KM: It's All About Granularity - Sebastien Arbogast - RSS fav'd by KerrieAnne

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In my pursuit of the ideal collaboration platform, I’ve tested a few knowledge management systems lately: Knowledge Plaza, Seemy, a combination of del.icio.us and Twitter. And those tests were very interesting because they allowed me to spot the main common problem they all share.

How many times have I heard that the Google Wave presentation is too long, leading people to simply not watch it at all? How many times have my friends complained to me about the length of my own blog posts? The granularity of information on the web is simply too big. The web is all about resources, and there are billions and billions of these resources out there, and what makes it even harder to process and integrate them is that each resource mixes a lot of different information items.

And for me, THIS is the nightmare for my technology watch, and for knowledge management as a whole. You can comment on or share whole web pages through links, whole Youtube videos through embed codes, whole discussions through podcasts. But what if you want to extract what is to you the essential part of a blog post, the funniest moment in a video? Well, let’s say I don’t know any solution for that.

For my everyday technology watch, what I would really need is a knowledge management platform that allows me to select small chunks of information in text, video, audio or images, and then tag those chunks, comment on them, and store them somewhere in the cloud for sharing them with my friends or colleagues, or simply keep them for myself for later reference. All of that while keeping a link to the full original resource of course. That would be awesome!

Now of course because I love to solve problems, my next move is to think about a solution. I don’t know any existing system that does that, so if you do, please tell me about it. Now if it doesn’t exist, we have to invent it. And the way I see it, there are two main aspects to this system.

The first issue is how do we capture excerpts out of web resources. If we want to make it as simple as possible, we need to integrate deeply with a web browser in order to create a natural user experience based on drag-and-drop selection, keyboard shortcuts and so on. This is why I’ve tweeted about me looking for a Firefox extension developer to help me out: I’ve never developed any Firefox extension myself, and I could learn but (a) it would take much time and (b) I’m not fond of Javascript. So once again, if someone out there is a Firefox extension developer and would like to collaborate on this experiment, you are welcome. Let’s try first with text, we’ll see later for other kinds of multimedia content.

And the second issue is how do we store and present all this information in a highly usable and intuitive way, without being too disruptive, without inventing too many new concepts. This part I can handle. I already have a few ideas.

I think before the Internet, there were technology watch departments in companies, whose job consisted in cutting out paper pieces in newspaper, pasting them and composing press reviews with comments and writing reports about what competitors were doing. Nowadays, it’s as if we just gathered full articles or newspaper pages, videotapes, full interview transcripts and just put small post-it notes on them. It’s just too rough, not pre-chewed enough, not efficient enough. And as always, there’s gotta be a better way.

What do you think?

References

Reference: 

Knowledge Management: It’s All About Granularity

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My name is Sébastien Arbogast, I’m 26 and I’m an IT consultant for Axen in Brussels, Belgium. I’ve been working there since I graduated in Computer Science Engineering from the “Institut National des Sciences Appliquées” in Rennes, France. Sebastien is a DZone MVB and is not an employee of DZone and has posted 24 posts at DZone. You can read more from them at their website.

via feeds.dzone.com

Finally a blog post that puts granularity concepts together for me - ie the key nuggets from the whole rather than being overwhelmed by the whole and all of the elements that make up the whole.

Posted via web from kerrieannesfridgemagnets's posterous

Posting to Posterous Blogs via Google Wave

amazing what you can do with Posterous via Googlewave's app bots http://ow.ly/xRWt

Great explanation at Posterous

Posted via web from kerrieannesfridgemagnets's posterous

Twitter_Tips: What is Twitter good for? How about serving a community? http://cli.gs/sg3EqY --Share this article: http://bit.ly/12U21q via @DivineLove

Check out this website I found at twitter.com

I like the idea of Tweeting to make a community stronger - resonates with the whole concept of social capital - so good to read of Tim O’Reilly's unofficial mantra of ‘Creating more value than you capture’

Posted via web from kerrieannesfridgemagnets's posterous

refollow - Twitter App

Came across a Tweet back in July about Twitter Apps which were the most underhyped -http://blog.mrtweet.net/hidden-gems-which-twitter-app-is-the-most-underhyped

Faved, RSS'd to GoogleReader & tagged it and then refound it during a cull of my GoogleReader 3 months later - I nearly deleted it thinking it was an automatic follow bot - but then I had a closer look ...

Found that I really liked this "refollow" Twitter App -http://refollow.com/ of the three covered in the post

You can filter according to different criteria - and it has a nice visual appearance of followers or those you're following - you set the filters

- and you can tag them eg expert, funny, quotes etc etc - so Barack Obama is considered Smart, Expert & Useful - I experimented with tagging @kcarruthers as Expert, Smart & Funny

- hovering the mouse over a Tweep's avatar pic brings up bio details/web page plus their last tweet

Can reply, RT or DM to their tweets - can't fav tweets but can click through to a Tweep's Twitter profile page & fav it there

I'm not sure how easy it would be to use this with 1000's of followers - although the site's filters would help

It really seems to be a Twitter App I've been looking for - even though I hadn't spec'd out my requirements

eg - catching up after being offline for a week or so - especially for those Tweeps not RSS'd into my GoogleReader.

There are so many hyped up Apps - however I could really get to like this Twitter App

Mashups Knowledge Sharing and ICT Fishermen

Google Maps are great apps - particularly when you can do mashups.

