The first was on Individual productivity, the second on Team productivity, and the third on Community of interest (COI) productivity.

These 3 blog entries are focused on my primary customer set – the US government.

Community of Interest (COI) Productivity starts with a definition of community of interest.

Informal, self-organized, network of peers with diverse skills and experience in an area of practice or profession. Such groups are held together by the members’ desire to help others (by sharing information) and the need to advance their own knowledge (by learning from others). Also called community of practice.
*Source = Business Dictionary.com

In this article, there is much in common with the suggestions brought forth in the Team Productivity post, but that once you extend beyond your own business, agency, or building, things get a little more challenging. The likelihood of having the same software, resources, and business processes decreases, and the challenge of sharing information and collaborating increases. Trust is harder to establish with groups and people you don’t see in the hallways, and our end goals and customers are not always the same. These incompatibilities can cause problems as we have all encountered at some time or another with different software, different versions, and similar issues. It is likely that your network is also globally connected, in separate time zones, and some of tools take on new purposes when you start to work more asynchronously.

Fundamentally, you want to keep this global network of peers on the same page as you with regard to your discovery of new relevant information on your subject, and be able to share and communicate your updates to your team body of knowledge (TBOK). Now depending on the extent of your enterprise, you may have social media tools available to facilitate a COI body of knowledge (CBOK), or you may have to find a way to share your TBOK’s, BOK’s, and source reference repositories between all the locations involved. You will want all the members in the COI to be able to make changes, and receive notifications of updates to your TBOK’s and individual BOK’s or the CBOK as they happen. In the case of an enterprise wiki, this is very easy to do. Having a shared area for source documents and references is also going to be important, and being able to keep those links alive as you begin to merge those documents and references can be challenging but are likely capable. Some editing of links may become necessary if separate organizations have links to separate but duplicate documents. You will need to agree upon which instance of the document you would like to keep, and then “find and replace” the links to the removed documents from your CBOK or TBOK. In this way you will keep your document repository from becoming fat with duplicates and slow the indexing and search capabilities. One method of finding pages that link to a specific file in a web based file structure is to use Google hack “link:” to find pages that have a specific URL within a page that has been indexed. In this way you can find the pages that have the link you want to replace with the new one.

I would recommend that if you site a source in any of your BOK’s, that you create a page for that source in your BOK that points to the source document, and has a summary of reference information in a standard layout that can be cut and paste into any document that will use it as well as an area for discussion on the content of that source as well. I would recommend a separate application, or a fixed format box that facilitates meeting a standard that most people in your enterprise will use to site sources. I would also recommend creating a separate “namespace” for these source and reference pages, that point to either a sharepoint server or other document management system that all the members of the COI can access and link too. We do this because we don’t want to use the CBOK as the storage location for the raw source materials, we want a robust document management system for that with other features optimized for that kind of work. We want to make our “sources” searchable and linkable from the “main namespace” of your BOK. By making a separate namespace for sources, we can search that namespace more effectively and possibly create extensions to work with the standardized information that is to be stored and retrieved from there.

On these source pages, we would want a box that is the accepted standard for referencing that source, and a link to the actual source in the the source document repository if it exists. We would want to be able to comment and save discussion on the information in that source document and use categories on that page to essentially tag that source so that others can find it or find other sources that may be of interest to them. This could also make it easier to find out if the document already exists in the source repository.

Now if systems are not similar enough, you can still use your wiki based CBOK to link to the TBOK’s and BOK’s of members of your community that have adopted wikis for their work. Linking to the shared reference and source material repository that is available to the enterprise as well should be pretty easy. For members not within the enterprise, you still have the OPML and vetting process to view content they are creating in ways that send signals – blogs, other wiki types, forums, emails, chatroom search, alerts, etc…

Name your COI, so that name can be used as a COItag in tagging the work that your community does, the articles you write, the sources you tag, the pages you monitor, the categories you select, and for making your social bookmarking of items you want the community to see a snap.

