infoarch

A long time ago I blogged about the IT Flower . I thought is was a very interesting diagram and I still use it regularly. I find it helps people understand the different types of work, how things get done and how they are(n't) support by tools in companies. Recently I read Harold Jarche 's post about "Informal Learning is a Business Imperative" . I find his work on social learning and personal knowledge management highly interesting. Most of his posts contain lots of food for thought and have interesting diagrams to chew on. This post did as well. The diagram in this post clearly shows the different types of work and how they relate to different types of learning. This fits perfectly on my two above-mentioned posts about the IT Flower. This diagram is an extra layer focused on types of work and learning. (Or the other way around, whatever you like!) I’m also happy to see that the diagram shows that even in very structured work there are still non-routine tas...

I really like the way Socialcast is sharing their vision on the workplace of the future. Every Tuesday they share an interesting infographic about an interesting topic related to their vision (and product). They call it #e2sday . The last one was about the intranet . I thought I'd share it with you because I recently wrote a post about why intranet is so hard and... why it can be easy as well. I was curious which sources they used to set up this infographic. It struck me the sources were pretty old! Which is not the same as outdated, to be sure. The problem with the intranet is an old(er) problem for sure. I agree with the statements made in this nice visual. What I tried to do in my posts is ask: But why does this happen? Why is information not up-to-date on traditional intranets? Why is it unclear what the strategy and intention of intranet is? Etc. Hope you enjoy and learn from this nice infographic!

Recently took the time to watch some Dreamforce 2011 talks. There's lots to learn from them. I particularly enjoyed Marc Benioff's interview/talk with Eric Schmidt . I liked the way they stepped back and looked at the history and future of the technology industry in general, and the internet especially. Just to list some of the questions they talked about: what the future of the manufacturing industry (in the US and Europe) will be? Why is it hard for existing players to move to new technology standards? What should an existing company do when technology shifts? Where is 'cloud' and 'social' going? What is the potential of the internet for business and government? Is this only for large companies or more so for small companies? In short the future according to Schmidt is: mobile, local and social. And here's the whole talk for you. Hope you enjoy it!  

Recently I started blogging for Frankwatching , a Dutch blogging platform about the internet in general. My first 3 posts are: Boekrecensie: The Intranet Management Handboek Foursquare is zinloos (voorlopig) Waarom is intranet zo ingewikkeld? Happy to say the last two posts have received a lot of good comments. I'll be translating the posts and publishing them on my personal blog as well. You can find my profile and post feed here .

‘The Learning Organization’ was a hot topic in the nineties. Peter Senge’s book The Fifth Discipline was published at the beginning of the nineties (1990). And The Fifth Disciplines Fieldbook shortly after that (1994). Recently I reread the Fieldbook. Nowadays lots is being written about social media and its power for personal and business use. Not very often you hear people and businesses say they use new media for learning. Although this area is very interesting. Harold Jarche and Jay Cross  (who recently pointed me to these interesting posts about this topic), to name just two experts, have been writing and publishing about this topic. They wonder: How can learning be improved by using social media? How does social media affect and possibly change learning? What is social learning? Related to this, Jarche also writes and talks about personal knowledge management, which also relates to personal learning. Really interesting stuff. I follow their work closely. (I've colle...

After reading the Shift Index (Big Shift) I was curious what the book ‘The Power of Pull’ would bring. I was hoping for a more practical story than the Shift Index. I was also hoping for examples on how to move from Push to Pull. I’m not sure if I got what I was looking for. And I’m not sure why either. Is it because I read the Shift Index before reading this book? Is it because I’m already in the Pull area for some time (at least I think I am…)? Or is it because I’ve read lots of books and blogs about the same topic (like the books The Cluetrain Manifesto , Wikinomics and Macrowikinomcs )? (After writing this interview I went through the reviews on Amazon. Lots of different reviews there: from very positive to very negative.) What is this book about? Let me give you the author’s short summary on p. 2: “Pull” is the common dynamic they see under several success stories. Pull is “the ability to draw out people and resources as needed to address opportunities and challenges. P...

So, I’m on a roll now. As promised I would share my review of several books. This is the next one: Free by Chris Anderson. An article in Wired about Free triggered me to read this book. Free is a big deal nowadays. Many products and services are offered for free. And people are making lots of money charging nothing. “Not nothing for everything, but nothing for enough…” (p. 3) Free has always been around a long time, but it’s changing. The internet seems to be doing something interesting to what we pay for things. “Somewhere in the transition from atoms to bits, a phenomenon that we thought we understood was transformed. “Free” became Free.” (p. 4) This book is about this phenomenon. Chapter 1-3 dive into the fascinating history of free. And the different kinds of free: direct cross-subsidies, three-party market, freemium and nonmonetary markets. (p. 23) Free started out as a marketing method. Now free is an entirely new economic model. (p. 12) The old free was based on the econ...