Posted by Semantix

Barcelona, 21st September 2011

The Department of Justice in Spain have embraced the concept of online Communities of Practice (CoPs) to support more effective knowledge sharing. The e-moderator (or Facilitator or Community Manager) is increasingly recognised as playing a key role in the nurture and growth of these communities, acting as an agent for the sharing of  ideas, experiences and professional practice. This seminar looks more closely at this important role and what skills, tools and other facilities the e-moderator can use to ensure these communities remain vibrant and inspired networks of professional learning and knowledge sharing.

The seminar will evaluate the role of the e-moderator and compare it with other new agents of knowledge support in international organizations.

I will be presenting on lessons learnt from the UK Local Government CoPs, which has grown to over 95,000 since its launch in  2006.

Posted by Steve Dale

Posted by Semantix

The Online Information Conference is scheduled to run from 30th November to 2nd December. This is my first year as Conference Chairman, so mixed feeelings at present of anticipation and trepidation! The following is a pre-conference interview I gave to Knowledgespeak.

1. Can you briefly talk about the Online Information? Also, can you share with us any interesting events / trends for the 2010 Conference?

Online Information is the largest UK event dedicated to the information industry, providing an annual meeting place for more than 9,000 attendees from over 40 countries across the globe.  This unique free-to-attend event consists of an exhibition with more than 200 international exhibitors, an extensive educational show floor seminar programme, plus a range of exciting and stimulating show features.  Focusing on new technologies and key sectors,  the show covers 6 different subject areas: Content Resources, ePublishing Solutions, Library Management, Content Management, Search Solutions and Social Media.

Online Information feature areas are set to be a major highlight of the 2010 event.  The XML Pavilion, launched in 2009, is back and the Library Management Zone is being introduced for the first time, adding a new dimension to the event.  The all new Library Management Zone plays host to exhibitors covering Library Systems, Library Security and RFID, and offers visitors the chance to view a wide range of library products.  The Library Management Zone has been introduced to give exhibition visitors the opportunity to get to grips with new systems and technologies designed specifically for library environments.  Other established and highly popular feature areas include, Global Business Information Forum and the European Librarians Theatre and International Forums. There will be a high percentage of new services and products for attendees to see with many regular high profile exhibitors showing new and evolved products plus we are delighted to welcome a high number of new exhibiting companies to Online this year.

2. The 2009 Online Information conference focused on innovation and emerging technologies. Briefly talk about this year’s theme - Discover new ways of working in the linked and social web.

I think most of us will agree that the velocity of change – both social and technological - has increased over the past 10 years and shows no sign of slowing down. The internet is giving us unprecedented access to information, and knowledge. New tools, applications and social networks are opening up opportunities for people to connect and collaborate far more effectively than ever before. Traditional red brick business models are gradually being replaced by lightweight ‘micro’ businesses that use web services to provide scalability and agility.

Coupled with this we’re seeing a revolution in the use of open and linked data. Driven primarily by the public sector in response to the expectations of citizens for greater transparency in government, social innovators are using this data to create value-added applications, e.g. linking socio-demographic data with maps to show visual hot-spots.

All of this is driving rapid behaviour change in both society and the workplace. What can we discover from users and organisations that are in the midst of these changes? How are users and business adapting to this changing information and technology landscape. What innovative new products and working practices are emerging from the disruptive effects of these changes? This year’s conference will be looking at all of these issues, with presentations and an insight from some of the industry’s leading thinkers.

3. The 2010 conference features four tracks that will address important industry trends, technologies and other pressing issues. Can you briefly talk about these individual track sessions?

Of course I would be glad to – in no particular order…

Exploiting open and linked data
Introduced as a track in its own right in 2009 and of growing importance especially in the public sector; open and linked data is creating new opportunities for information professionals and the creation of new information services and products

Harnessing opportunity from the social web and the cloud

Although the use of social media is now mainstream in many organisations there are still barriers and limitations that are preventing the benefits of social media to be fully realised.   This track gets to the heart of the issues with many real world experiences.

