Tags: Enterprise 2.0, Web 2.0, Social Computing, Social Software, Social Media, Social Networking, Collaboration, Communities, Knowledge Management, KM, Knowledge Sharing, Innovation, Technology Adoption, Culture, Personal Knowledge Management, PKM, Conversations, Weblogs, Wikis, Social Bookmarks, Podcasts, Tagging, Syndication, Critical Mass

I am having a day off today and, although I have spent a good amount of time making all of the different preparations for the upcoming trips I will be doing over the next few weeks, I still managed to spend some time this morning catching up with some RSS feeds. As usual, I was able to find a couple of, what I call, serendipitous knowledge accidents that I thought would be worth while sharing over here as they cover subjects that I have been talking about in the past. The first one comes from the Digital-Telepathy (Internet Marketing Strategy & News) weblog and it is titled How to Build an Enterprise 2.0 Culture.

It is actually a rather short weblog article with a number of worth while reading reference links at the very bottom that will make for an interesting and enlightening read as to why businesses should be paying attention to the social computing space in order to help their knowledge workers improve the way they share their knowledge and collaborate with others. As I said, it is a good read, indeed, if you would want to find out some more what some of the different advantages of embracing social software tools would be, but let me just quote over here a couple of gems that I am sure you would find equally relevant to the discussion:

"Somewhere inside those blogs posts, wiki comments and forum discussions are golden nuggets of information that could give executives some insight into the culture of the company, the next big idea or just reoccurring issues that need to be addressed before they get out of hand. Every person on your staff has something to say, so why not give them somewhere to say it" (Emphasis mine)

This is exactly one of the main reasons as to why I got involved with social computing about five years ago and why, throughout the years, I am still as excited as I was back then. This is actually one of the main reasons as to why I have always believed that social computing would bring back Knowledge Management, along with Personal Knowledge Management, into the spotlight and start balancing out that extra focus that has always been placed on both tools and processes leaving behind the people. Remember that pyramid graphic chart showing the three of them interconnecting with one another? Well, here is social computing bringing in the people aspect into play for any KM successful strategy. All in all in combination with both the tools and the process. All three now walking hand in hand to enhance the overall knowledge sharing experience.

At the same time, this is also a quote that I have found rather interesting from the perspective of how plenty of folks out there seem to be constantly saying that the blogosphere is full up with uninteresting information (To make use of a mild word) from different bloggers who are just sharing their silly thoughts that would be of no interest to anyone as they do not provide business value to them. Hummm, what can I say about that? How do you judge that? Just because a weblogger and his thoughts are of no interest to yourself, or those who you read, does not mean it provides whatever value add to others. The key thing in here is that people are empowered to share what they feel would be worth while sharing with others and that at some point there would be other folks out there who would be able to connect with those webloggers because of the content they share. As simple as that.

So just because it is not useful to you, it doesn’t mean it would not be useful for anyone else. We are all entitled to have a voice and express our own thoughts and ideas in whichever way we decide to go ahead with whether it will be done for a business reason or not. It will then be up to others to stick around or not, but don’t underestimate the power of knowledge sharing by every single knowledge worker out there, because there is a great chance that you will eventually bump into different "golden nuggets of information" that you would be able to reuse at some point and, why not?, find ways to connect with those different knowledge workers that you may not have thought possible in the past.

The other relevant quote that I wanted to share over here, based on different conversations I have been having in the past, is this one:

"Enterprise 2.0 not only works on the internal area of your business; it provides valuable insight into the B2B arena […] Now do you read this and head back to your CEO and tell them, we need a blog, wiki, forum and live chat. Turning the big ship takes time, so start off by implementing one new social tool into your organization and see what kind of feedback you get"

A couple of interesting things in here. First one, is that social computing adoption should not be something that would be just happening internally alone. On the contrary, perhaps even much more useful it would be when adopting social software tools to reach out to customers and vice versa, allowing customers to provide you constructive feedback interacting with the multiple options you may put together, i.e. wikis, weblogs, podcasts, social bookmarks, etc. etc. As we all know, it is about getting the conversations going and building further up on the strong statement that innovation happens through close collaboration between both parties and, if anything, social computing tools are terrific to help spark those conversations and get them going in the first place.

