After the weblog post I shared a couple of days ago on Social Networks - Knowledge Management Done Right I thought you might be interested in another post around the same subject (Personal Knowledge Management) that Dave Pollard (Author as well of Why Knowledge Management Is So Important) shared yesterday: Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) - An Update.

This is, yet again, another superb weblog post that will certainly provide you with some good insights about that relatively new Knowledge Management approach where knowledge is shared locally and there is a much more profound commitment from the knowledge worker to produce some more quality materials than ever before and share it with their peers. However, with all that said I thought about including a couple of interesting, and thought provoking, quotes from Dave’s weblog post:

“The old model, which we pursued from 1994-2004, is focused on content and collection — the acquisition, organization & aggregation, storage and dissemination of content under organization-wide taxonomies using customized tools and containers, just-in-case it might be reusable. The new PKM model, which we believe will replace it, is focused on context and connection — connecting to the right people just-in-time, canvassing them to gain their knowledge and advice in the context of a particular business problem or pursuit, synthesizing that knowledge and applying it to the issue at hand […]”

Indeed, I couldn’t have agreed more with that particular quote and that is why I have always felt very strong about how crucial the role of communities (whether they are physical or virtual communities) will become over time when people start realising that they can get to share so much more knowledge within a community than just as an individual. To start with it will make things easier to establish those connections that Dave mentions and in most cases in almost real-time, regardless of how disperse the community members may be. With the current set of collaboration tools out there it has never been easier sharing and managing content in a community space by allowing each of the community members to take ownership of their own contributions and conversations.

“[…] KM as a means of improving productivity, capitalizing on the best available knowledge and experience, tapping the collective wisdom of employees and customers, facilitating more robust collaboration, improving the quality of decisions and enhancing agility and innovation […]”

That collective wisdom certainly would be the one from the communities that the knowledge workers may belong to and as such you can already see how those communities would be the invigorating organisms that will foster collaboration to share knowledge and to learn from one another. Yes, indeed, a successful Personal Knowledge Management approach will have to be based on the key role played by communities where community members may find their own individual space to collaborate but at the same time still feel part of the larger entity.

Further on in Dave’s weblog post you will be able to read with much more detail how he describes the key four different components that PKM is made of. So you may want to have a look and read further on those:

• Know-How Canvassing & Connection
• Know-How Harvesting
• Personal Content Management
• Personal Productivity Improvement

And after finishing off that reading you will probably understand now why this relatively new wave of tools for collaboration in the enterprise, like Weblogs, Wikis, IM, VoIP, Web presence, Flickr, etc. are grabbing a stronger focus by the day. People are starting to realise that sharing knowledge with others and learning from one another is a personal and a more localised exercise than ever before, and the fact that there are both individual and community tools put together out there that certainly help effortlessly to promote that new approach to KM could make it all work out just fine. Just fine !

Technorati Tags : Personal Knowledge Management, PKM, KM, Communities, Collaboration, Social Networking

Some time ago I mentioned in another weblog post how for as long as I have been weblogging both in my Intranet and my Internet weblogs I have been using w.bloggar as my main weblogging tool. However, even though I have enjoyed the experience quite a lot so far, I am finding out that ever since I started to share content on a regular basis here in elsua I am continuing to use Qumana more and more. And I have been enjoying the experience so much as well that I almost exclusively use Qumana to post content into my weblogs.

And now, more than ever, with the newer version of the software, which can be downloaded from here, I have reached the point where I think I may not go back ! It is so easy to share content across the board. Actually, too easy. Just this morning I posted something similar along these lines in my Intranet weblog and we have been having some interesting discussions. The actual subject of the conversation is based on a popular feature from Qumana: the fact that with a single click it allows you to post the same content in multiple weblogs without having to re-write it.

That is just one of the many favourite features from this particular piece of software but I have been wondering if it would actually be a good practice to share the same content in multiple places, i.e. multiple weblogs. More than once I have been tempted to actually share a weblog post or two written over here into my Intranet weblog and vice versa. Yet almost every time I fail thinking that it may not be fair to either audience since it might give the impression that I am just trying to repeat myself.

