judith meskill - soc.media.rocks

Crowd surfing the UCLA campus, hmmm now there's a thought. Well that's just what SmallPlanet is doing with 'CrowdSurfer' on Nokia 6600 and 6230 phonesutilizing Bluetooth radio signals and GPRS connections to SmallPlanet.net.
 
According to the Business Wire pressrelease Social Networking Graduates to Wireless at SmallPlanet.net:

"This is true location-based, mobile social networking," says SmallPlanet's Ken Torimaru, who led the development of CrowdSurfer. "We are giving users the option to know when friends are nearby and to meet new people with whom they share some common, previously invisible connection, and we're doing it in the real world; in real time, in real place."
... Like most advances in consumer information technology, such as the Internet itself, the location-based mobile services that will figure prominently in the coming " mBoom" come with risks as well as rewards, such as potential misuse and loss of privacy. "We are very focused on privacy issues with this application," says Heaney. "We are rolling it out slowly and methodically, and with the maximum amount of filters and controls that allow users to determine exactly who, if anyone, gets to 'see' or 'find' them at any given time."

So let's seeSomeone turn on the socialight, then let's get a CrowdSurfer to go out and Find Friends, so we can playsome Dodgeball, over at the WINKsite. Hey, it is a SmallPlanet after all, and getting smaller and smaller all the time. mBoomhere we come… (-:=

Europe's Largest 'Knowledge System' for Remote Diagnosis of Vehicle Faults Unveiled
LONDON, May 28 /PRNewswire/ -- Vehicle mechanics across Europe will be able to share their expertise and experience of specific vehicle faults thanks to an internet-based 'knowledge system' unveiled by TRW, the world's tenth largest automotive supplier.
 
It's the largest knowledge system of its kind in Europe and will allow technicians to diagnose and repair vehicle problems much more quickly and efficiently.
 
The system is based on knowledge software from eGain Communications, the leading provider of customer service and contact centre software.
 
eGain's knowledge system will be offered as part of TRW's 'Internet diagnostic' programme, called Id. It is forecast that over 4,000 garages in the UK and France will be using Id by the end of their launch year. Id is based on 'remote diagnostic' technology, which analysts believe will revolutionise the automotive industry for years to come.
 
Remote diagnostics takes advantage of the fact that almost all modern vehicle systems are governed by computers. 'Id' accesses all of the diagnostic information collected by those in-vehicle computers and makes them available to technicians on desktop PCs or laptops...

Owen Winkler created a Blog Software Breakdown chartrecently of the various options and features associated with fourteen different 'install on your own server' webloggingenvironments. In Owen's own words here are some criteria for software he did not include as potentialcontenders for this comprehensive chart:

I did not include tools like Blogger or Six Apart thinks is best for me. I did not include packages with desktop applications for the same reasons.

I also did not include generic CMS software; only blog-making software. This excludes software like Drupal and phpNuke. I'm sure you can make a great blog with this software, but there are two things that I found in common the these packages: Either they were too configurable (Drupal, Typo3), or they looked like one of those h4x0r community sites. C'mon, you know what I'm talking about - phpNuke on phpBB. They're fine for keeping a weblog, more community and file-service oriented.

Owen goes on to outline three deciding factors that most influenced his final choicePretty GUI, Free, andSupportin great detail in his BlogwareChoice post.

And the winner is WordPress!

But, please read Owen's comprehensive chart and blogging software choice criteria for the full story. Thanks to Lee LeFever for the tip… (-:=

Jerry Michalski and I have been weaving wiki ways into our corporate consulting co-presentations quiteregularly lately. Jerry is as on fire as I am about creating clearer channels of communication and collaboration forcorporations (love that alliteration!).

Therefore, we were both quitejazzed to see that Rob Hof writes a very positive piece forBusinessWeek Wikis' Winning Ways.

