Knowledge Heroes

“The current economic climate is having a devastating effect on almost every business around. In order to adapt to changing conditions and opportunities, businesses will need to use flexible, adaptable systems to survive. The days of expensive year-long implementations of behind-the-firewall software look to be behind us.”

Read the full article at www.readwriteweb.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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Your boss thinks you “play on Facebook,” all day. Your co-worker who is jonesing for the same promotion is monitoring the time of day you post to Twitter. The guy from across the hall sips black coffee through his brown teeth and laughs, “Met the man of your dreams on Ebay, yet?”

Take it from someone who knows. It’s not easy being the social media champion in the building. If very few people in the business world understand social media, it’s only logical very few at your place of work would, too. So how do you help make them understand social media isn’t just about posting personal journals on MySpace or blowing 30 minute chunks of your day watching the skateboarding dog on YouTube?

Read the full article at www.socialmedian.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

Practical advice for activating the potential for social networking in the enterprise is hard to find, here are ten strategies that can help leverage this popular aspect of social computing in the workplace.

Read the full article at www.socialcomputingmagazine.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

Oliver Young, an analyst at Forrester Research, stated that despite there being a lot of buzz about the consumer market for web 2.0 applications, “the greatest opportunity today for vendors is in the business-to-business collaboration space”.

The trends is definitely on social networks and mashups. What about the B2B collaboration spaces. Tools like basecamp started early by providing a simple SaaS solution where one can manage projects with their clients. This trends is clearly growing to bigger needs in enterprises. More than project management, knowledge management can be done with your clients as well.

Read the full article at www.readwriteweb.com

This article from Harvard Business Publishing looks at the challenges facing boardrooms across the world in the face of the economic crisis. From creating value to harnessing network effects, the core of the article speaks to those pushing Enterprise 2.0 and KM 2.0 as well as senior management.

“How should boardrooms respond to the macro crisis? Is it just a case of recession-as-usual: budget-paring, personnel-slashing, and portfolio-trimming?
Not a chance. The tactics of recession-as-usual are neither necessary nor sufficient for firms to weather the global economic superstorm - because it’s no ordinary squall, but a once-in-a-lifetime gale ripping up the very foundations of the global economic order. Rather, the macro crisis requires decision makers to confront fundamental transformation on three levels.”

Read the full article at discussionleader.hbsp.com

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.