But not all mashups are digitally generated ...

The Significant Other - an IT geek aka PMO Manager was doing some knowledge sharing with other IT geeks ahead of the NSW Labour Day long weekend  .... a new bigger fishing boat recently obtained .. time to try out in NSW Shoalhaven ...

Google provided the maps ....

however for successful fishing it needs more ...

The Significant Other had done numerous fishing trips in the NSW Shoalhaven with work colleagues ... they'd shared tips, techniques of where to fish for what and how to do it ... there was the time he'd returned with a Trevally so enormous it would only fit into our oven diagonally and slightly flipped at the end ... we ate off that fish for a week .. other times the main fishing enthusiasts would toddle off to the local RSL on the Friday night and get the latest tips from those in the know ... of what was biting where  ...

So now the Significant Other had a bit of a think of where he'd been shown to fish by his fishing guru's for which fish ... then manually annotated a print out of the Google Map to show his work mate where to fish for those Fish species at what time of day .. etc etc

Maybe someday it will be digitised  .. ?

Knowledge sharing is not just the IT technology ...  it's what sits in folks' heads and what they are willing to share ... and may be the Significant Other's Fishing Tinny (Boat) might even get a dusting off and into the water once more ....

Posted via web from kerrieannesfridgemagnets's posterous

Foodies and Knowledge Sharing

Is it something to do with MasterChef ? A whole lot of Knowledge Management gurus are suddenly "fessing up" with their fav foodie blogs & sites ...

@michellelamb shared "The Informal Foodie"
@unorder shared The 50 Best Things to Eat in the World
@Reemski has a great blog I am obsessed with food - shared by @hollingsworth & @neridahart
@hollingsworth shared blogs on cooking and where to eat

• Raspberri Cupcakes
• FoodZeitgeist
• Thoughts from Becca - >20,000 followers ???
• Not Quite Nigella
• Grab Your Fork
• Fooderati
• Sameer Patel blogs on Technology & Asian Fusion Cooking
• @Jenius : Top 50 Australian Food Blogs - from JENIUS.COM.AU - the Spectacular Culinary Adventures of a Sydney Gen Y

my own favourite foodie items at GoogleReader & of course at Oz web site Taste - not to mention The Gong : La Marina Tapas, Cheap Eats & Sweet Treats of the Illawarra

Wollongong Kids Doing Science and Engineering

Great to see high school kids from Wollongong having a go out at UOW in the Science & Engineering Super Challenge - run by the School of Electrical, Computing and Telecommunications Engineering, in collaboration with the Faculty of Engineering, University of Wollongong, University of Newcastle, Department of Science, Education and Training, Engineers Australia and supported by the Wollongong Rotary Club. Winners of the 2009 event were TIGS. And great to see the team gender balance was very close to 50:50 !

At the local stage they found themselves building bridges, hovercraft, leprchaun cannons & eco-habitats - devising eco energy efficiency - at UOW Northfields Avenue Wollongong Campus over June 10-11 2009 - more.

The TIGS kids, led by Science Teacher & former TIGS Head Girl, Ms Fiona Fisher, then went onto win the NSW State event at Macquarie Uni - and are now headed to Nationals at Bendigo, in late October. They went into the State Title as lowest scoring underdogs, with no expectations of winning, and just decided to have fun. And isn't that what UOW's Science Centre head, Professor Glen Moore has always said - that science and engineering should be fun for kids.

How many of these budding techo's would have gotten their starting inspiration out at the Wollongong Science Centre or Wollongong's FutureWorld EcoTechnology Centre? Or perhaps attending UOW's Faculty of Engineering's annual Creative Design Competition for 1st year Engineerng Students kicked off in the early 1970's by the legendary Professor Bob Wheway (and he's still helping running the competition nearly 40 years on!) with Dr Bob Davey



Refer - info from 2008 event, which has grown from 2000, when it started out at University of Newcastle and has grown to a national event.

1984 in 2009 Cloudy DRM Brave New World Controversy

A quiet Friday night in Wollongong after a busy week - the pizza finally delivered - footy is on TV (husband is a long time St George tragic) & a glass or two of red wine. Hardly intending to think about a serious novel like "1984".

"1984", of course has always been a provocative text for high school students - along with Animal Farm, Brave New World & Lord of the Flies etc - enjoyed reading it years ago, then left it behind and buried it

So to be honest, initially I found the latest furore over Amazon deleting "1984" from Kindle just too much Twitter and RSS hype ... until @RossDawson "tweeted" on a legal action by a Michigan teenager midway through Friday night footy.

Justin Gawronski had saved notes on Kindle - which he'd obtained

"because he knew he’d be reading a lot of books for his Advanced Placement English class. “If there’s something that catches my eye as I am reading, I just place a note there” using the Kindle’s keyboard, he said. Those notes are useful, he said, because “every 100 pages we have to write a 1-page summary and reflection of everything that we read,” he said.

But on July 20, when Gawronski turned on his Kindle, he watched his copy of “Nineteen Eighty-Four” disappear right before his eyes. “It was a bit ironic,” he said.

Amazon didn’t delete the file containing Gawronski’s notes on the Kindle device. But since the book text “no longer exists, all my notes refer back to nothing,” he said. “I can’t really use it for much.”

When he e-mailed Amazon’s customer service department for help, he received a message from the company saying they were sorry, but there was a copyright issue with the original book."

Then there was Michel Bauwen's provocative post - "Is Cloud Computing Dangerous for Innovation ?" where he quoted Jonathan Zittrain :

"This freedom is at risk in the cloud, where the vendor of a platform has much more control over whether and how to let others write new software. Facebook allows outsiders to add functionality to the site but reserves the right to change that policy at any time, to charge a fee for applications, or to de-emphasize or eliminate apps that court controversy or that they simply don’t like....

If the market settles into a handful of gated cloud communities whose proprietors control the availability of new code, the time may come to ensure that their platforms do not discriminate. Such a demand could take many forms, from an outright regulatory requirement to a more subtle set of incentives — tax breaks or liability relief — that nudge companies to maintain the kind of openness that earlier allowed them a level playing field on which they could lure users from competing, mighty incumbents.”

eek ... I had started to ponder Cloud type apps last November - finally pulling my head out of the sand ... now I even have Cloud metadata'd in my GoogleReader and Delicious social bookmarks. I'd quizzed my IT geek husband (manages a PMO & develops virtual private clouds when he's not doing WOW in his "downtime"). David filled in few gaps for me back then - and basically it is still a very dry Records Management issue. But then look at the furore over whether Barak Obama was born in Hawaii or Kenya - then the implications of Records Management begins to crystallise ... imagine the implications of records like that disappearing in a Cloud "oops" ?

So when I quoted a few lines from Justin Gawronski's "1984" Kindle debacle - distracting him from Friday night Footy'n' Pizza .. a few terse IT Geek comments followed ....

"Always make sure you have your own downloaded copy of data (information /reports etc) - because you never never know ..." interesting from a guy who is often more "don't you worry about .. it'll be all ok".

Couldn't agree more ... and some of my fellow engineering types thought I was overreacting to environment monitoring data being stored on a 4th party Cloud site. However my org's IT folks were a little more cautious.

But I guess that sadly we are going to need a few more Justin Gawronski's, before Digital Rights (DRM) associated with the "Cloud" get fully sorted. And some folk are going to have heads in the sand like I used to ... but then maybe it's an ISTJ vs INTJ thing ?

Posted via web from kerrieannesfridgemagnets's posterous

RSS - Google Reader - Personal Knowledge Management - PKM

It took me a while to experiment with RSS feeds and Google Reader in particular. Now I wonder why I delayed. These tools have been crucial in my PKM (see Harold Jarche), Personal Knowledge Management program - without risking Information Overload - more on PKM

Mostly I taught myself - stumbling along over 6 to 12 months or so - gradually discovering its full richness. I tried I-Google. But I ended up back with the basic Google Reader, as its "less pretty" functionality suited me better - specifically the ability to tag (aka categorise or metadata) feeds.

There are a few how-to's around, including :

Google Reader Help Blog

Help Centre

Need to rename folders or tags ? Here's the work around.

Headshift UK on RSS

Help on Google Reader at YouTube

Send your feed vias "clips" into blogs & web pages, (even Sharepoint via a Content Editor Web Part) - and do Knowledge Sharing with your colleagues.

Take the trip to work out which Google Reader "how-to" suits you.

Wollongong Community Pays Price of Administrators - not elected Councillors

So sad. Friday night - home from work - opened the daily mail ... a pleading letter and petition from residents in the village of Stanwell Park - in Ward 1 area of Wollongong City Council, NSW, Australia. 

I used to get hundreds of such letters each year, if not thousands, in my nearly 20 years in the public eye. They finally stopped about 6 months after I retired as an Independent Ward 1 City Councillor at the March 2004 elections.

The highly controversial Wollongong Council proposes to sell what residents claim to be a "rare pocket of rainforest vegetation...  in a steep valley". Residents cite existing flooding issues - further exacerbated by adverse impacts from ocean level rise due to global warming.

The residents ask "why were we not advised of this proposed sale which will have such a large impact on our properties and the amenity of our immediate neighbourhood?" Prior to the 2004 elections, I and my then fellow councillors, inlcluding ALP members, would have made sure the community were listened to by the Wollongong Council bureaucrats. However a lot changed after ex Councillors Kerrie Christian, Vicky King, Ian Hunt and Trevor Mott retired in 2004.

And now Wollongong's people have been without democratically elected councillors for over a year - with possibly another 3 years before the community gets to choose who should represent them. Other ALP members were equally outraged along with the broader community by the gobsmacking activities revealed at the ICAC hearings from February 2008.

So this is what happens after the decent, democratically elected councillors who were committed to their local communities, suddenly found themselves dismissed. Why ? Because of findings against some ALP Wollongong councillors by the NSW ICAC (Independent Commission Against Corruption). The decent Majority were punished because of the alleged sins of the Minority.

Now the Wollongong community are subject to rule by a Triumvirate of ALP State Government appointed Administrators. They share this with the Shellharbour community, who are ruled over by a lone ALP State Government appointed Administrator. How could this ALP State Government appointed Shellharbour Administrator decimate the community's access to public swimming pools by literally months every year - and in the warm months, not the depths of winter ??

The hard part is that sometimes communities have to lose a few serious battles before there is sufficient anger to create change.

State ALP Government representatives would be wise to consider this potential anger - as they will have to carry the can for the decisions to deny local government democracy in its long term loyal heartland of the Illawarra.

 

 

 

Posted via web from kerrieannesfridgemagnets's posterous

Web 2.0 Social Media Quiet Achiever -Oz PM K Rudd

I really enjoyed Matt Crozier's review of Web 2.0 afficianado Oz PM  self styled "KRudd", as I enjoy reading most of the "Bang the Table" crew's social media postings. Overall positive, but Matt Crozier did provide a critique of the PM's blog being "moderated."

It's easy to criticise the "moderation" of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's blog, which sees a delay in comments being posted, rather than in "real time".

However some federal government authorities with public social media interfaces have to do a daily cleanup.

Why? Not necessarily censoring comments critical of the PM's actions and authority.

No - rather it's the clean up of the daily "porn spamming" contingent - which so many of us involved in social media are only too well aware every day.

So maybe PM KRudd's blog could be done better - but imagine what it would be like if there wasn't moderation ? Now that's a worry.

 

Posted via web from kerrieannesfridgemagnets's posterous

Crowdsourcing - PMI on when to - not to

So many people are really keen on Crowdsourcing - harnessing the Wisdom of the Crowd. But is it the right approach for all problems ? When I dissented, I found myself up against GroupThink, for daring to question Crowdsourcing's applicability in all circumstances.

The June issue of PMI's "PM Network" has a good article which tackles Crowdsourcing. I liked their comment "Crowdsourcing doesn't work for everything. Crowds won't organize into complex structures, but they will respond efficiently with simple tasks and motivation" - sourced from Chris Townsend, I-Nova Software, Lyon, France. He believes that "companies should carefully choose which project tasks are appropriate and determine how they'll manage the process .... Project teams must also have a strategy for evaluating crowdsourced results and incorporating them into the project."
  
Nearly 10 years ago I encountered crowdsourcing as "Future Search", being promoted by Launceston Council. I bought their book and have used it in various situations ever since.

Neighbourhood Committees, aka Precinct Committees, provided one vehicle for Local Councils around the world to use crowdsourcing in their decisionmaking processes, also specialist advisory committees. Crowdsourcing is what we did, when I chaired Wollongong City Council's Cycleway Planning Liaison Committee. Cyclist stakeholder reps advised us where cycleways should go - based on actual cyclists' use during a comprehensive revamping of the citywide strategy. These are key vehicles for enriching communities by promoting Social Capital.

Likewise crowdsourcing has been used for years in the Total Quality Management (TQM) Small Group Activity (SGA) approach to problem solving - dating at least from the 1980's. I saw some great examples of worker "ownership" of complex engineering problem solutions, when we as techo's were temporary advisers to the work crews.

However, even earlier, Sherry R Arnstein's "A Ladder of Citizen Participation" was first published in July 1969 - sharing its birthday month with NASA's Apollo - Moon Walk space exploration. It is considered by many to be the pioneer work in community consultation or "crowdsourcing". Happy 40th Birthday Crowdsourcing !

So I have found many helpful references on the value of "crowdsourcing" via the RSS feeds in my Google Reader - including in its various guises.


 
Looks like some innovative opportunities with the intersection of Sherry R Arnstein's Citizen Participation Ladder and Clay Shirky's Crowdsourcing via Wisdom of the Crowds

Posted via web from kerrieannesfridgemagnets's posterous

Crowdsourcing - PMI on when to - not to - brief

So many people are really keen on Crowdsourcing - harnessing the Wisdom of the Crowd. But is it the right approach for all problems ? When I dissented, I found myself up against GroupThink, for daring to question Crowdsourcing applicability in all circumstances.

The June issue of PMI's "PM Network" has a good article which tackles Crowdsourcing. I liked their comment "Crowdsourcing doesn't work for everything. Crowds won't organize into complex structures, but they will respond efficiently with simple tasks and motivation" - sourced from Chris Townsend, I-Nova Software, Lyon, France. He believes that "companies should carefully choose which project tasks are appropriate and determine how they'll manage the process .... Project teams must also have a strategy for evaluating crowdsourced results and incorporating them into the project." 

 I have found many references to "crowdsourcing" via the RSS feeds in my Google Reader

.... MORE

 

Posted via web from kerrieannesfridgemagnets's posterous

Change in 30 seconds

Great message - who needs 1000's of words ?

 

 

Posted via web from kerrieannesfridgemagnets's posterous

Sharepoint RSS feed favs

Social Media Challenges Traditional Media

Seems to have been a lot of criticism of the traditional media coverage of the Iran Election fallout. This comes on the back of some traditional media outlets struggling in the Global Financial Crisis. There seems to be an anger at being letdown by some key US media outlets. However it seems that an opportunity to demonstrate ongoing relevance of traditional media as a key source of information has been lost, at least temporarily. Although the US White House WestWingReportnow indicates how the White House seems to be keeping a close eye on the situation.

In the meantime - many are turning to Twitter, with its linking to Blogs, as well as FaceBook and YouTube for their information. However in Australia, the story featured prominently on national ABC TV - leading the Sunday Night news coverage - complete with live footage on the streets of Tehran.

It is interesting to postulate whether social media reporting has drawn the world's Tweeters, FaceBook & YouTube user communities together - and thus they feel more personally violated by the happenings in Iran - an interesting aspect of Globalization. Time will tell.

Feed on "Journalism" tag from GoogleReader

Political Reach of Social Media

Interesting to see the political reach of social media - whether in USA (President Obama's election campaign), UK (G 20 Protests, Moldova or more recently Iran - the following are streamed from my RSS feeds from American Manufacturing Alliance, Paul Krugman, Mike Moore, Iran sources :

Political Reach of Social Media

Interesting to see the political reach of social media - whether in the USA, Moldova, UK or more recently Iran.

 

 

Posted via web from kerrieannesfridgemagnets's posterous

Hitching A Ride Through the Knowledge Universe on the Social Media Express

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Hitching A Ride Through the Knowledge Universe on the Social Media Express

View more Microsoft Word documents from Kerrie Anne.

KS vs KM - different strokes for different folks

Cold Sunday morning, teenager's soccer match cancelled - so checking out RSS feeds in Googlereader came across Implementation 2.0 by Jon Husband - The App Gap. I liked the post, found it thought provoking, especially the comment about a preference for conversations with people you trust.

"What Intranet designers and managers fail to appreciate is that the principal way people share information and build useful knowledge  (italics my addition) hasn’t changed in centuries — people get it through real-time conversation with people they respect and trust. This gives them comfort that the content they’re given is current and authoritative, and through the conversation they can also appreciate the context behind that content, and ask questions to make it more useful to them."

But it seemed predicated on several assumptions - that you have access to the people who "know" and that your team are all onboard with all developments in social media cyberspace, and are jumping keen to implement them.

However - a few "what-ifs"..

First. What if the people who "know" are not available to have the conversation you need - eg last year at my workplace, the key Babyboomer Guru & his Gen Y understudy both departed 6 months out from the "once in 20 years" $370 million capital project kicking off - ouch !

Fortuitously, in the preceding years I had KM conversations with trusted family member & KM guru Laurence Lock Lee. So I'd organized knowledge capture of past reports of similar capital projects. Getting them scanned into document management systems. Prodded the team to create wiki pages etc. Back in 2002 the team were reluctant adopters .. only went along with it when it was included in their incentive programme .. because ...hey ... there'll always be someone that you can turn to .. so why worry ... no need to to stress. It's such a pain to load their latest report into the document management system. Around 2005 they began to see benefits and developed rules for how document metadata should be entered - even though they had never heard of the word "metadata".

So sometimes teams need to be introduced to the E-tools techniques - with incentive programs in place to get their use embedded.

Then a year or two later - the E-tools have become so embedded - it's how we do business around here - incentive program no longer needed.

But it was only in 2008 when two of their colleagues left abruptly did the team really begin to appreciate how Knowledge Management systems could be the fallback when the conversations were no longer possible. The Gen X team leader taking over from the departed Babyboomer Guru has in fact become a "born again believer". She is now intent on capturing lessons from the past to inform but not constrain the present circumstances.

Perhaps we could have waited until now to start the KM capture program?

We would have lost 6 crucial years. And also we would have been starting out  just as the Global Financial Crisis hit. Constrained resources as we were all being sent on long leave & letting go contract staff.

Bottom line - no resource to capture 40 years of hard copy reports.

Second what if. People in your workplace are all Web 2.0 literate and keen to get on with implementing the tools to suit their needs.

What if you are in a work place where people are not Web 2.0 literate - or in the GFC are so overloaded that they don't have time to work out what Web 2.0 tool makes sense and then couldn't find the time to work out how to use it.

That is my current reality.  

Can I rely on my Gen Y and Gen F to help drive implementation of Web 2.0 social media tools ? . Well - as yet they don't see the workplace benefits to bother. Of course .. too busy "in the present" to worry about the future ... not surprising either with the GFC having turned so many norms and plans totally upside down. Why make plans ... won't they just get trashed ?

So I, female techo Baby Boomer Web 2.0 social media loving afficianado manager, am now nudging the Gen X'ers along to see KM benefits of the web 2.0 social media tools, adopt them and champion them to fellow team members.

So while the Implementation 2.0  post makes some valuable comments for some contexts - sometimes it's different strokes for different folks.

@KerrieAnne

aka KerrieAnne Christian

Posted via web from kerrieannesfridgemagnets's posterous

KS vs KM - different strokes for different folks

Cold Sunday morning, teenager's soccer match cancelled - so checking out RSS feeds in Googlereader came across Implementation 2.0 by Jon Husband - The App Gap. I liked the post, found it thought provoking, especially the comment about a preference for conversations with people you trust.

"What Intranet designers and managers fail to appreciate is that the principal way people share information and build useful knowledge  (italics my addition) hasn’t changed in centuries — people get it through real-time conversation with people they respect and trust. This gives them comfort that the content they’re given is current and authoritative, and through the conversation they can also appreciate the context behind that content, and ask questions to make it more useful to them."

But it seemed predicated on several assumptions - that you have access to the people who "know" and that your team are all onboard with all developments in social media cyberspace, and are jumping keen to implement them.

However - a few "what-ifs"..

First. What if the people who "know" are not available to have the conversation you need - eg last year at my workplace, the key Babyboomer Guru & his Gen Y understudy both departed 6 months out from the "once in 20 years" $370 million capital project kicking off - ouch !

Fortuitously, in the preceding years I had KM conversations with trusted family member & KM guru Laurence Lock Lee. So I'd organized knowledge capture of past reports of similar capital projects. Getting them scanned into document management systems. Prodded the team to create wiki pages etc. Back in 2002 the team were reluctant adopters .. only went along with it when it was included in their incentive programme .. because ...hey ... there'll always be someone that you can turn to .. so why worry ... no need to to stress. It's such a pain to load their latest report into the document management system. Around 2005 they began to see benefits and developed rules for how document metadata should be entered - even though they had never heard of the word "metadata".

So sometimes teams need to be introduced to the E-tools techniques - with incentive programs in place to get their use embedded.

Then a year or two later - the E-tools have become so embedded - it's how we do business around here - incentive program no longer needed.

But it was only in 2008 when two of their colleagues left abruptly did the team really begin to appreciate how Knowledge Management systems could be the fallback when the conversations were no longer possible. The Gen X team leader taking over from the departed Babyboomer Guru has in fact become a "born again believer". She is now intent on capturing lessons from the past to inform but not constrain the present circumstances.

Perhaps we could have waited until now to start the KM capture program?

We would have lost 6 crucial years. And also we would have been starting out  just as the Global Financial Crisis hit. Constrained resources as we were all being sent on long leave & letting go contract staff.

Bottom line - no resource to capture 40 years of hard copy reports.

Second what if. People in your workplace are all Web 2.0 literate and keen to get on with implementing the tools to suit their needs.

What if you are in a work place where people are not Web 2.0 literate - or in the GFC are so overloaded that they don't have time to work out what Web 2.0 tool makes sense and then couldn't find the time to work out how to use it.

That is my current reality.  

Can I rely on my Gen Y and Gen F to help drive implementation of Web 2.0 social media tools ? . Well - as yet they don't see the workplace benefits to bother. Of course .. too busy "in the present" to worry about the future ... not surprising either with the GFC having turned so many norms and plans totally upside down. Why make plans ... won't they just get trashed ?

So I, female techo Baby Boomer Web 2.0 social media loving afficianado manager, am now nudging the Gen X'ers along to see KM benefits of the web 2.0 social media tools, adopt them and champion them to fellow team members.

So while the Implementation 2.0  post makes some valuable comments for some contexts - sometimes it's different strokes for different folks.

@KerrieAnne

aka KerrieAnne Christian

Posted via web from kerrieannesfridgemagnets's posterous

Christina's LIS Rant: How would you design a collaboration community for scientists?

Christina's LIS Rant: How would you design a collaboration community for scientists?: "02/01/2007 - 03/01/2007 / 03/01/2007 - 04/01/2007 /"

Project Management - Learning via Web2.0 in a GFC World

In the 2009 GFC era where external training & conferences are just off the agenda, many of us have to find other ways to learn.

Blogs and their self promoting headline act, Twitter, provide an alternative approach to staying up to date. Even YouTube is getting quite a mention with its burgeoning E-Learning video's - although the quality is not always Oscar level!

Good Project Management related powerpoints can be found on Slideshare : I really like Craig W Brown's 11 Week Program - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,7, 8, 9, 10, 11. Also see KerrieAnne's UOW KM & KS in PM lecture slides .

There are a number of PM blogs out there eg PMThink! (this blog also lists heaps of others), Herding Cats, Leading Virtually, Effective Software Development, Journyx Project Management, Fear No Project & Project Management Tips. You can subscribe to blogs via RSS feeds and then read in a news reader in Outlook or also applications like GoogleReader.

Project Management Tips is a really good PM related blog. It has a huge number of tips that are actually quite on the mark so far as project management goes. I find entering the PM Tips blog site, a little like the kid in the Chocolate Shop to be honest. So many good things - which to choose ?

One approach is to follow Project Management Tips on Twitter - where the blog's headlines are "tweeted" by @PMTips, with links back to its PM related blog posts. Other PM Tweeters include @gsanchezs, @pmskills, @thepmtweet, @GanttGuru, @ProjectSmart & @meolesen. You can follow Tweeters with good content via RSS feeds and then read in a news reader in Outlook, or also applications like GoogleReader. Makes it a lot easier to get through them quicker.

Project Management Tips also focus on Communication & Learning in Projects and so there is a big focus on Knowledge Management tools.

Some of my favourite posts (admittedly a long list) from this blog include ..

