Sunday, August 17, 2008

Coolest thing ever

OK, that's a big statement to make, and an award I don't give out often. ("Coolest thing ever, that I've seen so far today" would probably be more accurate, and that's an award I give out at least once daily.)

Anyway, by now you should know that it's important to take time to tag your stories; however, keeping it simple is sometimes hard, as tag discipline falls apart in the face of long, wordy articles.

If you want to get to the meat of the story in a cool way, you could do a lot worse than working with Wordle. This tool, created by IBM researcher (and ex-They Might Be Giants drummer) Jonathan Feinberg, shows you exactly what your story is about.

For example, here's a Wordle-generated tag cloud of a recent story I wrote about Intel's green business practices.


Kind of easy to see what the highlights are, no?

(FYI Wordle works for resumes too. If you want to get a quick snapshot of your career, post your entire resume into the "create" box -- and be prepared to be boiled down to a set of meta-tags!)

Friday, August 8, 2008

Hello to Everyone In The Cleveland Area

Hey everyone,

A thank-you to Brad Kenny for recruiting me to be the new local ASBPE president. Still getting my feet wet, to be honest, but will try to make the most of the opportunity. I look forward to talking with all of you!

Brian Sparks