Just like I have mentioned last week for the first time, here I am once again sharing a brief weblog post highlighting some of the most popular posts I have created over at my other Internet weblog elsua - The Knowledge Management Blog last week. Pretty much like last time, you would be able to find a direct link to that particular weblog entry and a short description of what the article would be about, which is actually taken from the RSS feed itself or my two cents worth of comments if the feed is not readily available. It seems that a few people have been enjoying that exposure to some of the other ideas I have been pondering about over at my ITtoolbox space so here are the top five most popular weblog posts from last week. Hope you enjoy some further reading:

1. 5 Reasons Why RSS Feeds Are not Popular - Avoiding Comparing Pears with Apples: Here is a weblog post where I am sharing my two cents worth of comments on a recent article at Hiveminds that clearly indicates why RSS feeds are not very popular. And my reaction to that is, are they really ? Well, we may need to stop comparing pears with apples, if you ask me…
2. Ed Yourdon - Web 2.0 Mind-Map Updated !: Here is a weblog post that talks about the latest updates that have gone through into the superb piece of work that Ed Yourdon has done in the web 2.0 mind-map: a must-read PDF file that clearly shows what Web 2.0 is all about and, much more importantly, what is actually implication for the business world and how it is changing it for good. Highly recommended download, to say the least.
Coincidentally, and in between that weblog post and today, Ed has just been updating the Web 2.0 mind-map and it is now going up to version 025. Excellent stuff !
3. 5 Key Steps towards Adopting Web 2.0 within the Enterprise: It looks like this particular weblog post keeps coming up as a popular one and I guess it is all due to the fact that perhaps people out there would want to find out some more about how IBM is making use of social software within the enterprise to encourage knowledge sharing and collaboration.
4. Delivering Real Knowledge Management Value - Where Learning and Knowledge Get Together: Here is a weblog post that shows how Knowledge Management has always been having a very close relationship with Learning and how through Lessons Learned both disciplines may be closer to one another than whatever anticipated. And if you think Lessons Learned are not valuable resources for helping boost knowledge sharing and collaboration read on …
5. The Web 2.0 Toolbar - The Best of Web 2.0 Right in Your Browser: This is also another popular weblog post from last week. It seems like people interested in the subject of Web 2.0 are finding their way into it, although I just wished that it would be able to work with Flock, just as good as it is working with FireFox. It seems like the social bookmarking feature is broken. We shall see what happens but I certainly looking forward to the day where it would be compatible with my favourite web browser!

And that was it, folks, for this week. Next week, I will be back with some more of this week’s popular posts from elsua - The Knowledge Management Blog. In the mean time, feel free to share your thoughts on either of them rather over here or at the original weblog posts.

Tags: elsua, ITtoolbox, Knowledge Management, KM, Social Software, IBM, Web 2.0, Ed Yourdon, Web 2.0 Toolbar, RSS, Syndication, Lessons Learned

Not long ago I created a weblog post over at elsua @ ITtoolbox where I was actually sharing my views and thoughts about one very impressive social software offering to be able to conduct online e-meetings effectively in order to share your knowledge with others and collaborate further much more efficiently. And all of that free of charge. That particular application is called View 2.0 and the actual review I provided back then could still be very much accurate since that latest release. However, and although I can certainly recommend you try out Vyew at any given point in time, I have also bumped into another fantastic resource around the world of e-meetings and screen sharing that I just thought I couldn’t let it go pass by just like that.

The weblog post actually comes from Robin Good’s Online Collaboration and Web Conferencing Breaking News - Kolabora.com and it was originally posted by Livia Iacolare. It is titled Screen Sharing Tools and Technology: A Mini-Guide and in it you would be able to find, perhaps, one of the most comprehensive and useful resources regarding the world of e-meetings and screen sharing tools. Because that is just exactly what that weblog post is all about: a review of 21 different screen sharing applications currently available out there that would allow you to host some very good online e-meetings. Yes, indeed, you read it right: 21 options ! Just awesome!

But that is not all of it because on that same weblog post, and specially for those folks who may not be familiar with what screen sharing is all about, there is also an entire section dedicated to clarify some of the myths behind screen sharing along with a compilation of the typical features of screen sharing. Indeed, quite an impressive resource and of those weblog posts that would keep you busy for a number of weeks trying out all of the different applications! Even after reading through Livia’s account of the most important options out there.

Thus if you feel you would have plenty of time to try them all out I can certainly suggest you give it a try and see how many you may have covered already and which ones you may want to try out at some other point in time. I have been exposed already to a good number of them, and I guess that I will actually be commenting on the ones that I have found incredibly resourceful and successful as time goes through. So stay tuned, because, yes!, there is still some more to come. But for the time being just head over to Screen Sharing Tools and Technology - A Mini Guide and get ready for some serious reading and some further involvement with some of those tools, because I bet that you would be getting exposed to more than one as time goes by. In one way or another.

