workshop questions on the INTRAnet

knowledge management, collaboration Juni 24th, 2007

Looking for BestPracticeCases on internal project-blogging, I´ve just found some ressources on ColumnTwo, who setup their internal blogs in 2004. Each team member has an internal blog, and they use them in a number of ways [quoted]:

  • summary of all the proposals that we send out, so everyone knows what's in the pipeline
  • updates on projects as they are unfolding
  • new ideas and interesting tidbits that we come across
  • updates on business development activities, including monthly financial reports
  • internal broadcast messages and requests for help

These have proved to be extremely successful, with the primary goal being to share awareness (rather than knowledge). As long as everyone has a vague recollection that they saw something on the blogs, they can search the blog archive, and then go and chat directly to the person in question. The great thing is that any of us can be out of the office for a week or two, and still have some idea of what's happening. It's also more efficient for reaching all staff, rather than flooding everyone with emails. So, three years on, the blogs are still going strong and they have a long life ahead of them...

Step Two Designs, the unique knowledge management consultancy located in Sydney, Australia is listing the "big" questions! Mr. James Robertson, the Managing Director of Step Two Designs, conducted the workshop in Brisbane. I list it here, because it describes very well the assignment when defining an implementation process in SMB´s:

  • Getting management not to see it as a quick project?
  • How to get staff interested and using the intranet?
  • Best way to find out what users need? Right metadata, etc? Processes for publishing?
  • How to engage management? Funding? Integration of systems?
  • Content lifecycle? CMS? Search? Maintaining relevance? Ways to structure content?
  • Content format? (HTML vs PDF) DM vs intranet? Taking away hard copies from staff?
  • Identifying benefits? How to implement governance? Word processing to intranets?
  • Structure of team? ROI? Maintaining organisational interest over long term?

Additional, many thanks to Mark Buzinkay, who publishes Best Practices on his "free lessons" (the idea lounge & rock-and-roll-for-free-content-portal). Very inspiring!

Remind me!

aesthetics Juni 23rd, 2007

Nach dem Motto: "Raus aus dem Alltag, Denkblockaden lösen", inspiriert Herr Hannes Treichl, Herausgeber des anders|denken Blog in seiner [C]ouch mit ein paar visuellen Inputs! Die Gabe, zufällige und unerwartete Entdeckungen zu machen wird ja auch als Serendipity-Prinzip oder engl. Serendipity bezeichnet (& ich meine hier nicht die gleichlautende php-blog-software). Vor ein paar Stunden unterhielt ich mich noch darüber, dass Videos generell in Blogs eher ungern gesehen werden müssten, auch in Bezug auf Anleitungen für Mitarbeiter zum Aneignen von neuem Wissen im Unternehmenskontext. Ach ja, remind me!
Raus aus dem Alltag...!

Revenge of the Brick - the Business Simulation

eBusiness Juni 21st, 2007

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...the good and evil clash again, and creativity saves the day...when the heroic "fhMac-Jedi-Knights" battle for control of the galaxy.
The Trade Federation is on the march!

build-to-order_lego.gifThe aim of our next week Business Simulation (Part II) is that participants learn and understand the meaning of logistics with special focus on “Distribution”. The participants will act in five different roles and will have different views on their part of the supply chain starting at the production and ending at the customer.

The key topics will be
• Lead time / delivery time for standard products & special products (Built to order products) & spare parts
• Delivery from warehouse, distribution center, factory
• Market structures and requisites in European market & Overseas market

tradefederation.jpgRemains to say:

"Much, you have to learn from the Force!"

"More training you require!"

"Underestimate me, you do!"

...and creativity will save the day, when sending my Separatist forces into battle against the Republic with a droid transport carrier!

FieldStudy: ERP End-User Business Productivity

eBusiness Juni 17th, 2007

just found a whitepaper, serving to focus attention on the interplay between application ease of use and
business performance and to highlight the impact applications can have on end user productivity. The summary of findings states: Microsoft Dynamics users on average scored Microsoft 18% higher than SAP users scored SAP applications.

Keystone Strategy, Inc., a market research firm with offices in Boston, San Francisco and Salt Lake City, focused on business strategy, technology, operations management, measures how end users across Sales & Marketing, Finance, and Operations departments describe the impact of ERP applications on their business productivity. A higher score indicates a higher business productivity impact. Well, every survey is an open invitation to controvery. The Keystone Whitepaper is here.

