After a good friend mentioned his ideas of using blog and wiki technologies in his new lab, I couldn't resist trying these again, in the hope that I'll better understand the possibilities of these. At work, I've documented some oft-used database tables and queries on the group wiki pages, served by Atlassian Confluence, which also runs the technology bug/issue-tracking system. Atlassian also has a blog feature, which I am trying to use to highlight developments in my work.
Away from work, I tried to install my own wiki on a server where I have no administrative privileges, but there are many configuration questions that I cannot answer. I told my friend that there would be significant effort in setting up and maintaining such a system, and I am happy to hear that he found a solution at http://openwetware.org/.
I am always impressed at the efficiencies to be wrung from outsourcing. For example, I think the Google Apps for Education product in use at Arizona State University is a good example to follow. There is much duplication of information technology effort across organizations, and consolidating and outsourcing those efforts could improve the quality and reduce the cost. I recall considering the purchase of a network-attached storage device and backup system for a research group where I was a graduate student. There's no educational value in that exercise. IBM's attempt to sell compute time is also notable, but has a smaller market, which probably needs time to play and explore. Drucker would have applauded our giving the problem to an expert to handle.
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