Grok Headline matches for Knowing Their Politics by the Software They Use
Social Software and the Politics of Groups
Social Software and the Politics of Groups01/07/2004 02:56 PM
Social software, software that supports group communications, includes
everything from the simple CC: line in email to vast 3D game worlds
like EverQuest, and it can be as undirected as a chat room, or as
task-oriented as a wiki (a collaborative workspace). Because there
are so many patterns of group interaction, social software is a much
larger category than things like groupware or online communities --
though it includes those things, not all group communication is
business-focused or communal. One of the few commonalities in this
big category is that social software is unique to the internet in a
way that software for broadcast or personal communications are not.
- More at http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_politics.html
Politics-Oriented Software Development
Politics-Oriented Software Development02/01/2005 09:18 PM A brief guide to software development in the real world. Aimed mainly
at new developers: experienced programmers already know most of this.
This guide is for hands-on programmers, not managers.
The Idea: A
current state overview of KM, with particular emphasis on Personal
Knowledge Management (PKM) and The Cost of Not Knowing.
I
had the great pleasure of speaking, alongside Howard Deane, CKO of
KPMG
Canada, with the students and faculty of Ivey School of Business
yesterday, on the subject of Knowledge Management. They asked us some
excellent questions, and since I'm a fan of the FAQ format, I thought
I'd summarize some of their (excellent) questions, and some of my
answers, not all
of which we had the time to address during our meetings with them.
Special thanks to Mazi Raz, Prof. Darren Meister and alumnus Alina
Polonskaya for the invitation, facilitation and hospitality during our
day in London.
Q: How do you help
management become aware of
knowledge gaps in their organization?
I'm not sure you can expect management to know what the gaps are, in
this era when, as Drucker says, for the first time most employees know
more about their jobs (and hence more about their 'knowledge gaps')
than their boss. That's why it's so important to do what Dave Snowden
calls 'Cultural Anthropology' -- talk to the people on the front
lines,
not just to the business unit leaders and managers. And even when you
do, you have to be creative in identifying the gaps and needs -- if
you
just ask 'what additional knowledge do you need', you'll get less
constructive ideas than if you offer possibilities, ask about real
business problems and obstacles, and iteratively agree on how
'knowledge' could help address them.
Q: How do you address resistance
to change when it occurs at the implementation stage of a KM
project?
Resistance to change is natural -- things happen the way they do for a
reason, and you can't create a sense of urgency for change where there
isn't one. You need to find the existing areas of urgent need for
change -- areas of high risk and unsatisfactory productivity for
example, and show how KM addresses them. If you're getting push-back
at
the implementation stage it may be time to stop and reassess whether
what you're proposing will actually effectively address these urgent
needs. You also have to make it easy to change.
Q: What are the main factors
that make organizations realize they have a need for KM?
It's usually precipitated by a crisis -- the collapse of Enron, the e
coli deaths in Walkerton, Ontario, SARS and Avian Flu and even 9/11
had
a huge impact on the perceived quality of existing knowledge and the
need for more and better knowledge in affected organizations. Every
organization whether they have a formal KM system or not is assessing
the cost of knowledge against the cost of
not knowing,
as the chart above indicates, and judgementally picking the level of
investment in knowledge and in KM that balances these costs (K1 in the
diagram). When a crisis occurs, the perceived cost of not knowing
soars, and this equilibrium point shifts sharply to the right (K2) as
a
result, and there is an appetite for investing more (K2-K1) in
knowledge and KM. What was always perceived as important suddenly
becomes urgent as well.
Q: What are the most important
elements of, land-mines to watch out for in, any KM
project?
A KM project is like any other change project, and the key is to
ensure you follow John Kotter's Leading
Change
approach. If you don't have, or lose, a sense of urgency, if you don't
have, or lose, executive sponsorship, if you don't have a clear,
well-articulated and communicated vision of where you're going and
why,
if you don't have a well-researched plan to realize that vision, your
project is in trouble.
