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

A Weekly Glimpse of elsua – The Knowledge Management Blog – Week 44

As you may have noticed, yesterday I didn’t get a chance to post anything here, in elsua, as things were a bit hectic everywhere and some of that stuff needed my immediate attention. But now that is over here I am, once again, sharing with you that weekly weblog post where I try to put together some of the most popular discussions that have been taking place over at my other Internet weblog: elsua – The Knowledge Management Blog. It looks like last week’s discussions were more popular and significant around the subject of social software and how it is actually impacting the enterprise in its adoption. So you would be able to find out some interesting new facts about how Web 2.0 is entering the corporate world along with some other productivity tools that I have become very fond of and which I am hoping you would be able to check out for yourself further a bit, if you are also looking for some advice in that area.

So with all that said, here you have got the Top 5 most popular weblog post from elsua – The Knowledge Management Blog over the course of last week. Hope you enjoy them just as much as I did putting them together:

1. Importance of Empowering Your People through Trust and Social Software: While I was browsing through my daily ITtoolbox RSS feeds I have actually bumped into a fantastic weblog post put together by Larry Cone that touches base on how you, as a manager, can get the most out of your knowledge workers by simply empowering them to do what they need to do with just some little help: your trust. Check out Importance of Empowering Your People where you would be able to read some interesting insights as to what top management should be and how it should distance itself more and more from that traditional mentality of command-and-control that was not going anywhere. At least, not where the business and the knowledge workers would be getting the most benefits from.

2. Newzie – Finding Your Near-Perfect RSS Feed Client In the following weblog post I have tried to detail what are two of the most powerful RSS feed reader clients I have been exposed in the last few months as a way to actually introduce the latest release made a few days ago about one of them, which has now become one of my two favourites and for a number of reasons. That RSS feed client is Newzie and here is a small review of why you may want to look into it yourself. Yes, not to worry, it is also freeware.

3. How Is Your Email Etiquette?: It looks like this particular weblog post seems to have been rather popular as well last week, just as much as the previous week. Somehow it looks like e-mail still pulls its act together as the most preferred collaboration tool (If you can say that) and knowledge workers definitely want to know how to get the most out of it !

4. KMWorld and Intranets 2006: October 31st – November 2nd – California: Got anything to do from October 31st to November the 2nd? Are you going to miss out on the Knowledge Management event of events? Want to have a sneak preview of what such an incredible event is going to be like? Then look no further. This weblog post will provide you with some details around the "KMWorld and Intranets 2006" event, taking place this year in San Jose, California. The KM event of events! Find out why…

5. Web 2.0 for the Rest of Us – Another Directory of Wonderful Things: Here is another weblog post where I get to comment on another Web 2.0 directory of useful social software applications that folks can go and check out. In the past I have talked several times about different options available out there and this one, GO2WEB20, is just another one worth while having a look and investigating further. Why not? After all don’t we all making lists of everything ?

Well, that was it again, folks. As you may have noticed once of the things that I have been doing with this type of weblog posts is to basically grab the syndicated summary of the weblog posts and added them as a short description of what the weblog entries are all about and those where the article may be about a subject we may have seen in previous weeks I would just a short commentary about it indicating my thoughts on the actual post a week later. Hopefully, you would be able to find those entries just as interesting as I have. And if you would want to dive into the conversations feel free to do so over here or rather over at elsua – The Knowledge Management Blog. Both ways would work for me. Till next week! And time now for the next weblog post…

Tags: elsua, Knowledge Management, KM, Collaboration, Trust, Social Software, Web 2.0, Social Networking, Newzie, E-mail, Etiquette, KMWorld, KM2006, GO2WEB20

Feedburner Plugin 2.1 – Keeping Track of All of Your Syndication Needs

Yesterday I created a weblog post where I was announcing elsua’s new look (Oh, by the way, do not forget to check the About document as you would be able to see an updated page with some further details about me along with some fancy new design. Love it!) and today I thought that I would share with you one really good hat tip on how you can get the most out of your syndication needs by making extensive use of Feedburner as part of your own weblogs. For quite some time now I have always wanted to find a way to get some statistics on the number of readers who are actually getting my content syndicated through different methods, RSS, Atom, Yahoo, BlogLines, etc. etc. For some time now I have been using Feedburner as well to shed some light along those lines and give me some partial numbers of the total readership through syndication.

And just recently I found out that instead of having to mess up with different files like .htaccess and the like there is this awesome WordPress plugin that actually does everything for you really easy and without you having to worry about anything else than just installing and activating the plugin itself.

