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The JOURNAL OF THE HYPERLINKED ORGANIZATION is one of those quirky, eclectic newsletters and Web sites produced by the kind of person you think you might enjoy knowing. At least, I do. In this case the person is a guy named David Weinberger who publishes it all from Brookline, Mass. David and the readership like the word, "snarky."
The purpose of this newsletter, as far as I can see, is to explore and comment on how the hyperlinked world --- in other words the World Wide Web --- is changing the way people do business. So of course they link to places like the Cluetrain Manifesto (another favorite of mine) and KM Journal, which deals with Knowledge Management (I'll have to take a look.)
Here's a snippet from the homepage:
"Special Issues! Publisher's Overstock!
"Now and then we run high-value Collectors Quality special issues on topics we think will try the patience of even the most saturnine reader. Here are some of the more recent ones.
"The Longing
"Why is our culture on fire about the Web when we can't even say what it's for?
"A desire so fervent must express a deep longing, a spiritual longing.
"In fact, we embrace the Web with such enthusiasm because we hope it will enable us to end the contract we've implicitly signed that says we'll give up our human, individual voice in exchange for the illusion of living in a managed world.
"The Web is unmanaged. The Web returns our human voice.
"That's what we long for..."
While this newsletter deals with "heavy lifting" as regards the Web and business, you'll also find whimsical/philosophical commentary like that above. That's why I opened this review with the word "quirky." I like quirky.
To give you a more representative idea of what's going on at JOHO, here's a partial Table of Contents for one edition:
"Fear of Browsing: Your business likes portals because it thinks they'll keep you from browsing -- but browsing is a basic form of human attention.
"Forms of marketing: Two eforms makers, two XML standards. Sigh.
"Evaporating Business: Business is the thin line between markets and employees ... getting thinner all the time.
"Why search engines suck, Part Whatever: Stop the presses! More evidence is in!
"Framejacking in our time: Guilty of willful distortion of context.
"CEOs Who Get It: CEOs who Get It apparently don't get email...."
I know this may seem like an e-zine that comes dangerously close to the edge of Terminal Coolness, but it doesn't quite fall over. It stays just within the bounds of not Taking Itself Too Seriously. Recommended.
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