I suspect Hubert does not have a blog. Most non-bloggers who chose to comment on them just do not understand them.

I mostly agree. Each blog entry can, on its own, be egotistical because of the nature and immediacy of the outpouring and the lack of peer review. Once published however it can then be challenged or supported allowing casual readers to see the different perspectives as they emerge. If the authors ego dominates then the entire blog risks being ignored and lampooned.

Multiple entries across many different blogs, tracking back and cross referencing, are true ‘living’ collaboration with their encouraging or dampening feedback.

As for an organisation, I think it should spend more time mandating collaboration itself not a specific tool. Let the collaborators decide on the means.

Blog posts are anecdotes and stories, often with additional richness provided by outgoing links. At a certain level, I think it does not matter whether they are egotistical or not (we all are in one way or another, even when we are offering anecdotes or telling stories offline) .. and of course Ron you point out that the ensuing back and forth when there are comments often adds perspective and shape.

That said, I am wondering of your point assumes that we are looking for knowledge or expertise in / from blog posts, and I think I think that is missing the point. To reiterate, blog posts are basically anecdotes and stories, just as oral exchange offline are or sometimes email exchanges are .. as I understand it, in Dave's concept and theory, they become points of data with which to seek and observe patterns, which leads to shaping the information they provide into useful forms, such as early weak signals.

The interesting part about this discipline is that there is no right or wornf=g for all humanity, just many perspectives based on our own knowledge and experiences. I find the title of this blog "Hubert's error" to be a continuation of the arrogance that only one opinion matters when it comes to KM....David's!

Sorry Michelle, good debating point but its not supported by checking the text.

I am advocating diversity, in which blogs and wikis can be including within a KM solution. I am also advocating a position in which people can within some constraints choose their own tool, and arguing that technology means this is not an issue any more on inter group collaboration. Hubert in contrast is asserting a "one true way". Accordingly I make no apology for the blog title

Dave I can see why Hubert provoked your thoughts. As you point out a wiki is a more efficient form of knowledge creation—completely transparent and consensus driven. Last year I worked on a healthcare PI wiki and found it a frustrating endeavor. Despite having a large client base, getting involvement and quality content was extremely difficult. The lack of interaction was disappointing but the technology is still rightly founded on collaborative interactions. The power of global collaboration is easy to see with a quick look at the history and discussion tabs of Wikipedia.

Blogs are certainly a publishing tool but also a far more effective collaborative tool. Wikis pander to facts, consensus, and information—they lack opinion leaders. The opinion leaders of the blogoshpere create the passion and differing perspectives to bring about real dialogues—interactive publications. I completely agree with Jon that blogs can be misued for knowledge and expertise. The opinion leaders provide the inspiration to agree or disagree.

Michelle, I’m alittle confused by your comments. If there’s no right or wrong then what’s the point? I appreciate the fact that people have their own unique folk taxonomies but there is purpose in bridging knowledge between people--opinions provide the energy to do it. There may be disagreement in Dave’s assessment and that is the value here. I think Dave makes excellent points. Hubert’s defining blogs and wikis as simply tools for publishing seems nearsighted and in error. This blog gives Hubert an opportunity to respond and continue the dialogue.

"Blogs are conversations. As you link with other people’s material, add their blogs to your RSS feed; a community forms".

I'll go along with that. So how come you aren't linking this blog to others? I stumbled across this one from garry at educationau, http://blogs.educationau.edu.au/gputland/, from his blogroll. So I can learn about his community, but not yours.

Not having a go at you mate. I don't have a blog so that would be a pot calling your kettles black. I spend my time in forums and try and point between them (from community to community, not individual to individual). E.g http://www.webjunction.org/do/Navigation?category=388
where people don't like to travel, or even open up
http://www.groups.edna.edu.au/

'Bottom up' is right but ya gotta do some knitting.

N-o-o-o-o, poor Hubert. Blogging isn't (always) egotistical, though some bloggers are. The best bloggers allow readers to do this, which is a lovely description I just came across in www.participationliteracy.com
"I am navigating trails that other people have made, and the focusing ‘flow’ I am in makes the I, ME, melt together with the ‘tools’ I am using in the navigation through the woods. With the billons of traces made by people through the decades I am also performing a, rather transparent, task called “Social Navigation”."

I guess this is all begging for a comment from me, after many have spoken on my behalf. I realize I'm going against the flow when I voice some of my opinions. Communities have an inherent tendency to be centrifugal in their thinking. I deplore somewhat the rise of 'KM fashionistas' in the field who don't value others' opinions or at least are not trying to understand why someone may not necessarily be an idiot even s/he is voicing contrary opinions. Of course, this is taking the form of a debate which I must admit to like as a dynamic of exchange. I believe it is a great deal more constructive to build on one another's ideas. This does not mean that one is not judicious, just not judgemental.

I knowingly did provoke my friend David for whom I have a great deal of respect. I believe blogs and wiki's work well on the web and in smaller, more informal communities but I have a problem seeing their usefulness in a more formal organizational setting. Like Nick, I have experienced much frustration in bringing life to a wiki in a large corporate organization. My experience has also shown that blogs tend to function for a small minority in an organization. I work mostly in large organizations (although not exclusively), I tend to take a more experiential, practical approach.

