The Knowledge Management and Storytelling Blog

(Few personal and somewhat cynical reflections, as we approach the weekend…with not even one hyperlink…)

No. It is not a name of a secret operation or a kind of a special unit. Nor it is the initials for the newest API or a protocole that one of the software application Start-ups just realease. In fact, it is something that I just ‘invent’, following the trend of Three-Letters-Term ‘movement’. You know, something that bare a High-Tech sophisticated falvour…

SCS stand for Social Collaborative Sharing… So, what is it?!

When we think of some faetures that were just released in the past days to weeks, we can really see that users can now be more collaborative, more knowledge sharing and more social, if only they adopts these features, and combine them partly or all together. You can now embed your photos from Picasa or Flickr to your favorite blog, from within these applications, on the fly. That can also be done by uploading short Videos to Flickr, or to your Facebook page - not to mention the “old” YouTube service. Than you can create 3D models with Google Sketch-Up and embed them on Google earth. afterwards, you can navigate around them directly from GE navigator, yet if you want to mock yourself as an F-16 pilot, you can also do that by Google Flight Simulator. If you want to share these models, you can create a short video with Microsoft PhotoStory or Microsoft Moviemaker, and then you can upload these videos to YouTube, and embed them on Google Maps or your Blog. If you want to notice that to your colleagues and friends, you can use Twitter from the service website page, or you can donate some extra money you do not really need to the Mobile phone comapnies by Twittering your up-to-140 charachters messages direct from your mobile. In case you are troubled that someone may not see the critic news, you can sett your twitter account that it will update your Status at your facebook page. Just bare in mind that you may want to upload the same photos to your Facebook page and tag all your friends, regardless the fact that they care about it or not - AND - you can upload the same photos from Picasa to the web using Picasa Web services. Now, you are almost done: You shared all your photos and videos to all relevant media channels: YouTube/Facebook/Flickr/Picasa Web. You can communicate through Facebook/Twitter/Google Talk. Take a short breath, you are almost done. Now - several things are yet to take care of: you have to follow all your actions mention above to your RSS Reader just to be sure that they really “did it”, and now you have other messages added to your 4,328 RSS feeds of your friends and collagues, that do the same thing described till now with their photos and videos. Ah-ha! now what about Blogging?1 first, your blog post in which you describe the cool stuff you (and all your colleagues and friends) just find out they exists (using RSS Feeds from these application blogs) and - share all your UGCs and then read them again through thr RSS Reader in which you include your Blog(s) RSS Feed(s). And I do not forget for a second that my other 567 friends are writing the same UGS, but, ‘throughout’ their eyes, which is a must read, of course. And how I know that? Well, here are some news, my friends. Now you can shrae what you just upladed to your blog through include it in your Facebook status (which you produce through your Twitter account, which you operate through your mobile phone). You can also see who’s online through the new “Facenger”, or you can share your photos directly from your Flickr photosream, using the new feature they just added this week. Communicate in sound?! well, you can do it through Skype or Googletalk. In text? you can use YouTube, Flickr, Facebook. Browse presentation? go to Slidshare. Hear lectures and othe broadcastings? Go to your favorite Podcast service. want to know what happened in (those) world(s)? Dont forget to include their RSS feeds within your reader account!

Feeling lonley in the world?! Don’t panic: you can challenge these applications to check and look for all your Addressbook address list, just to catch up the few people that were left un-connected to Linked-In, Flickr, Facebook, Skype, Slidesahre, etc. Some of these applications, are still less brutal: they offer you to send a personal E-Mails to the people you want to offer to join. You may find that this “traditional” option is prfered by most recepients…Ah! old-fashioned they are… Yuchs.

And, if you still find some extra time to spend, you can of course get updated by real stuff thet really interst you, as a part of your professional development, if you included it of course within your RSS readers. This content, BTW, can also be published in Blogs or other websites. And guess what? this is something I leave for the weekend. As we use to say once, before the Internaet era, “the real serious stuff - we take home to read in peace….”

Have a peacefull weekend! (and don’t ever disconnect…!)

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Somehow, along my almost-fifteen-years of Interneting, in which I totally implement the notion that we are social networkers and all-time conversating, collaborating and sharing ”creatures” I tend to believe, based on my own experience, that many of us still does not understand, or use challenging and insightful web-based utilities and services, such as Blogging, Twittering, Wiki-ing, “Facebooking”, RSSing, Photos and Videos Sharing, etc.

I recall that it hits me when I explain to a friend, a “Geek” one, how the Internet “reads” for me, by connecting Technorati’s RSS Feeds of my Watchlists (on issues I am interested about) - to my Google RSS Reader. By doing that, I enjoy worldwide feeding on issues I care about, and it keeps me professionally updated. I turned out, that my friend knew and used Technorati, and of course uses Google Reader, yet he was not aware of the combination of the two.

His response was a a kind of ‘relief’ for me; he said: “Well, one should never under-estimate the users….”. I took it as a compliment… 

All these social networking features can help us to be more communicative and also productive in our daily life, personal or professional life - so, why not use them?

It may be so due to lack of time, yet I assume that it is mainly because people think of it as Technology, and therefore, for that reason, it is positioned for them as ”out of reach” for “plane ordinary” people.

For that purpose, let me suggest that you will browse Lee Leefever’s collection of “In plane English” short videos, that put it all in the right context: “How I can wisely use these utilities in a way they will assist my way of communicating, writing and learning?”

Have fun!

Just as a demo, here is the one expaining Twittering, in plane English!
 

And now, would you care to share your story?!

It seems that the notion of using stories, conscious or unconscious, planned in advance or opportunistic - catches a lot of attention within managers in organisations - not a traditional setting for storytelling - and in politics as well.Al Gore’s stories in his election campaign and in his global warming campaign were analyzed, and his current success is related to his improving skills in delivering messages more effectively, as mentioned in Steve Denning’s book “The secret Language of Leadership”.Just almost the same, the success of the current campaigner for US presidency, Barack Obama related to it storytelling performance, as brought by Paul Waldman in “The American Prospect” and Denning adds to it here. Terrence Gargiulo explains in his book that stories can be used as a strategic tool in communicating ideas, learning and delivering complex messages. Indeed it is used strategically in many organisations today. Yet, in a latest survey published this mont in “Communication World” by Terrence Gargiulo and Angelo Ioffreda, which I learned from a post of Kathy Hansen, it sets the main obstacle which was put by managers who join the survey: This survey also found that half of respondents reported that they use storytelling as a communication tool, half of them gave high mark to their CEO as effective storyteller, but only third of the respondents believe that their senior leadership “makes effective use of stories” (Ioffreda and Gargiulo 2008).

They argue that shortage in time and lack of resources to collect stories and ‘package’ them - are the ‘popular’ obstacles.It seems that despite acknowledging the effectiveness of stories and the impact that they show in increasing organisational performance, the reality in organizations are not yet mature for implementing it as a known, effective and respected managerial communication feature.  

Future is interesting …one cannot predict it precisely. Sometime, one cannot even imagine how things will develop, even though the start point is known. As far as I am concern, I can tell that I phase this felling every day, especially, when it come to my work within the area of Knowledge management. Keep reading →

It is nearly ten years now, since I first started my journey to the world of knowledge in organizations. As I recall, it was at the end of 1998, my boss call me and suggested that I will “see what it is all about”, where “it” was referred to “Knowledge Management”. At that time, I was not aware the full extent of this issue, nor I would imagine what would become my main interest an activity for years to come. Keep reading →

Koala Hamish

Originally uploaded by Yigal Chamish.

Located in Australia….
Photo taken by L.N.