I may have a depth of knowledge about the work I do but I don’t ever want to sell my clients strictly on my knowledge. This may be a rookie mistake but the clients I work with are people who understand that every new effort is learning. That is because every effort meant to bring about real change must follow a new path.

There are many lessons to be learned when you choose a new path.

Everything is Learning

The old saying about, “you learn something new everyday” has always served as a centering idea for me. Days that I feel like I haven’t learned something are days that I haven’t lived life to its fullest; days where I haven’t been fully present to what is happening around me.

When we work together on a project it is important to be fully present. By this I mean that it is important to give your focus over to the task at hand; to stop multi-tasking for those moments that you are trying to create the change your organization needs.

By being present, paying close attention and actively listening; this is where you can learn a great deal about yourself and your organization.

There are multiple layers to every problem we come across. If we spend all of our time searching for solutions instead of listening for the heart of the problem we might create short term change; but, we’ll miss the opportunity for cultural change.

For me, this business venture requires my presence to make sure it remains a worthy effort. Learning becomes my culture and affects my approach to everything. The culture of learning forces me to be present at all times so I don’t miss a lesson.

Teachers are Learners Too

Over the past week I’ve had the pleasure of working with another social entrepreneur who has a great deal of experience. She can see the potential in my ventures and is helping to draw that potential out for the world to see.

Her organization is hoping to learn more about the use of social media to affect social change and she turned to me to share knowledge on the subject. In return she is sharing a great deal of knowledge with me about becoming a productive social entrepreneur. At once we are both teacher and learner.

Thanks to her lessons I am working hard to pinpoint deliverable activities that I can offer to clients that are more concrete and actionable than the deliverable descriptions I’ve listed so far. This is something I’ve been struggling with because I couldn’t recognize it on my own; I needed someone else to teach me.

Growing and Sharing Knowledge

What do you do with all of the lessons learned, discoveries and innovations that come from a culture of learning? I believe you grow through them. I also believe that you share them – letting new knowledge grow even in the most unlikely places.

The picture I’ve included at the top of this post is one form of harvesting knowledge: what is learned and what is decided during a work session. While it may feel similar to taking notes this method is important for several reasons.

• It is visually stimulating, begging that participants pay attention to what is being created.
• It is large and available for all participants to see, in real time; this creates ownership.
• It sits in the middle, maintaining focus on the purpose of the meeting.
• It provides multiple cues (words/colors/graphics) to stimulate your mind when considering the content.
• Like notes, it provides a record of what happened that can then be maintained/transferred for future learning and application.

This online journal is an extension of the harvest for my work. In every meeting there is a place for the large format real time harvest; out of that comes the ability to introduce technology for quick search-ability, link-ability and reuse.

Harvesting of all forms becomes our link between the past and the present and the connection between all participants in the project. This is the sweet fruit that sustains us and provides seeds for future growth.

Example

Sarah, Deb and Bob are assigned to a project which falls under two separate work groups. Sarah and Bob work for the same administrator who assigned them to a project aimed at saving money on computers; Deb is also working on the project but as the IT Standards person.

This means that there is a second line of reporting structure as well, to cover Deb’s administrator and her day-to-day work-group.

We now have at least 5 people involved in this project:

• Sarah, Deb and Bob
• Sarah and Bob’s Administrator
• Deb’s Administrator

 That will quickly expand as Sarah and Bob start polling other work-groups to better understand their computing needs. Within the work-groups there will likely be co-workers who have input on this project as well (or could, if they were given the opportunity).

Without a centralized, published and search-able reporting mechanism most of the project communication is likely happening via emails and other silo’d data sharing processes.

This means that when Sarah needs to know what Bob and Deb worked on while she was on vacation she has to request updates from them directly, even if they provided updates to their administrators. If the folks in the development work-group want to know where the project stands because they need to buy some new PCs they also have to contact Deb, Sarah or Bob directly. Depending on the reporting method it is conceivable that even Sarah, Bob and Deb’s respective administrators are not actually getting the same report either.

