used offline.  There is a full version of this app for $4.99 that includes the same tours but with GPS navigation and turn-by-turn tour routes turned on.  The map and tours are loaded into the application and work offline.

London Highlights - Free

The London Highlights application is a lite version of the Way2GoGuides.  It has an easy to use interface with audio, area maps, and a host of other useful information.  There are a few other more detailed mini-guides that can be downloaded for $4.99, but the free application seems more than suitable for ideas and travel information on local attractions.

If offline access isn't necessary for you then there's a couple of honorable mentions.

Time Out London - Free

For a free app there's a lot going on here.  It's packed full of information, events, and fun things to do with a nice interface.  It doesn't work offline, but because there's a lot of real time information on events in here you can be sure there's less stale or outdated entries.  If I have one complaint about this app it is the nagging Smirnoff screen at the beginning asking if I'm of drinking age.

Spoonfed - Free

Like the Time Out London app, it will keep you up to date on live events and happenings.  It also needs a network connection to run so no offline access here either. 

Maps

Offline city maps are a wonderful thing to have on your phone, but it can be frustrating to find the best one.  There are so many options to choose from.

Smart Maps - London $0.99

I settled for this map because of the offline access and the price.  It uses OpenStreetMap as the base map, which I noticed a number of these mapping applications do.  What you need to know about OpenStreetMap is the data is non-commercial, open, and user-generated (anybody can use it for free).  It will only be as good as the data the users have added to the map (and of course how the app developer implements that data).  Though knowing this I noticed a lot of mapping applications using OpenStreetMap are charging a lot more for their apps, some in the $4.99 range, but others, like this one, a few dollars.  It's good to look at the features, and it's also good to know what you're going to want from an offline city map.  For me use of the GPS was important.  Where this map failed for me was finding a nearby tube station.  The stations are marked but they're not labeled, so I had no idea which one I was looking at.  It looks as if an update to this map does have some tube stations marked and search-able so this may no longer be an issue here.  The icons for tube stations and bus stops are similar so it's not as easy to use as Google Maps, but this is still a good map though.  The GPS works ok, the search feature does bring up some nearby places of interest, and an update to the map allows you to bookmark landmarks (which I've already started adding a few for my next trip to London).  The people who make the Smart Maps do make a few for other cities.

With all that being said, I noticed that the Walking Tours map I mentioned earlier does have the tube stations more clearly marked and uses the same OpenStreetMap base map.  The Mini A-Z maps ($9.99) are very popular in the UK, but I personally do not like how they look and the apps are basically expensive scans of their print maps.  Before committing to a map try to look at the screenshots to see if you can get any a sense of how the information is organized and labeled.  For a good map I don't think $4.99 is too much to pay if you think you're going to use the features, but cheaper is always better.  I did use the offline map a lot to get my bearings, they are incredibly helpful.

Transportation

I love riding on the London Tube!  I didn't bother downloading any bus apps for London because I prefer the Tube and walking, but there's a bazillion different transport apps for London alone.  I've also searched apps like this for Chicago so I know any large city will have many options for you to choose from.

Tube Map - Free

Like with city map applications, transport applications can vary.  The one I settled with was Tube Map because it was free.  It does a nice job getting you from station to station if you know where you're at and where you intend to go.  It does not use GPS though.  There is a naggy screen when you open the app to register but you can skip that and the app works fine offline.  The only thing that will not work offline with any of these apps is the tube status feature, which needs a data network to connect.  For a free app though, this one is good.

London Tube - $0.99

I haven't tested this one out for London, but I have a similar app by the same developers for Chicago.  I do find the interface a bit finicky to get around and you have to pay more for points of interest so it's no good if you want to search nearby locations.  I also have full access to the AT&T network in the US, so I'm not so much concerned with offline access there.  I've given my Chicago app another look though and I do find the interface frustrating enough that I'm willing to skip the London version of this application.

