December 2006 Archives

The conversation about aggregator features gets a little confusing, if you aren't paying attention to the problem you are trying to solve. Here are some Feed Overload problems one might encounter and want to address with a better tool.

The Project Management Podcast at the beginning of December interviewed Allen Elder of No Limits Leadership, who has been doing Critical Chain Project Management and Theory of Constraints for many years.

Bruce MacEwen has a nice piece on leadership that takes off from the recent HBR article about Havard's Program for Leadership Development. I picked up on his comment that leaders need to bring people into the conversation by voicing reservations.

I have recently received an iPod Nano. I have been collecting digital content for many years, so my library is many times larger than what fits on the device itself. How in the world do I use iTunes successfully under this situation?

Teleos has announced the Most Admired Knowledge Enterprises in North America for 2006. Raytheon has come in first in the rankings for the second year in a row.

KM Chicago is looking for someone to talk about the whole Web 2.0 phenomenon, particularly in light of the Time Magazine's Person of the Year for 2006.

Malcolm Ryder just posted an interesting piece on the difference between measurement, performance and management. I think this is relevant to the discussion of reinforcing desired behaviors within an organization.

Two of the Theory of Constraints mailing lists have been discussing (somewhat tediously) the importance of "change" and creating the right behaviors to make the change happen. A recent poster linked to Huthwaite's The Four Truths.

I've been tagged by Jim. I was wondering if this game would wend my way (both hoping it would and dreading it). So, here are five things people may not know about me.

CIO Magazine's Essential Technology column for by Scott Spanbauer is titled "Knowledge Management 2.0" this month. The lesson that CIO Magazine is trying to teach? There is no such thing as one-size-fits-all in the world of knowledge management.

Andy Roberts posted some questions about designing Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) pages to a couple mailing lists and to his blog. Specifically, he was looking for advice on structuring long FAQ's. Here are some of my thoughts.

The Illinios Science + Technology Park is the old campus for Searle's R&D center, and it's where I worked when I came to Chicago.

Michael Sampson has a great summary of the ongoing discussion about whether email can be considered a collaboration tool. The thing I want to highlight is realization that most of the problems associated with email have nothing to do with email itself.

The Out There Presentation (pdf) by Attention Company has been getting some attention in the past week. They discuss the characteristics of people who are active in online conversations and communities.

I've just tried the No-Knead Bread from NY Times' The Minimalist. It's superb and truly easy.

Dinesh Tantri has an interesting thought about "Enterprise 2.0 Tools Don't Address The Politics Of KM." Enterprises are made of people who are used to the command-and-control days of knowledge management as document management: "corporate KM."

Some entertainment over the weekend. What are the good and bad things about my name?

As usual, Denham Grey has produced a to-the-point piece on Social Search. He tells there is no good definition of Social Search, beyond the general idea that it is (web) search refined by a person's social circle. And I am not convinced they are the right direction for search.

I have been wondering if there are mapping tools that let non-technical folks plot bunches of stuff on a map and either save it or ship it to someone. Of course there are. Matthew Hurst points to Ask City, and I also played with Batch Geocode. Many others exist.

Forbes doesn't just tell you how rich people like Gates and The Queen are, they also give important information, such as their annual Fictional 15 list of the 15 richest fictional characters.

Ah, to live in London. The sights, the sounds, the history, the Knowledge Cafes! The most recent event played host to knowledge management "guru" and blogger Dave Pollard, who talked about personal knowledge management.