Very few times have I bumped into a presentation material around the world of Learning and Knowledge that I may have enjoyed just as much as the one I have just been through from Jay Cross, over at Informal Learning. It is titled Informal Learning Research Findings and you can watch it over on Informal Learning Findings. There are just so many things that Jay mentions throughout the presentation that in itself it is just worth while the time to go through it. It is not too long so you can just sit down, relax and enjoy the show. Because it certainly has been one of those presentations worth while listening and learning from. At least, for me.

While going through it I just couldn’t help taking some notes about some parts of the presentation that I thought were quite interesting and worth while mentioning over here, in my weblog. Thus I have decided to clean them up and share them in this particular weblog post and you will see why I am so excited about this particular presentation and why I will be sharing it with quite a few folks:

Jay talks about networks, which I think could be considered as communities, why not?, and how they are now more key than ever before in helping spread and share knowledge as they would be the connectors that would make it all click through, no matter if those communities are top-down or distributed / virtual. Don’t forget to check his impressive evolution of human governance and evolution of Learning charts and you will know what I mean with this statement.

He also indicates how learning plays a key role in the way we humans adapt to change, specially when those changes are taking place at a very high pace. It is certainly a situation where we rather adapt and learn or we will just fail at the attempt. And this has certainly reminded me how crucial it is for every individual to find their own place within their community so that they are given the chance to adapt and learn from the community in order to be able to share their knowledge with the rest of the community members. Thus it is an interesting fact that should not be ignored that a key success factor from any community member to succeed within the community would be how quickly they are able to adapt and learn how the community operates. Failure to do so will certainly provoke an awkward situation within the community which in most cases would not be sustainable.

We all know that KM is all about learning, in most cases, and Jay makes a great point when he distinguishes between two different types of learning: formal and informal (And within informal he mentions rapid and deep informal learning). I think that this is an important distinction from the perspective where KM has always been following in most cases and up to no long ago the formal learning path and now more than ever we are realising that perhaps even much more powerful would be the other type of learning, the informal one, as a way to help personalise and compromise the way sharing of knowledge takes place. Indeed, that informal learning approach would be much more meaningful and powerful, in my opinion, than the traditional way of sharing knowledge and learning since it would involve some degree of commitment from the individual whereas in the past it might have been missing altogether.

There are also a couple of quotes that I have really enjoyed while listening to the presentation and which reminded me as well very clearly how important just in time learning can be for Knowledge workers while they are performing at their jobs. Learning, indeed, is no longer taking place away from the daily job and perhaps that is a good thing as it introduces one key success element to make it all work: a context. Here is an interesting quote from the presentation by Charles Handy:

“The best learning happens in real life with real problems and real people and not in classrooms”

And the second quote that I certainly agree with 100% is Jay’s words themselves where he indicates that

“Most learning takes place naturally. It is informal. You learn it from working with other people, seeing what they do, hearing stories, all kinds of things”

Then further on, Jay comes to talk about a listing of different tools for informal learning and I must say that this is the part that I have enjoyed the most from the whole presentation. And the main reason being because one of those tools is Conversations. According to him “Dialogue is the most powerful learning technology on earth. Conversation is the origin and conveyor of knowledge. Conversations are the stem cells of Intellectual Capital“. You may be wondering why I am so excited about that particular quote and that specific tool, right? Well, here it goes, I have always considered weblogging and weblogs as conversations and I have been advocating for them for a number of years following that same definition and I think it is about time that weblogs are added into the pool of options to boost and improve informal learning whether you are talking about a large enterprise or a small business or whatever the organization. It just works and provides that unique scenario for people to get together and through different conversations share their knowledge to learn from one another and generate that best of breed Intellectual Capital that could then be reused by others in order to provide much more quality in the deliverables than having to reinvent the wheel all over.

Also another tool that he mentions that I have been commenting on for quite some time is the need to nurture and foster your virtual connections. Why? Because in a virtual world like today’s where most of your team mates are distributed it would be a must to boost those virtual connections if you would want to keep healthy working relationships with your colleagues and again the usage of weblogs and Instant Messaging could help a lot ! Instant Messaging is no longer meant for teenagers or perverts like I have heard once a few years ago. Things have changed now and as such it is an imperative we cannot longer ignore. Nurturing your virtual networks is something that has got to take place on a daily basis, just like checking your e-mail first thing in the morning. Yes, something that you cannot live without. Almost like breathing.

