Ed Mitchell: Platform neutral

David Gurteen and I have been conversing on how to collaborate since this spring.

After a few chats here and there, we agreed that I will facilitate his online forum. This is an experiment to get the group off the virtual ground. It will run for December before a review and further actions for planning in 2007.

Starting in December we are going to encourage the Gurteen group members to practically consider all the web2.0/social software stuff they have heard about, or deployed (or are thinking of deploying), and share with the other members outside of the high-excitment of conferences…

Every KM/IM related conference this year has been singing the praises of this new area of IT/IS/KM. Good stuff like Lilia Efimova’s work, David Wilcox, Nancy White, Dave Pollard, Dan Dixon et al is around, but have we really applied this stuff to our own organisational contexts?

Was it any good? Did it work? Did they know what they wanted out of it? How did they measure it? Was it usable? Did their stakeholders share knowledge? How did they capture it? Was it really as cheap as everyone at the conferences is telling us? And more questions hopefully will appear.

David’s approach is, as ever, very open, so the conversations will be free-ranging and not directed by anything he or I might think; think emergence – if a conversation is going well we will nurture, gently, if it’s down, we’ll put it to bed, calmly.

He will no doubt encapsulate this message in a professional manner (Ed is like a Labrador puppy; David is calm and wise) in a later missive, but I’m keen on this one – and think we’ll have some fun.

My work-client-partners at CILIP will be involved as we are just finishing the first wave of the set up of their online communities, using blogs, forums, tag clouds etc. And other pro types from organisational backgrounds naturally, and academics, and you if you happen to meet me between now and then.

In fact, the policy is come one, come all. Consider it a bolt hole from the mayhem of Christmas, the stress of shopping, the fear of incoming family and anything else you feel like considering it.

It is a free to join Google group; all the usual community rules apply. Join!