Day 3 of Devlearn was a short event day, just 1 keynote and 2 breakout sessions. It started off really well with a keynote by Leo Laporte. Leo is a wonderful storyteller. He told his story as a youngster trying to get into the mass media business. He described the difficulties and bottlenecks that the industry posed to people like him, from the high equipment costs to the very controlled distribution to the impenetrable bureaucracy. Only few people made it through the system, the rest were outliers waiting for their opportunity. The opportunity came in the form of the microprocessor and the Internet. These two technologies lowered production and distribution costs and enabled mass media to be truly mass media—from many to many. The social media or Web 2.0 tipped this ability over. Nowadays it is easy for anyone to put up a video or talk station and reach out to the masses. Leo described how he started his Internet-based station with just $15k of equipment that reached out to hundreds of thousands of people. Leo’s main idea is that the Internet and the social tools have lowered the barriers to entry for anyone who wants to work, play or learn on it. My big takeaway from this conference is that I see the acceptance of a new form of learning, one that is very social and one that is very informal. The orderly well-defined structure of teaching and learning is breaking down and yielding to a more natural way that does not depend on a specific time and place for teaching and learning to happen. My big fear is that people will take this new form of learning as the only natural way to learn. This is plain wrong. On the contrary this form of learning takes more from the learner, as now he has to analyse and filter from the hundreds of options and opinions that are available to him. The only natural part is that these options and opinions are coming from other people. I can describe the situation like this: for many problems there is the possibility that the solutions are ‘out there’. Before the Web 2.0 capability came along it was difficult, if not impossible, to surface all of this knowledge from the community. Now with social media we are able to lower the barriers to this hidden knowledge. For example, don’t know how insurgents are using improvised explosives in Iraq? Well, we can ask the soldiers who are coming across this on a day-to-day basis. The New Yorker has a wonderful article on this type of knowledge at work. But this is not the only way we learn. Sometimes we don’t know the discipline, sometimes there is just too much to be learned, sometimes it is all too complex. In all such cases we require detailed and serious study. It is how we become good at things. Assuming that all learning can take place through social media will do more harm than good. Let’s not forget this when celebrating Learning 2.0.

I had a wonderful 3 days at KM World 09 in San Jose. Much of the enthusiasm was in meeting friends. I’ve known Thomas Vander Wal, for instance, only by his blog and so it was good to put a face to all those entries. I made some new friends as well. These were the winners at the Intranet Innovation Awards. Thanks to James Robertson for making this happen. (Patrick Lambe, James Robertson, Thomas Vander Wal) As for the conference sessions themselves there were some good sessions and some not-so-good sessions, as it is to be expected in any conference. Here are my takeaways from the sessions. Social media is here to stay. The keynote speakers including Andrew McAfee, Charlene Li and Vander Wal all spoke passionately about there being real ROI here. People are analysing the success of Intellipedia as a viable knowledge sharing strategy to pursue inside organisations. Here comes the wikis in force? Darcy Lemons from APQC described here research into how organisations use lessons learnt (LLs). The key idea is to understand how the LLs are to be used: immediately in a similar project or program or in the future (for long term benefits). And here’s the killer execution strategy: get the LLs into the flow of work and not as an addition or extension to it. Sharepoint is everywhere. There are many bottlenecks in the 07 version but since many organisations have sunk time, money and resources in getting it to work for them, they will continue to do so with the 2010 version of it, which by the way is getting rave reviews. Talking about Sharepoint, Stephanie Lemieux urged not to let go of information architecture issues when implementing Sharepoint sites. She is absolutely correct. Content types, columns and lists are crucial in ‘correcting’ the user experience in Sharepoint. Stan Garfield put a short and sweet presentation with a whole bunch of resources and topics to follow. His website has more of these topics (books, conferences, consultants, blogs, etc.). I’ve not described much of the other sessions and presentations. The KM blog has got more content in this area. You can also read the tweets on the conference.

Now this is interesting. The video does look very impressive.

Marti Hearst’s new book is now available for reading online - "To make this book available to as many readers as possible, the author, with permission of Cambridge University Press, has placed the full text online free of charge." This is a fantastic resource. Thanks Marti. Thanks CUP. If you want a quick reference of Marti’s book - watch her giving this presentation of her book to Google. 

