Library clips

I came across a post on Knowledge Futures quoting Dave Snowden, about knowledge as an interpreter in the abililty to turn data into information. And then using a sensemaking process (making sense of this information/understanding it) which can create new knowledge to you.

This throws the hierarchy view of Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom as separate steps or levels, into more of a flux environment.

From the post on the role knowledge plays in data and information:

“…knowledge enables me to interpret information. If I acquire knowledge of management accounting then a chart of accounts informs me, if I have no such knowledge then it is data. Knowledge management this has, as one of its primary tasks the creation of sufficient shared knowledge to enable the use of information.”

From the post on Information Management and Knowledge Management:

“I do see utility in understanding the different between what it means to manage knowledge and what it means to manage information. I normally do that with a metaphor of the difference between using a london taxi (knowledge) and a map (information) to get around London. The map is data which has been structured to inform and if I share sufficient context with the map maker then it informs me and I can take action on it. I can also get a taxi where not only has the taxi driver internalised the map, but lots of other things as well. There is for example evidence of significant changes in the Hippocampus in London Taxi Drivers as a result of the two plus years of training they go through. Compete with a taxi driver (as a map user with a hire car) and you will loose. The map may get you there, but the assumption of shared context can be dangerous. I once used a map in New York and almost got mugged for exactly that reason. Its like the point on french cuisine - you may have the recipe but that is just a starting point it is not complete of itself.”

An object like a map is more static (unless it’s a wiki or a blog) so it only has set information, and depending on your know-how of maps, you will be able to read the map, and create new know-how and use it to get around town…the map is only information, it’s up to you to create the know-how (meaning).
The taxi driver is a dynamic information base that continually learns about the area the map represents. She contains lots of informal information that is not normally represented in maps, as that’s not really a maps job or purpose.

Shared Context

What Dave Snowden hones in on is that the shared context with the map is assumed. Shared context is one of the most important aspects of successful information transfer, it’s assumed that you know the context of your activity eg. an understanding of the topic, an understanding of how your team deals with this topic, establishing aspects of the topic. The more existing know-how you have on the information and its context, the more chance you have of successfully acquiring new knowledge and taking action accordingly.

Knowledge as interpreter

I really like knowledge as the interpreter, similar to what was said on Anecdote a couple of years ago, including this amazing diagram.

“Knowledge acts as an interpretant to turn data into information. The information we notice (we don’t notice all information channelled toward us), might create some level of dissonance (its surprises us or we ask ourselves, “What’s the story here?”) and if we care about resolving this dissonance we create knowledge. Knowledge is created through a sensemaking process.

But data to one person is someone else’s information. A commodities trader might stare at a computer screen of numbers which would look to most people as raw data. To the commodity trader, however, slight changes in the numbers conveys messages which act as information they might convert to knowledge (via sensemaking) and take action. Consequently, context is a key ingredient acting as an underlay to all three concepts of data, information and knowledge.”

Dave Snowden also has a similar diagram.

[ADDED 1/7/08: Joe Firestone’s paper, Key Issues in Knowledge Management, also deconstructs the Knowledge pyramid. This paper goes into a lot of theory related to this blog post.]

My stream of consciousness

You use your current knowledge or understanding to see data as information (not sure if you are actually turning data into information)

If you don’t possess the knowledge then all you see is data.

If you do possess the knowledge, you then make sense of this information in the sensemaking process where you may gain new knowledge (understanding).

I like how Anecdote say that the information you see may create a “dissonance” (kind of like you understand the information, but how does it relate to the whole), this is done by a sensemaking process, and “if successful” you have gained some knowledge…and perhaps take some action.

In theory, next time you are in this same exact situation (ceteris paribus), the level of dissonance would be non-existent, meaning there is no need for the sensmaking process and no new knowledge is created.
If this happened all the time you may feel you need a new job that is more stimulating and challenging.

Where there’s dissonance, there’s learning to be done…and knowledge gained.

Is it possible to never experience dissonance because you have reached nirvana?
I personally don’t think a highly evolved spiritual person, living in the now, means you have finished learning.

Experience as Interpreter

The above describes that you need knowledge in order to have the opportunity to create (discover/acquire) new knowledge.

But this can’t be right.

As a baby I may burn myself by touching a flame, as I have no knowledge that the flame will harm me.

How does this work, was the flame data to me, as I didn’t have the knowledge to be informed that it will burn me if I touch it?

And have I created new knowledge (not to put my hand near a flame again), all this without having knowledge to act as an interpreter to turn data into informatiom.

Since I could not turn data into information, then how could I possibly go forward in the cycle to use sensemaking to create new knowledge.

In this example rather than requiring knowledge to interpret data to information, an “experience” has become the interpreter.

I’d like to read about knowledge from an infant psychology perspective (if there is such a thing). Because if you have knowledge of nothing how do you ever start?

Etienne Wenger briefly mentions the need for social learning theory to connect with developmental theory.

[ADDED 1/7/08: Joe Firestone’s paper helps out here, on page 16 he says:

“…we are born with genetically encoded knowledge that enables us to interact with the external world and to learn…”

He desribes this as world 1 knowledge:

“…encoded structures in physical systems (such as genetic encoding in DNA) that allow those objects to adapt to an environment”]

Dissonance?