At the end of the project you end up with piles of information about lessons learned, research, and best practices that are rarely if ever shared because they are all locked away in your individual email, document files or, god-forbid, paper files.

Solutions

Setup an internal collaboration tool (like a blog or wiki) that staff use as their project documentation and reporting structure. These are search-able, linkable, and tag enabled allowing for quick and useful information gathering during the project process and in the future when it is time to renegotiate.

Complement this by using practices that provide a much fuller harvest of the information shared at the meeting which can be easily retained in share-able software formats.

So how many times a week can you relate to this story? Are you prepared to do things differently as a way of removing this inefficiency?

For help making this happen contact Andrew Miller Consulting.

Friday Reflection

Consider what you are doing to share more of what you are doing so that you are connecting with co-workers and supporters. Even if you work as the lone janitor on the night-shift you still have ways of connecting with those you serve; the work you do is an important part of their lives.

Take a moment today to imagine your world where we are all conscious of the connections we have to each other. Now imagine the power of sharing your knowledge throughout that network.

Click here to download the full PDF (~30mb) from the Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship (IDEALS).

The latest attempt to break the Google stranglehold on the search market is Microsoft’s new product: Bing (Bing Is Not Google). If you’d like to check it out for yourself then I suggest you head over to http://bing.com but don’t worry about breaking a sweat to get there. Bing is pretty uninspired visually and the back-end functionality feels more like Microsoft is catching up with Google, not surpassing it or even changing the game.

The issue is that Microsoft continues to look at projects with an engineer’s eyes; in very black and white terms. “If we can build a better search engine than Google we win.” This constant focus on competition instead of community keeps Microsoft falling short. Microsoft should look for ways to create new community instead of just “better tools” as a way to grow sustainable innovation (and thus fan base).

Of course this past week there was a new product that has shown innovation and community centered philosophy. And of course it is Google’s new product (protocol?) called Wave.

Before you sink your teeth into the Google Wave Developer Preview video which is 1.5 hours long and worth every minute (the very last demo will blow your mind) I want to relate to you where I see this application being a game changer for organizations and individuals.

Google Wave is based on the idea of conversations as opposed to messages (along with about 100 other innovations) and the engineers have done a fantastic job of accomplishing that. There is a lot of speculation about whether or not people will adopt to this product, to “catch the wave” or whatever. The advantages that Google are hoping pay off are:

• That the product lets you integrate so much work-flow that it would be difficult not to use it,
• The work-flow is all about collaboration and building community through sharing of control and content,
• They are making it open source so anyone can implement it and develop off of it, and;
• Everything happens inside the browser using HTML5 so you don’t have to deal with device dependencies.

The technological advances that allow the level of control sharing are unbelievable and the closest comparison I could make to this in our physical world would be the types of decentralized leadership being practiced by groups such as The Art of Hosting.

When you consider the social changes that are currently underway around the world you see that this product is directly in line with those changes. Google let the community dictate the direction of their solution instead of the engineers. What I mean this; current trends show the digital leaders (and their networks) are using online tools to share and create things without the hierarchy and centralized control of the past.

This digitalocracy of people are ignoring the protocols of society to create their own solutions to business, organization, community and even individual problems by collaborating online, sharing transparently and crowdsourcing.

Breaking big problems down into smaller chunks and allowing the group to solve them and then fit the pieces back together has become second nature to many of us and this is exactly how Google Wave approaches collaboration, conversation and problem solving. Taking it one step further is that Google Wave allows for a report out and harvest of every collaboration making it not just a fantastic tool for building collaboration and community but also for knowledge management and growth.

One of the biggest walls stifling the digitalocracy is the bureaucracy built into our current systems. If a new application like Google Wave can find its way into our current systems then by the nature of how it empowers everyone to be equals and to work communally we will in fact see a change in how organizations function.

So, without further ado I present the Google Wave Developer Demo:

I detailed my proposal in this post if you’d like to see what it is that I’ll be writing about. I’m very excited about this project and look forward to providing you with updates as it moves forward.