Don’t forget to take a look at the rest of the different tools he offers for Informal Learning. I am sure you would be able to identify more than one and relate to them a great deal. At least, I did. And that would be it, folks. Those are some of the most significant notes that I took while watching this superb presentation. Kudos to Jay for sharing his thoughts and insights from his research and for taking the initiative of creating the Informal Learning weblog! Really nice work and a highly recommended reading !

[tags]Learning, Informal+Learning, KM[/tags]

A few days ago a couple of readers from elsua asked me to share with them any Internet resources that would be available and worth while checking regarding Knowledge Management that they would be able to read some more about and perhaps even engage with them further to help increase the amount of information available. And while I was thinking about what I would answer there were two particular resources that I thought would be really good to get things going: Wikipedia’s Knowledge Management article and, specially, Denham Grey’s KMWiki over at Wikispaces.

Indeed, I am sure that most folks would be already familiar with the Wikipedia article on Knowledge Management, where you can even read about some recommendations on other KM webloggers you can follow on further, thus I would like to spend a few minutes sharing some further information regarding Denham’s Wiki space on KM: KMWiki. Not only would you be able to find a very good definition of what Knowledge Management is all about on this second attempt to get the Wiki going but you will also find an interesting introduction to KM along with a whole bunch of useful KM Links. Even more there is a specific section, one of my favourites, regarding Personal Knowledge Management. Worth while taking a look for sure !

However, what I really like about Denham’s efforts in creating this particular Wiki space to gather some further information regarding Knowledge Management it is the very nature of using a Wiki as a repository for that particular information. That basically means that it is a KM repository where we could all help to contribute further and increase that already outstanding resource that KMWiki is. Thus if you can spare a few minutes and think you could add some more into the already existing information available I would certainly like to encourage you all to head over to KMWiki and share your thoughts and engage in the different conversations taking place at the moment. I am sure that we will all gain a whole lot from the overall experience.

From here I just want to thank Denham for taking the initiative to put this very valuable resource together and for helping it become what it is today ! Kudos to KMWiki ! Way to go !

[tags]Knowledge+Management, Wikipedia, KMWiki, KM, PKM, Personal+Knowledge+Management[/tags]

A couple of days back I mentioned how I have been away for a few days visiting my hometown to catch up with family, friends and the city itself. Now that I am back you would also remember how I mentioned that I would be sharing some of the beautiful pictures I took from some of the most representative ancient buildings in the city itself of León. And on this weblog post you will see three pictures from three of the most representative buildings that are a must-see whenever you may get a chance to visit such a lovely place as León and which you can read some more about over at my Flickr account, under the section Travelling:

As you have been able to read and see there are lots of things to do and to see in such a great place as León. I took a whole bunch of more pictures during my stay there and will probably be sharing a second round of them providing as well some additional information over at Flickr where I will be sharing them. So stay tuned if you would want to read and see some more !

Oh, by the way, if you are wondering about the title of this weblog post, The Pulchra Leonina, that is just one of the various names that the gorgeous cathedral of León is known as. And after checking all of the different pictures I will be sharing I am sure you will be able to see why and if not here you have got some additional reading about it, amongst other things (Link in Spanish).

Technorati Tags : Leon, Leon+Cathedral, Pulchra+Leonina, San+Isidoro, CasaBotines

While doing some catch up with my RSS feeds I have been finding that over the last couple of days there has been a pretty popular topic of discussion: EgoSurf. Yes, indeed, and somehow I guess I am not surprised about it and I bet you wouldn’t either. Steve Rubel talks about it over at Measure Bloggers with EgoSurf. Technorati has already got a few webloggers talking about it and so is Nancy White over at Monday Night Confession: I Egosurfed. Those are some examples from the feeds I have read so far, next to Oliver Thylman’s “My Ego almost Blew Up”, Quick Online Tips’ “EgoSurf : Find Your Blogs Ego Ranking” or Tris Hussey’s “Gauge and stroke your ego on egoSurf”, amongst others.

