My typical Sunday afternoon usually consists of an afternoon walk down to the Beach with my iPod stacked with podcasts from the week - this Sunday morning as i was downloading the new episodes i couldn't wait for my walk and had to listen to one immediately with a cup of coffee in hand.

Why? Well, I was recently interviewed by Sean Ammirati for ReadWriteTalk about my recent eBook on the Hybrid approach to Folksonomies and Taxonomies in the Enterprise. ReadWriteTalk is part of the ReadWriteWeb blog network. ReadWriteWeb is one of my favorite resources out there on the web because it provides coverage of many of the web technology trends that i am interested in, providing great coverage of companies and emerging technologies and trends that play in the space.

During the podcast i try to explain why i wrote the ebook, highlight some of the practical recommendations i make in the ebook when approaching user tagging in the Enterprise and even provide some behind the 'scenes' stories about the creation of the actual ebook. The transcript of the interview is also available.

What are some of the other podcasts i listen to semi-religiously?

- I have been a regular listener of ReadWriteTalk since it started up including the new RWWLive sessions.
- SemanticWebGang (also syndicated by ReadWriteWeb and Talis)
- BusinessWeeks Behind the Cover podcast - for example last week's podcast on "IBM Has your Number" had me run out to buy Stephen Bakers' new book Numerati which i recommend and will blog about soon .
- Talking with Talis podcast- focused mostly on Libraries and emerging semantic technologies
- NewYorkTimes podcasts - mostly the Science Times podcast but sometimes others
- Nodalities podcast (another Talis podcast guess they have cornered the podcast market that interests me!!)
- An old favorite of mine is the SalesRoundup Podcast
- and of course the DataPortablity in Motion podcast (i think the guys have gone on a summer vacation and will hopefully be returning soon)

Have recommendations for other podcasts i should be tuned into? Please leave them in the comments!

So remember if you see me walking on the beach, or even on the BART on my way to work in the morning with my earplugs on nodding and smiling- i am probably listening to one of the many podcasts i listen to regularly.

It is a little known fact, that for my undergraduate degree, i earned a major in Women studies and minor in Labor studies- not women in labor but two unique majors- one in Women's Studies and one in Labor Studies. It is not known because it hardly has anything to do with what i "do" which is what people are mostly interested in versus the "how" and "why" i do and approach things in a specific way. I think a lot of who i am is because i grew up with very strong women around me- my mother and grandmothers specifically- but the choices i have made for myself have also helped shape who i am today and how i continue to develop as a woman in the business world.

I have been meaning to post a reference on my blog to a recent article in Business Week Online titled Don't Cry For Us Silicon Valley by Sarah Lacy about women advancing in technology because it is articles like this that remind me that there is progress being made (although many of us think that it is not going fast enough!) . The articles provides some good highlights on some of the established corporate women as well as the positive news from women in the start-up sector.

One of my favorite resources online to stay aware of what other women are doing in the business world is the blog 'News on Women' which provides almost daily updates on women who have been promoted and/or move to new companies. You can also browse by industry, C-level positions like CEO and CFO and Board Appointments and sometimes aggregated reports are published which are interesting.

Every once in a while i get a comment about the image of the glass on the right menu of my blog- you can also get your own "Smart Women Thirst for Knowledge' glassware if you are so inclined. cheers!

I guess i am a lucky girl, because the upcoming months are just going to be great (well that is if all goes well and i don't blow it of course!). I have a bunch of speaking engagements coming up that are all going to be at conferences that i am very excited about attending as well. So here is the run down in order of appearance:

Enterprise Search Summit West- September 23th-24th in San Jose, CA. I will be co-presenting with a client about centralized taxonomy management best practices into enterprise information systems (search, CMS/DMS, portals etc.) This is a two day conference that covers how to develop, implement and enhance search capabilities in the Enterprise.

Taxonomy Bootcamp- September 25th-26th in San Jose, CA. I will be introducing a client case study highlighting their use of the Synaptica tool that i am Business Development Manager of at Dow Jones.

Finding a Common Language: Bringing Complex and Disparate Vocabularies Together

2:15 pm – 3:00 pm Paula R McCoy, Manager, Taxonomy Development, ProQuest Daniela Barbosa, Dow Jones & Company This case study addresses the challenges ProQuest faced in managing multilingual controlled vocabularies using multiple Word documents and authority files maintained in an Oracle database. Speakers describe how implementing a thesaurus management tool helped ProQuest simplify and standardize its business semantic management to create a common language and connect disparate information assets as well as handling large and varied vocabularies and authority files, linking new and existing editorial systems and enabling hierarchical views, and automating thesaurus management tasks.