Alain Breillatt summarises why companies will find it hard to innovate like Apple. First, forget about it unless you are willing to invest significantly and heavily to establish a culture of innovation like Apple’s. Because it’s not just about copying Apple’s approach and procedures. The vast majority of executives who say, "I want to be just like Apple," have no idea what it really takes to achieve that level of success. What they’re saying is they want to be adored by their customers, they want to launch sexy products that cause the press to fall all over themselves, and they want to experience incredible financial growth. But they generally want to do it on the cheap.

Here is my review of the Intranet Innovation Awards 2009 report by of Step Two Designs (thank you James for the review copy). The report has 10 case studies from around the world, each showcasing an idea, an innovation that serves a specific business requirement. The areas judged cover business solutions, frontline delivery, communication and collaboration and core functionality. I recommend that you read Alex Manchester’s summary of the award winners to get a glimpse of the detail and richness the report provides. Given below are the main reasons I find myself carrying the report along when meeting clients or when discussing intranet designs. Doable solutions: the winning solutions are all doable. This sense of it being ‘within-grasp’ does wonders getting a conversation started. I can see people thinking "Yes, that’s something I’m looking for", or "Now, why didn’t we think of this before?" Structure of the report: The report is structured to encourage action. There are sections on why this entry won, how the innovation was implemented and on principles to consider if I’m going to try it out myself. I find this really useful when it comes to take the discussions to a higher plane. Ample screenshots: Yes, a picture is worth a thousand words when it comes to understanding an idea and the report has ample of these screenshots. The good thing is that many of the screenshots show actual information and not blurred-out lines. This is extremely useful to get a sense of context and how it might apply to my case. If you are an intranet sponsor, intranet manager or intranet consultant, this report will help you get discussions off to a good start. Getting a packaged report like this that includes screenshots and commentary around good solutions is hard to come by. This report fills the gap and is a valuable addition to the literature. The report is available for online purchase at US$ 189.00 from the Step Two website.

Interesting write up on how Wells Fargo goes about publishing their corporate newsletter. What amazes me in this story is the discipline that the team of 4 have to create a compelling newsletter over and over again. Now why can’t we follow the same model on our intranets? Mike Bares, editor, explains how the newsroom atmosphere works: "Sources pitch stories, and we make decisions on which ones to cover," he says. "We have story-planning sessions and spend a lot of time interviewing sources. It’s intense, as breaking news crosses our desks, but interspersed with periods of calm."

I found Jane’s list of things to consider when sorting out global content (common content) and local content (specific content) to be a really useful recap on good intranet practices. It is always an uphill task to convince departments used to working in silos that they have some really useful content that they should be putting up in the common content area. Here’s an example of Jane’s #2 Think of the global intranet as collection of spaces, with each space having a purpose from the user viewpoint. Examples of spaces: News, Workplace, Employee Services, About. These spaces will later become the components of the global navigation bar. Develop several hypotheses, each one with a combination of spaces. You should be able to make a simple statement about each space for each hypothesis: "This space is designed for (user) to (action)".

These 10 Commandments of Social Media are just brilliant. Thou Shalt Not Be a Narcissist Thou Shalt Listen to What Others Are Saying Thou Shalt Not Spam Thou Shalt Say Something of Substance Thou Shalt Not Abuse Thy Neighbour Thou Shalt Give Credit Where Credit is Due Thou Shalt Learn How to Spell (or at least use a spell checker) Thou Shalt Use Real Words Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness Thou Shalt Not Be a Friend Whore

Bill Ives: This is the first in a six part series on Booz Allen’s award winning implementation of Enterprise 2.0. "To meet these challenges, Booz Allen developed and implemented Hello, a suite of web-based enterprise tools designed to strengthen collaboration, connectivity, and communication across geographical and cultural barriers. It was created from vision to launch in under 6 months leveraging a blend of Open Source, COTS, and custom-developed products. Since August 2008, more than 80% of the firm has logged into Hello and more than 53% of the firm has contributed original content. There are more than 4,000 individual searches a day."

Nicely said by Mark Shead: We can be much more productive by focusing on doing the right things instead of focusing on doing more things.  What this means, exactly, is very dependent on your particular set of circumstances, your personality, and what you are trying to accomplish, but many people will benefit by trying to spend less time doing and more time thinking. [Via Michael Sampson]

Robert Swanwick writes about Lt Col Karuna Ramanathan of the Singapore Armed Forces and his 2-5-1 strategy of storytelling and conducting an after-action-review. 2 Who you are Summary of your experience 5 fingers Little finger - what parts of the effort did not get enough attention Ring finger - What relationships were formed, what you learned about relationship building Middle finger - what you disliked, what/who made you frustrated Pointer finger - what you would do better next time around, what you want to tell those who were "in charge" about what they could do better Thumb (up) - what went well.  What was good. 1 the most important takeaway from the effort via @DavidGurteen

The 2010 Intranet Innovation Awards are open for entries. Entries close on Friday 23.  I like this award. It highlights how teams are thinking of making their intranets useful and productive. It starts a discussion on ideas and themes. I met some of the winners at the KM World conference in San Jose last November and I could clearly see their enthusiasm and determination in making their intranets work. I walked away with more than a few ideas to try out.

