Google Labs

Google labs showcases all their favourite ideas that they are developing as well as those that have graduate out of beta mode:
http://labs.google.com/

Knowledge Management - Systems Thinking

Came across this site today which discusses about knowledge management. It basically talks about in an information and knowledge packed world of today; we need to learn how to effectively manage ourself - we are all manager of ourselves not others. It is not about managing people to do the work but to do these 3 things:
1.) Establishing strategy, setting goals, showing leadership and measuring results rather setting and policing rules for workers.
2.) Less management of people and more about giving them the right goals, the right motivation and the right tools, and clearly articulating how success or failure will be measured.
3.) As a knowledge manager, we should look to our manager for the broad strategic direction and we should look to ourself for the ability to manage our day. We must develop this crucial skill, because if we're waiting to be told what to do... then our job is in serious danger of being automated or outsourced.

There isn't a great future for those who do not rise to the knowledge management challenge. As organizations continue to automate, outsource and offshore, those people who remain will become invaluable to the success of the organization. They will be the knowledge managers.

This is the same as what the term of knowledge is all about as depicted in this site in which it talks about knowledge management:
- Information relates to description, definition, or perspective (what, who, when, where).
- Knowledge comprises strategy, practice, method, or approach (how).
- Wisdom embodies principle, insight, moral, or archetype (why).

The site mentioned above has alot of resources regarding systems thinking as well as other management issues in business and organisations. I think it is a site worth looking at to which we can broaden our thinking and how we see & manage things. Now, this make me start to think, what has knowledge management got to do with systems thinking? Systems thinking is really about see the big picture and understanding that every little thing is part of a bigger system. A function or another will depends on alot more other factors in which it can operate. Just like the body, we all need the different parts of our body in order to operate as a body system. Similar to the organisation and environment which is also a living system: different departments and different environmental elements work together in order to create the system. There is always a cause and effect in any little thing that is done. Just like the butterfly effect, a small action can lead to a big change and results.

In order for creative knowledge management, we need systems thinking to help us look beyond what we are doing everyday. Almost everything that exists within the organisation, environment or body will have its role and something to do with what we are doing. Systems thinking with really help us to achieve the 3 elements of knowledge management. Without systems thinking; we will never be able to attain the wisdom level. As wisdom is the ability to look beyond what we can just see or just touch and all factors that will play a part in a 'systems'.

Six Sigma: Measurement of Quality

What is Six Sigma? - The Roadmap to Customer Impact, from GE.com
Globalization and instant access to information, products and services have changed the way our customers conduct business — old business models no longer work. Today's competitive environment leaves no room for error. We must delight our customers and relentlessly look for new ways to exceed their expectations. This is why Six Sigma Quality has become a part of our culture.

What is Six Sigma? First, what it is not. It is not a secret society, a slogan or a cliché. Six Sigma is a highly disciplined process that helps us focus on developing and delivering near-perfect products and services. Why "Sigma"? The word is a statistical term that measures how far a given process deviates from perfection. The central idea behind Six Sigma is that if you can measure how many "defects" you have in a process, you can systematically figure out how to eliminate them and get as close to "zero defects" as possible. Six Sigma has changed the DNA of GE — it is now the way we work — in everything we do and in every product we design.

There are three key elements of quality: customer, process and employee. Everything we do to remain a world-class quality company focuses on these three essential elements.
1....the Customer: Delighting Customers
Customers are the center of GE's universe: they define quality. They expect performance, reliability, competitive prices, on-time delivery, service, clear and correct transaction processing and more. In every attribute that influences customer perception, we know that just being good is not enough. Delighting our customers is a necessity. Because if we don't do it, someone else will!
2...the Process: Outside-In Thinking
Quality requires us to look at our business from the customer's perspective, not ours. In other words, we must look at our processes from the outside-in. By understanding the transaction lifecycle from the customer's needs and processes, we can discover what they are seeing and feeling. With this knowledge, we can identify areas where we can add significant value or improvement from their perspective.

3...the Employee: Leadership Commitment
People create results. Involving all employees is essential to GE's quality approach. GE is committed to providing opportunities and incentives for employees to focus their talents and energies on satisfying customers.
All GE employees are trained in the strategy, statistical tools and techniques of Six Sigma quality. Training courses are offered at various levels:

• Quality Overview Seminars: basic Six Sigma awareness.
• Team Training: basic tool introduction to equip employees to participate on Six Sigma teams.
• Master Black Belt, Black Belt and Green Belt Training: in-depth quality training that includes high-level statistical tools, basic quality control tools, Change Acceleration Process and Flow technology tools.
• Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) Training: prepares teams for the use of statistical tools to design it right the first time.

