I’ve had a few enquiries by people interested in learning more about the tools that we discussed at the recent discussion on social media inside the firewall (smif).

I was reminded of the following useful resource, a wiki on “knowledge sharing and social software”. This was originally created by Denham Grey while (and after) he was moderating one of AOK’s regular knowledge related dialogues.

The wiki gives a good grounding in several topics – including podcasting, and blogs and feeds – which happen to be the topics I was asked about. So thanks for doing my work, Denham!

(If there are other smif topics you want some further information on, please leave a comment here and I’ll try to help.)

I enjoyed the SMIF discussion as well. Highlights of the conversation from my perspective:

• High turnout (25-30) and over half of those who turned up contributed to the conversation.
• Focus was on “social”, not on the tools.
• Emphasis on how the use of these tools can enhance face to face, personal social networks. Help establishing new trust, new connections, etc.
• Recognition that many, many tools can be used to enhance social networks. Not just the tools (blogs, aggregators/rss, wiki, etc.) that I mentioned in the invitation to the sesion.
• Importance of tagging and RSS as the most common element between all the tools discussed.

Hopefully, we’ll see some KMLF members doing some guest posting here as a result of the discussion. One participant said that she felt that the discussion was just “part one” and I agree. Once we got started, the discussion flew and every point seemed to build value.

I’ll post again later to follow up specific questions raised such as “how can I get started with RSS?”

27 of us met last night, and had a great discussion on SMIF.  If you were there, I trust that you enjoyed it.

Shawn has encouraged us to use this site to share more about what is happening with KM in Melbourne.  Among the other things I do at Telstra, I write a blog on the now we are talking site – a Telstra public discussion forum.  See it at Tech-know.

I started this with the intention of discussing KM issues, but with a sideline of looking at some issues around IT and telecom technologies, and how we interact with them.  It seems that this second line has actually attracted more interest, but it is probably the overlap of the two areas that has been most interesting – the relationship between knowledge and communication.

So, what’s the connection with SMIF?  Although now we are talking is a public site, a number of my correspondents are also Telstra staff, and I have effectively been discussing internal company issues in a public forum with people I haven’t ever met inside the company!

My day-to-day KM work covers a number of SMIF tools – I have mentioned some on my latest blog post that should appear later today.  There will no doubt be further discussion on this topic.  Technology aside, one of the best ways of getting the wider team in our Melbourne office together was to simply arrange a fortnightly meeting in a coffee shop outside our building.  No agenda, very simple structure – have a chat, and each take a turn telling the group just a little about our current projects.

So, do you SMIF?

I hear on the grapevine that some government agencies in Victoria have rid themselves of their library and policy analysts are forced to resort to the internet (without access to journals) and Google to develop policy. Is this true?

There are many innovative practices developing in the library space which are bringing to fruition Umberto Eco’s observation that in the future library will become a verb more than a noun. For example, Department of Primary Industries has a system where you find the journal article or book using the library’s online system and regardless of your location in Victoria it turns up on your desk in a couple of days time. Family and Community Services in Canberra have moved their library service to act as a research consulting service (read about how they enhanced this service). What innovative library practices are developing in your organisation?

Reading the press and the web these days it’s hard to avoid hearing about blogging, wikis, rss and tagging. There’s a growing trend for these new “web 2.0″ technologies to be used WITHIN an organisation. This is sometimes called “Intranet 2.0″ or smif (Social Media Inside the Firewall).

This month’s KMLF event will be a discussion on Social Media Inside the Firewall. It will be an open and interactive discussion session lead by a variety of people with interest and expertise in the area including:

• James Farmer, online community editor at The Age
• Andrew Davis, Exari, internal wiki evangelist
• Warren Crosbie, blogger and RMIT student
• Rodrigo Coutinho
• Shawn Callahan, blogger and Founding Director of Anecdote
• Andrew Mitchell, blogger and Knowledge Manager at UrbisJHD

The discussion will be faciliated by Luke Naismith from the Department of Finance. Luke’s aim is to encourage as many questions and perspectives as possible from both the ‘panel’ and the audience.
Details:

Thursday 22nd June, 6:00 – 7 :30 pm PLUS networking over wine & cheese afterwards

RMIT Business, Level 8, Room 13, 239 Bourke Street, Melbourne
(PLEASE NOTE that this is the usual building but a different floor and room!)

As usual, this event is FREE and everyone is welcome. Please remember to come with a gold coin contribution to cover refreshments.

Check out our blog for more information http://www.melbournekmlf.org/?p=14 and http://www.melbournekmlf.org/?p=10

Please RSVP to: melbournekmlf@gmail.com

This is in from The Age.

After offering the part-time MBA courses for 30 years, RMIT has announced an extra full-time course that targets younger students with no work experience. Professor John Toohey, head of the Graduate School of Business, says the new MBA is in response to market demand. It is lecture-based with a mentoring program and offers insights into real corporate challenges. Apart from traditional MBA subjects, the course covers entrepreneurship, new venture creation, transforming organisations and knowledge management.

Campus chatter – Education News – theage.com.au.

I recently mentioned our upcoming event on 22nd June on Social Media Inside the Firewall (smif).

Today, I found an excellent resource that would make excellent pre-reading material for anyone wanting an accessible introduction to the topic before the meeting. Thanks Bill & Kathleen. It’s great the way many people share such useful information. Do you have any useful resources that the rest of the Melbourne KMLF should know about?
By the way, thanks for those of you who have responded expressing interest in being on the panel session. I’ll be getting back to you very soon!

Last night I attended the first meeting in some time, I gather, of the International Association of Public Participation (IAP2). Damian Ferrie from the Department of Victorian Communities led a discussion on public participation and engagement in Victoria and told this wonderful story:

Melbourne has 77 high-rise, low-rent accommodation buildings. They are neither liked by the public at large or the residents. As soon as people arrive to live in one they are making plans to leave. In an attempt to improve the living conditions at these dwellings Victoria housing embarked on an engagement process with the residents. From this process the residents made it clear that without job opportunities things would not improve. They also noted that there red Ferrari driving cleaning contractor seemed to be doing pretty well and they could do that job.

When the cleaning contract was up for renewal it was re-let with the stipulation that 50% of the cleaners must come from residents. Now you should know that cleaning staff often change jobs. But in this case the original 27 residents employed by the cleaning contractor are still there after 2 years and the building has never been cleaner.

Kim White, who is organising the IAP2 meetings in Melbourne, will let us know when the next one will be on and we will post the details here.

In February 2005 Karen Best joined DPI to kick off a pilot project aimed at improving collaboration in the department. Stephanie Ng joined the project in July and together they set about trying to better understand how collaboration worked in DPI. Using interviews and surveys they discovered that more than 50% of collaboration occurred with people outside the department yet they lacked any significant extranet environment. Collaboration was mostly done using email and while internal teams had created a proliferation of teamrooms (400+) and quickplaces, many were in various states of disrepair and there was a general malaise among staff regarding their utility. After some more digging Karen and Stephanie concluded that there was very little wrong with the tools; the problem was more about how collaboration tools were introduced and supported.

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