Mathemagenic

Sebastian Fiedler writes about Learning Webs and comments on technologies that would support them:

• RSS: I want more control by Dale Pike, Will is thinking on using RSS effectively, Syndicated Publishing by David Wiley
• Outlining: Finding Your Own Truths: Ideas for Weblog Processing by Spike Hall

Given recent announcement of Easy News Topics for RSS2.0 I feel that something very tasty is cooking... Topic-based RSS chuncking and repackaging - yammy...

Seb's Open Research: Results of Seb's "weblogs and knowledge sharing" survey

Long-time readers of this blog will recall that I have been conducting a survey of weblog use for knowledge sharing. 176 people have heeded my call and answered the survey that was graciously hosted by Blogstreet. As promised, here's the data and the first pie charts to come out of the oven: Seb's "weblogs and knowledge sharing" survey results.

Unfortunately I don't have time to provide an analysis right now, but the result I personally find the most interesting is in the answers to question #16 and #17 - they suggest that weblogs provide a unique opportunity to create meaningful links between people in different fields. This correlates with my personal experience as well. I believe that deep insights often come out of such occasions for "creative friction".

Rocket Roadmap Project (large EC funded project): full title doesn't say it well, description too, but I see focus on KM/e-learning connections :)

[Objectives] Rocket will prepare a strategic roadmap for future developments in organisational learning relevant to the education of engineers and knowledge workers.

[...]How to link knowledge management (KM) at the level of an organisation, with KM and E-Learning at the level of people working within an organisation or moving between organisations, so that knowledge that is new to someone can be captured and shared more readily and so that people can cope better with changes in their working life and their environment (including new colleagues, ever-changing tasks and processes, certification requirements, etc.)

I guess this site it something to mine if you don't know where to start looking for general overviews of KM/e-learning issues (state-of-the-arts, user requirements - see deliverables).

I found a good source for someone who wants to study "not bloggers any more" - the official cemetery for weblogs, journals and online diaries.

Somehow this paper disturbs me at work, so I better write it down.

My motivation for this study:

• I don't want to be "blogs will save the world" person trying to convert people who don't need a weblog into bloggers. I would like to help people finding if there is something for them in blogging. This is exactly what I call "blogging adoption" - making well-informed decision to use weblog or not.
• I have some ideas about blogging adoption process that emerge from my experience of answering many questions of "would be bloggers" and helping them to become bloggers. This study is a way to get a bit more clarity on it.

At this moment I assume that there are two important break points in the blogging adoption process:

First one is the moment of moving between thinking about starting a weblog and starting it. My experience is that many effects of blogging could be hardly explained before you tried it, so trying out is the best way to find "what's in it for me". At this moment there are many roadblocks ranging from technical difficulties (e.g. translating ideas you have into technical issues like software to use, hosting and so on) to lack of clarity on what blogging gives you. One of my friends is struggling with technical issues since last September (she was the one who asked me all the possible "how to" questions :) and I'm still not able to give her enough help to start.

The second break point is not a moment, but process of embedding blogging into your daily life - moving from trying out to regular use. I guess this process depends mainly on recognising and finding your own ways and motives to blog. For me the main danger at this stage is having "wrong weblog configuration" that does not allow discovering all benefits of blogging (e.g. without RSS and news aggregator person is less likely to discover social effects of blogging).

So, if I would make a short list of things that can make this process better I would say:

• Make good stories of how weblogs add value.
• Lower technical threshold to start. Ok, I know that it's quite easy comparing to many other things, but some people are still struggling. Even understanding concepts of weblog, RSS, news aggregator requires some effort.
• Lower the risk that person starts with "wrong weblog configuration". Don't ask newbies to RSSify their weblog, but make sure their software has all the pieces of "killer app".

It seems that I started to write paper conclusions before analysing the data :)

Just found: BlogPulse - Automated Trend Discovery for Weblogs

BlogPulse Key Phrases are mined daily from over 30,000 weblogs using machine learning algorithms and natural language processing techniques.

BlogPulse Top Links are the most popular links appearing in weblogs today.

In the morning I see my first announcement of blogging questionnaires quoted in other weblogs. I'm glad to see it, but I'm also starting realise my big mistake: I didn't asked for help in reaching "would be bloggers" there and now it's too late - it travels without any control from me :)

So, I think what I could do else. The solution I found so far it to change questionnaire confirmation page and ask people for help in finding "would be bloggers" there.

I also decide to make history and progress page with pointers to all my posts about this study. Finally I can free my mind from it for some time and focus on other things I have to do at work :)