Check out Feedburner Plugin 2.1, created by Steve Smith, over at orderedlist. What a fantastic WordPress plugin! You just basically install it in your own server like you would do with any other plugin (Check out the instructions directly available in this link), then activate it and you are ready to go. Of course, you would need to configure it under the sub-tab Feedburner from the Options menu, but I am sure that by now you would have already got one profile at Feedburner, like I do. And from there onwards you can just watch the total feed count grow larger and larger.

I remember how before doing this Feedburner was actually capturing 62 syndication hits and after installing the plugin the current hit count at the time of writing this weblog post is 216. Yes, indeed, 216! More than triple the amount of original feeds tracked !

Fantastic ! I am really excited about this because I never thought that I had so many other readers subscribed via RSS, Atom and whatever other feeds and the fact that I can now get Feedburner Plugin 2.1 to do that job for me is just wonderful! A huge time saver! A special thanks to Steve for putting together such a fine piece of work, and, most importantly, for sharing it with all of us! Well done !

(Oh, and don’t forget to check some of the other goodies that Steve has been putting together. You may find something else worth while checking further and playing around with. I already did!)

Tags: Feedburner, Feedburner Plugin, Steve Smith, Orderedlist, WordPress, Plugins, WordPress Plugins, Syndication, RSS, Atom, Newsfeeds, Productivity Tips, Blogging Tips

Shortcuts – Organise Your Digital Life – A Weekly Show from IBM

It looks like lately I have been talking quite a bit about stuff related to IBM and although it is not something that I am actually doing on a very regular basis I am glad to see how every now and then I get a chance to comment on some of the cool things that are going on inside and outside of IBM, and all related to the Knowledge Management, Collaboration and Social Software areas, amongst others. It should not come as a surprise to anyone some of the stuff that IBM has been doing around the world of podcasting, for instance. I have been weblogging about this already several times; however, I thought that you would be interested in a single new initiative that has come out and which I am sure you would be looking forward to it and, of course, subscribe. Let me tell you about it.

Check out Shortcuts (Organise your digital life – A weekly shows from IBM). An IBM external podcast offering where both George Faulkner and Jennifer Clemente (Two of my IBM colleagues) will be providing you, on a weekly basis, with an online show "to help you make the most out of e-mail, IM, blogs and other great tools". I am not sure what you think about this but I feel this is just a superb initiative ! How many times have you wondered about performing a particular task and not having a clue as to how it would work? Then you start working your way through whatever the search engine and before you know it you end up in a web site doing something completely different to what you were supposed to be doing in the first place. Well, Shortcuts is supposed to be helping out in this area by providing you with some weekly hints and tips on how you can get the most out of the IT tools available to you. Pretty slick, indeed !

To get things started they have got a podcast with Rocky Oliver on how to tackle all that annoying spyware that we all get to experience on a daily basis while we surf the Internet. In that podcast Rocky is actually suggesting to make use of two different programmes that I have used in the past myself: Ad-Aware and Spybot Search and Destroy, to try to help out with that ever growing problem. They are indeed very good programmes, no doubt, but one other that you may want to consider as well and which I have been using myself quite a bit is Windows Defender, which so far has managed to keep my home computer clean and without any major issues. It is still a beta release but you can already download it from here and take it yourself for a spin.

Thus, as you can see, all these tips coming from Shortcuts actually have got another great purpose, which is also share your own tips and tricks to take control over the tools you get to use on a daily basis and be as productive as ever. That is why they are encouraging folks as well to leave comments or to actually post a question yourself out to the experts. Now, what a better way to build up on the collective wisdom of us all than to share some of the best tips out there and make them available through podcasts and / or comments.so that everyone has got the chance not only to learn from those tips but also at the same time engage in the conversations? Terrific stuff, don’t you think? 

I have already subscribed to the podcast myself and I hope you do, too. I will surely be catching up weekly with some other hot tips. I am certain I would get to learn a thing or two. However, for the time being just, take a look into what other folks, like Rocky himself, Alan Lepofsky or Ed Brill (Three of my IBM fellow colleagues) are saying on this new IBM initiative. I love it when people say that IBM has not been doing enough around the Web 2.0 world and then you bump into offerings like Shortcuts, amongst other others. But more on those later. One at a time…

Tags: Shortcuts, IBM, Tips, Hints&Tips, Productivity Tips, Spyware, Ad-Aware, Spybot Search and Destroy, Windows Defender, Rocky Oliver, Alan Lepofsky, Ed Brill