Category: Netlife

I’m experimenting with TypePad for hosting a new Gotzeblogged. Not bad, so far. But I’m not done customising, and need to see if everything can be done as I want it to. I’ve successfully managed to pull in data from my various XML-feeds, but via off-site tools. I realise TypePad will never become my only hosting service, but can see it becoming my blogging place of choice. I’ll move the gotzespace.dk domain whenever I choose to swap over. For the time being, I will update both places.[Update 2005: TypePad has had too many problems. Forget it.]

Steven Clift and I plan to go to Paris on 4-8 December. We don’t really have any plans, apart from having a good time. Drop us a line if you want to meet up and/or join us.

Visitors might have noticed I’m running Google AdSense. It’s a pity the ads don’t make sense … I notified Google and got a nice reply indicating they would look at it, but I guess they’re too busy learning about stocks and shares 🙂

I’ve launched a new blog, the eGovPad, which is the root blog at my new TypePad account. I’m inviting guest authors, so drop me a mail if you want to join.

I can also create new blogs, if anyone needs a blog. I also have some discount tickets for new subscribers, so if you’re family or friend and want your own TypePad account, let me know.

I’ve returned from the US. After Utah, I went to Portland, Oregon, to visit John D Smith and his wife Nancy. John is a cornerstone in the international the community of practice on communities of practice, and a co-founder of CPsquare, which I’ve finally decided to join. Who’s with me starting a Practice Group about Government?

John and I had a great time. We did some sight-seeing, climbed the Astoria Column and such, but also “worked” a bit: I helped John set up MT on the CPsquare server. The result is the new CPsquare Newsblog! John has now also launched a number of blogs for the CPSquare Practice Groups. I hope the blogs take on.

In Portland I rented a car, and I got a free upgrade to a cool Ford Escape small SUV. That was good fun, especially since I on my way up to Seattle, Washington, went by the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, and had some fun mountain driving.

In Seattle I stayed with Nancy White and her nice family in the White House. Nancy is the best online facilitator I know.

Nancy took me along to meet Doug Schuler. I used his classic book in my PhD, and it was great to meet him. He told about his on-foing project, the Public Sphere Project of CPSR, Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility. Building Communication Spaces for Civic Intelligence. A Pattern Language for Living Communication. Pattern Evaluation/review. Great stuff. Must connect.

John and Nancy are Mucka-Lotta-Hosts for the First Nachotta Community of Practice MuckAbout about “Distributed Communities of Practice: The Ecology of Support and Leadership”. Good luck guys.

I’ve been in Utah since Monday, and have had a great time with a good mix of business and pleasure.

I’ve been spending time with Phil Windley. We’ve talked about enterprise architecture, web services and much more. We’ve also made arrangements for a continued relationship, and Phil can now add “consultant to the Danish government” on his resume.

Thanks to Dave Fletcher, I also had the pleasure of meeting members of the Utah Product management Council, and did a presentation to them about the Danish work on enterprise architecture. We had a very good discussion. One thing I’ve brought with me is the concept of product management, which is a good concept for what e-government is all about. In Denmark, we’ve had a tendency to focus more on project management, which of course is important enough, but tends to lack a more comprehensive perspective on the sustainability of the solutions brought forth by the projects, which in turn leads to suboptimisation and only gets the lower hanging fruits.

Phil also took me on a tour in his private plane:

We had planned to fly down south to the national parks, but the weather down there was bad, so we went north instead, and had breakfast in Teton Valley, Idaho.

I also found time for a bit of culture, and went to hear the greatest choir in the world:

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
With 360 members, the choir’s sound is fantastic. Amazon offers a free download of the Battle Hymn Of The Republic, which is one of the choir’s most famous acts. Impressive!

Here on Saturday, I’ll move on to Portland, Oregon. But this has not been my last visit to Utah, which is one of the most beautiful places I’ve been to.

I’m a co-founder of Amager Classic, an association that promotes and arranges classical music on Amager and in the rest of Copenhagen.

Our first concert is with Mirta Herrera in Caf�Kino on 16 August at 11:am. So, take some time off (it’s a Saturday after all), and come and enjoy some world-class piano music.

I’m planning a US-trip, which will take me (via Chicago) to Utah, Washington and Oregon. Part work, part holiday.

I’ll first go to Salt Lake City, Utah, to work for a few days with Phil Windley and to meet David Fletcher.

From Utah it’s on to see some friends. First in Seattle, Washington to see Nancy White. From there on to Portland, Oregon to see John D. Smith.

I found some pictures from someone who went to these (and more) places. I’m not sure I’m going to pick this route:

I’ve never heard the word desolate before John told me about the landscape between/in Utah-Oregon … now I know what it means. Maybe I should fly, not drive: I read BurningBird’s story (a roadblog?).

Meg Hourihan (megnut.com) is talking now. ABout weblogs and later about the Lafayette project, which is looking for a new name.

The anatomy of a weblog, with timestamps, links, etc., is what uniquely defines a weblog. But blogging is also about distributed discussions, where weblog posts float around the web, people connect to each other, share ideas, and so on. Basically, weblogs are what the web should have been from the beginning. It just took us longer to get there than we expected.

What are we doing with blogs? Two sides of the weblog equation: Reading blogs and writing blogs. A lot of development is going on on the publishing side (Meg is a co-founder of Blogger.com). Plug for Typepad (I’m waiting for that too!)

The reading side is the new challenge. Social software. RSS readers. Good enough for smaller scale social networks, but what happens when things grow? Trackback (Reboot bloggers, see here)

The Lafayette project is about helping people reading weblogs. A social networking tool. RSS reading, blog recommendations, several languages. Opens this summer. Cool.

No weblog backlash ahead, Meg thinks. On thhe contrary, actually. Lot’s of interesting stuff to come. A whole new way for people to read and write content.

Scott Heiferman is talking now. He created Meetup, a tool for organizing local interest groups.

Powerful? You bet. Meetup has more than 350.000 users. Never did any advertising, only word of mouth. Example: Creating a presidential candidate: Howard Dean as president. Meetup on CNN. 270 cities held meetups. 36.000 people registred.

Scott’s message: The big trend. 1950: people meet in groups. 1960s: People watch TV in groups. 1980s: People watch TV alone, bowling alone. 1990: People usd non-internet-PCs. 2000s: Internet, and Meetup.com.

The Internet is a network of people. Space and time is connected in new ways. Using the global network to make local connections.