Information Professionals demonstrating value and impact

In economically straitened times when information services are under scrutiny information professionals need to be able to demonstrate value and impact to justify their existence, focus will be on challenges facing academic libraries and new projects that are using cutting edge technologies to deliver positive bottom line results.

New platforms and user behaviours for delivering content

Focusing on using mobile and ‘the cloud’ to deliver information services, how are libraries and organisations using these technologies, what are the opportunities, how will these technologies change the future role of the information professional?

4. How, in your opinion, have the needs of information-consumers evolved in the recent few years?  How is the Online Information Conference evolving accordingly?

As noted earlier, the internet is giving us unprecedented access to information, and knowledge. Over the past several years we’ve seen the barriers to publishing lowered, which has triggered enormous growth in ‘non-curated’ information, e.g. from personal blogs and Twitter feeds. Consumers now expect information to be delivered in almost real-time, which continues to be a challenge for the traditional publishing models. We can perhaps recall that the first pictures and information from the 7/7/05 London bombings came from people at the scene, via blogs and tweets from mobile devices. Everyone is now a potential news reporter. Coupled with this we have the ‘Google effect’, where the perception is that information can be found within seconds of a search query being submitted. Accuracy and objectivity of the information has become secondary to speed and access.

Curated knowledge and information sources, e.g. media, information vendors, academic institutions, have come under increasing pressure to show their value. This is driving innovative ways of delivering information and new products (e.g. Library services) through digital channels, with many of these organisations tapping into the social web to connect with and get closer to potentially new consumers.

The Online Information Conference maintains links with people, experts and organisations across the whole spectrum of knowledge and information creation, curation and publication in order to identify emerging trends and innovations. This ensures that for each conference we have a blend of practice-based experience and thought leadership from recognized experts. In this way, we maintain an eye on the future whilst utilizing the vast experience of the present and past to provide context to where the industry is headed, and how information consumers will be affected.

5. Lately, we have seen that new leaders are emerging with the vision to adapt or change their business models to embrace the opportunities created by the social web and the cloud. What are the implications of these generational changes in technology and online networks and do you see the Online Conference as a venue for sharing information about these changes?

Take-up and adoption of social computing is following the standard ‘Rogers Adoption/Innovation Curve’ (Innovators – Early Adopters – Early Majority -  Late Majority – Laggards). Cloud computing is probably still at the early adopters stage, though one could argue that the social web is now well within the bell curve of early and late majority. Some commentators have likened the disruptive effects of social computing to the industrial revolution of the early 19^th century. The main difference now is that whereas large Enterprise used to lead technology innovation, it’s now being driven bottom-up by users and consumers. We’re now all connected and far more willing and able to share knowledge and co-create.

The technology we use at home is often far more advanced than what we use in the workplace. We’re using mobile devices (iPhones etc.) that give us instant access to the web, and have a choice of literally hundreds of thousands of applications that support our on-line activities and lifestyles.  Some business leaders and organisations (e.g. Amazon) recognized this shift to consumerism long before we used the term ‘social web’ or ‘Web 2.0’ and developed or adapted business models that could leverage this increasing connectivity and scalability of the web. The phenomenon was adequately described in Chris Anderson’s book ‘The Long Tail’.

So, whether we’ve realized it or not, consumers are now driving the technology revolution and business is trying to keep up. Organisations and businesses that fail to grasp the opportunities of the social web will be at a disadvantage to those that do. We’re already seeing evidence of this in various research reports.[1]

We can therefore anticipate further and rapid ‘socio-technology’ change going forward. One emerging trend is the increase in ‘micro-businesses’, i.e. those that can service large numbers of customers with limited resources, utilising web services to provide scalability (e.g. witness the number of businesses that have been created on the back of Twitter).

The Online Information Conference will continue to monitor and analyse the knowledge and information management landscape, and through our extensive network of industry practitioners, academics and thought leaders, will provide a place and time to share knowledge and facilitate honest debate about the impact of the social web.

