ARTICLE : 1

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT



When a person holds a rose flower in hand and asks,what do we see?, one might say that he can see the attractive red petals,another person might say that he can see the long green stalk and a third person might say that he can only see the sharp thorns.

1.(Figure : 1)justourpictures

So, depending upon their own style of understanding,a same thing is viewed by different people in different directions.
Many definitions can be found on internet for knowledge management and according to my understanding..........

According to me, in order to understand the meaning of knowledge management,it is important to know the meaning of knowledge first.

Knowledge is an act or condition or familiarity or perfection gained by experience of a fact or situation according to my experience.

2.(Oxford English dictionary wikipedia,2007)Knowledge is defined as" expertise and skills acquired by a person through experience . It is the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject or facts and information or awareness or familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation."

Knowledge management comprises of understanding the way in which knowledge is gathered or developed,used and shared within organizations.

3.(Sheila,1999)"Knowledge management is the explicit and systematic management of vital knowledge and its associated processes of creating, gathering, organizing, diffusion, use and exploitation. It requires turning personal knowledge into corporate knowledge that can be widely shared throughout an organization and appropriately applied."

After those two definitions stated by(shiela,1999) and(Oxford English dictionary wikipedia,2007), i have come up with my own definition relating those two definitions. And the definition is ,knowledge management is a single roof under which different documents,strategies,reports and other sources of information are effectively used in order to generate or mobilize the profits of an organization .It is all about using the human knowledge that exists within an organization effectively,to create a difference.

I was searching web for the articles on knowledge management and found out an amazing visual which explains about knowledge management.



4.(Video : 1)
AMAZING VISUAL ON
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

WHAT I HAVE LEARNT IS:

This visual explains about knowledge and the way it should be used to create a difference.
According to this video, information is a sum up of bits and bites of data.
Information is just black and white, just colorless and is all alone.
and now when this colorless information is illuminated and shared it becomes knowledge
knowledge is experience,sharing of what works and what does not works.
when an organization is running, many people are recruited. many people come for jobs and many people go away leaving there jobs.
people walk in with different knowledge and go away with different knowledge and when this happens, its a loss of knowledge for the organization.
This video tells that when this knowledge is captured, used and reused it causes ripples, mobilizes and motivates everyone.
It makes an impact when places are created for people to share,to work, to learn,to start conversation ,add context to information.
This impact becomes powerful when people work with knowledge and build communities.
And in the communities, whenever there is a need, locate the captured knowledge, analyze it thoroughly,develop it by group discussions,learn from them and share the knowledge among individuals or communities and thereby distribute the knowledge.
so knowledge management helps us to make decisions and respond faster.It makes us to work together to create a value and to learn from experience.
It helps in putting minds of many together to work for us.

This visual has influenced me a lot in understanding the knowledge management.
This video is owned by an ibm company 'LOTUS,' whose main theme is to discover what you know and what you do not know.

I hope this video would influence my friends just in the way it influenced me and motivated me to learn and write about it.

CAN KNOWLEDGE BE MANAGED:









5.(Figure : 2) KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT SETUP


This has been the most confusing question from years together. Well while i was investigating on this topic,i have found an article

Knowledge can definitely be managed and all we need is a database to store up the information and a need to manage the knowledge.

6(CRAIG.S,1999)"To accomplish knowledge management as defined above requires investment. The business strategy of the organization must acknowledge the requirement to capture knowledge and actively foster the effort. Knowledge exists in people, not technology, and as such will require a massive human effort. Technology can help to capture information, but it can not create knowledge. Useful technologies include search engines, scanning technology, optical character and voice recognition software, intelligent agents, database management systems, document management systems, and repositories."

craig's point of thinking seems to be correct to me because in order to manage knowledge,there should be a requirement to manage the knowledge.And he is correct when he says that,knowledge exists in people but technology doesnt exist in people and it is something which need to be developed.

I have read the entire article of craig.s,(1999), and i accept the fact that knowledge can be managed but it would be difficult.because in order to manage the knowledge,first the information is to be identified and grouped in different stacks so that each stack representing a different part of information.Then the information is to be transformed into knowledge.And to achieve this,the stacked information should be examined carefully,synthesised and analysed which would again require human effort.
To do all this,human effort is also required and not just any technology can do it.So the process of transforming information to knowledge is not easy.

