My wife just said, "What a Nerd!" Yup, that’s me!  I am sitting at my computer, eating a frozen pizza, and looking at a cool new software application (Shared Word Diagrams). Okay … why do I think this is neat? Let’s examine the data:

• I was not an English major (I do like to read)
• Researching document differences visually is intriguing
• Expand the thumbnail to see my example

I compared:

• Encyclopedia Britannica’s William Shakespeare Overview
• Wikipedia’s William Shakespeare Overview

I thought … what better way to try out this application than by comparing a Web 2.0 application with it’s Web 1.0 counterpart, and the resulting overview of the original bard himself? Seriously, if you had never thought of graphically comparing documents, you must spend some time on Neoformix Blog. In addition, link to the Neoformix Document Arc Diagrams to view examples of Alice in Wonderland, The 2007 State of the Union Address, and  a Hard Rain  is  Gonna Fall (Bob Dylan).

Quite frankly, I haven’t quite yet figured this application out. If you try an example, be patient. It can take a while for the results to appear. Once you create a comparison, while connected to Neoformix you can click upon words to further explore the relationships.  It’s interactive.
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Earlier today while doing a search on my company’s internal Connectbeam / Google search engine, I discovered a cool external web site! Let me repeat that … while doing an internal search, I found an external web site.  Sort of sounds like a contradiction, but because another employee had tagged the Bourne Report, even though I wasn’t searching for the site, I found the podcast series. Pretty cool.

Oh yes, the Bourne Report is a podcast series that describes itself in this manner: "Discussing Real Ways Nanotechnology, MEMS and Other Emerging Technologies are Changing How We Live, Work and Play". In addition, I’ve added this engineering podcast to my specialized podcast search engine.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation must be an unusual place. Apparently their employees like to edit the Wikipedia Roswell entry! Seriously, the blog … the Inside CBC.Com has a posting on what their employees edit on Wikipedia. Please note that because the CBC firewall presents only one I.P. number to the outside world, one may only see a collective list of edits, not individual employees. Given the CBC is a major news organization, viewing the collective lists of edits is intriguing:

• Inside the CBC Wikipedia Posting
• CBC Wikipedia Edits (history)
• Some Roswell Edits (#1) (#2) (#3)

Someone out there is watching you!
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Given some needs at work, I’ve been trying out various collaboration tools … including Google Notebook. Although this tool does not meet my specific needs, if you are in the market for a free online collaboration tool, check out Notebook.  Here’s why (including some screenshots):

• Easy user interface … copy and annotate web content
• Allows you to control with whom you wish to collaborate
• Searchable via Google

The power of Google Notebook becomes apparent if you need to do collective research. Here is a link to some notebooks with which I am playing around. Just as a fyi … I don’t intend to update these notesbooks; they were created only as a test.
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Late last year SkillSoft shook up the eLearning world with the news it would acquire NETg. These two organizations were the two largest competitors in the online training world. Now that the dust has settled (i.e. SEC requirements), and SkillSoft is free to talk about strategy, I recently sat down for a podcast interview with John Ambrose, SkillSoft’s Senior Vice President of Strategy. Here were my questions: (listen to the podcast to hear John’s answers!)

Nerdcast – Take 07: Interview with SkillSoft’s John Ambrose
(total running time: 13 minutes)

1. What do you think will be the primary benefits of the NETg acquisition for your customers … please include the areas of courses and virtual books in your answer?
2. NETg had an increasingly strong presence in live web based instructor led training.  What are SkillSoft’s plans in this arena?
3. When the NETg acquisition was first announced, I personally attended the briefing your CEO, Chuck Moran, gave to Wall Street Analysts. In one of his answers he spoke to the issue of "increasing the NETg operating margins". Many NETg customers already feel that SkillSoft has historically been the high priced provider. Given your CEO’s own comments, and these customer concerns, how would you respond?
4. What are your plans for the various eLearning platforms that SkillSoft and NETg have between them?
5. Is there anything you’ve not covered, that you would specifically like to say to NETg customers? … to Skillsoft customers?
6. One of the things I do on NerdCast is ask this question of all interviewees! ….. Okay … What’s the nerdiest thing you’ve ever done in your life, and be specific!