enterpriseGeeks

While enjoying my vacation I came across this interesting little read about how the Library of Congress is now offering some of their photo collections online via Flickr. Being a big fan of flickr this was a plus but after more thought I realized that at $24.95 a year for a pro account plus the multitude of services offered through flickr (many I use) this has got to be a major savings or?

"Offering historical photograph collections through Flickr gives the Library of Congress a welcome opportunity to share some of our most popular images with a new visual community.

We invite you to tag and comment on the photos, and we also welcome identifying information—many of these old photos came to us with scanty descriptions!"

(Via Library of Congress Photos on Flickr (Prints and Photographs Reading Room, Library of Congress).)

The other great thing was the simple fact they are inviting the community to help enhance the details available with the photos. Several have some great notes already, like this interesting panoramic one.

They even have a FAQ set up around the topic.

"Q: Why is the Library placing pictures on Flickr?

A: We have several goals:

• To share photographs from the Library’s collections with people who enjoy images but might not visit the Library’s own Web site.
  
• To gain a better understanding of how social tagging and community input could benefit both the Library and users of the collections.  
  
• To gain experience participating in Web communities that are interested in the kinds of materials in the Library’s collections.
  

With the launch of the Library of Congress pilot, Flickr began a new initiative called 'The Commons.' Cultural heritage institutions that join The Commons are sharing images from their photographic collections that have no known copyright restrictions as a way to increase awareness of these collections with the general public. For more information on The Commons, see: http://www.flickr.com/commons.

A webcast about the project is available: 'Opening the Photo Vaults: A Web 2.0 Pilot Project to Enhance Discovery and Gather Input for the Library's Photograph Collections' (presented Jan. 29, 2008)."

(Via Library of Congress Photos on Flickr - FAQ (Prints and Photographs Reading Room, Library of Congress).)

I think for me the underlying theme here is that we can really take advantage of simple services, e.g. a photo sharing site to achieve something grand. I personally have 17,000+ photos on the site and has I find the time I scan and upload older photos I have and eventually the plan will be to have all of my photos online in my account. Most are available only to myself or to family but from there I can easily create books, DVD's, etc. and thus be able to provide a photo journal of my life and that of my young family through the ages. This is no different than what my folks did with photo albums when I was a kid, the advantage over that though is that as the world becomes more global and you find yourselves moving more and more the books and albums become a burden (not to mention the added impact on the environment) - don't get me wrong I really enjoy siting down with those books when I have the time but I also enjoy the ability to pull up any one of my 17,000+ plus when I have the time as well.



Disclaimer - We've taken over 1600 photos in the past 3 weeks while on vacation so digital online galleries are very nice at the moment ;-)

Technorati Tags:
collaboration, community, experiment, photography

The wife captured the one above!

IMG_3219
Originally uploaded by Craig & NicoleThings might get a bit quiet here for a bit while we are back stateside, enjoy the upcoming holidays everyone!

The Friday Morning Report, http://fridaymorningreport.tv will continue to broadcast every Friday morning as usual though, check the site and calendar for broadcast times.

Click to Play

Special event taking place here at the Bangalore SAP TechEd event, "Connecting for Success" is your chance to hear and learn all about the SAP Ecohub!

• Time: 4:45 PM on November 13, 2008
• Location: Room #L7
• Session ID: SOA 122
• Presenter: B.T. Narasimha and Singh Mecker 

In addition you can come by the Community Clubhouse for one following sessions,

• Friday, November 14 at 9:00 AM
• Friday, November 14 at 5:00 PM

Click to Play A look into the mind of the Demo Jammers at the SAP TechEd '08 Demo Jammers.

You can catch the whole show replay here.

Click to Play A look into the mind of the Demo Jammers at the SAP TechEd '08 Demo Jammers.

You can catch the whole show replay here.

Click to Play A look into the mind of the Demo Jammers at the SAP TechEd '08 Demo Jammers.

You can catch the whole show replay here.

