Mainstream KM ignores Enterprise 2.0

I went to a meeting of information specialists last week, about Knowledge Management. The main speaker runs a course at a London University (note: A London University, not the University of London). She had also persuaded a few ex students, now working for City firms, to talk about their KM experiences at work.

With one exception - the lady from Ernst and Young - they did not seem to be aware of any of the key 'Enterprise 2.0' tools of blogs, wikis, RSS, social bookmarking. Or at least, not aware of their potential application in organisations for knowledge sharing. After the presentation I spoke to a young guy who is signed up on the course in question. He seemed a lot more tuned in to Enterprise 2.0 than his tutor.

I was thoroughly disappointed by the experience. Is it typical of the 'KM World' these days?

The development process

I was reminded of this one today. I love it. It also illustrates to me that systems or website development is essentially about communication. And of course that's what Enterprise 2.0, Web 2.0, social networks and so on are all about, too.

Social networking bandwagon is rolling

I've spent the last few weeks working very intensively to help get a website launched. It's a women's fashion site, and all of us who have been involved are pretty pleased with ourselves at how much we've achieved in such a short time. A few years ago such a site would have been simply an online magazine, perhaps with eCommerce included. From now on, social networking is de rigueur.

I'm not going to go into detail about the project, or even name the site, as the work's ongoing and there might be perceived to be commercial confidentiality issues. (Sorry!) The point I want to raise, I guess, is that I get the impression that just about everyone building a website these days is going to want it to have a social networking component. What does this mean? I think it means that there are soon going to be a heck of a lot of places one can go to on the web to interact with others. I'm not sure how many social networking sites we want or need. Is the latent demand so great that they'll all thrive (at one extreme), or will the whole 'market' consolidate down to 2 or 3 biggies, like Facebook and MySpace?

Any thoughts?

Mixed feelings about social networking sites

Many, many people seem to be signing up with social networking sites - LinkedIn, MySpace, Facebook, Ning, etc at the moment.  I've done so myself.  For some reason, though, I can't really get excited about them in the way that some people seem to.  All this 'poking' and sending virtual presents just seems, well, childish.  Not that I'm above being childish, as some of my posts on my motorcyclists forum of choice will testify.  So I'm actually struggling to put my finger on what it is exactly that annoys me about these sites. 

 

Perhaps I shouldn't lump them together.  LinkedIn is focused on professional networking and attracts more serious behaviour than Facebook or MySpace.  If it irritates me it's only in the way that 360 degree feedback used to at work: the sense that all that praise is of diminished value because everyone can find someone to say something nice about them, especially if the favour is to be returned.  No, my target is really Facebook. I'm not criticising the creators of Facebook, I just don't somehow feel inclined to join the big party that they are hosting. 

 

I think it has something to do with my personal history of Web 2.0 behaviour.  I've used discussion forums, mainly in connection with my passion for motorcycling, for about seven years.  I was very addicted to one in particular for some time.  Back in the autumn (fall) of 2006 I realised how blogging had taken off, how wikis were coming to prominence, how tagging was taking off, and how combining these three things and using RSS also could revolutionise knowledge-sharing within organisations.  This of course had been spotted earlier by others and dubbed Enterprise 2.0.  I started blogging on the subject and discovered a community of people doing the same.  I was, and continue to be, very impressed at the quality of the material that was posted on these blogs.  I came to feel that what Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 really meant was not only an increase in interaction and 'emergence' on the Internet and inside the forewall but an increase in maturity of use also.  Facebook has dashed that hope.  By comparison with the profession-related blogs the content is dross.  If a good blog is the Web 2.0 eqivalent of the Financial Times, Facebook is The Sun (and MySpace is the Daily Sport). 

 

Or maybe I'm just becoming a member of the crew of the TV programme, "Grumpy Old Men".

 

What do you think?

McAfee v Davenport

In Andrew McAfee's recent post he links to a video of his debate with Tom Davenport. If you have half an hour to spare, it's worth a watch, provided you're not hoping for blood on the carpet. Both men are measured and rational in their analysis of what Enterprise 2.0 is and where it might be headed. They agree about a lot: the tools are not individually especially new, but the combination of them probably is; their adoption by corporations may perhaps not prove to be transformational; the outcome is hard to predict; the ROI is tricky to quantify. Even their points of disagreement were more matters of degree than they were a dichotomy: how much potential there is in the concept of emergence; how significant corporate culture is as compared to the tools; how much value there is in the 'wisdom of the crowds'.

So perhaps this was not quite the 'big fight' that some billed it as. On the other hand, the wide areas of apparent agreement conceal what I think is a strong difference in view on a key issue: the nature of corporations and, indeed, human nature. Tom Davenport has a somewhat cynical, or at least sceptical view to Andrew McAfee's slightly utopian one, when it comes to the possibility of hearing the voice of the grass roots in organisations.

So who is right? I don't think there is a simple answer. Personally I do agree with Tom Davenport that the cultural barriers to widespread blogging and wikiing are very high in many organisations. But I also think the potential that resides in combining a number of tools for uncovering know-what and know-how is greater than Tom Davenport says he thinks it is.

What do you think?

Librarians and Web 2.0

Yesterday I attended a seminar organised by the City Information Group, entitled "Will technology replace the research centre? How will the corporate librarian's role evolve?". There was a small panel comprising Euan Semple, Mike Angle (Alacra) with Mark Chillingworth as chair(Information World Review).

The members of CIG are largely corporate librarians and researchers. Much of their time is spent fulfilling requests for information by accessing proprietary online databases such as LexisNexis. The thrust of the panel's argument was that Web 2.0 is a potential threat to this role, since it is essentially that of an intermediary, and Web 2.0 implies disintermediation.

I expected the audience to be largely up to speed on what Web 2.0 is, but that did not appear to be the case. At least, several of those who spoke up appeared to be deeply ignorant of the subject. And a show of hands implied little hands-on experience, at least, with blogs and wikis, Wikipedia excepted.

The other theme from the audience was authenticity/accuracy of the information to be found in blogs, wikis and social networks. Many of them were very keen to believe that it was unreliable and could therefore be ignored.

I felt a sense of déjà vu. I am not a trained librarian, but I managed a corporate information centre for year back in 1998. At the time the Web (Web 1.0?) was really beginning to gather steam, and I found myself grappling with not dissimilar issues then.

So what in fact has changed, if anything, and is there more need now than 9 years ago for the role of librarians to evolve? I think two things have changed in the last couple of years. The first is that the arrival of mass publishing via blogs, wikis and other social media has made available a great deal of (free) information which can be surprisingly accurate and current. The second is that there are in effect now a lot of amateur librarians out there on the Web - people who are willing to spend time uncovering information for the benefit of others, and linking to it. These two facts taken together imply pressure on the paid-for, authenticated information sources and pressure on the professional searchers.

So what's the answer for library people? Throw in the towel? I don't think so, but in my view a fairly radical change of role is needed. Information specialists need to include the 'informally created' material in their universe of relevant information and they need to understand how best to access it. They also need to act as enablers of the setting-up and fostering of the frameworks that make creation (and retrieval) of such material possible within an organisation.

That's my view. What's yours?

Off to Wiki Wednesday

Today is Wiki Wednesday in London. Perhaps not a headline event for Londoners at large, but over 50 people have signed up for it - on the wiki of course.

I'm looking forward to it. The last one I attended, back in February, had quite a buzz to it. And of course it's nice to be able to preach to, and be preached to by, the converted.....