If you are also a weblogger I am sure you have heard about it several times; how lots of people think that weblogging is all just about talking about yourself and your thoughts and get a kick out of it. And it looks like EgoSurf is a handy offering that might provide people with just what they need to prove just that: that you weblog to boost your ego. Or simply, that you don’t. And funny enough, somehow I wasn’t surprised about this one either, it looks like weblogging is a whole lot more for me than just talking about myself and my thoughts to get a boost of my ego. Yes, that is right, I took the test just to prove to myself if I am weblogging for the sake of weblogging or because I may want to get something more out of it. And by the looks of the results it seems that weblogging to me is just something more than just showing off my ego.

In case you are wondering, EgoSurf is just a new offering that will measure your name and weblog site against some of the major search engines (Google, Yahoo!, MSN) and Web 2.0 players (del.icio.us, Technorati) to see how good you would do against them. To get you started click first on More Options so that you can select all of the different settings. And then go for it! After having done the test myself, and everything else combined, I got a total score of 2540, which I know is not very high, but I wasn’t looking for a high ego boost to be honest. Otherwise, I would be asking myself why I am not showing any results with either MSN, del.icio.us or Technorati when I know there should be some more results as can be seen if you perform individual searches.

So, how reliable is this new offering, you may be wondering, right? I guess not much. Sigh. Anyway, EgoSurf looks like it might be a good attempt to provide some good fun for us webloggers who may be wondering if we weblog because we feel we have got something to say or because we just don’t have enough with our egos and we need to boost them some more. I am glad to know though that boosting my ego has not been my main priority for this weblog and I hope it will never be. Thus we will have to wait and see what will happen in the next six to twelve months and how things will change. Hopefully, not much but we shall see.

Technorati Tags : Metablogging, EgoSurf

Over the last few days you may have noticed how my weblogging here at elsua has gone down a bit, in fact, I haven’t been able to weblog about anything at all during that time, but don’t worry as there has been a good reason for it. I have been away travelling back to my hometown in León to visit my family and some friends and although I initially thought I would have some time and a live Internet connection to do some further weblogging, you can see that I was not very successful at it. Indeed, too many things to do, too many places to visit and, most importantly, too many people to catch up with !

I did take a few pictures from the city though which you will be able to enjoy over at my Flickr account over the next couple of weeks or so, but for the time being I am just sharing this weblog post to mention that I am back and regular weblogging posts will resume shortly. As soon as I am done with catching up with everything else. I know that a few people have made a number of different comments in other weblog posts so I will probably reply to those first before I continue creating new posts.

Thanks again for sticking out there and let the weblogging at elsua continue !

Last week, I created a weblog post, Along the Coastline, showing some of the best pictures I placed that week in my Flickr account so that you could see some more from the recent ferry boat trip I took from Arguineguin to Puerto Rico and then finishing off in Puerto de Mogan. And back.

I thought this week about continuing with the series of pictures I took where this time around you will be able to enjoy some of the spectacular scenarios provided by two different hotels built up on the cliffs surrounding the area from Puerto Rico. Sometimes I wonder how they managed to build them up there but then again, regardless of the efforts and hard work put together to build them, it is well worth while seeing them. If not check out yourself the following three pictures I have selected from the ones I have shared already in Flickr:

You will be able to see some of the others I have shared by going directly into my Flickr account or simply by checking out the Flickr badge embedded in my weblog template. However, if you fancy something really neat and want to check most of the pictures I have shared so far without having to go ahead and click elsewhere I would suggest you check out the following slideshow I am going to share below:

That fantastic Flickr slideshow comes from an original idea from Paul Stamatiou (By sharing the code over at HOW TO Quickie: Embedded Flickr Slideshows), who triggered Ryan Prins to share another slideshow improvement and which can be found over here: Flickr Slideshow HTML Script, which is what I am sharing above. I love it ! I am not sure what I will be doing with it just yet. I may eventually be creating a separate page or update my About page to include it on a more or less permanent basis, since the Flickr daily zeitgeist is already taking care of showing some of those pictures directly embedded into my weblog template. Either way, I will leave it in this particular weblog post for the time being and till I decide where to place it. Enjoy it !

Technorati Tags : Gran Canaria, Puerto Rico, Arguineguin, Puerto De Mogan, Flickr+Slideshow, Flickr