There might be different reasons for this but the main reason according to me is the lack of knowledge itself.Many few people know about knowledge management though this is a fast growing subject in these days. If i now go to my country and tell my friends about the knowledge management,many of them would not understand because they know nothing about knowledge management.

REAL LIFE EXAMPLE:
I am now working in a big tiles shop named as tiles clearing house as a part time customer sales adviser.My manager's name is Dave. The other day he asked me about my studies and i have told him that i am doing my masters in middlesex university. i have told him that i am learning a module called knowledge management.He said that he does not know about the subject and i have given him a couple of definitions to explain knowledge management. But he did not really understand and started telling me about a project which he has done when he was a seniors sales assistant in the stores.
He said that he used to visit different branches of our stores and also all the other stores which are selling tiles and wooden laminates like topps tiles,homebase,timber depot etc, and used to check around the prices and make a note of them in word document because he was not aware of using any other data base.
I asked him why he did that and he said that the theme of our shop is tiles clearing house at clearing price.So in order to give the customers the cheapest prices,we need to know the prices of the other stores. And when a customer comes and tells that homebase is selling this tile at a cheaper rate than your stores, my manager uses the word document and checks for the price of the tile in homebase, thereby gives the customer correct information and sells the tiles. I have taken his example and explained him the meaning of knowledge management. His collection of data from different stores and storing them in a word document is information and when he uses the stored information to help a customer and to convince him that we still give cheaper price,it would be knowledge to customer.And when he uses his word document to educate his co workers it is again knowledge. Thus i could explain my manager that the process of his collecting of different data from different shops,storing it in word document, using it and reusing it whenever a customer comes and sharing it with his colleagues is nothing but collectively known as knowledge management. My manager appreciated me for that.


MY REFLECTIONS FROM READINGS AND DISCUSSIONS: I have put in my reflections on the amazing visual at the earlier part of my this article. and am including a couple of discussions which i had with my colleagues if my knowledge management class is to be considered as an organization.
7.(Pavan.k,2008) in his blog explained about the objective of main stream knowledge management and that is to ensure that right information is delivered to the right person just in time.
I have missed this point and i have asked him to explain me about the point.
He said that, knowledge management is all about understanding the way knowledge is used, created and shared with in the organization.He gave me an example that, because i am new to this university,i did not know where to go to enroll myself and which class i had at a particular time and where is the class room located. I went to students information office and asked about it, immediately the staff over there checked the data base captured the right information for me and guided me to class giving me exact directions because of her knowledge, and later that turned out to be knowledge for me.his explanation is correct. And then I understood what he meant when he wrote about delivering right information to right person exactly in time.

8.(samir.k,2008), another friend of mine in the class has written in his blog that knowledge management is about creating, organizing and using of knowledge and he said that most of his findings were about the same point that

And while i was reading the blog of 9.(munir.b,2008) i was reminded about an important point that there is no fixed meaning for knowledge but the meaning of knowledge always varies .
Because, what knowledge is for me can be information for someone and what information is for me can be knowledge for someone. So this is definitely an important point.

And because none of us from our group attended the seminars about the knowledge management definitions, we could not discuss much about it.

REFERENCES:
1.Sources:justourpictures,retrieved from http://www.justourpictures.com/roses/redroses.html,Accessed on feb 12,2008.
2.Sources:wikipedia,retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge.Accessed on feb 15,2008.
3.sources:s.Corrall,retrieved from www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue18/knowledge-mgt/ Accessed on feb 8,2008.
4.Sources:Amazing visual,retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_x78XLBBVM&eurl=http://arjunthomas.com/?p=159 Accessed on 4 march,2008.
5.Sources:Google image resultshttp://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.success.co.il/knowledge/images/homepage-knowledge-map-logo.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.success.co.il/is/index.html&h=105&w=140&sz=100&tbnid=fjrZsM---sAJ:&tbnh=105&tbnw=140&sa=X&oi=image_result&resnum=1&ct=image&cd=1Accessed on feb 25,2008.
6.Sources:Craig.s.mullins,1999,Retrieved from http://www.tdan.com/view-articles/5108/,Accessed on feb 1 2008.
7.p.kumar,2008,Retrieved from http://knowledgetechno.blogspot.com/,
Accessed on march2,2008.
8.S.shaikh,2008,Retrieved from http://m00188617.blogspot.com/ ,
shaikh Accessed on march2,2008.
9.M.bello,2008,Retrieved from http://mubell.blogspot.com/
Accessed on march2,2008.

