בחיים לא ידעתי שאפשר לסרוג ככה

“How long this (RSS) exists…?”

“For many years …” I replied.

“So how come I do not know that …?” she snapped to me.

“I think you actually ask: “How do you know things in general, right …?” I challenge her. “I think one way to know how to know, is using RSS”, I answered.

What is it and what it is good for?

RSS is a piece of software code in a website which sends a message across the network whenever new content is published in this website. So, if we want to be updated whenever the news of the Business section on CNN, there are two possibilities to do this: first – to enter the site again and again and again, and wait for a new story to born … of course it’s an inefficient way. The other option is to “take” the RSS feed of the channel of the Business section in CNN, incorporate it into a tool used to read (Receive) RSS feeds like Google Reader, and then, whenever a new story section, this news will automatically appear on the screen 0f your RSS reader. Here is a great video clip which explains the nature of RSS in plain English:

Wait! Is like receiving Google Alerts, isn’t it?

Well, not exactly…. Google Alerts is a great way to get E-Mail-like messages directly to your E-Mail inbox, however, it is not possible to search “within” the text of the alert In short, why not enjoy a larger variety of capabilities, and with less effort?

So what now?

So what we can do now is adding the RSS feeds to our Google Reader, from websites, from writers, and – and this is so cool – receive updates on a topic or a subject or a term that interest us.

Okay … but why do you recommend Google Reader specifically?

Wait! In my organization we are not allowed to access the Internet. What can I do?

Now, let’s get to work:

An RSS feed from a website:

Not every site includes RSS, but – the number of those is currently dwindling. Many sites are allowing a wide variety of RSS feeds on their sites. As demonstrated before, you can take RSS feed from websites that interests you, for example, the Whitehouse Blog or variety of channels at MOMA. Try and experience for yourself!

An RSS feed from an author’s (writer) website (blog):

All blog offer at least one RSS channel from the writer’s blog, so you can get updated every time a blogger publishes a new post. You can receive RSS feeds updates from Tom Friedman’s blog or you can follow a discussion held in a blog, in response to an interesting and challenging post.

And now – updates via RSS on a topic, subject or term (or co-operation between Google and Microsoft that works for the users!)

So we’ve included so many feeds, but something is still missing….Imagine that you are willing to know what was written and published on the subject that interests us, but – we do not know where the information is published!

First, we will explain how to do it: In fact, we need to find a search engine in which we will enter a word, a subject, a term or a phrase that interests us. But – we are not looking for just any search engine – this search engine must have an RSS capability, that can produce and RSS feed for the results! Why? Because the search engine bots index the web continuously, and whenever they find appropriate update of the phrase or the term that we are looking for, they ‘broadcast’ the RSS feed to our RSS Reader! Cool, isn’t it?!

Well, RSS reader now my sea flooded! How can you filter the flux and focus it?

Here’s a little awkward, but very effective – here also I suggest a combination of Google and Bing search engines to work for us: 1. Create a focused ‘search sentence’ using Google Advanced Search screen, 2. Copy this sentence to Bing, and 3. Copy the address of the results page to your Google Reader…Confused ?Here is a brief explanation:

Say we want to be updated whenever the there are news in regard of Elections, which contains the word ‘Obama‘ and ‘Clinton‘, which contains the word Opposition or a Coalition, but without the phrase ‘Cabinet member’. Write down the corresponding entries in the four fields at the top of the advanced search screen, and press Enter. Now, copy the search sentence from the Google search field, and paste it to Bing search field, press Enter, and then, copy the address of the results page to Google Reader. That’s it!

Why using the combination of the advanced search screen on Google and not Bing? Just because right now, it has many more options than advanced search in Bing.

The power of knowledge – a combination and cooperation!

Any Social Media application or social-tool is fascinating and very interesting. But, the combination of applications together is always a significant force-multiplier. For example, you can have an RSS feed update whenever a new presentation on Learning is uploaded SlideShare presentation sharing website, or whenever a tweet that HashTaged #Obama is tweeted, or when a new bookmark on ‘Knowledge Management’ is added to Delicious, or When ‘Yigal Chamish’ published a new video on YouTube!

You can also search within your RSS reader, but even more than that:

Google Reader allows searching for content, on any of the RSS feeds included, even if the piece was published in the channel before you added the feed to your Google Reader! Try it!

But RSS allows not only to “take” but also to “give” (Share):

Google Reader offer measures that allow us to share your filtered content, with others. Beneath each RSS item you will find several links. If you wish, you can ‘share’, ‘share with a comment’, ‘send email’ with this feed to any recipient, you can share with others using online social media applications, such as FaceBook or Twitter, and more.

Sharing by clicking on Share, allows us to share your update channels, with others. Who are these ‘others’? Anyone who follows you on Google Reader. You can also keep track of colleagues who share their feeds – and that is a huge advantage, because you will be updated with filtered information based on your colleagues knowledge, you know you can rely on.

Wait, so how do you know to know…?

And one more small issue I forgot… If you want to catch up what’s new in Google Reader, so you can catch up here…. It’s easy.