However, and with all that said, I can also agree to the point of view where sometimes there are some of those great weblog posts you come across that you think that the more exposure you can give them, the better. And that is why cross-posting would make sense. However, at what costs ? Will your weblogs readership go down, or quite the opposite, will it go up thinking that you have tried to inter-connect two particular weblogs through a number of interesting weblog posts and therefore want to establish a strong connection between both readerships?

I have tried to look for some references out there in the Blogosphere, but so far I haven’t been able to find one that would convince me enough to form an opinion, so if you are out there reading this weblog post, what do you do when you have multiple weblogs and you get to write stuff for each of them? Do you actually do some cross-posting and try to reword the weblog post again to match different audiences? Or you just leave it as is and share it anyway. What do you think ?

Technorati Tags : Metablogging, Qumana, wbloggar

Ok, folks, here we go with another social networking application that may become very helpful for communities, specially for those who are disperse throughout different time zones, countries, regions, etc. A number of different webloggers have already commented about it (Downloadsquad, Lifehacker, Full Circle Online Interaction Blog, Micro Persuasion, even my colleague Ed Brill on the subject of the LotusSphere 2006) but I thought I would share a few comments to indicate how virtual communities could actually make use of this new beta offering. The new application is called Frappr and you can find more information about it here.

As you will be able to see from its homepage, Frappr just puts together Google Maps for your group(s) with the possibility of uploading and sharing different photos between group members. The key success factor from this particular new offering is the fact that it will provide you with a key web presence between group members by allowing you to know where folks are at any given point in time. And not only that, you are also able to share some of your favourite pictures so that they can be used as icebreakers, specially for those groups or communities where they may not know well enough one another and they would need to work some more on their social capital.

The great thing as well about Frappr is the fact that you can embed the actual map directly into your own web site, whether it is a regular web site or a weblog and that way you can always keep in touch with those people who are regular members of the group or who would visit the web community space on a regular basis. Either way, if you would want to provide instant awareness to your web community space you might as well go ahead and create your own Frappr map.

And, finally, just to show you how it would work I have now created the group elsua and I have added it into my weblog template. From there you can add yourself and show us where you are. Pretty much like what was happening with ClustrMaps but this time around you can also show the rest of the weblog readership some of your favourite pictures and add some further comments as well. So go and spend a few minutes and show us where you are !

Technorati Tags : Frappr, Google+Maps, Communities, Web+Presence

A few days back you would remember how I was providing in a few lines some more information about what IBM is doing in the areas of Knowledge Management, Collaboration and Communities. And while that particular weblog post would provide you with some good details, I thought I would also point out to you a number of different weblog posts that may be even much more representative than anything else in the recent past.

It all originates with the recent event hosted by IBM Corp’s Lotus Software division and for which you can read all about it over at IBM Sets Its Sights on Social Networking Tools. As you will be able to see, there have been quite a few people who have been sharing their experiences about the event itself and from which you will be able to learn a great deal not only about what the event itself was like but also about what IBM is doing in the area of Knowledge Management and how it is slowly but steady changing its traditional way of dealing with Knowledge.

I particularly recommend you have a look into David Weinberger’s IBM shows del.icio.us for the enterprise, and more (Including the different comments), Mike Gotta’s IBM: Future Of Social Networks, Bill Ives‘ several weblog posts on the subject (IBM’s Social Software Initiatives: Blogs, Wikis, Tagging, and More – Part One, IBM’s Social Software Initiatives: Blogs, Wikis, Tagging, and More – Part Two- External Applications and IBM’s Social Software Initiatives: Blogs, Wikis, Tagging, and More – Part Three- Internal Applications), and, finally, my fellow IBMer, and avid weblogger, Irving Wladawsky-Berger on Social Networks - Knowledge Management Done Right.

I know that the above reading list may be a bit too much information for one go, but one thing for sure that I can comment on is that each of those weblog posts is a must-read if you would want to know what IBM is doing around the world of Knowledge Management from the perspective of communities, collaboration and social networking.

The interesting thing though from all of the above reading is that this is something that although it may well be relatively new it is actually not the case. What is happening right now is that there is a whole lot more hype around that new wave of Knowledge Management. But all along it has been there already for quite some time now. Check out Irving’s comments on this subject to get a good notion of where we are:

” . . .[social networks] play a critical role in determining the way problems are solved, organizations are run, and the degree to which individuals succeed in achieving their goals.”  These were very much the objectives of knowledge management systems, which never achieved much success in the past because they were so cumbersome to use.  I think of social networking as knowledge management done right, with the Internet essentially becoming a very effective social networking platform supporting a wide variety of tools.”

I am not sure what you would think, folks, but, after reading that, it all sounds to me like the good old Personal Knowledge Management. Indeed, Irving’s comments of what KM used to be are right spot on, and why it may not have succeed as well as it should from the very beginning. But then again everybody knows that knowledge can only be shared on a local, and more compromised, way, which is something that KM did not succeed with in the past but that it is starting to make some more sense now. Why ? Mainly because with all these new social networking tools out there every single person can become an efficient (And an effective) Knowledge Worker and therefore will share their knowledge in a much more personal and committed way, that is, Personal Knowledge Management at its best. And all that is what will make it stick around for a long while, like Bill Ives mentions in IBM Sets Its Sights on Social Networking Tools:

“Blogs and wikis have the opposite effect of keeping unique ideas down, and may even inspire people to try harder at their jobs based on the (increased visibility) of their work,”

It is that commitment to make things work just in the right way for all those knowledge workers that will help push KM’s limits far off to where it should have gone from the very first beginning. But I guess it is always better late than never. Either way, if you have been reading all the different references above you will now see how IBM is trying to make its way further into that Personal Knowledge Management system so that now we have got the right tools in place (Wikis, weblogs, social bookmarking tools, context search, etc. etc.) it would be easier to manage our own assets and intellectual capital and share it with one another.

Thus stay tuned for some further updates, as I am planning to weblog about all this with much more detail as we go on. Including some further descriptions of most of the IBM tools that have been mentioned elsewhere in the above referenced weblog posts.

Technorati Tags : Knowledge+Management, Collaboration, Communities, Social+Networking, Social+Bookmarking, Personal+Knowledge+Management

Last week I shared a number of different pictures from Little Venice and Monte Leon and I thought this week I would finish off with the series by sharing with you some of my final series of favourite pictures from Monte Leon and then introducing some other pictures from one of the most impressive dams of Gran Canaria: Presa de Ayagaures.

As you will be able to see some of those pictures are really spectacular specially if you come to think that not far from there, about 20 minute drive you would be laying on the beach enjoying the sunshine. I have shared these and a few more pictures over in my Flickr account if you would want to have a quick look, but just to give you an idea here you have got four of my favourites:

Monte Leon

Monte Leon

Presa de Ayagaures

Presa de Ayagaures

Oh, and if you are looking for a nice tool that would allow you to display Flickr pictures (Rather your own, your groups or the entire system itself) you may want to have a look at the neat Flickr Screensaver tool that would allow you to configure some basic settings and then get all those lovely pictures directly into your desktop. Worth while a look if you are looking for a refreshing way of keeping your screensaver(s) up to date with some of the most impressive pictures out there !

Technorati Tags : Gran+Canaria, Monte+Leon, Presa de Ayagaures

If you remember, from the very first beginning of elsua, I mentioned in the first weblog post how I was using for the last few months a hosted weblog over at Blogsome to have a look and try things for a little while before I would jump into creating, maintaining my own Internet weblog. And for over seven months I was quite happy with giving it a try and share some content to the point where in the end I decided to dive in in full force and then elsua was born.

You would probably remember how Blogsome is using one of my favourite weblogging platforms: WordPress, which is also eventually the same platform I am using for this weblog. Well, things are going to get ever so much more interesting because WordPress.com has just announced that their weblogging offering is now available to all and I bet they will present lots of good competition to other popular weblog engines.

I must say that I am really glad I actually tried out WordPress with Blogsome because it helped me take a much better decision and stick around with it for my own hosted weblog over here. And I bet that WordPress.com is going to have the same effect, specially for those folks out there new to weblogging.

Thus congrats to WordPress.com and keep up the good work !

Link to Micro Persuasion (Do check as well the comments. Worth while a read, specially the ones from Eric Giguere when he talks about Blogger isn’t free: The cost of not using your own domain)

Technorati Tags : Metablogging, WordPress, Blogsome