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

IBM developerWorks – Spaces, Gizmos and Web 2.0

Phew! Just finished the last Friday in my old job and the day has been incredibly busy. So hectic that I hardly had any time to prepare a blog post that I could share over here today in my Internet blogs, so I thought I would keep things sweet and short and share with you a Slideshare presentation that one of my fellow IBM colleagues from my new team, Rawn Shah, put together to demonstrate one of the most powerful Social Computing offerings that IBM’s developerWorks has put together. It is called Spaces and most probably it will not be the last time I will be blogging about it.

On the contrary, there are lots and lots of really nice and nifty things to say about Spaces, the level of interactions and customisations is incredibly rich and empowering, but for now I shall just leave you with this particular slide deck so that you can go through some of the incredibly good stuff that is going on at developerWorks in the Social Software space. And not to worry, there will be some more to come very soon …

Have a good one, everyone!

Tags: IBM, Rawn Shah, developerWorks, Developers, Emerging Technologies, Communities, Collaboration, Innovation, Spaces, Social Computing, Social Software, Social Media, Social Networking, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Collaboration, Remote Collaboration, Mashups

20 Knowledge Management Blogs I’m Currently Enjoying

The last couple of days have been rather busy at work, as I get to finalise the transition from my old job into the new one, but I thought I would share over here a blog post that I have meant to write a little while ago, but didn’t have a chance to till now. Some time ago John Tropea, author of Library Clips (One of my favourite and essential daily reads), created a blog post under 20 Blogs I’m Currently Enjoying, where he actually started a new meme by capturing 20 blogs he has been enjoying quite a bit lately.

That very same day Jack Vinson (Another one of my daily must-reads) created a follow up blog post to respond to John’s meme under the title Blogs I’m Enjoying of Late where he shared his list as well. And I thought that I should finally put together that list of 20 blogs I am enjoying a lot at the moment and that way I will be able to answer John’s challenge (By the way, thanks ever so much for the mention! It is greatly appreciated!) and share with you some of the stuff I have been reading recently.

So, following that same spirit, below you will find a list of 20 blogs, but with a little bit of a twist. I currently monitor several hundred feeds, so for me to reduce that to 20 is going to be rather difficult. I manage a number of different categories and having to chose 20 of those favourite blogs from each category is already quite a task! Thus since this particular blog is about Knowledge Management (Amongst other topics ) I thought about creating that list, but with 20 of my favourite blogs within the area of KM.

I want to make it very clear though that this is not my complete essential list of KM reads. To me, that would be the entire 200 KM blogs I am subscribed to right now and that I follow on a regular basis. What this list is, actually, is a whole bunch of folks who have grabbed my interest the most just recently and I will be adding a single line per blog detailing what may be of interest to you, so that you would have the opportunity to check them out further, if you wish to. And I will try to keep it short… Then perhaps at a later time I will be creating another post where I can share the complete list. But one step at a time. For now, let’s get down to business and share with you all that list of 20 Knowledge Management blogs:

- Anecdote: If you are interested in narrative, sensemaking and story telling and how they can be applied within a KM environment this blog from Shawn Callahan and Mark Schenk is an essential read.
- Chieftech is the blog where James Dellow gets to share some refreshing views of KM merging both traditional and next generation aspects. And quite-thought provoking some times, too!
- Cognitive-Edge by Dave Snowden. Talking about thought-provoking… This is probably as good as it gets! If you want to know where KM originated, where KM is and where KM will be in the next few years, this is it. Dave’s blog is all you need to take with you. Indispensable, engaging, enlightening, educational and most of the times mind-blowing!
- Collaborative Thinking where Mike Gotta will get to share with you, amongst many other things, how different businesses get to apply both traditional KM and next gen, perhaps with an extra focus on the latter and with a heavy presence from social computing.
- Gurteen Knowledge: Another essential read where David gets to share what I call an overall KM experience. If you are doing any KM related activity, whatever that may well be, there is a chance that David has not only done it, but blogged about it! Just like an open book. On KM, of course!
- eme ká eme with Miguel Cornejo Castro. This blog from Miguel has become one of my daily reads as being one of the very very few KM related blogs in Spanish (Articles in English, too!) that several times during the course of the last few months have helped understand where KM in Spain is (Violently agreeing with Miguel there are lots of work to be done still!)
- Engineers without Fears: To me one of the most energising re-entries into the KM space. Matt Moore surely has got a unique vision on what KM should be and believe me, it is not what everyone else thinks it is! Oh, and with a touch of genius, too!
- How to Save the World. I am not sure I ever said this about Dave Pollard’s blog, but I shall say once more. Those of us who have been doing KM for a while now will never be able to realise how grateful we all are to some of the stunning KM thought leadership that transpires from his blog. It is one of those amazing KM reads you engage with time and time again while savouring a lovely cup of coffee!
- Green Chameleon with Patrick Lambe. There is very little that I can say about Patrick that has not been said elsewhere. If you are looking for a unique, witty, thought-provoking approach towards what KM should be Patrick’s blog is all you need! Enough said!
- KM Space with Doug Cornelius. Another blog that I discovered just recently in the KM space and the reason why I am enjoying it quite a bit is Doug’s thoroughness in putting together some really nice and well thought-out blog articles on KM! And he is also very good at live con-blogging!
- Knowledge Jolt with Jack, like I said, Jack Vinson’s blog is one of my favourite daily reads, specially for his talent in venturing away from traditional KM into the next gen and do a superb job at it!
- Library Clips, to me, is one of the best Librarian 2.0 KM blogs available out there! Without a single doubt! I know that KM has never been very grateful to librarians, but stuff of the quality and impressive essays you can find at John’s blog are very difficult to find. If you want to see how you can apply successfully a good bunch of social software tools for KM and, specially for Personal KM, I strongly encourage you all to check out his blog. You will thank me later …
- frogpond with Martin Koser. Another of my daily must-reads who over the course of the last few months has been able to help me educate myself on new ways of applying KM successfully. He is also one of the very very few KM people that I know who uses del.icio.us quite extensively annotating most of the different URLs. If you are looking for topics to blog about, check his del.icio.us and get yourself some free time. You are going to need it to enjoy the ride.
- McGee’s Musings, with Jim McGee, is probably one of the oldest KM blogs that I follow and the thing that I enjoy the most from Jim’s articles is the fact that despite the years I am still very keen on reading his various thoughts around KM topics, because there is always the chance I will learn something! Always refreshing and renewing himself.
- Perfect Path, with Lloyd Davis, is where you can get a grasp of how KM is evolving thanks to social computing into the next generation of KM. Want to know about some of the latest social software tools? Then Lloyd’s blog is the perfect path for you!
- Portals and KM, another one of my all time favourite KM blogs, where Bill Ives has spent the last few months on exploring emerging technologies and apply them to KM successfully by sharing his experiences and expertise on the subject. It is one of those reads for everyone interested in finding out where KM is heading. Another must-have!
- Soulsoup, with Anol Bhattacharya, is one of those incredibly helpful KM blogs with some deep reflections on where KM is heading at the same time that Anol gets to share some of the most interesting KM finds around coming from all over the place. Always different. Always unique. Always something to say about Knowledge Management.
- Weekly Knowledge Management blog by Stan Garfield, one of my other indispensable reads where if you want to know where is the hot action in KM during the course of the week you can just head over to Stan’s blog and you will find there really good and useful conversations on the topic. Stan has got an amazing talent and gift to digest really complex KM topics and present them in a form that just sells by itself. Wish he would blog more regularly … heh
- Ton’s Independent Thoughts, with Ton Zylstra, is one of those blogs that will keep you engaged reading for hours to come. Ton uses his blog to share stuff related to his own experiences with both KM and social software. You will be able to find out there how various different social computing tools are actually helping him become much more successful with his own Personal KM strategy. Oh, and he is always on the cutting edge of technology!
Wirearchy, finally, is probably one of the KM blogs that I have been enjoying as well for quite some time now. Jon Husband’s wit and unique sense of humour around KM is just pure genius and very contagious! And he always has got an opinion that will make you think twice. No matter what, he is the kind of person who enjoys conversations around KM to the extreme and one of the folks from whom you always have to learn a thing or two. Truly inspirational!

Phew! And that was it! Long post, I know, but you will have to excuse me for it. Got too excited and carried away sharing with you folks that list of 20 KM blogs that I have been reading quite a bit lately and enjoying thoroughly. Hope you enjoy them, too! It is funny that all of these blogs are part of my daily readership, yet, I haven’t been commenting in most of them for quite some time! Well, I hope that with this blog I can share with them the good news that I am still there, reading away, wishing to find the opportunity to chime in and share a comment or two. It will come, I know, one step a time, it will come.

And now the challenge is on to them, whether they would want to share their list of 20 KM blogs or not… Hope they take the baton on and may I tag you so, too!

