A CONVERSATION ABOUT WHERE THE INFORMATION TRANSFER HAS EXPLODED – ALL AROUND US

ANDREA R. BAKERDIRECTOR OF ENTERPRISE 2.0

CHIEF SOCIAL ENGINEER

HASHTAG #WMTA01

@IMMUNITYANDREARBAKER.COM

Boom! Goes the Knowledge

Overview

A little about meWhat is knowledgeKnowledge and sharing throughout historyUnderstanding the Generations and how they

share knowledgeLife as a knowledge instigator Boom! Goes the knowledge … now help me

find all the piecesWhat’s next for knowledge?

What is Knowledge?

Princeton -- cognition: the

psychological result of perception and learning and reasoningwordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

I say simply-- Information that I have

and you don’t, yet.

What Others Say About Knowledge

An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.~Benjamin Franklin

Give people knowledge and they really eat it up and they appreciate it a lot and the more that knowledge is made available to people, the more they will utilize it and let it be a part of them.~La Monte Young

Although all our knowledge begins with experience, it does not follow that it arises from experience.~Immanuel Kant

Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority.~Thomas H. Huxley

All wish to possess knowledge, but few, comparatively speaking, are willing to pay the price. ~Juvenal

Understanding the Generations

The Greatest Generation (those born before 1928) “saved the world” when it was young, in the memorable phrase of Ronald Reagan. It’s the generation that fought and won World War II.

The Silent generation describes adults born from 1928 through 1945. Children of the Great Depression and World War II, their “Silent” label refers to their conformist and civic instincts.

The Baby Boomer label is drawn from the great spike in fertility that began in 1946, right after the end of World War II, and ended almost as abruptly in 1964, around the time the birth control pill went on the market.

Generation X from 1965 through 1980. Xers are often depicted as savvy, entrepreneurial loners.

The Millennial generation refers those born after 1980 – the first generation to come of age in the new millennium.

The Greatest Generation (Before 1928)

My grandmother – 62 years of Government service, U.S. Navy and Department of Commerce

Emails “batches” at a time, usually forwards and chain letters

Calls several times a week – usually early in the morning

Gets the paper everyday, clips articles and shares them

Tells long stories about family Has strong political views and shares them

Silent (1928 – 1945)

Still emails “batches” at a time, and still forwards chain letters from the Greatest Generation

Calls when they need something, more than likely to “fix” their computer

Watches the evening news all evening, sometimes all day

Gets the paper, but not as often as dailyCalls their friends to talk, share storiesGoes out for conversations – churches, lunches

Boomers (1946-1964)

Coming back into workforce into second / third careerAfter slow start, nearly half of all Boomers online use

Social Media now; it's mostly Mom wanting to be in touch

Mom and Dad have joined Facebook is no longer news. It has even been parodied on Saturday Night Live – way to keep up with their grandkids photos and daily family happenings (no more long phone calls)

Deeply embedded to email, forwarding sent emails over and over to get to the top of the inbox

Prints, faxes, copies, scansCalls you to come “fix” their computerWhile Millenials have Facebook, Boomers have twitter

Generation X (1965 – 1980)

First computer was Texas Instruments TI-99/4A

Emails, texts, calls when frustrated that neither works fast enough to communicate point – or walks over to discuss

Instant MessagingForums and BBSRemembers Prodigy and

AOL

Millennial

1980 - January 3 Hewlett Packard introduces its HP-85. A microcomputer with 16kB of RAM and a 5-inch CRT display – computers for the home have been a part of their lives.

Always connected – log onto Facebook when they first get on a computer.

Text over callRarely emailsInstant Message, Facetime, Skype, Video ChatWill potentially be half of the workforce by

2014

Born in the Wrong Generation?

I Attribute My Knowledge Awaking to 1985

We are the world/Live Aid – Opened me up to world issues

June 24 – STS-51-G: Space Shuttle Discovery completes its mission, best remembered for having Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the first Arab and first Muslim in space

Back to the Future is releasedKnorr, Robert Ballard, Jean-Louis Michel, and crew, find

the wreck of R.M.S. TitanicVH1, Elmo, Thundercats, Golden Girls, Jem, Mr.

Belvedere, Growing Pains, and Moonlighting all premiere on TV

David Lee Roth quits Van Halen, Madonna’s first tour, Michael Jackson buys the rights to the Beatles catalog

Life as a Knowledge Instigator

In 2000, I was on a project at the Defense Intelligence Agency called PKO. Production Knowledge Online.

The goal of the project was to capture the knowledge of Baby Boomers, those who would be retiring within the next 5 years.

Around the same time, I was also working on my passion project, Band Promotion and Management.

In 2006,  I was at the Central Intelligence Agency working on a little project that had been in pilot the previous year, Intellipedia. I had a passion for wikis and blogs .

I joined the Intellipedia Development Cell as one of them and become the first community manager. Again the goal was to capture tacit and implicit knowledge of not only boomers, but of every-one's contribution.

Developed community management into a viable business practice for Government agencies.

Its now the end of 2010 and where do we stand today?

Who has responded and who is embracing the adoption of Social Media for Business aka Enterprise 2.0 methodology for this knowledge capture?

Well its still not the boomers, the average age of a user of these tools is in their early 30s, that makes Generation X the leader.

So how can Gen X bridge the gap of the tech-hungry millennial and the retiring boomer?

Why Can’t I?

Use the search in Facebook to actually find the knowledge I want from the friends that provided it. If someone shared something with me through their wall or activity screen, why is it only useful to me if I was lucky to see it within the past 30 days it was posted?

Have my LinkedIN account seamlessly attach to Facebook and then when I connect to a colleague, they see only the business side of my life, per established business filtering?

Facebook Seamless Messaging

The Next Generation will have unified comms

From Facebook.com’s blog: Relatively soon, we'll probably all stop using arbitrary ten digit numbers and bizarre sequences of characters to contact each other. We will just select friends by name and be able to share with them instantly. We aren't there yet, but the changes today are a small first step.

With all this way to connect are we getting more knowledgeable or are we dumbing ourselves down?

Ponder If You Will?

Are these statements true? I no longer need to remember phone numbers. Most

the numbers I do recall stem from before cell phones were common.

When I need to know the definition of a term or a piece of knowledge, I look it up on the internet first (Google or Bing)– most likely Wikipedia is the first hit.

When you plan a trip, do you use TripIt or Google Docs – share with family & friends your itinerary – much easier than writing out your schedule and posting it on the fridge.

If you need a service or help, you post to Twitter or other social network and most likely receive a response within an hour or less.

Are We a More Knowledgeable Society?

We are definitely more connected. We have instant access to people, even if they are in

other time zones, countries or even speaking different languages.

We have “smartphones”. We have more than one web connected device in the

home, or quite possibly near or on our person right now.

So does this make us more knowledgeable or give us access to more knowledge?

Thanks for the Resources

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nationaalarchief/4193509510/

http://pewsocialtrends.org/2010/02/24/millennials-confident-connected-open-to-change/

http://pewresearch.org/millennials/quiz/index.phphttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985http://www.computerhope.com/history/198090.htmhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Instruments_TI-

99/4Ahttp://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/11/15/

national/main7055992.shtmlThe New Social Learning – 2010 – Tony Bingham,

Marcia Conner