In short, Google Reader becomes the latest Personal Information System we can build for ourselves for free. The sky is not the limit, but much more.

Good Luck!

My main lesson from dealing with such an intense topic is that, like in life, good things happen (but they happen a little, and slowly …), along with bad things that happen (and those things happen – a lot, and fast …).

Here are ten insights, perhaps not so popular, but – are best practice and lesson learned “from the field:

1. Knowledge Management is not only “management of knowledge, yet rather: “Management in the knowledge era”. Not only that; Knowledge Management is a management approach which incorporates cultural, enterprise core business processes, and supportive infrastructures – all for intelligent extraction of knowledge in the organization and for creating new knowledge – in order to meet and support the organizational vision and organization’s business objectives. It has two main purposes: to help the organization to be more effective (Effectiveness), i.e: to create value, and also help the organization to act more efficient (efficiency), i.e: to increase capital.

In the Knowledge Era, managers are challenged by new and unfamiliar experience for them: they experience the need to manage “Knowers” (“Clever People”, people who know more of them …), a reality which they were not trained to handle in the past. However, workers are also challenged by a new experience for them: they experience the need to manage knowledge. Their own knowledge. That is, they should understand and internalize that the sole and exclusive ends at an era of knowledge, and they must find and connect with colleagues to work together. Goffee & Jones published a fascinating study titled “Leading Clever People” and the sub-line says: “How do you manage people who don’t want to be lead and they maybe smarter than you“. Here they discuss the subject:

2. Knowledge Management is not a ‘system’, certainly not a ‘technological system’, nor an ‘information system’. We know that ‘Knowledge’ is a-morphic, soft, while management is hierarchical, bureaucratic/ Knowledge is always growing, developing, evolving, dynamic, multi-dimensional, contextual, depending on the environment and culture. The expression, ‘Knowledge Management’ is not particularly successful; largely because it is conceptually difficult to merge between ‘manage’ and ‘knowledge’, ‘hard’ with ‘soft’. More than that, the essence of Knowledge Management is the integration between culture, processes and infrastructure, when it became clear that this is a continuous process and not an Ad-Hoc act. Yet, technological solution providers help to “jump” quickly from ‘Knowledge Management’ to ‘information management’ or to ‘data management, and from that point, there has been a short distance to all technology solutions provider to offer a solution in the form of a technological system to be called “Knowledge Management System.” Here is a clip of David Gurteen, one of the world’s leading Knowledge Management experts, clarifies:

3. (following the previous insight), Knowledge Management is very hard to ‘see’ or to demonstrate – and organizations, must ‘show’ something…. After all, we live in a world of ‘Bottom lines. There is always a pressure to show results, fast, contemporary, in real time. According to Israeli “un-written law” that: “Today, maximum tomorrow morning, if possible – yesterday, and for free …”. It was a convenient basis to offer organizations information systems and display technologies as sustains the principle: “If we build it – they will come’. So we can find today Document Management Systems, enterprise portals, CRM systems, E-Learning, ERP and more, presented as Knowledge Management System.

4. Know, Tell, Write – a common Knowledge Management goal statement is often heard as follows: “to capture/derive/extract/preserve/pump (God forbid …) the tacit knowledge in the minds and heads of employees and convert it to be explicit, visible and make it accessible to everyone” and also that “Organization protect/preserve/manage their own knowledge.”. It is just a mirage … Michael Polanyi of the world’s leading researchers to address the issue of Tacit and Explicit knowledge, followed by Dave Snowden, a leading expert in Complexity in Organizations, stated that:

“You always know more than you can tell, and you always tell more than you can write down”.

In other words, something “happens” on the way from our head (Know), to our mouth (Tell), and then, from our mouth to our hand (Write). It is impossible to document, take out, extract, distribute, maintain – knowledge. What then can we do?

You can take all the documents, reports, presentations, layout sheets, drawings etc. (Write) – and store it in a database and allow this database to be searched. But – who assure us that someone will bother to look into this database? And, is this database which was built a year ago, is relevant to the need today?

But, this solution is easy, which can ‘show’, and you have a enterprise portal with all the documents that are created in the organization. But is this knowledge that the organization needs it? No. It is Data, or information. Not knowledge. We can do something else: Tell. I mean, we can meet, talk and maintain dialog. We can also record and document with technological means the stories told. But the nature of a story is, especially in an organization, lengthy, detailed, data-intensive, and time-consuming. Here, read here how Steve Denning, former World Bank knowledge discovered the power of story as a way to effectively share knowledge. Here is describing how he found it:

5. ‘Get to the point’ Vs. Instant – On 2003, after acting as a Knowledge manager for few years, I published a paper on “Status” Management magazine. I did it because at that time whenever I have speaking on the subject of Knowledge Management, focusing on the need to deal with corporate culture, core processes, and infrastructure, the response was (and still remains): “Okay, understood, got that… now get to the point!”. Suddenly, it became apparent to me: in organizations, when they say “Get to the point”, actually they mean “instant “….i.e., people, managers and organizations do not have the patience needed to long processes, even though this is what must be done. I always say that dealing with Knowledge Management, the product is the process – not the project. So, to clarify the difference between the two, I wrote this article, you are welcome to read it here (in Hebrew…).

