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

Knowledge Management Month 2006 – Where Will You Be?

What are your plans for October 2006? What are you going to be doing the whole month? Got better plans than engaging actively in some of the different activities from the Knowledge Management Month for 2006? Of course, not! Thus read on ! Over at Dr. Dan’s Daily Dose weblog Dan has just announced a few hours ago the Knowledge Management Month 2006 where during the course of October this year all KMPro members, and much more importantly, everyone working and advocating around the world of Knowledge Management, is more than encouraged to participate in different activities related to KM that would help spark some further interactions amongst knowledge workers and KM advocates in order to keep spreading the word and the message(s) about what KM can do for any single business out there.

You would be able to read some more on the actual information details over at Knowledge Management Month but here is a quick excerpt of what this event would try to eventually do over the course of 31 days coming up very soon:

"KMPro has designated October as international “Knowledge Management Month” — a month for KMPro members and all other KM’ers worldwide to participate in activities intended to increase awareness and focus upon knowledge management. Recognizing that Peter Drucker had identified improving the effectiveness of knowledge workers as the “most important management challenge of the 21st century” knowledge management has become critical to organizations world-wide. Yet despite that fact, it seems that many organizations remain unclear of the value of KM or how to implement it. Which is why KMPro has decided to “champion” this event.

KMPro encourages ALL KM’ers and all other KM societies and associations to join in this month — to promote all that is KM. Additional information on plans and activities will be available on the KMPro web site as well as on the KM Month event site itself (available October 1st). If you would like to volunteer to sponsor, host or coordinate any activities (including online events) or contribute in any way (suggest an idea!), please contact Dr. Dan Kirsch (email or call +01-757-460-6500)."

Thus you would be able to read how there are some exciting things about to start happening around the world of Knowledge Management all over the world and for the first time we would all have the chance to chime in different ways to help make it work. As you can read from the different announcements and Dan’s weblog post if you would have any ideas or would want to sponsor, host or coordinate an event you would need to contact Dan himself.

I talked to Dan already about this and although I still need to figure out in what shape or form I will be participating there is one thing for sure and that is the fact that I will certainly be quite excited about chiming in and participating further, whether it may be through an online or a face-to-face event. Either way, I am game. How about you ? Will you be ready to participate in the KM Month 2006? Fancy getting together to put something through, whatever that may be? If so, do not hesitate to let me know and we may be able to submit something to Dan that would be put forward as part of whatever other event activities. The more, the better.

Think you still have got something better to do in October ? Think again ! Get ready, get involved, act on it and become part of the KM Month 2006 ! I hope I will be able to see you there, or, why not, get together to put an event out there! Ready for the challenge? Let me know if you would be interested … Let’s get it on !

Tags: KMPro, Knowledge Management, KM, KM Month, KM Events

The Business Case for Enterprise Blogs – It Is Still (Personal) Knowledge Management

If earlier on today I created a weblog post about the level of accuracy from a news article on weblogging created over a year ago, here you have got another different example that proves the point that some times when you bump into really good content it doesn’t really matter how long ago it was created. It would still be very valid and could just fit in quite nicely in the current business environment. This is exactly what happens with a YouTube video put together by Rod Boothby some time ago that very clearly puts together, in under 17 minutes, an impressive and compelling business case for Enterprise Weblogs.

You can go ahead and watch the video over here:

In it you would be able to see how Rod states that enterprise weblogs are powerful enablers for (key) innovators to go out there and reach out through multiple conversations that would allow them to keep collaborating and innovating constantly with other knowledge workers.

At the same time, and while you get to dive into the more in-depth presentation, you would be able to see how he actually gets to build that business case by focusing on some real examples of what is going on at the moment out there on the Internet with examples like Apple, Google, wisdom of crowds, etc. Also you would see how one of the strongest points from Rod in that particular video is how to empower all enterprise employees into a single strategic objective: Constant Innovation.

From there onwards he finally explains how to actually tackle constant innovation through innovation creators and he actually manages, quite successfully I should add, to describe how they would operate as a team / community, or whatever the grouping, by allowing them to build up different relationships and establishing different informal networks where they could get to share their knowledge and collaborate further with other knowledge workers.

However, what I found most interesting about his business case is that towards half way through the video he is actually indicating how innovation creators do need better communication tools and not Knowledge Management. WOW! That was a strong statement, indeed ! Specially when later on he keeps on talking further about weblogs, which we all know are part of the social networking or the social software hype going on at the moment, that, in its own right, I am not sure what you would think about it, is Knowledge Management. And very much so.

