Out of The Box - Week Ending 01/15

The Winter ALTA season is off to a fairly rocky start. We're at Week 3 and already we've had two weeks of weather-related delays and we've only managed to eek out 2 practice sessions. I'm hoping my team kills it this week to make up for the combined hot mess of Weeks 1 & 2. The only real advantage of no tennis today is that I got to spend the afternoon at Panera catching up on my reading...yay!!!

I've been digging up some new reading sources over the last few weeks with a slant towards some local publications to give Atlanta a bit more representation. This week's reads are a grab bag...no major themes.

Enjoy!

Oh, and Happy Birthday to The First Lady too!!

• Could bartering also work as a feasible strategy for improving knowledge sharing and building community in your organization?


• Is your ego getting in the way of your effectiveness (or growth) as a Knowledge Manager


• Quote of the Week: If you are not criticized, you may not be doing much. - Donald H. Rumsfeld. Not sure if Don's the right person to be making this statement, but I'm lovin' it nonetheless.


• How To of the Week: I'd add some more non-compensatory options to the list of incentives, but there's some pretty good ideas here on How to Motivate Your Employees.


• WTF of The Week: Avatar leading to depression? Really, people? Really!?!?!


• Just a good old fashioned reminder not to be too obnoxious with all that blogging, tweeting, and online chatting you might be doing to build up your customer base

Out of The Box - Week Ending 9/26

Well, considering I'm knee deep in acquainting myself with SPAWAR's KM strategy and trying to understand OracleAS Portals (and why anyone would choose OracleAS to build out a knowledge base in the first place), I'm surprised I have the time or energy to spend on my blog, but I'm trying to avoid being a flogger ('flaky blogger') and get back into the swing of things. At least I was finally able to get my Gossip Girl/KM rant posted!

Unless you live under a rock (or in Iraq...chuckle...it's only funny if you pronounce it properly) you know that most of the news these days is either politics (yay politics) or the economy (boo economy)...or some combination of the two. Between the impending election, the bail out of AIG, and the fall of WaMu (which, as a customer for the last 12 months really didn't shock me - contrary to the commercials that woo'd me, WaMU was almost as bad as Verizon in the customer service department) I haven't read much this past week that sparked any KM-interest.

Not much, but enough to kick out an OOTB post for this week.

• No time like a crappy time to get creative and take stock of business practices and technologies. Check out these Tech Trends.
• No duh! of The Week: Clay is gay. Shocking. Really.
• Quote of the Week: "Business success isn't about having better technology; it's about using technology better."
• "With economists predicting one of the weakest Decembers since 1991, merchants must put their best foot forward for top customers" and knowledge management professionals can gain insight from these tips to keep the sharing flowing by targeting top contributors.
• How To of the Week: How to Persuade People With Subconscious Techniques.
• It just so happens that I love my new job, but what about when you don't? This podcast offers some advice on steps to take when the honeymoon ends before the ink isn't even dry on your offer letter.
• Cool Tool: Apture. Click on WaMU above to check it out in this post.