6. Knowledge is not an “It“ – I first heard that from Larry Prusak, when we met in Tel-Aviv while he was visiting Israel in 2004 (In Hebrew). Though, Knowledge, therefore, cannot be “transferred”. Knowledge is subjective, amorphous, contextual, multi – dimensional and multi – means, not a universal truth. It can be seen in different ways, it depends on time, place, culture, values, and associations. It deals mainly on ‘how’ and less on ‘what’, but in the business and organizations scene, the importance of ‘how’ often exceeds the importance of ‘what’. Knowledge develops and grows, not stagnate on one dimensional and certain time frame. Knowledge is the product of continuing and ongoing conversation between the common interests of donors, which together create new knowledge all the time. The conclusion derived from the fact that organizations refuse to face the clear and simple fact – it is not really possible to ‘manage’ knowledge, none the less to do it using technology, whatever advanced it may be. In fact, there is such a technology that manages Knowledge. It exists since the dawn of creation – it is the human brain and the transmissions thorough the synapses during a conversation between humans. How can one manage it with technology? In the same sense, we can also say that one cannot “maintain” knowledge, because knowledge is a dynamic, growing and growing all the time. Also say that you cannot “extract” knowledge from the mind of a person, not “capture” the knowledge.

7. Knowledge is for ‘action’, not (only) for ‘storage’ – It is certainly important to collect, preserve, organize, store, the data and information in organizations. But all this is done only for one purpose – to action. So it will support the need for a real organization, ie, the organization will be quickly available and accessible for decision making, will serve as a support act. Dave Snowden published few years ago his seven principles for managing knowledge. One of them says as follows:

‘knowledge is something that you know only when you need to know it …‘

8. “You can ‘get’ Knowledge from ‘knowers’ – nicely, not with power…” – we all remember Francis Bacon saying that “Knowledge is power.” The point is that something (bad…) happened to the original meaning of Bacon’s saying; Today it characterized the attribute of an expert who holds his knowledge and know-how to himself, and not sharing it with other colleagues. And why he act like that? In order to keep and to maintain his organizational “power”, so he would not get fired. .. To the best of our knowledge today, there is nothing more wrong than that: the truth is that one who knows, an expert in his field, is ‘deadly’ anxious to share what he knows! But – he do not always has audience, people who really want to hear and learn from him. Why? Many reasons which are all ingrained in human nature: for example, we believe that us, and only us, solely, can produce something, lead a project, or develop a product. We tend to be individualistic in terms of knowledge, despite the fact that we are social creatures, who are eager to get in touch with people of our kind, of mutual interests. We are less open to learn from others and tend to ‘reinvent the wheel’ ourselves. But, knowledge is ‘social’, it develops and grows when social interactions between people occur. Even if you point a gun to an expert and order him: “Give me everything you know …!” He will give you a puzzled look, not a scared look. One who shares, must be convinced that he does so with those who really want to hear it, learn from it. The main principle here is to build trust, not building “technology to capture knowledge…”.

9. Knowledge Management Statistics is ‘qualitative’ rather than ‘quantitative’ – Ok. So we set up an organization enterprise portal, and it has all the good on earth inside: the most beautiful graphics, well-designed Look & Feel in correlate with branding of the organization, all the recent technological Features of possible or available, and how we can measure the effectiveness of this infrastructure? Let me tell you this: If you (only) measure entries or hits or unique – you are in the wrong direction/ If you (only) a measure how many newsgroups and how many discussions take place in them – you are heading in a false course. What organizations should do, is to ask users to share if they find wjat they were looking for, easily and quickly – not how many times they enter the portal. That the real test is this: ‘how many times I looked for something and receive it immediately in response to what I asked?” or: “Is the document I found helped me immediately to move my project forward?”

10. ‘Assist, enable and encourage experts to meet and talk – don’t force or order them to do it…” – a knowledgeable expert does not need your guidance to contact or talk with another knowledgeable expert. You do not have to ‘manage’ it. You do not need to explain the experts why they should meet and talk, they know that…Instead, help them that such a dialogue will take place, and for that, they need assistance in areas they are not so familiar or capable with. The organization should allow them to create a supportive environment for knowledge. Always ask them what they lack, what they need? What could help them? Offer them your assistance. Organizations must not forget that whoever act in a role of a ‘Knowledge Manager’ or a ‘Knowledge management facilitator’ does not act promote himself as the knowledge manager, yet, to the creation of new knowledge in the organization lead the organization in his field.

