The JOHO Meat Locker: 1997-1999
Previous Issues of the Journal of the Hyperlinked Organization

December 25, 1999

Predictions, lists and violence: Predictions can be an attempt to control the future, especially when it comes to the Web. Millennial forecast: Continued Ignorance: JOHO's attempt to control the future. Knowledge-based fingertips: We need new standards for keyboards so our fingers can continue to stay ahead of our brains. How Microsoft could kill document management: All it'd take is one simple widget. Misc.: The abuse of "So" and other vital topics. Links I like: Great places to go, discovered by our readers. Walking the Walk: They want to track your every mouseclick. They must be stopped! Cool Tool : Stupid PowerPoint Tricks I couldn't get to work on my computers. Internetcetera: The Clinton Brand tracks detergents and all IT bows to the Gartner brand Mail, smirks and outright lies: Your contribution, swell as always. Bogus contest: Separation anxiety

December 1, 1999

The Undernet: The intranet that's under the radar is where the real work is getting done. 60s Recidivism: Is the Web a second chance for us failed hippies? Tacit docs: Tacit knowledge is overrated — what counts are tacit documents. Odd behavior: Robotic personalization and foolish trades. World record spam: Is a 100K spam attachment reasonable? Nah. Real Life Tales of Frame Jacking: Getting the context radically wrong. Links I like: A reader-generated site-seeing tour. Walking the Walk: Cluster Competitiveness goes paperless. Cool Tool : Well, maybe 1st Page isn't so cool. Internetcetera: The Internet 500 adds up to less than meets the eye. Email, rants and uncalled for innuendoes : The usual fabulous email from y'all. Bogus Contest: Separated at e-birth

November 15, 1999

Branding Knowledge: Beware of mistaking branding and intentional stupidity — inside and outside your organization. The standards game: Companies that propose industry standards are so selfless! Yeah, right. The Danger of Portals: Much of the power of the Web comes from its use of familiar document metaphors. Portals threaten that. Journal of Collaborative Overkill: Computers around the world band to crack a "secure" encryption scheme. Where will it end? Why Search engines lie: They do, you know. Portal Overuse Early Warning Signs Dept.: Your portal to the overuse of the word "portal." Links I like: Users contribute great places to be. Walking the Walk: PHH lets you track your leased vehicles,and even listen in as drivers sing along with the radio. Cool Tool: A traceroute site lets you track your packets, and even listen in as drivers sing along with the radio. Internetcetera: Meaningless stats someone paid to unearth. Email, field reports and passive-aggressive missives: Your mail, yah bastahds. Bogus Contest: Instant recall.

 

October 25, 1999

The right information: There's no such thing as the right information when it comes to making decisions...and looking for it is a sign of deep fear. Hermetic Microsoft: The Digital Dashboard reveals the bubble in which dwell the Microsoftians. IQport.com and the price of info: This new site wants to create an information economy, and the hippie in me rebels. Ask Marilyn why search sites suck: The World's Smartest Person discovers the truth about search engines. Links I like: Great links from readers. Misc.: Self-supporting world views and much more. Walking the Walk: A Charlotte bank replaces paper with an intranet. Cool Tool : Xenu, Amazon warrior or link checker? Internetcetera: Meaningless stats presented with a straight face. Email, Arbitrary Insults, and Suspicious Hacking Coughs: The usual great email from readers. Bogus contest: Web Scams

September 30, 1999

Time-Jacking: Web returns control of time to the individual Can a business be authentic?: Does the term apply at all? Existentialism lives! The Knowledge Conversation: Knowledge isn't an asset. It's a conversation. Misc: Oddities that will change your life, guaranteed! Links I like: Your guide to inessential knowledge Cool Tool : PicoSearch lets users search your site, for free Internetcetera: Portals doing business Email, Arbitrary Insults, and Suspicious Hacking Coughs: The usual fabulous email Bogus contest: Offensive Product Line Extensions

 

September 10, 1999

Traffic and commerce: Customers aren't just "particles with motives" — we're networked, smart and full of vim. How to be smart: First, figure out what matters. Pornographic Intranets: The Web will transform intranets just as it has transformed porn. Misc: Knowledge auctions and a buncha stuff. Links I like: Virtual crack and a buncha links. Walking the Walk: Brunswick Tech decides to let its employees know what they do for a living. Internetcetera: Factoids about the correlation of email name lengths and buying patterns. Email, Arbitrary Insults, and Suspicious Hacking Coughs: The usual fabulous mail from our readers. Bogus Contest: Russell's comparatives.

