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Re: [ba-unrev-talk] Whither ba-unrev?


On Thursday 10 October 2002 03:17, Mei Lin Fung wrote:    (01)

<snip>
> How could this discussion group organize itself so that those who want
> to do x, can talk about x and those who want to do Y, can talk about Y.
> Yet have some way to peek over at the other groups to see what they are
> up to?
<snip>    (02)

Like many here, I have toyed with Groove, Radio and other blogs, and various flavors of Wikis. Radio, I feel, can handle with aplomb our requirement that Mei Lin has characterized above.    (03)

With Radio one can easily create category specific weblogs (i.e., those who want to do x, can talk about x and those who want to do Y, can talk about Y). Also, importantly, people can subscribe to the areas that interest them (i.e., they have some way to peek over at the other groups to see what they are up to). Furthermore, a community page can be built which includes for example recently updated weblogs, top-rated weblogs, etc.    (04)

John Robb** points this out and more in his recent post:  "A simple approach to KM" (see below)    (05)

I encourage all to read his post for a better description of how Radio can help us along the road to realizing the Unfinished Revolution. See if you aren't also likewise persuaded.    (06)

One more point: In the end I have to agree with Jon Udell, "It's not about XML, or HTTP, or outlining. It's about people evolving to the point where they **publish** what they're doing, and **subscribe** to what other people are doing, in just the right proportions, so that there's maximum awareness of shared purpose but minimal demand on the scarce resource of attention", (http://purpleslurple.net/files/potf.php?theurl=http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/categories/radio/#purp192).    (07)

Best regards,    (08)



Matthew A. Schneider    (09)

** John Robb (http://jrobb.userland.com/) heads up the Knowledge Management Weblogs (K-Logs) Yahoo! Group (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/klogs/), and is the President and COO of Userland Software. Userland is the creator of Radio (http://radio.userland.com/). Significantly, John is in the top 3 of the most popular Radio Weblogs. So not only does he eat his own dog food, but people apparently like to read what he has to say.    (010)

---- John's K-Logs Post ----
Original post here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/klogs/message/313    (011)

Message: 1
   Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2002 14:27:52 -0400
   From: "John Robb" <jrobb@userland.com>
Subject: A simple approach to KM    (012)

Dear K-Loggers,    (013)

One thing I found with new KM projects is the tendency to dive into complexity.  In other words:  these projects attempt to slice and dice available knowledge in so many ways that it is almost impossible to understand.  This, in my view, can tank a project.     (014)

My recommendation:  Start simple.  Get that working and then add complexity when there is demand for it.    (015)

There is only one good approach to approach bottoms up KM development:      (016)

1) Start with a simple system (ie. like a weblog publishing tool like Radio) using tools that allow future innovation.  Try it out with a small team to pilot it.  Post the weblogs to the Intranet (all you need is an FTP location for each weblog -- very simple).    (017)

2) Get people publishing daily what they are working on.  Make sure they understand the basics of publishing to the Intranet.  The chronological format.  The archives.      (018)

3) Help them to start subscribing (via RSS) to each other and essential news sources.  This is again a simple thing to do.  That way, they have lots of good fodder for posts.    (019)

4) Next.  Ask team members to begin to create category specific weblogs.  Show them how they can post from inside their tool to as many or as few category specific weblogs as they choose.  Ask the team to create similar categories dedicated to specific projects or topics.  Encourage people to subscribe to projects that they are interested in.    (020)

5) Build a community system for the weblogs.  This will allow people to get community pages that include recently updated weblogs, top weblogs by pageview, etc.  This will help people find each other.    (021)

6) Write up the results and begin to encourage other teams to join the community.  Sell the concept.  Encourage use by having the pilot team read and recommend changes to the new community members.      (022)

At this point, there should be a steady flow of great information, data, and knowledge flowing to the Intranet and between community members.      (023)

7) Next, begin to experiment with ways to slice and dice the knowledge that is being generated.  Try a search engine, build directories (ie. Active Renderer), add metacontent to the publishing process (ie. Live Topics), enable e-mail to weblog publishing, aggregate RSS streams, connect to Web Services, etc.  There is so much that can be done at this point.    (024)

The key to making this work is to make it easy and valuable for people to publish.  Success here will solve the knowledge "capture" problem.   Community development will help spur greater involvement and more frequent updates.  Only at the point when you have a viable system should you start to try more innovations in how the information is organized.  In fact, what you will see is that people will start asking for new ways to organize information/knowledge in order to save time and get more value out of the process.  Without this demand side of the equation, selling complex KM will not work.    (025)

Sincerely,    (026)

John Robb    (027)

---- End of John's post ----    (028)