And lastly, but the most important and significant insight I have learned:

Do not mention within the organization the two words ‘Knowledge Management’ - I know it seems strange and odd (to say the least …), but her is a major lesson we have learned: If you want that your organization will support Organizational Learning and Knowledge Management, if you anxious to promote and maintain a knowledge-supportive environment, if you want that your organization will share knowledge, will create new knowledge, if you want that knowledge management processes will support core processes, that your organization will orchestrate smoothly, if you are interested that your organization will operate in an atmosphere that respect knowledge and ‘knowers’, If you want it that to be your organization – do not mention the two words “Knowledge Management.

Why?
A Dairy company produces milk, not Knowledge Management. Telecommunication Corporation produces communications solutions, not Knowledge Management. Aviation Corporation manufactures aeronautical systems, not Knowledge Management. Academia engaging in study and research, they do not manage knowledge. Banks engaged in finance, medicine companies, health care services and hospitals are not managing knowledge. Company engaged in supplying electric power and ports authorities focus on transporting goods and marine transportation. Not Knowledge Management. Insurance companies are challenged by growing competition in the insurance business and not on Knowledge Management.

If you want to engage the managers and workers in your organization, the engineers, technicians, sales and marketing personnel, R & D and operations personnel, the members of customer support centers, if you wish that your organization that will lead in the field, and if it is clear that the organization’s knowledge is an asset that supports the organization’s efforts to lead in the field, so do not confuse them (neither waste their precious time) with lectures on Knowledge Management (they are not interested), on the crucial importance of knowledge to the organization (it is definitely clear to them), do not tell them about Case Studies in other organizations (they have their own troubles – to hear what happening in other organizations will only annoy them …).

If you ask them, “What can I can do for you, how I can help you do what you do faster, better?”, if you get deeper into the soul of who knowers, if you really understand the deep meaning of knowledge in the organization, you will enjoy and have a great chance to get action, enthusiasm and cooperation.

Good luck!

Awassa, Ethiopia

Now let’s have a look on the photo above. What you see here is a group of people talking. You can see that these people are from different origins, only by look at them, right? Now, let me add few more details: they were gathered together in a specific location, in that case, a herb farm in Awassa, Ethiopia. Here is some more: they were talking here on a specific issue which they all have some interest – dealing with insects that damage the herb crops. Now, what the photo does not explain is that these people have specific agenda and interests, yet in the sense of elimination of insects in that farm they all share a common interest: to overcome this problematic issue successfully.

So, what is the story…? Well, the people in that photo that came to Ethiopia few years ago were buyers of herb products from Europe; Italian, Germans, British and French. The Owners of the farm were an Ethiopian businessman and an Israeli who runs the farm. The marketing and sales manager was also an Israeli. This group of people have a priceless wealth of knowledge on herbs, based on dozen of years of experience on all angles of herbs life-cycle.

The essence of this story reflects the core of the “Knowledge” issue – or let me be more specific – the “Knowledge management” issue.

And why is that? Because, knowledge is for action, not for “warehousing”. These buyers were invited to Ethiopia in order to show them all the process of growing the herbs, sending them to Europe, so the will be assure in person and develop trust relations with the new growers.

No one planned in advanced that the issue of insects will be raised during the visit. Nor, they were asked to come to the visit as formal advisers or experts in the field. However, when they were following the growing process in one of the hothouses in this huge farm, a question in regard, was raised.

Awassa, Ethiopia

Even though I work with executives and organization on Learning and Knowledge processes, at this visit to Ethiopia, I was only a company to a friend, so I took this non-official presence and opportunity to “Shadow” the event, observing it and reflect on what I saw through a prism of Knowledge and Management.

And indeed what happened was precisely adequate to what is called “Knowledge to action”; all people who were presented started a professional knowledgeable dialog between experts. No one was forced to, or lead to, or guided to open a formal session. It was ignited naturally, was held with openness, honoring each opinion and cherish experience, benefit from it. When I observed that I knew I am facing a community of practice.

This “COP” was ‘built’ from people who have relevant knowledge, which they were sharing disregard the fact that they may represent or have opposite interests, the manner of the dialog was professional, focused, open and the most important: I saw how they were all pleased when the agreed together on a mode of operation which was new knowledge that they created together.

And one more thing: they ere telling stories. I mean, when you hear what they say – you realize that they communicate their message, experience, suggestions, solutions, market details, agriculture methods, past experience, research processes – in a form of stories. These stories were their personal stories, told by them directly, and they were told in a humble manner – not to emphasize how much they know, but the contrary: how much more they have to learn, and would other people present will kindly share their experience, too. It left nothing but a deep positive impression that the main interest is to find a solution and to prominent one of others.

No technology was used in this case; or shall I say that the most ancient technology took part dominantly – people gathered and talked on an issue they find relevant and interests – in this event: how to overcome the damage from insects.

The same event duplicate itself when we got back to the farm headquarters and with the group of agronomists, working at the farm.

Tabor Herbs farm, Awassa, Ethiopia

Here again was a get-acquaintance meeting which smoothly and naturally flowed into a multi-dialog between experts on several issues which keep agronomists as well as growers busy in finding solutions.

I can only imagine trying to “pump” this new contextual knowledge and “warehouse” it in a form stored in a database.

