judith meskill's knowledge notes...

The Knowledge Worker...

Basex Names The 'Knowledge Worker' Its 'Person-of-the-Year'; Microsoft, Xerox and Factiva Join In Honoring The Knowledge Worker.

According to this press release:

"...The Person-of-the-Year designation recognizes the impact which knowledge workers are having on the economy," said Jonathan B. Spira, chief analyst at Basex. "Without the knowledge worker, much of the business world would come to a standstill. Companies haven't figured out how to manage the knowledge workforce, and the average company with 1,000 employees loses over $12 million annually as a result."

"In celebrating the Knowledge Worker as Person-of-the-year, Basex announced the publication of Managing the Knowledge Workforce: Leading, Motivating, and Supporting The Knowledge Economy, by Jonathan B. Spira. The book will be available for sale in January 2005 at Managing the Knowledge Workforce; the table of contents, index, and chapter excerpts are now available at no charge."

knowledge-sharing BEA style...

What is CodeShare?

According to BEA's CodeShare Community page: "...an integrated set of project tools for knowledge sharing, communication and project administration. You can not only download and use your familiar BEA code samples, but now you can actively contribute to these projects and even create projects of your own. Leverage the expertise of other BEA technical experts in the community and develop ideas, examples, components and best practices around BEA technologies in your own project environment..."

Nod to ComputerWeekly.com for the tip.

real time news service...

A Cambridge, England press release claims: Autonomy Powers World's First Real-Time News Information Service.

I would like to 'kick the tires' on this one. Here is an excerpt:

CAMBRIDGE, England, October 25 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Autonomy Corporation plc (Nasdaq: AUTN - News; LSE: AU - News; autonomy.com) a global leader in infrastructure software for the enterprise, today announced that Information360 (information360.com) has selected Autonomy to power the world's first real-time information exchange. The service will be provided freely to serving news professionals such as journalists and researchers as well as subscribing news producers, including the enterprise. DORIS (Direct Online Real-Time Information System), will interact with the users PC or Mac desktop work environment by automatically understanding information the user is writing, reading or sharing and alerting and connecting users on-line to accurately related content and content related communities in real-time...

meeting up with bill ives and dina mehta...

Bill Ives has a weblog called--Portals and KM--where he posts about meeting up with Dina Mehta and I in Cambridge: Connecting Through Blogs.

After attending Jeff Pulver's VON conference for only one day, I was able to meet up with Bill Ives and Dina Mehta (Conversations with Dina) for some most excellent face time, and a wonderful, if short, conversation. On my walk over to meet Dina and Bill I also had the opportunity to briefly drop into the Berkman Center and give Wendy Koslow (The Redhead Wore Crimson) a quick hug and hello.

Once Bill went on to another appointment, Dina and I sat and chatted at the Charles Hotel where we later met up with Jim McGee (McGee's Musings) for dinner. What a fabulous day of meetings and greetings, definitely time well spent.

I love having the opportunity to meet my online knowledge cohorts face to face--a grounding experience! Especially when we can converge from Chicago, Bombay, and Princeton--in Cambridge--just by coincidence... (:=

knowledge conversion as a social process...

Today I was reading an article in EContentMag.com titled--Knowledge Management Involves neither Knowledge nor Management--by Martin White.

Among other things, Martin writes about Dave Snowden's three rules for knowledge exchange:

"Knowledge can only be volunteered; it can't be conscripted."
"People always know more than they can tell, and can tell more than they can write."
"People only know what they need to know when they need to know it."

on frank wilczek's nobel prize...

When I found, at the last moment, that I was going to attend Jeff Pulver's VON conference in Boston, I conveyed my delight to my online friend 'Betsy the Devine'. I had hoped to be able to get together for tea or perhaps lunch with Betsy while visiting Harvard for the first day of the VON conference.

Betsy extended the grace and comfort of her home to me, making my last minute planning wonderfully easy! The Devine/Wilczek household was abuzz with the excitement of a preponderance of best wishes from points far and wide. Frank Wilczek's Nobel Prize for Particle Physics had created a massive influx of praise, adulation, and fond regards--via email also--from thousands of those whose paths he has graced in his lifetime.

While sharing the unique, and lovely home office spaces of Betsy and Frank, it was inspiring to witness Frank's dedicated devotion to answering each and every of these 1,000 + emails.

And so, in honor of my host and hostess, and this momentous occasion, I penned the following Sonnet:

Ruminations on the 1,000 plus emails
Received by a Particle Physics Nobel Prize Winner
----------------------------------------------------------

And as you work your way down to the 'M's
You'll find this simple Sonnet sitting here
The verse studded with Quantum Physics gems
In honor of your theory bright and clear.

So 'Asymptotic freedom' does suggest
That Quarks in close confinement are so free
And decreased interactions do not test
The binding force of Gluons, so you see.

Now Quarks and Leptons are those building blocks
That construct matter -- El`e*men"ta*ry
And Mesons, Protons, Neutrons do give 'Vox'
To Muster Mark's Quarks numbered also three.

