Next Generation Knowledge Sharing & Learning Online Conference

These peppers aren't hotI have to admit, I don’t usually spend a lot of time thinking about “knowledge management” (KM). I know my work is often classified under that domain, but I’ve never been able to wrap my head around the idea that knowledge can be managed. Processes? Tools? Resources? Sure. But knowledge is created, shared, transferred and transformed the same way water flows downstream. It finds its way, it gets trapped, it dries up and it can move mountains.

Then in the span of the last few weeks, KM keeps coming up. Last week there was the panel on the Future of KM at GK3. Yesterday my online colleague Luis Suarez twittered a question about the future of KM and Chief Tech suggested the idea of a Next Generation Knowledge Sharing & Learning Online Conference Event. It didn’t take long until a bunch of us were chiming in…

“while trying to wrap up everything at work since tomorrow is my last working day for the remaining of the year, earlier on today in Twitter a crazy thought came up from James Dellow after I mentioned in one of my twitterings how one of my abstracts for a conference event, taking place next year, on the state of social computing, was rejected. From there onwards, Dennis McDonald also jumped in, along with Steve Collins, Kelly Drahzal (a.k.a. Kellypuffs), Mark Masterson, Nancy White, LittleLaura, Ryan Boyles, Thomas van der Wal, Ryan Lanham and Jasmin Tragas so far. And before we knew it we had a whole bunch of folks in Twitter interested in the overall event (Plus those who contacted me already offline!).“

That is knowledge sharing. Maybe even a little creation. So what next? Chief Tech is pondering on what he’d like to present. I’m still wrapping my head about what “it” is. Again, quotes from Twitter that Luis saved…

Nancy White came up with some really good comments on a potential direction: “I have been struggling with “what it is” And it is not just personal. It is organizational. KS, knowledge creation and application. And yes, some management” and so did LittleLaura: “like the idea of KM and IM and info architecture, importance often gets forgotten with all the hype of modern media these days!“, along with Kapil Gupta with some really good suggestions: “I only saw part of your conversation about nextgen KM conf, but sounds like you need is something like a barcamp for KM -in SL maybe?“

My starting point is to ask myself, what can we do together that advances our knowledge? Is it presentations? Conversations? Working projects that demonstrate key ideas and projects? Thinking and writing together (a la “writeshops”)?

How can we walk our talk about knowledge creation, sharing and transformation? How do we embed the ideas of complexity, connection and even love into our thinking together? Form matters as much as function here. How do we live our ideas about knowledge and its role in our work and lives?

Redefine Gift Giving – Donations Instead of Tchotkes

I got an email last week from Erika at Redefine Christmas asking me to pass along the word of their site which is helping people rethink gift giving towards charitable giving. Beth Kanter has been covering this for weeks, but hey, let’s pass it along. I gave gifts of donations to my family and, still unbeknownst to you dear readers, to you as well. I just haven’t’ finished the card yet, so keep yer eyes peeled! (I tend to fall behind on those things.) I haven’t checked out all the sites that Redefine Christmas offers, but just FYI, I gave through Network for Good for the most part, with a few directly via a charity’s website. Plus a few more old fashioned checks mailed to micro-local groups.

Redefining Christmas is a simple idea to make our holiday gift giving more meaningful and more charitable. Instead of the wasteful gifts we sometimes give, consider giving your friends and loved ones donations to their favorite charities. And ask that they do the same for you.
Give others donations to their favorite charities.

links to purchase and send charity gift certificates to anyone on your list. Recipients can choose to redeem them with any of thousands of charities)

* www.justgive.org
* www.networkforgood.org
* www.tisbest.org
* www.charitychecks.us
* www.changingthepresent.org

Oh and for what it is worth, this could be redefine any sort of holiday giving. But please, let’s keep the chocolate and cookies in the plan.

The Panel I Loved at GK3

Ehomemakers

Flickr Photo Download: Ehomemakers for the full sized image.

Last week at GK3 there were plenty of boring panels. I’m afraid to report the panel I was on on the future of KM was probably one of the boring ones. Panels are not a good use of face to face time, especially when people have flown in from across the world. We should be sitting in circles talking with each other. But there are politics of meetings like GK3.

Some people figure out ways around them. The E-Homemakers group sure did. They organized two sessions in a row and also sold products in the main hall (I bought two baskets and some fabric!). The first was rounds of story telling by women who have developed home based businesses (mostly around craft related products) in rural Africa, India and Malaysia. Each woman told her story three times, all the while a newly minted graphic recorder created an image to capture the story. (We trained together to prepare for this last Monday.) Dimanche, Zarah and Allison were amazing. When I walked in and saw their images, I was filled with joy and a deep affirmation that we all can draw as a way to communicate and connect. It was blissful. I’m sorry I was not able to be present for the first session, but I was graphically recording for the E-Health session.

