Marketing 2.0

Knowledge Management Made Easy

Think all corporate knowledge management systems need to be elaborate, expensive, and technically complex? Think again. Here is a great article detailing KM practices at the BBC. I love the use of simple tech tools like message boards and blogs to connect people and facilitate collaboration.
Link:

KMWorld Magazine - The BBC%u2019s low-tech KM


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GURTEEN KNOWLEDGE

Here is an excellent resource site maintained by David Gurteen. In the authors words. " This website is a resource site aimed at people who wish to transform the way that they work; the way that they manage and interact with other people in their organization and who wish to better leverage workgroup technology. A wealth of information exists that can help us thrive in this new economy."

GURTEEN KNOWLEDGE

Collaborating With Universities to Create a Continuous Learning Culture

Four years ago, a South Dakota-based health care organization developed a partnership with a local university to offer an online nursing degree program for its employees. Around the same time, an Illinois manufacturer brought a local university on-site to deliver an accelerated bachelor’s degree program, customized to the needs of the company. Companies are increasingly banding together with their own competitors to work with educational institutions on industry-focused online degree programs.

Partnerships with colleges and universities can help provide training activities that are specifically designed for your workforce and business needs, and they can do so in a cost-effective way. But many CLOs choose to “go it alone”—using in-house trainers or bringing individual trainers from commercial firms on-site for company-sponsored education and training opportunities. Since the quality of this training is often very high, what is the added value of a partnership with a higher-education institution?

Collaborating With Universities to Create a Continuous Learning Culture

Knowledge Networking

A new phenomenon is appearing online, one that I call knowledge networking. People from all backgrounds with a wide variety of interests are connecting, interacting and sharing information. What we are seeing is a natural evolution of the Internet and its related technologies.

When the Internet first emerged in the 90’s, it was hailed as a technology that would change the world, ushering us into the “Information Age”. What happened next is predictable in a capitalist society — everyone tried to make money using the Internet to either change their businesses or invent new ones. You remember the outcome from this with the overheated speculation in the stock market and the eventual crash. While the Internet was somewhat discredited by the charlatans and over-hyped start-up companies that vaporized investment funds, it has continued to become a dominant force in our lives.

While it remains a major factor in the world of commerce (witness the success of Amazon and iTunes), the Internet has also enabled ordinary individuals to do some spectacular things without the benefit of investors, venture capitalists or organizational support. It has revolutionized communications in some very important ways.

Personal publishing – It used to be that the major news and media companies controlled the publishing of information. While they still exert a major force in what gets pushed out into the public space, personal publishing via weblogs and websites is allowing ordinary people to get their opinions and creative works out there for the world to see. Writers can now publish straight to the Internet, musicians can allow fans to download their music and voyeurs can post their naughty photos.

Networking – By using the commentary and track back functions of a weblog, people can now interact online around any number of common interests. Social software services such as Tribe Networks, Friendster and Linkedin are connecting people and allowing social and professional networking to expand exponentially.

Aggregation – The advent of RSS and XML technologies have allowed digital content to be syndicated across the Internet. A news story from a traditional media outlet or a posting from an individual blogger can now be accessed and broadcasted using the RSS (really simple syndication) technology. There are lots of RSS readers available now — software that allows the user to subscribe to any number of websites or information sources. Instead of having to surf all of these sites to seek out interesting information, the RSS reader automatically imports and aggregates new postings. Anyone can now access and consolidate virtually all of the useful information they are interested in.

We are seeing a revolution in communications both within organizations and for individuals. The general theme I see is empowerment of the individual. Hierarchies and corporate control are breaking down while power is being shifted to the individual and the social and professional networks one builds.

Customised training around need and motivation is e-learning's key

If you have been disappointed with a corporate e-learning initiative or if you are considering a major investment, you should read this article out of Australia. It emphasizes the importance of blended solutions that include collaboration, traditional instructor-led training and online resources and simulations. Beware the programs that are completely asynchronous and available for learners to complete at their own pace. Key point - "The universities learned 400 years ago there has to be a semester and an exam at the end," he says. "Otherwise people never do it. The endless e-learning semester has been a huge failure."
Customised training around need and motivation is e-learning's key - InTraining - smh.com.au

Supporting enterprise knowledge management with weblogs: A weblog services roadmap

Here is an excellent presentation given by Michael Angeles on the use of grass-roots tools such as weblogs and wikis in supporting knowledge management in an organizational setting.
urlgreyhot : Supporting enterprise knowledge management with weblogs: A weblog services roadmap

The Ultimate Whiteboard

As we become ever more sophisticated with our communication technologies, we look to software tools to facilitate or improve upon basic interpersonal communication. While online collaboration is fine for connecting geographically dispersed workers, many studies have shown the richness of face-to-face communication for solving problems and generating new concepts.

Remember the whiteboard? Just a few years ago it was considered the ultimate facilitator of group process and teamwork. Today, you often find people clicking away on their laptops during meetings.

IBM recently held a symposium on the co-evolution of business technologies. The results were captured by Eileen Clegg on a whiteboard using a technique referred to as "visual journalism."

Take a moment to view the rich images she generated. As the saying goes, "a picture is worth a thousand words." I wonder how many convoluted corporate strategy briefs or marketing plans could be neatly summarized with one of these diagrams.

IBM Research | Almaden Research Center | Coevolution Symposium 2003

Giving Productive Feedback

Sales and marketing people are often called upon to comment on a business plan, new product or advertising campaign. Here is a good article by Seth Godin on how to give prooductive feedback. My takeaway - opinions don't count for much but informed analysis is very helpful.
Fast Company | How to Give Feedback

Intensional Networks

The concept of intensional networks, articulated by Bonnie Nardi, Steve Whittaker and Heinrich Schwarz is a very useful way to define how work gets done in a world of increasingly virtual organizations. This is especially useful for freelancers, consultants and small companies who want to tap into a larger pool of talent. This link is to a review I wrote of their study.

Download file

Key Success Factors in KM

Here is an excellent post by Dina Mehta concerning Knowledge Management systems and what they usually lack. Her key success factors focus on presence, communication and collaboration. Too often, KM systems are just big repositories of electronic documents and artifacts.

Conversations with Dina