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

Screencasting of Tacit Knowledge

In the past, and for a good number of weblog posts, I have been talking over here about the importance of Tacit Knowledge in the coming back of Knowledge Management thanks, amongst other things, to the emergence of social software that helps boost collaboration and knowledge sharing in multiple different scenarios. For a number of years we have been having perhaps a bit too much focus on the Explicit Knowledge exchange where knowledge workers were more than  anything else encouraged to share their best of breed Intellectual Capital in whatever the designated repository without placing too much emphasis on the tacit knowledge exchange.

However, and like I have already mentioned above, with the emergence of social software there seems to be now a more balanced approach where Knowledge Management is finally trying to combine both tacit and explicit knowledge exchanges and get the most out of both of them. And it is perhaps now where there seems to be a bit more focus on the tacit exchange piece since it needs to do some serious catch-up. At least, initially.

One of the most powerful options to try to deliver on that particular know-how of knowledge and information is actually one of my favourite social software concepts that I have been advocating myself for quite some time now. And that is the phenomenon of screencasting. Screencasting, to keep it short, "is a digital recording of computer screen output, often containing audio narration" and if there is a person out there who is an expert on the subject is actually the guy who invented the term a couple of years back in the first place: Jon Udell.

So that is why I was quite excited when a few weeks back he actually created a weblog post titled Screencasting of Tacit Knowledge, where he actually advocated with a concrete example how screencasts can be really helpful tools to deliver much more than just explicit knowledge. That know-how put together at the service of showing someone, with both audio and video, how to perform a particular task and then learn from it right away is perhaps one of the most powerful methods for knowledge sharing, collaboration and learning by doing (Informal Learning). And this is perhaps one of the main reasons why more and more learning activities are getting delivered with the help of screencasts as they can certainly be very beneficial and very handy to deliver very powerful messages.

By now you are probably wondering which one would be my preferred method of producing screencasts, right? And I must say that after having tried out a  number of different tools like Wink or CamStudio (Both of them very good options as well and worth while checking, in case you are looking for more options out there) and reading further on a number of different great reviews my preferred method for creating a screencast is actually Camtasia, which funny enough in the last few days there has been a new major release put together, v 4.0, that comes packed with an incredible set of new features that will make it a delight for everyone to try it out.

I have now upgraded my v. 3.x license and got my hands on a copy of v.4 (Yes, I know it is not cheap. But you would have to think how much money you would be saving for the different tasks you are planning to use it for. Yes, indeed, it would become a rather cheap license and worth while the money. And big time!). I must say that I impressed. Very impressed. Specially with the good amount of social software related features put together in this particular last major release. They even launched a new service with it called Screencast where you can host your own screencasts at a reasonable cost and then share them with everyone else out there. Pretty an interesting option, for sure, specially if you do not have the means to store them online elsewhere yourself.

I guess I could go on and on and on regarding how good Camtasia actually is, but I guess I will just leave it over there for the time being and encourage you to check out Jon’s weblog post on how tacit knowledge can benefit a huge deal from something so relatively simple as a screencast. As time goes by I will go ahead and share with you a couple of my favourite features thus far and perhaps also create a couple of screencasts and show you by doing how effective they can well be. We shall see how that goes.

Tags: Screencasts, Screencasting, Social Networking, Social Software, Social Media, Web 2.0, Knowledge Sharing, Knowledge Management, KM, Informal Learning, Collaboration, Tacit Knowledge, Explicit Knowledge, Camtasia, Wink, CamStudio, Jon  Udell

Never Thought I Would Be Saying This But…

It looks like my ADSL wireless router has beaten me up once again ! And big time ! For the last five and a half hours, and for no good reason, I have been knocked out completely off the network. I still have to figure out what actually happened in the end. Not even the customer service representative could figure out what happened. The thing is that for the first time this year my ADSL wireless router decided to die on me for a few hours and reminded me of how vulnerable I really am without a live Internet connection. It felt almost like being naked in a …! Yes, that, indeed !

Anyway, the funny thing is that I am not sure why but when I came back from my daily swim a few minutes ago I actually tried it out again and see if it would connect me and voilá this time around it worked ! Go figure ! That is just one of the things that I really like about technology. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. And it doesn’t ask for a reason, does it?

Well, now that I come to think about it, did my ADSL wireless router decide to play funny on me so that I would learn the lesson on the same day that I was actually planning to take for a spin the new La Fonera that I just purchased a few days ago and which has finally arrived? Yes, indeed, I am really excited about diving some more into La Fonera and check some more further into FON, the ever growing worldwide social (And free) wireless WiFi community. Wooohooo ! Doesn’t that sound really exciting (And inviting?)? Is that the reason why my router didn’t want to play along with it? And all that just after unpacking the box ! Imagine what would happen when I try to install it further. Hummm, food for some further thoughts… and perhaps a future weblog post on the results.

Now, unfortunately, when everything is back up and running, there is the usual catchup of what have actually may have happened while I have been away. So you would have to bear with me as the regular weblogging will resume from tomorrow onwards.And why not right now? Well, because the life part of the work / life balance dichotomy just kicked in and is demanding my attention in full force. And somehow this time around it seems to be winning. So I shall be back tomorrow (With a live Internet connection, I would hope!) …

Tags: Wireless, Router, ADSL, FON, La Fonera, Work – Life Balance

The Vortex: Experiments in Online Collaboration – Surfing the Second Wave of Online Collaboration

It looks like Nancy White has done it again ! What a terrific piece of work she has put together over at Slideshare !

Check out Surfing the Second Wave of Online Collaboration where you would be able to see the huge impact that all these new emerging technologies, i.e. social software tools or Web 2.0, are actually having in the world of online collaboration. Yes, I am sure that as you go through the different slides you would be able to read some of the stuff that I have also been talking around over here, but more than just covering online collaboration it would be more down to Knowledge Management in itself. I, too, believe that we are on that same comeback that Nancy mentions for Knowledge Management and Collaboration where thanks to that social software people are re-thinking of new ways of sharing knowledge and collaborating with others.

And her slides are just a good proof of what lies ahead. Some very exciting times ! Here is the Slideshare deck embedded into this weblog post, just in case you may want to check it out right away. See what you think and if you liked the show just head over to the original resource and drop a comment or two ! (I just did myself!)

Tags: Nancy White, Online Collaboration, Knowledge Management, KM, Knowledge Sharing, Remote Collaboration, Slideshare, Social Software, Social Networking, Web 2.0