Since we started using the Confluence enterprise wiki platform at my current job, I’ve come to a better appreciation for the use of fields in wikis, particularly as I’ve worked more with wiki templates.  With hundreds of projects deployed on multiple tiers, it’s very important to have the information about the servers, infrastructure tools, and applications organized in a standard way, so we can find and share information more easily (especially when getting a 3 am page and troubleshooting a system).   Templates and field structures can certainly help with that.  For example, one could have a drop-down list of approved operating system versions to pick from on a server information page template.

I still think fields should be used judiciously (if at all) when trying to encourage wiki use.  When just trying to add some data, it can be very frustating to encounter a field mechanism that seems poorly designed, such as incomplete dropdowns or incorrect-seeming unalterable items (though sometimes these may be due to fundamental disagreements about the intended use of pages/information).   Some people will not have the time or patience to try to contact wiki admininistrators or other users to work out a fix to the field or a common understanding of the page; they may just give up and not make the contribution they were planning. I was happy to notice recently that LibraryThing had fixed the dropdown that had so annoyed me before.  There was a long stretch of time before that where I just wasn’t as enthusiastic about them.

Where there are wikis with multiple users and audiences, sometimes compromises will have to be made, or one path or another chosen in structuring input mechanisms.  Sometimes this just doesn’t happen fast enough to keep up with changes going on in the world.  Where possible, I recommend having some kind of an open notes section in addition to fields, so that there’s at least a hope of keeping the contributions flowing and finding the (up-to-date) info one needs.  Also, anyone with ownership of the page (or at least some feeling of responsibility towards its contents) should probably set up a notification so they’ll know if the contents change, and perhaps be able to address problems/disagreements in good time.

• “The Wachovia presentation this morning appears to have opened some people’s eyes on how things could happen.”  Having been familiar with Wachovia since they were a small NC bank, I wondered what they were up to.
  • Steve Newberger wrote more about it:  [Fields'] analogy: Web 2.0 is this generation’s equivalent of his generation’s company picnic and bowling leagues. Additional critical rationale: mitigate the impact of the maturing, retiring workforce, i.e., the attrition of knowledge assets.  They’re using SharePoint (WSS/MOSS), with extensions for instant messaging (I miss using IM for work) and video blogging (we talked about getting that going at my previous employer — 2-minute service call how-to videos, viewable over mobile devices, anyone? — but didn’t get the resources to get it rolling in time).
  • More important than the technology is Wachovia’s attitude.  From a preview of the talk,  Wachovia’s collaborative environment is designed to attract younger Generation Y employees who expect access to Web 2.0 tools at work. [...] “They’re coming to us with high enthusiasm but encountering arcane tools and bureaucracies,” he said, adding that many young workers’ engagement levels “fall off the table” after about a year on the job. “They are leaving Fortune 100 companies,” he said.  As I said at my previous employer and during my Knowledge Gardening presentation at Penguicon 2007, the ability to use modern, fun, low-entry-barrier collaborative and knowledge sharing tools is a recruiting advantage.
• The CIA presenters recommended starting small, such as with an acronym wiki page (I’ve had success with that approach!), and pointed to an OSS (CIA precursor)  manual from 1944 about how to sabotage organizations and production efforts: Insist on doing everything through “channels”, refer all matters to committees, haggle over precise wordings of communications,  advocate “caution”, and question whether a decision lies within the jurisdiction of the group.  The conflict such behavior would have with the architecture of participation is obvious (Note:  I do think precise wording and formal processes can be useful and important, but relative risks should be considered, and getting bogged down is a risk, too).
• “People get ticked off at twittering and live-blogging during an Enterprise 2.0 conference, just like they do at other events.”   They get ticked off?  I hope no one’s gotten mad at me for tapping on my laptop at presentations.  I guess I can see the negative potential (folks so busy twittering, blogging, taking pictures, etc. that they’re not engaging with the rest of the conferees), but I’d always had more of an attitude of “their loss” when it seems that they’re not fully there.  I suppose if a substantial proportion were doing so, that might take away a bit from the energy of the event (?).

As with ”knowledge gardening”, a web search reveals that others have used the phrase “sustainable development” (in the context I mean in this entry) before me.   In fact, Kevin Tate wrote what looks like a pretty good book about about it; here’s an excerpt.

• Cool Visualizations:  my Spanish-speaking brother may be especially interested in this tag display/analysis
• Cool analogy:  energy required for state changes between data/information/knowledge, like ice/water/steam

And old content from me:  the audio from my Knowledge Gardening presentation at Penguicon 2007 is online at the Internet Archive (mp3 and Ogg Vorbis):  Sarah Elkins on Knowledge Gardening

Thanks to whoever put it up there, and the 6 folks who found it and downloaded it already!