London Tube Deluxe - $0.99

While I still have yet to test it in London, I've decided to upgrade from my previously mentioned free Tube app to London Tube Deluxe.  The reviews are good and it was updated very recently with new features.  I like the interface, you can select a station from the map by tapping twice on the screen, and there is a locate feature that uses the GPS.  My next London trip won't require a ride on the Tube, but I'll try to remember to turn on the app to test the GPS offline while I'm in the city.

Looking through the options and the reviews, $0.99 seems to be the most you want to spend on a transport application.  The free map works just fine, especially if you don't need to rely on a GPS location for finding the nearest station, but if you want a few more features then you can find it for not much more.

WiFi Hotspots

A big "must do" when I plan on going anywhere is to get a handle on where the wifi hotspots are, or rather, the free wifi hotspots.  WiFi is a little easier to find in the US, but not impossible to find in the UK. 

WiFiZone@UK - Free

Most of the wifi locations here include the commercial services like The Cloud and BT Openzone, these are not free wifi hotspots and there is no filter to really determine if any are free.  The app claims it works with no internet connection, but it oddly does not work in airplane mode.  If you need a hotspot quick and don't mind paying for access this one will work throughout the UK.

Free WiFi London - Free

This is a simple app that works offline.  I used it twice in London, once brought me to a location that was closed (it's possible to mark locations closed when you're online, which I did), and another time brought me to a fabulous little cafe that I wished I had eaten lunch in instead of the typical chain cafe I did end up in.  It's not fancy, but it works with no internet connection and with the GPS.  My success rate is still only 50% with it, but it's a free app and it might help you find free wifi so it's worth the download.

Travel requires some planning and traveling with technology requires a lot of patience and research.  The apps themselves can be of varying quality and expense.  What I've learned with this trip to London is that finding the best applications might also take some time.  I'm not against paying money for a good app, but if you look at a decent map application alone you'll see some pretty astonishing prices.  I think once I was out and about during the day I realized what features were more essential than others.  The other unfortunate thing about downloading apps, particularly iPhone apps, is that there is no refund if you decide you don't like it after all.  My recommendation is to start with free or cheaper apps, there are some good ones out there and there are some bad ones too.  If it's free you're out nothing, and if it's cheap you're out a little... and who knows, maybe with some advice from you that mediocre free or cheap app could improve in time for your next trip.

Just a quick update here to cross post to an article I recently wrote on managing conference information. The article was published last month in FUMSI and it's called "Conference Information: Managing Before, During, and After". The article is based on some of my own experiences with using social media to communicate and participate in conferences. It's written more for people who are attending conferences in person, but some of the techniques could be applied for people who want to stay in touch with events that they are unable to attend.

I hope some of the resources are helpful for people. Social media has opened the channels (and backchannels) of communication widely for many of us, but it also has us drowning in a lot of information that we don't often know what to do with.

Back in September, after only a couple weeks of being in Birmingham, I attended the Birmingham Twestival.  It was my second Twestival, the first being in Detroit, but it was the first social event I participated in here.  What an excellent way to quickly get to know the wonderful people that live and work in this city!  I was also thrilled to win a raffle prize, a photo shoot by Lee Allen. 

I was a little bit nervous about the whole thing, I generally don't like the way I look in photos (though, everybody says that, don't they?) but in the spirit of the event and knowing that having some nice photos will help spice up some other projects I'm working on here and there (blog redesign, CV, and article bios), I decided it was definitely a good thing to embrace. 

I am so pleased with the results!  We set up a day last month to meet in the Jewelry Quarter in Birmingham (a short walk for me as I live just on the outskirts).  The walk over threatened a little rain, but I liked the atmosphere, it was a beautiful autumn day.  Lee was great, my nerves didn't last long, he made the whole experience really comfortable, and he only risked my life in dangerous British traffic once during the whole day ;)  Though to be fair, he risked his life in traffic far more than I did.  I liked the Jewelry Quarter as a backdrop, I've been here for a couple of months so it does feel like home now, and the urban landscapes do remind me of being in Detroit.  Below are a few of my favorite pictures from the day.

