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

If you remember, back in January I created a weblog post regarding how good screencasts are to augment instruction and knowledge sharing, specially when you would need to conduct demos or show people about a new tool, a new process, whatever, you name it. Having the possibility of not just listening but also viewing something on your computer screen is perhaps having the best of both worlds, both audio and video. And specially for visual learners it is a must-have, I would imagine.

Back then I mentioned how for quite some time now I have been trying quite a few options till I actually found the one that I am sticking around with till now (Oh, by the way, did you know that there is a new version of Wink, v.2.0, with a whole bunch of new features, including audio? Worth while a try for sure). And that would be TechSmith Camtasia Studio. Well, just this morning, and while going through my daily RSS feed reading, I bumped into this particular item by Bill Myers Online that I am sure you would also find very beneficial: Top Ten Tips for Creating Effective Screencasts.

Indeed, even though I have been using Camtasia Studio for some time now after going through those Top 10 tips I actually got to learn a trick or two that I was not aware of and that I am sure that they would help me get better and better at doing screencasts. Thus I just had to weblog about it so that I would not forget about them and could then apply them right away in my next screencast shows.

Just in case you may not have time to watch the actual screencast Bill Myers Online has put together on the subject, or to read the actual ten tips here you have got a teaser description of all of them to give you a quick overview of what they are. At the same time this would also help me keep track of them and remind me of trying to do better and much more effective screencasts and with these tips I am surely going on the right track. Thus here they go:

Top Ten Tips for Effective ScreenCasts:

1. Start with Camtasia Studio: indeed, my favourite tool so far from all the ones I have tried so far.
2. Use a USB digital microphone.
3. Position the microphone to prevent popping.
4. Use an enhanced cursor.
5. Close unneeded programs.
6. Set the size of the stage.
7. Do a trial run.
8. Plan to make mistakes.
9. Edit ruthlessly.
10. Publish to flash.

Good stuff, indeed ! A big thanks from here to Bill for sharing these tips with us and help us get the message across that screencasting can certainly be very helpful while trying to promote eLearning, collaboration and knowledge sharing within any organisation.

Technorati Tags: Screencast, Wink, Camtasia, Learning, eLearning, Knowledge Sharing, Top 10

It has been a little while since I have last weblogged about some interesting knowledge, collaboration and productivity tools, specially those who may help increase our knowledge skills, so I thought I would just share with you a nice tool I bumped into earlier on today thanks to one of my colleagues, Stefano. We had a conversation earlier on where he mentioned how he has been watching some of the different screencasts that I get to publish internally on a daily basis where I mainly focus on introducing people to knowledge and collaboration tools and he was suggesting if I could share those screencasts in .AVI format as opposed to making them available as streaming video.

At the beginning I was a bit curious about why he would want to have in AVI format all of the screencasts that I have been creating and then he just shared with me this gem: Free iPod Video Converter. What an incredible piece of freeware, folks! Stefano explained to me how he managed to get an .AVI file from one of the screencasts I did in the recent past and how he converted it, in some very easy steps, into an .MP4 format that could then be used in the video iPod and played right away. WOW! Fantastic !

Now, imagine this. Some time ago I created a weblog post where I was mentioning how powerful screencasting is in augmenting instruction; so think if all those screencasts could then be converted into an .MP4 format for the video iPod and converted thanks to the Free iPod Video Converter. People now would be able to take that learning with them while they are travelling, commuting, on the road, while working remotely disconnected, you name it. And still be able to shape up their skills in whatever the tool by making use of those converted screencasts and their iPods. Really nice !

I guess that with the opportunity to take those screencasts with you wherever you may go you would have the opportunity to improve your knowledge skills in whatever the learning activity in such a way that you would now then define the pace, length of study along with the time invested without having to depend on a network connection or being closed to a computer. Now you can take your potentially favourite media player and while you are enjoying it learn something in the process.