 

August 25 , 1999

Consuming Donuts: Consumers link up and find out more than they want to know about what really happens when it's time to make the donuts. Why Search Engines Suck: Add inadvertent racism to the list of charges... Links I Like: Finally, a Y2K disclaimer that tells it like it is ... and it's pretty darn funny.

August 5 , 1999

Fear of Browsing: Your business likes portals because it thinks they'll keep you from browsing — but browsing is a basic form of human attention. Forms of marketing: Two eforms makers, two XML standards. Sigh. Evaporating Business: Business is the thin line between markets and employees ... getting thinner all the time. Why search engines suck, Part Whatever: Stop the presses! More evidence is in! Framejacking in our time: Guilty of willful distortion of context. CEOs Who Get It: CEOs who Get It apparently don't get email. Links I like: A miscellany of links, mainly contributed by you, our unblenched readers. Misc.: Have a better way to innovate? We're suing your sorry ass! Walking the Walk: Open source medical research? Cool Tool : Gooey lets us chat together at other people's web pages. Email, Arbitrary Insults, and Suspicious Hacking Coughs: The usual fabulous email from y'all. Bogus contest: ExMail Lists : When people leave a company, what should they name their mailing list? Bogus Results: Fearless readers reply to previous contests.

July 8, 1999

Microsoft's Near-XML Experience: A Conversation with Tim Bray: Why didn't Microsoft do the 1% of additional work to make Office actually XML useful? Digital dashboard . Perfect example of nothing: The Digital Dashboard is highly touted, but it's not a product, it's not a demo...so what is it? The Web is a world: Businesses that confuse the Web with a medium are not making a rare mistake. KM Summit: The third annual summit shows the industry is actually advancing. Payback time: Eat lead death, Creative Labs. Links I like: Tom Petzinger's new newsletter plus lots more Misc: Oddities of the Web world. Walking the Walk: First person account of how travel books will be written Internetcetera: Too much email Email, Arbitrary Insults, and Suspicious Hacking Coughs: Never enough email from our fabulous readers. Bogus contest : Expando-Theme Business Books Contest Results

June 15 , 1999

Windows 2000 — Greatest Product since DOS 6!: We don't need an improved desktop. We need to have a web instead of a desktop. Microsoft KM: Microsoft makes more Knowledge Management noises. Snorts, snores or derisive laughter? Messages in bottles: Sometimes a human voice pokes through a product, and it's thrilling. ThirdVoice: Is this new product a spray can for vandals or the great democratizer of the Web? And how could we possibly tell? Why search engines suck: Part of the continuing series... Misc: Airline food and other horrid topics. Links I like: Miscellaneous contributions to take you away from this newsletter. ("Eyeball repellant"?) Walking the walk: Jiffy Lube takes care of its customers. Cool tool: Little utilities that actually work. Email: The usual fascinating missives from you, our readers. Bogus contest: No-ops

May 20, 1999

Metaphors and distraction: When it comes to valuing metaphors and valuing things just as they are, we're stuck in another Hegelian cleft stick — an optional article if ever there was one 0:1 marketing: 1:1 marketing only has a real "you" at one end of the equation — and we need to do something about it Webby collaboration: The Web has forever changed the way we work together Open source bombing: Everything else is open source, so why not this? The Other Y2K: Unix boxes are going to time out in 2038. It's not too early to frighten yourself Links I like: Miscellaneous goodies Misc.: Short takes and savage briefs Why search engines suck Dept.: The latest in the continuintg series Walking the Walk: Budget Rentacar is taking bids for your next rent-a-heap experience Cool Tool: SurfSaver combines caching and bookmarks Internetcetera: No one likes IT Email, Arbitrary Insults, and Suspicious Hacking Coughs: The usual fabulous mail from our readers Bogus contest: Classic Business Books

April 30, 1999

The importance of being wrong: You can't go wrong being wrong. Let me count the KM ways: What do 8 cases of KM have in common? Are portholes bigger than the sum of portparts?: Portal madness Isn't it (sweetly) ironic?: The compacting of Compaq Leading indicator: Fly Delta's intranet Reference Works: David Isenberg on "KnowWhy" Links I like: Maybe you will, too Spam I didn't opt into and didn't finish reading: Write to strangers if you hate spam! Walking the Walk: Intranets cure cancer Cool Tool: Correlate rates Internetcetera: Web buying is up Email, Arbitrary Insults, and Suspicious Hacking Coughs: The usual fabulous email from readers Bogus Contest: Smell o' Death Press Releases