My views are a little more nuanced than expressed by David who always enjoys the banter. I believe that knowledge is based mostly in collaboration, instead of content. Blogs and wiki's are mostly content tools linked by some interaction. I'm looking for virtual tools that are asynchronous and that promote conversations and dialogue instead of the rather unproductive taking of positions. I believe that knowledge resides more in the exchange (or in the nodes) than it resides in our respective heads. Far from imposing anything on people, I want to free them up to resolve issues that they collectively care about by entiring into a constructive multi-facited dialogue where they buiold on one another's information and where they learn by socially validating their learning through an on-line exchange. Both wiki's and blogs offer a very narrow window to achieve this. In my experience, ackward tools produce acward experiences which limit the exchange. This is why wiki's die in organizational settings.

"his is why wiki's die in organizational settings."

They don't.

Hubert, I find your position so nuanced that I feel I must be missing some great insight. You state that "knowledge is based mostly in collaboration, instead of content" and you then dismiss blogs and wikis for being mainly content repositories with "some interaction" as if they exist in isolation from the act of reading and interpretation. I would argue that blogs and wikis are just part of a knowledge ecology which supports people's decision making by making a record of understanding _at that moment in time_, no more and no less. Stating that these tools are just used to let people indulge in an 'unproductive taking of positions' is to conflate two issues, what the tools can do and how they are used. If you have a culture that already encourages position taking then any tools, including your nebulous tools that are " asynchronous and that promote conversations and dialogue" will be used to support the taking of positions. My experience of wikis in a large organisation has been the total opposite of yours and Nick Brumleve (above). It took a long time to reach a critical mass, deliberately so, as we didn't promote it widely but let people discover them and that has left a culture that can sustain itself into the future.

If I understand correctly, I think I would agree with Hubert St Onge that blogs and wikis are not tools which are specifically optimised as discussion engines, and whilst they can and are used as such, other tools where interaction is actually designed in through quoting, profiles, sigs, read next unread, sort by author date or topic, and so on will remain popular and well used despite the presence of these new person-orientated and document-orientated tools. The fact that Dave needed to alert us when Hubert had commented here illustrates the point well.
I'm also interested that Hubert is espousing a connectivist theory of knowledge, which is well worth further consideration.

Communities have an inherent tendency to be centrifugal in their thinking

I understand what Hubert is getting at here, but just want to flag the assertion about "inherent tendency". Yes it happens .. is it an iunherent tendency ? Not so sure.

I believe blogs and wiki's work well on the web and in smaller, more informal communities but I have a problem seeing their usefulness in a more formal organizational setting. Like Nick, I have experienced much frustration in bringing life to a wiki in a large corporate organization. My experience has also shown that blogs tend to function for a small minority in an organization.

Why are skunkworks named after skunks ? I think there's an essential element of the issue missing here .. which is whther or not larger and more formal organization will continue to be structured and operate as they have more or less for the last 40 years or so. IMO this remains to be seen, whilst clearly most leaders and senior managers would prefer to have the damping down of most circulation of information other than that fully aligned with a top-down developed and driven vision and mission.

The utility of blogs (and to a lesser extent, I think, wikis) in larger organizations will continue to be less than optimal in the quasi-bureaucratic and conformity seeking cultures of larger organizations ... who often watch as smaller more nimble organizations change the game on them unless protected by legislation or de facto oligopoly.

I believe that knowledge is based mostly in collaboration, instead of content. Blogs and wiki's are mostly content tools linked by some interaction

Hmm .. a blog is not much of anything .. yes, a publishing mechanism .. without interaction. That interaction can take many forms, including non-commenting readers who may find a blog a source of inspiration, or reflection, or explicit knowledge, or a hub pointing to other knowledge in various directions, etc. ... all of which can lead to other potential and probable knowledge-construction orented interactions elsewhere. In some blogs that engender lively communities of comment, much other purposeful and knowledge-building activity can devolve from there.

Far from imposing anything on people, I want to free them up to resolve issues that they collectively care about by entiring into a constructive multi-facited dialogue where they build on one another's information and where they learn by socially validating their learning through an on-line exchange.

Both wiki's and blogs offer a very narrow window to achieve this

IMO, blogs and blogging offers what Hubert desire .. not in all cases, but in areas where issues are being taken on by a group of people concerned about or by the issue(s).

Blogs only (and often) offer a narrow window for this by virtue of the reader looking only for explicit knowledge to use from a blog or blog post, as opposed to considering that a blog or blog post(s) may be seeking to provoke investigation and discourse, or introduce other frames and models, or just asking questions, or highlighting other information / knowledge to be vetted by a community.

Etc.

I think that the use of blogs and blogging is limited mainly by the perspective(s) of the user or potential user, what they are seeking, and the extent to which they are willing to engage in perhaps-sometimes-useful-and-perhaps-sometimes-not-useful conversation through commenting and subsequent reflection and posting.