This is now more than an experiment. I started this blog three years ago today as a way to share materials with my students when I was teaching a class on IT management at the Kellogg School. On that first day I linked to two items in Technology Review on digital preservation and on the semantic web and I posted an entry on K-logs in organizations – technical and organizational challenges.
In the Spring of 2002, I created a course on knowledge management and made blogging a requirement of that course. That first effort was a mixed success at best (see Blogging in the Classroom Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4)and I returned to the private sector before I had a chance to address the lessons learned from that experiment.
I continue to believe that the kinds of simple tools represented by blogs and wikis will ultimately become an essential part of the toolkit of every knowledge worker. As is typically the case for technology innovations, the issues to be dealt with are social and organizational not technical.
What is absolutely clear to me is that the primary, if unexpected, benefit of maintaining this blog is in the new connections it has made for me. Directly because of the time I have put into this blog I have a new set of friends and colleagues all over the world. So, to begin with I would like to thank Dave Winer, Robert Scoble, and John Robb for creating the tools I use and for being willing to take a flyer on the notion of supporting a now former academic trying to apply them in a real world context. Radio, warts and all, remains one of the most innovative tools integrating all the essential elements supporting my blogging in a single environment.
To the following new friends I have managed to encounter because of blogging, thank you for making this an experiment I intend to continue. Let’s see who else we can invite to the party.
Jenny Levine, AKMA, Terry Frazier, Betsy Devine, Buzz Bruggeman, Denham Grey, Marc Orchant, Cameron Reilly, Marjolein Hoekstra, Ernie Svenson, Judith Meskill, Jack Vinson, Ross Mayfield, Lilia Efimova, Jeremy Wagstaff, Matt Mower, Ton Zijlstra, Eric Snowdeal, Rick Klau, Greg Lloyd, Chris Nuzum, Jordan Frank, Halley Suitt, Jon Husband, and Dina Mehta.
If I’ve forgotten someone, my apologies. Ping me and I’ll update the list.
UPDATE: Between some pings and racking my brains some more, I’ve added some updates to the list above