Blind dogs are what you find when you don?t have a research agenda
One thing learned during the weekend ? reading blogs can be addicting. It reminds me time of writing my master thesis, when going into all the paths connected with the interesting (and broad) subject was so exciting that it seemed I would never actually get to write anything.
It underscores why it is so bad to do a research without a very precise agenda. In a consulting world, we usually use issue trees to clarify a question, break it down into components and drill down to a level detailed enough to already be suitable as an agenda. I?m planning to prepare such issue tree for my current investigation and share it, but it will not be today.
Currently subject of my ongoing interest is the blogosphere. The cases when it made a tangible difference in the real world are what inspires me, I guess. I would like to learn more how it works and how it can have influence.
I don?t regret being so little organized this weekend, though. I read a number of interesting things which hopefully help me build the big picture. Just to mention ?Power Laws, Weblogs and Inequality? (PDF here) by Clay Shirky. Great introduction to skewed distribution in the blogosphere and issue of ?A-list? or elite blogs, which form the focal points of the whole system.
But I will leave it here for now and come back to the subject perhaps when I have some time to think through all this material and connect all the dots.
Among the things I did was trying to find those top blogs and see what they are. I eventually focused on top 100 Technorati Popular Blogs, as could be expected. Looking at top 10 blogs I found few familiar names.
I enjoyed Boing Boing, and especially PostSecret was a real gem. I invite you to take a look.. or perhaps you did long time ago and it is only me who lived under the rock. Anyway on the left you can see a sample.
With reference to connecting the dots and to be done with the subject of this regrettable weekend, at least I managed to watch Guy Ritchie?s ?Revolver? on Saturday. I was positively impressed by the trailer and so I decided to go. Only afterwards I learned that it attracts some rather awful reviews.
I liked it nevertheless. The storyline is so messed up that it makes you think hard to make anything out of it. After the lights went on a guy in the front stood up, turned and asked aloud ?Was it only me that didn?t get what was it about?? I think I have a clue but look forward to comparing my takeouts when some of the friends also sees it.