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[1] The Fortune 500 and Social Media: A Longitudinal Study of Blogging and Twitter Usage by America’s Largest Companies. http://www1.umassd.edu/cmr/studiesresearch/2009f500.cfm

Posted by Semantix

I will be presenting on the Knowledge Hub at the forthcoming International Society for Knowledge Organisation (ISKO-UK) event on 14th September 2010.

The The Knowledge Hub is essentially the next generation development of the highly successful local government CoP platform (a previous project of mine).  It will replace the existing infrastructure with new open technology facilitating integration with mainstream social media applications (for example Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN) and the rapid assimilation of new applications and web services as they emerge.  This will enable, for example, much better personalisation and permeability of content.  In addition Knowledge Hub will provide facilities that allow data on performance to be combined and shared (so called “linked-data”) potentially providing the framework to deliver the wider move to transparent government.

I have previously posted information about the Knowledge Hub at my Communities and Collaboration blog.

Posted by Steve Dale

I will be presenting at the International EDO Conference 2010, Barcelona 12/13/14 May on the topic of Communities of Practice in the UK Local Government Sector.

Posted by Steve Dale

Last week for submissions - Deadline 3rd May

Don’t miss your chance to be involved with the highly regarded Online Information Conference this year. There is just one week left before the call for papers closes and here are some of the reasons why you should submit a proposal and join a host of professionals from across the industry.

• Show case your work with 700 delegates from over 40 countries and be seen as a pioneer and leader in what you do
  If you have been part of a successful (or unsuccessful) project with innovative best practices, lessons learned, hints and tips, then we want to hear from you
• Benefit from the extensive marketing campaign and promotional exposure/recognition you will receive from being part of one of the largest conferences serving the information industry.
  You and your organisation will be listed in the printed brochure (sent to 22,000) and on the website (emails to 24,000)
• Join a roster of industry authorities and use this opportunity to raise your profile. Previous keynote speakers to the programme include:

Charlene Li, Co-Author ‘Groundswell’ and thought leader on social technologies
Dame Wendy Hall, Professor of Computer Science, University of Southampton
Nigel Shadbolt, Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Deputy Head Research,
University of Southampton
Blaise Cronin, Editor-in-Chief, Journal of the American Society for Information
Science and Technology
Clay Shirky, Author of ‘Here Comes Everybody’
Jimmy Wales, Founder, Wikipedia
Dr David Weinberger, Co-author of ‘The Cluetrain Manifesto’
Dr Jakob Nielsen, described as ‘The king of usability’
Dame Lynne Brindley, Chief Executive, The British Library

• Selected speakers receive a FREE place to the 3 day conference and co-located exhibition, worth over £900

For information on conference themes, making your submission, review criteria please click on the links below.

I look forward to receiving your proposal

Stephen Dale
Chairman
Online Information Conference 2010

Please click for more information on:

Conference themes

Conference Committee

Delegate Profile

Making your submission

Review criteria

SUBMIT YOUR PAPER HERE

Please note: Deadline for submissions is Monday 3 May

Posted by Semantix

Having run a number of social media workshops for UK Local Government over the past few months, I will be focusing specifically on how social media and social networking (Web 2.0) can support the development of personal learning - ‘Knowledge Management’ at the forthcoming TFPL training event on 24th March 2010, which is open to both public and private sector organisations. There has been considerablee interest in this training so I’m anticipating that there may be a few more courses shceduled in the coming year.

Details of the training below:

There is a growing recognition but not yet a consensus about integrating Web 2.0 technologies into an organisation’s workflows and business processes. There is a desire to develop more effective knowledge sharing and a culture of collaboration amongst staff, but little recognition of what this means in terms of organisational change. Successful organisations need to be agile and able to adapt to an increasingly volatile environment. They are more likely to achieve this where conversations can flow and opportunities exist for collaboration and co-creation. In essence, we all need to be collaboration ’superstars’. The problem is, collaboration is a skill and set of practices that rarely gets taught. It’s something we may learn on the job in a hit or miss fashion. Some people are natural at it. Others struggle to understand it.