I do not have a video iPod yet, but if I ever get my hands on one of them I know exactly what I will be doing with it. Take my favourite learning screencasts with me and digest them at my own pace, at my own convenience. How effective would that method of learning and knowledge sharing be? I bet that perhaps quite a lot actually based on a new factor introduced with the usage of the iPod: The fun factor. Perhaps one of the most powerful ways of learning currently available. Don’t you think ?

So if you would want to give it a try just go ahead and download Free iPod Video Converter and start converting all those videos you have been piling up in your computer and that you didn’t have enough time for to go through them! You will now be able to change that with such a handy piece of freeware. I tell you. Fantastic find ! Thanks, Stefano !

Technorati Tags: ipod, screencast, ipod video converter, learning, eLearning

Another interesting weblog post that I have found on my RSS feeds for today has been the one that Phil Windley has shared over at Phil Windley’s Technometria regarding the subject of using screencasts as a very powerful way to augment instruction. And I just couldn’t have agreed with him more on this very same subject.

Having been involved myself with providing different education sessions on different topics and tools regarding KM and Communities of Practice during the course of 2005, and most probably during 2006 as well, I can certainly agree that screencasts are very powerful means of delivering content and education, specially to remote, distributed and virtual teams. There are plenty of reasons and benefits as to why screencasts are very powerful while conducting different education events but I am just going to mention five reasons why they have been very beneficial to me thus far:

• Ability to record education session for later replay so that people who may not have been able to attend the education session at the time are able to listen to the original event without missing out on the audio and video of the event. And they can do that at their own leisure, while at work. Yes, indeed, what you would called informal learning.
• Ability to save time and effort by not having to repeat the same education session with others over and over again and during whatever the period of time. In here I think I could also include the good amount of costs saved by not having to arrange multiple conference calls or even arrange face to face events to conduct those sessions or even reserve whatever the web meeting room I may have thought about scheduling ahead of time.
• Ability to improve the amount of online resources for specific learning courses or tutorials. That way there is a growing amount of learning material that could be used extensively to increase the number of intellectual capital available for whatever the business and dealing with whatever the topic.
• Ease of use for wider distribution through the usage of media files, Flash or whatever other web format where in most cases people would just need to have a browser or their favourite multimedia player. Indeed, in this case there is no longer a need to have expensive software running in your computer in order to attend those events. In most cases now you would just need to have a browser or a media player so that you can view the modules with just a single click.
• Easy to create, edit and produce for later distribution and without hardly any intervention from the presenter in order to share the results with the audience. This is probably one of my favourite benefits since in most cases it would require very little technical knowledge to produce your own screencast and off it goes. Available to everyone.

So as you can see screencasts are certainly one of the most productive ways of getting virtual teams to enjoy different education events without having to worry about anything else than just getting the participants to make use of their favourite browser or media player and with no additional costs involved. By now though you may be wondering about what are my favourite tools to create screencasts and over the last couple of years I have developed an inclination for three of them:

• CamStudio (Freeware)
• Wink (Freeware)
• TechSmith Camtasia Studio (My favourite and, perhaps, the most powerful one with some very useful online tutorials in TechSmith Video Training Materials)

If you are looking for a more comprehensive listing of different tools available for creating screencasts you could also check out the link best screencasting tools where you can find a very good listing with a good number of reviews as well for each of them and many more.

Thus next time you are thinking about delivering a course for an education event, you may want to have a look into the option of creating a screencast with it so that other folks may be able to benefit from it at the same time that you have got a good and inexpensive audio and video recording of the session itself. You may want to have a look into any of the different options mentioned above or the listing from the link I talked about earlier on. You will see that they would be a very successful and effective way of letting your education events sink in with your audience and remain there for later reuse.

[tags]Screencast, Wink, Camtasia, CamStudio, Learning, eLearning[/tags]

(Migrated weblog post from LSR)

How many times have you had to type the same password all over the place to access whatever the application you would need to access? How many different passwords you have got for all those web sites or applications that you visit / use once or twice and by the third time you have already forgotten about it. A few times, right ? Yes, me, too. Well, there may be a quick, easy and effective solution to it and something that you would wonder how something so powerful yet could be made available in such a simple way.

