Blogging in Corporate America

8/14/2019 Blogging in Corporate America

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Michael Angeles

[email protected]

http://studioid.com

What they are, why people are using them, making them useful for

knowledge management

Usability Professionals Association

16 September 2003

Making sense of weblogs in the intranet


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Disclaimer


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What this is

A discussion about weblogging for knowledge

management within corporations

A discussion of my organizations role -- how

we view ourselves in terms of providing

weblogging support

A look at our long view -- how were planning

to support webloggers


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Before we get into the nitty gritty of weblogs ...

a very briefandincomplete history of Lucentintranet web publishing

How web publishing has evolved

Whos needs are being met by web-based

publishing

Lets start with a timeline

A history of web publishing in my intranet


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First there was the command line

Pre-web 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003

Technologies

CompanyMilestones

IISMileston

es

Internetprotocols(Archie,FTP,telnet)

LINUS

(Client-server)

NCSAMosaic(11/1993)

Web browser timeline: http://www.blooberry.com/indexdot/history/browsers.htm


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Then came pictures

Pre-web 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003

Technologies

CompanyMilestones

IISMileston

es


LINUS

(Client-server)

NCSAMosaic(11/1993)

NetscapeNavigator 1(12/1994)

InfoView

Digital Library(1994-1995)

Simple sites

proliferate;Hand editted and FTPed;Front Page webmasters(1995-96)

ISG created;

producescustomizeddb-drivenBU intranetsites(7/96)


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Then useful data competed for screen space

Pre-web 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003

Technologies

CompanyMilestones

IISMileston

es

ONSource,

first BUportal(1/1999)


LINUS

(Client-server)

NCSAMosaic(11/1993)


InfoView


ISG

supports BUportals withindexedcontent(1999)

Simple sites


ISG created;

producescustomizeddb-driven BUintranet sites(7/96) Business

taxonomydevelopment(1998)

IIS

indexingprocessintroduced(1998)


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The bubble bursts and standards are born

Pre-web 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003

Technologies

CompanyMilestones

IISMileston

es

ONSource,


MyLucent,

Companyportal(7/2001)


LINUS

(Client-server)

NCSAMosaic(11/1993)


InfoView


ISG supports

BU portalswith indexedcontent(1999)

Portals close;

subdomainsremovedMigration toMyLucentbegins(2000-2001)

ISG

ceases toproducecustomsites(2000)

Simple sites


ISG created;



IIS indexing

processintroduced(1998)


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Then the bottom really falls out

Pre-web 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003

Technologies

CompanyMilestones

IISMileston

es

ONSource,


MyLucent,



LINUS

(Client-server)

NCSAMosaic(11/1993)


InfoView


ISG supports


Portals close;


ISG ceases

to producecustomsites(2000)

Simple sites


ISG created;



IIS indexing


Much of

CIOsupportingMyLucentis laid off(2003)


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And everything old is new again

Pre-web 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003

Technologies

CompanyMilestones

IISMileston

es

ONSource,


MyLucent,


We are hereBlogs appear;Blog-related

services(2002)


LINUS

(Client-server)

NCSAMosaic(11/1993)


InfoView


ISG supports


Portals close;


ISG ceases

to producecustomsites(2000)

Simple sites


ISG created;



IIS indexing


Much of

CIOsupportingMyLucentis laid off(2003)


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Really seems like web-publishing chaos


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Our intranet story can best be explained in

terms of people

Diverse set set of user types

Diverse set of needs

Diverse set of technologies used to meet

these needs

Theres a story to be told in that diversity/chaos


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Knowledge workers

Researchers, engineers, sales force

Communities of Practice (CoPs)

Communities organized around projects, products or

topics (e.g. Mobility)

Chief Information Organization (CIO)

Enterprise Information Technology people

Executives

Officers, upper managers

Whos who in intranet web-publishing


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Knowledge workerResearchers, engineers, sales force

"I need to capture and

distribute information about

companies and contracts I'm

working with. Email and the

telephone is usually the fastest

way to do this, but I want to

spread this information

throughout the company."

BackgroundKnowledge workers are closes toour products. Depending on theirrole and Business Unit, typicalkowledge workers might doresearch related to products orprepare contracts for customers.One common need is to documentand communicate knowledge withintheir department.

Goals

Create and share personal orproject-related knowledge.

ToolsHTML editors (Front page,HomeSite, vi) and FTP, Weblogapplications (Radio Userland,Movable Type), Email

Community of practiceGroups organized around specific

topics or projects

"We increase our personal and

group intelligence through

collaboration and knowledge-

share."

BackgroundCommunities of practice are formedaround topics, product lines,technologies, customers. CoPs aretypically interested in collaborationand knowledge-share at a grouplevel.

Goals

Increase awareness and knowledgeon topic of interest to CoP forgroup or personal gain.

