Yesterday evening, Jack Vinson shared a very interesting and thought provoking weblog post that I thought I would comment on further since it touches on one of the issues I have been facing myself for a number of years now and for which I have always been having some reservations. Over at Knowledge Jolt with Jack he created a post around the subject of Incentives for sharing where he is actually questioning the value of using financial incentives in order to encourage and boost a knowledge sharing culture. He is actually referencing another weblog post from Dinesh Tantri on Moral Versus Economic Incentives For Knowledge Sharing where Dinesh himself is also advocating for a more balanced approach towards incentivising knowledge workers for what they get to share, both using cash incentives and other softer kinds of awards.

Indeed, I just couldn’t have agreed more with both of them! Actually, having been exposed to a number of different incentives programmes I can certainly confirm that not having a balance between both types of incentives is always going to end up in a mess. Yes, a real mess! Not only from the perspective where the quality of the knowledge shared is not going to be up to the standards that other knowledge workers would require, and benefit from, but also because it just helps create an anxiety that KM in general could do without very much so. If not in the end it will hinder it down and get that particular KM programme in trouble. Big trouble.

As I said, there needs to be a balance, but between what?, you may be wondering. Well, basically between what I have been advocating for some time now and which I think would fit in quite nicely into this discussion: two different types of motivation to influence that cultural change to boost knowledge sharing and collaboration:

• Extrinsic: through some kind of physical recognition, such as cash, (Public) recognition, evaluation and the like, depending on the criteria that may have been set up already.
• Intrinsic: through some remarkable capabilities such as passion, interest, enjoyment, satisfaction and self-actualisation, which in the end could well be much more powerful than the extrinsic type of motivation on its own. Something that I keep seeing over and over again.

Indeed, whether we like it or not a whole KM programme with an incentives initiative should be taking into consideration that those external motivators may not be good enough. In fact, they could well be for a short period of time but they would not be sustainable since they will not keep that motivation high enough throughout an extended period of time. However, those intrinsic motivators could certainly help people find that extra edge to make it all worth while; to be able to share what they know with others and still enjoy what they do on a day to day basis.

And this is perhaps something that we could learn with all this social software and Web 2.0 offerings that are becoming more and more popular nowadays. They are already providing some really good background for those intrinsic motivators and perhaps once they add up that extrinsic component we would be able to see them take off in the enterprise. At least, they would be providing that balance that most of us have been mentioning, and asking for, all along.

Here are a couple of other weblog posts that I have shared on this particular subject for those folks who may want to do some extended reading:

• Rewards for Knowledge Sharing - What Is the Deal?
• Rewards for Knowledge Sharing - Is Your Knowledge That Indispensable ?

[tags]Knowledge Management, KM, Social Software, Inventives, Awards[/tags]

Folks who have been reading elsua for some time now would realise how one of my essential Knowledge Management readings is that of the folks behind Anecdote. In the past I have weblogged about them and their thought provoking posts a couple of times and I always find over there some refreshing views of where KM is heading and how perhaps KM should have been phrased from the very beginning of its own existence.

Take, for instance, the example that Mark Schenk weblog about a couple of months back on Communities of practice - The right brain of the organisation? where you can actually find the following couple of gems:

“It doesn’t take much imagination to see most organisations as having a predominantly left-brain focus, with hierarchical structures, emphasis on quantitative assessments and decision making based on numbers such as head count and return on investment, libraries full of strategies, doctrine, policy and procedure and formal lines of reporting and communication (to name but a few relevant characteristics)“

And then:

“Communities of practice traverse most of the formal structures, processes and reporting hierarchies in organisations. They connect people and expertise irrespective of rank, location, specialisation or division. Perhaps they allow us to access the ‘right-brain capabilities‘ of our organisations.“

This is just so spot on ! I wish I would have come across that trend of thought a few years ago back when I first got started getting involved with KM and Communities of Practice. It would have put things into perspective so much that perhaps we would all be looking into it in a completely different way. I am sure that if we would have done so way back we would not have suffered from that almost ever lasting focus on the technology behind KM but more on the people who form those communities. Yes, there we go again, the people. But this time around it looks like things are different. It is just not KM alone but also Communities of Practice which would be benefiting from placing the focus on the people as the right-brain side of things which brings everything into perspective and balance with whatever else we have seen so far.

