First off, I want to welcome everyone who’s coming to this site for the first time. Traffic doubled last week, and by this week, it has quadrupled. So if this is your first time here, welcome. You can take a look through some old posts as well as the front page features by using the category links on the right (this way you can get to topics that interest you right away). And of course, thanks for stopping by to read!

So, to celebrate this huge increase in traffic, I thought I would thank one my favourite sites by featuring it. Today’s featured site is North x East, which is home to my good friend Collis, who was one of the first bloggers I swapped blogroll links with (considering the huge success of North x East, I think it was a great trade!). As usual, I just want to say up front that I don’t get reimbursed in any way for these reviews — they’re just sites I really like.

What I like the most.

North x East provides knowledge and advice on setting up, promoting and succeeding in the online business world. What I find is the big differentiator on Collis’ blog, however, is the almost subconscious focus on innovation.

While bloggers like John Chow often focus on the financial side of blogging, North x East focuses more on establishing successful business models for web startups. North x East also isn’t afraid of dishing out the dirt on things like making your blog seem more established so you don’t scare new readers away. And Collis’ comprehensive guide to starting your freelance career is must-read material for anyone even thinking about starting to do freelance work.

Since my own site is all about knowledge sharing, I really enjoy sites that take a particular field and build a repository of first-hand knowledge and experience a novice can draw on. Collis’ knowledge of doing business on the web comes across brilliantly in his writing — there’s always something new to learn at North x East.

What I would change.

Collis talks quite a bit about other projects he has going on within the pages of North x East — and these other projects are a great source of learning for readers of his site. I would love to see a page that collects some of the projects Collis has going on — which would provide both a great promotional vehicle for those projects, as well as giving us the inside take on how those projects are going.

I’d love to provide more ideas for changes to North x East, but this is truly one of those sites that is doing just about everything right — and has build the readership to prove it.

Want to read more featured sites? Check out my review of The Paper Bull and the JibberJobber blog.

It’s been a while since I’ve featured some of the great contributions I get to Business, Technology and Knowledge. I’m absolutely astounded by the number of submissions received. There are really some quality posts in this issue — take a few minutes to browse through some of these. You’ll be glad you did.

Barbra Sundquist presents Incorporate or Not? What You Need to Know About Business Structures posted at HomeBusinessWiz.

Anja Merret presents 10 easy steps to try your hand at SEO posted at anja merret, saying, “Free and easy way of increasing traffic through the web site.”

Business

Wilson Ng presents Profits Straight to the Bottom Line posted at Reflections of a BizDrivenLife, saying, “Understanding pricing strategies and knowing your cost structure as optimizing your bottom line is essential knowledge for managers.”

Matt Inglot presents 5 Tips for Staying on Top of Your Books for Small Business Owners posted at Matt Inglot.

Christopher J. Brunner presents Choosing Powerful Text for Your Business Cards posted at GreatFX Business Cards, saying, “How to draw in potential clients by adding powerful text to your business cards.”

Matthew Paulson presents The Ultimate Guide to Making Money through Freelance Writing Online posted at Getting Green.

Becky McCray presents Small Biz Survival: Startup: Resources to get from Idea to In Business posted at Small Biz Survival, saying, “Online and real world resources to go from a business idea to starting your business.”

Steve Faber presents 4 Great, Free Business Resources To Help Grow, Start, or Save Your Business posted at DebtBlog.

Silicon Valley Blogger presents Filthy Wal-Mart = Poor WMT Stock Performance? posted at The Digerati Life.

The Positivity Blog talks about 5 lessons I have learned from John Chow posted at Henrik Edberg.

Jack Yoest presents Job Interview: How To Tell If the Candidate Will Lie, Cheat, Steal? posted at Reasoned Audacity, saying, “It seemed that many of the clients of Your Business Blogger were having challenges finding integrity in job candidates. Even business schools are forced to teach ethics. Goodness. So I ask Bob Knight, who runs the Culture and Media Institute a part of Brent Bozell’s Media Research Center about this. Bob’s team just released a report, The National Cultural Values Survey.”

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On every post I write, I use Ultimate Tag Warrior to insert some Technorati tags, which show up at the bottom of the post. I’ve been thinking lots about metadata lately — and started wondering how useful those tags actually are (and how much traffic they actually generate).

Wikipedia describes metadata as “‘data about data.’ It can generally be thought of as information that describes, or supplements, the central data. For example, metadata produced by digital still cameras describe the settings used for the picture, such as exposure value or flash intensity. In such cases, the metadata can be considered as extra data, which merely add information, and is not critical to the functions of the main data.”