ToolsDocument management systems,Groupware, BBS, Wiki, Emaildiscussion groups

ExecutiveExecutive officers, vice presidents

and upper management

"In this tight, competitive

economy, we have to operate

at world-class levels, but we

have to be lean and cut costs

where we can.

BackgroundUpper management is focussed onkeeping the company profitable.One of the popular ways to do thisis to control costs. Management islooking to reduce duplication andleverage resources in order to cutback on unnecessary costs.

GoalsLead organization to profitability.

CIO managerCIO directors and managers

"I satisfy my user demands

using our standard toolbox of

technologies. CIO works hard

to establish the solutions that

deliver the most bang for the

buck"

BackgroundThe CIO organization is interestedin establishing technical standardswithin the company. They arelooking for ways to efficiently meetinformation systems needs in amanner that reflects the budget andresources of the company.

GoalsMeet user needs with standardizedprocesses and informationtechnologies.

Tools

Enterprise portals, documentmanagement systems


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Nardi & O'Day on information ecology

A system of people, practices, values, and technologies at work in a localenvironment.

A healthy ecology is one that is dynamic (changing/evolving), diverse (madeup of different types of people and technologies) and that allows for adiverse set of people and technologies to work in a complementary way.

The new knowledge management

Deloitte: bridging the gaps between people and systems depends on firstcreating the conditions that allow people to participate in KM locally ratherthan enforcing technology-based KM policies. These local activities are

bridged in Knowledge Network systems

Forrester: organizations have begun to move away from single-solution KMpackages

Diversity is a good thing


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Diversity remains the only constant

Our information ecology is diverse

Our needs are diverse

Our web publishing toolbox is

diverse

Analysis of Lucent information ecology


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Database driven publishing -- CMS and

document management

Home grown and low-cost server-based

publishing tools

Desktop personal publishing tools

Groupware applications

Our web publishing tools


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Let's step back a bit and talk about weblogs.

They're the new up and comers in webpublishing on the intranet.

Weblogs are growing in popularity and there

are lot of inexpensive weblog tools to

choose from today.

Enter the weblog


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A web site (usu. of personal/non-commercial origin)

that is frequently updated with information and linksto resources within a particular subject area.

The published information is presented much like a

journal on the web in reverse chronological order.

In 1999 Peter Merholz coins the term "Blog".

Rebecca Blood. weblogs: a history and perspective.

Rebeccas pocket. Essay discussing the emergence

of weblogs. http://www.rebeccablood.net/essays/weblog_history.html

A quick look at what weblogs are


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Personal opinion

Industry & topic specific information &

opinion

Very often meta discussion / revolvearound specific web page content

(URL) -- discussion about something

some else has written about

What do people blog?


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Weblogs allow you to publish a news feed

A news feed can be a data file listing recent

entries from a weblog

Or a data file listing recent news headlines

from a commercial source.

Blog feed formats are in XML format

(specifically RSS or RDF)

Look for these buttons:

Blogging also means sharing


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Aside from being tools to publish and share,

weblogs often offer a mechanism for readingother weblog data in XML feeds

News readers / aggregators

An application that retrieves and displaysnews feeds from multiple sources.

Client application -- runs on PC for

individual use.

Server application runs on a web server

for group use.

Reading blogs in a news aggregator


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Usually HTML form based interface for

creating each blog entry

Really entering a simple database record

Enter title

Body of text

Category (optional)

Author (auto-entered)

Date (auto-entered)

Creating and publishing a blog entry


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Variations of the process -- URL based

blogging

Since a lot of the time blog entries contain

meta-discussion, the starting point is a

pointer to an article someone else haswritten

Blog from an aggregator

Blog from a bookmarklet

Lets see how it works...

Blogging variations


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1. Enter title

2. Enter bodyof blog entry

3. Select category

4. Publish

Movable Type


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Click here to read comments


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Bloggers are often subject area experts

Free-loading on these experts helps grow

the knowledge of individuals and the

organization

Theres advantage in belonging to a socialnetwork formed around research interests

K-logging is about knowledge share


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Fast (and easy): Set up is quick and doesn't

require much expertise.

Cheap: Powerful personal publishing solutions

at low cost.

In total control: The real power in webloggingis that it puts knowledge creation in your

control and also allows you a standards-based

mechanism for pushing/sharing that

information.

Fast, cheap and in total control


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XML feeds of databases

News data

ABI/Inform

Technical documentsAlmost any data set can be mapped to the

standard RSS format

Email discussion groups, CRM, directory ofnew personnel

How we are supporting k-loggers

Wh d i h h RSS


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What our users do with the RSS


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Adding the URL for the RSS feedto your news aggregator.