One can always try to influence the culture (storytelling, glory boards, begging). One can give individual incentives (rewards for best contributors, points systems). One can send out reminders … or put reminders right into the interface itself, so the people who are already using the system (and may already be contributing to it at least on some level) will see them every time they use it. One can try to get people to send each other reminders. One can even try to make a game of it. Each of these approaches may meet with some success, but also has drawbacks.

Culture influence is hard without a critical mass of enthusiasts. Incentives may be difficult to distribute appropriately if tracking information/access is poorly set up, and incentives may get people into a mindset where one has to *keep* giving incentives to keep the contributions coming. Emailed reminders are all too easy to ignore (or filter straight to trash). Reminders inserted into the system’s interface may take up valuable real estate onscreen, which can make users unhappy (see previous comments exchange with Tim Spalding following my entry about LibraryThing’s fielded wiki “Common Knowledge” insertion onto each main page for books). LiveJournal’s “nudge” feature has annoyed users who don’t want to be guilted into blogging (it might be more appropriate for task-oriented communities). Games such as CMU’s The Name Game (picked up by Google for their Image Labeler game) may have a high start-up cost.

I really like LinkedIn’s graphic reminder approach. LinkedIn is a professional networking site; profiles have more value (to the business, not just to its users) when they have more than just a person’s name and connections. At the top of my profile on LinkedIn, my view shows a little “Profile Completeness” graphic, with a green bar showing my progress, and a suggestion of what to add next. It’s given me satisfaction to see that green bar grow toward completion (I’m at 95%).

I think Wikipedia and other online information sources could profit by a similar approach — Wikipedia, for instance, could have a little globe on each page showing fill-in for completeness, perhaps with different colors indicating different needs (more references? more category links?). As with my profile or any kind of knowledge garden, “complete” need not indicate “set in stone”; it can just be an indicator of whether the sorts of info one might expect to find on a given page is there yet.

Not that most of them are quick to identify them as knowledge management issues, but many of the recent organization-community conflicts I’m aware of have a lot to do with knowledge management, as affected by ownership.

• EVE online (game): How is sensitive information secured/accessed? How is information about controversies managed? Who has the ultimate say on what topics are allowed on the community boards?
• Wikipedia: What information is appropriate for Wikipedia? Is it a good venue for knowledge development (semantics: is organizing references knowledge development, or only when new analyses are allowed is that knowledge work (as opposed to information management))? What happens when the neutrality of editors/judges is called into question? Are links to sites critical of Wikipedia going to be allowed?
• LibraryThing: What information should be on a work page or an author page? What if there’s disagreement about the legitimacy/accuracy of including/excluding certain types of information (see previous LibraryThing entry)? Does “Common Knowledge” imply truth, or truthiness? Which should it imply? What if one workflow is better for adding books from the user point of view, but another is better at generating accurate book data?
• One Laptop Per Child: Is “go explore” a reasonable response to a new Give One Get One XO laptop owner’s question about the laptop? What if the US user base gets way ahead of OLPC in generating information about it, but, impatient with the official wiki, puts most of that information over on discussion forums on OLPC News (not associated with OLPC; in fact, sometimes highly critical, though often enthusiastic about the technology and mission) instead?
• For any of these, who owns the information users contribute, and how portable is it?

An obvious answer from the organization’s point of view is “we sponsor the site/project; someone has to decide, and we’re the ones who’ll make the final decision.” A vulnerability of this approach is when they depend on a large user community for contributions for their reason for being (Wikipedia) or for profit (LibraryThing). If their community grows disenchanted, they’re in trouble (especially if/when the Next Big Thing comes along). If the organization depends more directly on ads for survival (e.g., LiveJournal) than its users, it’s not such an immediate issue.

I think most flourishing communities have growing pains from time to time. Some resolve the conflict and move on, some paper it over and move on, and some splinter or go out with a whimper. I’m not sure what the sociology is of which direction a community is likely to go depending on whether it’s a mission-oriented community (e.g., an open source project) or a community of proximity (geographic, or common interests without a strong mission, e.g., people who like to chat about movies). I’d be interested in any studies about how the financial angle (e.g., non- versus for-profits) plays in, too.