Dave Snowden in his “Rendering knowledge” called that (2nd point): “we only know what we know when we need to know it”. Larry Prusak once said “Knowledge is profoundly social…it happens only in social interactions…”. (Hebrew!).

I believe that initiating and establishing a successful community of practice can be a combination of these two insights, and frankly, do not need “Management”. As we already know, in if not we can read Jones & Goffee research on it, titled “Leading Clever People” and raise that is the main challenge for executives today, for what this researchers ask: “How do you manage people who don’t want to be led and may be smarter then you…”

What’s your story?

The last one, from yesterday night was Google Reader announcing the addition of social ‘send to’ feature allowing us to automatically deliver items we share to other people using several social media application. If the application is not available, we have the option of creating a delivering link.

And, this is how it looks like after you sett your options of “Send to”:

Few days earlier we read Delicious update on adding a ‘send’ feature that we can use to send our “Delcioused” items to members of our Delicious network, as well as to Twitter members or to E-mails of colleagues and peers.

In YouTube, several sharing options added (bottom left):

In Scribd, not that your profile page is a social cockpit, but you can now share your contents with other members:

Using SlideShare, your look & Feel is the same; again you have a central page for you to handle, and, you have many options to share your content with many Social Media applications:

One can add Google Profile page in which you can aggregate and present all your Online presences in one page.

Of course, there is FriendFeed where you can get a Real-Time presentation of all Social activities made by your friends and by yourself, in a streaming form.

These activities are sent to FriendFeed by the option to set your various Social Media applications in the Setting Page.

Let us not forget the recent-developed search options  in these applications and the advantage of getting and RSS Feed of the search results in each one of them, which then can be added as subscriptions to your Google Reader – so you can maintain and consume them all, in one place.

Delicious Search results for Management:

Delicious Search gives a broad view of results, chronologically.

Twitter Search results on Management:

So, if you want to consume all these content, effectively, it is suggested that you will use one environment to aggregate it all. I use Google Reader, which serves as my front-end or my window to all of the information. Now, after these social features were added, it more effective then before.

That’s a pause at this Social Media Battlefield. Who said that social cannot be in the middle of a battle?!…

I would pleased to read your recommendations. What do you use?

Heraklion, Crete

We are doing it by using software applications that enable us to create content, publish it over the web, share it with the ‘Worldsphere’, by using the “Social” ingredients of these applications. For example, if you look at my Google profile right-hand-side list, you will see all these dots and junctions which are connected to one another. I know this is may not be a regular and general example, yet it helps me to make a point here.

Frankly, I must admit that people often ask me – when I present it during a seminar, or in some social setting – “How much time it takes you to handle it?”.

Dresden, Germany

Well, the truth is that it takes time. I cannot calculate precisely how much, yet for me, it is part of my daily professional and personal life, and a way of life. Using these means, I can contact with people, connect to people I did not know before and are relevant to what I do, publish content and share it with people that have same interests, and above all, it broaden dramatically my horizons of learning and creating knowledge.

Hence I am fully convinced and confident with the advantages, I endorse and promote many initiatives in organizations targeted to increase the way organizations and people amongst, learn, create and share knowledge – using these tools – cleverly.

In order to decrease the technophobia levels which we face sometimes in organizations, in regard of adopting new technology, we must not poit our efforts to “Teaching technology using computers”, but to show people how these concept of sharing knowledge can be effective and possible using these applications with care.

Mlada Boleslav, Czech republic

Let us look at a list of these applications, yet we will look at it not by the technology or the application name, but looking at some challenges and processes, valid in organizations, on a daily basis.

We will show how it is relevant, simple, and with fun – which I am sure will be helpful and motivating.

Let us look at the people, and not at the technology. Let us show that the process is also a very important product.

Search, find and locate knowledge – one of the real need is not only to know how to search, yet to know how to find what one is looking for. For that you have to focus and refine your search to the eye of the needle. So, go to Google Advanced Search and educate yourself to make it to be your Google search homepage. and not the regular one. It gives you excellent capabilities to uplift your skills in search and find information you need. When getting search results, point our eye to public comments made by other people who search what you was looking for. You may find them very useful even though they were made by people you do not know.

Creating new knowledge – Stories are an ancient way to share knowledge. Everyone have a story to tell, and I am convinced that everyone can tell his story. The point is to look for people who want to listen and share their stories. For that, try establishing your own blog. No matter what platform you will use, there are many, and they are all good.

It is simple and by itself gives you a real boost to write, link, enrich writing by adding other forms of content such as photos (from your Flickr account), videos (from your YouTube or Vimeo accounts) and embedded content from other social sources (Such as presentations from your Slideshare account and documents from your Scribd account). But, Writing only, is not enough. People should know about your writing, so you must make your blog accessible to relevant audience. for that to happen use links from your text to other blogs and sources, spread the word about your by sending E-Mail to your contact list inviting them to join reading and writing, put the link to your blog in your E-Mail personal signature, and so for. And, there are also some more effective tools, like using Twitter to disseminate your new posts and links to your followers.