If a piece of data on a screen is flashing, “anyone” can notice that something has just happened to the data, it’s flashing, and if you possess the knowledge about what this signal means then it informs you, ie, it’s information to you…I guess it becomes knowledge if you can successfully interpret the meaning of the information.

Even though you know what this information means there is still a level of dissonance as you don’t yet know why it occured, you try to make sense of it and work out what’s going on, once you work it out, you have created new knowledge.

Structured to inform

Dave Snowden says “The map is data which has been structured to inform…”

He says:

“We have a mess of unstructured data to which we apply structure or interpretation in order to inform others, we put the data in context”

“If I structure data through process of abstraction and possibly codification then I create messages with which I seek to inform someone else. If that person understands the message they are informed; however if there is no shared context between message creator and message receiver then we are left with data, no information is created.”

A whole heap of random names means not much, but if the list is titled “customers aged 12-20″, then this becomes a structured message intended to inform.
If a person has shared context they will receive the message signal as information, ie. that these random names are people in an age bracket.

This does not imply that structured data equals information.

The data is structured or in an organised format, and whoever understands this organised data receives it as information.

Knowledge is the tool to achieve understanding and interpreting this process, but not only that, your knowledge has to have a shared context to receive the intending meaning.

Without the title these random names are just data, more precisely unstructured data.

According to the model in Dave Snowden’s post once you go through the sensemaking process, ie. you understand what the information means, eg. making inferences from comparing two lists you may work out that, “customers aged 12-20 tend to have more overdue books than customers aged 21-35″, then you can go through a path-finding process and take action.

The action you choose from your path-finding process could be sending a reminder out more often to customers aged 12-20.

Another Example

If someone gave me a project management schedule (eg. MS Project) it would be data to me as I don’t understand the technique and the symbols.

But if I was proficient in MS Project then it would be information as I can understand (interpret) this software.

But if I don’t share context with the author (know the person, history of the project, etc) I may have a hard time understanding (sensemaking) this information completely in order for it to become knowledge for me.

Conclusion

Knowledge is not a thing or object, it is what a person uses and creates.

Dave mentions that the knowledge management is about providing or creating conditions for shared context.
Shared context enables you to get to first base, which is being informed…to be able to use information, so we can take it to the second base in the sensemaking process.

I’m using a step process to explain, but really this happens more fluid or in a flux…all the steps mentioned could be happening at the same time.

Rather than the loop of Data - Information - Knowledge - Options - Actions being the main components, I’d rather think of what happens (based on Dave Snowdens diagram) as Analysing - Sensemaking - Pathfinding - Executing (ASPE)

To be continued…

There’s an increasing number of open source and white label offerings for social bookmarks, memediggers, social networks, etc…I have posted on these in the past.

Here are the latest:

Lefora - forum (white label)
[via TC]

Revou - micro-blog network (open source)
[via TC]

Soceeo - social network (white label)

Reality Digital - video social network (??)
[via TC]

Dotster - social network (white label)
[via m]

Reddit - memedigger (open source)

Wikia - social network (open source)

BONUS LINKS
List of “White Label” or “Private Label” (Applications you can Rebrand) Social Networking Platforms
34 More Ways to Build Your Own Social Network

Friendfeed have joined other lifestream services, onaswarm and Mugshot, in adding a groups to their feature set called Rooms.

Set up a public, semi-public (non members can read and comment) or private room where people can post messages and links and comments…this is something Twitter has avoided so far.

If you are member of multiple rooms you can see all content in your “all my rooms” stream.
You can also check a box so the content of a room also appears on your main friendfeed page (this saves you from having to add a Rooms feed to your main page…actually what is my main page, it must be my friends page)

This “Rooms” feature is moving away from the lifestream mainstay, is basically sharing messages and links with a group. This is different than on-the-fly tags (hash tags, Jaiku Channels), with Rooms you actually have to join, perhaps get to know the members…more of a community (I don’t know about that when the numbers get too high).

Rooms also streams feed content…an idea would be to have an option for 2 streams in a Room, one for links and messages, and one for external feed stuff.

The external feed stream makes Rooms powerful as it can be used as a topic stream as well as interactive manual submitting of links, text and comments.

Mugshot and Ziki are a similar group lifestream concept, whereas FriendFeed Rooms don’t stream the lifestream of its members into one stream, it’s purely just a place for a group of people to share text, links and discuss. Just the same Mugshot Groups allow you to submit messages and links and comments, group chat, and even chat around an item…as well as stream external feeds.

Steve Rubel is using a private Room to save links and notes…kind of a read later stream, or even a link blog/stream like del.icio.us and Google Reader Shared Items.

BTW - I finally found a mobile version of FriendFeed.

The FriendFeed Apps page has some interesting hacks that increasingly makes it an alternative to Google Reader:
- read later
- creating group streams (above I mentioned that Mugshot and Ziki have group streams, well this is a similar thing…I guess it’s like grouping people in folders and displaying a folder stream)
- filter by service
- remove visited links
- