Free Association

I blogged in 1996

I was cleaning out my laptop (technically my companies' laptop that I use), when I came across some personal files that I created in 1996-1997 and had gotten passed from machine to machine over the years.

These were HTML files from a so called "vanity" website I built between jobs back then. It surprised me how much some of the "articles" I wrote looked like a blog post. If only I could've turned that phenomenon into a business idea. Ah - missed opportunities.

Blogging and RSS at work

In 1994, when I loaded my first browser (Netscape 0.9N - for some reason I remember the version number - not sure why) I felt I was opening my computer and my mind to a completely unexplored place. I was fascinated by the way the technology worked, how HTML was used to manage page layout, how tagging was evolving, the possibilities for information exchange, search, communication, commerce...it was all a big puzzle and I was discovering new things at a pace that thrilled me. It was one of those rarified moments in time when the discovery process becomes all you can think about, and you hate to fall asleep and waste precious time learning and pondering.

Blogging and RSS technologies evoke that same feeling in me that the WWW did in 1994. It feels like something completely new that is still searching for application, for impact. Like the web, it is simple yet powerful. Like something primary that's just revealed itself. Like an idea so obvious that everyone bonks their head and wonders why they didn't think of it.

Given these feelings, and the fact that I spend almost 2/3rds of my time working, I've been pondering the many uses for these technologies in my business. One idea that I am exploring is the use of this technology in technical documentation. There are some very interesting thoughts on the technical documentation problem from a couple of sources, first an excellent article by Scott Amber on Agile Documentation, and then some thoughts on the challenge from Chad Dickerson, the CTO at InfoWorld.

What interest me is the idea of using Blogs and RSS technology to create a dynamic and shared repository for technical documents. Our engineers publish release notes with each build, and these are usually compiled and stored in an Outlook .pst file. Useful, searchable, etc, but not particularly well aggregated - something Blogs and RSS are very good at. I am going to explore implementing this at my company.

Another idea is for internal communication about questions people inside the company have about our overall strategy and direction. Our business model has several parts and from time-to-time the focus and effort on any given part changes. Certainly our go-to-market strategies are always evolving to some degree. I am considering setting up a Blog (behind the firewall of course) where questions from employees could be answered and commented on by the leadership of the company. These would probably be either very useful, or completely ignored - still not sure. But the idea is fascinating to me. More to come as we experiment with these ideas.