|
Best Wishes for 2007
So, the calendar rolls over and another year begins. A friend of Knowledge Street recently shared the feeling that there's
something special about the number "7." Somehow, moving into the seventh year of this century makes it feel like you’ve finally arrived. Whether you think the millennium began in 2000 or in
2001, we're in it now, for better or worse. Remember the days of Y2K? Seems like ancient history now.
The new year is, of course, a traditional time for reflection and self-assessment. In the past
few days we've had several conversations on this theme, electronic and otherwise. It's an interesting activity, comparing resolutions. Last January, we mentioned a friend who'd boiled everything down to a single objective: Do more of
what he liked, and less of what he didn't. This year, another friend resolved to stop making resolutions altogether. His plan is to "let the days unfold as they will," find time to laugh and
try to do the best he can at whatever task is at hand.
Whether you've got a long list of resolutions, or none at all, here's hoping that this year is a good one, leading to genuine accomplishments
and just rewards. Onward and upward!
Google’s Year in Review
You may not be aware of it, but in addition to being the most popular search engine, Google also
tells you something about the things people are searching for -- it's the Google Zeitgeist. At the end of the year, they put up a
summary of search activity for the past 12 months, and the summary for 2006 was pretty counterintuitive, at least for us. Google's introduction suggests that a year of searching provides a view of our "collective consciousness," so it was strange that so many of the things people wanted were beyond our own experience.
The most searched term for 2006 was bebo. It's a social networking site, which at least on the surface seems a lot like MySpace. MySpace, in fact, was the second most searched term at Google.com.
On the Google News site, the top two slots went to Paris Hilton and Orlando Bloom, which is probably not surprising in itself but it does say something about the demographic of Google users. Also in the
top 10 at Google.com, you'll find Rebelde and Mininova (a Mexican TV series and a bit-torrent video site); sharing the top 10 at Google News are Hurricane Katrina, bankruptcy and autism. Does that seem
odd to you?
You can also see the archives of previous years, which provides some insight into what's lasting and what's ephemeral. (Janet Jackson was at the top of the Google News list in 2005, and MySpace was the winner at Google.com.)
In 2006, Google added something called Google Trends, which lets you search the search activity records yourself, comparing the activity
for different words. Ever wonder how many people are looking for "Knowledge" compared to "Information?"
Spend a few minutes here, and you'll find things you wouldn't expect. It's not deeply significant, but it's another way to look back, while thinking about what may be ahead.
KM 2.0?
There was an interesting article by Scott Spanbauer in last month's CIO magazine, about the new generation of "light-weight" Knowledge Management tools. They might represent a real breakthrough simply because people will be willing to use them.
Spanbauer leads off with a great observation, too. He points out that business pretty much runs on email, because it's always there and it does what it's supposed to do. Lots of people use email
as a universal support system: a contact list, virtual telephone and filing cabinet all rolled into one. The new KM tools are email-like, in that they are designed to increase collaboration without
adding new processes or overhead. Rather than put additional burdens on the users, they aim to be always available and easy to use, while providing better access to the content within. In our view,
that's always been a failure point in KM programs. It's not that people don't want to share their knowledge, it's that they resist the idea of going too far out of their way to make it happen.
Spanbauer thinks these "2.0" applications for KM will succeed because they support a high degree of casual involvement. They don't require dedicated servers, software licenses or heavy
training and design costs. In fact, things like blogs and wikis often emerge within the user side of the business. People just start doing it.
Managing Reputations
In any social networking application, trust plays a critical role in the speed and efficiency with
which the network can function. In that sense, these virtual spaces are not that different from traditional forms of human interaction. You're more likely to share, participate and cooperate when you
perceive the other parties as trusted members of your own tribe. That's why knowledge repositories are always more successful when they're adopted by a pre-existing community. Repositories that are
conceived in the board room never have the same appeal as those that are home grown.
However, social networks can also include features designed to build trust, and a good example is eBay's buyer
feedback mechanism. All eBay users are invited to provide feedback on how satisfied they are with each other. If you're planning to buy that Roy Rogers lunch box from a stranger in Denver, it eases your
mind to see that 5,000 other strangers say you can trust her. Trust brings very tangible benefits, too. Studies have shown that eBay merchants with high reputation scores are able to get better prices
for their goods. There are even some macro-economic benefits. People in high-trust environments don't worry as much about being exploited, so they don't spend as much time or money protecting themselves.
eBay's Feedback Forum is not a perfect system. There's no relationship between feedback and transaction value, for example, and the posted feedback is overwhelmingly positive. But as virtual
interactions become more and more commonplace, reputation management systems are likely to get more sophisticated. The users will get more sophisticated, too.
You can download an interesting paper on this topic available at IBM.com. Thanks to Bruce Karney of KM-experts for pointing it out to us.
Unsubscribe | Change your profile
HOME | © COPYRIGHT 2008 KNOWLEDGE STREET LLC
|