And on top of that, you would be building up a closer relationship with your customers by allowing them to participate from the development process of your tools, offerings and solutions by interacting in common social software tools available to both internal and external audiences. So from here onwards it is perhaps now time to start questioning the usage of a firewall as it may be hindering your multiple methods of innovating with your customers. Some further food for thought, I am sure…

Finally, the last comment that quote sparked from my own experiences is that you do not necessarily need to start with a fully blown social computing tools suite to get those interactions going. You can always start small. And probably you should. For instance, just implementing blogs behind the firewall and allowing knowledge workers to have their own and get things going may be the best approach. Then at a later time they themselves would be the ones triggering the move on to the next one, which is probably when wikis, or social bookmarks, or syndication, or whatever else would come into place. And continue to build up from there till you have got a comfortable tools suite that everyone is not only familiar with, but that they would be more than willing to make extensive use of it as well.

The good thing about approaching social computing’s adoption within the enterprise in this particular way is that one that would allow knowledge workers to figure out their level of consumption from the different tools they have been exposed to. And from there onwards leave it down to them to decide which tools they would want to stick around with and allow them to become the critical mass that will drive the wider adoption of those different social software tools.

As you would be able to see from this weblog entry, building an Enterprise 2.0 culture may not be as difficult as what most people seem to think. Perhaps the most important initial step towards a successful cultural change in this area is for us all to let go that command-and-control attitude that still seems to be floating around all over and help empower knowledge workers to be just that: people collaborating and sharing across the board their knowledge with others by focusing more on the social aspects of knowledge sharing than whatever else they may have been exposed to in the past. That is the way forward. That is what will shape the change of different businesses from a labour-based business into an asset / knowledge based one. And it will be up to us, knowledge workers, to decide which way we would want to go.

Tags: Emanuele Quintarelli, InfoSpaces, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Social Computing, Social Networking, Social Media, Social Software, Web2.Oltre, Web2Oltre, Dion Hinchcliffe, Lee Bryant, Jeff Nolan, Richard MacManus, Italy, Startups, Knowledge Management, KM, Knowledge Sharing, Collaboration

A couple of weeks back, Emanuele Quintarelli, one of the folks in the social computing space whose weblog I have been subscribed to for quite some time now, and also a good friend, shared an article on a conference event that he is putting together for Reed Business Information and which will be taking place on the 13th and 14th of June 2007 in Milan around the subject of Web 2.0 and how business can take the most out of it. The title of the conference is Web2.Oltre, Business and Opportunity for the New Web and you would be able to read some more about it over here, although in Italian.

I must say that on the various conversations we have been having through e-mail and Skype I have actually been admiring the incredible piece of work Emanuele has put together thus far into making something like that happen. Not only has he managed to provide a very compelling program for the two day event (In English), getting together some of the most knowledgeable individuals in the Web 2.0 space at the moment (Dion Hinchcliffe, Lee Bryant, Jeff Nolan, amongst others), but also he has managed to draw some more attention from different businesses around the subject of social computing and successfully managed to get them into the conversation of why they cannot longer ignore the social computing space.

Now, I am sure that for most folks reading this weblog entry out there this may be something that you would consider a piece of cake, or, at least, relatively easy, specially given the huge amount of different social software events currently taking place all over, but Emanuele’s merit, and you would have to agree with me on that, is the fact he has managed to pull this together in Italy where perhaps social computing has not taken everything by storm, pretty much like it has in the U.S., for instance.

I mean, I seem to recall a weblog entry published by Richard MacManus some time ago where he talked about the healthy status of Web 2.0 in Italy, yet, somehow I am missing how the enterprise world is trying to adapt most of that Web 2.0 experience into the corporate world. And this is where, indeed, Web2.Oltre kicks in, because not only will it bring forward the conversations around the subject of social computing, but it would also get businesses talk about it, share experiences on whatever they may be doing, learning and leveraging what others have been adopting thus far, share lessons learned and whatever other experiences in how it all may have improved the way they are sharing knowledge and collaborating across the entire business.

