ROT! 2002

I was just starting to read this new Boxes and Arrows article MSWeb: An Enterprise Intranet #1 about the massive intranet at Microsoft and how some knowledge engineers (information architects, whatever the hot term du jour is) tackled it. I was brought up short by this sentence:

It’s nearly impossible to develop a successful information architecture against a backdrop of explosive content growth, content ROT, and the political twists and turns common in any organization.

"content ROT?" thought I, "What do they mean? Return On Time, maybe? But how is that bad?" So I went searching on Google (God bless Google) and found, in a slide presentation done by my Adaptive Path buddies no less, that ROT in this case stands for
- redundant?
- outdated?
- trivial?
and is a mnemonic for weeding out useless content.

How handy!

I will have to go back and read that article later, but it's time to leave work and go enjoy one quiet solitary evening before computer maintenance, book release party, welcome home parties and my subsequent collapse.
How should I spend my time this evening? Cleaning the apartment, listening to a book on tape, going to bed early.
How will I probably actually spend my time? Playing The Game Neverending.

Comments

ROT!

I was just starting to read this new Boxes and Arrows article MSWeb: An Enterprise Intranet #1 about the massive intranet at Microsoft and how some knowledge engineers (information architects, whatever the hot term du jour is) tackled it. I was brought up short by this sentence:

It’s nearly impossible to develop a successful information architecture against a backdrop of explosive content growth, content ROT, and the political twists and turns common in any organization.

"content ROT?" thought I, "What do they mean? Return On Time, maybe? But how is that bad?" So I went searching on Google (God bless Google) and found, in a slide presentation done by my Adaptive Path buddies no less, that ROT in this case stands for
- redundant?
- outdated?
- trivial?
and is a mnemonic for weeding out useless content.

How handy!

I will have to go back and read that article later, but it's time to leave work and go enjoy one quiet solitary evening before computer maintenance, book release party, welcome home parties and my subsequent collapse.
How should I spend my time this evening? Cleaning the apartment, listening to a book on tape, going to bed early.
How will I probably actually spend my time? Playing The Game Neverending.

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