If not take a look into the role that social software is playing at the moment, not only on the KM area but also on the Communities of Practice area. Most of it just focus on the community activities, on getting people to connect and share what they know with one another regardless of who they may be, where they may be or whatever their level of skills may be. It is just happening as we speak. And all that thanks to the key crucial role that communities of practice are playing in the whole process within organisations. So something tells me that if Mark and his assumption is correct, based on his thoughts, we are about to witness a breaking point where finally a balance between a left (Management) and right (Communities of Practice, and KM) brain will be reached and organisations will be starting that transition from a labour-based company to a more asset/knowledge-based company. So what side of the brain is your company using ?

Technorati Tags: Communities of Practice, CoPs, Knowledge Management, KM, Anecdote

One of the KM weblogs that I tend to follow and which I quite enjoy is the one by Ron Young on KM Consulting. He always has got some refreshing views about KM, what it is and where it is heading. Take, for instance, his last weblog post, KM, Resurgence and New Technologies. In it Ron comes to talk about the fact that everyone seems to be seeing a come back from Knowledge Management thanks to the emerging technologies / offerings behind Web 2.0. But at the same time he is also questioning if it is actually going to happen or if KM will fall again under the scope where the highest focus goes into the technology. Once again.

I think he has got a valid concern and I do hope, like him, that will not happen again. I think that we, KM advocates, have been having more than enough already with that same subject and we certainly know where the harm could be coming from. However, I also feel that there is a fundamental difference for this new come back from Knowledge Management. And that is the fact that as opposed to a few years ago, the focus now is not on the technology itself. No it isn’t. At least, I don’t see it that way. Instead, I feel that the focus is actually in how the technology could become a powerful enabler to help people connect, collaborate with one another and share their knowledge and their experiences, specially if they are distributed elsewhere.

The fact that we now have examples like Wikis, Weblogs, Syndication, Podcasts, and whatever other social networking tool only comes to put the emphasis on the people themselves. Not on the technology. It is these same people who are at the epicenter of the whole movement behind KM and all that thanks to that social software that I have been talking about a few times already. Mainly because for the first time in a few years KM has now become much more personal, involved and committed from a knowledge worker perspective. People are willing to share what they know, collaborate with others because those tools make it easier for people to connect with one another. They enable people to be the center of the knowledge sharing process and not vice versa.

So perhaps this time around KM will eventually be restored to the role it once had as a critical business process that every company would be incorporating so that its knowledge workers could take the most benefit from that knowledge sharing and reusing of Intellectual Capital. Mind you though, it is not going to be an easy road, more a bumpy one if anything else, but equally exciting since we are breaking uncovered ground here. But this time around we already have got some experiences and know what worked and what didn’t. And leveraging that key aspect would perhaps become the key fundamental success factor for this KM come back. Time will tell. Or, better, people will tell.

Technorati Tags: Knowledge Management, KM, Social Networking, Social Software, Web 2.0, Wiki, Weblog, Syndication, Podcast

For a few weeks now I have been a member of a Yahoo group based on LinkedIn webloggers. For a few weeks now I have been lurking around checking out what they were up to. Till yesterday when I decided it was about time to jump in and get involved with the group. I am sure that you all know LinkedIn by now (Perhaps one of these days I will weblog about my experience with it but here is my profile just in case you may want to check it out) as perhaps one of the most interesting social networking tools out there for business professionals to be able to tap into each others’ knowledge and expertise through a number of different online collaboration tools and get to create some more virtual connections to help them in their professional careers.

So, as I said I decided to become more active in the LinkedIn webloggers group since they are doing some really good stuff out there in helping people understand what all these new tools related to Web 2.0 are all about, specially weblogging. One of the very interesting activities they are doing, and actually registering the results (As can be seen in the LinkedIn webloggers Yahoo group), is the fact that they have established a process by which every week they are promoting one weblog from the members who have volunteered to get that exposure out there in the Blogosphere. Yes, that is right, every week one weblog gets to be selected voluntarily and everyone else from the group who may want to get involved actually gets to write a weblog post in their own weblog linking back, or talking about, that weblog of the week.

