judith meskill - soc.media.rocks

Basex Names The 'Knowledge Worker' Its 'Person-of-the-Year'; Microsoft, Xerox and Factiva Join In Honoring The Knowledge Worker.
According to this press release:
 
"...The Person-of-the-Year designation recognizes the impact which knowledge workers are having on the economy," said Jonathan B. Spira, chief analyst at Basex. "Without the knowledge worker, much of the business world would come to a standstill. Companies haven't figured out how to manage the knowledge workforce, and the average company with 1,000 employees loses over $12 million annually as a result."
 
"In celebrating the Knowledge Worker as Person-of-the-year, Basex announced the publication of Managing the Knowledge Workforce: Leading, Motivating, and Supporting The Knowledge Economy, by Jonathan B. Spira. The book will be available for sale in January 2005 at Managing the Knowledge Workforce; the table of contents, index, and chapter excerpts are now available at no charge."

What is CodeShare?
According to BEA's CodeShare Community page: "...an integrated set of project tools for knowledge sharing, communication and project administration. You can not only download and use your familiar BEA code samples, but now you can actively contribute to these projects and even create projects of your own. Leverage the expertise of other BEA technical experts in the community and develop ideas, examples, components and best practices around BEA technologies in your own project environment..."
 
Nod to ComputerWeekly.com for the tip.

A Cambridge, England press release claims: Autonomy Powers World's First Real-Time News Information Service.
I would like to 'kick the tires' on this one. Here is an excerpt:
 
CAMBRIDGE, England, October 25 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Autonomy Corporation plc (Nasdaq: AUTN - News; LSE: AU - News; autonomy.com) a global leader in infrastructure software for the enterprise, today announced that Information360 (information360.com) has selected Autonomy to power the world's first real-time information exchange. The service will be provided freely to serving news professionals such as journalists and researchers as well as subscribing news producers, including the enterprise. DORIS (Direct Online Real-Time Information System), will interact with the users PC or Mac desktop work environment by automatically understanding information the user is writing, reading or sharing and alerting and connecting users on-line to accurately related content and content related communities in real-time...

Bill Ives has a weblog called--Portals and KM--where he posts about meeting up with Dina Mehta and I in Cambridge: Connecting Through Blogs.
After attending Jeff Pulver's VON conference for only one day, I was able to meet up with Bill Ives and Dina Mehta (Conversations with Dina) for some most excellent face time, and a wonderful, if short, conversation. On my walk over to meet Dina and Bill I also had the opportunity to briefly drop into the Berkman Center and give Wendy Koslow (The Redhead Wore Crimson) a quick hug and hello.
Once Bill went on to another appointment, Dina and I sat and chatted at the Charles Hotel where we later met up with Jim McGee (McGee's Musings) for dinner. What a fabulous day of meetings and greetings, definitely time well spent.
I love having the opportunity to meet my online knowledge cohorts face to face--a grounding experience! Especially when we can converge from Chicago, Bombay, and Princeton--in Cambridge--just by coincidence... (:=

Today I was reading an article in EContentMag.com titled--Knowledge Management Involves neither Knowledge nor Management--by Martin White.
Among other things, Martin writes about Dave Snowden's three rules for knowledge exchange:
"Knowledge can only be volunteered; it can't be conscripted."
"People always know more than they can tell, and can tell more than they can write."
"People only know what they need to know when they need to know it."

When I found, at the last moment, that I was going to attend Jeff Pulver's VON conference in Boston, I conveyed my delight to my online friend 'Betsy the Devine'. I had hoped to be able to get together for tea or perhaps lunch with Betsy while visiting Harvard for the first day of the VON conference.
Betsy extended the grace and comfort of her home to me, making my last minute planning wonderfully easy! The Devine/Wilczek household was abuzz with the excitement of a preponderance of best wishes from points far and wide. Frank Wilczek's Nobel Prize for Particle Physics had created a massive influx of praise, adulation, and fond regards--via email also--from thousands of those whose paths he has graced in his lifetime.
 
