The Butt Ugly Weblog

This type of "lost information" has been happening for years with telephone calls.

I use JSP wiki to record notes about our project conversations, but (of course) all that makes it into the log is what I post and even then it's largely my interpretation(hmm, hard word to spell) of what was said.

This morning I had a case where there was confusion over the specifications of a feature I had coded. I checked the web log: partial notes. I checked email: requests for info, but incomplete responces.

Finally, I remembered that the missing information had been exchanged in a phone conversation that I didn't blog.

For weeks now I've been thinking it would be great to record my phone calls and post the wavs to the blog. But there are some problems with this.

First, some companies (probably mine) have policies against recording phone calls. When I worked for ARCO Alaska they forbid it outright. No recordings under any circumstances - not surprising for an oil company I suppose.

Second, you have to warn the participants and this may intimidate them or launch you into needless conversations about why and how you use the recordings.

Third, without at least a synopsis, the entries would not be searchable and they may lose some of their value. With our project its small enough I could probaly find what I need but I'd hate to have to search/listen through a multi-user WavLog.

Last, you'd at the very leats be in deep political shit if you logged some phone calls without announcing that you're recording the conversations and participants in the phone calls found out about it.

It shouldn't be this complicated but it is.

-- Scott Hurlbert

--162.119.64.110, 06-Aug-2003

Hm. Perhaps a voice typing software might help; it would be ok to speak your notes after the phone conversation, or just record your own part of it, yes?

Tracy Adams is blogging with voice typing software.

--JanneJalkanen, 07-Aug-2003