If one defines social media as the one-way sharing of text, pictures and video (like in Twitter, Instagram and Youtube), than one could argue that social media is part of a Knowledge Management approach. Sharing text, pictures and videos as part of an experience can provide a more immersive and complete sharing of all details of having made an experience (a good example is Google’s introduction of the Google Glasses – a live sharing of a skydive).
English: The Logo of the Dokuwiki software. Deutsch: Das Logo der Software Dokuwiki. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Personal Knowledge Management – the capturing and re-use of personal experience in a structured way. So how does one manage personal experience. While I think there is no best answer that fits all lifestyles and ways of making experiences, I do think that there are some basic rules that allow everyone to improve their own means of PKM:
have a way of making notes anywhere and anytime (computer, phone, cloud)
make sure the notes are searchable (full-text)
notes need to allow to capture text, graphics, URLs – the more the better
notes that are interlinkable (like wikilinks) are best to link relevant information to each other in a semi-automated way
a tool like dokuwiki also allows for sharing individual notes with others. Dokuwiki is also great to run locally (as part of a WAMP implementation; Windows/Apache/MySQL/PHP) or in the cloud (hosted/self-hosted)
a blog (like wordpress; like this one) or a dokuwiki (with add-ons) also allows for other to interact and discuss one experience.Â
combining a wysiwyg wiki with a social network allows for the creation of a knowledge network
another great way of capturing personal knowledge are tiddlywiki pages, editable, local html pages that behalf like wiki pages
My personal experience with personal experience (pun intended lol) – I have been capturing information for reference, thoughts on experiences I made ideas that flew through my mind – with different wiki solutions that interact. I am using zim desktop for linux and windows, dropbox for replicating notes securely across computers, touch wiki for IOS and another one for Android – wikimind – all of them supporting mark-down syntax.
A lot of people also use solutions like Microsoft OneNote, Evernote or Springpad (besides others), where-as I am going for the lowest common denominator (text and file based) as previously mentioned solutions (and their storage format) may come and go over time
Short Answer: There is no best Knowledge Management software.
That deserves some more explanation.
Knowledge Management includes components of discipline, a set of rules, processes, tools, technologies and cultural aspects. As such one will have a hard time finding a software that will do Knowledge Management for you – its mostly about exchanging experiences in relation to information available.
There are a couple of good platforms though, that are flexible enough to adapt to the principles of Knowledge Management.
Lotus Notes used to be a good one. Sharepoint is a good one. Tikiwiki, Alfresco, Drupal and WordPress are all platforms that allow you to embed and link information (content), people and processes together. If you have a Knowledge Management strategy, adapt this tools to represent it.
Document and Content management, social networking, taxonomy and workflow processing are major parts of that. Mobile access a relatively new one, but with growing importance. Include a powerful search and you are off to a good start.
English: A schematic showing the spreading of humans in history. The schematic is made based on an image in the magazine “Natuurwetenschap en techniek, oktober 2009″. This image in the magazine was an image made using data from the (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Based on the ‘old’ KM pyramid of Data, Information and Knowledge, one could argue that Data put in context becomes information (the documents, spreadsheet and presentations we all create plenty of). As @KM_Researcher tweets:
adding the human element to information results in Knowledge Management.
There is more to it that this simple equation, though in general there is truth to it. Computers don’t manage knowledge, humans do. And as such social networking (as in the human factor transported through online interaction) should be part of every Knowledge Management strategy.
about Knowledge Management and Capacity Development. He makes the statement that Capacity development is absolutely crucial – and I agree with him. Fact is that the more people in an organization, on a project, members of an initiative, etc. understand what Knowledge Management is about, the more they participate, exchange knowledge, allow the result to be beyond the sum of information.
With the growing threat of modern malware, which finds amazing new ways to intrude your computer – making it the more dangerous. It’s good to check your computer AND website frequently using tools like this one:
Interesting blog post by Pierre Audoin Consultants about a three-day event where 30 CIOs from Germany, Austria and Switzerland gathered to discuss CIO topics of interest.
These companies include Adidas, Credit Suisse, Danone or Merck.
One of the main topics of discussion:Knowledge Management
Managing written and social knowledge – how to do it and succeed ?
Sharepoint and Knowledge Management
One could argue that social networking and its integration into business promoted another ‘revival’ of Knowledge Management. It never really went away – its is human nature to share experiences, tell stories, transfer our knowledge to the next person. And yes, it is possible to do effective Knowledge Management using Sharepoint as a platform.
About a year old, but with quite a strong growth (and investment), SULIA is the subject matter network. People share about their ‘expertise’ and you can ‘trust’ them on that topic. Interesting approach – though what makes an expert an expert ?? What does ‘trust’ in this context mean. The website (no ios or android available that I know of) is pretty basic and simple. Another ‘let’s see where this is going’ from me. Update – Zemanta tells me that there is an android app available. See below under related articles.
In response to the Zemanta’s blog post of Todd Sawicki joining Zemanta as president – and him sharing his ideas on mobile ads – I shared the following idea.
Ads are – well, let’s say – an unavoidable given these days. As much as they can be annoying and intrusive, they can also be funny, helpful and informative. What if a blogger using services like Zementa could handpick the Ad/s that s/he thinks is most related or relevant to the posting s/he is writing ? Social Sourcing of Ads ? Interesting concept.
In response to Content Rambler’s part 1 of ‘why the nature of knowledge frustrates knowledge management’ – I made the case that information (aquired) is different from knowledge (experienced), that reading a book about something and ‘knowing’ the topic is very different from having been there and done it (experienced it yourself). It could be argued that knowledge cannot be captured, but only connected to. Social networks of experts are a good example.
Send to Kindle