From Particles on to Cosmology
In pure delight and wisdom may you be.

In response to my sonnet, and to the thousands of congratulations he received via email, Frank Wilczek shared a sonnet he had also penned--Sonnet for a Quark.

By the way, Frank's Nobel Lecture will be held Wednesday, December 8 in Aula Magna, Stockholm University. Thanks again Betsy and Frank for your wonderful hospitality!

knowledge worker awards...

Donna Miles, of the American Forces Press Service, writes in DefenseLINK News: DoD Announces Chief Information Officer Awards.

Here is an excerpt from this press release:

WASHINGTON, Oct. 8, 2004 -- The Defense Department honored its top information and knowledge workers Oct. 7 for important contributions to the department's transformation efforts that officials say are improving operations, saving money and, in many cases, saving lives on the battlefield.

...Top honors in the team category went to the U.S. Air Forces in Europe Communications and Information Directorate, which oversees the Air Force's communications and information-management effort in the European theater.

the social life of quarks...

This is a crosspost from my Social Software weblog. And is most definitely salient to the continual pursuit of all things knowledge!

This morning I am on the edge of my seat with excitement for my friend Betsy Devine (of Funny Ha-Ha or Funny Peculiar? fame) as her husband, Dr. Frank Wilczek, has just been awarded the Nobel Prize 'for the discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction"!

Absolutely Awesome!

There is an article, by Dennis Overbye, in the New York Times--Three Americans Win Nobel for Particle Physics Work--that you can read to learn more about the wonder of this honor for these three brilliant men.

And, I am totally amused that this announcement is also salient to this 'Social' blog of mine as "...quarks, the theoretical constituents of the neutrons and protons that make up the nucleus, could never be seen apart from one another..." making them the ultimate 'social networkers'... (-:=

how many knowledge workers are enough?...

Lou Glazer and Donald Grimes write--Michigan must shift jobs focus.

These authors focus on a need to increase knowledge worker industry and jobs. Last month I posted--too many knowledge workers--regarding a piece in The Independent that stated the UK is producing too many knowledge workers. Could we really be producing too few here in the USA?

An excerpt from the Detroit News piece:

"...Of the 15 states (including Michigan) where the manufacturing share of employment earnings is greater than from knowledge-based industries, all had 2001 per capita income below the national average.

Education is another indicator of future prosperity and one critical to Michigan's future. It is important to have a healthy supply of 25- to 34-year-old workers with a bachelor's degree or better.

Unfortunately, Michigan falls below the national average in the educational attainment of young workers. All of the most prosperous states substantially exceeded the national average in workers with college degrees.

Michigan's gap with the more successful states ranges from more than 7 percentage points with Virginia to more than 15 percentage points with Massachusetts.

The evidence strongly suggests that knowledge-based industries are playing the same critical role of producing growth in a post-industrial economy as manufacturing did in the industrial economy. Knowledge-based industries are now the major source of employment growth, particularly of good-paying jobs. And they are the most powerful engine fueling overall economic growth..."

there's no place like home for knowledge work...

According to Rebecca R. Kahlenberg, writing for the Washington Post, For Work, There's No Place Like Home.

Teleworking has been growing steadily over the past seven years--11.6 million working from home in 1997, and 23.5 million in 2003.

"...the best candidates are employees who perform knowledge work, use computers heavily and are "reliable, productive, trustworthy on the job, ... motivated and able to work on their own."

an abundance of 'knowledge'...

There is an article today on CFO.com by Lowell Bryan, for The McKinsey Quarterly, titled--Making a Market in Knowledge.

I have memory of Jerry Ash, of AOK: Association of Knowledgework, once saying that one of his favorite books(?) on knowledge only mentioned the word 'knowledge' twice (or at least this is my memory of what Jerry said in his AOK newsgroup forum).

Ah, the languaging of knowledge. This CFO/McKinsey Quarterly piece mentions the word/concept 161 times, in many different 'flavors':

accessible knowledge, acquired knowledge, codified knowledge, common knowledge, contributed knowledge, converted knowledge, developed knowledge, diffused knowledge, distinctive knowledge, distributed knowledge, exchanged knowledge, functional knowledge, high-quality knowledge, individual knowledge, internal knowledge, managed knowledge, proprietary knowledge, public knowledge, pushed knowledge, relevant knowledge, shared knowledge, specialized knowledge, strategic knowledge, and valuable knowledge

in a number of different spaces, with a number of different players:

knowledge arenas, knowledge creators, knowledge exchanges, knowledge management, knowledge markets, knowledge objects, knowledge seekers, and knowledge workers.

Well enough of my bean-counting, word-counting mode. Lowell Bryan ends this long piece with the following reflections:

"Knowledge by nature has a much longer shelf life than information does. Knowledge about how a competitor acts in the marketplace, for example, can be valuable to a company for years. But even the most distinctive and proprietary knowledge, such as that held by a company's best professionals, undergoes an eventual decay curve that terminates at the point where it becomes common knowledge. A professional possessing secret information on a key business issue may initially have no incentive to dilute its value by sharing it. But as others learn what once was secret, there eventually comes a point in the half-life of proprietary knowledge when it has greatest value to a company if its insights become easily and broadly available across the organization."

portals and km--bill ives...