Q: What
do you use as incentives to encourage contribution to and use of KM
systems? How
do you overcome resistance to sharing knowledge?
Dave Snowden's famous first rule of KM is "Knowledge can only be
volunteered, it cannot be conscripted". Incentive, rewards, contests,
bribes and coercive approaches may be effective for a short period,
but
they will not be durable, and the quality of what they will produce is
doubtful. Employees need to believe that their peers will get value
from what they contribute, you can't make them believe that if they
don't. You also need to make it easy to contribute.
Q: How do you pitch and
implement KM differently in
smaller companies?
In smaller companies budgets are smaller and most of the
knowledge-sharing is external rather than within the organization. So
you need to use simple, inexpensive, commercial tools that work
between
organizations -- IM, Skype, and collaboration tools for example -- and
whatever you implement needs to work seamlessly with the organizations
of alliance partners, customers and advisers. That means striking the
delicate balance when developing applications between ability to work
around firewalls and protecting the confidentiality and integrity of
the organization's own knowledge.
Q: Once you have executive
sponsorship, what's the biggest challenge in developing an effective
KM system?
In my opinion there are three great challenges: (1) Getting sufficient
budget and dedicated resources to do the job right, (2) narrowing the
project list to focus on a few things you can do really well instead
of juggling a mass of projects, and (3) balancing the KM pet projects
of managers (who have the budgets and resources and power to support
or
block you, but who often have mistaken views on what their employees'
real needs are, and just as often an unwelcome passion for playing a
heavy personal role in the fine points of design and look-and-feel of
the system) against the favoured projects of the people on the front
lines. Politics, in other words.
Q: What role should blogs play
in KM systems?
My view on this is that off-the-shelf blog tools are not yet ready for
prime time in business organizations: They are too complicated for
busy
employees to learn and use effectively, and their hard-wired
reverse-date organization and indexing doesn't match users' needs to
be
able to browse blog content other ways. There are three constituencies
in organizations who could benefit from doing some experimentation now
with blogs before they're improved: (1) Subject Matter Experts who are
inundated with requests for information and advice, who could benefit
from having their 'electronic filing cabinet' accessible to and
browsable by others in the organization, (2) those in the company who
are already publishing newsletters and similar regular bulletins, and
(3) those who are coordinating Community of Practice networks. These
three groups will more readily see the benefits of using blogs and
will
be more patient with their current shortcomings.
Q: What
are the best KM tools to start with?
Those that are easy to use, free or nearly free, and focused on
providing contact or context more than content e.g. Google Desktop (or
its imitators), IM, Skype, contact management tools.
Q: How
to you measure the impact and success of KM in your
company?
This is the question we all shudder to answer, because there are no
good answers. I think you have to use a mix of quantitative (e.g.
usage
stats, average currency of content) and qualitative (e.g. user survey
scores). And then you need to find some way to connect improvement in
KM infrastructure to improvement in more high-level critical business
measures (e.g. revenue per employee, speed-to-market measures). But
this is KM's toughest challenge.
Q: What
are the characteristics of a good KM implementation?
(1) It clearly meets, in the assessment of users, an urgent,
well-articulated and important business need. (2) It was completed on
budget and on schedule. (3) It's so easy to use that you don't need
training. (4) Users like it so much they spread the word about it, so you don't have
to.
Q: What
is your preferred framework/model for KM, and how do you see it
evolving?
Using the 'information highway' analogy, I've used the Architecture,
Infrastructure, Culture model. Architecture: Is it well-designed for
'traffic flow'. Infrastructure: Is there enough (but not too much) in
place that the user's experience is a pleasant one, free of
bottlenecks
and other hassles. Culture: Is it 'friendly' to the users and the
communities in which it is placed, consistent and connected with other
infrastructure, or is it just contributing to (information) pollution
and congestion.