Oh, if you go ahead and do that, don’t forget to weblog about it / them and let us know what you think. Perhaps we could compile a listing of reviews of the different tools and provide some first hand experiences on how to work with them to add further up on what Livia has put together already. But I guess that would be the subject for a good number of future posts. So, one step at a time, I would think, right?

Tags: Screen Sharing, E-Meetings, Virtual Meetings, Online Meetings, Collaboration, Remote Collaboration, Communities, Knowledge Management, KM, Social Networking, Social Software, Web 2.0, Kolabora, Robin Good, Vyew

In the past you would recall how I have actually been participating in IBM’s Shortcuts podcast in a couple of episodes sharing some thoughts and tips on getting the most out of social bookmarking. Well, I thought you would be interested in another episode, the first out of two, that I have just been working on with the Shortcuts team, but this time around the world of wikis and their adoption within the enterprise sharing some of the many different uses that knowledge workers could benefit from while adopting such wikis within whatever their businesses. We all know how powerful wikis are in general for groups to collaborate so this time around I have shared my thoughts on how some of those groups, specially communities, are making good use of such social software tool.

So if you would want to read or listen further to this week’s Shortcuts then check out Cut #13: How to use wikis at work (part one). In there I get to talk about how wikis are being used as Knowledge Bases, pretty much in the same fashion as online encyclopedias, with Wikipedia as one clear example. Then I talked about how wikis are also being used as project management tools to help augment the value of the already existing PM tools available out there, more than anything else from the perspective of allowing all project members to have a voice and share their thoughts and ideas of how the project is going and help build content on top of each other’s content to enrich the different levels of interactions so that knowledge workers do not get to hear just from a single source but from multiple of them.

Also I get to talk about wikis could well be used as handy communication tools where some of the noise that we all get on a daily basis from both e-mail and Instant Messages could be diverted towards those different wikis so that with the use of RSS feeds we would have the opportunity to control a bit of that noise and just receive and process the messages we would all really need to digest further.

And, finally, one other use for which wikis are being used, and actually one of my favourites, is the fact that plenty of wikis out there have been setup in order to allow knowledge workers capture their best know-how, their handy knowledge snippets, in short, their tacit knowledge, and from there build on top of each others content to then help work it through and perhaps convert it into Intellectual Capital that would then be shared at a later time in other, much more sophisticated, repositories, like Intellectual Capital databases.

So as you can see wikis can certainly be very powerful Knowledge Management and Collaboration tools, so much so that plenty of different groups within the enterprise are actually making use of them as huge boosters of the already existing interactions but bringing a new and fresh method for knowledge sharing where everyone is in control and able to build up content further on top of already existing content. Thus you can imagine that one of the key fundamental aspects for success in the adoption of wikis within the enterprise would be trust, but I guess that would be the subject for another weblog post…

For the time being, if you would want to listen some more what that first part on How to use wikis at work go over to the Shortcuts podcast site and and enjoy the show! (I surely did and I want to thank from here with a massive kudos the Shortcuts team for their kind invitation and for having me in the show, once more. Thanks guys !)

Tags: Wikis, Enterprise Wikis, Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise Social Software, Social Software, Web 2.0, Social Networking, Knowledge Management, KM, Collaboration, Knowledge Sharing, Communities, Shortcuts, IBM, Podcast, Podcasting, Tacit Knowledge, Project Management, Intellectual Capital, Communications

Sometimes I eventually get to watch different short video clips that leave me speechless, or deep into some further thoughts further and beyond about … stuff. I am sure you have bumped into a few of those as well. Here is the latest one (Taken from a TV commercial) that got me thinking for a while. All I can say is sometimes putting things into perspective is just priceless:

(Don’t you just love the tunes going with it, too ? I surely do !)

Tags: Fun Stuff, Musings, Life

Through Mike Gotta’s weblog Collaborative Thinking, I have just bumped into another interesting article around the subject of social networking adoption within the enterprise that I thought you would also find it an interesting and worth while reading piece, specially since some parts of it have got a lot to do with what I get to talk about over here around the world of Knowledge Management. The news article is titled Ways Businesses Can Use Social Networking and it was written by Christopher Carfi. In it you would be able to find a good number of different ways to make extensive use of social networking within whatever the business in order to connect with other knowledge workers, customers, business partners, etc. etc. to encourage some more knowledge sharing and collaboration making use of some of this social software.

I am not going to list them over here with the complete description of each of them. However, and as a teaser, I am going to just list the main headings and encourage you to go to the news article and read the rest of it over there. So here it goes:

a. "Customer and Membership Relationship Development
b. Customer Support (Connecting The Customer With The Right Source)
c. Use The Network To Find An Expert Or Locate Implicit Knowledge
d. Ease Post-Acquisition Integration
e. Provide The "Whole Product"
f. Understand And Visualize The actual Communication Paths Within The Organization
g. Supercharge Meeting Facilitation And Preparation
h. Increase The Value And Extend The "Shelf Life" Of Conferences
i. Pull Together The "All-Start Team" That’s Right For This Customer
j. Share Knowledge
k. Differentiate Your Service With Brand You
l. Prepare For Coming Demographic Changes In Business"