Click to Play A look into the mind of the Demo Jammers at the SAP TechEd '08 Demo Jammers.

You can catch the whole show replay here.

Click to Play A look into the mind of the Demo Jammers at the SAP TechEd '08 Demo Jammers.

You can catch the whole show replay here.

Click to Play A look into the mind of the Demo Jammers at the SAP TechEd '08 Demo Jammers.

You can catch the whole show replay here.

Click to Play A look into the mind of the Demo Jammers at the SAP TechEd '08 Demo Jammers.

You can catch the whole show replay here.

It's funny when someone questions or simply asks what is the value behind "community" related events - normally my first question to them was "Did you bother to attend yourself?" These are often the ones with a plan on how to change it to make it valuable or the ones complaining when something isn't up to standards and yet they are often the ones that didn't bother to actually take the time to be there and really take part!

The rather vocal and loud responses I got on this blog should be proof enough that "Community Day" be a BPX, SDN or perhaps even a future BOC one has value that is often so off the scales in terms of ROI that you'd be a fool to miss out on them.

While in Berlin, Lee from Capgemini caught Marilyn and I and asked us if we could say a few words to the Capgemini global community and the value they can find within our own communities...

 On top of that, many great, unexpected and interesting things tend to happen at "community" events, for example Thomas stepping in and making this offer, you simply won't get this without "community" - Bangalore is going to ROCK!  Speaking of offers, especially for the Bangalore crowd since that's the next one coming up - your manager not "seeing" the value - I'd be happy to talk to them, talked to several this week already and increased attendance quite a bit as a result. It's interesting most saw the value immediately they just wanted to ensure that their folks were spending their time wisely. It's one reason we are only "semi-unconference" and do quite a bit of work ahead of time to ensure a solid bit of content and a good agenda. Feel free to reach out if you need some help! 

Technorati Tags:
collaboration, community, communityday08, experience, sap, sapcamp, sapteched08, social

Lippstadt Modeleisenbahn
Originally uploaded by Craig & NicoleThis past weekend my little town, Lippstadt, had a model railroad show so me, the little one and the grandpa went to check it out. I took tons of photos and some video and basically had a great time. The time and energy that the folks put into their displays is amazing. If have the developers I know out there took that time of pride in documentation I don't think an end user in the world would have anything to complain about LOL.

Have a look at the photos.

Interesting approach to getting the message out that we still have a serious problem with CCD and the honey bees from around the world!

For quite awhile I guess you could call me a "ZC Pusher", it was like the little kid selling lemonade outside of their house for 5 cents or something like that. Zoho Creator captured my attention and on mny levels still holds it fast. What started as me pushing for a roadmap, turned into a relationship with the Zoho folks that has been simply awesome over the years. They are responsive and interactive so it made it easy working with them.

Lately though I was sitting on the bench a lot, not really a reason other than a lack of time but it's been interesting watching the announcements go flying through my inbox for new stuff (often a pre-announcement which I have been honored to be included in on).

This latest bit though has blow my expectations, I always thought something like this would be a good idea so to see them actually launch it has been awesome! The new Zoho 3.0 is there as well as a brand new Marketplace!

Technorati Tags:
"zoho creator", community, development, zoho, zoho marketplace

It seems the last few days have been good to @eventtrack. Two great blogs posts have been written about our little operation here which is quite exciting!

"Microblogging is great but the way it’s articulated by Twitter provides a river of often random disconnected messages, most of which have little relevance to the things in which I am interested. Put another way content without context and purpose is meaningless and for business, that combination is crucial. That was the state of play when I first heard about eventtrack in November 2007"

(Via Eventtrack: Listening to Events Within the Microblogging Firehose - Pistachio.)

"To kick off our Event Technologies Blog Series, I had the opportunity to chat with @eventtrack founder, Craig Cmehil. @eventtrack is ‘quite simply your very own way to discover those sharing the same moment as you.’"