Columbus Ohio is rated by Neilson Online as the 8^th highest user of social media applications and has been rated as a top technology city in the US. As the center of State government we have an opportunity to broaden the capability of our current human capital while becoming more attractive to a younger generation of public servants. This general familiarity with social media applications and technology means that the time is right for the State of Ohio to seize the moment.

Governor Strickland has appropriately suggested that our economic recover and the State of Ohio’s future must include investment in developing new technologies and better utilizing the technologies available today.

I believe we can begin implementing a 5 point program now which will save the State money, empower both State employees and the general public and create a technological culture that will stimulate growth in the State of Ohio.

• Utilize social applications and multi-media in a professional manor to maximize knowledge transfer, collaborative effort and transparency.
• Make use of linked data as a way to maximize enterprise information sharing.
• Create an Open Data Store for the State of Ohio that allows employees, citizens and organizations direct digital access to public information.
• Design future applications using Open Source standards and include Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that allow employees, citizens and organizations the ability to create useful mashups.
• Centralize all agency applications and data to a State of Ohio “Cloud” and develop desktop standards that reflect the lesser local system demand.

The key to success in this endeavor is to utilize resources that already exist such as GPL Open Source Software that many State employees already utilize in their personal lives. Another important component of success will be to clearly define the parameters of public data for the sake of protecting citizen and employee identities. Security should not be a barrier to moving in this direction; the data already exists on the network and we are already taxed with due diligence to protect it.

This set of ideas is not bleeding edge and is thus appropriate for consideration by a public entity such as the State of Ohio. In fact, some of these ideas may already be partially implemented and just need to be brought full circle.

A quick review of some of the most useful applications on the internet reveals the success of opening up your data and providing APIs to the general public. Without this we wouldn’t have ended up with resources such as Govloop.com, EveryBlock.com, The Commons, Google Transit Maps, Recovery.gov, etc. Clearly this is the time for the State of Ohio to embrace these ideas.

Point-by-Point

Utilize social applications and multi-media in a professional manor to maximize knowledge transfer, collaborative effort and transparency.

Social applications are loosely defined as applications that allow interaction and two way communications of ideas and thoughts. Some of the most popular social applications are iGoogle, Wikipedia, WordPress, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr.

What makes these sites so popular and how can we leverage those ideas for doing business at the State of Ohio?

If we break down what each application actually does for us we can start to understand how the principles can apply to our various business models.

iGoogle: This juggernaut of a company provides extensive social applications but is primarily known for its search, email and news reader functions.

The search function allows for users to promote pages that more correctly match what they were searching for as well as remove results that were erroneous.

Often when searching for documentation of policy, procedure, law, etc. on the State of Ohio website the search results that are returned have little to do with what you hope to locate. This is primarily related to the searcher’s lack of knowledge about State terminology and acronyms. By giving the searcher the tools to teach the search engine their understanding, our search results can improve exponentially.

We currently utilize Google as the provider of our search services so implementation of this would be relatively easy.

I don’t believe that the case could, or should, be made to utilize Gmail however I believe that the iGoogle RSS news reader function is, at least functionally, something important to consider. Utilizing an RSS news reader allows for delivery of important information whether it is keeping up with the latest industry trends or using internal feeds for important stories about a department or agency. In our current environment there is a desire to standardize our email system with MS Outlook. If that direction is followed there are free, powerful add-ons such as Attensa which can provide this functionality inside our current email application.

RSS news readers are only as good as the feeds they deliver. This means that our networks will have to be open enough to navigate blogs and other social media sites that provide RSS subscription. Policy will need to be adjusted across the agencies to create the appropriate balance. Access and usage of the internet is related more to management of employees than it is to locking down network access.

Besides external RSS news feeds agencies should embrace the use of internal RSS feeds. Almost any finalized document can be setup to syndicate via RSS. This could allow management and clients (when appropriate) instant notification of published documents or other media. Digital notifications could go out this way instead of sending large emails, which reduces system resource strain.

