Technology

Dead Blogs, Sadness, and Concepts

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So I’ve been looking for information on estimating methods for SCRUM.  Yes, I’m sure that sounds unexciting to most people, but really this is something PM’s and SCRUM masters nearly get into fisticuff’s over.  Oh, you think hours are going to work, don’t bet on it . . .

So anyway, I dug up a blog that shall remain nameless, and it was filled with great stuff – and hadn’t been updated in 2 years, it’s creator’s twitter feed had posts every few months.  Yet it was filled with wisdom.

I guess I can consider it dead, but doesn’t that seem wrong?  I mean it has active, vital, useful information in it?

Somehow I think we need to rethink blogs.  Maybe they have to stop, and so be it, but is it really dead?  Is it dead if the information is good?  Is it dead if it has meaning?

Maybe we need to rethink blogs as part of something larger, of archiving, curating, creation.

Maybe we need to create metasites that archive old blog information for people.

Maybe we should “reincarnate content” as I mentioned earlier.

Blogs may be dead, but the information is alive.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.

 

How Blogging Helps Your Career #7 – The Laboratory

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(The roundup for the “How Blogging Helps Your Career Series” is here)

Blogging is a way to grow and expand who you are – certainly it’s a kind of obstacle course that’ll teach you to be a better researcher.

But beyond the learning experiences and the stretching and expanding it puts you through, blogging also gives you options.  Lots of options.  A blog is there for you to do anything with.

Want to try a new blogging platform or plugin? Fine.

Want to try a new writing style?  Post that sucker no matter what.

Different layouts?  Easy.

Different SEO?  Go for it.

Blogging is about writing and communicating, but it’s filled with options from software and extras to the sheer freedom of writing anything on the internet.

Blogging is a laboratory.

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Can You Bring Business Along?

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Last week Rocky Agrawai of Venture Beat noted the simple painful fact that big box retailers have more online competition and need to upgrade.  He then documents his own painful big box experiences which you really don’t see in online retail (often because they’re screwups caused by being there).

Big Box retail needs an upgrade, he concludes.  I concur myself; most of my experience with Big Box these days is Frys, who has wisely chosen their own focus (crazy selections and sheer enthusiasm in bulk).

In fact, Rocky then went on to discuss how department stores need help too.  I imagine if he is going to fully explore businesses who are behind the times, he’s going to be very busy – and I encourage him, he’s got great insights.

We probably wouldn’t be complaining about this two decades ago as the stores wouldn’t have comparable experience.  We also probably wouldn’t be complaining as much as it’s a different economic and cultural time.  But in a day of cut-it-to-the-bone, short-term thinking, Big Box stores and many others often feel rather miserable.

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