So what really is important about a COI? I would argue that declaring yourself one is a start. Assigning a unique tag to be associate with your COI would be key for use in your COI, and choosing your CBOK to be wiki based and available to the largest number of members possible would be a good start. Once you have that, you can create a page in your CBOK that discusses your community, your goals, your responsibilities in terms of subject expertise, and has links to shared resources and other pages in the CBOK. I would suggest that at least one of those pages be a membership page where people can post their name as a member and their contact information. Additionally, have a section on that page where people can opt into a distribution list to receive emails by adding their email addresses into a semicolon separated distribution list. With the understanding that they can come back and take it off if they desire to or move on to a different job. Now your known network is in one location, and this list of email addresses can be copied and paste into emails if desired. Additionally you would be smart to put a link to the COI membership page any time you post a product, blog, wiki etc… so that people that read your product can opt in to your network, or opt out if they find future content does not meet their needs. Think of it as a self advertising COI that simply invites collaborators that use any of the work in that space to come and declare themselves as a part of the group and receive updates to materials. I would also recommend that you have a separate page for customers, and customer requirements. On this page you could post new products that have been completed (for those not wanting to watch the sausage being made or take part in making it). All linked to the main COI page in the CBOK.

As for sharing newly found knowledge across disparate systems, one way to do this would be to use social bookmarking and your community of interest tag that I mentioned earlier. That way if people have a search out for that tag, when it gets indexed, it will end up in their data discovery stream and be identified as part of their COI efforts. This is of course dependent on a robust RSS tool at their disposal to make keeping up with it all easier. (For this post and this series of posts, I used a tag “socialmediacoi” and if you do a search for that tag on Delicious, you will find my three posts. I will use this tag for my community of interest on social media and productivity. I also set up a subscription to it, and will receive alerts anytime that tag is used somewhere else).

Production across these elements would again be aided if done in a wiki because of the asynchronous issues, the features native to the wiki, the notifications and the fact that the main tool or software you need to do the work is simply a browser. There is not much in the way of incompatibilities since the text is converted by the browser, and most of the images used in the articles are uploaded and in standard formats that most browsers can understand.

As for chat tools across several different organizations, I would recommend one that reads several different protocols. Take for example Pidgin, Trillian, Digsby, and others which support many different protocols and extensions. Another desirable feature would be to have a logging capability, since you may want to refer to conversations that you had, and you can have indexers index those logs as well so that if you want to search your chat logs for discussions you had with certain people, you can recall them. Most chat tools have a presence indicator and allow for group chat, room chat, and private chat. Having persistent rooms and sitting in them to monitor chat in there is increasingly effective as more people use it for work and keep the idle personal chat in personal windows. Chat rooms are a good place to post invites to work that is started, and also helps in discovery if other users set up search words in their disciplines that you tag your comment with. You can post links to completed products there as well along with tags and a description.

I think the key tools for COI’s to work well would be social bookmarking, chat, email, wiki based body of knowledge, wiki based production and feedback, and a document repository that keeps one link for each document, and that all of these tools work through a browser.

Ultimately, COI success has more to do with people and business practices that are supported by common standards and relatively simple tools that are available by way of the browser. I wish you success in reaching a balance with the different levels of adoption that you will see from your peers, and I will continue to share what I think as my own experience grows.

-GLS.

——
Now, as with my previous posts, and in the spirit of collaboration, I invite you to leave a constructive comment on how I can improve this post and any points you would care to share or make. I will try to incorporate your feedback and make this post and others more valuable, and thank you in advance.

One last question for you. How did you find this post? Did you get an email invite from me? Some kind of search or alert? Invitation from a chat room on the subject? Forum or workspace invitation? RSS signal? – Thanks.

The first was on Individual productivity, the second on Team productivity, and the third on Community of interest (COI) productivity.

These 3 blog entries are focused on my primary customer set – the US government.

