Collaboration tools
As information architects we have a challenge when dealing with the large number of tools emerging the last decade in the space of knowledge management. The worst area of KM is related to the many types of collaboration tools - where for the sake of simplicity I would like to exclude the ones related to direct communication (like e-mail and instant messaging).
I think in short there are roughly three types of collaboration tools; 1) common interest networks (like the old news groups, and newer hypes like MySpace, etc.), 2) collaborative bookmarking & tagging (think del.cio.us) and 3) collaborative authoring (think Sharepoint in the Office area, but this also includes wiki's and blogs).
So when your KM architecture requires collaboration, then define what types of collaboration are required and how they relate. My view is that especially the collaborative authoring world that emerged holds the biggest potential for improving the way we manage knowledge. It moves the focus from approvals to content creation and that's what it should be all about. So when rethinking your collaboration space - think wiki's first.
Labels: knowledge management, Web2.0, wiki
qaotiq.com
I have been writing over the last few months a few times about the power of wiki's and the importance of reference data and now I would like to combine & test these ideas. Therefore I have created a new site -
qaotiq.com. A soft go live of the site was yesterday (there are still some bugs ...).
The idea is that it is possible to create your own lists of reference data and share these with others. The items in the lists can link to e.g. wikipedia or sites like Flickr or Google maps.
Eventually over time I expect a data model to emerge of all sorts of linked lists ... Let's see if it works - you're invited to join!
Labels: master reference data, Web2.0, wiki
Data management and Web2.0
After a few months of data architecture I notice that my original thoughts of using the paradigms of Web 2.0 have moved slowly a bit more to the background. Still I have to remind myself how we can move away from 'old' centralistic thinking to enabling the 'new' collaborative content creation model.
I think there are several roles for data management in enabling this transaction, but the more I think about it, the more I know that this is not a simple journey.
First of all I think that data management can play a major role in establishing a services oriented architecture that will move the complexity of data storage and data integration towards the background. If the provision of quality data becomes like infrastructure, than the usage will become more natural and will enable easier collaboration. But this requires a lot of work related to moving the complexity to the background and establishing good old data mgt processes for creating proper quality data in the right master source (so not really webby2.0)
Second - I need to fight for opening up the management of Meta data to the 'masses'. Why not publish this as a wiki? I have already started piloting this with our main data management principles (and soon the architecture principles should follow as well) and for me it already starts to work. A wiki is relatively easy to maintain, it can link to anything and it is very accessible. On the first point (maintenance) I see one downside - it is not easy to automate. Some structured content is just easier maintained in a database. Maybe this is an idea for a further development of the wiki (a wikidb based on MySQL, where structure content like standard picklists can be managed). On the second point (linking) I only see upsides - a lot of content I do not have to invent myself - it is already there! and this also helps the accessibility. Many anti-wiki people fear for the lack of 'control' of a wiki, but I see that the audit trail feature and the 'official' nature of the publishing mechanism helps to keep the content professional.
Another thing worth pushing is the use of Blogging and Indexing in environments where data is interpreted. Should we really keep an audit trail of everything if users can keep a Blog of what they've done and Indexing provides the basis of search and ranking mechanisms towards the right content? Should we introduce Search on top of structure data?
Finally I think that the idea of collaboration environments are a good principle for many data management paradigms. Maybe not for transaction processing (that's all about control), but for interpretation environments, research & development contexts and engineering it makes sense to organise information more related to workgroups and less to 'corporate control'.
Labels: web services, Web2.0, wiki
Wiki's
Knowledge Management is one of these subjects that raises many eyebrowse when people start discussing it. Some start to giggle and before you know it there is no serious discussion possible. Luckily Web2.0 has come up with something that stops these giggles quite quickly:
Wikipedia. Nobody ever thought that it would be possible to harness knowledge from many many people via a process where there is no real line responsibility and control is only possible afterwards. But the great thing is: It Works!
I have tried out if it works on creating a structure on meta data (just check out:
http://scratchpad.wikia.com/wiki/MetaPedia) and with a bit of structured thinking I could create lots of pages in a few hours.
Some research has shown that Wiki's are quite often more accurate and more diverse than the Encyclopedia Brittanica and the track record of abuse is minimal. So it seems like we have a great opportunity to learn from this.
So my observation is that Wiki's can also be used
within a company. Obviously it is not wise to replicate the effort on the WWW, since the result will never be as good, but for properiatory information, i.e. things that are specific to a company, it can be a great help. Think about:
- process manuals and guideline - they never get out of date again
- online help pages (e.g. for systems in use)
- basically any type of knowledge sharing where content needs to be structured
The great thing is that it is easy, anybody can add or edit it, and due to the audit trail feature people will refrain from adding bullshit ...
So time to move from a structured one writes & many read to a situation where many write, interact & read PLUS a situation where the actual content is more valuable, since it is more up to date and more people have contributed to it.
Labels: Web2.0, wiki
IM and the world of Web 2.0
I just watched a video on Web 2.0 (just search for Web 2.0 on
YouTube or download via
http://www.mediafire.com/?6duzg3zioyd) and I realised that most companies still live in the world of yesterday. Most information is hidden away in personal drives and protection is the keyword. Only a few people realize that most of the potential of all this hidden information is lost by the fact that it is overprotected and hidden.
I think companies can learn from the
Web 2.0 phenomena in rethinking the way they manage their information. This whole wave of new(ish) thinking can also be applied within the firewall of a company. Think about:
- Why do we have everything protected? My view is that everything should open up. Only a few parts of the infrastructure are only for named individuals (think contracts, think HR), but the rest should be open for everybody. This will unlock information in an easier way and will reduce the burden of managing security
- Why do we try to classify information with complex taxonomies or other classification schemes? People normally just fail to do this, so allow people to add their own tags and ensure these tags are easily visible. This will create a folksonomy for the company over time. Folksonomies are not perfect, but have much more potential than a top-down classification structure (just check out del.icio.us or flickr)
- Why don't we have quick company-wide search? Search is obviously one of the answers as well.
- Why don't we collaborate on content in a transparent way? Think about Blogging! (even the CIA is doing it these days!), but also think about creating a corporate memory via wiki's (http://www.wikipedia.org/).
Key answer for all questions is: Because most people managing information still live in the world of yesterday.
Labels: folksonomy, search, Tagging, Web2.0, wiki
