Tags: IBM, IBM Lotus Connections, Lotus Connections, Connections, Profiles, Communities, Weblogs, Dogear, Social Bookmarks, Activities, Activity Centric Computing, Lotus, Screencasts, Knowledge Management, KM, Knowledge Sharing, Collaboration, Remote Collaboration, Social Computing, Social Networking, Social Software, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0

In the past, you would remember how there have been a number of times where I have been talking extensively over here about the upcoming release of an IBM product in the area of social computing for the Enterprise called Lotus Connections. I know as well plenty of folks have shown their interest in getting to know some more about this particular offering, since most of those different weblog entries that I have created thus far have been amongst the most visited over a short period of time. So with that in mind I thought it would be the perfect opportunity for me to bring things further into the next level.

Seeing Lotus Connections perform live! Yes, that is right! Instead of me telling you some more on what is actually behind such offering as far as talking on the subject of Profiles, Communities, Weblogs, Dogear (Social Bookmarks) and Activities, I think it would be a whole lot more beneficial if we would actually get to watch it live and check how each of the different components come together into a single unified collaborative and knowledge sharing experience.

Take a look then at the following demo that the IBM Lotus folks have been putting together:

• Lotus Connections.

It is a screencast that lasts for a bit over six minutes and in it you would be able to see how Connections actually works, which is probably as good as it gets. Because with that particular business end-user scenario you will be able to watch some of the very practical uses that this particular application has got to offer and how knowledge workers can benefit from it not only from the perspective of improving the way knowledge gets shared across but also how those same knowledge workers connect with one another to collaborate on getting the job done. And all of that without having to use multiple other tools in the process.

As you may be able to see from the Web site where the screencast is stored, you can watch the demo live or rather download it so that you can view it a later time offline. Whatever is easier for you. And also for those folks who may be looking for the script of the screencast you can also download it from here. 

Thus without much further ado and without taking too much time off from you for the demo itself, I would strongly encourage you all to take a look into the screencast on Lotus Connections and find out some more as to how IBM is planning to progress further into adopting social computing within the Enterprise and beyond. I bet that you will find it quite entertaining and enlightening. Because, above all, you will be able to see something very important and which may not be just related to Connections, nor to IBM itself: the fact that you can conduct effective business using social computing to address real customers issues and find solutions for them in the shortest time possible by empowering people to reach out for information and connect with other knowledge workers. Yes, that is right. Putting together the best of both worlds: knowledge and the people behind that knowledge. Can social computing get better than this? I doubt it.

Another step closer towards the final integration of social computing into the regular business processes that try to address customers’ real needs and act upon them. Excellent stuff! What social computing was ever meant to be!

Tags: Social Computing, Web 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Michael Wesch, Knowledge Sharing, Knowledge Management, KM, Collaboration, Communities, World Wide Web, Deus

Remember when not too long ago I mentioned how I was actually quite content with having, once and for all, my blogroll updated over here and how I said we are all what we read? Well, I am really glad that I have made that statement, because in the last few days I have been reading from quite a few of the folks that I get to read on a daily basis an incredible video clip of under five minutes that tries to explain, and succeeds big time!, what Web 2.0 or social computing is all about.

Yes, I am talking about the fascinating YouTube video that Michael Wesch, from Kansas State University, shared under the title Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us. Goodness! If all along most of us have been struggling all over the place about explaining key concepts related to Web 2.0 or social computing, Michael has just managed to do that in under five minutes. Fan - tas - tic !

I know that plenty of people have been linking to this video from all over the place. And I guess some folks may be starting to get tired of it,  so reading through this again over here may not be the best use of your time, nor mine. However, there is a reason why I wanted to share it over here. Yes, that reason is that you can never link too little to such incredibly helpful resources as Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us. That is right. There may be over 55 million weblogs out there, but the number of Internet users is way higher than that, so we all need to keep spreading the message. The faster, the better.

The more Web end-users get exposed to key enlightening resources like Michael’s video on social computing the easier it would be for us all to take things into the next level: empowering knowledge workers to share their knowledge and collaborate with their peers in much more meaningful ways, even if that means we need to rethink "copyright, authorship, identity, ethics, aesthetics, rhetorics, governance, privacy, commerce, family, love …". In short, "ourselves".

And if on top of that you put together as well some really nice tunes to go along with it I guess "there’s nothing impossible", is it? So let’s keep spreading the message:

If the World Wide Web was ever meant to be something, I guess it will not be getting any better than this. That is for sure.

Through Des Walsh’s weblog post Social Media De-mazed I have actually been able to locate another really good resource to help out all those folks who would want to go and read through a very comprehensive introductory guide on how to get the most out of social software, i.e. the so-called Web 2.0, and get to understand some of the commonest terms associated with it without having to focus too much on the technical terms but looking more into the practical uses of social software in general. In the past I have been weblogging a few times already about different ways and approaches towards defining Web 2.0 and what it is all about and I guess that to find one that would accommodate to most people’s needs would actually be almost impossible, pretty much the same thing as what has happened with Knowledge Management all along.