• PM Fundamentals & Basics
• What if there was no Project Management -revisited -Do We Need a Structure
• Is Good Project Management Really Just Common Sense - Books on PM for Beginners
• Prep for Interviewing Project Managers
• Characteristics of a Project Manager - Pts 1,2, 3, 4 - Honesty - Reputation is a Fragile Thing
• The Difference between Projects and Programmes - Value of Project Management Office - Best Practices and Project Teams
• Kickoff & Exploration : VIP Admission Only
• Effective Communication - Managing the Delivery Team - X-Teams - externally focused
• Project Induction Plan- Brown Bag Sessions at the Start of the Project
• Keeping Team Focused on End Goal
• How Competent Are You - Five Signs You Aren't Cut Out to be A Project Manager
• Maintaining a Skills Database
• Statement of Work & The Defining of Requirements - Requirements Traceability Matrix - Agile Project Management
• The Project Customer & Other Negotiation Issues
• Getting the Customer Involved - Eight Things Your Business Analysts Need to Know
• When the Customer Doesn't Know What They Want - Dealing with Their Unreasonable Expectations - Keeping Track of Their Complaints -
• What the Customer is Trying to Tell You - Never Say No the Customer
• Is the Customer Your Friend - Project Sponsors What Do They Do ?
• Internal Projects : When the Scope Changes
• The Art of Negotiation - Pt 1, 2
• Common Project Issues: Keeping Bad News from the Customer
• When Client Can't Do UAT - User Acceptance Testing
• Common Project Issues : R&D - Too much "D" and not enough "R" - Pt1, 2
• PM Budgets & Challenges
• What is Risk
• Underestimating Complexity
• MOSS 2007 - ROI Calculation
• Project Management in these Economic Times
• Project Management on a Budget - Budget Overrun - Project Funding Hits the Wall
• Project Manager to the Rescue
• When Your Management Lets You Down - When it All lt Goes Wrong Again
• Learning & Managing Knowledge in Projects
  • Process Innovation Challenge - Lessons Learned - Logging Your Team's Learnings - Mistakes Matter : Post Project Reviews
  • Project Management Tools
  • The Project Portal
  • 5 Tips for Using Sharepoint as a PMIS - 5 More Tips
  • Wikis in Organizations - Sharepoint Wikis - continued
  • How Useful is a Wiki in a Project - Getting Your Project Team to Use the Wiki
  • How does the MS Wiki Stack Up Against the Competition
  • Articles from Here and There - on Wikis in Projects
  • Knowledge in Projects - An Introduction to KM- 10 Highly Recommended Books on KM
  • Communities of Practice & Knowledge Culture
  • The Benefits of KM - basically from a business bottom line perspective
  • KM at NASA
  • Metrics and Knowledge Management
  • Leadership Expectations - on Knowledge Management
  • Knowledge Management Framework
  • Justifying Your Content Management Investment - continued
  • Is technology necessary for Knowledge Management
  • Does KM work for you - theZen of Seeing - Knowledge Overload
  • Is the Term Knowledge Management misleading
  • A Knowledge Management Fable
  • KM in the News - Effects of Layoffs
  • What's Next After Knowledge Management
  • Email to Manage Your Ideas
  • Blogging within Your Organization - Blogging on Enterprise Portals
  • YouTube and KM

Posted via web from kerrieannesfridgemagnets's posterous

Anzac Cove - Gallipoli - Gelibolu - Cannakale - Turkey

I never imagined that I would ever visit Gallipoli aka Gelibolu - which led to the modern pysche of both Australia and Turkey. In Turkey the ANZAC conflict is known as the Cannakkale War and their successful defence, led by Mustafa Kemala (Ataturk), against Churchill's Allied Invasion, continues to be important to their nation, as much as the ANZAC legend is to Australia & New Zealand. When we visited ANZAC Cove it was a very quiet, spiritual place - of simple rather than grand memorials, and only 6 of us there. We appreciated the Kiwi sacrifice at Chanuk Bai and the UK's at Suvla. Our Turkish Guide, Ali, also provided the Turkish perspective. Accompanied by family, I found it amazing that the beach, of which we Australians hear from childhood, was so tiny. In the past a place of conflict - and now so peaceful - a place of reflection.

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See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from kerrieannesfridgemagnets's posterous

Death by Powerpoint

I confess to being one of those hated by Ralph Souleon - using lots of powerpoint slides in conference presentations - comes with the territory in an engineering field. Content. Content. Content.

Several years ago I was asked to email in my presentation for an engineering conference - so I pdf'd it to get the size down for emailing.

The conference was held at Sydney's Royal Randwick Racecourse - at the time when the Equine Influenza epidemic had shut down horse racing in Sydney - only a lone horse seen out on the track. And that was how I felt at the podium, when my pdf'd powerpoint developed compatibility issues with the venue's hardware.

Innumerable black rectangles where my witty & informative text box captions were supposed to be. Slides and slides of them. At least the photo's & images looked good. The session moderator couldn't help. Gulp.

Time for a deep breath and "wing it".

At least the subject was a field which I was confident and passionate about. I had to use the images as my prompts as I told their stories.

In fact the moderator commented later that because the text boxes were missing - my audience had to engage with me more. He kindly observed that it had enhanced my presentation overall. I hoped he was right.

The conference was one where participants rated all the speakers - not often done - but in fact a good idea. As a speaker you can appreciate the bouquets and learn from the other comments.

So I was relieved to find that some had rated me as best presentation - which was humbling as there were some very good presentations at the conference.

So I try to make my Forensic Engineering Failure Analysis conference presentations more visual - but content can't be avoided altogether in an engineering presentation. And never leave home without a memory stick backup - even if the presentation has been already emailed.

And it all came together for me a year or two later, when David Snowden observed at ACTKM 08 that voluminous stats, facts & numbers don't convince - but stories do.

Di Morrisey Chick Lit Storytelling

Summer holidays ... Christmas Day .. another Di Morrisey novel .. easy chicklit reading. Easy to dismiss.

However underneath these seductive and compelling easy reads, there seem to be almost sublimal messages. Raising questions of politics, ambition, big business, power, greed, environmental destruction, crushing of Indigenous heritage and values by conventional vested interests. And always there is the heroine, sometimes cast adrift by life's circumstances and at a cross roads. Facing contemporary issues, finding her voice.

Morissey's novel are often meticulously researched ... all communicated in a light non academic style, and thus reaching a huge mass market.

Monsoon - tackling Australia's involvement in Vietnam - of the regular soldiers and conscripts - denied legitimacy by the RSL's as it was not an official war. And yet it ran far longer than previous conflicts - Boer War, WWI, WWII, Malayan Emergency and Korean War. There were casualties - 521 deaths and over 3000 wounded.