Indeed, something to follow up on. They have even set up a weblog for the event itself, which you can find over here, so that they can start sharing some more information about the different challenges and how to overcome them. And although I do realise that it is in Italian it will certainly help people understand how this conference came together to be perhaps one that will kick things off and help accelerate the adoption rate of social computing in Italian businesses. Who knows. One thing for sure, is that if you check out the official homepage, you would be able to see how much effort, involvement, commitment, excitement and passion has been put into it to make it happen.

It would certainly be one of those events that I would have loved to make, for sure. I told Emanuele already that, unfortunately, I had other commitments to attend to, but if you have a chance to be in Milan around the 13th of 14th of June I would certainly encourage you to be there, because there is a great chance that not only you would be learning a whole lot more about Web 2.0, but also how to apply all of that knowledge and expertise to a business environment, which is where, I guess, most of us would want to end up in at some point. Or, at least, get the conversations started.

So, from here, a big thanks to Emanuele for putting together such a fine event and wishing him lots of great success ! And many many more events like this one to come, for sure! Why not? The more exposure we have to it, the better for us all.

Tags: Ghost Weblogging, Ghost Blogging, Blogging, Metablogging, Authenticity, Dilbert, Tina The Tech Writer, Musings

In a day where you have been back to back with multiple conference calls and meetings you wish that by the end of it words would come to you as easy as first thing in the morning when you are all fresh and ready to do some work! Yet, those words fail to come to you whenever you confront yourself with the creation of another weblog entry, like in this case. Well, after one of such days I guess I run out of words or, rather, my brain is thinking about something else and not processing the way it should.

So, instead of me putting together some words that I doubt would be coherent enough, I am just going to be doing some light weblogging and instead share with you one particular cartoon, from the one and only, that describes very graphically, what ghost weblogging is all about. Of course, it had to be Tina The Tech Writer. Three different vignettes that you can describe with a single expression: spot on!

Still think that ghost weblogging is a good thing? Well, stay tuned because very soon I will be sharing some further thoughts on this particular topic, specially after an exciting conversation I had earlier on today and of which you will be hearing some more about shortly… Very shortly.

(Previously, on elsua - The Knowledge Management Blog, at ITtoolbox)

Tags: Quintura, Blinkx, Search Engines, Search 2.0, Knowledge Tools, Social Computing, Social Media, Social Networking, Social Software, Web 2.0, Knowledge Management, KM, Knowledge Sharing, Content Management, Google, Visualisation, Video, Video Search

You may remember how there have been a few times that I have been talking in both of my Internet weblogs about one particular search engine that, as time goes by, I am really starting to be very fond of: Quintura. Yes, that is right! I know that most people out there would say that why should you bother with other search engines when you have got Google, the one and only, right? Well, I have said this in the past, and I guess I will be saying it as well once more: just because of that very same reason. Because it is always a good thing to check out things from the other side and see if they would still stick together for you.

In my own case, Google doesn’t stick together as much as I would be hoping for. There are times where I am looking for something a bit more innovative than just another regular search engine and in that particular case I have got a bunch of dedicated innovative search engines that I have grown to become very fond of. One of such pack is Quintura and by the looks of it, I am not sure what you think, but it seems that things are getting even better. And not just for Quintura.

You probably have seen this already elsewhere, but still I think it would be a good thing to include it over here as well for the sake of the flow from this weblog entry. A couple of days ago I got an e-mail from Yakov where he was announcing that Quintura and Blinkx are to Visualise Video Search. Now, how cool is that? Or, better, how innovative is that? *Very*. Well, here is an excerpt of the announcement:

"Blinkx, the largest video search engine on the Web, has announced that Quintura, a visual discovery engine dedicated to finding web-based entertainment easier and more intuitive, will use blinkx to power video search on www.Quintura.com.

Quintura employs a unique graphical user interface with an interactive tag cloud to visually navigate and easily refine searches. Quintura’s neural networking technology discovers related search terms to the initial query and presents those terms as the interactive tag cloud. Users can then refine or narrow down their searches by clicking on any word or phrase in the cloud.

Under the terms of the agreement, blinkx will power a video search functionality on www.Quintura.com, allowing Quintura to leverage results from blinkx’s index of over 7 million hours of rich media content."

