Cogmap, an organization chart wiki

This site calls itself "the Wikipedia of organization charts."

This means that it is a collection of organization charts online that anyone can edit, add to, and help maintain.

Cogmap is a tool for sales people, entrepreneurs, and recruiters to understand organizations and keep information up to date. If you are like us, you had some of these things happen to you:

• Worked at a company without a published organization chart and had no idea who worked for anyone else
• Tried to figure out who to call at a company and come up empty
• Bought a list of people to call and had all the information be wrong
• Met people that all had different titles and been unable to tell who was the decision-maker in the room!

Organization charts are useful for reporters too, and you should grab them whenever you can or build your own.

I doubt there will be enough people volunteering to make this work. For example, there's a page for Gannett, The Courier-Journal's parent company, but no one has put together a chart yet even though the page appears to have been online since May 2007.

To their credit the creators are realistic about it:

We are a web site, not a business. Businesses have business models. Web sites are just good ideas.

We are some passionate people with an interesting idea trying to make our way in the big world. Help us out!

They also have a blog.

[via view.theinfo]

100 Useful Web Tools for Writers

... from CollegeDegrees.com.

 

[via Librarians' Internet Index]

Dipity, an interactive timeline maker

It took me less than two minutes to make this timeline of Depth Reporting posts using Dipity.

All I did was register for the site and paste in the blog's feed. Nice. My feed isn't geotagged, so the map view of this widget doesn't work, but that's my problem, not theirs.

I'm beginning to think that eventually all Web data sharing will take place through embeddable widgets like these.

[via Infodoodads]

TagCrowd: "make your own tag cloud from any text"

I haven't been a big fan of tag clouds because to me they belabor the obvious and aren't a particularly useful way to navigate a Web site, but you may feel differently after checking out TagCrowd. With TagCrowd you can point to any Web page, upload a file or paste text in a box and instantly generate a tag cloud, which you can then embed on your own Web pages.

TagCrowd is taking tag clouds far beyond their original function:

• as topic summaries for speeches and written works
• for visual analysis of survey data
• as brand clouds that let companies see how they are perceived by the world
• for data mining a text corpus
• for helping writers and students reflect on their work
• as name tags for conferences, cocktail parties or wherever new collaborations start
• as resumes in a single glance
• as visual poetry

The list goes on and continues to grow.

Here's one I made using a story on a school lunch price increase by Antoinette Konz in today's paper:

 

affect antoinette beasley board bread breakfast cents children choose costs county crunch cup delivered department district eat elementary extra food force fuel half having higher increase jefferson kids konz less level lunch meals middle offered pay prices raise receive rising rolls school since students sturgeon supply think three-eighths used year

created at TagCrowd.com

Digital Research Tools

... or DiRT, is a new wiki by academic librarians that "collects information about tools and resources that can help scholars (particularly in the humanities and social sciences) conduct research more efficiently or creatively." Its content may also be of interest to digitally and data-oriented journalists. There's more about DiRT on the Digital Scholarship in the Humanities blog, which notes that the wiki is still at an early stage and will evolve:

DiRT lists dozens of useful tools for discovering, organizing, analyzing, visualizing, sharing and disseminating information, such as tools for compiling bibliographies, taking notes, analyzing texts, and visualizing data. We also offer software reviews that not only describe the tool’s features, strengths, and weaknesses, but also provide usage tips, links to training resources, and suggestions for how it might be implemented by researchers. So that DiRT is accessible to non-techies and techies alike, we try to avoid jargon and categorize tools by their functions.

Official Google Blog: Google Sites now open to everyone

 This could be useful for anyone collaborating on a project:

A few months ago we launched Google Sites exclusively as part of Google Apps for companies and organizations that wanted to use the service on their own domains. Now we've made it easy for anyone to set up a website to share all types of information -- team projects, company intranets, community groups, classrooms, clubs, family updates, you name it -- in one place, for a few people, a group or the world. You can securely host your own website at http://sites.google.com/[your-website] and add as many pages as you like for free.

Getting started with Google Sites is easy. You can create different types of pages from scratch with the click of a button, and you can embed documents, calendars, photos, videos and gadgets directly into those pages. Similar to Google Docs, built-in editing tools allow for popular text and formatting changes to be made in a straightforward, WYSIWYG manner. Once your site is up and running, inviting people to edit or view your content is as simple as entering in their email address (of course, you can change access levels at any time). And you (or anyone who has editing privileges) can add or edit information whenever you'd like.

Digital File, a database for investigative reporters and researchers

Haven't tried it myself, but Digital File costs about $45 and was recommended by a reporter on NICAR-L. It's for organizing investigations:

It is bases on Excel and runs on every PC and Mac. The database helps keeping track of an investigation. All steps are documented in a way that allows quick access and overview. The database contains contact info about sources, questions to ask, documents and (interview) notes, as well as a time tracker and expenses sheet. ‘After years of muddling in Word, this really is a solution!’

The creator is Luuk Sengers, a freelance investigative reporter and journalism lecturer in The Netherlands.

ReadTheWords.com

There's an endless supply of stuff I think I should read but just can't find the time. In recent years I've found podcasts to be a boon for making dead time -- such as doing the dishes, working in the yard and exercising -- more interesting. Wouldn't it be great if I could take all that unread material and turn it into podcasts? You can with the free ReadTheWords.com. You just upload a file, link to a Web page or submit text in a box, and it will return an mp3 suitable for an iPod or other audio player. You can also embed the recordings you make on a Web site, like this

This was a recording I made of this article on Visualizing Social Networks. As you'll hear, you must have a high tolerance for robotic voices. You can choose from many ("Michael," "Lauren," "Tom," and so on), but none of them sound natural enough for me to make much use of this site. I'd rather listen to LugRadio instead.

That it's available at all, however, is admirable. As the site explains, it began this year as a way "To assist students with learning disabilities with their studies, by means of auditory learning and auditory processing." They said they then expanded it because of demand from "students, young professionals, actors and actresses, research departments, bloggers, ecommerce sites, and others" who "expressed how this technology could help them with their daily lives, and their businesses."