While sharing the unique, and lovely home office spaces of Betsy and Frank, it was inspiring to witness Frank's dedicated devotion to answering each and every of these 1,000 + emails.
 
And so, in honor of my host and hostess, and this momentous occasion, I penned the following Sonnet:
 
Ruminations on the 1,000 plus emails
Received by a Particle Physics Nobel Prize Winner
----------------------------------------------------------
 
And as you work your way down to the 'M's
You'll find this simple Sonnet sitting here The verse studded with Quantum Physics gems In honor of your theory bright and clear.
 
So 'Asymptotic freedom' does suggest That Quarks in close confinement are so free And decreased interactions do not test
The binding force of Gluons, so you see.
Now Quarks and Leptons are those building blocks That construct matter -- El`e*men"ta*ry And Mesons, Protons, Neutrons do give 'Vox' To Muster Mark's Quarks numbered also three.
From Particles on to Cosmology In pure delight and wisdom may you be.
 
In response to my sonnet, and to the thousands of congratulations he received via email, Frank Wilczek shared a sonnet he had also penned--Sonnet for a Quark.
By the way, Frank's Nobel Lecture will be held Wednesday, December 8 in Aula Magna, Stockholm University. Thanks again Betsy and Frank for your wonderful hospitality!

Donna Miles, of the American Forces Press Service, writes in DefenseLINK News: DoD Announces Chief Information Officer Awards.
Here is an excerpt from this press release:
 
WASHINGTON, Oct. 8, 2004 -- The Defense Department honored its top information and knowledge workers Oct. 7 for important contributions to the department's transformation efforts that officials say are improving operations, saving money and, in many cases, saving lives on the battlefield.
 
...Top honors in the team category went to the U.S. Air Forces in Europe Communications and Information Directorate, which oversees the Air Force's communications and information-management effort in the European theater.

This is a crosspost from my Social Software weblog. And is most definitely salient to the continual pursuit of all things knowledge!
 
This morning I am on the edge of my seat with excitement for my friend Betsy Devine (of Funny Ha-Ha or Funny Peculiar? fame) as her husband, Dr. Frank Wilczek, has just been awarded the Nobel Prize 'for the discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction"!
Absolutely Awesome!
 
There is an article, by Dennis Overbye, in the New York Times--Three Americans Win Nobel for Particle Physics Work--that you can read to learn more about the wonder of this honor for these three brilliant men.
And, I am totally amused that this announcement is also salient to this 'Social' blog of mine as "...quarks, the theoretical constituents of the neutrons and protons that make up the nucleus, could never be seen apart from one another..." making them the ultimate 'social networkers'... (-:=

Lou Glazer and Donald Grimes write--Michigan must shift jobs focus.
These authors focus on a need to increase knowledge worker industry and jobs. Last month I posted--too many knowledge workers--regarding a piece in The Independent that stated the UK is producing too many knowledge workers. Could we really be producing too few here in the USA?
An excerpt from the Detroit News piece:
 
"...Of the 15 states (including Michigan) where the manufacturing share of employment earnings is greater than from knowledge-based industries, all had 2001 per capita income below the national average.

Education is another indicator of future prosperity and one critical to Michigan's future. It is important to have a healthy supply of 25- to 34-year-old workers with a bachelor's degree or better.

Unfortunately, Michigan falls below the national average in the educational attainment of young workers. All of the most prosperous states substantially exceeded the national average in workers with college degrees.

Michigan's gap with the more successful states ranges from more than 7 percentage points with Virginia to more than 15 percentage points with Massachusetts.
 
The evidence strongly suggests that knowledge-based industries are playing the same critical role of producing growth in a post-industrial economy as manufacturing did in the industrial economy. Knowledge-based industries are now the major source of employment growth, particularly of good-paying jobs. And they are the most powerful engine fueling overall economic growth..."