I'm really glad I had this opportunity, and now having done it I would recommend to people that it's worth it to get some professional photos done of yourself (and if in Birmingham, call Lee of course!)  I've already updated my Twitter background, and changed some of my online avatars, it does kind of make me feel a little bit grown up :)  Thanks to Lee, and thanks to the Twestival for opening doors and giving me some unique experiences here in Birmingham.

Well maybe not the end of email, but there has been a trend for awhile to hate email, and I've never quite understood it.  A few weeks ago Wall Street Journal posted an article titled, "The End of the Email Era" with a few points declaring why "email no longer rules."  I must say the article is a little bit overdramatic.

In its place, a new generation of services is starting to take hold--services like Twitter and Facebook and countless others vying for a piece of the new world. And just as email did more than a decade ago, this shift promises to profoundly rewrite the way we communicate--in ways we can only begin to imagine.

I do believe that Twitter and Facebook (or insert name of favorite social networking tool here) is changing the way we communicate, but that doesn't mean we're all going to stop using email any time soon.  It's a shift in habits brought on by innovation in the tools we use.  I check two things religiously and in parallel each and every day, Twitter and Email.  In my world both services are of equal importance.  Twitter is not always about trivial communication, but the type of information I get from Twitter I don't want in my inbox.  Email is about communicating tasks, stuff I need to do or remember.  And let's admit, there's some things we need to communicate in more than 140 characters, I need email just as much as I want Twitter.

A lot of this evaluation of email is coming at the heels of Google's new collaborative tool, Google Wave (which I'll comment on a little later in this post, but here's a short and clever YouTube video about Google Wave).  TechCrunch's response to the WSJ article and the flurry around Google Wave described it as a "passive-aggressive" form of communication, while also quoting the WSJ article:

For many of us, email is simply not cutting it the way that it used to. It's a sedentary beast in a fast-moving web. It uses old principles for management, and this is leading to overload. I think the key statement in the WSJ is this:

"We all still use email, of course. But email was better suited to the way we used to use the Internet--logging off and on, checking our messages in bursts. Now, we are always connected, whether we are sitting at a desk or on a mobile phone."

That's absolutely true. But that also implies that we want some sort of always-on communication connection. I don't think that's the case. I think we want the option to communicate in real-time at will, but also the ability to communicate at our leisure at times. I would consider this to be a desire for a "passive-aggressive" method of communication. Perhaps it would be better stated as a "passive/active" method of communication, but passive-aggressive sounds better, so we'll go with that.

I think WSJ and TechCrunch are both missing the mark with email, but I do agree with TC that there are limits to the "always on" connection.  The WSJ elaborates a little more by saying, "Why wait for a response to an email when you get a quicker answer over instant messaging? Thanks to Facebook, some questions can be answered without asking them."  Well sure, but I still have to log in to Facebook to get the answer (oh and by the way, Facebook is a poor example because I get all my Facebook notifications through email anyway, I absolutely do not want Facebook to be my email client).  Facebook is a closed platform, and another tab on my browser.  WSJ also goes on to say that, "Email, stuck in the era of attachments, seems boring compared to services like Google Wave..."  Collaboration isn't all about fun, it's also about getting things done... and Google Wave is still another open tab in my browser that I have to log in to (in other words it's not "always on" if I decide to close the tab).

I think email can be better, and several services are working to that goal.  What I would like to have is less tabs, and a few services have emerged to re-invent email.  Xobni is a tool that integrates Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and others into Microsoft Outlook.  It works ok and it's good for what it does, but the problem for me is that it's integrated into Outlook which is bloated and I hate to run.  Outlook is not an "always on" application for me, but it may be for others.

I'm looking forward to Mozilla Raindrop, which isn't available yet but looks promising.  If there's one reason I wouldn't use Raindrop it would be because it's a client.  I am moving more web based.  I've tried Thunderbird in the past for email, but because I have Outlook (and never use it anyway), I find downloading another email client excessive.  I might be compelled to if it can bring together the filtering, communication tools, and prioritizing that I want from everything I use.