More and more often however, metadata doesn’t end up being a few keywords or even supplemental at all. For example, if I want to provide some metadata on the poet T.S. Eliot, I might include his date of birth, birthplace and even some of the titles of stuff that he’s written.

But what if I wanted to provide all of the text he ever wrote as metadata about him? Maybe I also want to provide the entire history of St. Louis, Missouri as well (where Eliot was born)? It would seem that I am no longer providing metadata about another data set, but rather I’m just linking two sets of data together (Eliot’s biography and the text of his works).

In reality, it would appear I’m just providing mesodata (OK, I just made up that word, but I think it accurately describes what I’m talking about). For example, a link on the Web that goes from one body of data to another (from the Eliot biography page to the Eliot writing text page), is really just a small piece of data that indicates to the user how the two things are linked together.

This seems pretty obvious doesn’t it? Well, yes, I wouldn’t say this should come as a great revelation to anyone. But when talking about metadata, too often the assumption is that we’re extracting or creating a small set of data that can be used to describe the broader data set — when it can often be the opposite.

So how does this relate to Technorati? Well, I want to know how useful these tags are that I’m sticking on every post on this site. Does this user-created metadata really improve the findability of the information I’m posting (on Technorati, but also on Google or other search engines as well)?

Here’s the experiment: I’m going to tag this post with the top 10 search terms on Technorati and see how much (if any) traffic comes to this site through searches on those terms on Technorati, Google or other search engines. I don’t really have any prediction for what will happen when I do this — I just hope to get some indication of how useful this metadata actually is.

The Paper Bull was kind enough to provide me with a very honest, unpaid review a few days ago — so I thought I would return the favour, and point out some of the great content on the site. As I said in my last review of the JibberJobber blog, this provides some exposure to these great sites, but more importantly, provides the readers of this blog with great content that would be of interest (and again, I’m not compensated in any way for this review).

The Paper Bull provides information on search engine optimization (which is just making your site discoverable for search engines), as well as information about WordPress and eBay. Mostly, though the site is about tweaking your site for search engines and some WordPress tips and tricks that will get your blog ahead.

What I like the most.

The writing is almost always concise and to the point, and provides good explanations of the subject matter. For an example of what I’m talking about, here’s a bit of sneak peak at The Paper Bull’s tips around anchor text links:

“It’s common knowledge that anchor text links are a strong component of embedding your blog and making it highly visible within its niche community. Utilizing them to their full potential is another matter altogether and it’s worth some grass roots training. An anchor text link is probably better known under a former name hyperlink: a portal which takes you from website A to website B by clicking on an active text.”

As Uncommon Knowledge is all about knowledge sharing, I enjoy any site that establishes a knowledge base and allows the author and readers to share and communicate that knowledge between them. The Paper Bull does an excellent job at this.

What I would change.

While the content of the site is excellent, it doesn’t appear that the MistyLook theme has really been customized too much. I understand that hiring a designer can be expensive — and I’ve been fortunate enough to have the help of many people to assist me in the creation of my site.

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This guide largely came about as I spoke to a few friends and colleagues about knowledge sharing — and generally heard “well, that all sounds great, but _____________.” You can fill in that blank with some of the following reasons:

* I don’t really see how knowledge sharing can apply to me or my business.
* I’m self-employed — who am I going to share knowledge with?
* We have other people at my company who worry about that kind of thing.
* I don’t really see what the benefits are to me.

All of these sound like great reasons that sharing knowledge sharing doesn’t really apply to you — but ultimately, sharing what you know has great benefits for everyone. This article will cover some of reasons, princples and methods you can use to better share what you know, as well as benefit from what others know.

I’m hoping to keep this guide always evolving, so if there’s a knowledge sharing method or principle you’d like to see included, leave a comment. We all have knowledge — so we’re all qualified to contribute to this guide.

Who can use this guide?

The short answer: everyone. Whether you work at a multinational corporation, run a small business or non-profit, or are self-employed, you can benefit from putting these knowledge sharing principles into practice. Knowledge sharing can enhance any existing business — and since most of the principles are common sense, they are easy to apply.

What is knowledge sharing and why should I be doing it?