According to Rebecca R. Kahlenberg, writing for the Washington Post, For Work, There's No Place Like Home.
Teleworking has been growing steadily over the past seven years--11.6 million working from home in 1997, and 23.5 million in 2003.
 
"...the best candidates are employees who perform knowledge work, use computers heavily and are "reliable, productive, trustworthy on the job, ... motivated and able to work on their own."

There is an article today on CFO.com by Lowell Bryan, for The McKinsey Quarterly, titled--Making a Market in Knowledge.
I have memory of Jerry Ash, of AOK: Association of Knowledgework, once saying that one of his favorite books(?) on knowledge only mentioned the word 'knowledge' twice (or at least this is my memory of what Jerry said in his AOK newsgroup forum).
Ah, the languaging of knowledge. This CFO/McKinsey Quarterly piece mentions the word/concept 161 times, in many different 'flavors':
 
accessible knowledge, acquired knowledge, codified knowledge, common knowledge, contributed knowledge, converted knowledge, developed knowledge, diffused knowledge, distinctive knowledge, distributed knowledge, exchanged knowledge, functional knowledge, high-quality knowledge, individual knowledge, internal knowledge, managed knowledge, proprietary knowledge, public knowledge, pushed knowledge, relevant knowledge, shared knowledge, specialized knowledge, strategic knowledge, and valuable knowledge
 
in a number of different spaces, with a number of different players:
 
knowledge arenas, knowledge creators, knowledge exchanges, knowledge management, knowledge markets, knowledge objects, knowledge seekers, and knowledge workers.
 
Well enough of my bean-counting, word-counting mode. Lowell Bryan ends this long piece with the following reflections:
 
"Knowledge by nature has a much longer shelf life than information does. Knowledge about how a competitor acts in the marketplace, for example, can be valuable to a company for years. But even the most distinctive and proprietary knowledge, such as that held by a company's best professionals, undergoes an eventual decay curve that terminates at the point where it becomes common knowledge. A professional possessing secret information on a key business issue may initially have no incentive to dilute its value by sharing it. But as others learn what once was secret, there eventually comes a point in the half-life of proprietary knowledge when it has greatest value to a company if its insights become easily and broadly available across the organization."

There's a new name in my blogroll today--Bill Ives. Bill's Portals and KM weblog "shares ideas and hopes to generate discussion on the use of portals, blogs, and knowledge management to provide value to organizations through practical applications."
Today Bill talks about The Executive's Role in Knowledge Management by Carla O'Dell, and mentions that he will be offering a review of this book in both his weblog and KM Review.

In the American Scientist Online, Thomas F. Malone writes--The Looming Disaster about Red Sky at Morning: America and the Crisis of the Global Environment, by James Gustave Speth, from Yale University Press, 2004.
An excerpt from this review:
 
...Speth spells out eight transitions that will be required to transform society: progress toward a stable or smaller world population, freedom from mass poverty, environmentally benign technologies, environmentally honest prices, sustainable consumption, an emphasis on knowledge and learning, good governance, and--above all--a culture and consciousness that respects nature, human rights and economic justice, and treasures peace. These transitions are central to four overarching imperatives: reduction of population growth in developing countries; restraint on economic production and conspicuous consumption in the industrialized world; development of environmentally benign sources of energy to power economic development globally; and a revolution in education that will equip individuals to become co-creators of the human future...

From September 14-16, 2004, there will be a Collaborative Communities of Practice 2004 Online Conference "designed to provide practical insights, models and tools for fostering, growing and supporting Communities of Practice."
Early bird registration discount ends September 3rd, according to the iCohere website.

Just received a note from Martin Roell who, in the spirit of knowledge sharing, posted his BlogTalk 2.0 Publication: Distributed KM - Improving Knowledge Workers' Productivity and Organisational Knowledge Sharing with Weblog-based Personal Publishing on the web. Check it out and let Martin know what you think.