What Xobni and Raindrop are doing is integrating new tools with email, which is what I think should happen.  Email is a base for me.  This has not been Google's approach with Wave, however, and I'm a bit disappointed by this.

So my thoughts on Wave, maybe it's too early to tell, but I find it to be clunky and busy.  Like I mentioned before, Wave is just another open tab in my browser.  I still find Google's own mail service to be far superior to anything else out there.  If Wave could be integrated with the email that I already use in some way then I might be more excited about it.  I actually do find Wave a little boring, I normally only check it once, maybe twice a day, and I haven't got much value from the few threads that I'm on (other than learning how the tool works from a more mechanical perspective).  That could change though once more innovative uses open up.

In the end we're going to use what we're comfortable with anyway.  If somebody sends me a DM through Twitter I'll probably respond through Twitter, likewise with people who communicate through Facebook or email.  The real issue isn't with the tool, it's about our habits with the tools that we use.  Email isn't going anywhere, if anything it will get better and more intelligent over time.

Unlike WordPress, the template set and amount of available theme repositories are scarce for Movable Type.  I know that WordPress is definitely more popular, but I'm pretty well settled into Movable Type and the thought of changing everything over is a huge time investment I don't want to venture into.  I don't feel like I'm stuck with Movable Type, I kind of like it.  MT is a powerful blogging platform and I've gotten used to it, you just have to get under the hood with it a little more.

The default styles for MT are boring though.  The design tools out there don't add much to the design either, mostly just changing colors, and there's a reason for that... the StyleCatcher plugin.  The plugin is designed to make it easy to switch styles on your MT blog, it's  good idea in theory, but it can be complicated to work with in practice (which is probably why you don't see a lot of MT theme repositories out there.)  I did have a custom design awhile back, but I also had a custom CSS file that didn't match the StyleCatcher format.  I like the idea of pushing a button and being able to change my blog design, but it only works if you're willing to spend some time with StyleCatcher, this isn't really a user friendly process and you really have to understand CSS more than casually to be successful.

I'm not a designer, I'm more like a tinkerer, I can play with CSS and HTML and come up with something presentable.  I like simple and clean designs, I also like little touches, it's the little touches that can get me in trouble.  My favorite design site is Open Source Web Design, but the designs are normally static and need to be modified to fit a blog template, that's where the hacking comes in... most of the time this ends painfully.

Last night I decided to dive into StyleCatcher again, determined to make it successful.  StyleCatcher relies on two CSS files, a base file where it pulls the format based on your column layout and type of blog (in theory you can create one design then apply that same design in a variety 2 or 3 column formats).  The problem with editing this base CSS file is that all of the other StyleCatcher default themes rely on this file.  You can add your own into the directory and use that, that base file includes layout for many other "invisible" elements too, things like form spacing and buttons, comments, categories, and other things you might not consider when you're just looking at redesigning your home page.

The style CSS is stored in another directory altogether... both CSS files are called by another CSS file in your main directory.  Sure you can bypass all this stuff if you want, but it could mean more tinkering later if you need to refresh your template or upgrade your blog (which is what happened to me last year).

The approach I took was to create a new style directory, which I wanted loaded into my style gallery in MT.  I wanted to switch back and forth between my custom style or a default style if I needed to.  I also anticipate creating new blogs with the same style for some projects I have in my mind, and I wanted them to be seamless, loading them into the gallery makes them accessible to any new blog I create, now by simply applying the style.

After some playing around with the CSS and consideration, I decided not to change the base CSS file and focus on the custom style.  Working with either CSS file is a pain, they're not laid out like I would like them to be and you still have to switch back and forth to make sure you're not changing anything important.  If you want to keep the StyleCatcher functionality the most important thing is to not change any of the divs or classes, and to keep your HTML files completely in tact.  This means trying to figure out the best way to take somebody else's CSS file and translate it to something StyleCatcher can understand.

So all of that sounds like a lot of work... actually it is, but once you have it worked out it's really easy to load it into MT and applying the new design is even easier.  Movable Type has instructions for creating new themes, the one I did was #5, creating a StyleCatcher theme.  Though by the time I got to here the hard part was already done.

