E L S U A ~ A KM Blog Thinking Outside The Inbox by Luis Suarez

Coming to Terms with Knowledge Management Webloggers

People who know me for some time now would probably tell you how keen I have always been on trying out new technologies, specially those that provide a new and refreshing way of getting people to connect in order to facilitate knowledge sharing and collaboration. Yes, you could say that I am an early adopter of KM Tools and proud of it. Yesterday I created a weblog post on a new social networking offering called Ziki that I feel brings some interesting points regarding the very much ignored area of expertise location within KM and while playing around with it I just realised how much disconnected I feel most of us, KM webloggers, are in the area of Knowledge Management. Let me explain.

While I was playing with the tool I was doing an initial set up where I was filling in my profile and consolidating some of the resources I get exposed to on a daily basis. One of the features that I liked the most was the fact that at the same time that I could have my own profile out there I could also search for groups that could match my interests. So, I thought, “Great! Let’s see if I can find a KM group I could join“. No, there wasn’t any. Pity. So I thought: “Ok, there isn’t any so let’s go ahead and create one. Why not, right?” So I went ahead and tried to create a new group based on KM, so that folks who would be trying the tool could also venture into joining that group and perhaps mark the beginning of the creation of a community of KM webloggers. And this is where I bumped into the first problem.

The sign up page for new groups requires that you enter a group URL so that people could relate to it, and while thinking about it, I just couldn’t think of a representative enough URL in the KM world that I would go ahead and use. I thought about entering Wikipedia’s KM entry, along with a whole bunch of the resources I shared over at the KM Awareness weblog post I created some time ago, but none of them felt right, if you know what I mean. And that is when it got me. There are plenty of really good KM bloggers, and KM thinkers, out there but we (If I may say so) all seem to be scattered around all over the place without a clear connection. A connection where we could all meet up and discuss some of the really good ideas we have been bouncing back and forth trying to help enrich them a whole lot more.

I mean, how many times have you found a really interesting KM related article and decided to weblog about it and after having shared your thoughts you find that quite a few other folks have been sharing their views already and could have contributed to the conversations big time? I know, me, too. Lots of us have been there. Even as I get to write this weblog post I just couldn’t help remembering Denham‘s superb post on Talking Up KM, where he states very clearly where we are in the KM world … A long way to go.

Thus with all that said, here is the main thought from this particular weblog post: there are plenty of KM webloggers out there sharing some really great insights about KM and their experiences with KM thus why don’t we go ahead and create a community for us? A place where we could hang out, share our thoughts, views and ideas on KM related topics that we feel others may be interested in. A place where everyone would be welcome to join and participate and share what they know about their experiences in KM. I realise there are plenty of mailing lists out there for KMers, but unless I got it wrong, I have yet to find the first one for KM webloggers. Thus why not go for one now ? What do you think ? I would love to hear your thoughts on this, specially if you think it could well work out or not.

Do you feel we are ready to boost our own KM weblogging connections? Share your thoughts appending a comment over here or just contacting me offline. Let’s see how far we can go with this.

Technorati Tags: Knowledge Management, KM, Metablogging, KM Blogging Community

The World Is Round

Earlier on today, a colleague of mine at work shared with me an interesting article that not only is it thought-provoking but it could also mark the success, or not, from all of this social software and Web 2.0 related technologies hype that is going on at the moment. You may think that I may have been a bit too harsh with that statement but I think that after you read through it you would see where I am coming from and how I may not have been that far off after all. That is how impressive the article is. It is written by one of the well known Knowledge Management thinkers and gurus out there, Laurence Prusak, and is titled: The World Is Round.

Larry, currently a contributor over at the Babsonknowledge.org weblog (Another worth while subscribing KM weblog) along with Tom Davenport and Don Cohen, comes to talk about the misunderstanding that quite a few people seem to be having nowadays perhaps regarding information and knowledge. And part of it due to the concepts explained further in The World Is Flat by Thomas Friedman where it is mentioned how the current state of things in the 21st century seems to have accelerated the flow of information on a worldwide level and consequently made this world flat.

I must say that I haven’t read the book just yet, but Larry is certainly spot on in a couple of remarks that he has included in the second part of the article and which I think would be worth while quoting over here:

“What’s the difference between information and knowledge? Information is a message, one-dimensional and bounded by its form: a document, an image, a speech, a genome, a recipe, a symphony score. You can package it and instantly distribute it to anyone, anywhere. [...]” (Emphasis mine)

“[...] Knowledge results from the assimilation and connecting of information through experience, most often through apprenticeship or mentoring [...] Knowledge is time-consuming and expensive to develop, retain, and transfer—and that’s as true for organizations and countries as it is for individuals. [...] One billion people on the Internet means there are five and a half billion people who aren’t on it. Bringing those people into the global conversation is essential to achieving true democratization of knowledge” (Emphasis mine)

And, finally, this gem towards the end of the article that I just couldn’t help quoting over here as well:

“Until our governments, NGOs, schools, corporations, and other institutions embrace the idea that knowledge—not information—is the key to prosperity, most of the world’s people will remain a world apart”

WOW! What a statement, right? Well, he does have a very good point and I think it is worth while reminding ourselves where we are with both information and knowledge. Right now, all this hype going on about social software and social networking and its many tools is just probably preparing the way; yes, indeed, helping spread the information but somehow we may not be there just yet. We need to move up and transition into that knowledge culture that would allow everyone to convert successfully that information into knowledge which can be put into practice by being able to reuse it successfully.