However, what Trevor Cook and Lee Hopkins have ventured into sharing with the rest of the world is just remarkable enough to comment on further and to help spread the message around. Yes, it is that good. Check out Free introductory guide to social media where a couple of days ago Trevor actually shared a link to a PDF whitepaper that would provide you with a very comprehensive introduction to everything related to social software. So if you didn’t know how to get started with the whole thing and was looking for a good resource to get you going then look no further and get busy downloading Social Media or "How I learn to stop worrying and love communication".

As Des mentioned over at his weblog post, it is, indeed, a very easy read and perhaps one of the best things about the whitepaper is the good amount of useful examples put together to describe different Web 2.0 concepts with very simple terms. Ideal for those who would want to get started with social software and wouldn’t know where to get started. So you would get to learn some more about Web 2.0 as a new and refreshing collaborative environment, also about weblogs, RSS feeds, podcasts, a good number of different weblog writing tips and an extensive list of must-check resources to get you started with it all.

Yes, as I said, quite an impressive job put together quite nicely and in very simple terms so whoever was struggling to understand some of the key concepts in this area should certainly have a look and download the PDF file. It would be really worth while checking out and digesting it further. And to make things even better, Trevor mentioned over there as well how this whitepaper is just v. 1.0, so there would be more upcoming updates, and, hopefully, we would be able to access all of those.

From here, I just want to give a special thanks to Des for finding such a great resource and to Trevor and Lee for sharing it with us all, making it freely available to us truly showing some of the core skills from social software: knowledge sharing and collaboration for the sake of sharing and collaborating. Well done, guys !

Oh, one other thing, and on a related subject, if you feel you don’t have just that much time to actually go ahead and read through it, then I would suggest you take a look into this particular screencast where U Tech Tips just provides with an impressive description of what Web 2.0 and social software are in just a bit over five minutes. Yes, indeed, just five minutes of your time ! I can certainly recommend going through it if you would want to get exposed to another great resource to try to define all this social media. Here is the embedded video, just in case you may not want to wait any longer:

Tags: Web 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Media, Knowledge Management, KM, Collaboration, Des Walsh, Trevor Cook, Lee Hopkins, Guides, Tutorials, U Tech Tips, Wikis, Weblogs, RSS, Podcasting

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

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

If earlier on today I created a weblog post about the level of accuracy from a news article on weblogging created over a year ago, here you have got another different example that proves the point that some times when you bump into really good content it doesn’t really matter how long ago it was created. It would still be very valid and could just fit in quite nicely in the current business environment. This is exactly what happens with a YouTube video put together by Rod Boothby some time ago that very clearly puts together, in under 17 minutes, an impressive and compelling business case for Enterprise Weblogs.

You can go ahead and watch the video over here:

In it you would be able to see how Rod states that enterprise weblogs are powerful enablers for (key) innovators to go out there and reach out through multiple conversations that would allow them to keep collaborating and innovating constantly with other knowledge workers.

At the same time, and while you get to dive into the more in-depth presentation, you would be able to see how he actually gets to build that business case by focusing on some real examples of what is going on at the moment out there on the Internet with examples like Apple, Google, wisdom of crowds, etc. Also you would see how one of the strongest points from Rod in that particular video is how to empower all enterprise employees into a single strategic objective: Constant Innovation.

From there onwards he finally explains how to actually tackle constant innovation through innovation creators and he actually manages, quite successfully I should add, to describe how they would operate as a team / community, or whatever the grouping, by allowing them to build up different relationships and establishing different informal networks where they could get to share their knowledge and collaborate further with other knowledge workers.

However, what I found most interesting about his business case is that towards half way through the video he is actually indicating how innovation creators do need better communication tools and not Knowledge Management. WOW! That was a strong statement, indeed ! Specially when later on he keeps on talking further about weblogs, which we all know are part of the social networking or the social software hype going on at the moment, that, in its own right, I am not sure what you would think about it, is Knowledge Management. And very much so.

Perhaps the focus might no longer on the explicit knowledge exchange, which is what, for instance, his example on Office products would be like, but rather on tacit knowledge exchange, which is what weblogs help enable big time! Yes, indeed, weblogs are powerful communication tools but not just that. I would go a bit further with that notion and indicate how they are also powerful knowledge sharing and collaborative tools going beyond the point of just communication, which is what e-mail and IM have done all along thus far. There is a difference, in my opinion, and why weblogs would still be part of what Knowledge Management is all about. Perhaps even more so with the so-called Personal Knowledge Management, where weblogs are perhaps one of its main examples that people keep relating to over and over again. Empowering knowledge workers to be able to manage their knowledge in a space where they are the ones in control of the knowledge sharing flow and how they would collaborate with others.

Either way, for the rest I have thoroughly enjoyed the video itself as I feel it does make for a good and compelling business case for enterprise weblogs and, best of all, are the last few minutes of the video where you can see some extended hints and tips on how to get things going, just in case you may be contemplating doing something similar, and what items you would need to incorporate and which ones you would need to forget. A good show, for sure. Highly recommended for those who may still be a bit skeptical about weblogs in the enterprise. I am sure they would change their mind after watching the video.

Link via A YouTube business Model in the Enterprise (Another interesting reading on the business value behind video for the enterprise)

Tags: Weblogs, Metablogging, Enterprise Weblogs, Enterprise 2.0, Knowledge Management, KM, Personal Knowledge Management, PKM, Social Networking, Social Software, Web 2.0, Innovation, Innovation Creators