There's a new name in my blogroll today--Bill Ives. Bill's Portals and KM weblog "shares ideas and hopes to generate discussion on the use of portals, blogs, and knowledge management to provide value to organizations through practical applications."

Today Bill talks about The Executive's Role in Knowledge Management by Carla O'Dell, and mentions that he will be offering a review of this book in both his weblog and KM Review.

red sky at morning...

In the American Scientist Online, Thomas F. Malone writes--The Looming Disaster about Red Sky at Morning: America and the Crisis of the Global Environment, by James Gustave Speth, from Yale University Press, 2004.

An excerpt from this review:

...Speth spells out eight transitions that will be required to transform society: progress toward a stable or smaller world population, freedom from mass poverty, environmentally benign technologies, environmentally honest prices, sustainable consumption, an emphasis on knowledge and learning, good governance, and--above all--a culture and consciousness that respects nature, human rights and economic justice, and treasures peace. These transitions are central to four overarching imperatives: reduction of population growth in developing countries; restraint on economic production and conspicuous consumption in the industrialized world; development of environmentally benign sources of energy to power economic development globally; and a revolution in education that will equip individuals to become co-creators of the human future...

communities of practice, online conference...

From September 14-16, 2004, there will be a Collaborative Communities of Practice 2004 Online Conference "designed to provide practical insights, models and tools for fostering, growing and supporting Communities of Practice."

Early bird registration discount ends September 3rd, according to the iCohere website.

knowledge worker productivity...

Just received a note from Martin Roell who, in the spirit of knowledge sharing, posted his BlogTalk 2.0 Publication: Distributed KM - Improving Knowledge Workers' Productivity and Organisational Knowledge Sharing with Weblog-based Personal Publishing on the web. Check it out and let Martin know what you think.

socially networking knowledge...

Scotsman.com reports: Crm Is "Killer App" in Corporate Social Networking Shakeout; Firms Achieving High Roi Through Relationship Capital Management, via a press release.

Interface Software, the subject of this press release, is a company that I keep track of over on The Social Software Weblog, and they are a member of my Social Networking Services Meta List.

The following is an excerpt:

OAK BROOK, Ill. - (BUSINESS WIRE) - Aug. 3, 2004 - Interface Software announced today that businesses are achieving significant ROI by investing in CRM solutions that provide built-in corporate social networking functionality. Customers deploying Interface Software's InterAction(R) CRM solution for relationship capital management report that the system has facilitated new client wins resulting in millions of dollars in additional revenue.

contact center agents as knowledge workers...

In Converge! Network Digest I was just reading: VoIP Toll-Free: Preserve Margins, Explore New Apps, by Alan Burke, VP of Product Management, Global Crossing.

In this article Alan Burke talks about the increasingly sophisticated needs of today's contact center agents:

"The network requirements for contact centers are growing to include the following:

To support multifunction, multimedia, converged agent desktops with telephony and other applications. Today's contact center agent is increasingly a PC-based, LAN-connected knowledge worker, equipped with display-based call control, wrap-up, help desk, call and interaction recording, agent monitoring and training, workforce management, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and other applications, including (in an increasing number of cases) screenphone-based IP telephony."

What is your working definition of a 'knowledge worker'?

working knowledge with rss news feeds...

Harvard Business School's publication--HBS Working Knowledge--now has RSS feeds.

An excerpt from the announcement on their site:

There are two news feeds provided by Harvard Business School Working Knowledge that you can freely use to syndicate article headlines to your own personal computer or Web site. The first method is through a Really Simple Syndication (RSS) news feed, and the second method is through a Javascript news feed. By using these feeds, content is automatically updated once a week on your computer or Web site when we publish a new issue online.

RSS news feed
The RSS news feed requires an XML news feed reader or software that can read XML.

Javascript news feed
The Javascript news feed can be placed within a Web page and read from any browser.

too many knowledge workers...

In The Independent, Kate Hilpern writes: Just the job - or a degree too far?

Too many knowledge workers and not enough lower-skilled workers?

Here's an excerpt:

The UK is producing too many graduates and the demand for "knowledge workers" has been seriously overestimated, leading academics have claimed. A study of over 28 million UK jobs found only 32 per cent were knowledge-based, traditionally requiring a university graduate. This falls well short of government estimates, which suggest that between 70 and 80 per cent of the workforce are knowledge-based workers.

"We have tended to think there has been an explosion in the number of jobs requiring knowledge workers," says Lancaster University's Anthony Hesketh, co-author of the research. "In reality, the situation is that growth has stalled. Lower-skilled jobs have expanded at far faster rates than knowledge-worker jobs."

jim mcgee on knowledge work...

Harry Wessel, of The Orlando Sentinel, writes: Weblogs can lead to woes at work.

