U.S. Air Force lets Web 2.0 flourish behind walls

Image via WikipediaU.S. Air Force lets Web 2.0 flourish behind walls
Blogs, wikis and personal profiles promote information sharing, but some fear they could jeopardize operational security
July 17, 2008 (IDG News Service) The U.S. Air Force is using Web 2.0 technologies to better support its missions despite wariness about security, a civilian technology official of the service
The new techniques, including blogs, wikis and personal profiles, are coming out of an initiative by Air Force Knowledge Now (AFKN), a resource provided on the Department of Defense (DOD) intranet. They're helping service members and civilian employees find the information they need more quickly and are now being shared with members of the U.S. Army, Navy and Marines, according to Randy Adkins, director of the Air Force's Center of Excellence for Knowledge Management said last week.

IMHO, this article nicely points out the benefits, as well as the concerns about the use of Web2.0/Social Media capabilities in organizations. There is easy sharing, connecting to other experts and a more collaborative approach to working online together, and there is need for the building of social networking and sharing awareness.

Next step up for Social Networking software ?

Image via Wikipedia"Content management software vendors eye social networking
Content management software vendors are pondering social networking features and are expected to collaborate or acquire so-called white label networks to make their enterprise apps more social. http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=9219"

Could this be the start of another round of consolidation, as well as the standardization and commercialization of Social Networking software ? Content Management vendors will likely purchase some of these companies to complete their offering, make them scalable and integrateble - all good things with regards to the utilization of social networking within business environments.

the Knowledge Management solution of the present is not Outlook or..

Image via Wikipediasolutions like Sharepoint, Lotus Notes or the likes.. its the web-browser.. its the endless list of web service enabled internet sites that allow everybody to blog, share, twitter, text, etc. etc. etc.

My Mozilla is not the same that I downloaded.. expanded dramatically with extensions, greasemonkey scripts and stylish codes, it has become my become one of my main working and information processing interfaces.. Here I manage my friendfeed, my twitter postings, my 4 blogs, moderate discussion groups and keep up to date on the happenings on the Internet.

I will post a list of my currently used extensions shortly.

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Knowledge Drain in Africa ?

Image via WikipediaJust some obvious thoughts.. Africa is huge (11,608,000 sq miles to be exact.. see more here). Its got huge economic problems.. Tell me, why would an educated scientist stay there ? Yes, in the long-run and on a larger scale, the economic and scientific power of Africa can be enormous, but it has yet to find its 'killer application' for the world market (what replication and continious improvement is in Japan, manufacturing power in China, innovation and engineering power in Europe).. what could it be for Africa ?

Africa Facing Brain Drain
The United Nations is increasingly worried about Africa's brain drain and has warned that it could have dire consequences for the continent. The continuous stream of its professionals to Europe and the Americas is affecting Africa's development and prosperity. "In 25 years, Africa will be empty of brains," warns Dr. Lalla Ben Barka of the UN Economic Commission for Africa. The exodus of highly trained individuals from developing African countries to industrialized nations is not a new phenomenon. However, the magnitude of the growing problem demands urgent action as the consequences of brain drain threaten to stunt the overall development of the continent. According to the International Organization for Migration, Africa has already lost one-third of its human capital and is continuing to lose its skilled personnel at an increasing rate. It is reported that there are now more African scientists in the United States than on the whole of the African continent. Africa's share of global scientific output has fallen from 0.5 percent in the mid-1980s to 0.3 percent in the mid-1990s.

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What happened to AskMe

Hmmm.. what happened to AskMe ? Is that a good thing ? What is a Japanese company planning to do with an American Knowledge Management leader ? Hmm Hmm Hmm..

KM NEWS
AskMe Acquired By Tokyo-Based REALCOM
AskMe Corporation has announced that it has been acquired by REALCOM Inc., a leading provider of content and knowledge management services and solutions. Based in Japan, REALCOM is listed and publicly traded on the Tokyo Mothers stock exchange. Under the terms of the agreement, AskMe will remain based in Seattle, Washington, USA, as a subsidiary of REALCOM Inc.. According to REALCOM's founder and chief executive officer Tadashi Tanimoto, "AskMe and REALCOM have had a common heritage. Bringing our companies together is a great opportunity to advance our vision to form a global market leader in Knowledge Management and Enterprise 2.0 technologies." Both companies have begun executing integrating operations, technologies and development teams to ensure a smooth transition and immediate value for customers, partners and investors. AskMe will soon integrate their product roadmap along with increased product investments to build upon the success of the AskMe Enterprise 'Azo' release to innovate further in the Enterprise 2.0 marketplace.

Mobile Knowledge Management

The world is becoming increasingly mobile. There are more mobiles than humans on this planet.. its the one thing that nearly everybody seems to have.

So ? What a potential to connect, share and tap into eachothers expertise !

Blogging, Twitter, mobile google and facebook have brought anytime conversation to a very cheap, convenient and immediate level. (i am writing this from a mob ile blogging application on my PDA).

What does it mean to you ? If everybody can get their personal network to twit, blog and sms, imagine how eaisily you can solve problems, make better decision and organize an instant party ?!

Mobile collaboration is in its definition phase.. lets play with it and see where it leads us..

Posted from moBlog – mobile blogging tool for Windows Mobile

What is one of the key competitive advantage of a country / large enterprise

Yes, it is innovation and knowledge. Large enterprises are like small countries, they have similar issues to consider. Generally countries only advance if they create enough strength in certain areas to make them sell more 'stuff' than others. In order to sell more stuff, one has to understand the market needs, innovate it fast, build it very cost efficient and bring it to all corners of the world to sell it quickly (before the competition catches up).

