Tags: Wiki, E-Mail, Social Computing, Social Networking, Social Software, Web 2.0, Collaboration, Offline Collaboration, Knowledge Management, KM, Jotspot, Joe Kraus, ZDNet

Yes, I know. I am fully aware of it. I realise that you may have heard about that particular term, Wiki, a few times already. Probably many more times that you would care to digest in a single day. I guess you probably have had enough of it already. However, you would agree with me how there is a good amount of folks out there who still keep coming up to you, or to me, asking us to give them the short version of what a wiki is and see if it would be something that their teams, or their communities, would be able to make effective use of. I bet I am not that far off, right? So after having had a couple of folks approaching me this week with that same question I thought I would create a weblog post over here and comment on one of the most compelling videos put together and which clearly relate what wikis are all about that I have bumped into in a long while!

Check out What is a wiki?, over at ZDNet’s At the Whiteboard, where Joe Kraus, CEO? of Google Jotspot, gets to detail in under four minutes, what wikis are all about and why there is such a big roar about them at the moment. What is interesting about this particular video is how Joe gets to compare one of the most traditional, and perhaps restricted, methods for collaboration: e-mail, with wikis. And I must say that e-mail comes out as everything but the winner. And here is why.

Joe has put together a very compelling business scenario where it shows how much more you would be able to get from collaborating and sharing knowledge in a wiki than through traditional e-mail. Pretty impressive. Specially, because he gets to nail it down to a couple of factors such the success of wikis over e-mail as a much more powerful collaborative environment: visibility and keeping up to date with changes; tasks that you would agree with me e-mail has been very bad at all along.

However, Joe’s point of view is that wikis fix those issues and help you get all of the visibility you would want knowing that the information is always almost up to date. Yes, I am saying almost, because I realise that to have it all of the time up to date is going to prove impossible and not just with this tool but with all knowledge and collaboration tools out there. But it gets pretty close. You know what I mean.

So if you were thinking that e-mail is still one of the most powerful collaborative tools available out there nowadays I think you should also continue to look around elsewhere as well, because it is not the only one and, much more importantly, we actually have got plenty of different options available out there within the social computing realm and which are much more capable of hosting a much richer and meaningful collaborative environment. And wikis are just one of the many examples.

Yes, go and watch Joe Kraus’ video on What is a wiki? and find out in about 4 minutes why you would want to leave e-mail as just another communication tool and think that wikis may be one good answer to help improve your knowledge sharing and collaboration strategies. And if that didn’t help to convince you well enough about the business value from wikis, at least, we would always have the Wikipedia

Tags: WordPress, Metablogging, Blogging Engines, RSS, Feeds, Syndication, Category Syndication, Blogging Tips, WordPress Support

In the past, and in a couple of occasions, people have been asking me if I would be able to look into the request of placing RSS feeds per category in this particular weblog, so that folks would be able to filter even further the content they could grab themselves from elsua.net. The last one of those instances was actually coming from a fellow IBM colleague, Fabián Gradolph, in this particular weblog post, where he suggested I should look into it and see how easy it would be to implement, in order to help folks filter down those different weblog posts in Spanish. Well, while I am still thinking about that and how I am going to be sharing those Spanish speaking weblog posts over here I thought I would share with you why I really like WordPress.org.

Yes, indeed, I really like, and enjoy, WordPress.org. It totally rocks! And all that for multiple reasons, which I am sure I would have the opportunity to detail as we go along, but here is just another one as to why you would want to consider WordPress .org in order to host your own weblog and get the most out of it.

I was expecting that it would eventually become very difficult to actually syndicate the content per category using this particular weblogging engine, so I was ready to start digging all over the place, asking a few people about it, going through some trial and error scenarios and so forth in order to get it going, but wouldn’t you know it; a quick search through Google just brought me into this particular WordPress Support article: Separate RSS feeds for Different Categories.

In there you would be able to read how by just updating the call to wp_list_cats with this text:
wp_list_cats(’sort_column=name&optioncount=1&feed=RSS’); you would be able to get WordPress to auto-generate an RSS feed for each of the different categories that you may have created. And voilá! Off it goes. elsua.net has now got the option to syndicate all your content per category and straight into your favourite feed reader client. Awesome!

Now? How long did that take me ? About 15 seconds? Including the upload to the FTP? Perhaps. And I am ready to go. Yes, they say that social computing is all about empowering end-users to share their knowledge, collaborate and dive into the conversations but you cannot deny that it also helps lower the technology barriers even further so that anyone can actually do it. Like I have just detailed above. That is, indeed, one of the reasons why I really like weblogging, and in particular WordPress.org. Incredibly powerful, to say the least.