Are here you have got a couple of quotes from both parties involved:

""blinkx’s large video index is a perfect compliment to our graphical user interface,"said Yakov Sadchikov, CEO and Founder of Quintura. "As the Web becomes more visual and rich with content, people are looking for better ways to find video online. blinkx’s video search index combined with Quintura’s visual discovery engine provides users with a unique search experience. This new service has become possible due to technology innovations of our companies in visualizing search and indexing online video."

"We are excited to be powering video search for Quintura," said Suranga Chandratillake, CTO and Founder of blinkx. "Through blinkx’s advanced speech recognition technology, we are able to deliver better results than typical rich media search engines, giving Quintura users the ability to find, experience and share all forms of online video.""

Yes, indeed, I will say it again. How innovative is that? In an Internet world where more and more rich media is being produced all over the place there is a time where you probably need to step away from conventional search engines to still be able to find all of that social media content, because there is probably a time where you would need to watch that video or find that important presentation recorded in video format, or watch that particular screencast on how a particular tool works and so forth, and perhaps there may be certain search engines not apt for the job.

Well, definitely both Quintura and Blinkx are not having that problem, because this particular announcement is certainly going to help them become a whole lot more attractive from the perspective of being able to not only provide the right content at the right time, but also from a wider range of social media tools, which is, after all, what we are all probably looking for. A single point of entry where we can search for any kind of related content to the topics we are interested in. And both Quintura and Blinkx certainly do a great job in that, I tell you.

I know that in the past I have not been weblogging much about Blinkx, but I have still been using it quite extensively all of the place, because otherwise where do you think am I getting all of the different inspiring videos I have been sharing all along And certainly now with the joint work put together between Quintura and Blinkx things are going to get easy, way *too easy*, to find all of the content you would be interested in the first place. That is for sure.

This is just what innovation is all about and in an area that you probably thought it was all done and invented, right? Well, not quite. Here you have got two interesting players showing us all that we may not have reached the limit just yet…

Tags: IBM, Connections, Quickr, Lotus Connections, Lotus Quickr, Lotus Notes 8, Notes 8, Groupware, Screencasts, Demos, e-mail, Calendaring and Scheduling, Instant Messaging, Activity Centric Computing, Composite Applications, Mashups, Syndication, Newsfeeds, RSS, Atom, Integration, Social Computing, Social Networking, Social Software, Social Media, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Knowledge Management, KM, Knowledge Sharing, Collaboration, Remote Collaboration

It looks like the last couple of days I have just been posting about particular screencasts that have become available regarding IBM offerings that are in the pipeline to go live some time during the course of this year and which touch the realm of knowledge sharing and collaboration. So far I have been posting about Lotus Connections, then Lotus Quickr and it looks like I may well have one more for you. At least, for now. This time around on another offering that I have been making use of myself for a number of months and which some of you may find interesting as well, specially since it is something that I have covered over here already in the past and which I mentioned I would be digging into it further some more.

Yes, I am talking about the next version of Lotus Notes 8, currently in beta 2, and which will go live some time during the course of this year. Not far from where we are today, actually. Going along with the previously mentioned screencasts on Connections and Quickr here you have got another screencast on the subject of Lotus Notes 8. It lasts for a bit under six minutes. And pretty much like with the other two, you can download the demo directly from here or get a copy of the script over here as well. It is one of those demos that I would certainly recommend to all those folks out there who would want to see the word groupware reinvented, once again. Whether you like the application or not, this particular screencast will show you what Notes 8 has got to offer. Lots of things, you would agree with me, but if there is anything clear coming out of it is the fact that it is no longer just that e-mail client that people seem to have learned to love or hate.

It will be a whole lot more than that. Yes, it would allow you to still process and work with your mail, and implementing a lovely set of features for that, too, by the way, but the key thing is how Notes 8 is going to extend its reach into other areas to encourage knowledge sharing and collaboration both in a synchronous and asynchronous fashion.

In this particular demo you would then be able to find out a whole lot more about how the new Lotus Notes integrates plenty improved e-mail, calendaring & scheduling capabilities along with Instant Messaging, next to Activity Centric Computing and Composite Applications. Features like improved threaded discussion follow up, side preview, recalling messages that have been sent out already, etc. are now put together with sidebar applications, like Lotus Sametime 7.5.1, Activity Centric Computing, Quickr Content Libraries or a customised RSS / Atom feed client that you can use to subscribe to your favourite feeds.

