McGee's Musings

	Sunday, April 28, 2002

Federal Government Worst at KM "by far".

Federal Computer World reports on a Gartner presentation to a bunch of federal KM "specialists." From the article:

Much of the problems seems to be that government workers don't understand what knowledge management is. "Knowledge management is a business process that has to be approached with discipline," [Gartner's French] Caldwell said. "It is not a technology. You can't buy it in a box."

Effective knowledge management requires extensive information sharing and collaboration. But government agencies and their employees are better known for guarding their knowledge and defending their turf than for sharing and cooperating.

... "Building a collaborative government is the issue." [Federal Computer Week, via llrx.com]

I guess it's good to know the professional services firms aren't alone. But why should this be? It's not hard to recognize an individual's contribution, nor is it hard to align compensation with the desired behavior.

Here's my guess: collaboration reveals the weak links. The moment you participate in a truly collaborative endeavor, your contributions are obvious. People aren't afraid of not getting credit for their contributions - they're afraid of the lack of contributions becoming obvious.

[tins ::: Rick Klau's weblog] emphasis added

Certainly an interesting hypothesis to consider. It also raises the question of how hard it can be to assess contribution in the realm of knowledge work

2:38:10 PM •

• comment

. Like Vint says

I've often said that the Internet's success owes to three ideals (not facts — ideals): 1) Nobody owns it; 2) Everybody can use it; and 3) Everybody can improve it.

Now along comes Vint Cerf with The Internet is for Everyone. A few paragraphs:

Internet is for everyone - but it won't be if it isn't affordable by all that wish to partake of its services, so we must dedicate ourselves to making the Internet as affordable as other infrastructures so critical to our well-being. While we follow Moore's Law to reduce the cost of Internet-enabling equipment, let us also seek to stimulate regulatory policies that take advantage of the power of competition to reduce costs.

Internet is for everyone - but it won't be if Governments restrict access to it, so we must dedicate ourselves to keeping the network unrestricted, unfettered and unregulated. We must have the freedom to speak and the freedom to hear.

Internet is for everyone - but it won't be if it cannot keep up with the explosive demand for its services, so we must dedicate ourselves to continuing its technological evolution and development of the technical standards the lie at the heart of the Internet revolution....

Internet is for everyone - but it won't be if legislation around the world creates a thicket of incompatible laws that hinder the growth of electronic commerce, stymie the protection of intellectual property, and stifle freedom of expression and the development of market economies. Let us dedicate ourselves to the creation of a global legal framework in which laws work across national boundaries to reinforce the upward spiral of value that the Internet is capable of creating.

[Doc Searls Weblog]

12:03:57 PM •

• comment

Blogging toward a web of trust & why we should fall down on our knees and worship librarians.

The past week has been interesting for me. I've talked to, or traded emails with, several people who contacted me because of my weblog. On Friday afternoon I got to talk to Sabrina Pacifici, a law librarian for a very large law firm who runs LLRX.com as a labor of love (on her own time). It's a great site and I commend it to any lawyers out there.

Sabrina is a fascinating person, and so we had a lot to talk about. Obviously, we talked about the law and how the Internet is changing it, and how many lawyers don't see the full force of the impending change (it's strange how cataclysmic change can sneak up on people, even smart ones with professional degrees). As a librarian, Sabrina understands better than most that "information is power" and I suppose that is one of the siren songs of library science (for example, look at Jenny as someone who is driven to seek out and share information). But what I find truly amazing, and heart-rending, is the passion that Sabrina and Jenny bring to their sites. They know that information is power, but their goals aren't venal. They seek to share their power and to help others profit from the power of knowledge.

This blogging experience of mine (now almost 2 months' old) has taught me many things, but one thing stands out. The online community is based on a model of trust, which is not much different than what happens in the real world. We seek information from people we trust and, having obtained "trustworthy" information we share it with others. The highest rank in this web of trust clearly belongs to the librarians. They should be not only praised, but worshipped as well.

[Ernie the Attorney]

12:01:21 PM •

• comment