Food for thought:

- where are most innovations created today ?

- who has the most increase in basic science students ?

- who has the ability to create product fast, quick and in masses ?



There MAY BE the risk of outsourcing core competencies that a nation will not be able to learn from - since they are outsourced - which may for the time being be cost efficient, but MAY BE detrimental to the long-term development of a countries capabilities.. again.. just a thought...

Global investment in R & D shifting to India, China

Global investment in R & D shifting to India, China

convergence of newspapers to online has started

USA Today is changing their business model to focus more on the use of news capturing and publishing like websites like digg.com do: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/media/0,72067-0.html

In my observation, this starts a new area of the 'old' publishing industry starting to break down their old structures (pushed by dramatic losses in revenue) to embrass the new internet based technologies.

interesting to watch what and who is coming next. I will keep you posted.

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Excellent article on SNA in corporate environments

Who Knows Whom, And Who Knows What?

http://www.cio.com/archive/061505/km.html?CID=6956

This article describes very well why companies should look into utilizing Social Network Analysis (SNA) for corporate purposes. Using an example from Mars, it highlights the benefits achieved by using such a capability.

Jajah - free VOIP calling to landlines and mobiles

A relatively new VOIP allows to initiate making phone calls from the internet. The really cool thing: making call to members land- and mobile lines are free. Calls to non-members are really cheap. Give it a try - www.jajah.com.  you can also use the productivity links provided by InsightKnowledge Inc.: http://www.insightknowledge.com.

Bill Gates looking for KM expertise

Bill Gates is looking for a Program Officer for Knowledge Management in the Education area of the Bill and Melissa Gates Foundation. This is great news, for that it entails that Knowledge Management has made it (once again) on the radar of top executives. If you are a KM professional with applicable experience, don't wait - send your resume for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. If you are in management in any company around the world, think again about the importance of managing knowledge for the long-term success of your company.
LINK

Great article on the Armed Forces' KM efforts

Worth a read: http://www.fcw.com/article95271-07-17-06-Print

KM Research by Microsoft

And you thought Microsoft doesn't do KM ? http://research.microsoft.com/kt/

Good news SME Framework Programme of euro 3.6 billion for Europe adopted

The European Parliament has today adopted the Framework Programme for Competitiveness and Innovation (CIP), by an almost unanimous vote: http://www.knowledgeboard.com/item/2727

Information about low-cost KM at BBC

As surprising as it seems, employees of the venerable British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), have been using Internet technologies such as instant messaging (IM) and Wikis, to beef up their knowledge and better collaborate within the company's social culture:

http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/communications/0,39044192,39370004,00.htm

Please join the KM Chicago group on Tuesday, June 12th, 5:00 to 7:00 PM at Allstate Insurance in Northbrook, in the South Plaza building, G Auditorium for a
Report from the Front Lines of KM Offshoring, Lisa Beckers, Americas Regional Knowledge Manager for Deloitte Consulting LLP

Lisa Beckers, Americas Regional Knowledge Manager for Deloitte Consulting LLP (a division of Deloitte & Touche) has had extensive experience with offshoring of knowledge management activities at her recent position with Heidrick & Struggles, which she left 6 months ago, and also has experience with it at Deloitte Consulting. She will discuss why her organizations decided to offshore and how well it worked; what activities lend themselves to offshoring and tips for a successful implementation. How flat IS the world of knowledge management? We're sure Lisa's comments will generate a lively audience discussion about the pros and cons of offshoring KM activities.

Speaker:
Lisa Beckers is responsible for understanding the priorities and strategy of Deloitte Consulting Americas regional leadership and translating that into the global KM strategy, along with the other regional KM managers. Her current focus is to develop performance measures for KM firmwide for Deloitte Consulting, including reward and recognition programs. Prior to Deloitte Consulting, Lisa spent 10 years at Heidrick & Struggles International, a global executive recruitment company, where she held a number of roles with the company including Global Practices Information Manager and Business Process Reengineering Manager. All her roles included knowledge management – from creating a KM function, to developing offshore activities as well as taxonomy redesign. Lisa held several research-focused roles before that in engineering and law. She holds a graduate degree in Library & Information Science from University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and an undergraduate degree in English from University of California, Berkeley.

Lisa will speak at the downtown location of KM Chicago (Factiva offices). For those connecting from afar:

Audio: 877-393-3363, 19494780 – Webinar: http://www.placeware.com/cc/factiva/join?id=alee&role=attend.

All are welcome. Please feel free to forward this note to anyone who might be interested. Thanks!

Questions? see: http://www.kmchicago.blogspot.com for more details.

Please note that the KM Chicago meetings are regularly scheduled for the second Tuesday each month.

Looking forward to seeing you there

Knowledge Management Events and Job Postings on InsightKnowledge.com

FYI, Knowledge Management Events and Job Postings are continiously posted on InsightKnowledge.com

Stan Garfields Weekly KM Blog - this week on knowledge sharing

http://www.line56.com/articles/default.asp?ArticleID=7624

The navy is im'ing

The NAVY is getting with the times - IM as part of their Knowledge Management structure to foster communication amoung soldiers:
http://www.news.navy.mil/search/display.asp?story_id=23602

Teenagers Inspire Knowledge Management Process

Interesting article about how the european US military recognizes that the way younger generations handle and manage information and knowledge, can actually be more productive: http://www.defenselink.mil/transformation/articles/2006-05/ta051206a.html