Harry Wessel talks about the slippery slope an employee stands on when making any mention or inference of his/her employer. A story we have heard before. But, at the end of this short article Mr. Wessel quotes our friend Jim McGee on knowledge work:

"I track something like 320 Web sites that are relevant to my work," said McGee, who began blogging 21/2 years ago. "In terms of leveraging my time as a knowledge worker, I have at least an order of magnitude of maybe 100 times improvement in my productivity. If part of your job is to be informed, this is the fastest way to do it."

Go Jim... (-:=

harnessing the power of knowledge...

Susan Carey Dempsey writes a review of "Leading Organizational Learning: Harnessing the Power of Knowledge" at onPhilanthropy.com--onPhilanthropy - Leadership and Knowledge in Successful Organizations

A highlight from this review:

As nonprofit organizations contend with the challenges of increased scrutiny, growing competition, and the struggle to find and retain talented people, they may want to look closely at the attributes of leadership and knowledge management found in the most successful organizations. A good resource for this assessment is "Leading Organizational Learning: Harnessing the Power of Knowledge," a new book developed by the Leader to Leader Institute, which was previously known as the Peter F. Drucker Foundation.

knowledge and intellectual property...

The Seattle Times has an article today by Amy Joyce of The Washington Post--Companies battle theft of knowledge and client lists.

Here's an excerpt:

As the economy picks up and employees prepare to move to new jobs, there's the potential for competitive information worth millions of dollars to walk out the door, straight to a competitor. Today's work world is much more of a knowledge economy in which technology and information are the main products. So the notion of assets leaving the building each night with a company's employees becomes much more pertinent.

personal knowledge networking software...

In a Yahoo press release today: Prominent e-Learning Experts Launch Startup to Commercialize Breakthrough Personal Knowledge Networking Software.

STATE COLLEGE, Pa., June 28 /PRNewswire/ -- Graham Glynn, PhD, a neuroscientist and director at the Center for Learning & Academic Technologies at Penn State University, has joined with other e-learning experts to found Learning Management Solutions, a developer of personal knowledge management and personal knowledge networking software. The company's first product, KnowledgeWorkshop, allows computer users to create, manage, share and publish knowledge bases covering all aspects of their personal and professional lives.

"KnowledgeWorkshop is the glue that integrates all computer-based information sources, such as Web pages, news groups and personal computer files, into one simple personal knowledge management system," said Dr. Glynn. "KnowledgeWorkshop tackles knowledge management from the user's perspective, enabling users to categorize, structure and share information in a personally relevant way with online Web page highlighting, embedded notes and bi-directional linking. Traditional learning and knowledge management systems fall short because they're rigid, monolithic and impersonal, and focus on accessing institutionalized knowledge as opposed to creating and sharing personal knowledge."

...KnowledgeWorkshop begins shipping today, with pricing starting at $29.00 for KnowledgeWorkshop Personal and $189.00 for KnowledgeWorkshop Professional. Both versions are available for free trial download at Learning Management Solutions...

of science and local knowledge...

Katie Mantell reports on the eighth international conference on the Public Communication of Science and Technology, Barcelona for SciDev.Net--Science communicators 'must respect cultural context'.

I found the following passage from her report of interest:

...Yuwanuch Tinnaluck of the ASEAN Handicrafts Promotion and Development Association in Bangkok, Thailand, argued that scientists should work together with local people to 'co-create' knowledge.

Luganda also argued that an appreciation of traditional knowledge is essential for science to be communicated successfully. "The message will be better understood and better appreciated if you have an understanding of local knowledge," he said...

delegata and doj solution...

In another Business Wire this morning, Government Technology Conference -- GTC -- Presents the "Exhibitor Best Solutions Award" to Delegata for DOJ Solution.

SACRAMENTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 14, 2004--Delegata, a premier provider of business consulting and technology solutions, was awarded the esteemed "Exhibitor Best Solutions Award" at GTC West 2004 for the "Do Not Call" Correspondence Management System developed for the California Department of Justice (DOJ). GTC awarded companies based on providing a customized government solution that resulted in significant measurable results. This marks the fourth consecutive year that Delegata has won the prestigious "Exhibitor Best Solutions Award".

...Delegata utilized leading-edge product development methods and tools to build the application as well as established the architectural foundation for reusable components that DOJ can leverage on future projects. Utilizing its "Diamond" application development methodology, Delegata developed J2EE/Java-based components integrating new technologies with legacy systems resulting in the rapid deployment of the secure CMS. These applications allow DOJ's Public Inquiry Unit "anytime" access to requests and complaints associated with the DNC program.

Delegata followed the DNC project with a thorough series of knowledge transfer to ensure that the DOJ team had full capability to maintain and continually develop their CMS. The knowledge transfer included software development, Java, J2EE, Struts, Oracle 9iAS, reusable components, Rational Unified Process (RUP) and project management.

kanisa tops bonde group study...

In a Business Wire earlier this week Kanisa, whose clients include industry-leaders Microsoft, HP, Apple Computer, Ford, and Novartis -- Received Highest Score for Technology in New Allen Bonde Group Study.