ARTICLE : 2

DATA INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE

In this present world, the words data, information and knowledge are used interchangeablely because, what data is to me can be a knowledge to a school student and what information is to me can be data to a phd student in a university.



IKUJIRO NONAKA
1. (figure : 1)
Data may be defined as raw information,just bits and bites or pieces of numbers or quantities.

Information is the data collected and stored, again its just lifeless and colorless.Information is just black and white.

Knowledge is adding a context to the information,sharing it using it and reusing it whenever required. Or in other words when we add color to information it becomes lively, and called as knowledge.



I was surfing through the internet to find some articles about these definitions and the important ones which i found out are....

2.(Ackoff,1989) says that

"Data... data is raw. It simply exists and has no significance beyond its existence (in and of itself). It can exist in any form, usable or not. It does not have meaning of itself. In computer parlance, a spreadsheet generally starts out by holding data."

"Information... information is data that has been given meaning by way of relational connection. This "meaning" can be useful, but does not have to be. In computer parlance, a relational database makes information from the data stored within it."


" Knowledge... knowledge is the appropriate collection of information, such that it's intent is to be useful. Knowledge is a deterministic process. When someone "memorizes" information (as less-aspiring test-bound students often do), then they have amassed knowledge. This knowledge has useful meaning to them, but it does not provide for, in and of itself, an integration such as would infer further knowledge. For example, elementary school children memorize, or amass knowledge of, the "times table". They can tell you that "2 x 2 = 4" because they have amassed that knowledge (it being included in the times table). But when asked what is "1267 x 300", they can not respond correctly because that entry is not in their times table. To correctly answer such a question requires a true cognitive and analytical ability that is only encompassed in the next level... understanding. In computer parlance, most of the applications we use (modeling, simulation, etc.) exercise some type of stored knowledge."



WHAT I HAVE LEARNT IS:

From the above quotations, data, information and knowledge can be understood as interdependable. because when there is no data, practically speaking , there is no information or there is no knowledge.


The existence of data,information and knowledge depend on eachother.
When some raw quantities are collected like numbers or quantities ,which just exists and doesnt really make any sense untill or unless some context is used to make it lively.data can be usable or non usable data.

Best example is a spread sheet in a computer because, it is just a sheet with tables,rows and coloumns. And the raw data is just fed into it.iiiiiiiiit forma a perfect example.

Information is processed data , which gives some kind of meaning or which explains about the data fully or partially. This information can be useful but does not neccessarily be always meaningful.
In spreadsheets, when the collected data is stored and retrieved whenever there is a requirement, it becomes information.

And knowledge is the perfect collection of information or usefull information. whenever some information is used, reused, shared and stored it becomes knowledge because it has a specific meaning.


Following article has been adapted from a webpage called 12 manage.
3.(12 manage,2008)

SECI MODEL:

The seci model was proposed by Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi which deals with creation of a process to understand the creation of knowledge

According to this theory,it consists of three elements.

1.SECI
2.Ba
3.knowledge Assets

It says that 'ba' is used to share the knowledge assets of any organization and tacit knowledge held by individuals is converted and amplified by the spiral knowledge through

1.Socialization
2.Externalization
3.Combination
4.Internalization

For any organization create knowledge should adapt all the above points.

According to SECI,the creation knowledge is a continuous process of interactions between tacit and explicit knowledge.

Socialization is explained as sharing of tacit knowledge through face to face communication or shared experience.
Externalization is developing the concepts which includes the tacit knowledge.
Combination is combining various elements of explicit knowledge
Internalization is linking learning by doing where the explicit knowledge becomes part of the individuals knowledge base.


BA
There is no specific meaning for this word but usually understood as a context of knowledge shared.
THis seci model explains the distinction between tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge and provides an understanding of knowledge creation.

But this model is very well adaptable for japan only where tacit knowledge is given much importance andthis model also helps in providing a framework for management.

