Internet Tech Boston

I’ve added yet another social media app to my arsenal – welcome Ping.fm

Hey look – it’s me playing with video blogging via Seesmic . . . .
Umass Alumni Club MeetingWho’s going to the Umass Alumni Cub Meeting at Tia’s – Wed. 7/23 at 5:30pm?

Register at www.umassbostonclub.org
If you’re interested in the event I’m talking about, check out the Umass Amherst Alumni Club, Boston.

The proliferation of wiki-based sites has been one of the hallmarks of what has become known as Web 2.0. Wiki’s give a group of people who share a common purpose the ability to quickly and easily create information online. For an official definition of wiki, look no farther than the site that made the idea famous – Wikipedia.org:

A wiki is a collection of web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content, using a simplified markup language. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites and to power community websites.

As the definition states, wiki’s are meant to be the simplest form of creating and managing data online. This is great for people who have simple needs combined with a lower level of development skills. But for those that want to combine the simplicity of a wiki with more advanced functionality, standard wiki’s quickly becomes a problem because the functional set built into wiki’s cap out pretty quickly. Even slightly more complex functionality such as the ability to capture information from users with forms, or allowing security settings on pages or groups of pages is not part of what a wiki typically does.

EditMe is a wiki that goes above and beyond the typical feature set found in a wiki. By exposing a robust developer API built in server-side javascript, users can build custom functionality into their wiki based sites that allows simple content editors to become true web developers. The API is written in a custom tagged javascript, so your EditMe code development is done the same way content is edited in a wiki – right in your browser window. According to the EditMe site:

No FTP servers, compilers or IDEs required. EditMe’s API uses server-side JavaScript and our templates use XML, so there are no new languages to learn.

Disclosure: I’ve been paid to do some development with EditMe’s API in the past. My experience using the API to build wiki-based functionality was pretty fun, actually. Matt Wiseley, EditMe’s founder and President is also excited about the robust API built into EditMe:

Most web “APIs” are really just another way to see the site’s data in XML or JSON or some other format. Few allow the complete scope of read and write that the standard web application provides, and I don’t know of any that allows the API to be used right within the product as seemlessly as EditMe does.

Having full CRUD access over all data and wiki functionality really makes a difference. It’s possible to build permission based content authoring tools all the way up to a full fledged CMS right within your personal wiki. EditMe has been able to pull off integration of this powerful API within a “normal” wiki environment. You don’t have to take advantage of it if you don’t want to. The familiar wiki content editing rules apply. However, with access to the API at every price level – you’re getting a powerful toolset at any price.

Today I answered a question on LinkedIn.com’s Q&A section titled “If a employee makes a mistake ,should he be advised in person or reprimanded in front of the complete workforce?” This seemed like a common sense answer, so I didn’t give it too much thought. I quickly posted my simple one-line answer – “Praise in Public, Criticize in Private.” The saying, originally attributed to Vince Lombardi, is one of the many mantra’s that all us managers learn early in their career. I sat back in my chair and happily reflected on the wisdom I had imparted.

After a few minutes of deeper reflection I came to the horrifying realization that I had violated my own common sense mantra at least 3 times within the past 5 business days. Feeling like a complete hypocrite and with my confidence shaken, I forced myself to continue to ponder what this meant, and how I could improve. I came to a conclusion that it’s probably not the mantra’s that are important. After all – they’re just common sense. What’s important is the discipline to keep those mantras at the forefront of your thoughts throughout what has become an increasingly hectic day. When the work is piling up and the demands get greater, all it could take is 1 bit of bad news from an employee to cause you to snap at them in front of their peers. The greatest tools in the world are useless if they are not used properly or at the right time.

A good manager probably knows all the mantras. A great manager is one who can use them at the right moment. If anyone has any ideas on how I could continue to grow as a manager, I would love to hear about them in the comments below.