Perhaps the focus might no longer on the explicit knowledge exchange, which is what, for instance, his example on Office products would be like, but rather on tacit knowledge exchange, which is what weblogs help enable big time! Yes, indeed, weblogs are powerful communication tools but not just that. I would go a bit further with that notion and indicate how they are also powerful knowledge sharing and collaborative tools going beyond the point of just communication, which is what e-mail and IM have done all along thus far. There is a difference, in my opinion, and why weblogs would still be part of what Knowledge Management is all about. Perhaps even more so with the so-called Personal Knowledge Management, where weblogs are perhaps one of its main examples that people keep relating to over and over again. Empowering knowledge workers to be able to manage their knowledge in a space where they are the ones in control of the knowledge sharing flow and how they would collaborate with others.

Either way, for the rest I have thoroughly enjoyed the video itself as I feel it does make for a good and compelling business case for enterprise weblogs and, best of all, are the last few minutes of the video where you can see some extended hints and tips on how to get things going, just in case you may be contemplating doing something similar, and what items you would need to incorporate and which ones you would need to forget. A good show, for sure. Highly recommended for those who may still be a bit skeptical about weblogs in the enterprise. I am sure they would change their mind after watching the video.

Link via A YouTube business Model in the Enterprise (Another interesting reading on the business value behind video for the enterprise)

Tags: Weblogs, Metablogging, Enterprise Weblogs, Enterprise 2.0, Knowledge Management, KM, Personal Knowledge Management, PKM, Social Networking, Social Software, Web 2.0, Innovation, Innovation Creators

Shortcuts Podcast – How to Use Social Bookmarks

Some time ago you would remember how I created a weblog post announcing the new and incredibly useful podcasting initiative from IBM, available externally, called Shortcuts, where over the course of a couple of minutes you actually get to find out some really good hints and tips about different aspects of IT that would help increase your productivity, whether it is related to tool tips, good practices, emerging technologies, etc. etc. You name it.

So by now you probably have listened to the different podcasts on spyware, Instant Messaging, Lotus Notes e-mail archiving, managing contacts, weblog spam, phishing, recovering sent e-mail and Instant Messaging (Again). Well, this time around, regarding Cut #9 (Gosh, I just love that number!), I just wanted to mention how I have been given the pleasure and great honour to participate in this week’s podcast talking about one of my favourite subjects: How to Use Social Bookmarks. Yay!

The podcast itself was recorded with both Ben Edwards and George Faulkner and lasts for about 4 and a half minutes and it was a real treat. I had an incredible good time and these guys surely know their stuff about podcasting and everything around it.If you ever would want to know some more about podcasts and how to get started with your own they would be the right folks to talk to. Thus, thanks much, folks, for giving me the opportunity to chime in and participate in one of my favourite podcasts of all times: Shortcuts.

(Have you subscribed to it already?)

Anyway, if you were wondering what I talked about during those 4.30 minutes here is a quick overview of the topics I touched base on. I know there is a whole lot more to be said about the topic, but I am sure that will be coming up in future sessions…

1. Desktop independent: That is right. Now it is all about accessing your favourites on the web regardless of where you may be, whether at the office, while on the road or working from home. Right now, you just need you favourite social bookmarking site and an Internet connection and off you go.

2. Finding experts through their own bookmarks knowing not only about their interests but also what their subject matter expertise may well be based on those same bookmarks and the different annotations they may well have used thus far.

3. Visualisations available through TagClouds: Who doesn’t like TagClouds to get a visual representation of how people get to annotate their bookmarks, eh? I love TagClouds. Everyone should have one in their weblogs or whatever other web site(s). Everyone should perhaps even have one, or multiple, of them as business cards ! It would make things so much easier, don’t you think?

4. Integration with other online resources, i.e. blogs, web sites, wikis, etc. This is one of the features that I like the most myself about social bookmarks and something that you will get to see both in my IBM internal weblog and over here as well (See bottom of the page). The fact that with some simple HTML or Javascript you can embed your favourite bookmarks in your favourite sites and share that with everyone else. Pretty much like I have done with Dogear (Inside IBM) and also with BlinkList over here. Very nice!

Thus there you go. My first participation in an IBM external podcast and I am really excited it is Shortcuts. What a nifty entrance into the external podcasting world, for sure, but do not worry, because it is not going to be the last one. I am sure… But more to come at a later time …

Tags: Shortcuts, IBM, Tips, Hints&Tips, Productivity Tips, Social Bookmarking, Social Software, Web 2.0, del.icio.us, BlinkList, Dogear, Knowledge Management, KM