|
|
Knowledge-Letter
|
Gurteen Knowledge-Letter: Issue 22 - 2nd April 2002 |
|
The Gurteen Knowledge Letter is a monthly newsletter that is distributed to members of the Gurteen Knowledge Community. You may receive the Knowledge Letter by joining the community. Membership is totally free. You may read back-copies here. ***** THE GURTEEN KNOWLEDGE-LETTER (ISSUE 22, 2 APRIL 2002) ***** For some time I have known about weblogs or blogs as they are more colloquially known but for some reason I have ignored them - well until Martin White of Intranet Focus brought my attention to them that is. So off I went to trusty Google to learn more and that started me off on an interesting voyage of discovery. Many of you will be familiar with weblogs - others will not - but everyone I have asked so far has not heard of them so maybe I am not the only one who has been walking around half-blind. Personally I am very excited by them - particularly as they relate to KM and personal-learning. I think they could become as popular as e-mail and instant messaging. As you will see I have turned over much of this knowledge-letter to the subject. I hope you find them as interesting as I do! *************************** CONTENTS *************************** 1 - Introduction to Weblogs or Blogs 2 - KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT CONFERENCE (April 16 - 17) 3 - Blog Products 4 - Looking back helps us see things differently 5 - Blogs and Knowledge Management 6 - Coaching 7 - Building your own Weblog 8 - Review of Future Proofing 9 - Harvard Business School 10 - Anthony de Mello 11 - Knowledge Management Courses 12 - Conent Syndication 13 - RSS Newsfeeds and Weblogs 14 - Gurteen Knowledge-Calendar *************** INTRODUCTION TO WEBLOGS OR BLOGS *************** Weblogs have been in existence for 3 or 4 years. But what are they? A weblog or blog, as it is often called, is an informal, personal journal that is published publically on the web. It is updated frequently - maybe a few times a day but at least several times a week. A simple blog consists of a number of entries or items. Each item has a title, a short description, a URL, the name of the author and the posted date. More sophisticated blogs can contain further information such as categories or multiple links. The author of a blog is called a blogger and there is even the verb "to blog" - so you can say "I blogged that idea today." or "I spent a lot of time blogging this morning." There are two types of blogs - 'personal blogs' as described above and 'information blogs'. The purpose of an information blog is to comment on and point to web resources on a specific topic - the topic could be very specific such as Lotus Notes or more broad such as Knowledge Management. As well as being personal, you can also have shared blogs where several people or a team publish to a single blog. So that's a blog! Doesn't sound that special does it? But you would be wrong :-) Blogs are a very rich subject and this simple definition in many ways does not do them justice. To appreciate blogs and their potential to the full you are going to need to do a bit of reading ... For a collection of links to useful Blog Resources see: http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X00143812?open&r=3&p=0 Or take a look at my new personal weblog: http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X00141D06?open&p=0 ******** KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT CONFERENCE (APRIL 16 - 17) ******** This is your last chance to pre-book for the Knowledge Management Conference, Novotel London West, Hammersmith which is now only two weeks away. This event is a must for business leaders and managers involved in the knowledge field and this year provides special insights for people working with knowledge in the fields of IT, the law, the public sector and manufacturing. + Ibrahim Gogus of Oracle will explain how one of the world's largest IT organizations implemented a KM programme across 30 operating regions + Ray Jackson of Solcara will lead a panel consisting of knowledge heads from law firms Macfarlanes, Theodore Goddard and Nabarro Nathanson to explain the 'knowledge trinity' critical to the legal sector. + Chris Hancock is the Director of Knowledge Enhanced Government, based in the Cabinet Office, and will explain how he leads a cross-government initiative actively involving every department in the British Government. + Jonathan Sage of PricewaterhouseCoopers and Bill Hutchison, CEO of Wordmap will reveal how a taxonomy was conceived, developed and then integrated with the knowledge and technical structure of a major manufacturing company. To guarantee your place at this event, click on the link below. If you add 'DG Offer' to your name when booking for the conference, you will receive a discount of GBP50.00. Knowledge Management Conference: http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X000BEB02?open&r=3&p=0 ************************* BLOG PRODUCTS ************************* There are a small number of blogging products on the market. One of the most popular is Radio Userland from Userland Software which allows you to store your blog on a special website that they provide. Or if