Comments on: Finding experts in your company. http://www.gilyehuda.com/2010/02/11/finding-experts/ Your path to success Fri, 03 Sep 2010 14:25:04 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: Don Hecker Lawyer Headlines » Interesting Enterprise 2.0 Readings – Week 6 2010 http://www.gilyehuda.com/2010/02/11/finding-experts/comment-page-1/#comment-3950 Don Hecker Lawyer Headlines » Interesting Enterprise 2.0 Readings – Week 6 2010 Thu, 18 Mar 2010 15:28:24 +0000 http://www.gilyehuda.com/?p=1034#comment-3950 [...] beyond systemic models of process design. It is time to learn from the Web. Gil Yehuda: “Finding experts in your company“ Finding experts is a problem. Creating a closed stagnant database is a poor solution to [...] [...] beyond systemic models of process design. It is time to learn from the Web. Gil Yehuda: “Finding experts in your company“ Finding experts is a problem. Creating a closed stagnant database is a poor solution to [...]

]]> By: Dan Keldsen - Information Architected http://www.gilyehuda.com/2010/02/11/finding-experts/comment-page-1/#comment-3820 Dan Keldsen - Information Architected Fri, 19 Feb 2010 18:44:08 +0000 http://www.gilyehuda.com/?p=1034#comment-3820 It's a combination of static and dynamic content that makes <b>useful</b> and <b>sustainable</b> expertise management/location happen. Some static content, such as your resume/CV, combined with various activity/interest indicators, such as e-mail, content creation, re-use, collaboration, blogging, microblogging, Q&A, etc. is how one can build an "information-rich" system to tap in locating experts. Any <b>single</b> channel to gather this insight is doomed to failure, doesn't matter whether it's static or dynamic. And as you mention, Gil, the feedback loops to indicate whether content is used, re-used, enhanced, corrected, etc., is one of the more modern areas to be added on to this. I started covering this kind of technology in the 2000-2002 timeframe, when people like Tacit (now since acquired), SRD (acquired by IBM), askMe (which still exists, to my astonishment), Contact Networks Corp (acquired by Thomson Reuters) and others were first getting out of the gate. Unfortunately, as we see time and time again, the ROI for much of the work under the Enterprise 2.0 umbrella is difficult to sell/quantify, and expertise even more so. So, along with prediction markets, even though there is great potential value (if done well), the interest in experts/expertise has been buried under the more broad, and perhaps less valuable in the end, "social watercooler" that many seem to get caught up in. From time to time I argue that if you flip this upside down, it may be far MORE useful to create a "newbie locator" service, such as new hires, and specifically pair them up with the experts. This can feedback/forward in both directions, as even experts still have more to learn, and a fresh perspective may get them to re-think the subject/problem at hand. Loops, feedback, and that's right, emergence! There's a presentation I gave many times in the 2002-2004 timeframe, and have since update off and on. It's slightly outdated as far as the possible commercial solutions (since there hasn't been much direct focus on this, but still, hopefully of some use. See: <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/dan.keldsen/build-smarter-internal-and-external-communities" rel="nofollow">Build Smarter Internal and External Communities</a> on communities and networks as Relationship Intelligence (rather than Business Intelligence, etc.). Relating as well, see <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/dan.keldsen/enterprise-20-knowledge-management-20" rel="nofollow">Is Enterprise 2.0 = Knowledge Management 2.0?</a> which works in the connection between "old school" KM and Enterprise 2.0, and a fair amount on emergence/loops. We'll see what Google does with Aardvark - expect it will remain more consumer-focused in the short-term, but eventually be folded into Google Apps. Depends on how quickly Wave/Buzz become stable and more widely adopted in enterprise settings. Cheers, Dan It’s a combination of static and dynamic content that makes useful and sustainable expertise management/location happen. Some static content, such as your resume/CV, combined with various activity/interest indicators, such as e-mail, content creation, re-use, collaboration, blogging, microblogging, Q&A, etc. is how one can build an “information-rich” system to tap in locating experts.

