infoarch

Chris Brogan's post inspired me to tell you about my morning work routine. Like many social media enthusiasts I get lots of strange and anxious looks when I tell them about the way I work and the information I process. They're even more surprised when they hear it doesn't take as much time as you would think. We'll here's my daily morning routine! Every morning, when I work at the office or at home, I open the following applications: Outlook (client or web) = work email. Usually I can go grab a cup of coffee before Outlook is ready to use... I go through my mail following the GTD flow and empty my inbox (inbox zero). All email that can be processed in 2 minutes (which is about 90% of my email...) is done right away. Other emails contains tasks which are put on my Outlook task list, or contain an appointment (and is automatically put in my Calendar). If a task has to be finished by a certain date I'll allocate a slot in my calendar to be finished on ti...

Does your company share and manage process information centrally? And, if so, where is that information share/stored? I usually make a general distinction when thinking about enterprise information. I distinguish four types of information: process information: information describing the processes of the company, the way of working and best practices, the document templates, etc. product information: information about products, such as designs, requirements, parts descriptions, product structure(s), etc. project information: information used to manage a project, like minutes, task lists, progress reports, customer visit reports, etc. departmental information: information about resources, monthly reports about the department, presentations given to the department, etc. In many companies process information is shared and stored all over the place. Part of the information can be found on the intranet. I think most process info is shared here. Some process information...

Recently I read a couple of interesting posts/articles about innovation and invention. First of all, Dev Patnaik has a nice post about what empathy has to do with innovation . Dev has seen "companies prosper when they're able to create widespread empathy for the world around them". Empathy is: the ability to reach outside of ourselves and walk in someone else’s shoes, to get where they’re coming from, to feel what they feel. And this should be widespread in the organization. People within the company are able to stand in each other's shoes and in the shoes of their customers. They understand what's happening outside and respond to that accordingly. In this way the edges of companies start to blur. Dev says we're lacking empathy not innovation. This is an interesting point also related to the posts stressing the importance of an innovative culture . One of the facets of empathy is praising others. Steven DeMaio over at the HBR blog has an inter...

Working for a large company can be tricky sometimes. Definitely when it comes to meeting a colleague you don't know. You only know his or her name and the meeting room. Of course most companies have who-is-who databases with a picture of the colleague you're meeting (Yellow Pages). So now you can do some facial pattern recognition besides looking for the meeting room. Can't this be done in a better way? Micello seems to have asked this too. They want to be the Google Maps of the inside of buildings. So Google Maps helps you find the address. Micello takes it from there and helps you find the location you're looking for after you went in the front door. For example: you're looking for a store in a shopping mall. Google Maps will take you to the mall. Micello will take you to the shop in the mall. Now extend this to companies. Search (in general) in enterprises is usually not very well implemented. This also goes for finding locations insides companies. Micel...

... and all I got was a lousy T-shirt. ;-) Just kidding. Just wanted to show-off my new Yammer T-shirt. Have a nice weekend!

If I had no budget limitations, who would I invite to speak about innovation for my colleagues? Recently I was asked to provide a list of inspiring speakers about innovation. The focus of the talk should be in the area of creativity, innovation and invention. This is the list I came up with. If you have other's you would recommend, please leave a comment! My list, again , in no specific order: Scott Berkun, author of 'The Myth of Innovation'. Nice book about what innovation is and what it's not. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of 'Flow: The psychology of optimal experience'. John Seely Brown, ex Xerox PARC director, talks, publishes and thinks about new forms of learning and education and the role of technology. Wrote an interesting report for McKinsey called ‘The next frontiers of innovation’ with the next person on this list John Hagel, thinker/author about mega trends (shifts) in the world and its meaning for enterprises. Clay Christens...

Some time ago a friend asked me to give him a list of my favorite books about information and knowledge management. I emailed them to him, but I'd also like to share my list with you. I'd like to hear how this list relates to your favorite IM and KM books. If you would recommend other books, please leave a comment with the title! Here's my list (in no specific order): Chun Wei Choo, Information Management for the Intelligent Organization . Basic book on information management. Thomas Davenport, Thinking for a living . About the characteristics of knowledge work. Peter Drucker, The Effective Executive . Must read because the term 'knowledge worker' is used in this book for the first time. John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid, The Social Life of Information . Great book stressing that information is social. This is mainstream now, but at the time this book was published it wasn't... Mathieu Weggeman, Kennismanagement . [Dutch] The Dutch book...

Today is Blog Action Day ! I just went over to the Blog Action Day site to see how many people have registered. At this time 8,103 sites have registered, resulting in 11,788,878 readers. Wow! This year's Blog Action Day is about 'Climate Change'. A big topic these days. And I'm happy it is too. The number of times we talk about 'it' at home, at lunch, at the coffee corner or in the carpool with colleagues clearly shows: this issue grips lots of us. However, because it's such a big topic and lots of people are talking about it, I'm also sensing that lots of people don't really know what to do about it. It's too big for me to really make a change. I don't agree, but I do understand. Is the fact that I'm doing all these small things in my personal life really making a change for our climate and the future of this world? This question is a serious one and should be answered regularly. I know all kinds of websites and organizations are pr...

Wow, looks like there's a new interesting book out. It's called Borrowing Brilliance . The Six Steps to Business Innovation by Building on the Ideas of Others by David Murray. I'm definitely going to buy it. Why? Well, the review in BusinessWeek triggered me. This book seems to look at ideas, creativity and innovation being sparked by other (older) ideas. I think this point is often overlooked. Your idea has to be brand new to be a good idea. Your invention has to be done all by yourself or else it's not really an invention. This book says: That's not true. Lots of inventions and innovations are sparked by old(er) ideas and innovations. And it provides six steps to help you apply this fact in your personal practice or in your business. As I understand the first step is: define the problem you want to solve. What I'm hoping is that the book will say: Try to define your problem as a wish. My experience is that looking at a problem can limit the creativity...

I just registered for this year's Blog Action Day about Climate Change ! I participated last year too. I really like the initiative. It's a really smart way of getting all kinds of people together on the web thinking about one issue. What you have to do to join in? Just write one post on the 15th of October about 'climate change' and link to the Blog Action Day site . It's that easy. So, are you also participating? Tags van Technorati: blogging , climate change

Recently Luis Suarez pointed to t his nice overview of the different social media policies companies have (- Thanks Luis!). It's nice also from the perspective that it shows which and how many companies are taking social media seriously. However, Océ's social media policy hasn't been shared yet... We'll here it is! As you may notice our policy has been inspired by IBM 's. So, thanks for leading us IBM! Océ Social Computing Guidelines Océ encourages all employees to communicate open and transparent, for the benefit of Océ, your colleagues worldwide and yourself. With regards to participation in social media on behalf of Océ, it is required to obtain management approval in advance and to focus your contributions on topics related to your position. Every Océ employee has signed a contract with Océ. Act according to the guidelines provided in this contract. These guidelines also apply when communicating on-line. Every employee is personally responsibl...