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In news aggregator view, user sees a story they want to blog

Selecting the POST button copies that story's URL and title to a new blog entry in the editing form.


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S h d f h ?


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Keep close watch of weblogs in the

enterprise

As weblogs profilerate, work on

strategy for making blog data usable

Talk to the bloggers who might benefit

from sharing and finding

So where do we go from here?

C id l i th l


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The natural progression in an information

ecology where k-loggers start to proliferate isto seek a system that pulls together the

disparate k-log data.

The role of the information servicesorganization is to glue together the aggregate

of produced k-log data for its users to

consume.

Consider your place in the ecology

C ll ti bl d t


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How do we do that?

Use metadata to create rich bibliographic

records of each entry (author, publisher,

date, etc.)

Included in the process of recordingmetadata is to help people make sense of

that data by classifying it -- by topic/subject.

Collecting blog data

M ki bl d t fi d bl


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Make the aggregate of collected blog entries

available by publishing it

Make searching and browsing of indexed blog

entries possible

Our organization already does a lot of the textparsing, classification and republishing that is

needed to make a Blog aggregator fly

Offer varying means of use and notification when

new relevant data comes in. Email alerts, etc.

Making blog data findable

O r process


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Our process

Data from external feedsare loaded into server

Machine algorithms do someclustering and auto-classificationusing subject taxonomy

Human indexers review auto-classificationand correct or add index terms

Classified data is stored

Start: Raw feed from various sources(vendor data, internal databases, weblogs)

Finish: Classified data is served throughweb server requests

One way you could do it


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The brute force method

Use an aggregator (e.g. Radio or Drupal)

Get humans to blog and classify the blogs

One way you could do it

Web based aggregator (brute force) example


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Web-based aggregator (brute-force) example

Web based aggregator (brute force) example


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Web-based aggregator (brute-force) example

Other ways you can do it


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Just use search software with automated

classification

Consider our hybrid approach

Other ways you can do it

Success


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Its important to note that the success of KM

depends on the willingness of individuals toparticipate by using tools that will integrate

seamlessly with the organizations knowledge

network.

Deloitte suggests that while localized KM

efforts may not require knowledge networks in

small organizations, the advantage of

knowledge networks becomes manifest whencommunities express the need to re-use that

localized knowledge.

Success

Sustainability


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Another important factor is sustainability

If you plan on doing automated classification

of data human resources will be needed at

some point to set up taxonomies

If you plan on a hybrid machine and humanaided indexing process, full time staff might be

needed

Sustainability

Closing thoughts


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Weblogs are really not different as a

technology, although they put control ofpublishing closer to users

Classifying weblog data can be difficult and

requires human resources, but some searchapplications can help

Value diversity and above all, support users

needs

Allow users to produce organizational

knowledge using whatever tools they choose

Closing thoughts

Further reading on info ecology and KM


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Bonnie Nardi and Vicki ODay. Information Ecologies:

Using Technology with Heart. First Monday. http://

www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue4_5/nardi_contents.html

Robin Athey. Collaborative Knowledge Networks:Driving Workforce Performance Through Web-enabled

Communities. Deloitte Consulting. http://www.dc.com/Insights/research/cross_ind/ckn_workforce.asp

Joshua Walker. The New Knowledge Management

Landscape. Forrester Research. http://www.forrester.com/ER/Research/Brief/Excerpt/

0,1317,15338,00.html

Further reading on info. ecology and KM

Further reading about k logs


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John Foley. "Are You Blogging Yet?" InfoWorld. Discusses the

value of using weblogs in the enterprise. http://

www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20020719S0001

David Weinberger. The 99 cent KM solution. KM World. http://

www.kmworld.com/publications/magazine/

index.cfm?action=readarticle&Article_ID=1337&Publication_ID=76

John Robb. A simple approach to KM. K-Logs discussion group.http://groups.yahoo.com/group/klogs/message/313

K-Logs discussion group. Email discussion group that discussions

klogging for KM. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/klogs

A Klog Apart. Phil Wolff's klog about klogging. http://www.dijest.com/aka/

Further reading about k-logs

Where to get software


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Weblog software

Weblog publishers. Open Directory Project. http://dmoz.org/

Computers/Internet/On_the_Web/Weblogs/Tools/Publishers/

RSS news reader client software

News Readers. Open Directory Project. http://dmoz.org/Reference/

Libraries/Library_and_Information_Science/Technical_Services/

Cataloguing/Metadata/RDF/Applications/RSS/News_Readers/

Server-based news aggregator software

AmphetaDesk http://www.disobey.com/amphetadesk/

blagg. http://www.oreillynet.com/~rael/lang/perl/blagg/

Drupal. http://drupal.org

Radio Userland. http://radio.userland.com/multiAuthorWeblogTool

Where to get software


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Thank you :: The end

Blogging in Corporate America

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