For this second blog on team productivity I am assuming that you and your team have read and more or less work in a manor consistent with most of what was published in the first post on individual productivity. By having done so for some period of time now, you have probably realized that many of your initial fears of the unwashed masses putting bogus information in your body of knowledge (BOK), and editing your wiki pages just did not happen, and if anything did, you quickly and easily found out who it was, and how easy it was to remove it.

I assume that you have an interest in using social media tools to potentially increase more than your own personal efficiency, and that you are now looking to see what can be done with these tools to work more closely with others on your team. I assume you trust your peers and their approach to work and want to share many of the resources that each of you know you keep independently.

Some examples of information you each are likely to have would be phone numbers or address books of clients or customers, calendars, tasks, your own stash of personal “source materials”, independent bodies of knowledge, and that you spend a fair amount of time sending emails or updates to your colleagues on new information you find in your discovery pipeline. OPML files of RSS feeds to blogs you watch, wiki pages you watch, journals you read, online content you monitor, google alerts on subjects, etc…

You may have on more than one occasion decided that you should share those resources, or wanted to see what your peers were looking at, what they are using in their discovery pipeline, what sources they use, and how they keep track of all the information they have and are able to find it when needed. You may also have wanted to get information from them that you know they have, and you know they would share openly, but when they are on leave or out sick, you are stuck with waiting for them to come back in order to get the answer. With these kinds of concerns, it looks to me like an opportunity for social media tools if I ever heard of one.

So lets look at the individual productivity process model from the first post;
- You have a discovery pipeline that ingests new material for you to consider with regard to your subject – google alerts, emails from peers, blogs, journals, wikis, etc… Discovery from your known and unknown network along with your active searches and alerts.
- You have a body of knowledge that you keep facts in about your subject area or areas, and as you add/update that body of knowledge. You are sourcing the information you put in there, and copying that source material or reference to it into your source documents repository so that you can share that and cite it when necessary.
- You have a repository for source materials that you can link to, index, search, share, tag, edit, etc…
- You have a well formed network of people that you communicate with on the subjects that you cover, and continually groom that list of people, search for and reach out to other potential collaborators. You have distribution lists, workspaces, forums, blogs, wikipages, etc that you know they monitor and could receive your signal to collaborate.
- You acknowledge that there is a network of unknown potential collaborators that may work either directly or indirectly with the subjects that you work, and want to continually make what you are doing discoverable by them and inviting to them to become a part of your network by linking to your work in tag|connect or delicious, posting to wikipages, posting to blogs etc…

You aggregate potential updates, go through them, modify your BOK with that information and since those modifications require sources, you include those sources in your source repository in either a whole document or a reference source format. You comment on your source materials in your BOK, and document facts on your subject there as well. The wiki is essentially the glue that binds your facts, comments, knowledge and thoughts on your subject with your source repository.

You can link out to your phone list (export / import), calendar (export / import), tasking system, and ongoing work (files in google docs, knowledge tree, or other document management system).

Many places even use a wiki for production of their products. It is an ideal tool for this part of the process as well since you simply invite collaboration on the product to take place in one location as opposed to sending various versions around in email and trying to make sense of them all when they come back from people. Watching articles and change history are a snap and anyone can contribute in a meaningful and thoughtful way.

- You know how to ensure that work you are starting is not already being done, and if it is, you can get involved, or if not started, you can begin an article with scaffolding then inform your known network, unknown network, and distro lists as well as community of interests (COI’s) and wiki with a link and invitation to collaborate.

- Once your tailored and specific product is finished and published, you know how to socialize and advertise that product and to make sure that it is discoverable by your unknown customers and unknown collaborators as well as meet publishing guidance and directives.

Now this is where your learning the social tools to begin with really starts to pay off.

In a social media enabled team environment, this process could look something like this.

