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Are you working in the space industry or trying to help aerospace organizations to share information and knowledge? If so, you are invited attend and submit a paper or presentation to the first International Workshop on Managing Knowledge for Space Missions.

Aerospace companies and government space agencies are working on a wide variety of methods to capture, store, organize, and distribute key knowledge from space experts and missions to explore space and the Earth around us. These successful methods often involve a set of policies, processes, people, and technologies in order to accomplish the goals of the organization. This conference looks to bring together that distributed group and provide a forum for shared understanding and conversations in how organizations are successfully managing knowledge for space missions and how we can, as a global community, do so in the future.

International Workshop on Managing Knowledge for Space Missions
Where: California Institute of Technology, Jet Propulsion Laboratory Pasadena, California, USA
When:July 17-19, 2007
More Info:km.nasa.gov (http://km.nasa.gov/home/event_KMMarch2007_detail.html)

There is a call for presentations and papers
Abstracts due May 18!

This workshop will

Provide a forum for the space community to discuss current activities in space missions and knowledge management, share best practices, and provide focused discussion on specific topics
Communicate and bring focus to applied knowledge management activities oriented in the space missions arena

Who Should Attend?
Aerospace industry and contractors
Government space agencies
Academic researchers in applied methods (students are encouraged)
Knowledge management professionals focused on the aerospace community

Conference Format
Keynote and all-session lectures
Exhibitor area and demonstrations (vendors and case studies from organizations)
Break out focus topics (half or full day)
Birds of a feather lunches
Panel discussions
Fee ($150 USD)

If you have any questions, please check out the web site or contact Jeanne Holm at Jeanne.Holm@jpl.nasa.gov.

Posted by BunkAsInBed at 06:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Horizontal Integration in Knowledge Management can be defined as the distribution of knowledge across diverse business units. A lesson learned captured by the manufacturing group then used by someone in technical support to help solve a problem would be an example of Horizontal Integration. A corporation’s most valuable assets are its workforce and information assets. Horizontal Integration improves the value of both assets by better educating the workforce and improving the usage (i.e. value) of information.

Vertically integrated knowledge management systems, also sometimes referred to a stove piped systems, collect and disseminate information to a specific business unit up and down the chain of command. An example of vertical integration would be a system used by only the sales group that collects information about sales leads and disseminates that information to individuals throughout the chain of command.

The majority of information systems today are more vertically integrated then horizontally integrated. Reasons for this include political, technical, and financial reasons such as:

• Maintaining tighter control of who can view information.
• The system is funded by a specific business unit that does not want to spend the additional resources to disseminate information to different groups.
• Older software typically did not have the ability to easily share data with other systems without significant custom programming.
• Fear of "dirty laundry" being scene by other business sectors.

As with any KM system Technology alone will get you no where. A good approach to improve horizontal integration is to first develop scenarios or use cases detailing ways in which information can effectively be utilized between sectors. These scenarios can be used to develop requirements and also make the case to management on why improvements to the infrastructure need to be made. The rest of the development lifecycle should utilize a traditional Systems Engineering Approach however now you have new technologies in your toolbox you can leverage to implement your solution more effectively.

Posted by BunkAsInBed at 05:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Check out this great article on the wrong way to implement Knowledge Management on a government contract. Thanks to J$ who posted this on his blog.

Posted by BunkAsInBed at 10:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What is the most effective Knowledge Management System I have received the greatest benefit from?

To quote wikipedia's article on KM

Knowledge Management seeks to make the best use of the knowledge that is available to an organization, creating new knowledge, increasing awareness and understanding in the process.

Based on that definition my answer is Yahoo's Fantasy Football site. Before anybody jumps down my throat suggesting other fantasy sites are better I must admit Yahoo's is the only one I have used, if for no other reason then my friends use this one for their league.

The reason this has been the most effective KM system I have used is it has allowed me to become very knowledgeable in the players, teams, and trends needed to put together a winning FF team. In my league I consider myself one of the least knowledgeable people, but with this website I am able to compete and win not because of luck, but because yahoo efficiently gives you the information and tools needed to make the right choices. This is what KM is all about.

Yahoo's system strikes me as a system designed on the users needs. It has great news, trends, detailed statistics, and expert advice. The real strength however is the way the interface ties in the ability to see this information through a variety of views. If I'm looking at my team I can see that new news on them is available. If I'm looking at the expert's advice I can see it not only for the members of my team but also which of the free agents they consider a strong play. I can look at the trends in what players in other leagues are being dropped and added to more rapidly search for players to pick up.

Bottom line is this is a great KM system, better then many corporate KM's I have scene before. What KM system would you consider the best you have ever used?

Posted by BunkAsInBed at 10:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

A free publication with lots of useful articles on Knowledge Management is KM World. They allow you to view their articles via email or get a hard copy delivered. Unfortunately they have no RSS feed :>(

Posted by BunkAsInBed at 09:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In doing some research to beef up my knowledge of the Semantic Web I came across an article: Scientific American: The Semantic Web
A new form of Web content that is meaningful to computers will unleash a revolution of new possibilities. Some very cool stuff.

Posted by BunkAsInBed at 05:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)