And, our favorite client presentation environment Socialtext, receives kudosfor being "...a fairly buttoned-down service…" and a good wiki starting point for corporations. Most excellent, Go Ross Mayfield and the Socialtext Team!

Other hosted environs metioned in this article EditMe, and TeamFlux.

The utilization of wikis and weblogs in the corporate environment actually makes a great deal of sense. Especiallyin how teams collaborate and co-author their working environments.

Hmm, now that we have 'p-logs' or 'project-logs'will someone also come up with 'p-wikis'? Or even better, since wehave 'k-logs' or 'knowledge-logs'do I also hear 'k-wikis'?

Well, there is actually a fairly well established 'k-wiki', and DenhamGrey is the steward of what is probably the largest 'k-wiki' or KmWiki in the world. (-:=

Rob Hof also tips his virtual hat to Ward Cunninghamthe father of wiki invention. And he offers a number ofdifferent examples of wiki implementations Wikipedia (ofcourse!), Meatball Wiki, Tourbus Wiki, The Tolkien Wiki, and Trek Wiki.

And thus concludes my 'lyrical wiki waxing' for the week… (-:=

In the Australian version of Computerworld, Infoworld writer David L. Margulius posts: Government veers onto the Web.
...The ultimate goal of self-service government is to combine a set of time-consuming interactions into a single, seamless experience. But most agencies start with a more modest aim: putting a simple information request process or transaction online. Even this requires the successful implementation of basic technology ranging from knowledge management applications to Web and e-mail self-service tools.
"In many government organizations, the same information gets requested over and over again," RightNow's Gianforte says. "This is really the largest opportunity for doing more with less." But, as Gianforte notes, the content people seek is often spread out over many different systems.
 
Creating a centralized knowledge base that both covers the most common questions and is easy for citizens to navigate is crucial. These knowledge bases must be kept organized and updated through strong knowledge-management processes, an area where government struggles, according to Anurag Juneja, vice president of services and solutions at eGain Communications.
 
"People are a little hesitant to make the investment" in a centralized knowledge authoring team, Juneja says, adding that such a team is crucial to creating "an experience that customers would actually like to come back to."
 
Juneja notes that users searching the Internal Revenue Service's Web site for information about the AMT (Alternative Minimum Tax) might find as many as 100 documents, get frustrated, give up, and call the agency's hotline. If instead they had found a simple case-based approach to explaining the AMT, they'd be more likely to use self-service the next time, Juneja says.
 
"Listening to what people want to know and putting the answer in language they will understand" is crucial, agrees Janice Mosher, manager of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Customer Service Center, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security. In 2003, Mosher's group implemented a knowledge base to provide Web self-service answers to import immigration- and agriculture-related questions. She believes that in addition to providing clear answers agencies must enforce usage of self-service channels by making it difficult to go straight to assisted support...

Last evening Sean Bonner and I were IMchatting about a Doc Searls post about a Brian Dear post (LARGE490x2055 image) about a topic thatWeblogs, Inc.'s Jason Calacanis, our master tracker of trends, has beenkeeping an eye on for some time now Alexa's traffic analysistool.

In his How's Traffic? post, Brian Dear muses about adown trending, at times only slight, in traffic to sites like eBay, Amazon, and AOL. And then he includes illustrationsof a steady climb in traffic to social networking sites like Tickle, and Orkut (among others).

I'd like to add a few more significantly upward trending sites from The Social Networking Services MetaList:
 

Myspace.com,

Thefacebook.com,and
 

Asia FriendFinder.