Quality is the responsibility of every employee. Every employee must be involved, motivated and knowledgeable if we are to succeed.

From isixsigma: According to the Six Sigma Academy, Black Belts save companies approximately $230,000 per project and can complete four to 6 projects per year. General Electric, one of the most successful companies implementing Six Sigma, has estimated benefits on the order of $10 billion during the first five years of implementation. GE first began Six Sigma in 1995 after Motorola and Allied Signal blazed the Six Sigma trail.

Complexity of Selling

Came upon a blog today: http://www.gapingvoid.com/ and in it, it has a posting from Cardboard spaceship on the complexity of selling:

Understanding the Market
Understanding the Offering
Finding likely customers
Prospecting
Initial discussions
Engagement
Managing the Sales process – External Sale
Managing the Sales process – Internal Sale
Handling the Competition
Qualification
Handling Objections
Demonstrating capabilities
Negotiation
Closing the Sale
Handing over the delivery team
Managing the post sale
Account Management
Extending the footprint
Managing the support and services revenues

This looks like a long list, and it is. Complex selling is exactly that, and the ability to manage this complexity successfully is one of the main reasons that it is a rewarding.

This reminds me of my managing the sales function course that I took last term.

Podcast: All about Podcasting

Podcasting, a term derived from a combination of Apple's "iPod" and "broadcasting", is a method of publishing files to the Internet, allowing users to subscribe to a feed and receive new files automatically. It first became popular in late 2004, used largely for audio files. Podcasting is distinct from other types of audio content delivery because of its subscription model, which uses the RSS 2.0 file format. This technique has enabled independent producers to create self-published, syndicated "radio shows", and has given broadcast radio programs a new distribution channel. Users subscribe to podcasts using "podcatching" software (also called "aggregator" software) which periodically checks for and downloads new content. It can then sync the content to the user's portable music player.

How to Podcatch (getting podcasts):
First, you will need to install a Podcast client like iPodder or Doppler.

Getting the feeds:
Second, you will need to get (subscribe) the feeds and add it to the podcast client. Alternatively, you can also immediately download the audio files just by clicking on the audio link (mp3 file etc) on the website/blog and save it to your computer. However, this way you have to do it manually and one at a time. The purpose of getting (subscribing) to these feeds is so that you can automatically download new songs from mutliple sites/blogs from one point (your podcast client). There are many directories out there such as podcaster.net and podcasts.org for you to get feeds of any categories or you can just type 'podcast' in the search engines.

How to make your own podcasts and feeds:
There are millions of ways that you can make podcasts. To look at this really simply; it is just recording your own song/sound and convert it into an audio file such as MP3 or RM. Here is a link that will teach you how to create your own podcasts.

Creating podcast feeds is the same as creating RSS feeds. You can use feedburner to create your podcast feeds or you can create it using audioblog.com. I personally use feedburner as it is really easy to use.

Posting of Podcasts in Blogger:
To post a Podcast-able item within Blogger: 1. Click the Posting tab to begin a new post. 2. If you enabled the Link field, it should now appear below Title on the posting form. 3. Place your Podcast media URL in this field. Be sure to include the http:// protocol part of the URL. 4. Publish your Post. The title of the post will link directly to the item in a web browser. In your FeedBurner feed, the item will link to the original Blogger post, but an element will contain the URL from the Link field. http://forums.feedburner.com/viewtopic.php?t=20

Here are some further information on podcasting:
http://www.rss-specifications.com/podcast-tools.htm

- Learn how to podcast

The Long Tail

The phrase 'The Long Tail' was first coined by Chris Anderson in a October 2004 Wired Magazine article, describing the effects of the long tail on current and future business models. Anderson observed that products that are in low demand or have low sales volume can collectively make up a market share that rivals or exceeds the relatively few current bestsellers and blockbusters, if the store or distribution channel is large enough. Examples of such mega-stores include Amazon.com, Netflix and even Wikipedia. The Long Tail is a potential market and, as the examples illustrate, successfully tapping in to that long tail market is often enabled by the distribution and sales channel opportunities the Internet creates.

A former Amazon employee described the Long Tail as follows: "We sold more books today that didn't sell at all yesterday than we sold today of all the books that did sell yesterday." In the same sense Wikipedia has many low popularity articles that, collectively, create a higher quantity of demand than a limited number of mainstream articles found on a professional site such as Britannica.