Wikipedia: This application is best known for its role as a user generated encyclopedia but it is the foundation of the application that is most useful to the State. A Wiki is free software that allows multiple users to collaborate on document creation without the same sort of ownership issues caused by applications such as MS SharePoint. Wiki’s are developed around standards such as XML/RSS which allows for automatic notification of changes and completion of projects.

Wiki software can allow various levels of collaboration including allowing the general public to provide comments during project development in the cases that this is appropriate. Not only would that provide the State with a diversity of input but it could also provide the State expertise that it otherwise wouldn’t have had access to. This is similar to President Obama’s current plan of allowing for public feedback on bills which are not considered emergency legislation.

Wiki software could also act as a repository for best practice information that currently exists only in the minds of employees or perhaps in emails or standalone documents. The linkable data within a Wiki would make this information significantly more accessible than in those other mediums.

WordPress: WordPress is one of the most popular blog platforms; it is Open Source and free to download. The blog application however is more important an idea than the specific WordPress product. Blogs offer a very simple interface for sharing information on any range of topics. The blog posts can instantly feed via RSS making them another good option for immediate reporting. Blogs are also a great way of creating linkable data.

Currently information which may be important to multiple individuals, such as lessons learned, project status or even weekly status reports are trapped in standalone systems or provided in a closed format.

Providing narrative type information via a blog post can create searchable, linkable information and history which becomes a resource for the whole organization. If an individual has downtime during a week they can spend that time learning more about best practices, etc. which they can then share on their blog status report. This offers the opportunity to provide knowledge to everyone subscribed to their RSS news feed.

Facebook: The actual Facebook application may be a source of outreach for certain State agencies or departments and that may include developing applications to further our understanding of citizens needs. More important than the Facebook brand however is the community and networking that comes from such an application.

Ning is a social networking platform similar to Facebook which can be built for any community of interest desired. Similar to Facebook, a Ning allows for RSS feeds to come into it so that you do not have to replicate work you have already done in say a Wiki or a blog. The power of these communities is the ability to see what a colleague is working on or questioning and then contributing to that effort in either a small or large way.

The nature of these community applications is growing your network by becoming a “Friend of a Friend”. In the business environment this would be an expansion of your professional network based on similar work roles, shared projects and other collaboration opportunities.

As your network grows you will find greater opportunity to serve the State in ways that would otherwise not have been considered due to the current status of silo type work environments.

Twitter: Twitter itself is a powerful micro-blogging community which allows for a great deal of knowledge transfer in short, easy to digest bursts. This micro-blogging type of application is available for internal only communications as well and it works with RSS to provide efficient communication across multiple social networks.

Consider using micro-blogging as a way of updating internal workgroups and clients about immediately useful information or as a way to poll others internally for ideas without needing to formally meet.

YouTube and Flickr: There are several other social media applications along these lines; not the least of which are Utterli (primarily an audio based application) and Slideshare (a slide presentation application) which can all be defined as multi-media based social networks. The opportunity for the State of Ohio in these types of applications are many fold but mostly center around training issues or delivery of ancillary data to the social media applications listed above.

Beyond the ease of outreach of social media the single biggest advantage is the ability to communicate the same message in any number of different mediums. Looking at how news media is adopting to the online environment you see traditional newspapers such as the NY Times providing an enormous amount of video, audio and slide-show content while television and radio broadcasters are providing transcripts along side their recorded media.

The State now has the opportunity to provide low-budget multi-media laced information to internal and external users who internalize information in different ways (i.e. Visual, Aural, and Spatial learners).

Make use of linked data as a way to maximize enterprise information sharing.

The idea of linked data is to use semantic tools to create a more useful set of search options for your data. Linked data includes the actual hyper-links that a user determines are appropriate to clarify or support a document but also information such as tags and other meta-data which makes a document, picture, video or other form of data more understandable to search engines and machines.

As I pointed out in my examples of social media applications above they can all link between each other, feed information via RSS, and most utilize a standard format such as XML. The power of providing linked data is expected to grow over the coming years as users become more adept at providing appropriate meta-data and machines become better at understanding users.

To maintain some sense of order to an otherwise chaotic world of data the adoption of policies which encourage the creation of meta-data are essential. The benefits of easily retrievable information makes this well worth the time investment on the front end.

Create an Open Data Store for the State of Ohio that allows employees, citizens and organizations direct access to public information.

Organizations that create massive amounts of data are creating data stores that allow others access to the data in a scrubbed, but otherwise raw format. The theory behind this is that if someone can have access to your data they can quickly and easily reuse that data to create a remix or mashup that is useful to them.

Most individuals and small organizations do not have the resources to build the kind of databases that large organizations have built. Similarly, large organizations often miss the opportunity to build small, niche query applications because it is not a part of their mission.

The social media application EveryBlock.com exploits data from thousands of resources to build hyper-local profiles useful to citizens. Without that data being made freely available this extremely useful remix and mashup would never exist.

Internal State staff as well as external individuals and organizations would be able to utilize data across all State resources to create new, meaningful applications and reports that otherwise would be impossible to deliver.

An Open Data Store would include access to finalized documents coming through the social media applications discussed above as well as data from legacy agency applications. This availability would significantly cut down on Freedom of Information Act requests as the requester would be able to simply search and link to the data themselves.

Design future applications using Open Source Software standards and include Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that allow employees, citizens and organizations the ability to create useful mashups.

Due to growing concerns about transparency organizations such as the State of Ohio have an opportunity to be proactive by creating software based on Open Source standards. The adoption of such standards under the broader goals of the Free Culture movement would then show a proactive stance in regards to how transparently government functions over all.

In general the primary cost benefit of developing applications under Open Source standards would be to provide greater competition between vendors for development, maintenance and upgrade work. When combined with providing APIs this greatly increases a user’s ability to enhance an application without directly impacting the core system.

Similar to opening up data stores, by providing APIs many users will be able to provide functionality useful to them that otherwise wouldn’t be affordable or may have not even been imagined. The additional functionality would then become useable by the State or any other entity.

As discussed above, by opening up data across the board, including access to process and procedure documentation, both internal and external clients can become more effective in how they utilize the resources and services the State provides.

Centralize all agency applications and data to a State of Ohio “Cloud” and develop desktop standards that reflect the lesser local system demand.

While a significant number of applications already exist at the SOCC most State agencies still host large client/server environments, silo email systems, expensive desktop machines and software, support staff across all layers of the agencies and the resulting diversity of procurements necessary to maintain everything.

By centralizing the applications and data significant cost savings could be realized through the support of fewer computing centers. Reducing the diversity of hardware and software on the server side would also provide greater uniformity to applications; making the creation of an Open Data Store and APIs easier.

Moving all applications and data to the cloud will provide the State with greater control over enterprise standards and procurements. This will allow for greater cost savings, particularly when purchasing IT commodities.

Following the lead of several foreign governments and international corporations the State of Ohio could shift desktop computing away from proprietary software and towards OSS. Linux and Open Office are both extremely user friendly, powerful and interoperate well with Microsoft products until a complete transition can occur. In the case of most State employees very inexpensive desktop computers could be utilized since much of the processing and all of the data would be dealt with by the cloud.

On lower-end hardware Linux based systems perform much better than Microsoft based systems due to lower processor and memory overhead.

There is immense savings to be found in centralization albeit at great political expense. Like a majority of other states, governments and private entities, the State of Ohio can and should elevate the Office of Information Technology to a prominent position giving them the political capital necessary to best serve the needs of State government and the taxpayers.

Conclusion

There will always be a pull over what are appropriate uses of technology in the work place. The argument is greatly rooted in the idea that managers must maintain rigid controls or else they will lose productivity. While this may be the case with certain individuals the reality is that efficiencies and cost savings never previously imaginable are attainable by properly utilizing the collaborative technology available and managing as is appropriate to the current technological environment. The State of Ohio has an enormous opportunity that should be taken advantage of.