Let’s take a team of 3 people that work on a particular subject. You will need to work together to merge the BOK’s and source material repositories that each of you already have. Pick the best articles from each topic, and then take the time to get the articles up to date (merged), because these will be your team BOK, (TBOK). If you chose a wiki for BOK’s then it would be likely that you all are using the same type of wiki, and merging content should be fairly straight forward, otherwise, it just means more work up front. The source materials in each of these articles on the subject need to be merged in a similar way, and the links from the articles need to still get you to the end document or reference. The goal here is to have one BOK and one source material repository.
From your body of knowledge, you can link to uploaded individual and / or merged RSS aggregator OPML files (feedreader), your calendars (Zimbra), and your contacts and distribution lists (Zimbra or Outlook). The RSS OPML files may have all your RSS feeds from your blogs, forums, wiki page changes, online journals, alerts, and other signals that you asked for when some kind of threshold was broken. Easy to share, and easy to onboard new people to your group with this. Since this is just a file, you can just save it, export it and import it into your document management system, and if you want to, set up an rss feed to notify you when a new OPML file is uploaded.
Now that you have shared and / or merged your knowledge, source materials, and resources, make them all available from your BOK, and we can tackle the topic of new items coming in from our discovery and COI chain.

Since we know that the bulk of our discovery came from similar sources, and we merged those sources into one OPML file, we should have one main OPML file that delivers most of the content that needs to be viewed for consideration in the BOK and source material repository. We can make that list available, and this is a key time savings point to make in making this worth while. With one list, we can break that list up into manageable pieces, and get through it faster and with less individual effort. Remember, we each used to have our own OPML files, and we likely each read all the same messages on the same subject. Now we are combining those lists, and sharing the responsibility of reading the information and putting sourced facts into the BOK, and source repository. If an item from the OPML stream is of little or no value, toss it, but before you toss it, consider if it should be removed as a source from the OPML file.

So we have our stream of content coming into the BOK and source repository by way of a shared list that gets broken up for team members to work on screening into the BOK and source reference repositories. Now the decision to create a specific product to meed a customer requirement compels us to collaborate on that product with the rest of the team. We already know how to search for someone else working on a subject or product in our system, so we will move on to production assuming you have found no one else already working on it. Since you are using the same sources and BOK, you can divide up the task into separate pieces and tackle each section individually. This will allow for that process to take less time and effort also. In a production environment like the formerly suggested wiki for production, you may have the junior members of the team do a lot of the content creation with the seniors members of the team “watching” and guiding as the tailored product is being created. Using a wiki also gives management the ability to track a project or product, and the other invited and informed collaborators the opportunity to get involved with making the while the sausage is being made if they choose too.

Once the product is completed, we have discussed the merged distribution list that we will want to send an email too (known network) to bring awareness to the product, post a blog summarizing the product and linking to it, tag it in a social bookmarking tool for discovery by our unknown network, link to it from workspaces, forums, related wiki pages, and mention it with a summary in chat rooms as well. Then we need to put the product in a place where it can be indexed and become discoverable by the rest of the enterprise as well. Now we can say we have made the product discoverable, and delivered.

We will likely receive feedback on the product and need to incorporate that feedback and respond to posts and other types of feedback on the product as well as ensure that we met the customers requirements. So be sure to set up RSS feeds for comments and any other signals you can receive and then share meaningful, thoughtful feedback with people that leave comments to encourage them to continue to do so in the future.

So what we hope to see in the way of improvements would be reduced time and effort for getting through the stream of incoming data, some elasticity in people coming and going on leave that does not break a part of the work environment because everyone is using the same environment, more eyes on the product content and TBOK to catch mistakes and compel discussion on items that warrant it. We hope to see improvements in the time it takes to create tailored products and put that product through our internal production process. We hope to make that completed tailored product available to interested parties we are aware of, discoverable by those we are not aware of and incorporate feedback from them all.