Web2.0 Expo New York- September 16-19th. I will be presenting as part of the Landscape & Strategy track with Chris Saad on Understanding the Basics of Personal Data: Vendors, Users, and You. This track covers the fundamentals of Web 2.0 and explores how they drive strategy, business models, and revenue. The panels will look at how Web 2.0 is affecting finance, advertising, media, fashion, and real estate, and explain how the building blocks of Web 2.0—user-generated content, rich internet applications, collective intelligence, the wisdom of crowds, software as a service, lightweight development models, and mashups—are changing the landscape of media, software, and the economy. I still crack up when i see my picture on the speaker list among some of the big Web2.0 heavy hitters. My mom would be so proud if she knew what Web 2.0 was! {Use Code webny08mc23 to register for Web 2.0 Expo New York and Save $100 or Get a Free Expo Pass}

and last but not least....

Defrag- November 3rd -4th in Denver. This one i am even more excited about because i heard just great feedback about this conference last year. My presentation is titled 'Pulling the threads on user data'. Just like all the other conferences i am super delighted to be on the speakers list with some amazing folks like Stowe Boyd, Esther Dyson, fellow ReadWriteWeb named 'Seven Leading Corporate Social Media Evangelists' Aaron Fulkerson and Sam Lawrence, Paul Kedrosky, Richard Hoeg, Charlene Li, Paul Miller, Clay Shirky and my old friend Lou Paglia among many others. Just the list of speakers would have been enough for me to go, so i am super privileged to also have the opportunity to speak!
NOTE: You should seriously think about going to Defrag and then you should use code 'db1'- that will get you an additional $100 off of current early bird prices. I am also excited to say that Dow Jones Client Solutions is going to be exhibiting at Defrag-more to follow on why we are there and why Defrag attendees should care in another post!

Good stuff- now i have some thinking and presentations to finish!

This week i had the pleasure of participating on a panel discussion titled"The Future of the Web is the Future of our Data: Introducing Data Portability" that was hosted by the BAIA Business Association Italy America.

The Panel included:
*Moderator (AND Organizer): Mary Trigiani, Spada Inc. - www.spadainc.com
*Steve Greenberg, founder Ciabe - www.ciabe.com and a Steering Committee Member of the DataPortability Project
*Lorenzo Thione, founder Powerset - www.powerset.com
*and myself.

The evening kicked off with some initial networking where i had a chance to have some interesting conversations with other attendees on topics like government legislation around user data as well as have some deliciously catered snacks, drinks and excellent coffee courtesy of Caffè del Doge.

We kicked off the panel discussion by showing what I think is the best introduction to what Data Portability is when we talk about it from a social media perspective via this video introduction that Michael Pick created: DataPortability - Connect, Control, Share, Remix



Mary Trigiani, always super prepared and organized had the three panelists submit our thoughts prior to the panel and has shared the panel discussion talking points on SlideShare so you can also read through some of our thoughts .

The BEST part of the evening aside from the fact that two people actually started conversations with me in Italian- assuming i was also Italian (and i was so proud i passed for one-although i responded in Portuguese) was that the majority of the attendees where not technical and those that were technical where not part of the valley 'tech' scene , and definitely not the 'regular' crowd that i have been having conversations with.

So the interest and the questions were very much from an user perspective. Questions of; usability- in which i used OpenID as an example of a good solution with what currently amounts to a not great user experience for non-technical users; Synchronization of data- why users have to update the same information various times; contact lists, how portable can they be and which pieces of data should a user be able to move; User privacy issues and how terms of use EULAs are rarely and mostly impossible to read and understand; as well as other items.

We also had an engaging and at time entertaining conversation thanks to Steve Greenberg who was playing a bit of devil's advocate about why vendors (for this discussion defined as those that provide social network services) would want to allow their users to take data away. The discussion ranged from the business models of the pros and cons of doing this, to whether it would actually push the vendors to be even more creative and push them to provide more value to the user so they would remain active users.

I tried to make it clear to the room that the reason i am an active member and leader of the DataPortability project is that all the concerns and issues that we discussed are part of the DataPortability Project agenda. While many have been working on the standards and technologies that make data portable (and new organizations and technology standards continue to pop up to do the good work), there has, until the DataPortability Project, not really been a complete, cohesive and simple story for vendors, consumers and developers to follow.