Chris Anderson also has a blog that has more information about long tail.

Google's Site Ranking Algorithm: The secret is out

Google has recently filed a US patent which allows us to know how Google rank sites now. The postings below is taken from Search engine Journal:

Google’s Patent Application contains a lot to read and reading it may take some time, but if you own any type of website, this is all information you need to know. It also brings some interesting points up. While I go over some of the important points, know that no one knows which of these factors is given more weight than the others.

Domain Name Registration - Google is now going to track when a domain is registered among other things. An older domain will get a higher ranking. No more throw away domain names. No more jump to the top of Google results in thirty days.
They will also be tracking the length of renewal on the theory that a person that renews for ten years will be more likely to build a worthwhile site than someone who only holds their domain for a year.

Google will also be keeping a blacklist of known spammers and will be using this list when checking dns records of websites. So spammers who make sure to get their new throwaway domains with different nameservers in order to throw Google off may have to try something new.

Google Spyware? - They are using “user behavior” to rank sites. In my book, if spyware removers try to remove Alexa every time I run it, then this function of the Google toolbar can only be called spyware. Yes, you may check the box on the terms of service for the toolbar, but it still tracks your internet browsing.
But, I think the theory will make search engine results much better.
Google will be tracking the number of times a document is selected from the search engine results. This is a great idea. It means you now have to write the titles of your pages to grab the searcher’s attention. And since the search terms are highlighted in the results, maybe placing them at the beginning of sentences in your page may make then stand out due to capitalization. But I also see a way that this can be spammed by a network of “search and click” spammers.
They will also be tracking the amount of time a person spends on the page that they find. I don’t know about you, but I have been around long enough to notice a spam page and I am gone in two seconds. This may help drop them out of legitimate results.

Content Changes - I think this comes down to just updating your information the way it should be updated. If you have a forum that hasn’t been active in a week, the one that is very active with new posts every minute will definitely rank higher.
But the document also mentions that some stale sites may not be ranked lower if not updated that much. For example, a site on the Civil War will not be expected to change as much as a news headlines site and an older, more stable site may get the rank boost.

Query Analysis - A search for “American Idol Winner” will produce different results than it did last year, even if a page on last year’s winner has more links pointing to it.
Google will be following trends by the increase or decrease in the usage of certain search terms or phrases. I am not sure how this will be implemented. Will there be a quicker ranking algorithm for new trends? Or will sites that have a tendency to break new topics get top billing for such terms?
The search engine will also be sensitive to terms that could be used for different subjects. When you search for “Deep Throat” are you looking for Mark Felt or a Linda Lovelace movie? Google will track what searchers are actually looking for and changes in searching trends.

A Google Browser? - Google also says that they will attempt to track bookmarks and favorites files along with cache files to help determine the ranking of sites. The only way I see this happening is through their own browser and again, this brings up the question of spyware.

Topics - Pages will now be tracked for the topics they cover. Maybe this is what Site Flavored Search is all about. Google says that changes in topic will traced for scoring. So a drastic change in a site may drop in down in the search results. I think this must already be in effect, just for some of the things I have seen with my own sites.

Anchor Text - Google says that links to pages from other sites tend to have differing anchor text if they are obtained naturally. Atrificial linking campaigns tend to produce anchor text that is the same.
Anchor text that changes when the page the link is on changes will be counted as being more relevant.
Anchor text that changes with time may indicate a change in topic on the site.
Anchor text that is no longer relavant to the site linked to may be discounted.

Traffic - Google will track traffic to a page to determine if the content is stale or not. This is a cue that sites will no longer be create and forget. Google will also factor in Advertising traffic.

Linking - Google says that legitimate sites attract links back slowly. Whether this is true or not depends on the definition of “slowly". I know of sites like stumbleupon.com, where users comment and rate sites constantly and one site sent into the mix can get hundreds of links to it within a day just from comments posted about it.
Google also says that exchanging links, purchasing links, or gaining links from documents where their is no editorial discretion are all forms of link spam. Does this mean that if you link to someone and they link to you, that is spam? Than a lot of bloggers out there who aren’t really trying to spam may get accused of doing so.
They will also be measuring the authority of the page that the links are on, mentioning government documents specifically. This smacks of information control. Who assigns this authority and what makes one person more of an authority of another? If a political issue is searched for, will a Democrat’s or a Republican’s page come up first?
The freshness of the page that the link is on will also help determine the freshness of the linked-to page. This is a good argument for using a blog and pinging after your entries.
A page that is updated while the link on that page remains the same is a good indicator of the relevant link.

