this weeks summary

information is not knowledge

knowledge is not wisdom

wisdom is not truth

truth is not beauty

beauty is not love

love is not music

music is everything

Frank Zappa's response to T.S Eliots reference to Poe's sailor reminds me of what I go through every day of the week as web coordinator of SBE. Altough refreshing, much of my week had to do with real persons. But I got some things finished. The Introduction Day website is up and running and so are changes made to the SBE intranet. Some minor changes here and there but no time for the departments with the exception of two new webeditors trained and ready to conquer yet undiscovered online worlds. ASP is not everyones taste and is hard to maintain. While ACO wants to get rid of Frontpage and BPRC is not offering a alternative at the moment. Marthas request for change was done unconventionaly and implemented immediately. And voila.... there is todays job done with yesterdays tools.
Another request for change protocoll was discovered at the meeting with all web coordinators. And guess who has to read and apply it? The old issue of a feedback mechanism for the entire UM website. Basically its a link in the footer of each page that says something like "found a bug? Tell us". After clicking on it the attentive visitor tells what problem he found or what is unclear to him. This information is send via email to the person responsible for this part of the UM website including the page iD and timecode. That's basically it. Would it help me as webcoordinator? Well, yes I think so. But here we go. Other questions on the agenda which will be discussed in smaller working groups concern the topics "dynamic navigation" and "the programme pages". Also a university wide intranet option was discussed but at the end I will say more to that.
You don't sell your product, you sell yourself. And when it comes to UM's products, then it's the programmes we are talking about. MSc, BSc, PhD, MBA, and executive programmes (post graduate education) are the major categories around which an organizational setup is infiltrated by the latest technology. This was also discussed with one programme director who wants to see her programme page different than it is now. A link to LinkedIN, a weblog maintained by the department and some thoughts about how to use them to connect to students and other interested parties. Nothing concret but a start.
I also revieved a compliment for an image I used for METEOR and BUSINESS RELATION. Annemarie likes it very much. I hope she will tell Meredith about it. Her requests for change examplified the differences in perception. While all her remarks concerned the text or the structure - to some extend justified by common sense (meaning by myself) - while nothing whatsoever was wrong with the image. The image is intended to play the "background music" while the text is what food is for the digestion system. While the stomache tells nothing about the taste of whatever one puts down his throat, so was Annemaries awareness unaware of the sublime effect of the image. Because it was the image that she found "cool" not the text.
The intranet debate is far from beeing over. In fact, it just started. At SBE there are websites available to special user groups. And they do the job. The downside is that there are many people who have only read access and few who have write access. So there is an asymetry of supply and demand which is artificial meaning its constraint by the environment, not by the emergent property contained in it. The next step would be a community solution examplified by NING or similar Social Networking Platforms which allow everybody to be consumer and producer at the same time. Having written this a host of questions fall like rain from the heavens as it does every day here in hell. In fact it must be a watery place. Look at Gilgamesh: Hell was a watery place. In the hebrew bible (the old testament) it was Sheol where later the Greek shades wander in a dark and misty underworld. Like Narcissus who fel in love with his image in the water. For him, the watery mirror was death. And it is interesting to note that one of the most popular Iphone apps which turns your device into a mirror.

Great ha...

by the way, I also meet the woman who is responsible for the Creative Writing course, she is very nice and everybody should do it...and I will do too.