The attendees where very engaged, and i always enjoy participating in discussions with people outside the active community because it really gives you a different perspective on the issues that the DataPortability Project can works towards addressing. As usual, i got a bunch of business cards and follow-up emails (that i need to follow-up with this weekend!) from people who wanted to get involved in the project, but i figured i would first practice what i wrote on my personal letter to my email inboxes, and give everyone the general summary of 'How to Get Involved in the DataPortability Project' and then touch base individually on their specific topics if interest ranging from 'how can i help you evangelize' to 'how can we bring this discussion around policy into the legal circles'- all items that the project group needs volunteers for!

The DataPortability Project is a very young organization and critics have at times given us slack for not doing enough, but you can read about our accomplishments in the first six months to judge for yourselves and with the finalization of the steering committee and the governance model which one of our most active members Elias Bizannes has outlined in this excellent post, we are positioned to make even bigger strides on behalf of users, developers and vendors.

• First take a look at our 'What is The DataPortability Project? page
• Then chose to Stay Up-to-date with any of the following methods that you feel comfortable with:
  
• Announce Only Mailing List (Infrequent and milestone updates from the project)
• Monthly Reports (Monthly summaries about our progress- June/July coming soon)
• DataPortability Calendar (Keep track of upcoming events, calls, and meetings)
• Start Participating by joining some of the DataPortability Discussion lists, especially the General Discussion list which serves for general announcement for and by the community. Introduce yourself and tells us why data portability is important to you and what you would like to see the project contribute!
• Discover others ways to participate by joining action groups, skype chats, reading and participating in wiki documentation etc.

And if any of this feels overwhelming, please go ahead and drop me a line- it might take me a couple days to get back to you but i will!

ONCE AGAIN- a big thank you to my friend Mary Trigiani for organizing this wonderful event flawlessly...you are not only a great advocate for users and vendors in the marketplace but also a great friend. Thank you.

Additional photos from the panel available here.

Please note: this is my personal blog, the opinions expressed on this site are my own and do not necessarily represent those of my past, future or present employer or any organizations i might belong to unless explicitly stated that is the case.

Wow! I was just named one of the 'Seven Leading Corporate Social Media Evangelists Today' according to Marshall Kirpatrick at ReadWriteWeb! What an honor- especially because of the other Evangelists i was listed among.

This is awesome. First because i am a huge fan of ReadWriteWeb and especially the research that Marshall Kirkpatrik does but more importantly because i truly believe (and have seen it with my own efforts) that Corporate Social Media can have a huge impact on how individuals 'run' their own 'business' in large corporations with benefits all around for clients, the company and themselves.

Early on as i started using Social Media as part of my daily routine, i got some very good advise from someone else on this list- Jeremiah Owyang- who gave me some 'Corporate Membranes' advice that had come from Robert Scoble and although at times i get frustrated with the "Corporate office" because they aren't moving fast enough for me, i keep pushing that membrane... and since i am lucky enough to work for a company that allows me to do it, it has worked out. i have been able to not only build my personal brand but i have had the chance to evangelize the use of Social Media across various groups internally like for example the encouragement of using Social Media tools with my colleagues that result in things like Wikis for roundtables and the Dow Jones Election Pulse blog.

So here is how i think this whole thing went down...another indication of the engagement with the new social media tools we use.

This morning, on Twitter @marshallk twittered a request requesting people to nominate social media evangelists for companies. A bit later i saw cjmconnors twitter a nomination for me (i follow cjmconnors and she is Christine Connors who is the Director of Semantic Technologies and Business Champion for Synaptica at Dow Jones).

Then i get this crypted message from @chrissaad about my ears burning, as i continue to work and twitter along in between client calls and getting work stuff done, including working on a backdrop for a new Synaptica Twitter account that i just put together a couple days ago to use as we announce our new V7 release. Then i get a Twitter Direct Message from @jeffreymcmanus teasing me about being the new Scoble. "The new Scoble?-what the hell is he talking about?", so i head back to Twitter and bam- i remembered the twits and saw this. What a rush!

Over the last year, partially because i have experienced such success, i have really picked up my pace of using social media to Evangelize the work i do; whether it is with personal projects like the Dataportability Group that i am very passionate about or the work i do at Dow Jones- the tools vary but the objective is the same- put myself out there, become part of the community and give back.