Susan Pinker of The Globe and Mail has a "Dear Susan" column. Yesterday's title for Susan's column was "Satisfaction is a moving target". And while this is not exceedingly germane to my typical 'knowledge notes' topics, it did make me chuckle to compare choosing peanut butter to choosing a career in KM.
A reader, 'Just Me' asks (after a detailed explanation of her hiatus from working due to a number of reasons):
 
Should I take more college courses in knowledge management? I don't seem to have a passion or can't define one. Where should I go from here? Is it even viable for me to start over?
--Just Me and My Cats
 
To which Susan Pinker replies:
 
Dear Just Me,
 
Your predicament reminds me of shopping for peanut butter in a big supermarket. Should you buy the one you liked as a child? The one without fat, sugar or salt, but perhaps without taste? What about the organic one; it's better for you but you read somewhere that it contains a weird toxic mould. Smooth? Crunchy? The one with the peanut on top or the oil slick on top?
...While I'm not suggesting that choosing a career is as trivial as buying peanut butter, there is a limit to how much your happiness hinges on making the perfect choice.
 
...To extrapolate to your situation, now that you're healthy and your parents are settled, I don't think it's critical whether you work part-time, full-time, in business, library science, knowledge management or a combination of the above. What is critical is that you get back into the labour market and away from your cats, at least for a few hours a day.

Dina Mehta takes a break from her break to pass on this comic originally posted by Jan Karlsbjerg:

Hmmm, a great prelude to the next stage of the Corporate Weblogging Pitch Contest by the Judging Panelists?

Need a kick start to get this summer pitching fun going. Or, should I postpone to the fall?

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away…
 
Actually on 11 May 2004, Matt Mower 'IM'ed me that he and PaoloValdemarin (both of evectors and k-collector fame) had been talking about arranging a "SocialNetworking for Enterprises" event in London.
 
They were inspired by the fact that both Stowe Boyd and I are going to be in Nice, France to present at the iDate conference on 15-16 July 2004. Stoweand I had both, separately, expressed our individual interests in getting together with our EU cohort for some type ofevent.
 
Subsequently, on 18 May 2004, there was an IRC chat with a number of folksincluding Matt Mower, Marc Canter, MartinRoell, Ross Mayfield (host of the Social Tools forEnterprises Symposium Socialtext space), Paolo Valdemarin, Lilia Efimova, Lee Bryant, Suw Charman, a number ofothers, and myself. Since that daymany emails and IM chats laterthis event has really begun to take shape. Largelythanks to the un-flagging efforts of Matt Mower. Go Matt!
 
In London, on 12 July 2004, there will be an "event aimed to be a practical get go for CxO's in Enterprises as to howsocial tools & methods can help them with problems like insufficient collaboration, low innovation and unmanagedrisk" according to some early thoughts from Matt Mower'sweblog…
 
Stowe posts a link to the venue information for this London Symposium, scheduled to take place at the Bloomsbury Square Training Centre and which is nowbeing organized by KM Cluster.
 
More as the date continues to draw nearer… (-:=

Fujitsu Extends TRIOLE Strategy for IT Optimization to Global Market
...TRIOLE, which Fujitsu first introduced and has been developing in Japan, is based on real-life customer experiences and three core technological areas in which it has leading-edge expertise: integration, virtualization and automation. Virtualization separates applications and data from dedicated systems; automation refers to the autonomic self-healing and adaptation of IT infrastructure to meet changing business needs; and integration is the fast, low-cost and low-risk implementation of those technologies across the full IT infrastructure spectrum, including server, storage, network and middleware elements. Fujitsu has applied these core concepts to develop pre-verified templates, called Platform-integration Templates (or Pi Templates) that serve as functional building blocks to speed the construction of highly reliable open-system installations...
 
..."A major advantage of the TRIOLE strategy is that Fujitsu bears the cost of Quality Assurance (QA)," said Vernon Turner, group vice president for IDC. "Removing QA costs and complexity off the customer floor significantly reduces risk for customers and allows them to implement stable and reliable systems via a shared knowledge base."...

Mobile Social Networking is moving right along…

Hey SocialSoftwareWeblog - Just a heads up that dodgeball.com - "friendster for mobile phones" - just launced in 5 new cities: Austin, Chicago, Portland, Seattle, and Washington DC. http://www.dodgeball.com Thanks.