This one day course provides a practical and detailed introduction to Web 2.0 tools and techniques that will support more effective collaboration and knowledge sharing, and will give greater confidence to staff that may be on the periphery of the socio-technology changes that are becoming increasingly prevalent in both their professional and private lives.

outcomes:

• An understanding of social networks and social media and the overlap between personal and professional identities.
• An understanding of the barriers to knowledge sharing and collaboration and how these can be overcome.
• Creation of a personalised social computing toolkit to support on-going learning and development in collaborative tools and techniques.

programme:

• Social networks, privacy, digital orientations and the increasing overlap between personal and business networking.
• Risk and rewards in on-line engagement and collaboration.
• What does effective collaboration look like and what skills are needed to be an effective collaborator?
• Micro-blogging (e.g. Twitter) and its role as a business tool.
• Social Media Game - a fun game which introduces delegates to the various social media tools, how they can be used to solve real business problems, and the pros and cons of the deployment of these tools.
• The power of social bookmarking for knowledge sharing and collaboration.
• A practical introduction to Web 2.0 collaboration tools, including Google Apps, Blogs and Wikis.
• A practical introduction to social networks and social media, including Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr and Slideshare.
• Tools and techniques for developing and fostering successful communities of practice.
• Building a personalised collaboration toolkit.

Please contact me or TFPL if you are interested in attending a future course, or having a tailored training event for your organisation.

Posted by Steve Dale

It was a great privilege to be asked to become the next Chairman of the Online Information Organising Committee, and at the risk of appearing envious, I wish Adrian Dale a pleasant and stress-free retirement. He has been an excellent chairman over the past three years and will be a difficult act to follow. I should probably explain here that despite the surname there is no blood relationship, though I did briefly ponder whether one of the main criteria was a ‘Dale’ lineage!

Looking back at this year’s (2009) conference, I felt it struck an ideal balance between the three pillars of ‘people’, ‘knowledge’ and ‘information’. The opening keynote from Dame Wendy Hall and Prof Nigel Shadbolt gave us a glimpse of where we are going with open and linked data, and I’m certain this is going to be a hot topic in the coming year, particularly in relation to the “Make Public Data Public” initiative in UK Government. I also felt that the ‘Social Web’ theme hit the mark, and certainly all the sessions I attended were full and overflowing.

So, for me and with the expert guidance of Lorna Candy and the Executive Committee, the work starts in January 2010 in planning for the next conference. I feel slight trepidation at the prospect of trying to predict what the knowledge and information landscape will look like by the end of 2010; the pace of change is relentless. Will Twitter still be the ‘killer app’? Will Cloud Computing become ubiquitous?  Who will be gobbled up by the Google and Facebook juggernauts?

One thing I’m sure of is that none of us can be sure about anything and that we all need to continually refine and adapt our skills. I’m reminded of a quote which is (arguably) attributed to Darwin:

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but rather the one most adaptable to change”.

Let this be the mantra for 2010!

Stephen Dale

Chairman of the Online Information Executive Committee

Director, Semantix (UK) Ltd

Posted by Steve Dale

I’m looking for to attending the Online Information Conference next week, which runs from 1-3 December at the Olympia. The schedule for the three days can be found on the Online Information website. There are some great speakers lined up, including Charlene Li, co-author of Groundswell, who will be doing a keynote presentation on Thursday 3rd December.