you wish to set up your own website either on the Internet or your corporate Intranet that you can blog to - they have a server product called Manila. Another popular product from Pyra Labs is Blogger. And yet another is Conversant. Userland Software: http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X001413FA?open&r=3&p=0 Blogger: http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X0013DA9E?open&r=3&p=0 Conversant: http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X00141BFE?open&r=3&p=0 ********* LOOKING BACK HELPS US SEE THINGS DIFFERENTLY ********* By Sheila Moorcroft, Business Futures The British news has been full of the life and times of the Queen Mother who died aged 101. Looking back is important not only for nostalgia and remembering or in this case to say farewell, but also in looking forward. In thinking about the future there is a rough rule of thumb where-by if you are trying to look forward 5 years, you look back 10. The aim is not to see the trends that will shape the future, (although some of these will also emerge) but to remind us of just how much can change in a relatively short time. The problem is that we are very good at adapting to change and major changes become the norm very quickly. Hence we need to look back and remember. Pick a year and see for yourselves how much has changed - on a personal, social, market or organizational level. Sheila Moorcroft: http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X000D95AE?open&r=3&p=0 Business Futures: http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X0002DB9A?open&r=3&p=0 Future: http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X000B1F5E?open&r=3&p=0 **************** BLOGS AND KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT **************** So I had discovered blogs and blogging. Interesting! Fun! But what about practical business use other than journalism? Mmm ... so back I went to good old Google and did a search for "blogs knowledge management" - not expecting to find much - but I hit pay dirt ... 2,500+ hits and the very first one a hum-dinger! It turns out that there is a great deal of talk going on about weblogs and KM that I've yet had time to fully absorb ... but again here a few resources ... the first article is exceptionally good and relates blogging to storytelling, while the second points to a Yahoo! Group set up for the sole purpose of discussing so-called K-Logs (knowledge-logs). This area is worth spending time investigating and I will be reporting back in more detail next month. Grassroots KM through Blogging: http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X0013D9BA?open&r=3&p=0 K-Logs: http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X0013D9CE?open&r=3&p=0 Could Blogging Assist KM? http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X0013EA9A?open&r=3&p=0 *************************** COACHING *************************** By Anthony Warren Once the preserve of the only the highest captains of industry, coaching is increasingly being used at all levels of business and not-for-profit organizations. Many people are also finding it turning up in their job descriptions to coach their teams. Coaching is much more than the latest trend or just giving common-sense advice and being a good listener. When done effectively, the coaching permanently helps the person grow in vision, communicating capability and effectiveness. Coaching can therefore greatly augment the results of Knowledge Management initiatives. Coaches often work alongside consultants. Sometimes this is called adding the "Who" to the "What" of process and consulting. In the same way as Knowledge Management is helping organizations utilize skills and knowledge that is not only explicit but implicit, coaching focuses on bringing out people's strengths - often surprising the person being coached. In some companies, a young Maurice Green would be worked on by traditional development methods to overcome his weakness as a poet, frustrating all round. Whereas, in a company where coaching is understood, he would be identified as a strong runner and coached to be the world sprint champion as he is today - a much more effective approach. For a free information file on executive coaching (under 10 pages) email Anthony Warren at mailto:myworldcoach@aol.com (Anthony's site http://www.anthonywarren.com is being revised). An interesting site on coaching by one of the leading coaching schools is: http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X00004DEA?open&r=3&p=0 ******************* BUILDING YOUR OWN WEBLOG ******************* If you run a website or an Intranet site - you may like to develop your own weblog capability. The basic technology is exceedingly simple. I added a basic weblog feature to my website in under two hours and have started to publish to it - take a look - but I'll warn - it looks like a "blog on blogs!" at present - though you will find a large number of useful links. I am very excited about the prospects for weblogs and KM and I am actively looking for a client or two who feel the same but are in need of help. If you are interested - give me a call on +44 (1252) 812 878. David Gurteen's Weblog: http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X00141D06?open&p=0 Building your own Weblog: http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X0013D37A?open&r=3&p=0 ******************* REVIEW OF FUTURE PROOFING ******************* As I promised last month here is a fuller review of Future Proofing By Sheila Moorcroft. Future Proofing by David Birchall and George Tovstiga is one of 100 books in the ExpressExec series. The aim is to give the reader the essentials on a topic, fast. This, the book certainly achieves. It is a whistlestop tour of a selection of current thinking on futures tools and concepts including scenarios, technology roadmapping gap analysis, and trend analysis. There are also plenty of references and resources for those who wish to pursue a particular topic further and some practical examples from specific companies. I had a couple of minor complaints when reading it – which, I must confess, could have as much to do with my reading it late at night when tired, as the fault of the book. The first was the small format, which results in rather dense, small print which is not particularly inviting. The other complaint concerned the diagrams, which could have benefited, to my mind, from a little more explanation at times. Diagrams are after all meant to clarify and improve understanding: these made this reader work a bit too hard at times. All in all though, a useful overview quoting many very recent works. Future Proofing: http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X0010E66A?open&r=3&p=0 David Birchall: http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X0010FC06?open&r=3&p=0 George Tovstiga: http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X00119482?open&r=3&p=0 ******************** HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL ******************** I've just overhauled the Harvard Business School links on my website ... there is some really good material on these sites ... from the Harvard Business Review archives, to the Harvard Business Publishing webstore and of course the HBS Working Knowledge KM website. Well worth a browse! Harvard Business School: http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X00138A0E?open&r=3&p=0 Harvard Business School Publishing: http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X001389FE?open&r=3&p=0 Harvard Business School Working Knowledge: http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X00138BC2?open&r=3&p=0 *********************** ANTHONY DE MELLO *********************** I know that many of you love the work of Anthony de Mello. If I had to rate all of my books - his book Awareness comes out top - ahead of Stephen Covey's Seven Habits and Scott Peck's - The Road Less Travelled, Anyway I have just come across a site by his brother Bill de Mello who has written a wonderful tribute to his life (Anthony died in 1987). It is beautifully produced - complete with a number of family photographs. I've added the link to Anthony's profile on my website. Anthony de Mello Profile: http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X0000F1B2?open&r=3&p=0 Awareness: http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X0001BEEE?open&r=3&p=0 ***************** KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT COURSES ***************** I have recently added a page to my website for listing KM courses such as degree courses or summer schools. KM Courses: http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X00133A06?open&r=3&p=0 ********************** CONENT SYNDICATION ********************** If you have visited my site recently you may have noticed the little pink, green and blue headed panels down the left hand side of most pages. These are 'content channels' that I have under development but are not quite ready for external release. I have a Daily Quote, a Daily Event and a Daily Tip (with more to come) ... they are updated each night by a scheduled agent. Once complete anyone who would like to incorporate these items on their own websites will be able to do so. All it will require is to embed a single line of HTML code in your web page. I also have a number of similar XML based feeds under development that conform to the RSS newsfeed standard. ******************* RSS NEWSFEEDS AND WEBLOGS ******************* As well as exploring blogs and content syndication, I have also been exploring RSS newsfeeds. Rich Site Summary (RSS) is a simple XML format designed to let content providers share headlines and content with other websites. RSS defines key data about a story including its headline, the URL, and a brief summary. RSS is used to make news items and stories available on other people's websites. But also importantly it can make weblogs available too. Take a look at the newsfeeds I am experimenting with below. I have written an agent that runs once a day and pulls these newsfeeds into my site - notice that two of them are weblogs. Once again this is very powerful but relatively simple technology - just the kind I like :-) Resources on RSS Newsfeeds: http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X0013B3CA/ Some sample RSS newsfeeds: http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X0013B826/
|
|
10:11 PM GDT |