In future I see it evolving quickly to a decentralized model based on
Personal
Knowledge Management:
Decentralized content (on your hard drive, where you'll care enough to
maintain it properly, not on some huge impersonal centralized
database), Personally-set sharing and permissioning protocols (for
subscribing and publishing 'your' content), focus on finding Who to
have a context-rich conversation with instead of What context-free
content they have produced in past), and a shift from Just in Case
knowledge warehousing to Just in Time knowledge canvassing.
Q: What is the CKO's most
difficult task? What is KM's greatest risk?
Getting enough budget and resources to do the job right, and assessing
the real cost of not knowing. The greatest risk is raising
expectations
in management's and users' minds that you can't possibly meet.
Q: Which company do you think
has an exemplary KM system and why?
I have never seen an exemplary KM system. Ernst & Young's in the
1990s was extraordinary, but it stopped evolving as new needs and new
technologies emerged. I've been told by reliable sources that Google,
Yahoo and IBM have great knowledge-sharing systems. Hill &
Knowlton
has a very dynamic system with some real innovation in it.
Q: What will take for KM to make
it into the core strategic
business goals of organizations?
Unless you work for organizations like NASA, the CDC, the WHO or the
CIA where the cost of not knowing is enormous, I believe the only way
you're going to tie KM closely to the core strategic values of the
organization is by re-branding it as Personal
Productivity Improvement or Work Effectiveness Improvement.
Q: Where do you see KM fitting
organizationally in the future?
Depending on the nature, culture, structure and industry of the
organization, it may find a 'home' as part of IT, Learning or Sales
& Marketing, or split between all three.
Q: How
do you assess the companies' and employees' readiness for a formal KM
system?
This is a great question. I've promised to develop a KM
Readiness/Urgency criteria checklist to answer it. I suspect it will
entail talking to people on the front lines of the organization to
understand what they do and what their 'knowledge problems' are.
Q: What
are the biggest "don'ts" in implementing KM?
Don't obsess over content and ignore contact and context. Don't do it
all top-down. Don't do it until you understand the culture of the
organization and how they're 'working around' knowledge problems now.
Don't expect to get credit or insist on taking credit for your
success.
Knowing What to Expect
Knowing What to Expect12/19/2004 02:56 PM Arabic Media Internet Network Dec 19 2004 4:51PM GMT
Knowing is half the battle!
Knowing is half the battle!02/01/2005 09:58 PM Iraqi militants claimed...to have taken an American soldier
hostage and threatened
to behead him... The posting, on a Web site that frequently carried
militants' statements,
included a photo of what
that statement said was an American soldier,
wearing desert fatigues and seated on a concrete floor with his hands
tied behind his back.
The figure in the photo appeared stiff and
expressionless...
Looks
like
a
bunch
of
newspapers
got
duped.
Shark Tank: Face it, you're probably better off not knowing
Shark Tank: Face it, you're probably better off not knowing06/09/2004 11:43 PM Both this IT director and his assistant director are notorious for not
knowing anything about PCs. So when the director starts having
problems with his PC during an office remodeling, they know just what
to blame.
Intel gives wink, knowing look over 64-bit support
Microsoft Learns the Importance of Knowing Geography
Microsoft Learns the Importance of Knowing Geography08/19/2004 06:40 PM U.S. companies don't always do so well when it comes to knowing their
geography. When Delta Airlines bought Pam Am's famous international
route network in the 1990s, they had to hand out atlases so the
employees and company executives would know where the airline was
flying. Now comes a story in the Guardian about the c
ostly blunders Microsoft has made through geographic ignorance.
Their gaffs cover not only geography but also political and cultural
sensitivity issues. While some of the errors probably couldn't be
avoided, what is surprising is that others could have and should have
been caught, but Microsoft took a lackadaisical approach. Working
worlds away in Redmond, the issues probably seemed trifling compared
with the importance of getting the software out the door on time.