Ranking History - Ranking change is another feature that Google will use to detect spam. Not that all sites will be flagged as spam sites if they see a huge jump in ranking. Some of these sites could be topical. The authors of the site may have caught onto a new trend just as it was rising.
But Google also will measure the change in a sites ranking to determine if the content is becoming stale, i.e. a drop in links to the site.
Now this must mean some sort of balance and I hope they have leeway for traditional SEO. For example, If you have written new software and have created a PAD file for it, you can literally get hundreds of new links in a weeks. It only takes a second to submit.
What about if you started your own affiliate program. You can get a lot of links quickly that way? Will Google see this as spam? We will have to wait and see.

Finally Hope - Competition always inspires a better product and more options for internet users. Despite the focus on Google in search engine forums and its name being used to define “search for something on the internet", i.e. I Googled him, Google hold on the market has actually dropped.
When once you could optimize for Google and leave it that, now the combined use of MSN and Yahoo is greater than Google, with Yahoo nipping at Google’s heels.
This leaves options for us as search engine marketers and internet searchers. If one search engine doesn’t suit us, at least we know that it isn’t the only one we have to choose.

Other sources: http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/6-10-2005-71368.asp

RSS: All About RSS

What is RSS??
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It is a lightweight XML format designed for sharing headlines and other Web content. Link

For user, RSS allows you to gather news and information from various sources of the internet and displaying all of it at one single point for you. This means that you do not have to visit numerous websites to gather all the related news that you want. You would need a RSS reader to do this, please see below. For web publishers, they can publish and promote their news and information from their site to interested readers and users which is updated daily. Please also see below why do sites make RSS feeds available. RSS Tutorial will also give you some explanation of what RSS is.


How to use feeds?
Aggregators are the most common use of RSS feeds, and there are several types. Web aggregators (sometimes called portals) make this view available in a Web page; my Yahoo is a well-known example of this.

There are also other RSS software or RSS readers that will allow you to use feeds or translate feeds into news for you. I personally recommend and use RssReader, this is a free RSS reader that will display any RSS or atom news feed (XML) on your computer. This means that all you need is this reader and you can read all the news that you want at one single point on your comp. This is cool.

Gecko Tribe has a product call Jawfish that will allow you to display multiple feeds (news) from different sources on your site. Feedroll also has a similar service but you can't custome design the layout which Gecko Tribe can. However, Feedroll is free and not Gecko Tribe's Jawfish although they do have a free trial period. Jawfish do have some problems where I can't display any other feeds (news) when I was trying it out.

Understand how aggregators work

Why make an RSS feed available?
Your viewers will thank you, and there will be more of them, because RSS allows them to see your site without going out of their way to visit it.
While this seems bad at first glance, it actually improves your site's visibility; by making it easier for your users to keep up with your site - allowing them to see it the way they want to - it's more likely that they'll know when something that interests them is available on your site.
For example, imagine that your company announces a new product or feature every month or two. Without a feed, your viewers have to remember to come to your site and see if they find anything new - if they have time. If you provide a feed for them, they can point their aggregator or other software at it, and it will give them a link and a description of developments at your site almost as soon as they happen.

News is similar; because there are so many sources of news on the Internet, most of your viewers won't come to your site every day. By providing an RSS feed, you are in front of them constantly, improving the chances that they'll click through to an article that catches their eye.

How to create RSS feed:
http://www.mnot.net/rss/tutorial/ has the technical way of creating and publishing feeds

To create RSS feeds, here is a link that will make creating RSS feeds easier.
http://www.rss2html.com/ has a free function that will allow you in creating URL on your website to display RSS. If you would like to let people see your blog in the form of a RSS feed, do use FeedBurner. I use this for my Marketing Blog. There are also other free tools for you to create RSS feeds.

Displaying RSS Feeds on your site:
Websites containing information on how to display RSS feeds on your own website or blog
http://www.rss-specifications.com/displaying-rss-feeds.htm

Below is a list of websites that allow you to display RSS feeds from different categories/industries (Free RSS News Feeds):
http://w.moreover.com/site/products/ind/rss_feeds.html
http://ezinearticles.com/
http://chordata.info/

Promoting your feed:
Below is a list of websites that has information on how to promote your RSS feed:
http://www.rss-specifications.com/7-steps-to-rss.htm
http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/ - Best Blog Directory And RSS Submission Sites

Ksoft has a software that has automatic submission of RSS feeds to Blog and RSS feeds directories. Even if you do want to buy it; you can find a list of these directories on their content. All you need is time now.