Google's Information Policy

I've heard this before and read it again yesterday in a Dutch newspaper, 'De Volkskrant'. It was mentioned in an article about Google Zürich. It was about all the good things working for Google brings to you as an employee. And in a short sentence something was said about 'information management' at Google. And who gets access to what information. It said (my translation from Dutch to English):

And all information is shared with everyone. "When I started here, I was surprised I got access to all the software code, every blueprint and all confidential documents."

This is a very simple policy statement. Of course financial data is not open to all. But I'm wondering if this really applies to all Google employees. Does Sales really have access to R&D information, for instance? Anyway, I really like the idea, because it really promotes openness and transparency in the organization.

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Social Media and Recruitment - A Request for Help

Recently I was asked to give a presentation on 'social media' and recruitment. So, I was wondering if you could help me. What would your answer be to the following questions?

1. How could you use social media (social networking, wiki's, blogs, etc.) to recruit new personnel?
2. What should a modern job site look like? Do you have examples of companies already applying this?
3. Is there a difference between 'old' and 'new' recruitment? If so, please explain what you find that difference to be?

I’m looking forward to read your answer(s)!

Simplicity...

Ran into this on the O'Reilly Radar. Very funny and it reminds me of something...

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Out of Office wiki page

Really interesting post by Luis Suarez. It's basically a social out-of-office wiki page he's promoting, based on an idea by SocialText's Ross Dawson. I really like the idea and am going to try it next time I go on vacation.

Interactive Drawing for Kids... and Adults

Ran into this on Marc Andreessen's blog: I used to play with Crayons... So, there's practically the same for adults too. (I bet the Crayola version is based on this stuff.) It's the MIT Whiteboard:

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Amazing Robot Dog

Something for the weekend, to watch and re-watch. Wow, this is so good, you'd almost think you were faked. Thanks Jan & Rob, for pointing me to this.



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Goodbye, Enterprise - Hello, Socialprise

A nice little citation from Sarah Perez' blog post on ReadWriteWeb:

Here's another word to add to your lexicon: "Socialprise." It's meaning is somewhat obvious: social tools + enterprise = "socialprise." It's a new term, but one we hope sticks around, since it's currently representative of one of the biggest shifts in business today.

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Are Collaboration Tools Part of the IT Infrastructure or Part of the Application Portfolio?

Interesting question! Dennis McDonald asks: Are Collaboration Tools Part of the IT Infrastructure or Part of the Application Portfolio?
Within our organization the collaboration tools just moved from the IT Applications to the Infrastructure department. I guess it depends on how you offer it to the company: as a specific tools for specific groups? Or, as an essential platform for your whole company?
For me, it's an essential, infrastructural tool, like email, that all need in the company to get their work done.

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Add your business to Google Local Search in India

Well, I wasn't too far off with my idea/prediction! You can now add your business to Google Local Search. Only in India for now, but it won't be long before other countries will follow. Really nice.

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My Leatherman

It was my birthday yesterday! Guess what I got? My own Leatherman tool! The JUICE XE6. It's really cool. Next time we meet I'll show it to you.

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Technology Review: Searching as a Team

Interesting Technology Review article about team web search. It's not out yet, but will be soon.
I'd like to hear more on how this compares to Trailfire or Diigo for instance and other social search apps. If I understand correctly they're working synchronous team search. Trailfire etc are not synchronous.

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Social Networks will be like Air

Great (long) post by Charlene Li of Forrester on the future of social networks! Charlene mentions 2 enablers for social networks to be like air in the future. (Which is definitely not the core of her post!) They are: "technology" and "trust". The first is clear and I agree with her: in a couple of years it'll be good enough for "social air networks".
But I'm wondering what see means by "trust". Is she saying everyone will be in everyone's network? Of course eventually this is true (6 degrees of separation paradigm). But this is based on the network connections that the user/I make, right? So is "trust" really an issue? It is now and will be in the future, right?

