Christina's slides, in outline form

This might actually be more useful for some. I'll still try to get them up somewhere in PDF or PPT. This post will mutate until I'm happy with the final format.
Blogs for Personal Knowledge Management (PKM)
Christina K. Pikas
Agenda

• What is PKM?
• Why Blogs?
• Nuts and Bolts of Blogs for PKM

What is PKM?

• Taking personal responsibility for lifelong learning and organization of ideas
• Requires individual ownership and motivation (see note 1, below)

How is PKM different from personal information management (PIM)?

PIM	PKM
Facts Documents Addresses (URL and geographic)	Connections Analysis Conversations Ideas Selection Sense Making

How is PKM different from KM?

Organizational KM: Unlike personal KM (see definition [below]), which centres on the individual, organizational KM depends upon an enterprise-wide strategic decision to actively manage knowledge through a range of processes, tools and people. Personal KM: A set of concepts, disciplines and tools for organizing often previously unstructured knowledge, to help individuals take responsibility for what they know and who they know.

From European Guide to good Practice in Knowledge Management Part 5: KM Terminology (ftp://cenftp1.cenorm.be/PUBLIC/CWAs/e-Europe/KM/CWA14924-05-2004-Mar.pdf)

KM	PKM
Organizational/Enterprise Doing for Top down Knowledge as an object that can be identified, stored, used out of context Public (enterprise-wide)	Personal/Individual Enabling Bottom up Knowledge as part of your habitat in your organization’s information ecology Straddles public/private domains (see note 2 )

Why Blogs? What I mean by blogs
Blogs for PKM are defined here as internal, enterprise-supported individual efforts

From: Frederik Wacka, Corporate Blogging Blog, August 10, 2004, http://www.corporateblogging.info/2004/08/six-types-of-business-blogs.asp (see note 3 )

PKM blog posts may be as simple as a link, or may be part of a long collection of analytical essays

Seven Blog Posting Formats
Link-only Link blurb Brief remark List	Short article Long article Series postings

From: Amy Gahran, Contentious, September 22, 2004, http://blog.contentious.com/archives/2004/09/22/blogging-style-the-basic-posting-formats-series-indexposting-formats-series-index


Why Blogs? - Voice

• Blogs are inherently personal
• Encourages contributions from lurkers
• Low technological barrier concentrates effort on content, not graphic design or presentation
• Informal style allows personality to show – author chooses tone, style

Why Blogs? – Reflective Thinking

• Like more traditional journaling, posting can require reflective thinking, distillation of ideas (see note 4 )
• Practice writing for later publication – reflect and polish
• Exploration of new research areas or testing of new ideas with low or no risk
• Encourage a higher level of "information engagement" (see note 5 )

Why Blogs? – Annotations

• Documenting links encountered via blog posting does more than provide access
  • Selection
  • Annotation with analysis
  • Added context – in time, relationship to other items, meaning to field
• As part of Bates’ "berry picking process" (see note 6 )
  • To place street signs along the path
  • Berries can be saved
  • Path can be retraced (reverse) chronologically
• Nonlinear information seeking processes can be traced via category filtering (see note 8 , should be 7, appeared as 8 in presentation)

Nuts & Bolts – Organizational Culture

• Sharing or knowledge hoarding
• Management support
• IT support
• Policies (see note 7 , should be 8, appeared as 7 in presentation)
  • Gentle but firm guidelines
  • Time allowed
  • IP considerations (may need access control)
  • Levels of access/privacy, use of information

Nuts & Bolts – The software

• Post via
  • E-mail
  • Web form – from anywhere by VPN?
  • Bookmarklet
• Ability to customize look and feel
• Ability to add new blogs quickly
• Nice-to-have items
  • Levels of access
  • Ability to post files (drawings, recordings, etc.)
  • Ability to cache page views
  • Company specific meta-data assignment

Nuts & Bolts - Access and Preservation

• Search
  • An enterprise search may take care of this
  • Changing the post template to add meta-data may help
• Categorization
  • NOT assigned from above or default, assigned on the fly
  • Crosswalks to existing taxonomies may be helpful
• Archives

Nuts & Bolts ROI, Elevator Talk, Why Us?
With such a personal focus, what does the organization have to gain? (brainstormed ideas)

• Very functional tools are free or are inexpensive. More integrated and advanced tools are available to plug into other CMS or KM suites… low bar to show return.
• Efficiency of knowledge workers
  • Less time spent finding what they already know
  • Writing activities can be done in pieces
• Better networking – search across to find someone with a good idea
• Organizational learning / distributed apprenticeship

Conclusion

• PKM blogging is an inexpensive partial solution to a complex problem
• Blogs can be an important part of an organization’s tool kit – help knowledge workers get more out of their reading, meetings, and thought

Notes
These and other relevant links can be found on our collaborative blog: http://asistkblogpanel.blogspot.com/ (you are here!)

1. For a reading list on PKM see: http://wiki.knowledgenetworker.net/wakka.php?wakka=ReadingList back
2. See Torill Mortensen and Jill Walker, "Blogging thoughts personal publication as an online research tool," chapter in SKIKT-Researchers' Conference 2002: Researching ICTs in Context, Oslo, Norway: InterMedia, 2002, pp.256-9. back
3. See also Frederik Wacka, Beginner’s Guide to Corporate Blogging, http://www.corporateblogging.info/basics/corporatebloggingprimer.pdf back
4. For more on blogging and reflective practice see Sebastian Fiedler. "Personal Webpublishing as a reflective conversational tool for self-organized learning." In T. Burg, ed. BlogTalks. Vienna: Zentrum für wissenschaftliche Forschung und Dienstleistung , 2004. 190-216. (draft available http://seblogging.cognitivearchitects.com/stories/storyReader$963 , accessed 11/4/2004) or P. Hernandez-Ramos, "Web Logs and Online Discussions As Tools to Promote Reflective Practice." Journal of Interactive Online Learning 3, no. 1 (June 2004). Available: http://www.ncolr.org/jiol/archives/2004/summer/04/index.htm (accessed 11/3/2004).back
5. Thomas H. Davenport, "Information Behavior and Culture." In Information Ecology: Mastering the Information and Knowledge Environment. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Page 93 has a graphic demonstrating "a hierarchy of information engagement" from read/view through simulate/live.back
6. Marcia J. Bates. "The design of browsing and berrypicking techniques for the online search interface." Online Review v13 n5 (1989): 407-24. back
7. There are several good discussions of corporate blogging policies that are generally intended for external blogs. A very recent one is from Charlene Li of Forrester Research, http://forrester.typepad.com/charleneli/2004/11/blogging_policy.html (accessed 11/9/2004) back
8. In fact, the information-seeking behavior described in Allen Foster, "A nonlinear model of information-seeking behavior" JASIST v55 n3 (Febrary 1, 2004): 228-237, speaks directly to professionals doing interdisciplinary research. back

Contact:
Blog http://christinaslibraryrant.blogspot.com/