Check out the screencast that Jon Udell created a couple of months ago that describes a superb way to keep your passwords in a central place and without having to worry too much, except for that one master password: Simple single sign-on.

Pretty neat, eh? Yes, that is also what I said. Password Generator was created by Nic Wolff and as I said there is no other solution easier than this to handle your passwords. There is even a Bookmarklet for it, which is what I am currently using at the moment (And quite happy with it, I must say), and for all the FireFox users out there are a couple of GreaseMonkey scripts available: Pwd Composer and Password Composer.

So if you are looking for a way to solve that ongoing problem of handling your several dozens of passwords do not look any further. Just use Password Generator after watching Jon Udell’s screencast on the subject. And you will realise how much time you have been wasting having to go through that tedious process of handling your passwords.

(Migrated weblog post from LSR)

Ok, I think it is now a good time to start up with a new category in my weblog dedicated to the wonderful world of screencasts. Yes, those computer outputs that lots of people have been talking about and which become really effective when you want to demonstrate something in your computer to then show it to a specific audience. Screencasts have been very popular ever since they entered the world of Learning and Education as one of the most powerful methods to educate and deliver content to people without the need to be at a classroom with a teacher. Thus the purpose with this category is to basically share with you some of the different tools that I have been using all along and also to share with you some of the screencasts that I have enjoyed the most of the last few months and that would be related to Knowledge Management, Collaboration, CommunityBuilding, Social Networking, etc. etc.

At the same time that screencasts are a popular innovative way to deliver information to a particular audience, so are the different options available in order to create those screencasts. Indeed, there are quite a few programs out there that people could use in order to produce some of the best outputs put together. Of course, some of them are shareware, like Camtasia (One of my favourites from the shareware side) but there are some others that are freeware and although they may not be as featured rich as the ones with the license fees they still provide an incredible value.

Such is the case from Wink.

Wink is just a relatively small application (A 1.9 MB download) that allows you to create your own computer output and then convert it into a Flash movie that you can upload into a web server or just e-mail it to whoever needs to watch that screencast. Here you have got an excerpt of how it actually works:

“Wink allows you to record desktop action or application windows and create smooth, animated Flash demonstrations from the result, which can be saved in SWF format or as standalone EXE file with integrated playback. Simply press a keyboard key every time you want to capture a frame; when you are finished, you can annotate each frame, using a variety of comment shapes. You can also include Next and GoTo button, allowing the viewer to navigate the animation or jump to specific frames. The frames are then rendered into a smooth Flash animation that can be played in the user`s browser or the standalone EXE file with viewer. Wink is easy to use and lets you create quality Flash demos with no further experience needed.”

Not bad, eh? I know that some folks out there would say Wink does not have the possibility of adding sound to the recording like with other much more expensive software programs, but there are certainly workarounds that people could use to add that audio file. In fact, if you go into the following Wink forum link you will find a tutorial, with step by step instructions, that would show you how to make it work. Yes, I know it may be a bit cumbersome, but then again you have got to think that this is freeware and as such there are always going to be some limitations although I have read somewhere as well that there would be an upcoming version of Wink that would include audio support as well. So we may not need to wait for much longer.

And I guess that whenever that happens we will be witnessing a major transition from folks using some expensive software to Wink because I doubt there would be a similar, so easy to use (Yet so much more effective), offering in order to record your screencasts. So now you know, if you are looking for some inexpensive piece of software that would allow you to create your own screencasts with little effort and great results, Wink is what you are looking for. Yes, yes, indeed, *I know*, simple is more !

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For those folks interested in some additional reading regarding screencasts and the different tools available to reach the best results I would suggest you take a look into the Wikipedia article on screencasts or this superb, and thorough, article about the best screencasting tools available out there. Both links are worth while a read if you are not sure yet what to use or if you would want to have a look into what is out there that could help you improve your remote coaching and learning skills by creating some state of the art screencasts.