Here's the next stage of the comment monitor: an RSS feed generator for Radio UserLand comments. Follow that link, click on the server you are using (blogs.salon.com if you are a Salon Blogs user) and make sure it gets your comments right. If it does, past the 'RSS' link into your aggregator (Radio users click here to get to yours) and see what you get.
Drop me a line to say if it's working or not. I'll move it onto www.myelin.co.nz if it does go OK.
IBM turns to social network analysis. A critical resource embedded within organizations is the knowledge that highly skilled workers bring to work on a day-to-day basis. However, aside from human resource policies targeted at the attraction, development and retention of skilled knowledge workers, there has been little effort put into systematic ways of leveraging knowledge that is embedded in people and relationships. Given the extent to which people rely on their own knowledge and the knowledge of their contacts to solve problems, this is a significant shortcoming. Social network analysis allows us to understand how a given network of people create and share knowledge, helping us to move beyond this approach. [Smart Mobs]
An important issue that would arise for me, if I were to work in an enterprise, would be to restrict my sharing to the organization. This would require a degree of corporate loyalty that I just might have some trouble with.
From a personal standpoint, it would be more useful for me to share all my knowledge publicly: it would enable me to build more relationships with outsiders, and establish a reputation that is not limited to my organization. When the time comes to move on, I'd probably be in a better position.
Mob Intelligence Put to Fonts. The concept of a the collective intelligence of a mob, sometimes called the "hive mind", is a facinating theoretical concept -- but it's every cooler when it is put to good use as a websites that allows the creation of a collaborative font. Interesting for the clever user interface if nothing else. [kuro5hin.org]
"Howard Rheingold's new book, "Smart Mobs," is coming out next November. It's a hell of a book, about the ways that technology enable groups of people to spontaneously form and coordinate in response to current events -- from SMS-enabled Filipiino demonstrations over official censorship to ubiquitous Japanese kids who photograph everything with their DoCoMo phones and post them online all the time.
Howard's site, SmartMobs.com, is a blog that talks about technology and events that show smart mobs in action." [Boing Boing Blog]
[...] And in the spirit of smart communication, the book's blog has a RSS feed!
Why has knowledge management come to prominence now. I was asked the other day why has knowledge management come to prominence now. There is a short answer that is summed up in that one word called "Internet". Connectivity, capacity and access for all make it possible to share knowledge.
But the point is - we always have and we always will. The Internet is change in means and mode, not a root cause. I think knowledge management's prominence has deeper roots in an individual's need to learn at this point in history. People are finding they need to become more reliant and old ways don't serve them any more.
We are no longer content to take what the boss gives us and seek greater choice. We are starting to see the need to learn again and that is best done in a community. Knowledge sharing/management is a community based activity. The change we are facing is nothing new. Changes of this magnitude have happened before and will happen again (Industrial revolution anyone?). It's just this time around we have a name.
Well, technologically speaking, KM could have risen several years earlier. But to get serious knowledge sharing going on, we needed a critical mass of people willing to go against the grain and able to find one another and join forces. So I believe the interest in KM owes much to the tremendous growth of the web. Not just universal access but universal involvement.
