And then we came to the end

As one of the people who has 12:00 flashing on her VCR, I take the teeniest exception to Seth Godin's assertion that I am therefore an incurious person. I have enough clocks in my house, and only use the VCR to play back things, not record things, so setting the correct time on my VCR is not a huge priority. But I am somehow incurious because of this? Harumph.

Oh. It was a metaphor? Never mind.

Anyway, I would be amused to know if any Project Players say "No, not me. I'm not a curious person." Of course we're all curious. Just like we're all unfailingly patient with our children, and never just gesture in the general direction of the cookbooks instead of taking the patron there, and especially never feel like saying, with just a tinge of sarcasm in our voices, "Under that big yellow sign that says TAX FORMS."

I think incurious types wouldn't have signed up for PP in the first place. Some of us may be more at ease with the technology and conventions of Web 2.0, but this was too much of a commitment [and I mean that in the best possible way] to see through to the end for anyone lacking in the curiosity department.

It's been quite a ride. I have learned so much, and have some very cool new tools to play around with. Tops for me have been Remember the Milk, GoogleDocs, Bloglines, del.icio.us, and podcasts. I've already implemented lessons from PP in my work and personal life, and I have lots of ideas for tackling some work challenges with new tools in my toolkit. Once a productivity enhancer, always a productivity enhancer...

I know Web 2.0 isn't going anywhere, and I'm far from a Luddite. However, as I think I've made clear throughout my blog, I have an issue or two with information overload and the general overall quality of much user-generated content. As an interesting coincidence, I listened to a podcast yesterday of To the Best of Our Knowledge called Dumbing Down, Smartening Up which was a nice capstone to PP. [I'll be back later to add the link; gotta get Junior off to school now]. It covers more than just Web 2.o, but includes an interesting interview about Wikipedia and makes some really good points about problems with the anonymity of user-generated content. Food for thought.

Well, I hope we keep on playing in some form. It's been real! So long...

Monster Mashup

That's what I created when I played around with this week's toys. I wound up with an iGoogle page tricked out like a Christmas tree. Cute cat photo widgets? Sure, I'll take two. Photos from NASA? Why not? Cleaning tips? Yeah, need that one. And I just love how the sun travels across the top of the page throughout the day. (Those little details make such a difference.)

Best of all, I mashed together Google Calendar and Remember the Milk and made it show up on my page, along with the day's weather forecast. I do this with some trepidation, since it essentially means I am currently maintaining two calendars, which is a great big time management no-no in my book. I think, however that I have discovered a way to sync my trusty Palm with my Google Calendar, without having to buy a smart phone to do it. It does involve some software downloads and installations, so who knows if I will really be able to pull it off?

Anyway, I probably spent more time exploring and playing around with mashups than any other single Project Play gizmo. The zip code census dashboard has me awestruck. Such a simple way to get that demographic info you need for the report that's overdue. (How did anybody get anything done Way Back When?) I couldn't ever get it to load right, but if Every Block Chicago works the way I think it's supposed to, it would be cool to have something similar for one's own locality. I can get squarely behind this kind of user-generated content.

Too much of a good thing? Maybe. I pared down my iGoogle page with an eye toward making it functional instead of including every bell and whistle I could find. Still, I had to keep the Bush Quote Generator. You know what they say about all work and no play.

And now for something completely different...

Let's try embedding a vid and see if it works.