Basic Principles

• Social Applications to interconnect groups across disciplines and agencies.
• Multi-media learning environments.
• Encourage use of social networking for professional growth.
• Make office perform more collaboratively.
• Flatten organizational hierarchy.
• Provide data in XML and other standard formats internally and externally.
• Common data repository for scrubbed (no address/SS#) data.
• Connect voicemail to text-mail (i.e. iPhone or Google vmail to text apps) which is more portable.
• Tag all documents as part of process to create “linked data”.
• Allow entry point for external users.
• Create internal cloud as shared service with all agency applications being web-available.
• Create all future applications as Open Source Software (OSS) for higher vendor competition.
• Follow GPL/OS standards to allow for better transparency.
• Utilize OSS desktop for cost savings.
• Provide API to allow for greater customization by users.

Watch the TED talk and then consider some things I have to say below in regards to how this may resolve some issues of identity.

[ted id="484"] 

When all of our data is interlinked then the network itself will get to know us. The ability of someone to pretend to “be you” on the network will become exceedingly difficult because, much like when you are face to face with a close personal friend, you will “know” if you are talking with your friend or with a fake.

My greatest concern is that by providing this level of data (transparency) about individuals but not requiring the same level of transparency of organizations (private and public) we are setting ourselves up for a one-sided “Big Brother” society. This is why we need to consider policy issues NOW – before it is too late.

Allowing for machine access to this data government is effectively solving two issues and creating cost savings.

• First is creating efficiency. When all relevant data and documentation is hosted online there becomes a much smaller burden placed on government workers to respond with more than a hyperlinking to Freedom of Information Requests. This means workers can focus on their core competencies and watchdog groups can be more effective at policing public issues.
• Second is the opportunity for public input which has the possibility of generating both good ideas and reform to outdated processes with little associated cost. An exponential number of process reviewers can provide for some very creative thinking and input which would otherwise be impossible.
• Finally, there is the over all cost savings for the agency and the public at large by removing “busy work”, physical media research and injecting new viewpoints with creative solutions to current problems.

Deep search projects are starting to scrape the surface of some of these public databases already; through the creation of appropriate procedures the usefulness of this data has an unlimited potential for positive change. Primarily making these databases standardized in formats such as XML and retrievable via RSS.

If you work for a non-profit or a “watchdog” group what kind of data do you regularly request and how much more effective would you be if you had instant, online access to that data instead of using formal FOIA requests?

I don’t in the least believe that this is a simple problem, I’m merely going to break things down into some simplier ideas for the sake of getting the old brain moving. I’m not a security expert but I’ve got a reasonable amount of experience with it so as to not feel that I’m completely out of touch.

• How can we separate our ID from data?
• How often is our individual ID actually important?
• When protecting ideas what are we actually accomplishing?
• What would make the protection of ideas less worthwhile?
• What power are we giving to data and ID theifs that we could take away by being more transparent?

I think some of the keys to the kingdom here relate to a subset of hacking that occurs less and less these days in comparison to truly criminal hacking. Many hackers have set about tasks to liberate knowledge and to make ideas and tech developments available to everyone. As a society we have placed value on ideas and even call such a think Intellectual Property. Being that I am someone who creates a sea of intellectual “property” through my various blog postings, articles, commentary, contract building, procedure and policy creation etc. I should find comfort in laws that protect my ideas from being taken by others. Surprising to many though is that I give them all away.

You see ideas are very personal things. An idea I have may be very similar to one that someone else is having in this world but only I will see it exactly the way that I see it. I can share that idea with someone else but, much like Quantum Physics, that idea changes merely through the other person viewing it. Perception of an idea automatically changes that idea to fit something the viewer can comprehend.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2N9ta1Hmiw&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&fs=1]
A current film out right now “Flash of Genius” tells the story of an individual who designed the first intermittent windshield wiper; the idea was subsequently stolen by Ford Motor Company. This is exactly the sort of thing that most people fear happening, and thus the reason so many ideas never become more than a fleeting thought.

