User:Clee08

= ITM612 - Knowledge Portal = Welcome to Group 6's Portal.

Group 6

 * Thomas Blair
 * Caitlin Lee (Wiki Creator)
 * Shawn Pena
 * Rajkanth Rajaratnam
 * Imran Shafi

Week 3
You are tasked with building a knowledge community to support the Farmers of Alberta.

W3 - Question 1
Who are the primary members of your community? Describe some of their characteristics.

Some primary members in a Farmer community are:


 * Farm owner(s) - the person or organization who owns the land. Could be a the governement (collective farming), organization (industrial farming) or landlords (tenant farming)
 * Herdsman/wranglers - people who professionally handle animals
 * Farm Worker - those who does the manual labour
 * Farm engineer - those who handle the machinery - Shawn Pena

W3 - Question 2
Who are the secondary members of your community?

The secondary members of the community would include

- customers of the farmers

- government officials

- suppliers or partners of the farmers

(Caitlin Lee)

W3 - Question 3
What is their job?

Agriculture jobs range from:
 * Agriculture production - land is plowed, the seeds are planted and fertilized, pesticides               are sprayed, and other maintenance is done to ensure a healthy crop.
 * Business and Finance - Money is a large part of the agricultural               industry just as it is with any other business
 * Science and Engineering (RnD) -               Work tasks can include such areas as developing improved farm equipment                and technology to increase the quality and quantity of different                commodities, discovering cures for diseases harming livestock animals,                researching termite behavior or analyzing data collected in research
 * Marketing and Sales - Developing and implementing marketing plans for new products               or commodities and creating advertising ideas to build brand and                product awareness

These are the types of job that farmers or anyone in the agriculture industry are part of. - Shawn Pena

W3 - Question 4
How would a farmer determine if he is successful?

The farmer can determine if he is successful by setting objectives that are measurable. During the different seasons the farmer can then determine whether he is meeting these objectives or not. Also, feedback from the community during or after the growing season will help him determine what needs to be improved. An example of an objective that a farmer might set is that for a specific type of vegetable, it should be ready to reap in 4 weeks and the entire crop should be sold in 1 week. - Imran Shafi

W3 - Question 5
What are some of their challenges?

Farmers main challenges are to provide quality produce regardless of the seasons weather conditions to their communities. Also, at the same time adhering to the laws, acts and regulations. They usually cannot focus on just one type of produce, because variety allows the farmer to sell their crops quicker. By choosing and managing the right types of produce to grow, their crops will sell with minimal effort. - Imran Shafi

W3 - Question 6
How can we provide a knowledge community to support the success of the farmers?

By creating a central knowledge portal for farmers based upon their geographic region for farmers. The communities can go and provide their views and feedback for the farmers. At the same time, the farmers can contribute their ideas, similar to a blog, for successful growing for others to try. Educating the farmers and the community on different/new issues regarding agriculture and growing will help keep farmers & communities more aligned. - Imran Shafi

The fist challenge in creating a knowledge community that is based on technology is training the farmers. Farmers are the type of people who are hands on and thus they need professional training course to use such portal to utilize it effectively. - Shawn Pena

W2 - Question 1
What is knowledge?; Is it a new concept?; How early did someone talk about “knowledge” and what did they say?

Webster's online Dictionary defines knowledge as "the fact or condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or association" - Caitlin Lee

The concept of Knowledge is not a new concept, it dates further back from when Plato (Ancient Greece) helped endorse the power of knowledge. Plato believed, '''"..knowledge originally acquired in a previous life, and that the soul already has all knowledge, and we learn by recollecting what in fact the soul already knows." '''(The Philosopher's Lighthouse). Socrates rejected Plato's beliefs and states that, "..knowledge of was "the art of love" which he connected with the concept of "the love of wisdom" (Wikipedia)

Further debates about Knowledge still continue until today but it is clear the Knowledge is a very important intangible assest humans have. But in our modern society, Knowledge in Technology is still a young concept that is currently evolving generally every two years since it is advancing at that pace (Moore's Law). As cheaper hardware, faster processors and innovated technological ideas are being discovered and invented, the range of knowledge on how to utilize these tools are broadening and thus Knowledge Management is then used for it. - Shawn Pena

Knowledge is an old concept that has been discussed during the times of Plato. It is the relation between two concepts. Knowledge is created by two preceding ideas. First there is data which does not mean much by itself. By adding some context to the data, information is created. When a person has understood this information, knowledge has been acquired. The progression to knowledge is wisdom, which is the application of ones own knowledge. -Imran Shafi

W2 - Question 2
What is the knowledge economy or knowledge age and how are knowledge workers different from the workers in the industrial era? Give three examples.