Pretty useful some of these practical uses of social networking within the enterprise, don’t you think? Well, as I said, if you would want to read through them I would suggest you take a look into the news article and read further because I am sure you are going to find it useful. And now, for the sake of tying up this weblog with some of the ideas that Christopher put together, here you have got a couple of my favourite quotes regarding a some of the different uses of social networking put together:

"Use The Network To Find An Expert Or Locate Implicit Knowledge
Only a fraction of an organization’s "knowledge" exists in databases. Another fraction exists in the form of explicit documents and reports that may be found on an organizational intranet. The vast majority of organizational knowledge, however, exists only in the heads of its members. Inside an organization, online networks with even basic profiles of its individuals’ experience, location and interests can greatly reduce the time required for organizational problem-solving, through enabling faster connection between a questioner and the person who has solved similar problems in the past."

Spot on ! I doubt I would have been able to say it better than that ! Of course, Christopher is just so accurate. That is, indeed, perhaps one of the most impressive enablers that social networking tools provide: reach to the experts and engage with them in the conversations. And collaborate!

"Share Knowledge
By connecting a social network with basic subscription technologies (such as RSS, or "Really Simple Syndication"), an individual can easily "subscribe" to updates from customers and colleagues. This enables a straightforward way to stay abreast of the goings-on in projects of interest, as well as a way to share knowledge within an organization without additional effort. It also addresses the issue of email overload, as knowledge is pulled by those who have a need or interest for updates, rather the updates being pushed to those who may have only tangential interest in an issue."

This quote is another one of my favourites that really makes stand out how more Knowledge Management programs would benefit from having a social networking strategy in order to help knowledge workers much more aware of what they know and how they may be able to share it with others and collaborate with them to bring forward not only a whole lot more knowledge but also to provide them with the capability of establishing, building and nurturing different relationships and connections that they may be able to reuse at some point in time and all that through the effortless usage of social networks within the enterprise. Can it get better than this ? I doubt it.

Tags: Web 2.0, Social Networking, Social Software, Social New Media, Knowledge Management, KM, Collaboration, Social Networks, Mike Gotta, Collaborative Thinking

I know that a few people from both of my Internet weblogs have been asking about this for quite some time and so far I have been given out bits and pieces of information hoping that one of these days I would be able to show you a much more complete picture. Well, one of these days is actually today and coming through to you straight from ibm.com. Andy Piper, one of my fellow IBM colleagues and a prolific weblogger, has already been talking about this.Yes, indeed, from now onwards you would just need to head over to IBM’s main homepage to be able to find an IBM’s blogroll with a whole bunch of links, and RSS feeds, to a good number of IBMers weblogging away out there in the wild blogosphere. Yes, that is right, this is just that weblog post to help answer the question that I keep getting every now and then: "Where can I find some more IBM blogs?" Well, now directly from IBM.

I am sure that you are aware of IBM’s developerWorks blogroll by now, specially if you would be interested in really technical topics. However, what has just been made available today tries to go further and beyond and show you different IBMers who are weblogging both at developerWorks and wherever else in the blogosphere out there. But before you get down to check through the blogroll let me take this opportunity as well to point you to some interesting reading that details how IBM came into endorsing weblogging, both internally and externally. Head over to Blogs go to work and read there all of the details on how we got started in the first place (I got my first weblog in IBM’s intranet in December 2003 and still running strong), including how we got to build the weblogging guidelines that we all try to follow more or less graciously, and a number of short interviews with some of IBM’s bloggers out there already who have shared their views on what weblogging has meant for them and their work, trying to answer the following questions:

"1. Three good reasons to blog about your work/job/career
2. The worst reason to blog about your work/job/career
3. Three business buzzwords you could gladly live without
4. Best non-IBMer blog you follow regularly
5. What has been an unexpected benefit or experience you’ve had thanks to your blog?"

As you would be able to see from that list of interviews, I am listed there, too, along with one of my Internet weblogs: elsua.net. Thus if you would want to find out why I first got into weblogging in the first place and what I am getting out of it you might as well head over there and read further, because I am sure you would find a surprising fact or two !

And once you are done with reading through all those insightful interviews, then you are ready to head over to IBM’s blogroll and start searching through those weblogs / webloggers and see if there would be any of them that would be of interest to you. I am sure there would be.

Now I only need to keep on pushing some of my fellow IBM KMers to get going with their own weblogs outside of IBM because if you head over there you would be able to see how I am one of the very few, if not the only one, who just weblogs about Knowledge Management when we all know how there are hundreds, if not thousands, of KM practitioners out there working in the field of KM. So I need to keep pushing and get some more voices out there and get them to dive into the conversations. It is just way too much fun for one person along, don’t you think? So where should I start? Hummm… Let’s see … who can I bug first?

(To be continued…)

Tags: IBM, IBM Blogroll, developerWorks, dW, IBM blogs, Enterprise blogs, Corporate Blogs, Metablogging, Blogging Guidelines, Blogging Policy, Knowledge Management, KM, Personal Knowledge Management, PKM