MY REAL LIFE EXAMPLE:

I have worked in a call centre,so let me give an example from a call centre.

Whenever a customer calls a call centre, the first thing which customer service executives do is take their details like name, city they are calling from,their phone number etc. this is data.

And when these details are stored in a database.Different callcentres use different databases, but we used a data base called people soft crm.These stored details become information when sorted.

And when the customer calls for the next time,retrieving the information from the database, or to be more specific, capturing exact information of that customer like the earlier reasons of calling etc and using that information to help the customer further is nothing but knowledge.


REFLECTIONS FROM MY READINGS AND DISCUSSIONS:


(ENGINEERING THE STRUCTURE OF HUMAN BRAINS)
(DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DATA,INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE)
4.( VIDEO : 1)
I have found this video in youtube.This video explains about the basic meanings and differences between data,information and knowledge.proffessor tells that,all american managers are intellectually weak and that is the reason that they work in factories but not in universities.

He says that difference between data,information knowledge is a typical question, And in americe.people are still influenzed by episthomoligies of 1920's.

According to him knowledge is an object and can be moved from person to person based on some advanced philosophy,

The most important point is that, proffessor jamin tells that they are designing a wireless knowledge transferrer.which looks like a cap,made up of metal with big ears.
he says that it would successfully record the intercodes in brain and captures information.
He says that, they are the world leaders in knowledge neural standards.
And this product which is under construction will be called as the next generation's knowledge management tools.
He says that they engineer the structures of human brain and would reengineer the brains of all employees
after this product is manufactured thereby contributes for perfect knowledge management.It seemed to me very strange but also very exciting.


I was going through the blog of pavan and found some relevant information which states the same meaning here.And i have seen sameer sheik commenting on pavan's article about data,information and knowledge.
samir says that he doesnot agree with pavan,when pavan tells that knowledge is a subset of information.And i agree with pavan because according to my understanding,data,information and knowledge, all these terms are interdependable and subset of one another.


I was going through samir's blog and he writes that data,information and knowledge are mostly used interchangeably but according to him,he says that there is hierarchial structure between them. What samir tells also seems to me to be correct because,explaining the hierarchial structure between data,information and knowledge,he says that data is is at bottom root level, when some context is added it would become information and when this information is used with some experience to take a decision it becomes knowledge. And i guess he is right when he tells that.

I have read the article written by samir about nonaka's model and the point that impressed me was that the knowledge can be transformed from one form to another by this theory but not neccessarily change the knowledge.

He wrote a nice point criticizing nonaka's model, that nonaka was considering only japan and that is entirely different culture and so its not suitable for all the world.

Even i was thinking on that, because in japan, people cling to their companies for many years and tacit knowledge comes into light but that is not correct with rest of the world.
I do accept that nonaka has done a splendid job by creating the seci model but why did nonaka, create a model of that sort which might not be accepted by all the world...


REFERENCES
1.IKUJIRO NONAKA,Retrieved from http://www.orkut.com/Community.aspx?cmm=971490,
Accessed on march3,2008.
2.Ackoff,1989,Retrieved from http://www.systems-thinking.org/dikw/dikw.htm
Accessed on march 2,2008.
3.SECI MODEL,Retrieved from
http://www.12manage.com/methods_nonaka_seci.html,
Accessed on march 3,2008.
4.Engineering the structures of human brain,
Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uz0KXaflY2w,
Accessed on march 2,2008.

ARTICLE : 3

WHAT ARE THE THREE THINGS WHICH I WOULD DO IF I WERE THE CHIEF KNOWLEDGE OFFICER OF AN ORGANIZATION.
This afternoon,my team mates and i were discussing on the proposal which we need to submit regarding our group course work unnoticing the fact that we were running out of time for the seminar of knowledge management. The moment we realized that,we have rushed to our class. Eventually my team members and i were late to class and as soon as we entered the class, our module leader geetha abbeysinghey started addressing to the class about the course and about the modules which we would be taking in our next semester. she was away for a while and for the first time we have seen her,she gave her message very quickly and left the class room for us to start the session called knowledge cafe...!!!

