MiramarMike: Blog

A wiki is just a website. Check out the wonderful 'Wikis in Plain English' YouTube vid for the low down. Just like any other web site it displays (generally) a lot of text with a few pictures scattered about. It has some basic navigation and is linked to other pages so you can find your way through. But still, in essence, it's just a website. So what's there to be afraid of? Well, it's a website with 3 main differences to your normal intranet*: Anyone (usually) can edit any page Linking to other pages is very VERY easy Navigation/structure is fluid And so a wiki is also a website with an accessible/open to all Content Management System (CMS) that generates instantly publishable web pages. The power of content authorship moves from the few to the many . This is scary. This is, strangely, more scary for the 'many' than the 'few'. The 'few are so glad that they are no longer the bottleneck and that a truck load of work is lifted off their shoulder

With the Web now becoming more and more useful there's no need* for anyone to download, install , upgrade, download, install, uninstall, crash, worry, strife, arrrgh ... you just don't need to. And if you're trapped within the walls of an IT Departments 'security' model you might even dream of the freedom that would come with installing your own useful and productive software. Well jump out/over the whole need. Use the one piece of installed software that comes on every PC, the web browser . Sure you might have to fight your IT Department to get access to sites because of perceived 'security risks' but don't let them beat you down. They should have enough 'security' software (virus detection, stop naughty access and the like) on their internet servers to lower the risk to a business acceptable level ... that's their job. If they don't, ask them why not. Also ask why their perceived lack of ability to do their job means the business canno

Thanks to Ben for passing this on. My view on information as having three core pillars in that it MUST be available, findable and usable is aimed at the day-to-day drudgery of merely working with the stuff. This video takes what 'information' is in the electronic/on-line world and makes a thing of beauty out of it:

Knowledge management, to me, has always been a weird title for an activity that a lot of people are doing within organisations. I think it's now suffering from 'consultant burn' out - try and mention it to anyone and the eyes glaze and the shutters come down . And fair enough. Managing knowledge isn't something that one can actually do and most definitely not with a "system". You can create environments for knowledge to flow, you can encourage people to share, you can even use these new computer fangdangles to assist with both ... but you cannot manage knowledge. Imagine calling a pencil a "Bestseller creation system" ... However, having said that I still see my ultimate goal with an organisation as assisting them around 'knowledge' in order for them to be successful at what they do. It's knowledge that people use day in and day out to make the decisions they make. My focus is in using "Enterprise 2.0" which I totally believe i

An excellent article from Julian at Seradigm, Email is for old people , contends that the young un's use Bebo/Facebook (and the like) just as much as email - it's just another 'messaging' service to get in touch with their mates. He concludes: It started to become clear to me that for these teenagers, email is just another messaging function that they access through a browser. They do some of their messaging in Bebo, and some in Hotmail/YahooMail/Gmail. For them, Bebo and txts are what they use to message their friends, and email is what they use begrudgingly when they have to message old people. When these young people start to come into the workplace the implications of this for corporate IT will be very interesting… (my emphasis) And he's right, it will be interesting . It will also be messy, loud and cost loads of money as old habits meet new habits and one removes the other. I also predict that the most technically savy of these young 'uns* will probably en