CUPERTINO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 10, 2004--Kanisa Inc., the leading provider of knowledge-empowered customer service applications, announced today that it was recognized as the technology leader among 20 Web self-service vendors in a study recently conducted by Allen Bonde Group Inc. (ABG). Kanisa received the highest score for technology due to the superiority of core technology, completeness of its knowledge management platform, its robust self-service functionality and overall breadth of its application suite.

ABG, a management consulting and strategic advisory firm with a focus on self-service trends, best practices, and strategy, tracks more than 150 vendors in the greater self-service market. Kanisa received top technology honors based on its proven ROI to high-tech companies, including Apple, Microsoft, and Network Associates and a growing number of new vertical markets. The study also highlights the acceleration of Kanisa's technology leadership and mindshare through its acquisition of Ask Jeeves' enterprise software division in June 2003.

social spread of knowledge...

In an excerpt from a book by Alvin I. Goldman--Knowledge in a Social World--I found the following question, and the beginning of an answer in Chapter 4--Testimony:

Does a high level of social knowledge require a high level of social interaction?

If we mean by "high level of social knowledge" a high aggregate of knowledge among the members of a community, the answer is: not necessarily. In principle an impressive aggregate of knowledge might be acquired if each member independently explores and discovers the facts of interest. A hallmark of human culture, however, is to enhance the social fund of knowledge by sharing discovered facts with one another.

What of weblogs as testimonies, and group weblogs, or weblogging cohorts, as 'aggregates of knowledge'?

Lilia Efimova posits that Aggregation can kill personal voices.

steve denning on powerpoint...

In Tell Me a Story: Q&A with Steve Denning, Cliff Atkinson asks Steve Denning a series of questions on story telling in a business setting. Cliff specifically steers the questioning to PowerPoint as a help and/or hindrance in facilitating presentational story-telling.

Here is one of the nine questions posed to Steve Denning:

CA: What do you make of the criticism of PowerPoint lately that has been fueled by Edward Tufte's essay, The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint?

SD: Tufte's essay is a cranky piece and I can understand the crankiness of anyone having to sit through the average PowerPoint presentation in a business context. But it's a bit like writing an essay on The Cognitive Style of the English Language and arguing that because most written English these days is flaccid, poorly written and ill-thought-through prose, therefore we should abandon the English language. PowerPoint is a tool and a very flexible tool. The problem is not the tool but rather how it's used.

Images are an important mode of communication, and for some people the main way in which they learn things. PowerPoint is tool that can be used to reinforce oral communication with visual images. For some people, words along are fine. But why not use both words and images? The problem isn't PowerPoint. The problem is how it's used.

what are you reading?...

Kevin Jones says - in his Book game post:

"it's the latest info fad, the newest wrinkle in expanding the acoustic resonance of the echo chamber; join in now!"

And so I picked up the book I am currently reading, Chasing Shakespeares by Sarah Smith and here is my sentence:

"His genius encompassed all ways of life, all of mankind, and not in generality, but in every specific of their lives."

If you would like to play and dip your prose toes into this memepool - here are the rules:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.

knowledge worker news...

Often, I find that news about 'knowledge workers' is sparse, and then at other times, there is a veritable clump of reporting on this subject.

Today's stories are: Gartner continues to report that Linux is unsuitable for knowledge workers; Microsoft wins eWeek's Excellence Awards in the Personal Productivity category with their OneNote product; Russ Altman and Larry Prusak's share views [in two separate articles] on knowledge workers and the globalization of the knowledge economy; and finally, the UK's need for 'knowledge workers' has been dramatically over-estimated and there is now a glut of over-qualified workers in the UK.

Today, eBCVG Network Security reports that Gartner said, "Linux can be adopted now by mainstream enterprises for users performing specific, limited tasks." However, Gartner also said that adoption for general use by knowledge workers would continue to be hampered by high migration costs and the inability to run legacy Windows 32 applications.

Then eWeek writer Anne Chen, in an article about Personal Productivity reports that Microsoft's OneNote won this year's Excellence Awards Personal Productivity category. "Because it enables users to write notes on documents and then organize those documents in a manner that is easily searchable, OneNote is a solid and useful application to knowledge workers in the field - particularly those who take full advantage of mobile hardware such as the Tablet PC."

Over at IDG's ComputerWorld in Wellington, Stephen Bell writes - Code generation to return, says Altman [Ross Altman, chief technical officer of integration software vendor SeeBeyond.]

"Even if jobs do go, one possible merit of offshore coding is that it forces developers to create very "tight" and detailed specifications before they give the work to the coders. This is of most benefit where a traditional "waterfall" style of development is practised; it does not lend itself to prototyping, rapid application development or other agile styles, like extreme programming."

Stephen Bell also reflects that Altman "is more sceptical than his compatriot Larry Prusak about knowledge workers' jobs drifting overseas." And, in another article written last week on - Trust Vital for e-commerce Stephen reported on Larry Prusak's knowledge worker views:

"The dissemination and management of knowledge is the most important story of the 21st century," he says. It was pretty important in previous centuries too, but in the modern world, where capital chases cheap labour, the way to ensure continuing employment for the individual and continuing health for a company's balance sheet or a nation's economy is to get into work that "can't be done by an algorithm and can't be done [in a cheap-labour overseas country]".