The idea itself is that of getting a bit more awareness of the LinkedIn webloggers out there and get them to experiment further with what weblogging is all about: getting into different conversations from multiple angles and get people to connect with one another. So this week’s featured weblog is that of one of my fellow coworkers and IBMer Philippe Borremans’ Conversationblog. Philippe is a colleague of mine who works in Belgium and who has done a tremendous piece of work promoting weblogging both internally and externally. Perhaps every single event that has been organised in Europe about weblogging he has been there. Amazing ! He specialises in the Communications area and he is actually using his weblog for folks to understand how this new media could be made use of in order to help spread the message.

As you will be able to see he is also one of those folks who wants people to show what weblogging is all about by doing and learning on the fly, which is why when you go over to his weblog you will be able to find all sorts of different snippets and widgets that he has been making use of while subscribing to his weblog in order to show everyone the possibilities, even though Dave Taylor feels that it is perhaps a bit too many examples. And he might be right on that, although I still like what Philippe does demoing the possibilities of what people could do with their weblogs in order to get involved further.

Anyway, if you are interested in the world of PR and weblogging, specially from a corporate perspective, although with an interesting and personal touch from a European citizen like Philippe, I would strongly suggest you subscribe to his weblog and watch his space. I am sure we are bound to keep on learning a whole lot more from it. Also if you feel you would want to know about what corporate weblogging is all about Philippe would also be a good candidate to chime in with and get all the insights from him on how a large corporation like IBM gets involved with weblogging all over the place. Way to go, Philippe !

Technorati Tags: Metablogging, LinkedIn, PR, BR, IBM

It looks like there have been some folks who have been already weblogging about a new lovely offering for webloggers out there and which will help them measure how influential they may potentially be. The new offering is called Bloginfluence and can be accessed from here. It is amazing to be able to witness the huge amount of different tools that are coming out in the Web 2.0 space meant for webloggers. Examples like CoComment, MyComments, Peoplefeeds, Suprglu, Technorati’s Favourites, Egosurf, Opinmind, and a whole bunch more that I am sure I am leaving out would be just a few to name. Yet, it looks like the list continues to grow and the latest offering available is this quite interesting Bloginfluence.

Through this new web offering you would be able to find out how influential your weblog (And yourself) may be by just entering your weblog URL and letting it get measured against a number of different resources, going from Technorati, to Yahoo!, BlogLines (Although this one does not seem to be working at the moment of writing this weblog post), Google Page Rank and finishing off with a whole bunch of goodies like some Graphs or some further Buzz from other popular resources like Google Blog Search, IceRocket, Ask.com, etc.

As I have already indicated in previous weblog posts, the purpose of this weblog has never been trying to get more weblog traffic than anything else. On the contrary, it is meant to be part of the conversation on those topics that are of interest to me and perhaps because of that I am finding Bloginfluence rather an interesting offering worth while trying, more than anything else from the perspective of helping webloggers find other voices out there on those same related topics and engage with them in those conversations I just mentioned above.

Also another feature I like about this particular offering is the fact that over time you would be able to measure how your own weblog will start having a stronger voice out there in the Blogosphere. So in principle you would be able to see what your weblog influence is right now, then again some time in the future and so forth. Perhaps a good way to help you find out if you are on track or not with the main purpose your own weblog(s).

Thus with all that said and just in case you may be wondering here you have got my Bloginfluence at the time of writing this particular weblog post:

My influence

[8342.6]

Yes, I know, a long way to go, indeed, if you compare it with others, but equally exciting and good challenge to keep up with it over the next few months. Let’s see how it will go further.

Technorati Tags: Bloginfluence, Metabbloging, Conversations

In the past I have been weblogging about one particular place here in the South of Gran Canaria where you can actually see one of the most impressive viewpoints the island has got to offer: Degollada de las Yeguas. As you probably have seen already from the several pictures I have shared this is one of those must-see places, if you want to enjoy some of those landscapes that will make you feel rather small. I tell you. So a couple of weeks ago, and while spring was starting to let itself show just a bit ahead of time, I went out for a drive and went to the country side and on its way I passed through Degollada de las Yeguas.

And what a fantastic experience that was, folks ! Yes, indeed, I took some breathtaking pictures once again, but this time around getting closer to the spring time so you will notice a substantial difference between those pictures and the ones I have shared today in my Flickr account. Here you have got three of my favourites:

I have shared some more pictures from the whole series over at my Flickr account, in case you would want to see some more. I have got some more pictures from the same trip but from other different places and I will be sharing them over the next couple of weeks, but certainly you can see that spring is here already !

Technorati Tags: Gran Canaria, Degollada De Las Yeguas