You would also be able to see from that screencast how Lotus Notes 8 provides an enhanced calendaring feature that, if anything, will be noticed for its compatibility with other popular Internet calendaring formats. From there onwards, you would also be able to check how the Address Book has been improved tremendously with business cards where you can see the pictures of your contacts along with some key basic data, making it a lot easier to remember who you have worked with in the recent past.

And from there onwards we go into the most exciting part of the demo itself which is basically talking about Composite Applications, also known as mashups, and how Notes 8 is actually going to introduce them as part of the client itself. In this particular demo you would be able to see a concrete example of one mashup and how it has been put together into the Notes 8 client itself. This is certainly going to be one of the most popular features from this offering as it would allow end-users to create their own mashups within Notes and share them with whoever else in the project teams. And all of that without having to make use of any other application. Pretty nifty.

Finally, the screencast finishes off sharing some further details on how you can also access Office applications like a word processor, a spreadsheet and a presentation to be able not only to create your own Office documents, but also to process a wide range of files you may be receiving in your Inbox from other knowledge workers. And again without having to leave the Notes client. All of them are nicely put together into a single seamless experience. Quite handy, if you ask me, don’t you think?

So, there you go. The last weblog post on screencasts demoing IBM tools that I will be doing for a while and which touch base on the next generation of Lotus Notes, Notes 8, which is probably going to differentiate itself from its former predecessors as the one client that puts together traditional communication tools like e-mail and calendaring along with several other social computing components, like RSS / Atom feeds syndication, Activities, Quickr, Composite Applications and Lotus Sametime 7.5.1.

Not too bad for just another e-mail client…

(Previously, on elsua - The Knowledge Management Blog at ITtoolbox I created the attached weblog entry and, as time goes by, I just cannot wait for the day when I can get my hands on one of these, specially now that it has become available and a lot cheaper than what I thought it would be!)

Tags: Mobile 2.0, Social Computing, Social Networking, Web 2.0, Social Media, Mobile Workforce, Twitter, Nokia, N95, YouTube, Gizmodo, Matt Miller

(Picture courtesy from Steve Garfield)

There is no doubt that as time goes by Mobile 2.0 is becoming more and more relevant to the mobile workforce in their social computing consumption and as such there is always a great chance that those same mobile knowledge workers would always be out there looking for that killer mobile device that would help them enjoy the Mobile 2.0 experience just as much as their regular Web social computing experience.

Well, it looks like I may be one of those, because for the last few weeks / months I have already been searching for such mobile device that would help me further with my social computing experience while I am on the road travelling to different places, specially with the recent trips I have been doing and those that are left for the remaining of the year.

And it seems that I may have found what I have been looking for all along. Just the other day, in Twitter, one of my good friends shared a hat-tip on the latest gadget coming from Nokia, the N95. That tip was this particular video from YouTube where you can watch a really good , and thorough, overview of what it has got to offer. And as you would be able to see, it is not that bad. Not bad at all!

Another friend of mine also shared with me the link to the review that Gizmodo did a few days back and over there you would be able to read as well not only some of the great things about it, but also some of the cons that the N95 may have, mainly, issues with the battery life.

Even here, in ITtoolbox, James shared a short weblog post where he mentioned how Matt Miller has posted an extensive review of the device itself that would be worth while checking, for those interested. And at this stage you may be wondering why I have written this particular weblog entry, right?

Well, like I mentioned at the beginning of the weblog post, for the last few months I have been searching for the killer app. mobile device that would help me with my own social computing experience while I am travelling, and whatever else, and after watching all of those different reviews that I have mentioned above, and a few others, I have finally decided that as soon as the device becomes available in Spain I am going to go for it. It does meet my needs for most of what I would want to do with it, and although there are some cons (i.e. that battery life), I still feel the pros outnumber the cons. And big time!

Only thing remaining though would be the price tag, which seems to be on the high range, but I guess you will all find out about that very shortly, as I have been advised it will become available before the end of this month. But so far it looks like a winner. At least, to me. I will leave it for a later time to detail what some of those needs are and how the new N95 Nokia gadget meets them all and quite nicely, if in the end I decide to purchase it…