And, last but not least, an article in PersonnelToday reports that UK Academics lament glut of graduates - "The UK is producing too many graduates and the demand for 'knowledge workers' has been seriously over-estimated, leading academics have revealed. A study of more than 28 million UK jobs found that only 32 per cent were knowledge-based, traditionally requiring a university graduate. This falls well short of the current government estimates, which suggest that between 70 and 80 per cent of the workforce are knowledge-based workers."

knowledge workers & MicroStrategy Office...

Yahoo PR NewsWire :: MicroStrategy Unveils MicroStrategy Office

MCLEAN, Va., April 5 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- MicroStrategy Incorporated today unveiled a new product, MicroStrategy Office(TM), that brings high-value business intelligence technology to users of Microsoft Office applications, including Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Outlook. MicroStrategy Office can significantly expand the ranks of an enterprise's knowledge workers who can access enterprise data and enhance their work in all facets of business operations.

"By combining Microsoft Office productivity applications with MicroStrategy's industrial-strength business intelligence platform, companies can now deploy a new spectrum of business intelligence applications," said MicroStrategy's COO Sanju Bansal. "For the first time, average business users will be empowered to serve themselves business information as needed, simply by using the Microsoft Office productivity tools with which they are already so familiar."

"MicroStrategy Office's potential user base is substantial. It enables new kinds of business intelligence applications by opening a wide new window for non-IT workers to enterprise information through the vehicle of the popular Microsoft Office applications," said IDC's Research Manager Dan Vesset. "MicroStrategy Office is likely to provide a significant contribution to the way business people use business intelligence, empowering any Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint and Word user to natively access enterprise-wide data with the necessary consistency, security and scalability."

CLOs & CKOs...

Judy Olian, dean of the Smeal College of Business at Penn State University, writes for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette --Chief knowledge, learning officers not just '90s fad.

...some of the jobs that were especially hot in the '90s have survived, albeit in more limited numbers. Among these are the chief learning officer and chief knowledge officer.

Based largely on anecdotal observations, the Wall Street Journal in early 2003 noted that fewer than 20 percent of major U.S. corporations have CLOs or CKOs, vs. 25 percent at the height of the business boom. The implication was that with businesses cutting back during the years of recession, these were expendable roles...

Ms. Olian goes on to discuss the 'strategic' value of Learning and Knowledge officers in the executive suite -- especially during a down-turned economy. She closes with these comments:

...As partners in the business strategy, CLOs and CKOs also are moving into the domain of knowledge sharing with clients. Educating customers is part service, part sales strategy. Beyond providing a platform to highlight the company's products or services, knowledge sharing with customers enhances the business case for the client's dealings with the company.

Every executive role must bring value to the business strategy. As long as CLOs and CKOs advance core strategic priorities, they're here to stay, boom or bust...

social and knowledge networking protocols...

or From TCP/IP to Social Protocols...

This morning Valdis Krebs emailed me a link to an article by InfoWorld writer Jon Udell [arguably one of the Internet's greatest thinkers] on -- The social enterprise.

Jon Udell has a way of languaging the intersections of social and technical issues in a manner that is simultaneously deep and yet infinitely easy to understand. Jon's assertion -- "Our social protocols map poorly to TCP/IP" led me to further ponder TCP/IP -- around for over 25 years and constructed around the premise of single sender, single receiver connection links carrying connectionless packets. TCP came of age in a 'wireline' world -- our increasing reliance on wireless networks for social and knowledge networking poses new challenges.

As I sat here ruminating about the limitations of TCP/IP, I could hear Clay Shirky in the back of my mind saying: "Don't worry about standards... Think about interoperability..." The interoperability I am thinking about is between knowledge workers and their employers, their teams, their tools, their products, and their customers.

In this article on 'The social enterprise' -- Jon talks about Tacit's ActiveNet, Ross Mayfield's Socialtext Wiki & Weblog hosted workspaces, Traction's 'enterprise Weblog software,' Groove's workspaces, Visible Path's 'relationship-mining engine,' and Spoke Software's 'enterprise networking.'

I actively evangelize the tools that Jon writes about in this article on "The social enterprise." The practices and cultural underpinnings necessary to make any and/or all of these offerings successful are not small -- especially in an economy where there is often more fear than fun in the workplace.

In his final questions Jon asks, "Can transparency and privacy coexist?" As an active proponent of creating robust social and knowledge networking environments within large enterprises -- the larger the enterprise, the more attractive the challenge -- I have seen and/or been a part of some remarkable successess but -- only in environments where trust, transparency, technology, and privacy were addressed both pro-actively and continuously.

Will enterprises keep and cultivate more 'knowledge workers' with the adoption of these tools and practices? Will these collaboration enhancing vehicles -- incorporating trust, technology, and privacy -- help ease the transition from the last thrashing vestiges of an Industrial Age into a viable Virtual Age?