Of particular interest to me is the Track 2 (Social Web ) Keynote session on the 3rd December  on:

WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED ABOUT SOCIAL BUSINESS DESIGN

- which I’ll be moderating. The keynote presentation for this session will be given by Lee Bryant, co-founder of Headshift. I’ve been a keen follower of Lee for some time, and look forward to his perceptive analysis of how business is adapting to the social web. A brief synopsis of this track session as follows:

The application of social tools and social networking within business is all too often regarded as a purely technical exercise, where simply installing new software can solve business problems. In fact, the really interesting lessons of this new era of social business tools are about the affordances, behaviours and new ways of working that social networking makes possible. This session will look at some of the areas in which key concepts such as information flows, ambient awareness, networked productivity and cheap, easy collaboration are impacting on business processes and business design in various sectors and industries.

Learning points:

1. The basics of network-centric information management
2. How to identify business processes ripe for change
3. How to get started with social business design projects

We also have some great presentation and case studies from:

Mike Ellis, Solutions Architect, Eduserv, UK
Lisa Price, Website Communications Manager, Eduserv, UK
Lorna Ferguson, Associate Director of Knowledge Management, KPMG LLP, UK
Ceri Hughes, Director of Knowledge Management, KMPG LLP, UK

I’m anticipating that this will be a very well attended session and feel very privileged to be sharing a platform with those who are pioneering collaborative and knowledge sharing solutions through the social web. Organisations and people are still finding their way through a fairly confusing ‘Web 2.0/Enterprise 2.0′ landscape, which appears to be bounded and stifled by anachronistic 20th century working practices, rules and protocols. I believe this session will offer some insight into where we are heading in building 21st century working practices and the role that technology will have in supporting these changes.

I hope to see some of my friends, colleagues and blog/twitter followers at the event. But for anyone reading this who will be at the event, please do come and say hello.

Posted by Semantix

I will be presenting at the Knowledge and Information Management for the Public Sector - KIMPS 2009 - on Wednesday 30th September. My topic is the Knowledge Hub - a project currently being funded by the CLG and managed by the IDeA.  Ingrid Khoeler has previously blogged about the Knowledge Hub, and I’m not sure I could explain it any better, so to quote Ingrid:

The IDeA is in the business of improvement by local government for local government.  At the core of our offer is peer support.  We use peers at every level of everything we do, not least our knowledge management approach – that is the stories and case studies, the guidance and toolkits that we publish on IDeA Knowledge.

Our communities of practice platform was an attempt to move beyond the IDeA prepares knowledge (working with you) and then hosts it on a website – which you can then read, but which you can’t necessarily feed back on or let anyone else know how you used it.  And it was a successful attempt – there are now over 35,000 members and 800+ practitioner communities.

But the world is moving on fast and while social networks like the CoP platform certainly have their place, we need to move to the next phase of the maturity model of peer to peer support in improvement and the knowledge of improvement in councils and across local areas.  More and more local government practitioners and councillors are using tools like Twitter or blogs or joining social networks like GovLoop which is actually American.  We’re sharing knowledge all over the place.  And of course, there’s relevant knowledge  from a host of different official sources, too.  And guidance, practice and stories from health and the police are often just as relevant to the local government practitioners.  And there’s always been a rich collection of face to face networks of practitioners across the sector, and more of them are sharing some of what they do online.  The IDeA must move from a model of holding knowledge, to corralling knowledge to helping practitioners dip into the stream of fast-flowing knowledge in an orderly and helpful way.   And we need to encourage practitioners to share how they’ve used that knowledge, to rate, to refer and recommend and to share their own stories of practice, too.

Details of my session as follows:

The Knowledge Hub: launching an online knowledge sharing community for local government and beyond.

• Bringing knowledge sharing and practice development alive through storytelling techniques
• Moving from ‘knowledge repositories’ to ‘action learning’
• Aggregating good/next practice in information and knowledge management from across local government
• Leveraging open platform technology and APIs to provide personalised and value-added applications
• Looking ahead: opening the service out across the public sector and to citizens

I do hope this sparks some interest because I’m a firmly of the opinion that this project offers enormous potential for more effective learning and sharing across the public sector, and leverages the very latest in Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 technologies in helping people to connect, share and collaborate on the issues that are important to them.

Hope to see you there!