Today is my last day working for Sun Microsystems. I've spent time reflecting on this transition as leaving Sun is a big deal. I work with great people at a great company and that's always hard to leave behind. I tendered my resignation to take on a new adventure and re-enter the world of consulting. I will be working at EatonGolden as of Thursday, November 29th as the Director of Information Architecture and Social Media. 

For the people at Sun, you are smart and heroic. I value the time I have spent here with you and I hope together we have made the things we've touched better.

For Sun customers, thank you for all that you've given to Sun. Without you, we wouldn't be here.

If you want to find me, I'll be blogging at EatonGolden's site soon.

I'll leave you with a parting thought. Life is complicated and can be overwhelming. You can never do it all, but you can always do something. In the immortal words of Teddy Roosevelt, 'Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.'

Ciao for now!

Since this blog covers topics of Information Architecture, I'd be remiss to not share this latest video from Michael Wesch,  Information R/evolution. The video is about how the ability to interact with and share information makes us all organizers of the information. He illustrates that the information explosion puts the responsibility to "harness, create, critique, organize and understand" on all of us.

When I started to participate in the reality that is twitter, I was
lucky enough to have co-workers also participating. I have learned
things through twitter and collaborated with co-workers, colleagues and
friends in very unexpected ways. They are close to me now in a way they
never were before. It's as if we sit in a virtual open conference room.

Today I realized that I had a favorite. I knew these things before, but I have discovered in a more in-depth way that my co-worker Linda is super funny, smart and great at her job just through her posts
to the world. Her stream this week has been a roller coaster of work and humor and left me laughing to myself over and over again.

It was so fun for me that it made me realize I appreciate it and I want
to call attention to her. Follow lskrocki, she's got a lot to say and
you'll enjoy listening.

I hope I didn't embarrass you lskrocki.

It's exciting to see a band like Radiohead experiment with new engagement models with fans. If you want the music, you get to decide what to pay for a digital download. In addition, there is a physical version for sale.

We are globally demolishing creativity according to Tony Buzan (father of mindmapping). According to him we are teaching uncreativity. We should be teaching 'how to learn' and not 'what to learn'. The nature of how we've taught these skills has driven creativity down. We need to engage our brains and teach in this manner. He posits creativity is the engine of all curricula. As he explains it, creativity is not the domain of what people think of as 'creative-types' but anyone has the potential.

 Creativity is a way of approaching the world. Natural and spontaneous, disciplined, focused and imaginative are words he uses to describe it. The ability to generate ideas from the internal world to the external world is achievable by anyone.

The presentation is long (about 15 minutes) but if you are interested in creativity and learning, it's very interesting.

Who can help you with your companies desire to utilize the new wikiconomy? If you are turning to an agency, make sure they've got the background. David Armano created a great top 10 list of questions to ask your agency. 

 From the post:

"What kinds of answers would you get if you asked these questions of your agency execs?

1. Do you read blogs.  Which ones?
2. Do you have a personal blog?  What's it about?
3. Do you participate in at least one social network?  Which one?
4. Have you ever uploaded a video online?  What did you use to do it?
5. What's your favorite search engine.  Why?
6. Have you ever used an online classified service like craigslist?
7. Besides making phone calls—how else do you use your mobile phone?
8. Have you ever registered a domain name?
9. Do you use social bookmarks or tagging?
10. Do you use a feed reader of some sort?  Which one?  Why?

"

It's great food for thought. When you engage an agency, you pay for expertise. Make sure you get your money's worth.  

Since I talked about this in my last post, I thought that I should also share the news that Facebook has opened it's doors a little. There will now be public listings accessible via web searching. It's been discussed it on the Facebook blog. The search result feature will go live in a few weeks and it's something that individuals can turn off if they choose.

Is Facebook the future? Lots of people like to make predictions about 'the future'. I like to wait and see before I make my predictions. I am a Facebook member but I'm not sure I'd go as far as declaring it the future. It is an interesting experience. I am drawn back in by all the activity, friend notifications, application additions, etc. etc. 

But, you still need a username and password to get in. I also give my content away to someone that is not me. It's still a walled garden even though there is an openness for developers to build widgets, etc. That just gets more people in.

All I'm saying is predicting the future is a dicey game.
 

Have you heard of Fuzzwich? The site lets you make mini movies with pre populated backgrounds, characters, thought bubbles and all. Here's my first try.

I'm going to participate in PodCamp MN tomorrow. I don't know what to expect, but I'm very excited to get in a room with 30 or so colleagues that all have one thing in common, the desire to be in a room to talk about podcasting. Also, these people are engaged enough to want to do this for a whole Saturday at the end of summer. That's active interest, so I look forward to the conversation being focused and energized.

I'll let you know how it goes. 

This link, sent to me by Danny of Sun Projector fame:

http://www.informationarchitects.jp/ia-trendmap-2007v2

Is an essential add to this Information Architecture blog. It's a map of web trends based off the Tokyo Metro Map.

 Nice work from Information Architects, Inc. located in Japan.

I've known Chris Baum for a few years. He recently became Editor in Chief at Boxes and Arrows, one of the premier web zines for information architecture and beyond. He's talking about IA in this interview with Jeremiah Owyang of Web-strategist.com and Podtech. It's a nice interview about how corporate managers can understand and leverage the strategic value of information architecture in their work.
It's worth your less than 12 minute investment.

A poll conducted in London found that the word 'folksonomy' is one of the words spawned by the Internet that makes people 'want to bang your head on the keyboard'. I had no idea. I love that word.

I have a .MAC account with Apple. I use it because I have a couple of computers and I travel once in awhile.

.MAC is a useful tool. I got an email from Apple today about my .MAC account:

That is so great.

1) They told me about the change and how to address it. (tell me)

2) They told me what I could do to make it even easier for myself. (suggest simplifications)

and the last thing,

3) they thanked me for being a customer. (thank me)

When companies think these things through, they can really delight their customers. Score one for Apple and .MAC today.

Straight from the Adaptive Path Newsletter:

"

Just Press PLAY: Two Adaptive Path Talks Now Available for Pointing,  
Clicking

And in "Almost as Good as Being There (Minus the Cocktails)" news,  
ScribeMedia has kindly made Jesse James Garrett's "Business as a  
Design Experience" talk from MX-San Francisco available [1] for your  
viewing and listening pleasure. And Peter Merholz's "Stop Designing  
Products" talk [2] is now up and at 'em at the official SXSW site.

[1] http://tinyurl.com/3927xd
[2] http://tinyurl.com/27oplj

"

These are great talks. Definitely worth a listen and both of these individuals are really engaging speakers. Thanks for sharing Adaptive Path.