Any single channel to gather this insight is doomed to failure, doesn’t matter whether it’s static or dynamic. And as you mention, Gil, the feedback loops to indicate whether content is used, re-used, enhanced, corrected, etc., is one of the more modern areas to be added on to this.

I started covering this kind of technology in the 2000-2002 timeframe, when people like Tacit (now since acquired), SRD (acquired by IBM), askMe (which still exists, to my astonishment), Contact Networks Corp (acquired by Thomson Reuters) and others were first getting out of the gate.

Unfortunately, as we see time and time again, the ROI for much of the work under the Enterprise 2.0 umbrella is difficult to sell/quantify, and expertise even more so. So, along with prediction markets, even though there is great potential value (if done well), the interest in experts/expertise has been buried under the more broad, and perhaps less valuable in the end, “social watercooler” that many seem to get caught up in.

From time to time I argue that if you flip this upside down, it may be far MORE useful to create a “newbie locator” service, such as new hires, and specifically pair them up with the experts. This can feedback/forward in both directions, as even experts still have more to learn, and a fresh perspective may get them to re-think the subject/problem at hand. Loops, feedback, and that’s right, emergence!

There’s a presentation I gave many times in the 2002-2004 timeframe, and have since update off and on. It’s slightly outdated as far as the possible commercial solutions (since there hasn’t been much direct focus on this, but still, hopefully of some use.

See: Build Smarter Internal and External Communities on communities and networks as Relationship Intelligence (rather than Business Intelligence, etc.).

Relating as well, see Is Enterprise 2.0 = Knowledge Management 2.0? which works in the connection between “old school” KM and Enterprise 2.0, and a fair amount on emergence/loops.

We’ll see what Google does with Aardvark – expect it will remain more consumer-focused in the short-term, but eventually be folded into Google Apps. Depends on how quickly Wave/Buzz become stable and more widely adopted in enterprise settings.

Cheers,
Dan

]]> By: Gil Yehuda http://www.gilyehuda.com/2010/02/11/finding-experts/comment-page-1/#comment-3819 Gil Yehuda Fri, 19 Feb 2010 17:43:48 +0000 http://www.gilyehuda.com/?p=1034#comment-3819 Thanks Bruce. I was just speaking to Newsgator and learning about the expertise location capabilities that Microsoft is putting in place for Outlook 2010 along with SharePoint 2010. If you have both (something that will take a while), then they mine your text (if you allow) for noun phrases. Visions of clippy hit my mind as I thought of the pop-up (<i>"Looks like you are answering questions about Tax Law. Would you like me to tag you as a Tax Law expert and have others ask you question too?"</i>). But something like this is in the works. And partners (such as Newsgator) are building enhanced features to the base capabilities to make it work better. I was impressed to learn that Newsgator's enhancements to SharePoint also leverage other signals of expertise beyond email mining -- and I think it speaks to a more refined notion of "subject matter expert". SME's are more that people who talk about a topic -- they are people who demonstrate value helping others. So yes, expertise location is on the radar in many if not all the major players. I have heard of a couple of good stories where these tools help, but we're far from this being a mainstream kind of enterprise technology. But we have much to look forward to. Thanks Bruce. I was just speaking to Newsgator and learning about the expertise location capabilities that Microsoft is putting in place for Outlook 2010 along with SharePoint 2010. If you have both (something that will take a while), then they mine your text (if you allow) for noun phrases. Visions of clippy hit my mind as I thought of the pop-up (“Looks like you are answering questions about Tax Law. Would you like me to tag you as a Tax Law expert and have others ask you question too?”). But something like this is in the works. And partners (such as Newsgator) are building enhanced features to the base capabilities to make it work better. I was impressed to learn that Newsgator’s enhancements to SharePoint also leverage other signals of expertise beyond email mining — and I think it speaks to a more refined notion of “subject matter expert”. SME’s are more that people who talk about a topic — they are people who demonstrate value helping others. So yes, expertise location is on the radar in many if not all the major players. I have heard of a couple of good stories where these tools help, but we’re far from this being a mainstream kind of enterprise technology. But we have much to look forward to.

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