Google's KNOL

As noted in Business Week on December 14, 2007, Google has invited a select group of 'authorities' to write authoritative articles, to be called knols, on a wide variety of topics. Google's driving idea is to create an on-line reference source that competes with wikipedia as a first go-to source for reference knowledge. Instead of a 'neutral' wiki, which can be endlessly modified by a community of readers, knols will have a single authorial slant, much like an entry in a standard encylcopedia.

Rumors are floating around that there will be opportunities to comment and initiate dialogues about knols. So maybe the knol will evolve as a genuinely new form of reference material that takes advantage of the best features of traditional published reference (authorial credibility) and the web, including next-to-no-cost space and storage, and community interaction.

Here is Google's post on knols, from VP of engineering Udi Manber, from December 13, 2007:

Earlier this week, we started inviting a selected group of people to try a new, free tool that we are calling "knol", which stands for a unit of knowledge. Our goal is to encourage people who know a particular subject to write an authoritative article about it. ...

The key idea behind the knol project is to highlight authors. Books have authors' names right on the cover, news articles have bylines, scientific articles always have authors -- but somehow the web evolved without a strong standard to keep authors names highlighted. We believe that knowing who wrote what will significantly help users make better use of web content.

The worry, as many commentators have already noted, is that Google the search engine may slide into ranking knols above other reference sources such as wikipedia, essentially driving web trafiic to itself!

Shitty Art

Santiago Sierra, an artist whose works make use of pollution and toxic materials, has a new show featuring megaliths of human excrement


Elena Crippa, the curator of the London gallery displaying the works, said Sierra’s intention is to confront audiences with the horror faced by scavengers, the so-called untouchables who traditionally clean private toilets and outhouses in India.

The Chicago Sun Times comments:

Art from excrement has a long pedigree. In 1961, Italian Piero Manzoni produced 90 cans of ‘‘Artist’s (Poo),’’ each labeled as containing one ounce of ‘‘freshly preserved’’ material. In 1999, British artist Chris Ofili’s rendition of the Virgin Mary on a canvas spattered with elephant dung brought protest when it went on display with other sensational works at The Brooklyn Museum of Art in New York.

Sierra’s work is on a different scale. His 21 dark, crackled (and odorless) monuments are lined up like headstones. Although their power seems muted in the gallery’s harsh white space, visitors interviewed still seemed impressed, if not exactly shocked, by his choice of material.

Innovation, the Greater Good, and More Fried Chicken

Christopher Hire has a neat post on Technorati calling for creative thinkers and leaders to define "innovation" for themselves and not let technocrats and bureaucrats define it for them.

Hire offers this definition:

"Innovation is a change to benefit and advance mankind and civilization."

He adds, "We need a creative definition of innovation, and a cultural and arts focus to innovation."

Innovation is not about every new technological blip. A new kind of fried chicken is not innovation; its fried chicken.

Hire continues: "Innovation should be about good design, about inspiration, about art, about culture, about creativity, about nature and green."

And from his company's site:

"If it doesn't do good, if it doesn't excite and if it's not contagious, then it's not innovative. It's more fried chicken. And more unneeded change."

Hmmm. Let's see. All those new educational "innovations" -- national standards, standardized tests in every grade, closing "failing" schools. . .

Are they doing any good? Are they so exciting that you're panting and moaning? Are they so contagious that teachers are falling over themselves in their rush to get going?

No, I didn't think so. It's more fried chicken.