Knowledge Heroes

With new tools in the workplace (such as those inspired by web 2.0) comes a new culture and attitude towards productivity.  Leo Babauta takes a look at some of these in his post Productivity 2.0

Here’s the main points from Leo’s post.

• Old School: Crank It Out vs Productivity 2.0: Deep Focus
• Old School: Lots of planning is important vs Productivity 2.0: Just Start
• Old school: Crank through tons of paperwork vs Productivity 2.0: Automate with technology
• Old school: Multi-tasking is productive vs Productivity 2.0: Multi-project and single-task
• Old school: Produce more vs Productivity 2.0: Produce less
• Old School: Be organized vs Productivity 2.0: Tag, archive and search
• Old School: Hierarchy vs Productivity 2.0: Independence, freedom, and collaboration
• Old School: Work longer hours vs Productivity 2.0: Work fewer hours

I for one am completely sold on the concepts outlined.  As someone who started his career in IT project management, I’ve seen first hand how the way projects are run has changed over the past two years.  Out with lengthy planning and in with a “just get it done” attitude are the order of the day now.

Read the full article here: http://zenhabits.net/2008/10/productivity-20-how-the-new-rules-of-work-are-changing-the-game/

So you found us, great!

Knowledge Heroes are people who are doing or saying something different and innovative about knowledge management and information sharing.  These are the people or companies innovating in the way we consume and share knowledge, sometimes against great odds and resistance.

We’ll profile some of the Knowledge Heroes we come across in the Heroes Stories section.  In addition a number of these heroes will post news to the front page sharing their findings, insights and passion.

We’ve recently invited some of our most respected and inspirational contacts to participate, so expect to see some exciting posts very soon.

Another one from the science scene.  Hershey Research have launched a social networking service for it’s researchers to connect with each other and those outside of the company.

“The goal is to allow researchers, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists from around the world to collaborate and, hopefully, entice them to develop and manufacture products at the Hershey Center for Applied Research in Derry Twp.

The online social network is called “KnowledgeMesh” and is open to anyone. It includes an array of social networking features, enabling users to connect with people with similar interests and participate in on-line communities related to lifesciences and biotechnology.”

Read the full article on pennlive

Back in June 2008 GlaxoSmithKline the world’s second largest drug maker, effectively gave away $millions(?) worth of research data as a donation to open source drug discovery.

Mainly ignored by the mainstream media at first, this massive move by a big player for the pharma industry signals a change in how these large companies are viewing the way they handle and share knowledge to boost the the collaborative battle against disease.

A spokesperson from GSK said “In turn, we hope this data will further drive the identification of predictive biomarkers and lead to shorter, more directed clinical trials allowing us to bring drugs more quickly to patients who need them.”

Billions of dollars and who knows how many years worth of data are locked up in pharmaceutical companies.  This consists of failed research, discontinued research, acquired data (from take overs and mergers) and dark data (the data that doesn’t need to get reported).  This is an encouraging move by a respected pharma giant and we’ll be keeping a close eye on industry to see what happens next….

Read the full article at: http://sciencecommons.org/weblog/archives/2008/06/25/gsk-cabig-give-away-cancer-data-to-speed-research/