At stake in all this: enterprise whuffie, the reputation of importance that employees would be able to acquire by becoming known as experts in different areas. The value of any knowledge management system depends on the amount of knowledge that employees put into it. A corporate manager may demand participation as terms for employment, but information hoarders often route around this by sharing it only in non-recorded situations. However, the all-important whuffie would be a powerful incentive for sharing information more broadly.
But a payoff even greater than enterprise whuffie will emerge as groups begin to manage themselves without IT involvement. Today's social software is a big step in that direction, using browser-based tools to create Wiki pages and blogs simply by typing in a name and, in SocialText's case, allowing RSS aggregators such as NetNewsWire to track changes with color-coded edits.
Throughout, the first, and it seems only, mover in the field, SocialText, gets kudos and mentions.Full Column.
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