Knowledge sharing is taking what you know and giving it away — for free, and usually without any expectation that you’ll get anything back from the exchange. Sound like a one-sided deal? Well, even if you don’t directly get anything back in return — you’re establishing a few key advantages for yourself in your area of expertise:

* creating goodwill with people in your field,
* meeting new friends and contacts that are mutually beneficial,
* establishing the importance of your knowledge and expertise in your field.

However, the greater likelihood is that sharing your own knowledge without any expectation of a direct return will in fact create a situation where people will be much more open to sharing knowledge. Like many other social situations, sharing knowledge requires someone to be brave and take the first step.

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I’ve decided to start featuring a few of the sites that I’ve included in my sidebar links as featured sites of the day. It provides the sites with some exposure, but more importantly, it gives you, the readership of this site, my reasons for thinking the site might be of interest to you — and what you can gain by visiting those sites.

Also, since I provide advice on information architecture for a living, I’d like to make a few suggestions that might lead to some improvements for some already great sites.

First on the list: the JibberJobber blog. I feel I should start this very short review by saying that I’m not getting paid to endorse JibberJobber in any way — I just really like the content and think the blog’s got a ton of great information. Jason Alba from JibberJobber has also made some great comments on this site, and I’d like to point to the great job he’s doing on the JibberJobber blog.

The blog is an extension of the main JibberJobber site, which describes itself as “like a personal Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) for job hunters. Just as a salesperson would use a CRM system to keep track of their sales leads, JibberJobber helps you keep track of your job search and networking contacts.”

What I like the most.

What I like the most about JibberJobber is that the content acts as a knowledge sharing platform for a particular type of community — job searchers — who can interact and share their experiences.

There are also frequent posts that non-job-searchers would benefit from — as an example, there is a post there today about two different bloggers who have been very successful in creating a personal brand for themselves. These types of posts appeal to an audience that is beyond just those who are looking for a job.

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While looking over NorthxEast’s excellent guide to guerilla marketing, I was reminded of something that happened months ago when I was setting up this site.

But first let me tell you something about myself . Most people don’t actually call me Lucas (my youngest sister being one of a few exceptions). While I like the name, people I know have always called me by Luke. It’s always seemed more familiar to me — and Lucas has always sounded a bit more, well, formal or something.

So naturally, when I went to look for a domain name, one the first places I went was lukemcdonnell.com. After clicking around the site for a bit, I was quite surprised to find that there was a guy out there also named Luke McDonnell, who was a rather talented comic book artist.

I was a bit disappointed that the domain name wasn’t available, but at the same time, thought it was kind of cool that I had a namesake (who was much more talented than me at drawing, I might add).

If the other Luke McDonnell and I were both corporations, I would imagine there would be some kind of lawsuit involved for copyright infringement or using a previously registered trademark (as you can tell by that, I’m not a lawyer) — perhaps based on who was born first (thereby proving previous trademark rights)? So what did I do instead? I just went to see if lucasmcdonnell.com was available.

So what’s the lesson here? Well, I struggled a bit with that. At first I thought it was about marketing myself — that I had learned that the domain didn’t really matter. But from everything I’ve done on the web, I’ve learned that a domain is actually incredibly important to the success of a site. And then I thought it was that it was the execution of the idea that counted, versus just having the idea.

The conclusion I’ve come to is that it’s neither of these. There’s a basic human lesson here instead. This site has seen more benefits from the friends and contacts I’ve made online (and from my the friends and contacts I have offline) than from any domain name I could have chosen. It’s that technology — while it is a powerful enabler, too often becomes the focus of what we’re doing, instead of an extension of what we’re doing.

By the way, just as an aside, I would imagine that even though we both share the same name, the other Luke McDonnell and I wouldn’t really have much of a copyright issue if we were corporations — we’re not in the same industry, and I highly doubt we look the same (distinct brand recognition).

UPDATE: This list has now been updated and can be found here in its latest, greatest form.

I was asked a few days ago if I could put together a listing of some interesting knowledge management blogs and sites for someone who was interested in learning a bit more about what knowledge management is and how it can be applied. So I’ve put together 26 great resources that can help you learn about and apply knowledge management. If there’s a great site that I’ve forgotten or something you’d like to see included, please leave a comment and let me know.

1. Aa..ha! – This blog is an eclectic mix of thinking about the human condition as well as knowledge management. There’s a good mix of knowledge management, wisdom and just general stuff about life.

2. The American Productivity & Quality Center’s Knowledge Management Blog – Thoughts and discussions on knowledge management by Jim Lee from the APQC.