April 10, 1999

1. The KM Impulse: Why do we care?: Beneath the buzzwords is an impulse to understand 2. Knowledge vs. ideas: More differentiation concepts. Thrilling! Why search engines suck, part whatever: Sun's site, Sun's tagline: Results = 0 Vaguely ironic miscellany: A handful of oddities Links I like Walking the Walk: McDonnell Douglas lets the bidding happen electronically Internetcetera: The Web overthrows the tyranny of the alphabet Email, Arbitrary Insults, and Suspicious Hacking Coughs: The usual fabulous mail from our readers Bogus contest: Webindromes Contest results

March 26, 1999 - Special Issue

The Longing: Why is our culture on fire about the Web when we can't even say what it's for? A desire so fervent must express a deep longing, a spiritual longing. In fact, we embrace the Web with such enthusiasm (literally, being filled with the spirits of the gods) because we hope it will enable us to end the contract we've implicitly signed that says we'll give up our human, individual voice in exchange for the illusion of living in a managed world. The Web is unmanaged. The Web returns our human voice. That's what we long for.

March 15, 1999

Diversity and the Web Lunch Table: Will the Web let dogs and cats play together, overcoming mutual prejudice? Or will it let cats find other cats and dogs find other dogs? Filling out forms for XML: XML, the Great Document Liberator, will actually have us filling out more forms than ever. Buzz Soup: OBI: Open Buying on the Internet, a standard explained. Xerox: The Whatever Company: Knowledge management continues to prosper by not having a thought in its chipper little head Microsoft's KM: Do Microsoft's leaked plans to put KM everywhere validate KM? Ha! The Myth of Human Fallibility, Part 1: A new series featuring people and companies who never, ever make mistakes. Tag line evolution: Sun's statements are eerily consistent. Linux Vulcanization: News from the Linux and hardened rubber front. Links I Like: Miscellaneous happy spots to visit Email, Arbitrary Insults, and Suspicious Hacking Coughs: The usual wonderful email from readers. The Bogus Contest: Personal Mission Statements

February 22, 1999

Business Turing Test: Does your business have a human voice? How Text-y is the Web?: Why the Web will stay a place of words, many of which are spelled correctly Zisman on Knowledge: Lotus' Strategic VP's inner thoughts Low Expectations in Hollywood: How to pick up Jada Pinkett Deconstructing Clip Art: Reading the Zeitgeist in Microsoft's Office2000 clip art Bad Ads: The ads you love to hate Links I Like: Miscellaneous goodies Walking the Walk: CFN brings human service to its employees Cool Tool: HTMStrip downgrades HTML Internetcetera: Flash! Email use to rise! Email, Arbitrary Insults, and Suspicious Hacking Coughs: The usual splendid mail from our readers Bogus contest: Off by One Contest Results

 

December 15, 1998

Is Knowledge Stupid?: Knowledge management is in danger of turning knowledge back into information. Knowledge isn't just useful information; it's much more important than that. Proximal Inconsistencies: Two cases of thoughts that shouldn't be brought together, but are. Media Entrails: Reading the mood of the media, on XML, NCs, operating-system-less databases and Linux. Wallets, Not Eyeballs: Are web visitors eyeballs or deep pockets? Arguments in Favor of Either Communism or Euthanasia, #1: Henry Hyde doesn't know enough to know that he's an idiot. Links I Like: Make your own traffic sign and make your own stereograms ... preferably not at the same time Walking the Walk: Yamaha uses an extranet to help its boat dealers Cool Tools: My 'zine mailer craps out. And you can have it for free! What a deal! Internetcetera: There are 20,000 software companies. And how does that help us? Email, Arbitrary Insults, and Suspicious Hacking Coughs: The usual splendid email from our readers Bogus contest: Frame Jackers Contest Results

December 9, 1998: Special Issue

Business and Time: We're seeing an important shift in the nature -- not just the pace -- of business time. We're moving from a type of heroic chunkiness in which projects are private until published to a collaborative granularity in which much more is exposed to public view, for longer, and deadlines are not as important as readiness. The rhythm of our work life will move from punctuated equilibrium -- narratives with dramatic scenes at the end -- to constant effervescence (with just a hint of lemon). The wits and the bon vivants -- and, therefore, the lightweights and the gadflies -- will flourish. Chatter beats speeches. Repartee trumps tragedies. Nimbleness creams Schwarzeneggerian heroism. The lunkheads perish in the cold. The mayflies swarm, flit, swarm some more.

