*** The Gurteen Knowledge-Letter (Issue 52, 11 October 2004) ***
Well the highlight of September for me was the launch of the Global
Knowledge Review. I am absolutely delighted with it. A big thank-you
to all the contributors and the great feedback from you all. We have
got off to a good start with subscribers from around the world, US,
UK, China, New Zealand and Rumania to name a few. If you missed it
take a look here where you can download a free copy of the first
issue:
http://www.globalknowledgereview.com
Or take a look at the contributors here:
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/id/gkr
Another highlight of the month was the Gurteen Conference on Social
Networking followed by a one-day learning event by Verna Allee on
Value Networks. We have had some tremendous feedback on this - so
thanks to all the speakers. If you would like to see an extensive
write up on the conference from Ed Mitchell of KnowledgeBoard see:
http://www.knowledgeboard.com/item/131769
or if you would like to download the presentations whether you
attended the conference or not:
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/id/downloads
*************************** CONTENTS ***************************
1 - Creative Commons
2 - Newsfeeds I read
3 - Lewis & Clark Bicentennial
4 - FlashPaper
5 - Time Dollars
6 - The Lost Instinct of Collaboration
7 - Learning to Fly
8 - Posting events on my website
9 - The Robots are coming
10 - Wikipedia 1 million articles
11 - More on news feeds and news readers
12 - Gurteen Knowledge-Calendar
13 - What's New?
*********************** CREATIVE COMMONS ***********************
Have you discovered Creative Commons yet? Its an organization that
makes available alternative 'licences' to the standard 'copyright'
licence. With a Creative Commons license, you keep your copyright but
allow people to copy and distribute your work provided they give you
credit and only on the conditions you specify.
http://creativecommons.org/
I ran a workshop for the NHS recently and we provided the
participants with a booklet of resources and used one of the Creative
Commons licences to make the material available to anyone who cared
to use it as long as 'they gave the original authors credit'. Its a
great way to license some of your work.
I also particularly like the 'Developing Nations' licence. This
license allows you to invite a wide range of royalty-free uses of
your work in developing nations while retaining your full copyright
in the developed world.
http://creativecommons.org/license/devnations
************************* ADVERTISEMENT *************************
KnowledgeBoard is very much looking forward to hosting October's
'Project of the Month' focus on the EU project VE-Forum. Join us for
a one-hour gathering with the project team on the 21st October. Polls
and Q&A sessions are also planned. For more details, please check the
event page:
http://www.knowledgeboard.com/item/131665
*********************** NEWSFEEDS I READ ***********************
So have you investigated RSS feeds and news readers yet? One of the
great features about Bloglines - the new reader I use - is that you
can allow other people to view the news feeds you read. If you are
interested in the news feeds I read then see here:
http://www.bloglines.com/public/DavidGurteen
It might be a good place as any to start if you are looking for feeds
on knowledge management and related topics. But hey take a look at
the Dilbert cartoon feed - one of my daily favorites :-)
****************** LEWIS & CLARK BICENTENNIAL ******************
It’s been 200 years since U.S. President Thomas Jefferson dispatched
Meriwether Lewis and William Clark and their Corps of Discovery to
find a water route connecting the interior of the country to the
Pacific.
If you are American, then you are probably well versed in the story
but I only learnt of it about two years ago when on holiday and
travelling by car from Seattle over the Rockies to Yellowstone Park
through Wyoming and Montana. In doing so inadvertently criss-crossing
the path that Lewis and Clark had taken all those years before.
I became fascinated by the expedition but in particular by the role
of a young Shoshone Indian woman - Sacajawea - who was on the
expedition with her husband - a French-Canadian trapper and fur
trader- he had been hired by the expedition as an interpterter. At
the time she was about 16 years old and pregnant. Sacajawea had been
bought by her husband after she had been captured
Sacajawea was the only woman to accompany the expedition. Her
knowledge of the terrain and mountain passes saved weeks of travel
time. Her ability to speak and negotiate with Native tribes allowed
the expedition to keep fresh horses and food all along the way. When
food was scarce, Sacajawea gathered and prepared roots, nuts, berries
and other edible plants.
Most crucially, however, Sacagawea and her infant served as a "white
flag" of peace for the expedition, which was as much a military
expedition as a scientific one. They entered potentially hostile
territory well armed but undermanned compared with the Native
American tribes they met. Because no war party was ever accompanied
by a woman and infant, the response of the Native Americans was
curiosity, not aggression. They talked first, and Sacagawea often
served as the translator. Not a single member of the party was lost
to hostile action.
A fascinating story - take a look at these sites to learn more, I
think you will enjoy the story and the history:
Lewis & Clark Bicentennial website:
http://www.lcbo.net/
Sacajawea websites:
http://www.sacajaweahome.com/
http://www.rootsweb.com/~nwa/sacajawea.html
************************** FLASHPAPER **************************
I have yet to fully check this out but Flash Paper from Macromedia
allows you to convert printable files into Flash documents or Adobe
PDF files.
http://www.macromedia.com/software/flashpaper/
What looks really good is the ability to embed interactive Flash
documents directly into web pages.
http://www.macromedia.com/software/flashpaper/examples/
************************* TIME DOLLARS *************************
Take a look at the concept of Time Dollars!
Time Dollars: A New Kind of Money That Builds Trust and Community.
