Vol. 2 No. 2 – 11 January 1999

Interesting Reading:
Here’s some books (see the KM News web site for books), web sites, or articles that I’ve found interesting.

  • Sifting the Wheat from the Chaff
    Computerworld
    - An article on text mapping that contains some useful information, but don’t rely on the authors definition of knowledge/KM. There is also some confusion around what has given rise to the discipline of KM. There are some valuable insights on the text mining market, so if you have an interest in text retrieval, read on.
    http://www.computerworld.com/home/print.nsf/all/99011188DE
  • Bell to host app services
    PCWeek
    - Bell Atlantic will offer hosted application services. The first hosted applications will be Lotus Notes and Lotus Business Partner applications. This seems awfully similar to the AT&T network Notes initiative that died a painful death several years back. Only time will tell if this has legs, but given the ever expanding complexity of Notes and the applications that run on it, and the demand for collaborative systems, this may prove beneficial to organizations that need its capabilities but can’t afford the costs associated with implementation and maintenance.
    http://www.zdnet.com/pcweek/stories/news/0,4153,383811,00.html
  • Lotus Boosts Learning Options
    Information Week
    - A preview of what will come next week (the annual Lotus love fest Lotusphere takes place in Orlando) when Lotus unveils a plethora of new stuff, including Notes/Domino 5. Worthy of note is a quote from Mike Zisman that the distributed-learning market will be as big for Lotus as the Notes business is now.
    http://www.techweb.com/se/directlink.cgi?IWK19990111S0023
  • Practical Taxonomies
    Knowledge Management Magazine
    - Being a firm believer in the value of Organizational Vocabularies (aka Taxonomies), I found this article to be interesting and thought provoking, although I had hoped it would go a little deeper into the subject and value proposition. It will interesting to see how XML will impact the taxonomy issue.
    http://enterprise.supersites.net/kmmagn2/km199901/featureb1.htm
  • Father of Mouse Speaks
    CIO Magazine
    - A short but interesting piece on the man I consider the inventor of knowledge management, Doug Englebart. I wish I could have been there to hear him speak about the “‘social hazard’ resulting from organizations unable to change corporate behavior with the pace of technological advancement”. Now that’s something we can all relate to.
    http://www.cio.com/updates/121798_online.html
  • The Organic Root System
    CIO Magazine
    - An interesting read. At times I get a little tired of the ecology jargon (not just around KM but all sorts of other business topics). This article provides some solid examples of organizations that are not just focused on the bottom line, but on empowering their employees and creating environments (cultures) that are conducive to creativity and innovation.
    http://www.cio.com/archive/010199_over.html
  • A Sense of Who You Are
    CIO Magazine
    - By understanding the past an organization can better manage the change of the future and remain viable and competitive, not to mention learn from its mistakes. This article doesn’t directly discuss knowledge management, but it does point out the value in knowing what you know. In reading this article I thought back to my days at Disney and the new-hire orientation classes. It was a time of extensive change within that organization yet everyone from senior executives to gardeners were required to attended the orientation class that provided an understanding of why it did things the way it did (and in some cases why it needed to change). It had the effect of building comradery and a true sense of community.
    http://www.cio.com/archive/010199_hist.html
KM Jobs & Links:
KM Career Opportunities and Links — let me know of any opportunities and I’ll post them here (and don’t forget to tell me when the positions are filled). An asterisks (*) denotes a new item.

Upcoming Events:
This is a list of events I’m interested in, and think you should be too. As I come across web sites that have detailed listings of events, I’ll post them here. An asterisks (*) denotes a new item.

  • 1/20/99 – 1/22/99 Constructing Your Organization’s Knowledge Base http://www.iir-ny.com/conference.cfm?EventID=Z0681
  • *2/9/99 San Francisco Bay Area Knowledge Management Roundtable http://www.hoytconsulting.com/sfkmround.htm
  • 3/1/99 – 3/4/99 Tomorrow’s HR Structure & Strategy conference, San Diego, CA http://www.inkageinc.com/hrstructure/
  • 3/8/99 – 3/9/99 Conference on Knowledge Management & Organizational Learning, Hotel Nikko, San Francisco, CA, sponsored by the Conference Board and IBM Global Services http://www.conference-board.org
  • 3/9/99 – 3/10/99 Benchmarking your KM Intranet, Atlanta (a site visit program where YOU set the agenda, visiting and exploring the KM intranet applications of 3 leading companies) contact joorourke@ark-group.com
  • 3/16/99 – 3/18/99 Leveraging Knowledge: Addressing the Challenges, Giga Information Group http://www.gigaweb.com/events/
  • 3/28/99 – 3/31/99 IKMS’99 Delphi’s International Knowledge Management Summit in San Diego, CA http://www.ikms.com
  • 3/29/99 – 3/31/99 Internet Librarian International/LibTech’99 Olympia, London UK, contact jean.mulligan@cityshow.co.uk
  • 4/14/99 – 4/15/99 Benchmarking your KM Intranet, London contact joorourke@ark-group.com
  • 4/15/99 – 4/16/99 Conference on Knowledge Management & Organizational Learning, NY Hilton & Towers, NY, NY, sponsored by the Conference Board and IBM Global Services http://www.conference-board.org
  • 4/22/99 – 4/23/99 Benchmarking your KM Intranet, New York City contact joorourke@ark-group.com
  • 5/11/99 – 5/12/99 Knowledge Management and the Legal Profession, London (2-day conference) joorourke@ark-group.com
  • 5/25/99 – 5/27/99 Knowledge Management in Practice, London (2-day conference with 1-day workshop) joorourke@ark-group.com
  • 11/1/99 – 11/4/99 Knowledge: Creation, Organization and Use — ASIS 1999 Annual Conference, J.W. Marriott Hotel, Washington, D.C http://www.asis.org/Conferences/am99call.html
Product/Tools:

I’ll try and point you to interesting products, tools, and companies that are dabbling in the KM space.

  • Timbuktu Web Seminar from Netopia
    - TWS is a screencasting technology that allows people to share information from their desktops across the web. It allows live web based demos that include tours of web sites in real-time, chats, polling, and includes a moderated mode where the presenter can control what the views see and do.
    http://www.timbuktupro.com/web_seminar/index.html

If you’ve seen or are using a cool and useful product that falls into the KM space (or close to it), let me know about it, I’ll include it here and you’ll get the credit for it.

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