Social media tools used in this process-
-Wiki – for team body of knowledge and tying all these tools together
-RSS aggregator – for signals of new information from various sources
-Document management system – for source reference materials
-E-mail – for distribution to known networks and personal invites to potential collaborators
-Address book (contacts, phone numbers, email addresses, and distribution lists)
-Calendars – for situational awareness of deadlines and activities
-Google alerts (or message traffic tool with similar capabilities) – for discovery
-Social Bookmarking tool – for tagging and discovery

Now, as with my previous posts, and in the spirit of collaboration, I invite you to leave a constructive comment on how I can improve this post and any points you would care to share or make. I will try to incorporate your feedback and make this post and others more valuable, and thank you in advance.

One last question for you. How did you find this post? Did you get an email invite from me? Some kind of search or alert? Invitation from a chat room on the subject? Forum or workspace invitation? RSS signal? – Thanks.

  This free, downloadable software indexes up to one hundred thousand files onto a cache on the hard drive upon download, then continues on-the-fly, as web pages, chats, PDF files, etc. are opened or moved, or while the computer is idle.

  Users of this software even have the option to encrypt the created index, which only causes the search process to take a bit longer.

  This makes for fast and easy searching on the part of the user, opening the deskbar with a double tap of the CTRL key, opening Google.com and clicking Desktop, or using the Google search bar located on the sidebar.

  Desktop’s search creates a page with the most relevant results; each one showing a single sentence describing the result, along with the file’s name. If the user has forgotten the file name, or has even accidentally deleted a file, Desktop can find it with the right keyword.

  In addition, the user is able to search password protected files and secure web pages, while passing over any files or drives that may be excluded from searches in the options menu.

  Google Desktop also comes with a search bar that is uploaded into MS Outlook, not only allowing the user to search for contacts, but also for any emails containing the keyword used.      

  Desktop has a multitude of gadgets and plug-ins that can be added to the sidebar or undocked and placed on the desktop.

  One example of such a gadget is the Gmail panel for users who want instant access to their Gmail account with a glance at the sidebar. There is also a real time news feed called Google News, along with a gadget showing the local weather.

  The deskbar search and sidebar gadgets make for easy use when searching or just checking the weather; all of it done with simple keyboard shortcuts and effortless point-and-click

  Google Earth 5.0 is a downloadable program which allows the user to view not only our home planet, but under the oceans, the sky, as well as the planet Mars. This program combines up-to-date satellite imagery, maps, and Google search to make viewing places on our planet easy and useful.

  Google Earth allows for many uses such as traffic monitoring, viewing 3D images of buildings, monuments, etc., and terrain building on websites with an extra pug-in.

  Users can also create tours with audio and voice-overs on Google Earth which can be shared with other users or by people viewing a website.

  Users might also wish to download Google Sketchup which allows 3D buildings to be created specifically for Google Earth. Users can create whatever sort of building or landscaping they would like and simply upload it onto Google Earth and see what it would actually look like on the ground.

  Doing so makes tours more interesting as the person taking the tour would be able to see a markup of a building, built to scale, or a fantasy building, right on Google Earth.

  Not only can users take tours made by other Google Earth aficionados, they can load extra content and plug-in layers to view weather patters, population densities, and many other interesting and useful data sets which can be viewed right over Google Earth’s normal images.

  Users can also access historical imagery to layer over Google Earth images, such as Ancient Rome 3D, and Rumsey Historical Maps.

  Another way to enjoy Google Earth is by double clicking on a saved site in the Places section, such as the Grand Canyon, the Eiffel Tower in France, or the Sydney Olympic Site in Australia. Doing this will fly you automatically to this area.

  One might also turn on a layer for volcanoes, earthquakes, and the hurricane season, as well as viewing a census of marine life, shipwrecks, sea surface temperatures, or even which fish to eat.

  Google Earth is an easy to use, fun program which can be simply downloaded onto your computer. Using Google Earth allows you to view the planet and to see things which you may not ever get to see otherwise. This program allows for great interaction and learning opportunities that may even be passed on to other users.

  These clouds are organized as a weighted list, usually of links to other pages in a site, showing importance, use, frequency, etc. of each page or topic.