I am working on a new post featuring Mobile Social Networkingif you would like me to include mention of your MobileSocial Networking Solution, and you think I don't know about your service, then drop me a comment on this post, or atip through the 'Participate' box in the right hand column of this weblog. (-:=

In a press release on Yahoo! today: LexisNexis(R) Technology at the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Wins Knowledge Management Award.
DAYTON, Ohio, May 26 /PRNewswire/ -- LexisNexis U.S., a leading provider of legal, news, public records and business information services, is proud to announce that the LexisNexis database network technology solution provided to the IRS won the E-Gov Institute's 2004 Knowledge Management Award. The Award was presented at the E-Gov Institute's Knowledge Management Conference in Washington, D.C.
 
...The Internal Revenue Manual Knowledge Base, is a linkable, searchable electronic network of information and data repositories with the online Internal Revenue Manual at the core. Combined with tax and legal research services, this network provides a comprehensive suite of tax administration tools for all IRS frontline employees. LexisNexis provides tax solutions to over 35,000 IRS employees and started working with the IRS to refine this network in early 2000.

Something to watch out for...
 
While perusing my news feed this morning I came across an announcement from Penn State Live regarding Penn State University Leaves of Absence 2004-05.
Among the numerous leaves listed was one:
 
Richard R. Young, associate professor of business administration, to conduct research and develop further the concept of the application of knowledge management to the functioning of supply chains; to develop a manuscript for publication in an academic journal; and to compile research necessary for the publication of a book, Knowledge Management for Effective Supply Chains.
Best of luck Richard... (-:=

Thanks ever so much to Peter Caputa's, Monster Buys Tickle, who in turnattributes to Rafat Ali's PaidContent, for theheads up on this announcementas I was totally distracted by other events in my life today!
 
According to the Business Wire press release that was alsoin my newsreader:

Tickle has also proven to be a strong viral marketing engine, as more than 200,000 e-mails from Tickle members are sent each day encouraging others to join.

"The acquisition of Tickle brings a powerful new dimension to Monster, contributing proven consumer revenue-generating subscription offerings and unique interactive content that should enhance every site in our network of properties," said Andrew J. McKelvey, Chairman and CEO of Monster Worldwide. "Tickle's expertise in career assessment testing, networking and matching, combined with the viral nature of those businesses, dovetails perfectly with Monster's vast user base. With scientific research at its foundation, Tickle adds yet another layer to Monster's screening and hiring tools, providing recruiters a window into a candidate's personality and work preferences that goes beyond past achievements to who they are and their fit within the hiring organization. As part of our long-term strategy, we have been committed to diversifying our revenue streams and to expanding our consumer online services. Tickle is the ideal business to help us achieve these goals."

The addition of Tickle's services will enable job seekers on Monster to access a variety of career assessment tests ranging from "Right Job, Wrong Job" and " Career Personality" to "Career Interest Inventory" and "The Corporate Culture Test" to learn more about their aptitudes, job skills and career goals. Based on the test findings, job seekers will be able to better determine which job positions are the best fit based on their individual profiles.

On May 17, 2004 Gartner announced vendor placement in its 'Magic Quadrant for the Smart Enterprise Suite, 2004'. By browsing the press releases of a number of the proud 'Magic Quadrant' leaders, I was able to ascertain that IBM, Open Text, SAP, Vignette, Plumtree Software, and Hummingbird landed in the 'Leader' category this year. And Microsoft sits alone in the 'Challenger' category. Hmm...
 
Of Gartner's definition of the Smart Enterprise Suite, Judith Lamont, writes for KMWorld--The smart enterprise suite - Gateway to the KM vision:
"...The prospect of being able to bring all the technologies that have been labeled as knowledge management enablers into a unified environment is enticing to vendors and customers alike. The smart enterprise suite comes closer to fulfilling the KM vision than anything else to date..."