The knowledge age consists of businesses acquiring knowledge and using that knowledge to gain a competitive advantage in their respective industries. The industrial age consisted of workers making products in a labour intensive atmosphere with hierarchical management. - Caitlin Lee Some characteristics of the knowledge age are: - more collaboration - lack of hierarchies - the constant collection of knowledge     - fewer people doing more work            - Caitlin Lee

The knowledge age is one where the majority of workers are becoming knowledge workers. Managers are no longer managing as many people. They are transitioning their methods of management from tasks to teams/knowledge. In this age, knowledge needs to be managed in order to sustain an advantage against other organizations. The industrial era consisted of managers managing many people who perform daily re-occuring tasks. These jobs are usually labour intensive and many of these jobs today are contract jobs. An example, would be construction workers. Knowledge workers share their own knowledge with others. Collaborating everyones knowledge creates a powerful tool that can be used to further the success of the organization -Imran Shafi

W2 - Question 3
Choose a company and identify their key intangible assets that might make them different from their competition. Give an example of each of Svieby’s three types of intangible assets. What is knowledge management with respect to this organization and why is it important?

One key intangible asset for Wal-mart would be there Just-in-time inventory system, or there ability to buy or sell in volume and there ability to make small vendors dependent on them and larger vendors end up with Wal-Mart as high percentage of their sales, thus Wal-Mart can drive there prices down. An internal structure would be there Just-In-Time inventory system. There external structure would relationship with vendors. roughout management in their stores. (Thomas Blair)

W2 - Question 4
Describe the examples of tacit and explicit knowledge with respect to a golfer or musician. What are some examples of tacit and explicit knowledge that human resource professional, a sales rep and a web developer possess?

Explicit knowledge: Knowledge that has been rendered visible (usually through transciption into a document or an audio or visual recording); typically, captured and codified knowledge -Caitlin Lee

Tacit knowledge: From the Latin tacitare, which refers to something that is very difficult to articulate, to put into words or images; typically highly internalized knowledge such as knowing how to do something or recognizing analogous situations-Caitlin Lee

An example of explicit knowledge regarding a musician would be sheet music they would read to play their instrument. An example of tacit knowledge would be the ability to play improvised unpracticed music (jamming).-Caitlin Lee

For a golfer explicit knowledge would be knowing things about the hole, tacit knowledge would be hitting the ball.(Thomas Blair)

Tacit knowledge is one that is not easy to transfer between individuals. For a golfer, it would be know how to calculate which direction to hit the golf ball given different wind speeds/direction. Explicit knowledge can be transferred between individuals. For a golfer, it would be the textbook technique on how to hold a golf club. Tacit knowledge for a web developer would be their artistic and design abilities. Explicit knowledge for a web developer would be their knowledge of html. -Imran Shafi

W2 - Question 5
Discuss as a knowledge sharing group Assignment 1. What is a portal, what are some of the tools that one might use, what might one include, etc.

A portal is a place where knowledge can be shared and added for the benefit of the entire enterprise. A tool that could be used as a portal would be a wiki page. - Caitlin Lee

There are many tools to use for Knowledge Sharing for Assignment. An example isMS SharePoint where it can be used to host web sites that access shared workspaces, information stores and documents, as well as host defined applications such as wikis and blogs. Previous work experiance with SharePoint has been excellent, since it is a web based portal it can be access anywhere with the internet and with permission setting it allows only allowed users to edit or read any docs. Furthermore it collaborated with other MS products successfully.

There are also free and opensource solutions like Google Docment or Metadot Portal Server- Shawn Pena

Another form of portal can be Microsoft Groove. This application provides work collaboration amongst colleagues and outside workers to complete tasks and projects. By using this tool it will cut down one e-mails and other form of communication. Other forms of Portals can be VPN which stands for Virtual Private Networks. - Raj Rajaratnam

A portal is one location that incorporates knowledge for many users within a team,department and even organization. Some portals provide easy access to information for individuals without technical knowledge/skills. For example, sharepoint or siebel front end portal provide end-user query information without the end-user actually writing queries. -Imran Shafi

W2 - Question 6
Comment on the usefulness of the knowledge sharing tool you are using for this assignment – what’s good, what would you change and how?

This tool is useful for sharing ideas, but I would prefer a tool that can only be viewed and edited by certain users.

One thing I like about this knowledge sharing tool is the layout, I like how you can see the questions and all the responses underneath them. One thing I didn't like when I first started to use it I would try to go back a thread by pressing the back button and it would go all the way back to group page and it was hard to use at first.(Thomas Blair)

One thing I like about this knowledge sharing tool is the ability to see everyones responses on one page. However, a drawback is that if a persons entry is not organized, the entire page loses its organization. -Imran Shafi