The current version of this design is from the website ZeroWeb and based on the theme Curiously Green by nodethritythree.  I have some more tweaks I'm going to do to the site over time, some of them will be more involved than others, but I'm pleased with the results so far.  Now, hopefully MT doesn't go messing with the StyleCatcher plugin or I'll be in big trouble.

** Update ** I added the navigation to the side last night, I'll add some more links periodically as I get the pages done, but the Lifestream is an experiment and the CSS files still need to be tweaked for that. The Lifestream is provided through Movable Type and it's known as an Action Stream plugin, it's actually a link to another blog in MT and it has yet another CSS file provided on top of the StyleCather plugin (yippee).

I only lived in Detroit for a short time, six months, and I went to school there for three years.  No matter how long you're in the city though, Detroit is the kind of place that stays with you forever.

There's a lot of attention on Detroit these days... corrupt politicians, a failing auto industry, and an unemployment rate at almost 30%, it does sound like a pretty depressing place.  Even with all of that though, it's difficult not to love Detroit. It's especially difficult not to love the people.

Recently I stumbled across this piece in Time called Assignment Detroit.  Time bought a house in Detroit and they're going to live there for a year.  Why?

Because we believe that Detroit right now is a great American story. No city has had more influence on the country's economic and social evolution. Detroit was the birthplace of both the industrial age and the nation's middle class, and the city's rise and fall -- and struggle to rise again -- are a window into the challenges facing all of modern America. From urban planning to the crisis of manufacturing, from the lingering role of race and class in our society to the struggle for better health care and education, it's all happening at its most extreme in the Motor City.

I was happy to see somebody finally get it... but surprised to see that it was a media outlet making the effort.  I'm drawn by these stories though and I hope that Time can present them in a respectable way.

Detroit is a city filled with optimism and pessimism (sometimes by the same people at the same time).  It is a city filled with hope and with despair.  It's a city you have to be in to understand though, which is why I think it's often misunderstood.  Some of the videos I've watched so far from the Assignment Detroit project are interesting and candid.  I especially enjoyed the interviews with Kid Rock and Michael Moore... both had a very different understanding and vision, but both still seemed to represent the essence of the city.

When something enters your consciousness your awareness of it becomes more heightened, so having lived for a short time in Detroit and then moving to a different part of the world that's sort of what has happened with me.  I don't know where I came across it initially, but a few days ago I was reminded of Detroit's motto, it started with one of my typical snarky comments about the city's flag (on twitter)... but after the snarkiness wore off and I considered the motto (errr, well I realized I could use in this blog post which I had already started weeks ago anyway).

The relevance of the flag and the city motto is described on the Detroit Historical Society's website:

The official Seal of the City of Detroit is the centerpiece of the flag.  It commemorates the great fire of 1805 that burned Detroit to the ground.  The seal shows two women.  The woman on the left represents Detroit at the time of the fire.  She is weeping. The woman on the right, who is comforting her, represents hope and the future.  The background scene shows the city in flames on the left.  On the right, a new and brighter city is shown.  On the sides are Latin words which translated into English read "We Hope for Better Things...It Shall Arise from the Ashes."  This motto captures the real spirit of Detroit - one that meets challenges and evokes images of Detroiters working and building together.

Of course I focused on the burning part, Detroit has a habit of catching on fire, a lot.  Sometimes on purpose, sometimes on accident.  The motto is what the city is really all about though.  It is a city that burns, it is a city that weeps, but it is also a city of hope.  Detroit did rise above the ashes after the 1805 fires, it became the center of industry in the US, a large and prosperous city... it was a city that immigrants were eager to travel to because they could find good work there, it wasn't always the city we see today.  The prosperity wasn't enough to sustain it through modern times though, so it burnt again, but in spirit. 

I'm pretty confident the city will rise again.  It's a slow and painful process there though, like many places in the world it is fearful of change and stuck in tradition.  It's a tradition that the city cannot sustain, and many are aware of it... though painful to watch, maybe the city needs to burn to be good again. Speramus Meliora, Resurget Cineribus.

