Tuesday, May 27, 2003

KM is a Social Phenomenon Jim McGee follows up his aggregator bricolage on weblogs and knowledge management with a part 2.  He includes Rick Klau on Gartner's hype cycle, Dina Mehta's perspective on the challenges of introducing weblogs into corporate environments, Jon Udell on using weblogs to improve project communications and other great posts.  Specifically notes that ease of set up, as well as use, are qunitessential. Jim picks up a gem by Gary Murphy at TeledyN and adds the pointed comment that KM is a social phenomenon: Both searches were initially pointless because, for very good reasons, both the sought after data items did not exist in the superficially logical locations. This is probably the number one flaw with most dead-robot KM systems: They fail to accommodate how Reality is inherently messy! The only possible method to locate either the ribs or the cards was to do what humans have done since the dawn of archives, ask someone who knows. In both instances, we needed someone who knew where the target was, and who could refer us to someone who knew how to extract it. Murphy provides the critical link here between weblogs and organizational need. It is the realization that KM in organizational settings is primarily a social phenomenon and not a technology one. Most prior efforts to apply technology to KM problems in organizations have been solutions in search of a problem. They have been driven by a technology vendor's need to sell product, not an organization's need to solve problems. Weblogs are interesting in organizational KM settings because weblogs are technologically simple and socially complex, which makes them a much better match to the KM problems that matter. One thing that we need to do next is to work backwards from the answer - weblogs - to the problem - what do organizations need to do effective knowledge management. We need to avoid the mistakes of other KM software vendors and not assume that the connection is self-evident. [McGee's Musings] 1:56:34 PM    comment [] Blogs on Meetup Great case of Social Networking Models converging, a Physical Network providing Conversational Network features: Meetup gets Blog-i-fied.  Meetup, which helps groups arrange real-world meetings, has launched a paid user service for Meetup users that inlcudes a Notebook function: Are Meetup Notebooks similar to weblogs? Meetup Notebooks are like a new sub-species of weblogs. Notebooks are similar to weblogs, except: Notebooks have the specific purpose of helping people become familiar with other Meetup attendees. Notebooks are generally about a specific Meetup topic. Notebooks prompt the user to comment on the community-generated Agenda Items each month. (This gives people something to write about and lets their opinion count as a part of community-wide polling.) Notebooks are integrated and linked throughout Meetup, giving users the potential for a wide audience within the topical community that they care about. This integrates three of my favorite social software themes: the use of virtual tools to arrange or augment real life interaction; the further extension of weblogs as a platform; and the possiblility of users paying for communal value, thus keeping advertising at bay. (The fee, interestingly, is around $3 a month, like the social networking service ItsNotWhatYouKNow.com.) [Corante: Social Software] 9:19:17 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2003 Ross Mayfield. Last update: 6/2/2003; 2:20:39 PM. This theme is based on the SoundWaves (blue) Manila theme.