Internal Enterprise Wikis

eBusiness, social networks, collaboration Juni 16th, 2007

wiki-way.gifinspired by a late night documentation on arte.tv, the phrase "communicative events" let me reflect on our so called "projectBlog-theme"! Letting people make their own decisions in an organization, is a culture that encourages independence and therefore will help to build a knowledge base. So, looking for new ways of collaborating in project teams, I just want to list some dimensions (not to imply that they are the only ones) but to illustrate what kind of aspects are interesting and important especially in the context of internal enterprise wikis:

  • supports RSS and atom feeds (recent changes)
  • integrated weblog to allow your team easily track and publish information chronologically (internal project blog)
  • connection information through links making it easy to connect what´s relevant
  • send wiki pages to colleagues by email (great-I hope- for BlackBerry users)
  • complete audit trail (if mistakes are made nothing is lost - revision)
  • access is restricted to those who have been invited by an administrator
  • manage files (attaching files to any wiki page, linking to files in the context of a discussion, taking notes about a draft file in progress,...)
  • all of your team work´s is searchable
  • building an informal taxonomy (´folksonomy´) by tagging page

The "inside-enterprise-wikipedia" should be used throughout the organization to document internal language, like commonly used code words or acronyms and also for processes that are typical for the company. Smaller teams (or Small and mediumsized businesses) can use it for building a shared repository of information about the organization.

This is my starting input, this is how I woke up this morning...Do you share some similar thoughts?

Crowdsourcing - get the link

collaboration Juni 11th, 2007

als wir samstags in der Vorlesungspause zu Mittag unsere Boatmania-Buddies beim Preparieren Ihres Flagschiffs besuchten, ein paar Fotos schossen und wieder am Weg retour Richtung Vorlesungssaal gingen, sprach mich mein Studienkollege auf das Thema "Crowdsourcing" an: "Was verstehts du unter diesem Begriff", fragte er mich, und wir gingen und ich überlegte, was ich darunter verstehen würde. Die ersten Gedanken kamen mir zu Hannes Treichl auf seinem Anders|Denken Blog, und mein Kollege nahm im Gespräch auch sofort Bezug darauf...ich verwies nochmals darauf, und musste gestehen, genauer hatte ich mich bis dato auch noch nicht mit diesem Thema beschäftigt.

Die etwas holprigen Übersetzungsversuche wie "Bevölkerungsbeteiligung" sind im Englischen so zu finden: "Crowdsourcing attempts to replace selectively hired, trained and managed workforces with mass volunteer participation and self-organization" - o.k.!  Um hier nicht das Rad neu zu erfinden, hier der Brainstorm mit einer feinen Linksammlung auf Anders|Denken:

1. Was ist Crowdsourcing?
2. Für wen eignet sich Crowdsourcing?
3. Gibt es Regeln für Crowdsourcing?
4. Wie schaffe ich eine Social Community?
5. Wo findet man Beispiele?

Die Diskussion, welche auf dem Weg Richtung Campus entstand, ging auf die Frage hinaus, inwieweit das "Boatmania-Event" mit Crowdsourcing zu tun hätte! Für diese Frage wäre ein Meinungsaustausch interessant. Speziell im Zusammenhang mit dem sog. "arbeitenden Kunden", der

heute einerseits selbstbestimmter, informierter, aktiver ist - Zugleich unterliegt er aber einer ganz neuen Qualität von Entfremdung und Ausbeutung. Er hat gar keine Wahl, selbst wenn es ihn überfordert oder er keine Lust hat, er muss »mitarbeiten«, Beratung entfällt.

Also see, CROWDSOURCING - tracking the rise of the amateur

Zuparken ‘07 - Bus, Beach & Beats Festival

leeside Juni 5th, 2007

so, die blended learning aufgabe in joomla -wie erstell ich einen newsletter - ist nun mal erledigt, die feinarbeit kommt noch später...positiv fand ich die info, die während des beitrag-verfassens für diese übung auftauchte...Bus, Beach & Beats Festival, wenn das mal nicht die Ohren schlackern lässt!

Relaxen, Baden, Surfen, Kiten, Tauchen, Chillen, Grillen, Trinken, Tanzen – kurz gesagt: die Sonne aus dem A.... scheinen lassen.

flyerzuparken07_front_2007.jpgso der Wortlaut, den man unter diesem Link weiterverfolgen kann. "Zu Packen" hab mir zwar auch noch nicht die Zeit genommen, noch wo und wie und warum und überhaupt dieses Festival zustandekommt, leider passt es auch noch überhaupt nicht ins Konzept...und deshalb wird mal der Flyer für das longterm-motivation-Sommerfeeling herhalten.-> denn was man strategisch versäumt, muss man operativ ausbaden!!!

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