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

Social Network Tools and Their Business Application: Blogs, Podcasting, Instant Messaging, RSS and Wikis – London – September 2006

A couple of weeks ago I was talking about the upcoming Collaboration Technologies Conference 2006 that took place in Boston a few days ago, and which, by the way, I will start commenting on some of the sessions now that most of the folks I follow up on seem to have finished sharing their views on the event. So today I thought I would also let you know about another upcoming interesting event that I am sure quite a few folks over here would like to know as well. I am not sure I would be able to attend it but I would think that plenty of other folks may be interested in it.

Thus here we go. Through a couple of colleagues at work I have just received an e-mail about an upcoming event taking place in London, UK, around the topics of weblogs, podcasting, instant messaging, RSS and wikis .Yes, indeed, about the whole social software pack.

The event is sponsored by Unicom and you can find more details about the event over here: Social Network Tools and their Business Application: Blogs, Podcasting, Instant Messaging, RSS and Wikis. As I mentioned already, the event will be taking place on Ethan21st of September in London and here is the initial write up about the conference:

"The payoff for the new collaborative tools is that they support workers in doing the right things and thus producing a better end result. However, in some contexts, such as collaboration with partners an d other third parties, increased openness and collaboration raise anxiety about issues of security and confidentiality.

This conference looks at the new technologies in a business setting, with overview presentations and case studies. There will be a strong emphasis on the practical aspects. You will find out the different applications of each technology and their relative merits and drawbacks, and how to choose between increasing numbers of new offerings.

The conference is chaired by David Green, founder of the Green Knowledge Community and himself knowledgeable in these technologies"

And here you have got the list of benefits from the event:

• "Learn how Blogs and WIKIs change the traditional models of managing knowledge and how they can support purposeful social networks
• Hear about the practices of those who are achieving real business success in online social networks
• Find out the role of podcasting and RSS feeds to target customers with clearly defined interests
• Explore the benefits and downside of business use of Instant Messaging
• Gain practical advice on dealing with threats to security and confidentiality"

Not bad, eh? Yes, I know, on the contrary. What I really like about the event itself, and why I would feel sorry if I cannot make it, which I am not sure is going to happen, is the pretty impressive list of speakers they have piled up for the event, with folks like KM thinkers Euan Semple,  and David Gurteen, amongst others. Apparently, it even looks like the event is organised / supervised by David himself. Good stuff.

Thus if you are going to be around in London during that time I can certainly recommend the event if you would want to know how Knowledge Management is surely moving into KM 2.0 in the Enterprise 2.0 world. Oh, and if you get to go and would want to share your thoughts on how it went feel free to drop by and append a couple of comments over here or just blog the event yourself on your own weblog, something I am sure you were probably thinking about doing it already, anyway, but just in case… heh

Tags: Unicom, David Gurteen, Euan Semple, Knowledge Management, KM, KM 2.0, Social Networks, Social Software, Web 2.0, Social Networking, Wikis, Weblogs, Podcasts

Expertise Locators on the Brain – Trusting the Experts

Last week Jack Vinson (I am glad, by the way, to see he is back weblogging again after his vacation) shared one of the most comprehensive weblog posts that I have read in a long while around the always exciting topic of expertise location where he is actually shifting away from the traditional way expertise locators have always been considered: i.e. just tools. Indeed, Jack has written up an impressive weblog post on the subject with some incredible quotes on what expertise location should all be about. He is also referencing some other folks who have been talking about the same topic, sharing as well some interesting insights, such as Harold Jarche, Jay Cross, Dennis McDonald, Shawn Callahan, Ingo Forstenlechner, amongst others. I am also included in his references from a couple of weblog posts I shared on this very same subject not long ago and which you can read some more about here and over here.

As I said, he has put together such an impressive weblog post around this topic of expertise location that has got me thinking quite a bit with all sorts of ideas that I have decided to expand further on a number of different weblog posts. As I get along I will get going and share with you all some of those insights but for the time being I just wanted to comment on one of those ideas that has been crossing my mind all along after reading Jack’s weblog post. It looks like expertise locators have no longer got anything to do with just focusing on the tools, nor the technology. It looks like after reading Jack’s thoughts and commenting on a few other folks’ thoughts it goes well beyond that into a realm that I have been talking about over here several times. Yes, on the people.