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The Path from Architecture to Information Architecture

Boxes and Arrows has a nice post about how architecture and 'information architecture' are related. In this post 'information architecture' relates to web site architecture. That is not how I define IA. But still, this remarks made in this post give food for thought.
By the way, this post relates well to Daan Rijsenbrij's inaugural speach at the University of Nijmegen, titled: Architectuur in de digitale wereld (2004) [English: Architecture in the Digital World].

Dialogues House

Tomorrow I'll be at the 'DutchOpen Knowledge Management' meeting in Amsterdam. I love going to these meetings. Basically a group of information and knowledge management practitioners from large international Dutch companies get together and openly discuss a certain topic. Tomorrow we're talking about 'open innovation'. And the meeting is held at the Dialogues House. I've never been there, but based on their website it looks really nice. Open Innovation platform in practice? Workplace of the future? We'll see. I'll try and take some pictures and share them with you. For now go and take a look at their website.

Just joined the Twine beta!

Alright! Just received my invite to the Twine beta. As I wrote a couple of days ago, there's a way to cut the line! And it works. I'll let you know what I think of Twine soon.

eeggi: The Intelligent Retrieving, Responding and Discovering Engine

Wow! I've written some posts about the new Semantic Web wave and here's another surfer: eeggi! ReadWriteWeb has a nice summary on this new search engine. Eeggi is not live yet. There are demo's on the site. It looks a lot like Powerset, but (from the demo) it seems to be a little smarter. For one it also supports multi-lingual search. Looking forward to the 'live' version of eeggi!

By the way: did you also see the demo video's of Searchme?

Selling KM using stories by Shell

Wow, this is an interesting (but older) example of how to apply story telling. Shell published a book titled "Stories from the Edge: Managing Knowledge through New Ways of Working within Shell's Exploration and Production Business". Anecdote pointed to it some time ago.

It would be interesting to hear what this book led to. To new KM projects, more funding for KM initiatives, a new book with stories? Andy, please tell us more!

Are Wikipatterns, Collaborative Patterns?

Some time ago I wrote about wikipatterns and said that it would be nice to have Sharepoint patterns too. ChiefTech recently posted on a new book about Wikipatterns. In his post he basically questioned: Aren't wikipatterns more broadly applicable, e.g. to collaboration in general?
I would agree. The patterns that are mentioned can applied to collaboration in general, and collaboration tools, such as Sharepoint, Intranet platforms, etc. Working on collaboration patterns would lead to greater and easier adoption of collaboration tooling. Usually such a tool is given to a (group of) users and they have to sort things out themselves. Having patterns would help an IT or IM department give the user/team a fitting solution (configuration) for his/her problem.

Keeping Track of Blog Comments - My own and other's

How do you keep track of your comments and other's comments? I asked this question several times on my blog. Up until recently I didn't get any answers (and couldn't find answers...) and wondered if all bloggers have this issue...

Well, Andy was so kind to tell me how he answers this question: by using Cocomment! Thanks for the tip, Andy!
I started using it and it works OK for me. As a Firefox user it automatically keeps track of the comments I write on blog posts and the comments on my blog posts. Really nice and useful. However, for some reason though, Cocomment doesn't seem to track all my comments... I'll have to find out why...

The "Social Media Press Release"

Well, I was sort-of reluctant to post on this topic, because I'd have to relate to old blog posts... (-- implying I'm slow...) But on Social Media Today Paul Dunay saved me by posting an interview podcast with the inventor of the Social Media Press Release, Todd Defren of Shift Communications. The talk is interesting discussing the evolution of the traditional press release and corporate newsroom into a social media press release and news room.

The Shift Communications website and their blog, PR Squared, offers loads of (free) insights, template, etc. about this topic. You can find their Social Media Press Release template here. And updates are discussed here and here. Furthermore, you'll find the Social Media Newsroom template here.

Following their blog you see that many companies aren't getting this yet and are releasing news in the traditional way. The examples that are given are inspiring nonetheless. I like the remark that was made stating: "...the social media press release in really nothing more than a blog post".