I doubt it would ever get any easier than this, but I am certainly that it is actually that easy. You can now go over to the weblog’s homepage, check out the right column section where you would be able to find the categories and next to each of the category names, the number of weblog posts thus far you will now find the (RSS) option that you can just copy and paste into your default feed client of choice and start grabbing that content from there onwards. Fantastic!

So if you ever thought that weblogging was just for techies, examples like this one show us otherwise. Now, I was also going to tell you about a new category that I have created but then it would make this weblog post rather long, so I am leaving it here for an upcoming weblog post to indicate what it is all about. I am sure you would all like it. And I got a whole bunch of material already piled up for it. Thus stay tuned ! (And subscribe to it, if you wish, whenever it is ready!)

Tags: Learning, Informal Learning, Informl, Jay Cross, Learning 2.0, Knowledge Management, KM, Collaboration, Communities, Social Computing, Social Networking, Social Software

Next to the usual topics that I get to talk about here in elsua.net, all of them related to Knowledge Management, there has been another topic that although not very much related to KM it has always been associated with it to some extent. Yes, indeed, I am talking about the subject of Learning. Many people have been indicating all along how Knowledge Management and Learning do actually walk hand in hand along the path of allowing people to share their knowledge with one another and collaborate much easier than with whatever else they may have tried in the past. I have always been part of that group that has felt very comfortable putting together Learning and Knowledge Sharing as perhaps one of the most interesting ways of allowing knowledge workers to become smarter at what they do and much more productive than using whatever other methods.

And along those lines, if all along I have been commenting on how Social Computing (i.e. Web 2.0 or Social Networking) is helping Knowledge Management come back with a splash, and big time!, then there is no denying that there is a movement out there, within Learning, that is actually helping it as well to be noticed a whole lot more as part of the usual day to day workflow. This particular emerging area has got a whole lot to do with what is called Informal Learning, of which the highest proponent of such interesting, and refreshing, new way of perceiving the way we learn things at work is Jay Cross. Indeed, Jay maintains a weblog about the topic of Informal Learning and if you would want to know some more about this particular subject browsing through the weblog would certainly help you get up to speed.

However, let me help you move faster along the learning curve for Informal Learning and point you to a recent weblog post Jay has put together where he has actually talked about the subject of Informal Learning. It is actually three different short videocasts (Two of 10 minutes and one of four) that he has shared over at YouTube and which make for an even stronger case about the crucial role this new way of learning is impacting the workplace. Perhaps at a later time, and in different follow up weblogs posts, I will get to share some further insights on something so fascinating and refreshing as Informl, but for the time being here we go with the embedded YouTube video clips:

Part 1, ten minutes

Part 2, ten minutes

Part 3: four minutes

Fantastic piece of work, Jay ! Very compelling, informative and enlightening!! Thanks for sharing !

PS. What an ending !

Here we go, once again, with some of the highlights from the most popular weblog posts of the week from my other Internet weblog, elsua - The Knowledge Management Blog, but this time around for week 46. As I have been doing thus far, I am actually going to share the top most read weblog posts of the week along with the RSS feed text I shared for each of the weblog posts for those ones which I haven’t talked about in the past so that you can get a glimpse of that particular weblog post and a hint as to why it may have been a popular one. Then if it is a repeat popular entry I would add some further insights on the weblog post itself.

Thus with all that said, here is the top 5 most popular weblog posts from week 46 from my other Internet weblog: elsua - The Knowledge Management Blog. Feel free to chime in the conversations rather over there or over here by appending a comment or offline, too.

1. Skype 3.0 - Entering the Realm of Online Collaboration with a Splash!: It looks like Skype has just released a new beta, Skype 3.0, which brings forward a whole bunch of new features. So here is a quick overview of how thanks to those same new features Skype is just about to finally distance itself from other IM and VoIP by putting together an impressive list of real-time online collaborative features set that everyone would be able to use. Prepare for businesses to start paying more and more attention to Skype. The fun has just got started !

2. Vyew 2.0 - Free Web Collaboration: For the second week running this particular weblog post seems to have become rather popular still. And somehow I must confess that I am not really surprised about it, because having used this e-meeting tool a few times already I can only say that it is a really worth while choice if you would want to have a new and refreshing experience about meeting online with your colleagues or friends to share stuff. It just makes the experience a delight. Highly recommended!

3. Entrepreneurs See a Web Guided by Common Sense - Is That Really So?!?: As if we didn’t have enough with Web 2.0 and all the hype going on around the subject of social software, here is an article from the NYT introducing the concept of Web 3.0. This is a weblog post in which I share why I am not really looking forward to such Web 3.