3. Anecdote – Anecdote is a consulting firm that specializes in organizational change, leadership and storytelling. While not a strictly KM site, the blog on the front page includes many thoughts and links related to communities of practice and other KM-related areas (thanks Vincent).

4. Association of Knowledgework – At the Association of Knowledgework, people from every specialty cross professional, geographic, cultural, economic and hierarchical barriers to learn together.

5. Babson Knowledge – Babson College joint blog of Tom Davenport and Larry Prusak discussing knowledge work, knowledge management and productivity.

6. Boxes and Arrows – While this site doesn’t focus exclusively on knowledge management, it does have a great deal of content in peripheral areas like content management and design.

7. BRINT – Developing leading edge thinking and practice on contemporary business, technology, and knowledge management issues to facilitate organizational and individual performance, success, and fulfillment.

8. Chris Collison’s blog – This is an excellent resource for collaboration-related knowledge management stuff. Chris is a fantastic resource on anything collaborative (and has even been kind enough to leave an insightful comment here).

9. Cindy Gordon – Focuses upon knowledge management, human capital and innovation.

10. CIO’s Knowledge Management section – The magazine about business, technology and leadership has a specific section on their website devoted to KM. The other sections are also interesting and definitely worth checking out as well.

11. Collaborative Thinking – Mike Gotta’s blog on collaboration, social software, social networking and knowledge management trends, including community-building methods and practices.

12. Column Two – News and opinion articles by James Robertson on the general topics of knowledge management and content management. Features archives and RSS/XML syndication.

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After clearing out my comment spam filter on this site this morning, I decided it was time to attempt to curb the amount of spam this site is getting. In the first few months of this blog being around, I got around 1000 spam. As of today, the site’s up to about 100 comment spam per day. Which would be fine if it were all spam — but unfortunately I have to go through all that spam to make sure that there aren’t legitimate comments buried in there. This is a tedious task that I don’t really like doing.

While I can still remember my first spam comment I received (which was not as long ago as John Chow’s first spam comment), I knew that eventually, as this blog got more popular, spam would become a bigger and bigger problem. So my first step to combat spam is to introduce a challenge question (which I achieved by installing the WordPress Challenge plugin), which appears at the bottom of the comment box. The question is pretty simple — what year is it?

Hopefully this will reduce the spam comments and keep me from having to clean out the spam filter on a daily basis. If this one measure doesn’t stem the tide of spam, then there are some other measures I’ll try to reduce the junk that makes it into the filter (Akismet, WordPress’ native spam filter, is very good however at picking up spam comments, I’m just tired of cleaning out the filter). If you have problems, comments or questions about this new spam-fighting measure, leave a comment below. Thanks again for reading.

Update: The spam kept coming in — we’re now up to 1590 spam comments (if you’re keeping track, that’s 58 in the last few hours). I decided to take another step to block spam at its source by installing Bad Behaviour. So far, I haven’t had a single spam comment make it past Bad Behaviour, making it at the top of my list for ways I’d suggest to stop spam. I’ll keep you updated on how the battle with spam is going.

Did you know that you can combine multiple RSS feeds together into one feed and have them sent by email to you or anyone who signs up for that combined feed? But first, let me answer the question you’re asking yourself as you’re reading this: why would I want to do that?

One reason might be that you can’t read feeds on a mobile device, and would prefer seeing them in an email sent from address. Or maybe, like me, you just don’t really feel like installing an RSS reader (or using one built into Internet Explorer), and would just find it simpler if everything came to your email inbox like a regular newsletter.

This can also be a great way to distribute information to employees where everyone might not understand (or care) what RSS is — just put some feeds together into one feed, have them distributed every so often by email, and you have automatic updates for whatever industry or field you’re in.

Combine.

First, let’s find some feeds to combine. Syndic8 and RSS Feeds have a ton of feeds you can search or browse through (you might also have some feeds in mind already that you want to combine). Combining the feeds together is about as simple as going to RSS Mix, dropping the addresses of the fields in the box, and clicking the ‘Create!’ button. You will then get a feed ID number that you can use to access your feed.

Email.

Now, if you want to send out this feed by email, you can go to FeedBlitz, create an account, and subscribe to your feed by email. You will then get emailed (I believe it’s on a daily basis by default) the feed items from all of the feeds you entered into RSS Mix. Other people can also subscribe to your feeds this way. Create as many feeds as you want using RSS Mix, and you can syndicate them all to email using FeedBlitz. Cool huh?