I am at the KMWorld conference in Santa Clara.

This presentation, "Blogging for KM and CI", is by Darlene Fichter (Data Library Coordinator, University of Saskatchewan Libraries) and Arik Johnson (Managing Director, Aurora WDC). Darlene is supposed to talk about Knowledge Management (KM), and Arik is supposed to talk about Competitive Intelligence (CI).

Darlene's slideshow is titled "Blogging for Knowledge Exchange".

She is talking about all of the communities we belong to within our organization, and all the tools we need to use as part of our jobs. What if you want to work together across boundaries, and can't share tools, how do you share information?

She is starting out with a basic overview of what a blog is, and giving some blog speak. Big deal, she points out, is that it has gotten really easy to create a blog. Demonstrating how to create a blog on Blogger.

Blog speak: blogger, blogging, blogrolling, blogrolodex, blawgs, klogs, trackback, ping, permalink.

The blog boom: it just got so simple to create a blog. Simple web publishing and organic self-organizing communities.

From blogs to k-logs (k-logs are knowledge logs sitting behind the firewall). Types of knowledge: explicit knowledge is defined and transferred. Tacit knowledge is what lives in people's heads, and is more elusive.

Ten ways blogs might work for KM.

1) Blogs and explicit knowledge: human powered filters and miners of information. Less is more. People get emergent information from each other.

2) Support smart distribution methods. One blog or many, RSS Syndication of one blog, categories to specific groups and individuals automatically, email digest.

3) Team blogs. Capture the facts (plans, steps in the process, best new web resources, lessons learned, tips).

4) Help you. Brain dumps, exploration, and thinking aloud. Search archives of one's own information.

5) Unlock tacit knowledge. Stories are a good framework for sharing information, meaning and knowledge. Blogs encourage story telling. Fosters understanding because they offer context. "Blogging is a train-of-thought technology" (Scott Dinsdale).

6) Foster communities. Ease of cross-linking and the conversational nature, fosters social networking (track backs).

7) Create new relationships. Excellent at one-to-many and many-to-many communication. Can allow participation and comments. Breaks down the silos. Create connected content.

8) Natural expertise locator. Who knows what. How can I judge their credibility.

9) Overcome organizational obstacles. KM is great, but many KM solutions are complex, mega projects. Blogs are simple and low-cost.

10) Overcome employee concerns. Employees are reluctant to share (my knowledge makes me valuable. If I share my knowledge, my value diminishes). What is in it for me? Blogs are self-rewarding. Bloggers discover their own interests and refine their perspectives. Get peer recognition.

She has more info on blog tools at www.lights.com/weblogs.

Guerilla KM. Start small. Give a few key knowledge workers blogs.

Last comment, if you have a very command and control organizational culture, blogs won't be as useful or at least not as free form and flowing.

Q about blogging and information outside of the firewall. From inside, you can link to outside. So, this is a way combining internal knowledge with knowledge outside.