4. IBM’s Knowledge Management Strategy: This is actually one weblog post I created a few months back and which details IBM’s strategy with regards to Knowledge Management and where I touched base on four of the different key components that are part of that particular strategy: Asset Management, Expertise Location, Collaboration and On-demand Learning. Worth while a read for all those who would want to have a look into how IBM is trying to put together both the traditional KM and the next wave of KM pumped up with all this social computing movement going on at the moment.

5. How Is Your Email Etiquette?: For the fourth week running (I am not sure if I would be able to keep up with it, if it continues like this), this particular weblog post makes it into the Top 5 most popular weblog posts from elsua - The Knowledge Management Blog. Quite intriguing to still see how it keeps coming up over and over again as a topic very much related to collaboration. I guess things haven’t changed that much after all and we are still prone to collaborate through e-mail. Sigh.

And that was it, folks. Next week I shall be back with some more, for sure, including something else that I have been able to get just recently from the ITtoolbox folks, and that is the fact that not long ago I have started receiving statistics on the top 10 most popular weblog posts per months from elsua - The Knowledge Management Blog, so during the course of next week I shall be providing you, once a month, some of that data as well so that you can check for some interesting readings and their commentary and starting this time around with October. Thus stay tuned !

Tags: Metablogging, elsua, ITtoolbox, Skype, Vyew, Web 3.0, IBM, Knowledge Management, KM, E-Mail, Social Networking, Social Computing, Web 2.0, E-meetings, Expertise Location, Asset Management, Collaboration, Learning

What happens when you put up, in a couple of video clips, some really nice tunes to go along with some incredibly inspiring lyrics?

Well, this:

And this:

Awesome!

Tags: Mad World, Colours, Life, Fun, Balance, YouTube

Some time ago, you would remember how I mentioned that I was actually planning some more changes here in elsua.net and that over time those changes would eventually become a reality. Well, here we go with the next change I am about to implement, then, from now onwards. This time around it actually doesn’t have anything to do with the weblog template as such, but more with its content. No, not to worry, I am not going to stop weblogging about topics related to Knowledge Management, Collaboration, Communities, Social Computing, Work / Life Balance, and whatever else. On the contrary, I will be continuing to weblog on those topics but this time around elsua.net is actually going bilingual!

Yes, that is right ! As most of you already know, I am actually a native Spaniard, so my mother tongue is, of course, Spanish. And for some time now I have been thinking about trying out something over here, which was basically posting some posts not only in English, but also in Spanish, perhaps as my initial steps to enter the Spanish blogosphere (La Blogosfera!) and be able to conduct a number of different conversations related to KM but in my mother tongue.

It is actually going to be an interesting challenge because, believe it or not, most of my nearly 10 years of knowledge in the field of KM comes actually from the English speaking world, so it would be quite intriguing to find out how I am going to try to manage putting some of those thoughts in Spanish and still be able to make some sense out of it. Yes, I know, it is going to be a nice challenge though. It will help me polish those skills and expertise and adapt them to other languages other than English.

So from now on every other weblog post, still haven’t decided on the frequency just yet, I will be weblogging about KM stuff in Spanish, so if you are subscribed to my RSS feed, or if you check my weblog homepage, don’t think that someone may have taken over my weblog and made some havoc. It is probably just me making that havoc and checking out how that experience is going to work out. We shall see.

One thing though that I have noticed, while getting things ready, is that there are not many weblogs out there in the Spanish blogosphere around the subject of KM (Gestión de Conocimientos or Administración de Conocimientos). At least, I haven’t found any substantially interesting, and updated regularly, that I could add to my blogroll and share with you over here. I guess I would have to start small then. Thus if you are reading this and you know of a weblog written in Spanish dealing with topics related to KM, by all means please do let me know because there is a great chance that I would be subscribing (and linking) to it.

Right, that was it. I said it. It was about time! elsua.net is going bilingual from now onwards and I hope it proves to be an interesting and enriching experience. Oh, by the way, just in case your Spanish skills may be a bit rough or rather you may not be able to speak Spanish, not to worry, because you would be able to translate those weblog posts with one of the widgets I have been having on the weblog template for a while now. Just head down to on the right column and locate the section Translate This Page, select the corresponding language and translate away. Hopefully, the translation would be good enough to give you an idea and, if not, feel free to ask.

Finally, I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank three of my IBM fellow colleagues who have managed to continue further with that inspiration of jumping into the Spanish blogosphere: Fabián, César and Xavier. Thanks, guys !

Tags: Metablogging, elsua, Spanish blogs, Blogosphere, Blogosfera, Gestión de Conocimientos, Administración de Conocimientos, Fabián Gradolph, César Viteri, Xavier Verges