'We trust you with our children, but not the internet'

Image by Scott McLeod via Flickr

Members of the KIN 'Enabling Technologies' Special Interest Group have been aware for some time of the futility of trying to 'manage' social media by edict or restricting access to web apps. Instead, members have shared their good practice in clearly and unambiguously setting out their organisation's policy and what is acceptable practice. There are two very good resources that I'd like to point you to:
Carl Haggerty's blog has links to sound policy and practice for Social Media. This is aimed at UK Local Authorities, but I defy anyone to say this is not applicable to any large organisation.
The second is from the always excellent Commoncraft on the topic of Protecting Reputations Online

Open Linked Data - a new frontier for knowledge diffusion

If you are not familiar with 'open linked data', allow me to introduce you to something that has the potential to take knowledge sharing in organisations to a whole new level. Tim Berners-Lee's TED presentation is a great introduction to the concept. Berners-Lee's vision is to

Image via Wikipedia

connect data on the web in much the way as we connect web pages now. Data drives a lot behind the scenes in our lives, but why not connect data about people, places, products in much the same way as web pages?

The Obama Administration is committed to making all US Government data available as open linked data, and the UK has made a great start with www.data.gov.uk and the London Datastore. It is a central part of Mygov, launched today. A great example is Dextrous Web have made all Greater London Authority expenditure over £1k accessible through open data. Mayor Boris Johnson sees this 'democracy of data' as a way of driving down costs, so both citizens and the GLA benefit. There are some great 'visualisations' of open data, for example cycle accidents blackspots shown on a google map.

The potential power of open linked data in breaking down silos and creating new insights from data on the web is phenomenal. This got me thinking. Why not make proprietary data 'open and linked' format within the corporate firewall? Why should logistics data or product data or markets data only be produced and used for a single purpose? It is after all a corporate asset. Who knows what might result if you were to provide access to the data and mashup or mapping capabilities? We all know the problems in getting siloed divisions and teams to share documents and knowledge. If the corporate standard were to publish all data in open linked format as well as documents (clearly there will be exceptions such as personal and contracts data), there would be no argument. By utilising a ubiquitous asset that has already been paid for, its data, I believe that an organisation might grab huge competitive advantage.

If you would like to know more about open linked data, there are some good tutorials and other resources on open linked data here.
KIN organisations will have the opportunity to explore this further at the member webinar on this topic on 18th May.

MyLessonsShared

There is something interesting going on here. The clever and amusing parody website www.mydavidcameron.com website has shared it's lessons on how to run a successful viral campaign, with everyone. It is a great example of 'lesson sharing' and as Russell Davies puts it 'An open campaign, open learning. And they're smart, thoughtful, usable lessons'. Altruism? My guess is that in providing these lessons as open source, they will gain even more themselves. For example, by others spreading the word...

Papyrus vs BluRay

How long do you expect information digitally recorded on a standard CD to last? 20 years? 50 years? 100? According to the Canadian Conservation Institute, it is about 8 years. Even old analogue tape does better at 20 years. It appears that one of the best media for archiving information, if carefully managed, is actually paper. One of the biggest problems we face is the availability of working technology to read recorded data. This was exactly the problem faced by NASA's Ames Research Center when they wanted to read old magnetic tapes from the 1960s Lunar Orbiter missions. It was only because a retired employee not only had the expertise, but actually had the tape drives in the back of his garage, that they were able to do so. With major sunspot activity expected to play havoc with digital communications in 2012, maybe Google shouldn't bother scanning those millions of books, but carefully store them in a mine somewhere in the Mojave.

If Douglas Adams had used Twitter...

Tim Milner of IDeA has kindly given me permission to reproduce an interesting intranet blog posting of his:

“It seems that whether you use it or not, everyone has a stance on Twitter. This brings to mind Douglas Adams' views on new technology. Many of his points of view are frighteningly accurate, with one in particular relevant to my field of Knowledge Management –

‘Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so’
I wonder if Adams’ rules of thumb about our reactions to new technologies stick when it comes to Twitter:

1. “Anything that is in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works”.

2. “Anything that's invented between when you're fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it”.

3. “Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things”.

I do, however, thankfully know one or two people beyond the age of 35 who are more boundlessly enthusiastic than perhaps they should be when it comes to enjoying new technology. The consensus seems to be that the largest demographic user group when it comes to Twitter is 35-44 year olds; so that takes care of both the quantitative and qualitative defence, thus providing hope for us all of living long, technologically-enhanced lives, with enthusiastic Twittering (including stern looks from speakers at events)”.

KIN Members can continue this debate in the Discussion Forum.