What if we remove the value from the idea and instead focus the value on the individual? How could that be done – don’t we derive value through money and money is derived through sales. This is the leap of faith that I’m talking about. Rearranging the whole system, removing the value of sales, the value of money in general. We live in a time where money is essentially of no value to us anymore. We are living in a time of systems where money is just another system input. Why not manipulate money out of the system?

Once money has been removed from the system then we could look at personal ID. Identity is so important to people, even in societies where standing out as an individual is considered offensive people have an intimate knowledge of themselves and desire to let themselves be who they are. From the standpoint of individual traits and interaction identity is very important but what about from a standpoint of ownership? If we remove money from the system is it really as important then to protect ID in the way that we have had to up until now? By using systems to provide for the needs of everyone, even for individual needs, can we remove the ownership issues which remove the need for mass individual identification?

On a broader scale couldn’t this fundamental change to the systems we use to function (or disfunction) as a society then also have radical impact on what we need to accomplish from security from a physical standpoint. The stepping down of great military and police force?

A Proposal by Andrew Miller

Overview

In an effort to maximize the collective knowledge and experience of individuals, organizations have utilized technology to collect and distribute this information. Storytellers were the first repositories of this collective knowledge. Eventually writing allowed for the building of libraries which was the first great expansion of knowledge repositories. Johann Gutenberg created the next piece of the puzzle with the printing press, making it easier for all levels of knowledge to be captured and distributed. Finally in modern time we have learned to create databases which store exponentially larger amounts of common knowledge and experiences in a searchable, electronic format.

Presently we find ourselves on the cusp of another leap forward for the distribution of knowledge. My proposal is to build a knowledge mapping database that provides all participants with the information they need in any number of formats in real-time. This system will fundamentally change the way the State of Ohio does business; in doing so it will drive business and residents to the State of Ohio.

I call this the Human Knowledge Mapping system. The mechanics of the system can be implemented using primarily off-the-shelf products while the soul of the system will be the employees of the State, then students, then business professionals and finally individual citizens. Through the growth of this system it is possible to dream of a day when all Ohioans, and perhaps all the people of the world, can interact and grow the collective knowledge exponentially.

Summary of Benefits and Initiative Intersections

The scope of this system will leverage current resources in such a way that several current initiatives will benefit. The intersections with these initiatives will not only help this system grow but will help these initiatives to exceed their initial expectations. Below is a short list of the collaboration between this system, the initiatives and realizable benefits.
 

• A primary benefit is that a rapid, real-time response to inquiries will be available to all State of Ohio employees across agencies.
• Human Resources will have access to a cross agency listing of employee knowledge backgrounds, based on current responsibilities as well as previous positions and extracurricular based knowledge.
• OAKS will benefit directly through this exponential growth of personnel information which will expand agency participation and use of the OAKS system.
• Internal Customer Service will improve immediately through the sharing of experience and knowledge when working through standard procedures or previously undocumented and unexpected scenarios.
• External Customer Service will improve as the system expands. By allowing the public at large to utilize this real-time system, many issues will be resolved more efficiently. Industry engaged in business with the State will be able to resolve issues more efficiently which will increase participation and investment.
• Disaster Recovery efforts will benefit from a wider pool of knowledge to fill positions in the event of a significant loss of personnel or in the event that certain activities require greater resources. Using physical mapping mash-ups with this system will provide information about where local and regional resources can be most efficiently relocated.
• The Healthy Ohio Initiative identifies issues with healthcare worker shortages. Upon wider implementation of this system specific shortages and resources can be assessed and resources can be reapplied appropriately.
• The Broadband Ohio Network Initiative has a focus on innovation, research, education and economic competitiveness via OSCnet. This system will utilize Broadband Ohio and OSCnet to create greater collaboration between organizations and individuals, substantially affecting all of the listed focuses.
• The Knowledgeworks Initiative looks to use human resources and technological resources in a way to improve High School, College and Adult Education. This system would provide greater collaboration between educator and learner. The system will open up greater channels for the pursuit of knowledge in education.
• The Advantage Ohio Initiative can be expanded by providing detailed reports about concentrations of knowledge, locations of these bases and specific needs to businesses interested in investing in Ohio. New markets will be exposed as greater reporting about resources and needs occurs.
• Via the development of this system the State of Ohio will establish itself as the most technologically innovative government body in the world.

