Plain English wiki use

Lee LeFever of Common Craft provides a plain English description of a scenario for using a wiki:

This entry should provide an easy-to-understand (but fictional) example of a wiki at work for people new to the technology/concept

10 things to know before you start

Jonathan Briggs of web-design firm the OTHER media (their caps) is celebrating 10 years in business (although as he points out, their first assignments were for CD-ROMs and kiosks, the web not being invented by then…)

He’s come up with a list of 10 things that he wished someone had explained to him when he first started out:

1. Understanding cashflow is the first important lesson to learn. The cheque is never in the post.
2. Clients will always change their minds.
3. Make sure that you charge properly for the work you do or you will not survive as a business.
4. Business is a combination of therapy, battle and the circus.
5. It is better to deliver 100% of the project than 110% of 90%. Leave exciting ideas that crop up during the project to phase 2.
6. Software engineers cannot spell.
7. Banks don’t want to help small businesses because they will not take risks.
8. There is a considerable danger in over-planning projects. Plan but allow for unexpected events.
9. Don’t accept all the work that you are offered because some of it is not worth doing.
10. Managing client expectations and client education is a major part of the job.

Something in there for everyone!

So now I’m an academic…

You know when in an idle moment you say ‘oh go on’ to a mad idea, and it suddenly takes on a life of it’s own?

Erm. Didn’t quite expect this.

The analyst’s take on social software

Mike Gotta - technology analyst with Meta Group - gives his/their views on social software trends:

Bottom Line: Innovative decision makers and early adopters will avoid the mistakes of the past (underestimating the impact of the Web) by allocating discretionary funding in 2004 for blog pilots as part of an iterative effort to construct a broader business case for social computing.

Business Impact: Sharing personal knowledge and enabling connections across peer groups are important best practices that improve workplace performance and innovation.

Analyst firms have a mixed record on predictions made in the past (weren’t we all supposed to be living in caves by now as a result of Y2K?), but these seem pretty uncontroversial conclusions…

How blogs and wikis can help knowledge management

Knowledge management is one of the hottest business topics around at the moment, not least because organisations increasingly realise that the store of knowledge held by their employees is one of the main ways in which they can differentiate themselves from their competition. Phrases like “our people are our greatest asset” are proof that organisations are beginning to realise that capturing knowledge, and using it to add value, is one of the most important problems that they face.

One of the well-established models of knowledge differentiates between “tactit” and “explicit” knowledge. Explicit knowledge is the formally-expressed knowledge that’s found in books, manuals, data and formulae and the like; while tacit knowledge is the highly-personal “what we know” - insights and intuitions. The problem for organisations is that it’s often tacit knowledge that’s the most vital - but at the same time, it’s the most difficult to capture and classify.

The creation of knowledge within an organisation occurs as a result of the interactions of explicit and tacit knowledge, in the process of knowledge conversion. This is where both types of knowledge increases in both quality and quantity. One useful model of this process is the SECI process - which stands for socialisation, externalisation, combination and internalisation. In this post I’ll explain the SECI process and explain where wikis and weblogs can help.
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