Tags: Knowledge Management, KM, Knowledge Sharing, Learning and Knowledge, Personal Knowledge Management, PKM, KM, KM 1.0, KM 2.0, Social Media, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Collaboration 2.0, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Remote Collaboration, Virtual Collaboration, John Tropea, Library Clips, Jack Vinson, Anecdote, Shawn Callahan, Mark Schenk, Chieftech, James Dellow, Cognitive-Edge, Dave Snowden, Colalborative Thinking, Mike Gotta, Gurteen Knowledge, David Gurteen, eme ká eme, Miguel Cornejo Castro, Engineers without Fears, Matt Moore, How To Save the World, Dave Pollard, Green Chameleon, Patrick Lambe, KM Space, Doug Cornelius, Knowledge Jolt, frogpond, Martin Koser, McGee’s Musings, Jim McGee, Perfect Path, Lloyd Davis, Portals and KM, Bill Ives, Soulsoup, Anol Bhattacharya, Weekly Knowledge Management, Stan Garfield, Ton’s Independent Thoughts, Ton Zylstra, Wirearchy, Jon Husband

Government Next By Tara Hunt

A lot has been said in the past from different industries around their faster / slower adoption of social computing and social software behind the corporate firewall. Some of them, like Education, have been relatively successful in their adoption rate, whereas others keep struggling, even while trying to understand some of the key concepts, like the example of the banking and government industries.

Well, today, I am just going to expand further on that thought, specially from the Government industry perspective, where perhaps the adoption has not been as rampant as you would have expected, even though plenty of governments out there, and, finally, after several years, are starting to open up things and diving into blogs, for instance. I am sure that you would be able to come up with a few examples from different governments who are already heavily involved with blogging.

However, I am thinking … why stop there? Why not go all the way and try to help embrace and adopt some other social computing technologies that have been out there for as long as blogs have been and start making a difference with the way governments reach out to their citizens?

Don’t you think that it is about time now? I am not sure what you would think, but I have always felt that there is just such a huge opportunity from our local governments to get us all much more interested in politics with social software than ever before. I can imagine that plenty of folks would feel very nervous about that, about the openness, about letting it go, about leaving behind the command-and-control attitude, about trust and the list goes on and on and on. Well, let me show you something.

Check out one of the latest presentations that Tara Hunt (a.k.a. missrogue) has put together already in Slideshare under the title Government Next. I must say that I have been following Tara’s work for quite some time now and this is probably one of the most incredible pieces of work she has put together that I have seen around the adoption of social software by one of the so-called difficult-to-get-the-buy-in industries.

Yes, I can understand that going through a presentation of 170 slides may be a turn off, but I must say that it is not the case at all. And most of you know how I feel about presentations. The truth is that Tara’s Government 2.0 slide deck is a wonderful piece of work that you breeze through in no time having learned a whole bunch of stuff on what you could as a government, while trying to adopt different social software tools.

In it, you would see Tara mentioning some really key concepts to social computing, such as branding, authenticity, social pursuits, collaboration, security, privacy, declarative living, trust (Which works both ways, by the way), openness, community, transparency, blogs, wikis, discussion groups, group chat, Twitter and how they can be used for, with some really good concrete examples.

From there onwards, Tara puts the money on the thought around collaboration and how you can encourage collaboration by following some basic guidelines, which I am going to reproduce briefly over here, but which I strongly encourage you to check out further in the presentation itself, because I am sure it will be worth while the time:

1. Be a platform
2. Publish everything in open channels
3. Be available
4. Embrace the chaos
5. Provide clear goals and purpose
6. Reward collaborators
7. Show progress
8. Take simple steps first
9. Reach out to people from different backgrounds and industries
10. Be part of the community
11. View the public as a partner, not a recipient
12. Run real open betas

Finally, from there onwards the presentation will just detail further the key role that serendipitous knowledge discoveries and communities do play in the whole equation of adopting social software within a governmental environment and how you can benefit the most from the overall movement of social computing. And guess what, at the heart of the matter and throughout the slide deck one single recurrent theme keeps popping up: Trust, one of the key fundamental success factors from any social networking tool.

Like I said, Tara’s Government Next is probably as good as it gets as far as progressing further into Government 2.0 and further beyond, because most of her slides could also be applied to whatever other industry. Here is the embedded video so that you can check it out for yourself, enjoy its wonderfulness and help spread the message around:

Easier than you thought, right? Let’s bring it on!

Tags: Education, Learning, Banking, Government, Industries, Tara Hunt, missrogue, Government Next, Government 2.0, Social Media, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Collaboration 2.0, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Management, KM, Knowledge Sharing, Learning and Knowledge, Remote Collaboration, Virtual Collaboration, Branding, Authenticity, Security, Privacy, Declarative Living, Trust, Openness, Transparency