Jeff Hester

Poking around the intersection of KM and Social Media

postaday2011

Social Computing and Knowledge Management

Social Computing and Knowledge Management

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Social networking tools have taken off in the past five years. Facebook has over 800 million users, Twitter over 200 million, and even newcomer Google+ with over 50 million. The ubiquity of these tools in our personal lives has spilled over the firewall and into the enterprise, re-labeled as social computing.

Social computing is a broad term that encompasses a range to tools, including blogs, wikis, profiles (with social/professional connections), microblogging and discussion forums.

Are you an advocate for social computing? A knowledge management practitioner? Join me on Tuesday, October 4th for a Twitter Chat I’ll be moderating at KMers.org. To participate in this Twitter-powered discussion you can use your favorite Twitter app with the hashtag #KMers or even easier — just sign in with your Twitter account at the live chat page on KMers.org. The chat will begin at 9am Pacific and run for an hour.

During this chat we will discuss the differences and similarities between the social computing movement and knowledge management, how to reconcile and integrate the two, and the implications for KM over the next five years.

Agenda

  • How do you define social computing, and how does it differ from KM?
  • What social computing tools and approaches are working well for you?
  • Where do informal social computing “communities” or team rooms fit in the context of communities of practice?
  • Should social computing tools be “managed?”
  • When does social computing and collaboration become KM? Is a boundary necessary or even beneficial?

Interested? Join us, and you can follow me @jeffhester and keep the discussion going.

Connected, The Film

Connected, The Film

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Every month a terrific group of bright minds meets in Los Angeles to share, challenge, drink and discuss how we can live an enlightened life. The gathering is known as Mindshare, and if you live anywhere within driving distance of downtown LA, I highly recommend it.

This past Thursday, Mindshare hosted a preview screening of Tiffany Shlain’s new film: Connected.

Connected takes on what it means to be connected in the 21st century. How does technology factor in? Why do we connected? Is our growing interdependence the next step in human evolution?  Shlain went in with this vision, but as so often is the case, life gets in the way. In her case, it was the cancerous brain tumor in her father, and her own high-risk pregnancy that caused her to tweak her vision for the film in a personal way.

The end result wasn’t revolutionary or mind-bending. The key premise is that we are evolving as a species, specifically by becoming more interdependent. To continue to grow, we must connect with each other — rely on others — and build stronger connections not only between the two hemispheres of our own brain, but between each other. The ideas are not ground-breaking. But Shlain tells the story in a way that is both personal and memorable.

Connected is currently playing in Los Angeles at the Arclight in Hollywood. If you get a chance, check it out.

Create Amazing Infographics About Your iPhone Photos

Create Amazing Infographics About Your iPhone Photos

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Infographics have become a popular way to convey a lot of information in a concise form. Rich with data, they leverage graphics to provide context to the numbers. Now a clever Swedish company called Dear Future Astronaut has released a $0.99 iPhone app that will analyze your photos and produce a beautiful infographic analysis.

I recently purged about 1,000 photos from my iPhone, but Photo Stats didn’t mind. It still created the following, beautiful infographic that analyzed the 266 photos still on my iPhone.

 

Photo Stats will show you where, when and how you took your photos, with location, time of day, your “most productive” days and various photo properties like portrait vs. landscape, ISO setting and photo app used.

The $0.99 price is reasonable, although they say it’s a promotion only good for the first week. After that, it goes up to a whopping $1.99 (still a deal, in my book). Go get Photo Stats, and share a link to your Photo Stats in the comments below.

A Trip Down Memolane

A Trip Down Memolane

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UPDATE

Memolane announced that they were acquired and the Memolane website and services shut down on February 22, 2013. Hopefully good for the employees and investors, but sad for those of us who enjoyed this cool way to aggregate and visualize your online presence. Timehop is a similar (but in my opinion, not nearly as cool) service that can partially fill the gap. And of course the Facebook timeline took a lot of the wind out of Memolane’s sails. I wish them the best in their new endeavors. And thanks… for the memories.

The remainder of this post serves as a record of what was, but no longer works. – Jeff

Regular readers know I’ve been extolling the virtues of Memolane for a while now. Joan and I used it during our three weeks in Paris to create a travelog of our adventures.

Memolane

Some time ago, the good folks at Memolane made it super easy for self-hosted WordPress users to embed their Memolane or stories right on their blog, like my own “lane” below. Give it a try! Click and drag the “lane” left to right, or down to view days with many entries. Click on an item to expand the view.

Want to try it? Sign up for Memolane (be sure to add me as a friend), connect as many services as you want, download this WordPress plugin and follow these simple instructions. You can embed either your own “lane” or story on any post or page using a short code. Simple!

Do you use Memolane? Like it? Hate it? What do you think?

Change of Address

Change of Address

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Tonight, Joan and I picked up the keys to our new place. By the end of July, we’ll be moving out of our respective duplexes and into our new beach shack.

While the new place has much more space than either of our current homes, we’ll still have to consolidate our furniture make it work (one bed, not two; one couch, not two; etc.).

The new place has a great open living area and a wonderful, French doors that open onto a private courtyard in front. And you can even catch a peek at the ocean from the patio.

Of course the flip side to all this good news? I have to pack, and move by the end of this month. I better get started.

A rather poorly stitched panoramic view of the front courtyard.

 

Au Revoir, Paris

Au Revoir, Paris

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Today is a travel day. Our driver picks us up in front of the apartment at 10am (Paris time, mind you). From CDG we take a short flight to Heathrow, then the long leg to LAX.

Unfortunately (or perhaps, fortunately?) there’s no wifi on these flights, and I’ve got to get ready to go. This post will be short and sweet.

Paris has been amazing. The people have been warm and wonderful, with the occasional big city indifference. Joan and I loved being here for three weeks. I could see living here some day — not forever — but definitely for a while.

I enjoyed the break from the routine, and will resume more serious posts as soon as I get settled back into the groove. Hope you enjoyed following my Project 365 photos during our holiday.