I very much agree with what Jack mentions that searching for experts is increasingly starting to happen inside people’s networks, whether they are physical or virtual networks in such a way that whenever a knowledge worker has got a question the first thing that person is going to do to have his / her question answered is check with someone, an expert, according to him / her, that he / she knows would be able to help out finding an answer. Notice that I am talking about finding an answer and not giving an answer as I think that the main reason for that happening is because people not only want to get the answer they also want to build a relationship with that expert so that through nurturing and maintaining those relationships they themselves could become experts in those subjects at some point in time.

I feel that is where the whole power of expertise locators reside, not so much on finding the experts but actually on engaging and interacting with them so that you, too, could become one at some point in time and somehow you can free up the experts to deal with more complicated problems. That way, and without you not knowing it per se ahead of time, you would find out that you will shortly begin to have that pool of experts within an organisation that would be available to help find answers, and because that pool of experts is based as well on those physical or virtual relationships you know that they would be there for some time. Why? Because of one key fundamental aspect that surfaces in every seeker / expert relationship: Trust. Trust that matters to the seeker for help and to the expert who is helping out finding those answers.

This is why as I was reading through Jack’s weblog post it kind of reminded me as well about another weblog post that I created not so long ago around the subject of How Do You Trust the Experts? Because whether we like it or not, at the end of the day, the key successful and fundamental factor for any expertise location tool to succeed is not on having a pool of experts available to help answer questions but more to have a pool of experts that seekers would trust because they are part of their personal physical / virtual networks and could help them find those answers more in a collaborative way than in a traditional Q&A fashion. And this is exactly the role that social software has been playing all along and which will make it succeed in the business world. Pretty much like it has been doing already quite successfully for some time now  in the consumer market.

Tags: Expertise Location, Expertise Locators, Trust, Collaboration, Knowledge Management, KM, Social Networking, Social Software

New Qumana Beta Release – It Surely Is Easier then Ever

Folks who may have been reading from  elsua for some time now would probably remember how fond I have been all along about one of my favourite offline weblogging tools available out there: Qumana. I have weblogged a few times already about it under the name of QumanaXP, specially since they have been working on their latest beta. So earlier on this morning I was actually quite excited to read over at Qumana "How To" Blog a weblog post by Arieanna where she has just announced the latest beta client available for Qumana: New Qumana Beta Release: Easier than Ever.

Fantastic piece of news, folks ! I tell you. This is one of those offline weblogging releases that will certainly help people come a lot closer to weblogging than ever before. It will no doubt help them improve their own weblogging experience quite a bit not only because of its incredible ease of use but also because some of the really nifty features that have been put together on this latest release and which you can read some more about over at Qumana Is Font Crazy and Qumana’s New and Hot Image Interface.

I love it! One of the recent features I have implemented over here, and that I mentioned some time ago, is now easier than ever ! That is  just a terrific piece of news because I have been looking for a nicer way to implement this and I was never sure how to get the most out of it and it looks like now, with Qumana, I would be able to get it going, just the way I want it. Lovely.

Overall, I am quite pleased with this last beta release and I am sure that we would get to see some more in future versions. The folks over at Qumana do certainly know how to keep innovating in such a precious space as offline weblogging tools, because I am not sure if you have noticed it or not but going through the initial set up and the Blog Manager is just such a treat that I am really glad they have made the latest client available because as I have gone to maintain a couple of other weblogs setting them up through Qumana has been really easy. Too easy. So what is your excuse ? Why not give it a try and start experiencing the way weblogging was always meant to be. Go ahead, download the client, and get busy with it!

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Oh, and in case you are wondering about this, Qumana is not the only offline weblogging tool that I am using and that I have enjoyed quite a bit so far. In the past you have probably read how I have been using w.bloggar, Performancing for FireFox and Flock’s weblogging component. You may be thinking that these may well be far too many offline weblogging tools and you probably are right. However, I always like to work on different drafts for different posts from several weblogs that I maintain, so for each weblog I have developed a technique to use a particular offline weblogging tool. So I can keep things separate but at the same time with a flow that works for me. And now it is about to get even better with this latest release of Qumana. Easier than ever. Good stuff!

Tags: Metablogging, Qumana, Performancing, w.bloggar, Flock