Microsoft acknowledges that those errors cost real money and more
importantly tarnished the company's reputation. Given the arrogant
way they acted in the past about such things, it's almost nice to see
them publicly admitting to messing up, and agreeing that they need to
be more culturally sensitive (even if, yes, it should help them avoid
multi-million dollar blunders involving having their own software
banned or their own employees tossed in jail).
American Internet Service Provider Knowing Hosts Terror Sites
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3237755.stm track this
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Saddam Hussein's Capture: President Bush's Remarks Announcing the World Can Sleep Safely Tonight Knowing a Delirious Bearded Man Living in a Hole is Finally in Republican Custody - WHITEHOUSE.ORG
whitehouse.org/news/2003/121403.asp track this
site | 5 links
Broadlook--#1 CRM Software Solution--Empowers your CRM Software and fill your CRM Software with contact management relationships.
Broadlook--#1 CRM Software Solution--Empowers your CRM Software and fill your CRM Software with contact management relationships.06/18/2004 03:03 AM Whichever CRM software your company uses, you need to look at the
Broadlook Suite of Software which should seamlessly integrate with
whichever CRM software you are using. BroadLook is an integrated set
of applications designed to harness the Internet as a powerful
real-time data source--the data from which can be exported into your
CRM software. [PRWEB Jun 18, 2004]
Adobe to buy Macromedia in $3.4 billion stock deal - Computer Software - Internet Software - Software - Internet - Company Announcements - Earnings - M&A
marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?guid=%7B3B04AC26-E1ED-4FA3-8
E72-9C493CADC469%7D&dist=rss&siteid=mktw track this
site | 3 links
Print Manager Plus Wins W2KNews Top Award for Best Print Management Software, Best Price, Best Quality in the Industry American-British Company Software Shelf Receives Software Award
Print Manager Plus Wins W2KNews Top Award for Best Print Management Software, Best Price, Best Quality in the Industry American-British Company Software Shelf Receives Software Award05/31/2004 02:14 PM Software Shelf International, Inc., an American and British software
development and marketing company today announced that its flagship
product, Print Manager Plus(R), has won the coveted Sunbelt W2KNews
Top Award for Print Management Software. The award is presented at
Microsoft's Tech.Ed 2004 for Best print management software, Best
price, and Best quality in the industry. The Award was won as a result
of voting from over 500,000 W2K News subscribers consisting of Windows
NT/2000/2003 Administrators, MIS Managers, MCPs, MCSEs and IT
professionals around the world. Print Manager Plus solves the problem
of the hidden cost of printing in organizations. According to
Datamation document costs consume up to 15% of a company's revenues.
Print Manager Plus reduces these costs. [PRWEB May 26, 2004]
Seussian politics03/20/2003 01:04 PM
Bush and Chirac debate Iraq "I will bomb him in his car;
I will bomb him from afar.
I will bomb him in his house;
I do not like him, he’s a louse.
I’m going to bomb him here and there.
I’m going to bomb him everywhere."
Virginia Postrel hits on something interesting in a New York Times article based on a paper by a group of Harvard economists. The
paper is about religion in politics, but she draws two broader
conclusions:
Yet abortion rates show no significant change with the
party in office, while tax rates rise significantly under Democrats -
the opposite of what the political rhetoric promises. This result
suggests that politicians move away from the social center mostly to
get votes ("strategic extremism") and diverge from the economic center
because they actually prefer those policies ("nonstrategic
extremism").
Since the success of extreme messages depends on keeping your
supporters better informed than your opponents, the model suggests
that changing news media could be as important as changing social
groupings.
Sounds right to me. The second point is intriguing because it
suggests that getting the "liberal media" out of its elite, coastal
shell might actually hurt the cultural conservatives who complain
about it.