(Via @eventtrack Interview with Craig Cmehil | expacklyMondo.)

I'm excited simply because it's been a long and hard year balancing everything and still being able to put time into @eventtrack, I believe in this project a lot so it's exciting to see what others have to say about it (good or bad)!

The age of video has really started to make an impact on the advertising model, I'm not so sure that a few years ago we would have seen these types of advertising videos being made.

Startups continue to amaze me with creativity, desire and motivation! Rock on expacklyMondo!

Disclaimer: I give technical advise to expacklyMondo.

We've been going around for months, years even saying that we are listening, learning and changing and our actions have been showing this quite nicely so when I was given the chance to lead both the Community Clubhouse and the Community Day for Berlin I started to think of interesting ways to get the conversation started sooner than once we are all in Berlin. How best to do this? This got me thinking about the whole concept of conversation and what it means, this of course lead me back to the Cluetrain Manifesto.



A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter—and getting smarter faster than most companies.

These markets are conversations. Their members communicate in language that is natural, open, honest, direct, funny and often shocking. Whether explaining or complaining, joking or serious, the human voice is unmistakably genuine. It can't be faked.



Most corporations, on the other hand, only know how to talk in the soothing, humorless monotone of the mission statement, marketing brochure, and your-call-is-important-to-us busy signal. Same old tone, same old lies. No wonder networked markets have no respect for companies unable or unwilling to speak as they do.



But learning to speak in a human voice is not some trick, nor will corporations convince us they are human with lip service about "listening to customers." They will only sound human when they empower real human beings to speak on their behalf.



(via Cluetrain Manifestio)



So I came up with what some might thing a corny gimmick, which is not the intention at all. The idea was born out of some thoughts last year and the fact that it's just the right thing to do! The idea is about what I do on a daily basis, it's help get conversations started and more importantly empower others to have conversations!



With that let me introduce you to the...



The SAP TechEd '08 "Cluetrain" is about empowering our attendees to get the conversation started the before they even reach Berlin. Encourage blogging, podcasting and video blogging along the way it's a 4 hour ride, strike that it's a 4 hour conversation with the people themselves. SAP jumps on board the Deutsche Bahn together with it's customers and partners from Frankfurt to Berlin. October 12 at 16:17 the party starts. 25 attendees of the SAP Community Day taking place on October 13th will board and make their way to Berlin, from there they will bring that conversation to the attendees of the Community Day and then into the SAP Community Clubhouse, all the while SAP and SAP TechEd will be listening and learning along the way!



Several hundred kilometers of conversation, community, collaboration and co-innovation!



Join the "SAP TechEd Cluetrain!"



Those pesky little details? Well it's the Deutsche Bahn and we start in the Frankfurt Haupt Bahnhof (main station) in downtown Frankfurt. We depart at 16:17 (so 4pm in the afternoon), if you are already a registered Community Day attendee (and of course one of the first to sign up) I've a ticket waiting for you! It's first come first serve though! This will be from Frankfurt to Berlin!


Register here!

Technorati Tags:
collaboration, community, communityday08, Enterprise, experiment, sap, sapteched08, cluetrain

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The SAP TechEd event always yields some interesting things for the SAP Ecosystem. With it being a major event often times things are planned to "go live" during the event. What many don't know though is that many of these things are talked about, shown and discussed the day before at the Community Day it was there I was first introduced to this new partnership and what it meant for the SAP Community Network.

So when I was asked if Starship Enterprisey wanted to do a show with their CTO I of course said yes!

Click to Play While in Boston during the Business Objects Influencer Summit I had a chance to sit down with Doug Merritt which was really cool, I've been able to sit in on many blogger roundtables with Doug and he's always be upfront and honest about what's going on so having come on the show was highlight for me.

Being on the "inside" I was dying to ask him about the deal between the "Business User" and "Information Worker" and the confusion that seems to be surrounding them both. It was a great chat and we covered a lot of different things including the SAP Imagineering group from Denis Browne and the future of the program!