Catching up on some recent blogs (have been out of circulation during the Christmas break), and picked up an interesting article on the Definition of a Technology Steward on the Learning Alliances Blog by John Smith. The definition given is:
Interesting from the prospective that I guess I’m fulfilling this role for the public sector Communities of Practice environment being managed by the Improvement & Development Agency - IDeA. The current release (Phase1) provides fairly basic functionality for the social media toolkit, though with the advantage of providing a fully integrated environment for community collaboration. The next release, due to be implemented in February 2007, will deliver improved editing tools, support for RSS and newsfeeds, better alert facilities, tag clouds and synchronous collaboration (e.g. on-line meetings) – amongst many other things.
John goes on to say in his article that …"nobody wakes up spontaneously and says to themselves “I’m a technology steward!” Very true in my case, but would agree that having such a function or role does ensure that the technology supports rather than leads the development of the community. It’s important to remember that the community will be a mix of users familiar with social media tools (wiki, blogs etc) and those that are not. I’ve tried to ensure that all of the facilities are simple and intuitive to use, quite often at the expense of building in elaborate functions that would only be of benefit to a very small number of users. An over-elaborate, feature-rich interface may suit the ‘expert’ bloggers, but can be at best a distraction, and at worst a disincentive to engage for those who are fairly new to this form of virtual collaboration and knowledge sharing. The technology steward has to ensure that the environment meets the needs of the majority of the users. and not just the techies.
This will be my last posting for this year, so I’d like to wish all of my readers a very happy and peaceful New Year!
I was going to wish a Merry Christmas and a
Happy New Year to everyone, but wasn’t sure if this would conflict with the diversity and equality agenda that prevails across the public sector. I think the following greeting is about as politically correct as I can make it, though I’m sure someone will tell me if rget think otherwise!
Please accept with no obligation, implicit or
implied my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral, celebration of
the winter solstice holiday, practiced
within the most enjoyable traditions of
the religious persuasion of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to
practice religious or secular traditions
at all . . .
A N D
A fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and
medically uncomplicated recognition of the
onset of the generally accepted calendar
year 2007, but not without due respect for
the calendars of choice of other cultures
whose contributions to society have made
Britain great, (not to imply that Britain is necessarily greater than any other country, or is the only "BRITAIN" on the planet,) and without regard to
the race, creed, colour, age, physical ability, or religious faith of the wishee.
By accepting this greeting, you are accepting
these terms. This greeting is subject to
clarification or withdrawal. It is freely
transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually
implement any of the wishes for
her/himself or others, and is void where
prohibited by law, and is revocable at the
sole discretion of the wisher.
This wish is warranted to perform as expected
within the usual application of good
tidings for a period of one year, or until
the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole
discretion of the wisher.
I had ocassion recently to discuss the "1% rule" with a colleague, in relation to contributions to an on-line community of practice. My colleague professed to not having heard about it before. The hypothesis is that if you get a group of
100 people online then one will create content, ten will "interact" with
it (commenting or offering improvements) and the other 89 will just
view it. The key point is to look after your content creators, for they may be a rare species!
I first read the article in the Guardian Unlimited (July 2006) – should anyone wish to challenge the statistics!
As a private sector taxpayer I’m always slightly more
sensitive to wastage and inefficiency in the public sector than many of my
public sector colleagues. Thus, I thought I’d share this real-life story:
I’m currently doing some contract work for a large central
government department, who outsource their ICT services and support to a
well-known private enterprise services organisation.
I wanted to change the hypertext link on an Intranet web
page to point to a different page in order to improve the user feedback
mechanism for a particular service. Having jumped through all the hoops and navigated around the various,
traps and barriers they call ‘Change Control’ I submitted a change request to
the service provider in the required format with all the relevant information,
then waited…and waited for a response. Several requests for a status update
solicited the response from the service provider that the change was ‘being
impacted’ (and to remind you, we’re talking about a simple change to a page
link). Four weeks after the original
change request was raised and I’m still waiting for a definitive answer. Furthermore, my customer (the large
government department) is now worried that the service provider may be able to
take future sanctions against them because a change has been requested (the
first since the project began over 12 months ago).
I’d like to make the following observations :
- Invention and innovation are being stifled (nay, killed
stone dead) by process in many gov departments.
- An elaborate ‘one
size fits all’ change control process is adding to the cost of making simple,
low impact, no risk changes.
- The public sector is becoming conditioned to the high cost
and bureaucratic processes imposed by their suppliers (or which they have collaborated on) – to the extent that they
would prefer to maintain a status quo as opposed to making even minor service
or efficiency improvements.
- With respect to private sector/public sector business
relationships, the tail is now wagging the dog.
- Apathy rules – ok?!
End of rant!
Attended an excellent workshop on Wednesday 6th December on "Knowledge Management roles and capabilities", and 7th December on "People – the hard side of Knowledge Management". Both events organised by the Knowledge & Innovation Network (KIN), which once again brought together an effective blend of KM practitioners, academics and ‘experts’. Richard McDermott and Tom Young provided some good insight into roles in CoPs and roles in KM organisations on Wednesday. On Thursday we grappled with cognitive neuroscience (or how the brain works and its relationship to KM) – a thought provoking (no pun intended) presentation from Dr Itiel Dror, and still can’t believe I missed the gorilla! (Sorry – won’t mean much to anyone who hasn’t seen the presentation). With additional input from Dr Richard McDermott, Professor Harry Scarborough (on ‘Organisation design for knowledge sharing’ and Sally Vanson (Cultural change and KM). Grateful thanks to the KIN people for organising the event, and the Christmas dinner on the 6th (with silly hats and games – great fun!).
Just thought I’d mention the excellent presentation "10 Ways to a Killer Blog" by Robert and Maryam Scoble at Thursday’s Online Information Conference in London (30th Nov). Robert is best known for his ‘tech geek’ blog Scobleizer and co-author of the book Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers. I only found out about the presentation on the morning I left for the conference via an email from the conference organisers, which might explain why there weren’t many people there. Still, those that did pick up the news were treated to an informative and informal double-act from Robert and Maryam who were happy to share their respective experiences in creating compelling blogs. Those few fortunate enough to be present went away with some very valuable tips – my thanks to Richard and Maryam.
It was an enjoyable evening at the Online Information Awards on Wednesday (29th) though regretably we didn’t win in our category "Innovation in Knowledge Management" for the local government Communities of Practice initiative now being rolled out by the IDeA. ARUP won in this category; I don’t want to appear to be a bad loser, but I can only assume the judges for the awards did not appreciate the significance of a strategy which will encourage better collaboration across local councils and government agencies, leading no doubt to improved services and lower council taxes (well, I can but hope!). Anyway, there’s always next year. Watch this space!