Four Myths About Politics06/30/2004 02:22 PM Chris (sorry to pick on you) gives a perfect example of the logic
that’s causing Democrats to lose so badly:…
Don't Dismiss Net Politics01/22/2004 02:11 AM John Kerry's victory in the 2004 Iowa presidential caucuses tells us
that politics remains in broadcast mode. We haven't arrived at a
technology-fueled, post-broadcast era. But anyone who doubts that the
Internet is changing politics in major ways just isn't paying close
enough attention.
Reed on politics
Reed on politics01/24/2004 12:38 PM David Reed — you know, the End-to-End guy — goes through
the candidates one-by-one. He's captured a lot of what I think and
feel about these guys. This dance remix of The Scream that's been
going around makes me laugh....
XML-Deviant: Politics By Any Other Name05/12/2004 06:55 PM The recent News.com interview with Bob Glushko spawned a rash of
debate among XML developers. The topic? Standards, of course! Kendall
Clark offers his own views, and reports on the surrounding community
debate.
Joe Trippi on E-Politics02/10/2004 02:40 AM I'll be filing my impressions of Joe Trippi's spe
ech here today at the Emerging Technology conference. I prefer to
listen at the moment.
XFree86 Politics03/20/2003 08:33 AM Pivot writes "Keith Packard wants to fork the XFree86 effort. 'It has
been brought to the attention of the XFree86 Core Team that one of its
members, Keith ...
Texas Politics
Texas Politics05/15/2004 02:39 AM
Before Enron Houston, Texas had been the locus of a stock scandal of a slightly different sort. Growing up in
Houston in the 80s and 90s, I never associated the word
"Sharpstown" with anything but a mall, but the area
underwent a development mired in scandal.
In the late 1960s Frank W. Sharp, a Houston businessman, negotiated a
deal with a few Texas House Democrats; they would help pass a piece of
legislation, and in turn, he would ensure that they would make a
profit from his company's stock. In 1971, the dealings came to
light. Most of the public officials connected with the scandal
were run out of office, but somehow one man beat the resulting karma, even it
was a a few decades later. But some good did come out of this, as the
Texas Open Records
Act was expanded in the aftermath of the scandal.
Feedster is working to ensure everyone's voice is heard by
making political Feedpapers,
up-to-the-minute digests of RSS-based news and blog commentary,
available to all the campaigns and bloggers. In less than a minute,
you can associate your blog with the candidates and parties you
support and make sure your voice is heard.
Politics and Taxes
Politics and Taxes09/03/2004 10:01 AM Will Uncle Sam subsidize contributions to your favorite candidates?
anomalousdata.com/PermaLink.aspx?guid=8814d74d-5eb4-4f65-88a4
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Look to Tech, Not Politics
Look to Tech, Not Politics01/29/2004 02:48 AM And the techies were out in force. Here was Google's Sergey Brin
standing with a bunch of us at lunch gobbling down finger foods from
the buffet. ...
Playing Politics
Playing Politics06/02/2004 11:07 PM There are plenty of places to "play politics" online for fun and for money. But now Ubisoft has
published "The Political Machine" if you want to actually play a video game based on a Presidential election
where you can manage the virtual campaigns of Presidential candidates.
Apparently, Ubisoft was going to release the game in 2000, but they
thought that election was not going to be very eventful. Or maybe
they just couldn't figure out how to involve our judicial system in
the game.
Party and Politics | MFA
Party and Politics | MFA02/16/2004 10:43 PM http://www.musicforamerica.org/party
In his most recent State of the Union address, President Bush
declared that governmnet "must work to counter the negative influence
of the culture."
Here at Music for America, we believe that it's up to us -- artists,
bands and fans -- to use our culture to counter the destructive
policies of this government.
It's time to bring the party back to politics
Grok Description matches for Knowing Their Politics by the Software They Use GrokA matches for Knowing Their Politics by the Software They Use
Knowing Their Politics by the Software They Use
The following phrases have been identified by the grok system as matching this entry:
The Idea: A
current state overview of KM, with particular emphasis on Personal
Knowledge Management (PKM) and The Cost of Not Knowing.