Stop Using Email?! (3)

Again, Luis Suarez gives us an update on his venture to stop emailing. I’m surprised at how little attention is being paid to this interesting experiment…
Luis also points to the recent BBC article on ‘email overload’.

What I was wondering though was: now Luis stopped emailing and answering emails, does this lead to more or less work in his blog(s) and social network tools? I could imagine when you start answering emails on Facebook or on your blog, other people also start to write comments/answers back leading to more work compared to just answering that one email you got in the past. (Of course I understand that answering that email publicly on e.g. a blog has many advantages as well.)

Yes, I Want Early Access to the Twine Beta!

As I wrote before I'm really curious to start using Twine. I'm still waiting for an invite to the beta. Nova Spivak just posted that people like me can get ahead in line by posting about Twine on their blog! Well, here's my post! Hope to get my invite soon and let you know what my experience with Twine is. And if you want an invite too, just follow the link!

The Tipping Point

I've read this book some time ago and forgot to 'publish' this post...

I really enjoyed the read! I love books that try to go beyond the ordinary and give an alternative view on everyday life. In short: I agree with most of Gladwell's writing. I've read a lot about complex systems (edge of chaos). After reading it I wondered why he didn't use this knowledge in this book about (sudden) change...

Printing web pages

Printing web pages is always a hassle. Yes, I do still print web pages when I really want to read them and think about what is being said and comment on it on my blog. I also print web pages to be able to easily read them in my carpool and the train.

Using Firefox solved many of my printing problems. The reformatting of web pages is done pretty well. However, I still have a hard time printing some web pages and blogs. When you print them you get loads of extra printed pages with no information on them. I don't like that due to environmental reasons.

A friend of mine advised me to use the Aardvark Firefox addon. This works OK, but is kindof geeky and not very easy to use.
Then I ran into something even better on Jim Lyon's blog. HP has two sites: one dedicated to web page printing and the other to blog printing. As you can see on my blog I now use both the browser plugin and the blog addin. Both work wonderfully well, are easy to use and solve all my web page and blog printing issues. Thanks HP for sharing this for free with us!

Architects...

Hmm, maybe I should change my role name...

Twitter in Plain English

Another great video by Common Craft: Twitter in Plain English. So now you can explain microblogging and Twitter to anyone!

Visual blogging at TED

Hmm, this seems a lot nicer way to blog than I'm doing now and more creative too.

Stop Using Email?! (2)

Just recently posted about Luis Suarez stopping using email at work (and externally). Here's an update how things are going, part 1 and part 2.

Do Google Sites and Sharepoint compare?

Well Google Sites was just launched and there's all kinds of debate on whether it will compare to Microsoft Sharepoint. Here are two interesting ZDNet post by Mary Jo Foley and David Greenfield. And a (long) post by Sarah Perez on ReadWriteWeb. Her posts also addresses what to think of Google trying to circumvent the corporate IT department.
W.r.t. Sarah's post: I understand what she's saying and I share many of her thoughts. I would like to add what I wrote before: what does Google Apps and Sites imply for corporate Information Management?
What I do find, though, is that her post is written in a very defensive way, as if she is an IT department employee (as I am myself...). I miss a more opportunity-driven approach to your post. Of course Google sites isn't going to compete directly with Sharepoint, for now. But where could this take us anyway?

Beyond Web 2.0 or Future Web

Interesting short discussion about the future of the Web on Media Conversations. It mainly focuses on "web 3.0" and the "web being all around you". I listened to the podcast, but you can watch it too. I embedded the video for you.

UPDATE: There was something wrong with the video embedding code, so I'll put in the link to the video instead.

Intranet Trends

Nice short overview of the Intranet Trends by Toby Ward.

Visualizing Social Media Fatigue

Nice post about "social media fatigue" and a nice overview picture of all the tools that one person (Andrew Shuttleworth) uses.

I do try many tools, but I only really get into them when they really help me. So if they don’t I just don't go back to them. Yes, dataportability will be a big help, but isn't the real solution to be more picky on what you really need to get your work done? If it doesn't help you, just say 'no' and stop using it.