Making it real Connecting, collecting and creating knowledge in a virtual environment

Making it real
Connecting, collecting and creating knowledge in a
virtual environment

10th SAOIM, 4-5 August 2010

Elmi Bester: Manager, CSIR Knowledge Commons

Madelein van Heerden: Portfolio Manager, CSIR Information Services

CSIR Knowledge Commons –
three lenses
• How can spatial design be used to:
− facilitate knowledge sharing
− increase collaboration across boundaries
− enhance propensity for contactivity

• How can event intermediation be utilised to:
− nurture and accelerate knowledge flows
− create opportunities for people to meet and share
knowledge

• How can cross-cutting conversations be
stimulated to:
− allow for sense-making and learning
− create new knowledge

© CSIR 2010 www.csir.co.za

“…innovation, the heart of the
knowledge economy, is
fundamentally social. Ideas
arise as much out of casual
conversations as they do out
of formal meetings. More
precisely, as one study after
another has demonstrated,
the best ideas in any
workplace arise out of casual
contacts among different
groups within the same
company”.
Gladwell (2000)

Good conversations are the cradle of
social knowledge in any organization.

Through extended discussions, which
can encompass personal flights of
fancy as well as careful exposition of
ideas, individual knowledge is turned
into themes available to others.
(Ichijo, 2004)


Social mingling Sensemaking

Showcase

Connect

Extending the initiative –
the Virtual Knowledge Commons


Roadmap

Technology
Business and project planning
stewardship

Strategic intent Social dynamics
-Type of network/ community
Value proposition - Adoption models
- 2.0 philosophy

Technology
Impact assessment Practices Competency - Scouting & excursions
- Inform enterprise ICT
framework direction
Technology - ICT Governance

Related practices
- Facilitation
- Information & content
management

Performance measurement Adoption & entrenchment
Progress measurement


Technology stewardship

Social dynamics Technology Related practices

- Scouting &
-Type of network/ - Facilitation
excursions
community
- Information & content
- Adoption models - Inform enterprise ICT management, incl
curation
- ICT Governance
- 2.0 philosophy

- Individual experiences


Using the lenses
Lens Opportunities in virtual space

Spatial design
• Contactivity & connectivity
• Contactivity
• Signals – ambient awareness
• Sharing
• Swarming & flocking
• Make interests and expertise visible

• Sharing
• Broadcast invitations – anyone
• Space where I can share artefacts

• Enablers
• Robust event module
• Arrange meet-ups
• Micro-blogging
• Desktop pop-up

Using the lenses

Event intermediation
• An event is an opportunity to spend an
• Knowledge flows
extended amount of time engaged in dialogue
•Opportunity to meet and
share
• Anywhere, right-time
• Multi-modality
• Footprint – ambient awareness

• Trigger for collecting & connecting


Event-intermediation State
of the
art

PRE-AMBLE DURING EVENT POST EVENT

• Blending with physical or • Social Reporting
virtual only • Report backs
• Event promotion • Sharing photos
(anywhere; anyone) • Synchronous attendance/
participation • Publish recordings and
• Create online presence/ • KC <--> VC venue other material
pre-event engagement • KC <--> Skype
• Desktop-desktop • Continue event in
• Meetup • KC-desktop/mobile asynchronous mode

• Broadcast & Listen in
• Social reporting (Live blogging/
collaborative mindmapping, etc)

Right time participation & extended dialogue
Asynchronous Synchronous Asynchronous

#eSkills summit has no electricity, no Wifi, no
back channel, and every seat has analog data
capture utensils. eSkills missing from eSkills!
@dkeats (26 July 2010)

It is a pity that #eSkills summit doesn't have a
proper back channel. It would be more
interesting than the sessions.
#eSkillsLackOfSkills @dkeats (26 July 2010)

You cannot create the future by attempting to
replicate the past, all you will do is prepare the
conditions for understanding your mistakes.
@dkeats (27 July 2010)


@elmibester Knowledge is in the network. #eSkills
requires people to connect & converse. That's
when the virtual starts to become real.
@weblearning (27 July 2010)


Using the lenses


Conversations
• Sense-making and learning • Facilitation
• Create knowledge • Participation
• Collecting

“The challenge for me is to walk the talk.
Are my presentations making a place for
such connections & conversations.”
@weblearning (27 July 2010)


The question is no
longer whether a
bear can dance,
but how well the
bear dances.
ICT-KM, Strategic Technologies for the CGIAR in 2010 , Posted by
Enrica Porcari in ICT Developments, ICT-KM Program | 11 January
2010 | 2 responses http://ictkm.cgiar.org/2010/01/11/strategic-
technologies-for-the-cgiar-in-2010/

http://toulousestreet.wordpress.com/2008/02/10/dancing-bear/

Bibliography


How do we enable people to…
• discover & appropriate useful
technology
• be in and use communities &
networks (people)
• express their identity
• find and create content
• usefully participate ? ? ?

Making it real Connecting, collecting and creating knowledge in a virtual environment

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