Learning and updating – and much more important: from more and focused sources of information. On of the main tasks which is structured in playing a relevant role in the knowledge era, is continuous learning and updating to position yourself at the hearth of your field of interest. For that, you must read (“consume knowledge”) whether you know where is it located, and more than that – even if you do not know where it is located. For that, it is storngly suggested that you will start to read “in the opposite direction” from what you are used to – First, list to yourself “what do I want to know” (Issues, subjects, people, etc), Secondly, put that list on the network and let it do it for you – meaning: locate it and send it to you. So, in order to operate it successfully, use RSS Reader to read RSS feeds sent to you according to the issues you mention on your ‘list’. You can use popular Google Reader as your web-based RSS Reader, and add as many subscriptions (RSS feeds) you like, and you will get updates as they uploaded to the web. In general, these feeds can be RSS feeds of two kinds: one is from websites you are often browse – for example this the RSS feed page of the Technlogy section at New York Times, OR – and this is more powerful feature – you can add a subscription to the RSS feed page of the search results for a term you are looking for, for example this is the RSS feed for the term “Management” as they appear in a dedicated search engine with RSS capabilities for its search results, such as Google BlogSearch.

Google Reader

why it is so powerful and effective? Because the Google Search spiders crawl over the net 7/24/365 a year, and whenever the “catch” the term mentioned it creates a feed alert and transmit it to the Reader. You can also use the RSS capabilities for search results of  Google News, Twitter Search and any other search engine that deliver RSS feed for its search results to broaden the scope of results which are relevant to your needs.

Twitter Search

Sharing knowledge with colleagues – Sharing is “la Raison D’être”, the hearth and soul and the core of Social media concept and software applications. Therefore,  let us look on examples of using the combination of sharing features and sharing applications, and its use within organizations.

One example is using Tags. They are the glue that connect the dots and network pieces of separate information into a comprehensive cover of an issue discussed on the web. Tags can be used individually and randomally. one can add as many tags as he like to content put on the web. However, a more powerful method of tags can be to set a known tag in advance of an occasion. Imagine that only three colleagues out of ten participate in a conference. They decide on a in-advanced-tag for the content they collect on the different conference sessions. Let that content be photos they take, video files they record or text they upload to their website. In return, all ten people would gain a comprehensive picture of the event, including all content uploaded and all comments made. All they have to do is look for the agreed tag on the coprporate search engine and they will get it all for free read.

Foe example the tag “Safranosphera” is a tag used to sign all content from a meeting of librarians-bloggers in Israel.

Another method of sharing is using Delicious. This application is categorized as Social Bookmarking tool. People often save favorites web addresses within their Favorites library on their web browser. Delicious offer you a fair bargain: Share (save) your favorites on your Delicious account (for example, this is my Delicious account favorites list), and in return, you will see who else save that favorites, and you can contact him, look at his delicious page and learn more than you knew till that occasion.

These examples shows that indeed we used the “social” ingredients in these applications, yet this features could be neglected and abandoned if they were not be based on the inherent engine of people who knows – to share what they know with people who really want to listen and learn.

So, will we meet at the town square?

Nancy Dixon demonstrate an insightful series of three great posts describing where KM had came from and what she sees for its future, ahead. It is not only a chronological and comprehensive description of this field, but it is also a closer, intimate and self-critic on what it is all about, and what happened to it along the way. It looks also at the role of the KM professionals and practitioners in the field.

After more than ten years in the Israeli organizations scene, and as one of the very first beginners of KM practitioners here, these series motivate me to lay my own perspective and look at similarities as well as dissonances, too.

Towards the end of the 90′, the term KM (Knowledge Management) was coined as if it is the relief and solutions to a very serious challenge organizations were facing: Since we are aware of our people’s knowledge, know how and experience – is a priceless gift, the emerging notion of KM lead to think that Knowledge can be managed and we can actually manage it….. we know now that it can’t be done and we are regret of the disproportional power we relate to this KM issue. As a matter of fact, my first advice or tip I share with colleagues, customers and also newcomers to this field, in regard, is this: ‘If you want a success in implementing Knowledge Management in the organization – Do not use this term in public’!

Bangalore, India

So, why this became the main obstacle in the way of organizations becoming a Learning organizations managing their knowledge?

The use of the term “Knowledge management” lead to formulation of a myth in which “Knowledge” cane be “Managed” by technological systems, as if ‘Knowledge’ is something substance you can grab by hand from it is now (people’s head..), create a repository of these ‘its’ (A database), and deliver it or make it generally usable and corporate-wide available (upon the Intranet portal). This illusion was strongly offer to organizations as a dramatic solution to all organizational challenge. Just another simple case of “If we build it they will come”. Than, as a need to produce visible deliverables, it was cheerfully adopted by organizations, and after initiating these tremendous and expensive IT projects titled “KM systems”, they had something to show: “This is our KM portal”. We build it, and now they will come.

But, “they” didn’t.

Budapest, Hungary

So, here is a question was put and it was well crafted by my colleague David Gurteen: “How can we make them use it?”.

Firstly, since Knowledge is not Information, nor Data. You can look for, collect, sometimes even to store and than maybe to retrieve it. But, as Larry Prusak said when we met him in Israel few years ago: “Knowledge is Profoundly social”. Is created and nurture within social interactions between people who seek to learn and share what they know with people that have common interest. It rises within a dialog and conversations. I t does not have a stable or fix and structured form. It cannot be put in a reservoir…

Secondly, Knowledge is not stable, unchangeable. IT is dynamic, change forms, developing and updated continuously, situation-contexted, culture-dependent, affected by randomly-changing environment. Therefore, we cannot say that if “we collect” all the current knowledge” and than, “put it somewhere” – we will know “more” than we knew before.

Cochin, Kerala, India

Thirdly, in every stage we pass on our route from the “tacit” knowledge to the “explicit” knowledge, we lose something. It was Micahel Planyi, trying to conceptualize what happened to knowledge, who said that “We always know than we can tell…”. Later, my colleague Dave Snowden, followed by saying that “We always know, more than we can tell, and we always tell more than we can write down”.

Let’s have a look at  this one, closer: What organizations actually did, was precisely in the wrong direction to what they were ought to do if they were willing to “capture” knowledge. As explained above, instead of emphasizing on the “Know” stage (which is obviously hard to find and reach), since they couldn’t reach the “know” stage, they had to go ‘down’ in line to the “write down” stage. This is something , they can ‘get’. This was the start of dealing with KM as a systems that collect Word documents, PowerPoint sideshows, PDFs, Spreadsheets, etc – and put them in a database which now have a trendy and fan name: “Knowledge management system”.

Bet Lehem at the Galillee, Israel

Organizational ‘Yellow Pages’ start flourish like mushrooms after the rain: “Each person will write “what he knows” and we will have a Knowledge Management yellow pages which will include all knowledge we “have”. These efforts are expensive in time, fatigue their participants and frustrating at the “end”. People tend to under-estimate or over-estimate their skills levels and knowledge, even in expertise in which their are considered as experts. I do not know about you, but I once tried to write down “what I know..”. A very frustrating task. Not only that: till the time these efforts “ends” the “knowledge” in  it is outdated…

Fourthly – and to my opinion, the most challenging of all, is the Culture and Human character issue. The effort towards establishing “An all the knowledge we have here” system, is mistakenly based on an assumption that “They will com”. That someone who need knowledge to carry out a mission, would care to look for information and learn (and above all, from a “System”) from something that someone else whom he may or may not know in advance. I doubt if it is the case in many occasion. We as humans in organizations and in general tends to be ‘creative’, i.e., to invent our own version of “Knowledge” rather to learn and share.

As a result to move forward to the “Know” level, and based on the ideas and work of Etienne Wenger, we started to see what is called “Communities of Practice” which became common in many organizations. Yet, again, the core idea of COPs was people gather together, face to face, to learn talk and share. However, technology took a significant part that enable people to “meet” virtually, asynchronously, which is a good thing in that sense as well, BUT if the soft ingredients of this notion would be presented to the people involved in COPs and if they were prepared in this new and emerging socio-technical reality and environment.

Tabor Herbs Farm, Awassa, Ethiopia

Communities may be a noble value, yet – Practice? Is there only one way in doing things in organization? How it is relate to the fact that knowledge is dynamic, that organization are complicated and complex scenes? Adopting these COPs as a standard tool blocked people from trying to experience and learn from their own experience. Adaptation in that sense bare no footprints in practice.

And so, the young and pre-mature field of Knowledge management who came into organization arena as a method to become more effective and efficient – was cruelly taken as a ‘hostage’  by the forces of Technology, and we started to see that every software or information system was market-driven re-positioning itself to be ‘A KM solution’, have ‘A KM Module’ within that was developed especially for that reason only, designed to suite ‘The KM needs’, and the most amusing I saw was an information system that its brochure shamelessly declares: “KM Ready”…..No matter what, long live the new trend….

But, we cannot and should not put it all on the Technology. The Academia was there and still is, too. Torn apart by budget constraints, looking for new ways to compete with the rise of new academic institutions that confronts their many-years-hegemony, open its arms towards the new ‘discipline’, embrace it and absorb it. However, if it would only be embraced towards the relevant field – Management…And therefore we see more and more programs that titled Knowledge Management when you scratch the upper layer and dig into the syllabus we will find that these programs equate Knowledge = Information, and so you have these studies in two fields: Computer Science and IT in one hand and Information Studies at the other hand. Meaning, they are teaching Information systems, databases, software, etc – in Computers & IT and cataloging, Information specialists studies etc – in Information studies. You can find in both branches seminars in Portals, Content management etc. These are very important issues, yet they are not Knowledge Management. Hence we are leaving in a consumer/customer world, it “Sells”.