So you may be wondering how is social software and social networking going to help out with this transition from an information era into a knowledge era? Well, if you have been reading this weblog already for some time, I think you can envision what I feel would be the main two components that could certainly provide and help facilitate that transition: indeed, communities (Of Practice, of Interest, of Purpose, etc. etc. you name it) and and collaboration, not only inside of the communities themselves but also in between different communities. They may be perhaps the two main key aspects that could accelerate the embracing of knowledge coming from a very strong information background that we can all see right now with this social media. And something tells me that this may be a breaking point as well that would differentiate the key role that communities would be playing within whatever the organism or organisation. Thus do you think we are ready to make that shift yet? Or is it still a bit early? What do you think ?

Technorati Tags: Knowledge Management, KM, Laurence Prusak, Round World, Flat World, Social Networking

It’s Time to Take the Quotation Marks Off “Web 2.0″

A few people have already been commenting on a great article that Dennis McDonald published over at Web 2.0 Journal: i-Technology Viewpoint: It’s Time to Take the Quotation Marks Off “Web 2.0″ around the subject of the so-called Web 2.0 and how it may be time now to start taking it a bit more seriously than before in the business world. Certainly a worth while read. But I thought I would go ahead as well and share with you some of the ideas from the article that I think would be worth while commenting on:

• “For the customer it’s an opportunity to establish and maintain relationships that are both personally fulfilling and empowering in the face of the traditional power of larger institutions.

• For the CEO of an established legacy industry company, it’s a threat of loss of control over customer relations.“

Indeed, I couldn’t have agreed more with those two statements on how different people are viewing Web 2.0. I have been mentioning this already a few times but whoever thought that Web 2.0 is all about the tools and the technology is just not getting the full picture. And the above quoted text from Dennis is just another proof of where all this social software is heading.

“Company executives must be willing to accept a new network architecture paradigm along with its frequent association with “social networking” functionality that many people are still not comfortable with“

There is no denying that social networking is becoming more and more popular and what perhaps started to become mainstream from a personal non-business related perspective it is now turning into the business world by that same group of knowledge workers who may have been enjoying all of these tools. Indeed, if those knowledge workers have been enjoying all this social media for their own personal benefit they would want to extend that beyond and take it to their business(es). That is perhaps the reason why more and more companies are starting to embrace the usage of wikis, weblogs, social bookmarking, RSS and a whole bunch of other Web 2.0 tools because they are starting to see how folks have been more keen on sharing information and knowledge in those resources than in whatever other, more complex, traditional tools. And, of course, they want to seize that opportunity. And rightly so. Who wouldn’t. The key question though would be if it would be sustainable or not. I think so. I hope so.

“In particular, knowledge workers inside and outside even the traditional industries will expect more conversational and interactive communications both within their companies and with the companies — and customers — they deal with. Management will need to adapt to the fact that employees are now able to engage with customers more frequently and on a more personal level than ever before. This engagement can lead to loyalty“

And I would think that not only with customers but also with coworkers. The fact that people are now more willing to share their knowledge with their coworkers while making use of these tools is certainly going to boost not only that same loyalty that Dennis mentions but also another key aspect from a successful KM strategy: Trust. Indeed, through the usage of this social software we are seeing how knowledge workers are trusting each other more than whatever was happening with other more static collaborative tools because of the different new connections and relationships that they would be able to build up. And sustain.

And, finally, I just wanted to also point out to you the section How to move forward from Dennis’ article where he is providing some really good advice as to how different folks should be adapting Web 2.0 to their own businesses. Lots of great tips in there! Here is a teaser to get you going:

1. “Start small.
2. Involve both business and IT.
3. Minimize integration complexity.
4. Focus on business benefits.
5. Know your costs.
6. Use the technology.
7. Face issues headlong.
8. Don’t demonize the opposition.
9. Remember it’s a business.
10. Manage.”

Overall, and like I mentioned earlier on, a really worth while article that will put things into perspective as where we are heading with Web 2.0. And this time around without quotes.

Technorati Tags: Knowledge Management, KM, Social Software, Social Media, Web 2.0, Social Networking