One hour of contribution = one Time Dollar. That’s it! With Time
Dollars, everyone who gives can earn, and everyone has something to
give. I help you, you help another, and that person helps another.
Soon there is a web of caring, a new network of support. For those
who are well-off as much as those who are poor, Time Dollars bring a
new quality of community to daily living.
http://www.timedollar.org/index.htm
http://www.londontimebank.org.uk/
************** THE LOST INSTINCT OF COLLABORATION **************
This is a fascinating weblog posting "We did that! The Lost Instinct
of Collaboration" by David Pollard, prompted by watching his dog
Chelsea and his daughter's dog Laker collaborate together to hunt
down a chipmunk. A must read if you are interested in 'collaboration'
or the fate of the chipmunk :-)
http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2004/10/06.html
And while you are there take a good browse around Dave's site ... I
think you will love some of the material.
************************ LEARNING TO FLY ************************
In 2001, Chris Collison and Geoff Parcell of BP, published a book
called : "Learning to Fly: Practical Lessons from one of the world's
leading knowledge companies". In this book, Chris and Geoff showed
how new ideas and tools made working and learning inseparable in BP -
one of the world's most innovative large companies.
The book was a huge success and is arguably one of the best
practical, pragmatic guides to building a learning environment within
an organization so far published. It has a five star review rating on
Amazon and has become a practical handbook for many KM practitioners
and organizations, selling over 10,000 copies worldwide.
This summer, Chris and Geoff have updated and broadened this book
with stories from ten organisations, large and small, public and
private - including the BBC, United Nations, Centrica and De
Beers. The result of this is: "Learning to Fly: Practical knowledge
management from leading and learning organisations".
This new book which will be published on October 20th 2004 is a
practical, pragmatic workbook packed with hints and tips designed to
help managers put knowledge management into action in their
organizations.
The sixth Gurteen Knowledge Conference is based on the tools, lessons
and stories from the new book - celebrating its launch in a
practical, hands-on workshop format. The conference will be run and
facilitated by Chris and Geoff themselves as an 'experiential
learning workshop'. Everyone will experience first hand learning
processes such as "peer assists", and "after action reviews" and
learn techniques for capturing "knowledge assets".
I think this will be an exceptional event:
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/id/X0007F9FA/
But if you can't make it as many of you certainly can't then take a
look at the book and the authors:-)
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/id/L001093/
***************** POSTING EVENTS ON MY WEBSITE *****************
Just to remind you. If you wish you may post details of a conference
or a course on my website.
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/id/post-event
********************* THE ROBOTS ARE COMING *********************
Like to learn more about how robots, spiders and crawlers index the
web to build the databases for search engines? If you are a website
designer its a must read but even if you are not a techie you may
find it interesting :-)
http://www.robotstxt.org/
***************** WIKIPEDIA 1 MILLION ARTICLES *****************
On September 20, 2004, Wikipedia announced it had surpassed one
million articles in one hundred languages. I wonder if this makes it
the largest knowledge sharing project on the planet?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia
Wikipedia also has the several sister projects:
Wiktionary, a free dictionary project
Wikibooks, a free textbook project
Wikiquote, a free encyclopedia of quotations
Wikisource, a repository of source texts in any language which are
either in the public domain or are released under the GFDL
************** MORE ON NEWS FEEDS AND NEWS READERS **************
Jason Bates recently dropped me this e-mail:
David, After receiving your recent newslsetter, I thought that you
might be interested in a couple of my recent discoveries in the world
of RSS feeds.
Firstly, I use Newsgator as my RSS reader http://www.newsgator.com as
described on the web site - "NewsGator is a 'news aggregator' that
runs in Microsoft Outlook. It allows you to subscribe to various
syndicated news feeds (such as weblogs, news sites, etc.) and have
news from these sites delivered into your Outlook folders."
Secondly, Newsgator, (and Outlook itself!) work even better when
combined with a new free utility that Microsoft has released for use
called "Lookout" http://sandbox.msn.com/ - "Lookout is lightning-fast
search for your email, files, and desktop integrated with Microsoft
Outlook".
My Third tip is for you to take a look at a great RSS feed site that
aggregates a variety of peoples OPML files (favourite RSS feeds).
It’s a goldmine for finding interesting RSS feeds that other people
rate enough to read regularly! http://feeds.scripting.com/
I hope this helps. Regards Jason
******* S U B S C R I B I N G & U N S U B S C R I B I N G *******
You may s u b s c r i b e to this newsletter, via the following
link:
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/id/knowledge-letter
or you can e-mail your request to s u b s c r i b e or u n s u b s
c r i b e to mailto:[email protected]
***************** THE GURTEEN KNOWLEDGE-LETTER *****************
The Gurteen Knowledge-Letter is a free monthly e-mail based knowledge
management newsletter for Knowledge Workers. Its purpose is to help
you better manage your knowledge and to stimulate thought and
interest in such subjects as Knowledge Management, Learning,
Creativity and the effective use of Internet technology. It is
produced in association with the Knowledge Management Forum of Henley
Management College, Oxfordshire, England
(http://www.henleymc.ac.uk/kmforum)
You may copy, reprint or forward all or part of this newsletter to
friends, colleagues or customers, so long as any use is not for
resale or profit and the following copyright notice is included
intact: "Copyright 2004, David Gurteen, All rights reserved."
David Gurteen
Gurteen Knowledge
Fleet, United Kingdom