It was a divisive time where the moral control exerted by the RSL and conservatives began to be seriously questioned with anticonscription protesters.

Morrisey's novel respects both views - the Vietnam Vet and the antiwar protesters, which is in tune with today's perspective - softened by 30 years travelled since the conflict. It provides a sympathetic treatment of those on different sides of the American War in Vietnam.

She also addresses the challenges of the returning Vietnamese and those of mixed racial parentage - how they are viewed by local Vietnamese.

Also giving a voice to those soldiers and their families struggling with post combat traumatic syndrome issues - faced in all contacts but all too often buried.

And also the tensions in Vietnam as it progresses through Doi Moi.

It seems that Morrisey tackles some controversial areas in her easily dismissed chicklit genre.

Did we throw out that Fogbank stuff - no probs - we will make some more - oops.

I came across this story in Slashdot the other day ...

US FORGETS HOW TO MAKE TRIDENT MISSILES.

I was incredulous and had always assumed that military types save lots of records ... in the last year we had been issued with my father's World War II Australian Army service records. And thinking back to TV shows like Cold Case and documentaries on the 1919 Influenza Pandemic tends to lull you into a belief that the USA has enormous records repositories with nothing thrown away.

The story was released to Slashdot by Hugh Pickens on March 9 2009 and within a day was relayed across over 500 web pages globally presumably via RSS feeds and blog following. The situation is astonishing - and indicates the cost of not maintaining good archives ... it was hard to believe, but then more conventional news sites were also running the story, including Fox News on March 9 2009 . Within 3 days the 500 web pages had to grown to over 1500 covering the story. In fact initially the story seemed to be just a beat-up & re-run of a New Scientist story covered a year earlier in its March 8 2008 issue and the UK's Guardian also on March 6 2008. However those aspects did not seem to feature in the US Congressional Defense FY 2009 Expenditure Hearings transcripts.

Hugh Pickens wrote "The US and the UK are trying to refurbish the aging W76 warheads that tip Trident missiles to prolong their life and ensure they are safe and reliable but plans have been put on hold because US scientists have forgotten how to manufacture a mysterious but very hazardous component of the warhead codenamed Fogbank. 'NNSA had lost knowledge of how to manufacture the material because it had kept few records of the process when the material was made in the 1980s, and almost all staff with expertise on production had retired or left the agency,' says the report by a US congressional committee.

Fogbank is thought by some weapons experts to be a foam used between the fission and fusion stages of the thermonuclear bomb on the Trident Missile and US officials say that manufacturing Fogbank requires a solvent cleaning agent which is 'extremely flammable' and 'explosive,' and that the process involves dealing with 'toxic materials' hazardous to workers.

'This is like James Bond destroying his instructions as soon as he has read them,' says John Ainslie, the co-ordinator of the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, adding that 'perhaps the plans for making Fogbank were so secret that no copies were kept.' Thomas D'Agostino, administrator or the US National Nuclear Security Administration, told a congressional committee that the administration was spending 'a lot of money' trying to make 'Fogbank' at Y-12, but 'we're not out of the woods yet.'"

And it might have all seemed like a conspiracy story by the Anti-Nuclear Fraternity ... however in fact it is all officially reported in a March 2009 US GAO (Government Accountability Office) Report - viz

"At the beginning of the W76 life extension program in 2000, NNSA identified key technical challenges that would potentially cause schedule delays or cost overruns. One of the highest risks was manufacturing Fogbank because it is difficult to manufacture. In addition, NNSA had lost knowledge of how to manufacture the material because it had kept few records of the process when the material was made in the 1980s and almost all staff with expertise on production had retired or left the agency. Finally, NNSA had to build a new facility at the Y-12 plant because the facilities that produced Fogbank ceased operation in the 1990s and had since been dismantled, except for a pilot plant used to produce small quantities of Fogbank for test purposes.

To address these concerns, NNSA developed a risk management strategy for Fogbank with three key components:

(1) building a new Fogbank production facility early enough to allow time to re-learn the manufacturing process and resolve any problems before starting full production;

(2) using the existing pilot plant to test the Fogbank manufacturing process while the new facility was under construction; and

(3) developing an alternate material that was easier to produce than Fogbank.

However, NNSA failed to effectively implement these three key components. As a result, it had little time to address unexpected technical challenges and no guaranteed source of funding to support risk mitigation activities."

Ultimately a new facility was built at the Y-12 National Security Complex near Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to begin production of Fogbank once again, but was delayed by poor planning, cost overruns and a failed effort to find an alternative to Fogbank, and so the project overran by a crucial year costing at least an extra $US69 million according to the GAO report.

Interestingly, some sort of solution must have been found as one refurbished W76 has just gone back into the stockpile, according National Nuclear Security Administration's February 23 2009 media release.

It is interesting that there is little widespread coverage of the story at all in the international mainstream media and that the story has been largely passed on by bloggers and sites like Slashdot. And there seems to have been no coverage from the Australian mainstream media here, at all... only by Australian bloggers. Is it a surprise that more are turning to their favourite blogs/RSS feeds-Readers and web sites to locate the news they wish to read ?

In fact the March 2009 GAO report of the whole saga provides a good case study for students of Project Management 101 & Knowledge Management 101, on the pitfalls of managing large projects. Plus why lessons learned need to be not only captured, but deployed and implemented.

Posted via web from kerrieannesfridgemagnets's posterous