Social Knowledge Management (Pt 2 of...)

-
We're doing a talk on how our customers can better understand and use social software to further their knowledge management initiatives. I took this question to my social network. LinkedIn Answers is a great tool for tapping the wisdom of the crowds.

I posed the following question

How can we use the enthusiasm and technology of web 2.0 within knowledge management initiatives?

I got some great responses, which also spawned a few followup discussions. People are optimistic about "Enterprise 2.0" and its adoption. Sharepoint is a traditional collaboration tool which Microsoft is attempting to "socialize". Other more familiar 2.0 tools mentioned were the suite from 37signals

It would appear that the tools are there and maturing. However, with any Knowledge Management initiative the tools are not enough. The people using the tools are the ones that build the knowledge base (Bad tools never help the cause either). So I go back to the question of the enthusiasm and passion people have for using social software. No one pays me to tag, digg, tweet or blog, yet it I do it all the time. What do people get from doing it?

Reputation.

In cyberspace (why does no one use that term anymore?) reputation rules. Reputation gets you subscribers, twitter followers, referrals etc. What's the simplest way to implement reputation in an application? Rating systems where content authors are scored by the community? What about editors? How about those that attempt to game the system when incentives are placed on ratings.

"Who will rate the raters?"

Related Posts:
Social Media & Knowledge Management

Comments

David said…
I think for these services to work they have to reach critical mass, which Digg has accomplished.

I think a big part of web 2.0 is decentralizing editorial control, where the users make decisions about content vs a single editor. Yes each story on Digg begins with single contributor but it takes hundreds of people to digg your story in a short time frame before it will make the homepage.

Sites like Del.icio.us, Reddit, wikipedia work in similar ways. No need to rate the raters because the 'crowd' takes care of itself.
May 6, 2008 at 11:36 AM
Shaun said…
The crowd does a good job of self-policing. How can we get to critical mass where the crowd is large. In a corporate environment the incentives must come before the crowd. The incentives/metrics will build the crowd. How can we ensure the early adopters won't subvert the community?

Am I being too cynical? Or is a sole moderator enough at the outset to keep things straight?
May 7, 2008 at 11:07 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

de-cluttter

-
it really is amazing what you can do without when you must. Our home is going up on the market so the agent came by and suggested that we cleanup. Now our place is not dirty, my wife would never let that happen. All the sweaters you don't wear,But might want to; extra dishes, utensils, printed articles you intend to read... should we throw them out? doesn't that just increase waste, where we might print/buy it again later on when we Do need it? Perhaps we need to examine how we managed without it and just continue. Or if it's aspiration-based clutter just give ourselves a reasonable deadline to put it into practice. The idea of aspirational clutter is one that hits home. Things that you don't use, but embody qualities that you aspire for yourself. A treadmill doubling as a clothes hanger; one day you will get in shape. Books you've never read that fill shelves; the budding philosopher that never bloomed. The extra server, more of a footrest than anything; the proje...
Read more

TechCrunch should stay out of economics

-
I was startled when I read Warren Buffet's Op-Ed piece in the NYT .. He basically burned down the GOP/Fox News "Job-creators can't be taxed" house of cards narrative. Buffet definitely has the cred to state how investors and businesses have been operating over the years. Investment during times with higher taxes like the 80s and 90s led to a Lot of people getting rich, people created jobs and grew businesses. There are some of the lowest taxes on the wealthy right now, and there definitely aren't a lot of jobs being created. Sounded like straight talk. Then a ridiculous piece by Michael Arrington of TechCrunch nearly dropped me out of my seat. One of those pieces where you're waiting for the sarcastic punch-line only to find out that the writer was serious. Arrington states that Buffet's true motive is to keep others from getting rich. He don't like the "New Money". Otherwise he would've proposed a different tax which would hit him har...
Read more

watt is in the bag?

-
I was at my local library yesterday picking up some reading material. I went to the check-out desk and found a a small stand from the power company. There were about two dozen packages. Within each package was $$$ http://tinyurl.com/2tg6x6 What a fantastic idea on multiple fronts. The campaign to conserve energy is all well and good but you need to enable people to understand their drain on the system their footprint etc. I've seen many sites on calculating offsets but that was estimation and felt more like guesswork. This watt reader allows you to plug any device into the wattreader which plugs directly into the wall. From there the reader will let you know exactly how much current is being drawn. This will allow you to understand the phantom load of many common devices. A great application to help people better understand their footprint, and how much it costs them on a daily basis.
Read more