Penguicon overall attendance: over 800
My presentation’s length: 1 hour
Q&A Length: 30 minutes (after my hour-long talk)
# of other events scheduled at the same time: 13?, including the wedding of one of the founders of Penguicon
# of attendees at start of talk: about 20, including professional librarians, knowledge managers, and various open source project participants.
# of people who left before Q&A: Only 1!
# of people who asked questions: about 10, including people who addressed each others’ questions in their questions (i.e., not just a Q&A but a group discussion, which I was happy to foster)

Feedback: One of the folks I gave a dry run to before the con said it was the shortest hour presentation he’d ever heard (yay!). Matt Arnold (head of programming for Penguicon 5.0) said “her presentation and ensuing discussion were stimulating.” Constructive criticism was that there were a couple of times where I was so deep into the material that I didn’t make it clear enough to the audience what the connection was between one of my gardening metaphors and knowledge work. I hope the Q&A helped address that, but that’s something I’d want to rework if I give the talk again anywhere.

I had said I was going to take the slides (which are not standalone; I didn’t want a wall of words behind me distracting the audience from what I was actually saying) and construct blog entries or a wiki section from them. However, one person who’s been published in Linux Journal suggested I turn it into an article for them (perhaps with more of a how-to focus, or more like reviews of different tools). I’m not sure if “we purchase first rights” would preclude conference presentations, blog entries, or what.

Penguicon prep: I was very glad that the time I spent pulling slides together, doing dry runs (thank you co-workers!), and adding last-minute Penguicon images paid off with a well-received presentation. I had also spent time emailing with my co-panelists (who was covering what), copying don’t-miss events into my Palm Pilot (with over 10 events going on simultaneously much of the time, it would have been easy to overlook items of interest), and acquiring and reading Nifty Guest John Scalzi’s The Android’s Dream (I’d already read stuff by most of the Guests of Honor). Fun read, with more to it than reviews had led me to expect.

Travel and transit: People reacted with concern when I mentioned flying with Northwest, but it worked out fine for me. I liked the Detroit Metro airport (DTW), especially its shiny red monorails. Driving to/around the con was fine except for construction slowdowns and rush hour Friday night.

Convention organization: Check-in was quick and painless. Con Ops was right on the main hall and appeared available and in control every time I passed by. In most cases programming had guessed how to match room size and audience size pretty well, though I was sad that I got to the RepRap talk (open source personal manufacturing device) too late to be able to really see in — that one was packed and flowing out the door. The program book was above average. It came with a map of the main floor, pointed to the Consuite (which provided sandwich materials and fresh veggies, not just chips) and reminded readers that eating real food and getting sleep would help maintain stable moods (another blogger noted what a drama-free con this was), and had a cool essay in the back on Knowledge Ecology by Programming Chair (Wrangler?) Matt Arnold that tied in neatly with my presentation.

Pictures and more entries forthcoming.

“Metadata” seems like a good word to describe my use of “game” in that context. I don’t like the thought of turning off audience members with careless buzzword usage, but I’m not sure how else to capture what I’m getting at. “Extended context data” doesn’t flow so well for me. Also, a number of the criticisms of the term don’t seem to recognize how metadata can be cheap and fun (tagging/feedback), or how emergent metadata (e.g., from the general public using unstructured tagging) can lead to interesting informatics possibilities.

I’m going to stick with metadata … for now.

I’m not in their league, but I’ll also be giving a talk:

Knowledge Gardening, Saturday, 4-5:30 pm
How innovators can use open source social software to nurture knowledge and collaboration within an organization. Wikis, blogs, tagging and RSS feeds will be covered, along with reasons why you might choose to set up behind your organization’s firewall (at least initially). No special tech knowledge is needed to attend.

It looks like I’ll also co-panel Blogging Your Life Without Losing Your Job, Or Your Mind with Cathy Raymond (finalizing schedule). And, as I’ve done at a number of science fiction cons in the past, I’ll run (demo) some games. I’ve presented at a company conference (poster session), and I’ve sung solo in front of a crowd, but I’ve never done a presentation or panel like this before. I’m a little nervous, but also pretty jazzed.

However, it turns out that Jon Udell talked about “collaborative knowledge gardening” over two years ago. Which is great; I can point folks to his excellent column as an intro to the concept, and to him as another person excited about the possibilities of social software for collaboration and knowledge work.

Possibly further back (2000?), there’s the article Knowledge Gardening Through Music. I very much like the “Cognitive functions of gardening” section.

See also Knowledge Ecology.

Where I would like to be this afternoon: “Putting the Fun in Functional: Applying Game Mechanics to Social Software” at the O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference. I may write an entry later about what we can draw on from games to engage people in learning.