After reading Switch (highly recommended) by Dan and Chip Heath I headed to their website to get more resources. I was pleasantly surprised by the range of resources they have there. From a short summary of the book to how-to guides on using the principles in different settings. The one that caught my eye was Teaching that Sticks, a resource from their previous book, Made to Stick. It is a wonderful article-length read that gives a handful of strategies that you can try immediately, such as using the unexpected to create focus and interest.

New series on Ethnography by Catapult Design: This post is the first in a weekly series called "The Ethnography of Design" about the relationship between anthropology and design and how the ethnographer’s toolkit can be applied to build more effective world-changing, problem-solving products and systems. Each post in the series will be paired with - and will explore - a video or article that highlights an innovative design solution or product that has taken into account (successfully or unsuccessfully - and why) ethnographic research methods and human-centered design thinking frameworks.

Patrick has posted an article on file naming conventions. Good. Now I don’t have to hunt for them every time!

From UX booth: "Like most things today, the world of interaction design moves quickly. Although a pen and notebook may suffice when it comes to simply jotting down ideas, planning a series of website screens can sometimes demand additional precision and cohesion. This is where today’s wireframing tools come in."

Wonderful post from Brain Traffic on using personal pronouns in your web copy. I do agree, at times, it can be difficult to sell this in some organisations, but I also agree, it may be just a matter of adopting or getting comfortable with a style. Using personal pronouns may sound like a simple, common-sense web writing best practice. Speaking directly to users with the word "you" is something most companies get on board with easily enough. But those same clients often ask us to avoid self-referential pronouns like "we," "our," and "us" in their web copy.

A nice story from the NY times on a Kenyan product called Ushahidi. This is an informant mapping tool and works like this: anybody on the ground can call a cell number and and point out a location, it could be of a rape or a terrorist hideout, and all of this information is aggregated and represented on a map. If there are many pointers to a particular location, troops can be called in to look. Brilliant stuff. "When the Haitian earthquake struck, Ushahidi went again into action. An emergency texting number was advertised via radio. Ushahidi received thousands of messages reporting trapped victims. They were translated by a diffuse army of Haitian-Americans in the United States and plotted on a ‘crisis map.’ From a situation room at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Medford, outside Boston, Ushahidi volunteers instant-messaged with the United States Coast Guard in Haiti, telling them where to search. When the Chilean earthquake struck, Ushahidi deployed again."

Big finding from Jakob Nielsen. Now clueless managers are going to sing this mantra and demand that everything be above the fold. "Web users spend 80% of their time looking at information above the page fold. Although users do scroll, they allocate only 20% of their attention below the fold. "

A good article with two really good videos explaining information architecture. "Although it’s tempting to skip ahead to the look and feel of a design, the importance of first defining an Information Architecture (IA) can’t be overstated. Often we find that an existing system has been built as a monolithic solution that jumbles the raw plumbing of the system with the business process and the user interface. Unfortunately this leads to a brittle solution that can’t evolve with new user interfaces, new underlying systems, or new business realities. In fact we often hear the words "Information Architecture" naively applied to only one aspect of an experience (like "Information Architecture for the Web") and then disregarded or ignored when an experience bridges interfaces (like when a user has to interact with a mobile application that integrates with related information in physical places)."

.prezi-player { width: 500px; } .prezi-player-links { text-align: center; }NESTLE KERFUFFLE on Prezi

The design research section of the IDSA now has a website. Also, the current issue of IDSA’s publication Innovation is jam packed with design research related articles. Cool!

My new post over at PebbleRoad is around the new categorisation of TV channels proposed by local cable TV provider Starhub. My peeve is that the new categorisation is designed to serve internal needs and not the needs of the viewers. We’re required to just memorise the new numbers even though the assignment is ambiguous and confusing. To complete the article, however, I’ve also proposed a faceted classification of the channels and even given a mock of an iphone like interface to replace the last-century-looking remote. Enjoy!