The second session was actually a panel session – sort of. The moderator first invited everyone to go see the story charts and talk about them to refresh their memory of the stories. People did not want to start talking. I overheard a deep discussion about feminism at one chart that was on fire. Eventually our erstwhile moderator, Chong Sheau Ching, Executive Director, eHomemakers, Malaysia, rounded people back to their seats and asked the project research leads questions about their projects. Then she brought in the audience. I was drawing like crazy trying to capture it all. To top it off, I kept hearing the words “beauty,” “love,” and “listen to the roots.” It was everything I wanted to share in the KM session, but utterly failed to do.

Afterwards people came up to continue talking. We had the storytellers sign the chart and invited the researchers to amend anything they saw. There was lots of conversation and a ton of photos being snapped. People didn’t’ leave. There was a lot of energy in the room, particularly because this was a cavernous room and there weren’t that many people attending the session in the first place (sadly).

The women in that room had a lot of passion and power. Large political meetings aren’t going to change the world. These women are.

Dislikeing Spock Even More

Today I sent feedback to Spock.com to advise them that I did not want any more of their spam and I did NOT want to have to register to opt out of the spam. I have begun forwarding the “trusted connection requests” from my friends and colleagues back to my colleagues asking if they really did want to send all this spam to me (having made this mistake in October with Shelfari, heavens help me.) So far, two of them said they were simply experimenting with the system, having received so many invitations themselves. One felt compelled to join to correct erroneous information on the system. Now THERE is an interesting marketing ploy. You have to join or we will make you look bad! The other responses have been that they joined because someone they trusted invited them. The question is, did the trusted person really know what was going to happen with the system?

I have created a rule in my email box to send anything from Spock to the spam file, but something in the Spock emails seems to evade the filter (I haven’t figured that out yet.)

Now I have started getting Spock alerts. Here is an example:

From: Spock Team <donotreply@spock.com>
To: XXXX
Subject: Spock Alerts

Below is a list of updates to your Spock search result.

Go to your contributions page to see these updates.

—Jim Benson added 1 tag to you.

—Jack Vinson added 4 tags to you.
–

Want to change the types of emails you receive from Spock? Click here to change your settings: http://www.spock.com/do/settings/email

If you go to the contributions page, guess what you get? A sign in. Yet another way to try and get you to join. So now not only do I get the awful “trusted associates” bacn, now I’m getting alerts.

I am sending mail to my host today submitting a complaint for spam. Spock, did you know you may be violating Washington State spam laws? The way you manipulate your users into sending email to their trusted contacts may not violate the law, but I believe the update email does. I am making the assumption that there is a commercial model behind your service, thus making it a commercial transaction.

More importantly, you are violating our good will and trust. That will sink you.

Bottom line: Spock is using similar tactics Shelfari used and which the blogosphere condemmed. Shelfari adjusted their process. Will Spock? Spock tries to convince registrants to allow Spock to send email on their behalf by making the impression that other people, SIMPLY BECAUSE THEY ARE IN SPOCK’S database scraped from other sites on the web, have opted in to the service and thus should be logical connections on the service. Then it starts spamming. I should not have to opt out of Spock’s system. I should not be subjected to their bacn. Spock, don’t opt me in. Offer me the opportunity but assume until I say yes that I don’t want your bacn. Put an opt out form on your site ASAP.

Update Monday Afternoon:

A few more things come to light about Spock.

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/startups/news/2007/08/spock_reputation

http://stupidspam.blogspot.com/2007/12/spockcom-another-creepy-social-network.html

http://www.linkedin.com/answers/law-legal/criminal-law/LAW_CLW/137733-8687328

This is not a new problem… http://www.joeszilagyi.com/2007/09/19/spockcom-spam/

http://www.5thwind.com/?p=70

And one with a great visual http://www.itgumbo.com/mumbogumbo/2007/08/spock_shocks_but_fails_to_rock.php

Please, don’t invite me to Spock

I have never gotten so many “invites” to join a social networking as I have from Spock. Can I just say “ICK?” I queried a few friends as to why they invited me. The best answer came from Jim Benson with these two blog posts: It May Be the Evil Spock and An Initial Response to Spock. That was enough for me to decide NOT to register and not to further support a site that can easily misrepresent us and only allows us to correct that misrepresentation by joining. Double ICK! Thanks for the heads up, Jim.