  Usually organized by font size, type, or color, these lists are weighted in a number of different ways.

  One such way is to show the more important topics or pages in a larger font, or to show pages visited more frequently in a stand out color or larger size.

  If you have not seen one in use on the web yet, just imagine a paper map and visualize how capitals are marked in a bold font and how city size is shown by the size of both the font and the dot which mark the city location.

  These are two types of classifications which users or developers choose to identify, label, show ownership, and indicate identity for websites, photos, or anything else found on the internet.

  Taxonomy is the type of labeling used by the developers of a website or search engine so that only specific, pre-set terms may be used to identify what the website is about and how it should be classified.

  Most social and user-friendly sites use a different type of tagging, one which is not pre-made.

  This is called folksonomy, meaning the users themselves can write their own tags, making it the easiest type of tagging since one does not have to think too hard about how that website, photo, etc. will fit into an already complete list of descriptors.

  This type of tagging is found on social sites such as Flickr, WordPress, and Delicious. In these cases the user of an account chooses how to label photos (Flickr), blogs (WordPress), and bookmarks websites (Delicious).

  Using this method for social websites works because each user can choose a label they can readily remember, instead of having to pick from a list of prefab words that might not make as much sense to them.

  Either method allows the users of websites to choose a label and classify or categorize an item so that either they or another user can find the same item easily with certain keywords.

  This allows the user to instruct the program which words to find in these files so that one can see what relationship the files might have to each other or so the user can dig down and find a file that they need, etc.

  Autofocus automatically color codes these files into type: yellow = documents, green = websites, and for home computer use, blue = emails. Each of these colors is shown as a facet, a dot within the web cluster map.

  Not only does this color coding allow for ease when searching for a file, but it shows the user just how many of each type of file exist on the topic they are searching for.

  This color coding also applies to the way the user views the files. A web-like map is created by Autofocus which shows the relationship of each file to the other files with color.

  When the keyword is related to another group of files of another keyword, they are attached to each other via a color that is a combination of the color of each keyword.

  For example, one group of files may be purple, and another group aqua. When they share the same file, the color of that shared group would be a mix between the purple and aqua.

  Inside these color-coded groups are the color-coded facets which can be hovered over to give the file name, then double clicked to open the file.

  This function makes finding files easier and quicker for the user, as well as allowing them to see relationships among those files.

  This type of program is ideal for those working with large numbers of documents that may pertain to more than one topic, especially since it shows that each file is related to another one in reference to any number of significant terms.

Each day I wake with a desire to educate and teach naysayers about the potential of the social media tools available to the IC. Still I need a voice and a venue in which to express, share, and hopefully collaborate with believers, and engage and create dialogue with the non-believers. The Feed is that voice.

Yes, I am a social software enthusiast. Yes, I am one of those lanyard wearers. Yes, I promote tools and teach on a regular basis. But have you ever stopped to ask why… why people like myself exist?

All the extra hours, all the rejection of our ideas, yet we don’t give up or give in… it is because we all believe with a passion that our efforts will result in a better way of communicating, better products, and the ability to close the gaps.

We will never change minds that do not desire to be changed, but we will continue to strive to educate potential users and provide the support they need should they elect to embrace the change. So I challenge you to challenge us with your questions and operational needs, and we’ll show you tools to make work and communication easier.

The primary contributing groups to this newsletter are the Information Technology (IT), Chief Information Office (CIO), Knowledge Management (KM), Knowledge Transfer Program (KTP), Innovation Office (IO), Social Media, and Training divisions.

If there are any articles or topics that you would like to have explained in future releases, please feel free to send us the request, and we will take it into consideration.

If you find this publication useful, please spread the word, and keep reading. If you would like to write an article on a topic, please send us a note about what you would like to write about, and we will help you write it to include in our guest authoring column. If you have any other suggestions please send them too us and we will discuss including them in our future publications.

Enjoy the articles and remember – this is for you!