Although i have been with Dow Jones going on eight years and blogging about information delivery in the Enterprise for about two years, since November, i have been in new role as Business Development Manager for Synaptica- our taxonomy and metadata management solution. Never heard of it? Don't worry not a lot of people have, the solution is very well received in the marketplace and we have many major global companies using it- but honestly only people in the "know" know about it because it is a niche solution and when Factiva/Dow Jones acquired Synapse- marketing it wasn't done very well and with our recent re-branding to Dow Jones/News Corp it only got worse.

Since i took this new role i have seen the gap in the marketplace as i speak to prospects (who for example tell me how they think i am very interesting from reading my blog but can't find any information on the tool!) and therefore i struggle that there isn't even landing page to point people to-duh! So over the last few weeks i have also been working internally with the help of some very supportive people from marketing and product and we have a great plan to continue on the social media work i have been doing for two years- so watch this space ;-) and see how i prove that i belong on the list of the 7 leading Corporate Social Media Evangelists!

***Thanks to everyone who has left such kind words on the comments section of the RWW post and thank you for the nominations including Chris Saad's great quote!

This has been on my 'to do list' for a while- to create a listing of topics that i Blog about. This will make it easier for new visitors to understand what my main interests are and find relevant posts with little effort.

I use the Blogger platform for this blog- never have felt the need to migrate- and they do have a 'label' widget that comes with the new template features but i really didn't want to update my template that i have customized over the years so i manually created a listing that you can now find on the right sidebar. I will have to manually update the list as i pick up new topics but it will be easy enough now that i have it set.

I also added a Google Reader Shared items widget to my sidebar- no not to clog up my sidebar but to be able to share the top things i find interesting across the hundreds of feeds i read. The editorial process of tagging posts to share is a valuable one that i hope you will find useful.


So welcome if you are a new reader to this blog (according to my stats there are more and more of you!) and here lies my main bloggable interests as of today:

Top Topics this Blog Covers

• APML
• Attention
• Blogging
• Dow Jones
• Enterprise 2.0
• Enterprise Content Delivery
• Factiva
• Measurement
• Mashups
• Media 2.0
• Metadata
• RSS
• Social Bookmarking/Tagging
• Social Media
• Taxonomy
• Web 2.0

Friends,

I am back.
In case you are wondering, I did NOT marry Ben Kingsley while i was away.
That was another Daniela Barbosa who is stealing my Google juice due to her high profile marriage.
Instead i was riding Burros in The Ecuadorian Andes.


More photos from my trip in my Flickr Ecuador set:

According to this post on PRWeek's event blog Target Green listing the most influential blog or post is in a particular category for areas of interest to the green/clean tech community, one of my posts got ranked on top in the category of Corporate Social Responsibility. The post was a review of a service called dotherightthing.com which i thought was a good service and one that PR and corporate relations should keep an eye on. The San Francisco Tech Chronicles Blog just posted a review of the service as well. I just took a look at the site this morning and there doesn't seem to be a lot of activity so hopefully as they get buzz more users will participate.

Corporate Social Responsibility has certainly been a topic of conversation for may Fortune 500 companies and just this month, Fortune Magazine covers the 10 green giants, companies that have gone beyond what the law requires to operate in an environmentally responsible way. Being a frequent traveler who laments on fuel waste on empty flights, I was extremely happy to see Continental Airlines on the top 10 list and hope that their leadership (and perhaps social responsibility brownie points) will encourage other Airlines to do the same.

Corporate Social Responsibility certainly pertains to branding and image issues for example; Burger King's recent announcementt that they will be buying eggs and pork from suppliers that did not confine their animals in cages and crates but it has also presented a lot of opportunities for companies that are trying to service their client base with sustainable and green solutions like Sun Microsystems to name one of a few in the technology industry.

I wish I was going to the SXSW conference because it looks like a blast and lately i have really been getting into video, but alas i am in Orlando until Wednesday for our annual global sales conference. But that is OK because Jeremiah, like many other bloggers are live blogging from the events which keeps me in the loop.

Meanwhile however, because i might be a bit quiet over the next few days, i would like to announce my blip.tv channel on information delivery which will be companion to this blog. I have already posted a couple of videos and like the blip.tv quality way better then YouTube for the types of videos i am producing. I also like the fact that the blip.tv showpage is 'clean', allows me to present an introduction trailer were i mention the fact that "The opinions expressed on this site are my own and do not necessarily represent those of my past,future or present employer" and doesn't include weird video links like YouTube. I typically forward my videos to clients or prospects and sending them to YouTube sometimes can be scary because who knows what types of videos will pop-up after they finish viewing mine!

I will probably continue to post video on my YouTube, but videos on information delivery tools, solutions and my thoughts in general will be on the blip.tv channel.