Related Links:

The social enterprise | InfoWorld
Privacy in the age of transparency | CNET News.com
Transparency & Trust Bloom Great Ideas | Fast Company Now
Trust, Technology and Privacy | University of Aberdeen

2004 Wireless LAN State-of-the-Market Report...

Webtorials [Free Site Registration] makes available for download a free 2004 Wireless LAN State-of-the-Market Report, by Joanie Wexler and Steven Taylor. The following is an Abstract of this report:

In summary, the Webtorials subscriber base paints the following picture of the current wireless landscape:

- There are a respectable number of WLANs installed today. A substantial number of respondents (53%) have already deployed WLANs or are currently in the process of doing so.

- Enterprises are incrementally building out their networks. This conclusion stems from the finding that the number of users with WLAN access (or planned access) in respondent organizations is significantly smaller than the total number of employees in those organizations.

- Existing users are fairly satisfied. Respondents with WLAN implementations already in place expressed a medium to high level of satisfaction with their products and WLAN experience in general.

- The primary enterprise deployment goal is to improve the productivity of mobile knowledge workers. "Anywhere, anytime" access to email and Web-based applications for knowledge workers was chosen by the most respondents as a benefit they hope to gain with WLAN use.

the value of information...

Silicon Valley Biz Ink :: Inxight, The 451 Group and CMP Media Present Web Seminar on Unlocking the Value of Information

SUNNYVALE, Calif., March 17 /PRNewswire/ -- The volume of unstructured electronic data continues to grow at an exponential rate. Organizations must quickly discover and retrieve the critical information contained within email, Web pages, news feeds, and documents to gain a competitive edge. Search engines alone do not suffice.
Join Inxight Software and The 451 Group at 11 a.m. PST (2 p.m. EST) on Thursday, March 25, 2004 for a free CMP TechWebCast hosted by Transform and Intelligent Enterprise Magazines: "Inxight SmartDiscovery 4 - Discover the True Value of Information."

CollabNet & Subversion 1.0...

CollabNet, Primary Sponsor of Subversion 1.0, to Integrate Next-Generation Versioning in CollabNet Environment; New Open Source Version Control System Already in Use on 1,400 Servers

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 16, 2004--CollabNet, the leading provider of collaborative software development solutions, today announced it is integrating the industry's newest open source versioning system, Subversion, into its global software development environment. CollabNet users will have a more powerful alternative to Concurrent Versions System (CVS). Subversion 1.0, released by CollabNet in February under an Apache-style license, provides significant version control functionality. Subversion, which is already in use on 1,400 publicly accessibly production services, will be integrated in the CollabNet environment in Q2 of this year.

"CollabNet recognized in 2000 that the world needed a better revision control system. We also realized it was a big task -- not only would it require a significant number of architects, programmers, and testers, it would also have to gain the trust of the user community," said Brian Behlendorf, CTO and co-founder of CollabNet. "We felt the best way to accomplish this was to be an open source project from day one, and build a community by bringing together other developers who we knew shared these goals. We invested heavily in the project by hiring four full-time developers to form an active core team, around which a much larger effort could be coordinated and sustained. The entire effort has been incubated from the very beginning at CollabNet's open source community, Tigris.org, using the CollabNet development environment. These Subversion developers working for CollabNet succeeded in building not just a great platform for revision control; they have also built a powerful developer community that is actively evolving Subversion into an enterprise-class application."

The CollabNet environment provides users with applications for software development, knowledge management, and project communication in a project-centric Internet workspace. CollabNet will provide full Subversion support as an integrated component of the CollabNet environment in the second quarter of this year. Organizations that use the CollabNet environment realize substantial return on investment through better management of offshore processes; through co-development with business partners; and through unifying geographically distributed project managers, developers, and business users on an integrated collaborative environment.

collaborative business knowledge...

Microsoft's Collaboration Strategy Shows Promise; Analyst Firm Releases In-depth Review of Microsoft Office System 2003

Key Findings of a Basex [IT research and consulting firm] report -- Microsoft's Collaboration Strategy and Office System 2003: Does It Hit the Mark? -- include:

-- Microsoft Office System 2003 is not a mere brand extension of its popular Office Suite offering, but rather a coordinated set of tools which can be used to create comprehensive Collaborative Business Environments

-- Microsoft is in a strong position to leverage the ubiquity of its Office Suite applications, such as Word and Excel, as entry points to the enterprise deployment of Microsoft Collaborative Business Knowledge tools but enterprise customers are not getting the appropriate messaging and remain confused due to the Office branding

dave pollard - current AOK 'Star'...

Join AOK Now! And then come participate in what promises to be a most excellent 'conversation' with Dave Pollard [15 March through 26 March 2004.]

In preparing for this two week conversation Dave Pollard asks us the following questions:

Is a corporate Intranet needed at all when peer-to-peer sharing is so easy and powerful, and allows you to share across organizational boundaries, not just within them?

Why has so little of the promise of collaboration, explicit knowledge capture, leveraging 'best practices' and communities of practice been realized, and does Social Networking & PCM give up on this promise too easily?

