*** The Gurteen Knowledge-Letter (Issue 53, 1 November 2004) ***
Each month I reply to hundreds of e-mails. Often though I'd much
rather pick up the phone and talk to the person but it is surprising
how many people do not put their contact details at the end of their
email!
Most email systems allow you to attach a custom signature to your
outgoing messages. I use the feature in my Lotus Notes based e-mail
and if for any reason I don't want to reveal my phone number or other
details I simply delete the 'signature' before I send the e-mail.
And while on the subject of e-mail - a huge blanket apology to any
one who has mailed me recently and not received a reply. I try very
hard to reply to all my e-mails but it has now become impossible. I
suspect I could spend 24 x 7 only replying to e-mails and still have
a back-log. If you want to contact me and its important - pick up the
phone - my phone system is not overloaded yet :-)
*************************** CONTENTS ***************************
1 - Doing away with capital letters
2 - Global Knowledge Review
3 - Change This
4 - An Open-Source Browser
5 - Learning to Fly
6 - KM Asia and KM Europe
7 - Podcasting
8 - Personal KM Workshop at KM Europe
9 - Generation Shift
10 - Creating a Knowledge Sharing Culture
11 - Forgotten Stuff
12 - Gurteen Knowledge-Calendar
13 - What's New?
**************** DOING AWAY WITH CAPITAL LETTERS ****************
more and more I find myself writing in lowercase when writing emails.
i often feel a little 'bad' about it but given the volume of e-mail I
respond to - at times it is more of a necessity than a quirk. so
imagine my pleasure to discover i am not the only one - see stephanie
hendrick's weblog below - not only is her blog in lowercase but its a
pretty interesting one too - stephanie is researching the social and
linguistic network of blogs, as well as individual linguistic
representation!
http://www.sumofmyparts.com/about.html
it seems stephanie took her inspiration from the great poet ee
cummings - so I am in good company.
http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?prmID=157
i wonder if in 100 years time we will still be using capital letters
in our writing? And what with the abbreviations used when we text and
send instant messages - will the English language be recognizable at
all in 2104?
******************** GLOBAL KNOWLEDGE REVIEW ********************
The second issue of the Global Knowledge Review was published on 21st
October. If you would like to take a look at its contents and one of
the articles that I have published online as a sample then see:
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/id/gkr-issues
In addition, from time to time we will be running a number of
promotional offers for the GKR and if you would like to receive the
occasional promotional copy and be kept informed by e-mail of GKR
developments and special discounts then see:
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/id/gkr
Click the "Register Interest in the GKR" button and fill in the form.
You will also find a lot more detail about the contributors at the
link above.
************************** CHANGE THIS **************************
Do you want to change the world? Then write your own manifesto:
http://www.changethis.com
This is a cool little website with some interesting manifestos from
people who want to make a difference.
My pick - Seth Godin on "Doing Less":
http://www.changethis.com/2.DoLess
******************** AN OPEN-SOURCE BROWSER ********************
I have been wasting more and more time trying to clean my Internet
Explorer browser of spyware. If you click on a broken link or click
on Google and it takes you to an advertising site or worse then you
are infected. You can try to remove it or you can ditch Explorer.
I had been toying with the idea of trying an alternative browser but
have now taken the leap thanks to an article in Business Week
pointing me to Firefox - an open-source browser from Mozilla. And
then Robin Good had good things to say on it too ...
http://www.masternewmedia.org
Try it ... I have yet to seriously fault it:
http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox
Business Week also talked highly of OpenOffice - an open source
alternative to Microsoft Office. It seems files created with the two
products are compatible but I have yet to try it out.
http://www.openoffice.org
************************ LEARNING TO FLY ************************
My sixth and final Knowledge Conference of 2004 is an 'experiential
learning workshop' based on Chris Collison's and Geoff Parcell's new
book of the same name and is being facilitated by Chris and Geoff
themselves. Celebrating the book's launch, this one day conference
will be practical and pragmatic; based on the tools, lessons and
stories from the book.
Several people have commented that they think this could be one of
the best KM events of 2004. Take a look and see what you think for
yourselves. Judging on the volume of early bookings I hope they are
right.
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/id/X0007F9FA/
If you are a large organization and would like to send a small group
of people - drop me an e-mail or give me a call as we have some
special group discounts.
********************* KM ASIA AND KM EUROPE *********************
Well, its a great shame but I am not going to make either of these
events this year. But both are worth getting to if you can make it.
KM Asia 2-4 November
http://www.kmasia.com
KM Europe 8-10 November
http://www.kmeurope.com
************************** PODCASTING **************************
I have been going on about the joys of RSS newsfeeds but its uses and
the technology get better by the day. I suggest you take the time to
understand the new concept of 'podcasting'. It is simple but awesome!