System Mechanics and Function

The Human Knowledge Mapping system begins with a relatively simple procedure. A sample group will develop lists of what they feel they have to offer as knowledge. This knowledge will include current job analysis, previous work experiences, personal hobbies and other extracurricular based knowledge. It is not necessary that all of the knowledge be professionally related however, as part of the documentation, lists should be separated into professional, non-professional, current and previous experiences. This will give users a more comprehensive understanding of the support they are receiving. Through compilation of these lists common terms will be grouped together under headings which will then develop into a matrix of modules; or, for a more visual context these could be considered islands of knowledge.

The primary components that make up the system will include a chat screen live on every participant’s system, a database, a chat window with active text on agency websites along with a data collection tool. This knowledge information will be added to the system database which could be a part of the OAKS database. A user will enter a question into the agency website chat window. The question will be read by the system which will then use keywords to search the database and determine which islands of knowledge are related. The islands will be identified to the user so that they can see which connections their question has made; this gives the user a chance to refine their question further. All of this will be done using a graphical interface which cues the user to choose narrower keywords (tags) so as to make the system as efficient as possible.

Once the question has been refined the user submits it which broadcasts it to the chat window of all participants who reside on the related islands of knowledge. Assuming the question broadcasts to several people any number of them may participate in the chat. During this chat period the system will record the full session. Links may be shared which the system will follow and record a snapshot of for future reference. File sharing will be limited to include virus protection as well as document protection scans. The recorded chat session is then stored in the database with a record of all participants, the initial question and searchable keyword text. For the initial installation of the system this chat function will use keyboarding but future releases could have live voice or video capability added.

At the end of the session the user who asked the initial question will be emailed a transcript of the chat session and will be invited to participate in the system. If they choose to participate then they will enter their personal knowledge information and, once accepted, they will be given access to the desktop chat program. As the system grows the recorded chat sessions will be included in the initial keyword search so that in some cases a new chat session will not be required to get the user the information they need. These searches will also include access to related links, screenshots and files found in the text searchable chat sessions.

The chat sessions will be secure and the fact that they will be recorded 100% of the time will dissuade system abuse. Initially the system would be utilized for internal state functions but could quickly be implemented with local government co-ops as well as educational institutions. Eventually the chat window would be active on the State of Ohio website allowing for citizens and industry professionals to quickly resolve issues they have in the course of doing business with the state.

As mentioned earlier, all of the key software components already exist. Current examples of similar pieces of software can be found in wide use in private industry and on personal websites. The key difference is the way that this system will bring these software components together. For example, Hewlett Packard provides support via chat sessions which are recorded and then emailed to the user along with a follow up questionnaire. Blog sites running WordPress regularly utilize tagging tools which provide a visual search experience by assigning larger font sizes to tags that relate more directly to the current topic and slowly taper off as the tags lose relevance. This software also displays the tags in a visually stimulating way such as a layered circular design. Web search engines such as Ask.com provide instant links to multiple media types during search queries. This would be beneficial as other resources are added such as video, audio and graphical or photographic information. Wikipedia currently uses this collaborative style content building and provides yet another dimension of this system. You can look at any number of thousands of sites that use Google maps to create mash-ups of information with physical locations. As you can see the mechanisms necessary to deliver such a system are widely available.

By using Service Oriented Architecture the system will allow for quick and easy enhancements as participation increases and needs are realized. The key element to making this a successful system is in its simplicity which will draw in participants. Since this is a collaborative support system, support costs will be low because the participants in the system will provide the user support.