And with such free and broad flow of knowledge, what about the 'competitive advantage' of knowledge, and what about information security, and the importance of trust?

peter drucker on leading change...

PRESS RELEASE: Peter F. Drucker on Leading Change: A New Suite of eLearning Courses from Corpedia

Phoenix, AZ (PRWEB) March 13, 2004--Corpedia, the Web-based, interactive, eLearning company, announced today the release of Dr. Peter F. Drucker's new three-course integrated series titled Leading Change. Dr. Drucker, Corpedia's founding and exclusive faculty member, has developed two previous suites of courses in the Peter F. Drucker Executive Management Series.

This suite focuses on successful change management for the enterprise and how to lead it. As with all of the Drucker Management Suites, Leading Change is certified. Upon successful completion of the program, the user is awarded a completion certificate and a credential that confirms he or she has achieved a thorough understanding of the subject material.

The first module, "The Next Society," sets the environment of change; the second module, "From Data to Information Literacy," deals with the information required for change; and the third module, "Driving Change" deals with the decisions necessary to lead change...

musings on autonomic social & knowledge networks...

In my continuing research at the intersection of emerging social and knowledge networking trends, I have been tracking news in my 'knowledge notes' Weblog on 'autonomic' or 'self-healing' systems. As I was performing a search on 'autonomic knowledge management' this morning I came across the following article by Christopher Meyer, [coauthor of It's Alive: The Coming Convergence of Information, Biology, and Business] for Wired Magazine, - The New Facts of Life - in which he writes:

...networks could play a critical role as machines come to resemble living creatures. In life, as on the Net, connections matter more than processors. The Internet could allow sensors to interact in emergent ways, forming an autonomic nervous system for the physical world. An early version is taking root in Los Angeles, where sensors at intersections identify approaching buses and ask a central computer whether they're on time. Late buses get the green light; the system gives crossing traffic extra time in subsequent cycles. The result: 25 percent improvement in transit times without creating congestion.

Oddly enough, our growing knowledge of life processes could have its biggest impact in the social sciences. Social systems, after all, are made up of interacting agents, i.e., people. When we become adept at applying these insights to the social sphere, we'll be able to run simulations that reveal, say, the conditions under which Iraq would reconstruct itself. At that point, the new science of life will help us not only live better, but live better together...

In the above citation, Meyer talks about the importance of connections over processors. Isn't this concept - of relating as biological 'connections' - at the very hub of our current fascination with Social Networking Services [SNSs]? Centralized, standalone SNSs are fun at times, initially compelling, but eventually boring if they do not add value in our day-to-day lives.

Meyer also posits that "Scientific advances point to a startling conclusion: The nonliving world is very much alive." And these networks do indeed take on lives of their own - existing with or without us as - the non-biological representations of the 'us' aspect of our social groups and, - to the degree that we have shared, connected in, or up linked in these spaces - our social knowledge. This is the field of analysis in which we will often find social scientists such as Valdis Krebs at play - tracking, tracing, and trending our digital trails.

It is this delicate dance of 'us' maintaining 'presence' - in either loosely or tightly choreographed associations - that keeps these networks lively and infused with both our individual and collective knowledge. While I was ruminating over writing this post on 'autonomic knowledge management' this morning I was also chatting with Jim McGee who recommended that I reference David Reed's work in this area.

An excellent recommendation that inspired me to question - How soon and/or successfully will the current eruption of both Knowledge and Social Networking Services morph into viable components and/or extensions of David P. Reed and Andrew Lippman's visionary architecture of Viral Communications?

Historically, people do not scale well, networks do - and autonomic or self-healing networks hold the promise of robust scalability. An important upgrade for ailing telecom carriers and service providers who suffer from extensively manual business processes that are quite simply not sustainable in our burgeoning 'network-centric' world. Cultural change is imperative in the current 'carrier-class' world in order to 'tool up' for the near and distant future of wireless networking.

Reed & Lippman state, "The Essence of scalable wireless networks is cooperation..." I think that this 'cooperation' concept also applies to 'us' as the wetware components of these network architectures. Reed & Lippman also assert in a May 19th, 2003 Viral Communications draft that "the impact of enabling architectural innovations is amplified when they are in synchrony with cultural change." [This draft is available as a PDF file in the Viral Communications related link below.]

How can we - as early adopters - influence the evolution of Social Networking Services so they do enhance our communications - aside from the current widely practiced activities of job searching, dating, friend finding, and strengthening weak ties?

If you utilize one or more of the current entrants in this swell of online SNS offerings [such as LinkedIn, Friendster, Orkut, Ryze, and/or Tribe] - what value, if any, do you derive from them? And, harkening back to the citation with which I started this post, has one [or more] of these services assisted in helping you to successfully reduce the 'traffic congestion' at the 'intersections' in your life? And, in closing, any insights, comments, or ponderings on the recent and future blurring of lines between 'wetware,' 'software,' and 'hardware' in an infinitely connected wireless world?

Related Links: