Latest News

Are you Wiki?

by topsarge

Are you Wiki?
“Wiki” (/wi:ki:/), a Hawaiian word for “fast,” are web pages that can be quickly edited by any visitor. It is a web based program that is used to create collaborative workspaces that users freely create and edit Web page content using any Web browser. Wiki supports hyperlinks and has simple text syntax for creating new pages and cross links between internal pages on the fly.

One of the most popular sites within the public domain is Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org), an encyclopedia written collaboratively by volunteers from all around the world and anyone with internet access can make changes to Wikipedia articles. Since its creation in 2001, Wikipedia attracts 684 million visitors yearly. There are more than 75,000 active contributors working on more than 10,000,000 articles in more than 260 languages. That is a collaboration project to envy.

But did you know that the same wiki capability exists in the .mil domain today? There are a number of wiki software programs and hosts in use for your own collaboration activities on both NIPR and SIPR and you only need be an authorized user of government networks to gain access to these free (to you) resources. Some sites are targeted to specific activities like Intelink (https://www.intelink.gov), which has a goal to promote intelligence dissemination and business workflow. Intelink is actually multiple sites, Intelink-U, Intelink-S and Intelink-TS which are all on various networks.

Twitter Dictionary for new Tweeters

by topsarge

Essential Twitter Dictionary

Social Media Breakfast, Killeen

by topsarge

Why Have a Portal?

by topsarge

Author Paul Bryan reported in the Intranet Journal* a result of a survey where an oft heard complaint was about low usage of company portals. In his attempt to narrow factors contributing to negative reviews, one of the key challenges he found was “often a result of focusing on technical requirements rather than the real-life context of the system.” Sounds like another example of missing the other two elements of good KM…the People and Processes that support the underlying Technology. Give ’em a portal but don’t show them why they need it, how to use it, or help them change their internal procedures to support it. As Maxwell Smart would say, “ah, The Oldest Trick in the Book!”

Is that a problem in your work area, are there portals at your disposal that are little understood or seldom used? Who needs these portals anyway, I have lived without them for all this time, why do should I use one now? Be it an organizational Sharepoint server, the Army’s Knowledge Online enterprise portal, or one of the communities of practice that have proliferated in the .mil domain, these online internet (or intranet) presences are something you should be paying attention to. I suggest that you may have the technology, but do your people know how to best employ them and have your operating procedures adapted to using them yet?

American Advertsing Federation

by topsarge

If you were at today’s Central Texas’s AAF meeting, I have posted a link to the briefing used for the presentation, feel free to use it for your overview. It is here: Please tell us what you thought of the event! a http://bit.ly/eOxymh

Feast or Famine

by topsarge

“In the digital age, knowledge is our lifeblood. And documents are the DNA of knowledge.”
-–Rick Thoman, CEO, Xerox

In recognizing the way that the operational Army approaches knowledge management one must acknowledge that where you are at in Army Forces Generation (ARFORGEN) will drive your activities and focus at any given time. When you begin a life-cycle, usually at the conclusion of a operation or deployment as of late, knowledge workers are traditionally gathering observations and best practices, archiving and cataloging good ideas and what worked best, and improving on the processes that did not quite work so well. It is then when equipment (and people) are “reset,” new soldiers come while old soldiers go, and new and overhauled equipment is issued.

During the Ready phase is when the knowledge worker is sharpening their axe and helping the unit to prepare. New equipment is integrated and processes are evaluated. Staffs and operators are trained, standard procedures are developed and drills are established. Units begin checking with their deployed counterparts for possible changes and adjustments to their standing procedures while new and emerging doctrine is review and incorporated in to routine activities.

.Read More »Feast or Famine

Digital Revolution

by topsarge

According to the security firm Symantec more new malicious programs were created in 2008 than useful programs, something they predicted would increase in 2009. And according to a recent report that surveyed over 200 corporate and government IT professionals, 50 percent expressed concern that so-called Generation Y employees were a security concern primarily because of their tendency to frequent social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace.

So my question at hand asks…is the problem the individual and their tendencies to use new mediums to communicate, or is it the technology that allows the security holes to be exploited? That poses a dilemma for organizations grappling with the social-networking phenomenon, or as an expert asked “how do you harness all of the good, but avoid the bad?”

Dirty Dongles Done Dirt Cheap

by topsarge

Paul Bryan reported in the “Intranet Journal” last year a result of a survey where an oft heard complaint was about low usage of company portals. In his attempt to narrow the causative factors contributing to negative reviews one of the key challenges he found was “often a result of focusing on technical requirements rather than the real-life context of the system.” Sounds like another example of missing the other two elements of good KM…the People and Processes that support the underlying Technology. Give ’em a portal but don’t show them why they need it, how to use it, or help them change their internal procedures to support it. As Maxwell Smart would say, “ah, The Oldest Trick in the Book!”

Of Maps and Men

by topsarge

“The best-laid plans of mice and men/often go awry”

How do you go from sharing information to learning new knowledge? Experts describe two types of knowledge, explicit and tacit. Explicit knowledge is the type that organizations and people exchange by giving instruction and writing steps or details in how-to guides, policies and procedures, or instruction manuals. You can often exchange explicit knowledge regulalrly and it can be done for basic skills, like say maybe map reading. I suggest most good trainers can sit down with a complete novice and after a matter of hours have them reading a military map.

Tacit knowledge is the type of knowledge that comes from experience, intuition, and basically a gut feeling. Some of it can be expressed, but other types are difficult for a trainer to actually teach. Consider
explaining to someone how to glance at terrain features and then by using their own experience to be able to convert that 3D view to a spot on 2D map and quickly identify a location. That is probably harder to get across in a simple data exchange.

KM Only, Hold the IT

by topsarge

“So, there we were….” a Most old soldiers knows that all tall tales must start out that way, so this one isn’t any different. So, there we were, another office call, another desk side briefing. One minute into the discussion the SME stops me and asks if I am there to push another computer system, software package or ‘tool’ on him to solve all “his… Read More »KM Only, Hold the IT

« Previous
1
…
10
11
12
13
Next »