This is another easy blog entry. I’ve just scanned through the Twitter stream emerging from a conference session, removing duplication, so that we sitting at our desks can reap the highlights of what was said. Let me know what you think of the concept and the format.
In this session, Bruce Burton presented on Diplopedia, the State Department’s enterprise-wide wiki for collaboration and knowedge management. Each item begins with the name (or handle) of the Twitter user who is reporting). You can find the complete conference stream (with the most recent entries at the top) at: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23ALI.
jdarrah: Bruce Burton of U.S. State Dept will talk about Diplopedia, their wiki experience and it’s contribution to #KM and other fun stuff
citymark: Dept of eDiplomacy is all about collaboration & knowledge sharing using IT http://www.state.gov/m/irm/ediplomacy/
thornley: “For government, the more knowledge they have to manage, the greater the risk.” Mishandled information can lead to wars. Bruce Burton
thornley: “Mistakes can pay off – if you learn from them.” Bruce Burton quoting Jeff Jarvis
jdarrah: Fundamental of knowledge management (#KM): learn from mistakes. But Bruce Burton points out gov’t resist forums for showing mistakes
jdarrah: Bruce Burton compares: Google- put tech out there and let people use it as they want; Gov’t- use tech our way
citymark: esp for gov’t “Cheap is good, free is better”
thornley: 1.5 billion emails – that’s the number of emails generated within the U.S. State Dep’t each year. Bruce Burton
citizendeb: Wiki is about sharing/ access to info anytime anywhere and contributing any time anywhere.
cwightman: not only access to info for all but contribute too
thornley: The U.S. State Dep’t has established a Wiki – Diplopedia – as a central repository for knowledge. Bruce Burton
armycivcookie: keep things simple because that is how our audience demand…Bruce Burton
thornley: The end users of Diplopedia have begun to use the Wiki as an entry/collection point for sets of related info. Was not preplanned use
thornley: Diplopedia has “virtual presence portals” with info for places where State doesn’t have a physical presence (e.g. Southwestern Ontario)
thornley: Diplopedia users set up crisis portals pulling all info re an event into one place. Can be done in about 15 minutes. Bruce Burton
thornley: Use of MediaWiki as platform for Diplopdedia enabled State to reduce risk – financial, technological & user adoption – of Wiki
MarissaLucia: An enabling environment helped mitigate risk for US state Dept’s Diplopedia. example: Be informative, not authoritative.
MarissaLucia: Cut out the multiple review steps. Change to Write, Publish, THEN Edit model. Bruce Burton’s living proof that the world won’t end.
thornley: State is finding that users are developing bottom-up uses of Diplopedia. e.g. Post info they will access from their BlackBerries
thornley: Ingredients for success of Diplodedia: make good mistakes; give up control; manage abundance; get out of the way. Bruce Burton
citymark: Dept’s of state website regulations, including online collaboration rules http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/85754.pdf
MarissaLucia: wikis and records mgmt: once article is complete it is dubbed the official copy. wiki also allows version review.
citymark: Bruce Burton emphasizes the importance of top-down support in concert with grassroots evolution of social media tools
I love these quick updates from the Twitter feeds at conferences. Makes you feel like you were there and learning from it as well. I like this comment:
State is finding that users are developing bottom-up uses of Diplopedia. e.g. Post info they will access from their BlackBerries
That’s the great value. You can’t think of all the uses. Let the people decide. Like Apple with their Apps.
I do too! Many of the tweets I’ve seen are pretty banal, but this content is much more value-added.