A new MIT study was published discrediting some of what we may believe in "the wisdom of the crowds."  The idea is that a small group of users that share a large number of reviews can distort the quality of the reviews.  I haven't read The Wisdom of Crowds (though I just downloaded the book through Audible to listen later).  I also have Crowdsourcing (saved for later listening) where the book discusses that innovation happens by opening data and resources to a large group of people.

I'm interested in the idea of crowdsourcing (or even the collective wisdom of a large group), but I immediately see its flaws.  We're often easily influenced by the reviews on Amazon or other sites, but how many of us actually go back and post our own later?  I know I don't do it very often and don't have the time.  I've started adding a few reviews to Yelp or TripAdvisor, but to add a quality review does take some thought and feels like work (actually I cheat and use the same review to post at both, Yelp is my favorite and TripAdvisor seems to be most popular). 

Another flaw to the crowd based review system is that many people normally don't contribute unless they really like something or really hate something.  In most cases people probably post reviews based on negative experiences and not so much on positive ones.  We are not really motivated to post a review of something we feel sort of neutral on.  When this happens what we then see is the extreme ends of the review.  This may not always be beneficial to somebody reading a review if the reviewer is showing any amount of bias through their thoughts.  We know from statistics that outliers exist in every situation, this really isn't any different for online recommender systems.

I think there's some slight nuances between the "wisdom of crowds" and crowdsourcing though.  A good example of a "crowdsourced" phenomenon is Wikipedia.  A couple of posts have suggested that only about 1%-2% of the users are actually editing articles.  The same sort of thing is going on here, a small number of users are contributing a very large amount of content.  What's the real difference then?  Wikipedia is a community in itself, and it attracts passionate users.  Since when have we ever thought of the reviews on Amazon contributed by passionate community members?  Wikipedia is actually harnessing the "wisdom" of its users (even if they are a few).  The community is also managed in a way to eliminate bias (at least the best it can... a librarian like myself will say don't use Wikipedia as your only source, but I stand by what it tries to accomplish).  There is actually quality stuff in Wikipedia!

Both Wikipedia and Amazon rely on crowdsourcing for content, they both are integral in explaining the Long Tail, except that where passionate users on Wikipedia can be found editing in Wikipedia, the niche markets around products sold in Amazon exist elsewhere on the web.  Let's say you're into a band, then maybe you're posting your thoughts and reviews on their MySpace or Facebook pages instead.  Conversations are happening on another platform, and then they go to Amazon to purchase (or iTunes, or wherever).  What's left on Amazon is a filtered view in a way.  Niche markets like niche tools, and Amazon is too mainstream... besides, if we really like something, we don't want to tell the world, we just want to tell our friends.

There have been some attempts by a few services to focus on improving user reviews.  Some companies have thought to remove the outlier reviews from their recommender systems (remove the best and the worst and focus on the bulk in the middle).  Others have been fine tuning their systems to focus on the user and how they compare to other users with the same interests.  Both are a step in the right direction, but I think they're also missing a key component and that is the network.

There's a lot of great services out there that people just don't use.  For example, I'm on Yelp (and do use it), but I only have a few "friends" on there.  When I'm really stuck on where to go I usually turn to Twitter for help, this is where my network is.  Other people may do the same but go to Facebook, or whatever service their network mostly communicates.  If I'm going to proclaim that I really really like something I'm going to do it on Twitter... what if Yelp (or some other relevant service) could parse from my Twitter stream that I was at a certain place (which they could tell because I checked in via Brightkite), and then that I thought the food was really good, but the service was incredibly slow (of course based on my excessive complaining about service and praise of meal in some succession of tweets).  Boom, instant review.

Ok, I realize I'm now in the fuzzy, abstract world of the Semantic Web, but it could happen.  Actually I believe it will happen (that's another blog post a few years down the road, I hope).  We're sharing the information, but we're doing it the way we've always done it, in conversation, word of mouth, and with our friends.  There's wisdom out there, in large groups and small groups, I think you just have to know where to look for it.