Knowledge Management deals with Management, and as Peter Drucker said: “Manage knowledge means manage one self”. In doing so, anagers find themselves in a unique and new situation: Their people knows more than they know, they do not want to be lead by managers who knows less then they know, so how you can “Manage their knowledge?”. Goffee and Jones called it Leading Clever people.

Both sides, managers and workers, have to change and adapt to this new form of relations between them, their people and the business environment. Mangers should start to learn how to lead people that know much more than they do, and workers should change the way they deals with what they know; they have to become managers, in the sense that they must manage what they know, locate and contact colleagues with same interests or take part in the same projects. By doing so, they will fully implement the idea of Organizational Learning and Managing Knowledge.

Aiming towards the “Tell”

It is not true that people do no want to share their knowledge, on the contrary:  people will be happy to share what they know – if only they will be sure that their knowledge gets real attention, by people who want to learn from them, and not to “take” their knowledge from them.

Following Polanyi, and based on many years of practicing and helping organizations, I am convinced that if we cannot really reach the ‘Know’ target (what people really know), and if we are aware that what people “Write” is not their knowledge (but documents and files they produce for certain context), we should focus on the more effective and highly developed “technology” ever invented which is the “Tell”.

Awassa, Ethiopia

Managers should encourage people to meet, talk, learn and share. This is their main responsibility today: to enable their people to meet, create and share their knowledge, which will be translated into new products and services, formulating new and effective methods.

Each one have a story to tell, each one should be heard telling its story. No question: it takes time to hear these stories, it takes time to tell them. It is also time-consuming to absorb its meanings and to make sense of it. At least one evident documented in which it made its impact where “nothing else worked” as stated Steve Denning, trying to catch management attention to the program of Knowledge Management at the World Bank. Yet, Storytelling is not just “telling a story”, but a powerful tool and mean that can be carefully use. It gives the hearer a mental relief without ‘loosing’ his awareness and conscious. Above all, it is an effective way to transform norms and values, to clarify complicated and complex situations and tasks and to make sense.

Technology, has its own role in formulating this “enabling environment”. These are what we now call web 2.0. It stands for a general term to represent software applications that enable people to create and share content in any form, on the Internet – in which sharing let people learn more and integrate their knowledge with others, may this content be text, blogs and micro-blogs, photos, videos, sideshows, favorites bookmarks and more.

Organizational Knowledge Networks

We start to see that organizations establish knowledge networks in which the Intranet portal is ‘town square’ in which people get to know each other, talk, discover colleagues and develop relations, tell and share their stories, create new knowledge together.

Lucca, Italy

These relations can later be develop and broaden, in building and managing their Online Personal and Professional Presence, using sharing-software applications. We see knowledge networks in which the former organizational “Directory” is now a network constructed with each person’s blog is junction to as many other blogs with as many connection possible. This network acts synchronically or asynchronically, based on circumstances. In the blog posts or links-lists each one can share their stories and knowledge.

Another fascinating issue is the fact that all these tools are well connected and integrated with one another; If you create a your Google Personal Profile page, you can see them all together in one page.

However,  Last week Google Reader blog announced new features in order to increase the “Social” capabilities of Google Reader. These fine features refer to peers that by sharing their RSS feeds with others, “Like” may be attached to feeds, comments can be written as well, and conversations can be flow freely “above” the feeds. You can search for people, and discover who really believe in sharing…these are people who shares their feeds and create a “Network”, very similar to the network in Delicious.

So, what now – if Microsoft will take Yahoo Search (Yahoo holds Delicious as well..) and Google reader aims to be a “Delicious-like” tool, how can we gain the best of all worlds?!

Is Google Reader – delicious?

]]> http://yigalc.wordpress.com/2009/07/19/new-features-in-google-reader-is-it-delicious/feed/ 0 yigalc http://yigalc.wordpress.com/2008/11/05/obama-the-storyteller-leadership-at-its-best/ http://yigalc.wordpress.com/2008/11/05/obama-the-storyteller-leadership-at-its-best/#comments Wed, 05 Nov 2008 14:29:37 +0000 yigalc http://yigalc.wordpress.com/?p=221 Continue reading →]]> Yes, he sure can. He sure have a unique story, and he sure know to tell a true story. And, he sure can, tell this story.

At midnight time in the United States, I watched a great leader tells a leadership exciting story: It was the president-elect, sen. Barack Obama. You just have to watch it yourself and listen carefully and you will find all the neccessary ingredients of a leadership message carried out.

In his story there is hope, care, sincere love and deep emotions, cahllenges, immagination, knowledge, personal feelings and a warm sense of trust. It was told with a true enthusiasm and excitment. it disregard the past, however it was focused and stre to the future. It did not ignore the difficulties but it determined his obligation to work hard and learn. It was point to all people at the near and at the far audience.

It has a breath-traking story about a 106 years old lady who saw all, and still got hope that “we can”. And this story, was carefully connected to the young generation as well.

It was a great story which was told by a great storyteller. We can and should learn from it.

It has meaning, it creats sense and make sense, it formulate meaning, and it delivered a message.

Yes, we (also) can, wherever we are.

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…!)