November 25, 1998

Document Communism: The means of publication are in the hands of the worker ... and the corprate document wall is coming down Buzz Soup: DMA: Will this document management standard be Real Important? Dumbass Ads and Business Diagrams: Andy Groves, pizza ads, and grammatical car violations Linux's Good Week: The upstart OS gets some breaks Where Do You Want to Market Today?: Microsoft's marketing-free zone is hardly Boeing Walks the Walk: Their extranet saves them a bundle Cool Tools: Set up your own free mini-extranet, and use a JOHO-developed tool for creating a table of contents just like this one! Internetcetera: Ecommerce will be worth trillions! We're all going to be rich! Links I Like (or find annyoing): Oddities, curiosities and bad rashes Email, Innuendo and Unintended Inferences: The usual splendid email from our readers Desperate Cries for Help: Why errors are the big winners in life's Natural Selection Sweepstakes. Bogus Contest: Computer shopping and extremely bad puns Contest Results

November 5, 1998

DOM Perignon, the Champagne of Object Models: The Document Object Model is goddom important, y'hear! Microsoft and XML Make Nice: The Giant of Redmond is embracing XML ... but the way a cobra embraces a jackrabbit? On the Sunny Side of the Street: Your intrepid reporter is back from a briefing from Sun Death of the NC, Part Whatever: Sun's network computer is a monument to defeat Good Books, Bad Books: Am I alone in detesting Burn Rate? And has anyone else read Brainstorm? Fisher Scientific Walks the Walk: Publish and sell via XML -- and the weirdest imaginable XML DTD Cool Tool: Disk copier and meta-search engine (two separate tools) Internetcetera: How big is the Web, how fast is it growing, and surprising news in the Netscape-Microsoft battle for your browser Informative Responses: Heady responses to our special issue on the nature of information Rumors, Innuendo and Rude Remarks: The usual fabulous mail from our readers I'd like to See Bill Gates Dead, Cont'd: More on the strangely satisfying Word thesaurus Bogus Contest: E-Words -- Let's use up the puns before they fall into the wrong hands. Contest Results

October 30, 1998: Special Issue

Hijacked Predictions (with Deconstructions by RageBoy) All I thought I'd do is poke a little gentle fun at InfoWorld's 20th Anniversary Celebrity Predictions -- they asked famous computer folks to write about the future -- but, foolishly I invited Chris "RageBoy" Locke, the Scourge of JOHO, to contribute. By return email I got back a de-constructed, practically de-composed version replete with RB's scathing, scatalogical commentary. What did I expect. Sigh. Read and see just how stupid RageBoy makes me look.

 

October 17, 1998

Tim Bray on XML!: Will XML drive us to object-oriented databases at last? Will it drive us at all? Convergence or Hole?: What looks like convergence to us old farts may in fact be a vacuum waiting to be filled by something new. Why Search Engines Suck™: Latest in a continuing series... Dumbass Advertising Someday we'll see 3D simulations on PCs! Imagine! Collateral Marketing Damage (and Other Links): Serendipity strikes! Some happy sites. Chicken Flickers Walk the Walk: 2,700 disgusting chicken restaurants achieve amazing productivity gains via an extranet Cool Tool: A free web-tracking service Internetcetera: What are people doing with their intranets? Email, Rumors and Rude Remarks: The expected great mail from our readers Enyart Bites the Big One: Pointless baiting of the innocent Bogus Contest:TradeMocks

 

September 25 , 1998

Damn Humans!: Fallibility is going to be very big this year. The Web is built for it. So are we. Degrees of Knowledge: It used to be that something was knowledge or it wasn't. Not any more. The Death of Probes: First "probes" offed "sucks." Now "probes" is facing its own stiff competitor... The Iron Law of Irony: You become what you mock. Steelmakers Walk the Walk: The Web pushes hot steel, reduces inventory Cool Tool: XML Notepad. Internetcetera: Executives don't know what they're doing, and intranet-based training grows way too fast. Email, Rumors and Rude Remarks AntiVirus Rankings: Can they cure the common cold?? You're Dumb: Stupid tests! Bogus Contest: High Wit and Misdemeanors Contest Results

 

October 9 , 1998: Special Issue