What is knowledge cafe, according to our tutors,prof.abu bakr and prof.mark, it is an event where people working on knowledge management meet and discuss the different strategies of knowledge management in a different way..!!! A couple of tables and a group of people around them,talking,discussing and debating on different topics of knowledge is called knowledge cafe.It all starts with 7 or 8 tables and people surrounding those tables,and a topic would be given to them on which they will share their knowledge for a couple of minutes and then everybody except one from each table will shift their places to different tables.This person who is sitting on the same table will share the points discussed earlier with his new friends and likewise those new people will also share their knowledge.And when this process is repeated, there is lots of knowledge shared.

1.(wikipedia,2007)"A knowledge café is a simple means for a group of people to have an open, creative conversation on a topic of mutual interest to gain a deeper collective understanding of the subject and the issues involved." From the below article I have learnt that this process is a derivative of The World Cafe, a process developed by Juanita Broan and David Isaacs and a worldwide community of practice.


SPEEDNETWORKING; Not everyone gets adjusted very soon to new environments to start the discussions, so there is some Tcalled a speed network which is widely used in knowledge cafes and also in many it industries.
According to this, the leader is with a whistle and he blows the whistle for every 2 or 3 minutes and when this happens,people who are interacting with others move, find new friends and introduce eachother and get to know about each other.And this happens for every 2 or 3 minutes as the whistle is blowed by the leader.
Its great fun enjoying this speednetwork.we have started our knowledge cafe with this speed network and guess what, it is just like a fish market,blah blah blah everywhere.


VIDEO :1(SPEED NETWORKING,2007)
After a few moments of rushy movements in the class, our tutor taught us something called a REVERSE TECHNIQUE. He gave us a situation where we are buying a cell phone and asked us to write down the different negative points which we consider while buying a cell phone.Everyygroup has written many negative points to be considered while buying a cell phone.And then we are asked to underline the most important points amongst them individually and explain the reason why we chose them and finally there was a voting held.Finally three important points which have earned a majority of voting are selected .
1.No network coverage
2.No battery back up
3.No duplication of name

So when we are buying a cell phone,the three important points which are to be kept in mind are the above three points.
I like the reverse technique a lot because, i see that there is something much important in the depths of that topic. I have applied the reverse technique to my real life and i have given it as a real life example at the end.
The above example was just to explain the concept to us.Here starts the serious game...

Applying the previous technique,we were to find all possible ways to see that there is no knowledge management happening in our organization.

In other words what are the three things i would do to ensure that there is no knowledge management happeneing in an organization if i were the chief officer of that organization.
Three different points with which each group have come up are
Group 1
1. No communication between people.
2. Not allowing people to express there ideas (Lack of creativity).
3. No documentation of procedures at all.
Group 2
1. No Communication Strategy (Intranet, Internet, Documentation).
2. No Learning and Development.
3. No identification of required knowledge.
Group3
1. No Socialization and Culture (No interaction or communication).
2. No System (No Storage and Documentation).
3. No Training and Development.
Group4
1. No Information Flow (No communication).
2. No Improvement or Performance.
3. No Systems or Tools

Apparently, first point in each group's listings is communication between employees and so now if we think in the other way, to see that, the knowledge management is happening in an organization, the first important point to be ensured is that to see that there is proper communication between employees.
A knowledge cafe is a means of bringing a group of people together to have an open, creative conversation on a topic of mutual interest to surface their collective knowledge, to share ideas and insights and to gain a deeper understanding of the subject and the issues involved
REAL LIFE EXAMPLE:
IF I WERE THE CHIEF KNOWLEDGE OFFICER OF MY ORGANIZATION,THE THREE STEPS I WOULD TAKE TO SEE THAT KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IS HAPPENING IN MY ORGANIZATION ARE:


1. COMMUNICATION
2. PROBLEM FILE
3. INNOVATIVE IDEAS

I am discussing them in detail below

1.COMMUNICATION:
Because communication plays an important role in knowledge management i will see that there is good communication between my employees. A call center has different teams taking calls and normally people of same team sit together.I will see that people of same team would not sit together and will ensure that there places change atleast thrice in a week.
By doing this,i am sure that my employees will start interacting with new friends,learn their customs and thereby destroy the walls of communication gap between them.
I will make blogs and see that my employees interact in those blogs thereby to form a network.
I would put up social forums and would give all my empl0yees the right to express their views and ideas posted on those forums.
2.PROBLEM FILE:
It is quiet common that different kinds of new problems arise everyday in a call centre.So i will introduce a problem file to my employees and ask them to record each and every problem that arises instantaneously and at the end of the day, i will pick three people from each team and ask them to discuss those problems and find remedies, thereby i will see that knowledge sharing starts amongst my employees and will record those remedies in the file
I would see that every problem that is entered into problem book along with its remedy is entered into intranet so that the next time when the same problem arises, they will be able to trouble shoot it. In this way i will see that knowledge management is happening in my organization.
3. INNOVATIVE IDEAS:
Major problem of a call center is itrition rate.number of people join call centers every month and number of people leave call centers taking away the knowledge gained and sustained. So, i will make a site called innovative ideas in the intranet and ask my employees to record their each and every problem solving techniques, and will award prizes to the best two amongst them. So, when an employee leaves my organization, i will have all his knowledge shared already in the siteIn this way i will see that. there is no loss of knowledge.
These are the three important steps i will take to see that knowledge management is happening in my organization.

.
VIDEO :2(DEFINITION OF KM BY DAVID GURTEEN,2006)

REFLECTIONS ON MY READINGS AND DISCUSSIONS:
I was discussing with kushali about this knowledge cafe, and were thinking on the subject of , is this knowledge cafe really usefull.
we were discussing on the fact that,why does one need to run a knowledge cafe, when there are somany other forms of interacting.because in this busy world,where people have limited time, knowledge cafes consume some time in just discussing!!!
But that is wrong because, it is not just normal discussion going on but it is an intellectual discussion.
people get to know eachother,can meet people of same ideas or thoughts or views and can even start a new business.
pavan said that he liked the speed networking so much because, apart from imparting and sharing knowledge, this technique helps in identifing the positive points and strenghts of individuals.
swetha was asking that, is this knowledge cafe just limited to knowledge sector, but if we think carefully, the answer is no because, these kinds of cafes can be used in any field because everything on this earth is related to knowledge some or the other way.
To me the best part was the reverse technique. It impreseed me a lot and motivated me to make more studies on knowledge.
I have already applied my knowledge on this technique and solved a real life problem.
Some of my friends are opening a coffee shop here in london, and they have been trying to do this since a year and half .because the rules are strict,after a long struggle all the legal barriers were crossed and they have started the interior design and ordering goods for their shops.
I have penned down appling the reverse technique, the points because of which the shop opening might be delayed.
The important of those points are.....
1. If the coffee maker machine is not delivered on time
2. If the display fridge is not delivered on time
3. If the alarm people do not turn up on time and fix the alarm.

This check was made just 2 weeks before the opening of shop, and i have insisted them to make sure by calling the delivery people that all the goods are going to be delivered on time.
Everything was fine except the coffee machine, because the coffee machines were not in stock, the order was cancelled and my brothers did not know about this.
So, my knowledge trick has helped them a lot in not letting the shop opening further delayed.

REFERENCING:
1. Speed networking,
Retrieved fromhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUoTG-kvi6A&feature=related
Accessed on march 2, 2008.
2.Definition of KM by David Gurteen,
Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buEMIYNIYVY&feature=related
Accessed on march 2, 2008.

ARTICLE : 4

SOCIAL NETWORKS

A network is a chain of different nodes and points, which come together to form a big network. And a social network may be defined as a network which enables people to come together,interact and share their knowledge.

A social network service always emphasises on moulding and verifying of social networks that run on internet for different communities of people.different people who share same interests,activities or who like to explore about the interests of others use these social networks

1.(arjun,2007)"Social Networking : refers to a system that allows users of a specific site to learn about other users skills, talents, knowledge or preferences. Commercial examples include Facebook and MySpace. Some companies use these systems internally to help identify experts.
most of the social networks run on web based systems and provide many ways of interaction like messaging,chatting,scrapping,blogging,discussion forums,file sharing etc."

social networks are also used in organizations these days in order to identify talent in employees.
Examples for social networks are....



COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE:
Communities of practice, just like social networks, provide a platform for people of common practices to come together and exchange ideas and share knowledge on their favourite topics.Organizations also have started using these communities of practice.

I still remember my friends,debating in the seminar hall,the week before the last week on the topic that communities of practice are a part of social networks.


If we take orkut for example, it has many number of communities, people of different interests meet on the platform called orkut which is a social network and join different communities while sharing there focussed interests.



WEB 2.0:
I have heard a lot about web 2.0, and was surfing net to pick up some nice articles.
and found out an article.....


The following article is based on the writings in (ARJUN,2008)



Web 2.0 is an application or is a programme which stands as a root software to run these social networks.
Web 2.0 has many components which collectively stand as a reason for web 2.0 to remain number one untilnow.

Important components are,
1.Social networks

2.Peer to peer networking

3.Collective intelligence

4.Mash ups

5.Pod casts

6.Blogs

7.Rss

8.web services

9.wiki's.

As i have explained the meaning of social networks earlier,let me start with the rest,
2.peer to peer networking is a technique of sharing files over internet effectively.
it is also called as p2p networking.A p2p network distributes its files over multiple locations to check the bottle neck problems unlike the normal method of storing information collectively at single location.

3.collective intelligence is the intelligence based upon the decision made by the expertise of a group rather than accepting an individuals decision
group discussions and forums contribute a lot to this.

4. mashups are nothing but accumulation of content or collection of all the content needed to make a new site and to build that site

5.pod casts are audio or video recordings transmitted through blogs,normally used for the entertainment of people

6.blogs are short forms to web logs, the online diaries or journal,out up on internet,majorly accessible by all people for the sharing of knowledge.

7.rss: really simple syndication,normally it helps people to subscribe different sites and news channels online.

8.Wikipedias are the single roof term for the reservoir of all the knowledge in the world.

All these components together help us to access an online network to our desire.

REAL LIFE EXAMPLE:

I have worked for a call center for about six months and in all my shift when i am busy, i still used to keep in touch with my colleagues using a restricted social network called jabber.

we do have about 1600 branches all over the world and each and every employee working in those branches can access the jabber and all of us are connected to each other using that jabber and we have mail address of each and every employee working all over world in our branches.
And now when a call comes, automatically all the information will be in front of us, like, the name and address of the customer,the phone number from which he is calling, our employee who has transferred the call into our queue,the branch from where the call is transferred and could the other technician solve the customer's problem,etc.

All this information is important to us because, our branches are divided on the merit basis, if the call has come to us from a branch whose merit is lesser than us, we would definitely be able to resolve the issue. And if the call has come from a higher merit branch, it would be a tough task for us and we need to try our level best to help the customers.

Because of the social network(jabber) with which we are all connected, we are able to anticipate the type of call going to come even before the call comes.
So, social networks play a major role in organizations also.

Previous example is for corporate world, now i will explain a social network used by common people.
The name of the social network is orkut. It is managed by google.

All we need to have to access orkut is just an email address.
Orkut has a column where we can add friends and maintain communities.The reason i have chosen orkut is that because i use orkut a lot.
Orkut provides its users,the astronomy updates,information about people who have checked their profile,column to upload pictures and videos and it provides a complete security to the pictures and videos, the users upload.
Apart from this , orkut keeps on giving us the daily updates like which of our friends are connected to new friends, the new pictures or videos they add etc.
And moreover orkut gives us an opportunity to create our own communities and invite all the other people to join our community to share ideas,knowledge and to expand the knowledge like ripples in water.

Another reason why i like orkut a lot is because,it keeps on updating its services everyday. earlier,in the starting days of orkut,it allowed us to upload just one picture but now the things are different, we can upload any number of pictures we want to upload.

Hence i personally feel that orkut plays a major role in running a social network.

My team mates and i also use orkut a lot in our day to day communication.

REFLECTIONS FROM MY READINGS AND DISCUSSIONS:

A 'community of practice' is not really about a community putting things into practice together, but about people who do things coming together in a social network to share how their practices in doingig whatever they do.

Professor mark,commenting on (waseem,2008)'s blog, said " A 'community of practice' is not really about a community putting things into practice together, but about people who do things coming together in a social network to share how their practices in doing whatever they do."
This comment has puzzled me for a couple of minutes because i accept the fact that the system where people do things ,comming together in a social network to share how their practises are going on but at the same time that whole community is putting things into practice together,so i guess even i am with (waseem,2008) regarding the definition of community of practice.





http://arjunthomas.com/?p=81(arjun,2007)

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