Podcasting allows you to subscribe to internet audio feeds via your
iPod or MP3 player.
The technology uses RSS newsfeeds but instead of pushing text from
blogs and news sites to a newsreader like http://www.bloglines.com
podcasting sends audio content directly to an iPod or other MP3
player.
And you don't need a portable MP3 player to listen to these podcasts.
You can subscribe to them just like any other RSS newsfeed and listen
to them online.
For a sample list of audio podcasts, check out
http://audio.weblogs.com
Or here is a feed for the BBC News Headlines but note this is not an
audio stream but a video one!
http://bbcnews.benmetcalfe.com/av/headlines_nb_wm.xml
More on podcasting:
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/id/podcasting
*************** PERSONAL KM WORKSHOP AT KM EUROPE ***************
I wish I was at KM Europe this year as I am going to miss what looks
like being a pretty good workshop hosted by Knowledgeboard on
personal km - as you know one of my hot topics. Lilia Efiimova, Ton
Zijlstra, Martin Roell and Piers Young will be there to name a few.
Here is a bit about it:
In spite of KM's evolution as a field, a key question remains
unresolved: "How do we improve knowledge workers' productivity?"
Much of knowledge management practices are focused on an
organizational level; interventions and systems are designed and
implemented without much thinking of how they would match the
practices and daily routines of individual knowledge workers. While
this personal side of knowledge management seems to be neglected in
corporate KM initiatives it has increasingly become a topic of
discussion by KM practitioners.
Personal KM is about personal effectiveness: about knowing what is
your expertise, being an effective networker and finding time to
participate in interesting conversations, about managing your ideas,
communication and documents, selecting tools that help without adding
stress, about getting your work done and knowing how to make space
for reflection and learning even when deadlines are piling up.
KnowledgeBoard is hosting an afternoon workshop on Personal KM on
November 9th, providing a space for collaborative exploration of the
emerging world of Personal Knowledge Management. In this workshop
they are going to share personal experiences of being effective
knowledge workers, to look at methods and tools that make us smarter
and to discuss what and how personal KM can add to organisation-wide
KM initiatives.
http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=132413
*********************** GENERATION SHIFT ***********************
You might be intersted in reading this report that I tripped over
recently ... its about a year old but still worth the read:
Generational Shift: What We Saw at the Workplace Revolution By
Bruce Tulgan & RainmakerThinking, Inc.
Here is how it starts ...
Between 1993 and 2003, a profound revolution has taken place in the
values and norms of the American workplace; the impact has been felt
throughout the world. During this ten-year period, we at
RainmakerThinking, Inc.® have been conducting extensive research on
the employer-employee relationship. Our research is ongoing. As of
September 17, 2003, we have identified six key findings:
#1. WORK HAS BECOME MORE DEMANDING ON EMPLOYEES.
#2. EMPLOYER-EMPLOYEE RELATIONSHIPS HAVE BECOME LESS
HIERARCHICAL AND MORE TRANSACTIONAL.
#3. EMPLOYERS ARE MOVING AWAY FROM LONG-TERM EMPLOYMENT
RELATIONSHIPS.
#4. EMPLOYEES HAVE LESS CONFIDENCE IN LONG-TERM REWARDS
AND GREATER EXPECTATIONS FOR SHORT-TERM REWARDS.
#5. IMMEDIATE SUPERVISORS ARE NOW THE MOST IMPORTANT
PEOPLE IN THE WORKPLACE.
#6. SUPERVISING EMPLOYEES NOW REQUIRES MORE TIME AND
SKILL ON THE PART OF MANAGERS.
http://www.winningworkplaces.org/library/research/TenYearReportSummary.pdf
************* CREATING A KNOWLEDGE SHARING CULTURE *************
Arkgroup Australia have an interesting event coming up in the new
year called "Encouraging and Maintaining a Knowledge Sharing
Culture", 21-23 Feb 2005 in Sydney.
It is about embedding a prosperous knowledge culture to improve your
organizations innovation, motivation and productivity. More and more
organizations are facing the challenge of keeping knowledge within
the organization and sharing it. This event will address how you
ensure and maintain a knowledge sharing culture, through Technology,
Influencing behaviors, Awareness, Building trust, Encouraging Buy-In
and Overcoming staff resistance.
I wish I had a good excuse to get there :-)
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/id/L001153/
************************ FORGOTTEN STUFF ************************
I often develop cute little features for my website and then forget
all about them.
Here is one - a quotation slide show:
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/k-show?open
or my knowledge seeds:
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/id/knowledge-seeds
or my learning-stickers
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/id/stickers
They share a theme - the page refreshes after a time interval to
reveal something new.
I hope you enjoy :-)
