Knowledge Heroes

Are our brains being rewired by using the Internet? The evidence tends to be pointing that way.
As somebody interested in how the mind works, I read with interest the results of a recent study at UCLA that used the sexiest research tool around today, fMRI scanning. fMRI allows researchers to see which parts of the brain are active when participants are exposed to different stimuli. And for the first time I’m aware of, this was used to track brain activity while people engaged in various online tasks, including searching.

Read the full article at searchengineland.com

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Some companies have a much better appreciation of how to apply Web 2.0 than others. The projects described here have been selected to represent the diversity of innovations that fit under that broad heading. Some, such as Dell and PlusNet, show companies using Web 2.0 tools to find out how they can serve their customers better. Others, like Wachovia Bank and Best Buy, demonstrate the ability of Web 2.0 tools to help organisations work together better, document their implicit knowledge and even improve social cohesion.

But every example shows why it is imperative for enterprise IT departments to reach an understanding of Web 2.0, from both a technical and social perspective. Indeed, the advent of Web 2.0 gives IT a unique opportunity to become more innovative, more creative and a more valuable part of business. By enabling collaboration and fostering community, they can inject major value to the activities of business units as diverse as marketing, customer service and business development.

Read the full article at www.information-age.com

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“Today, every larger company has locations spread geographically, and even if it is the same company, usually applying the same business rules, one will find that some of these remote locations are more successful than others.”

Read the full article at barthox.wordpress.com

Laura Fitton from Pistachio relayed this short business use case story for Twitter written by Gary Koelling of Best Buy and Blue Shirt Nation fame.

Microblogging in a single room is the behaviour you’ll see at conferences nowadays, but I was thrilled to discover a company actually practicing this to manage all their meetings and presentations.

Whether you are 5 or 500 people, the ability to instantaneously share ideas and conversations without disrupting presentations almost sounds too wild to one day become common practice. My first impression is however that this could be slightly overkill for smaller groups/companies. Also the fewer the people, the closer the speaker and therefore the more potentially disturbing could microblogging become.

Should critical mass therefore be a requisit? Could we apply the same to web conference meetings and training sessions to dynamically gather feedback? Next step is now to convince the boss to try this out

Read the full article at pistachioconsulting.com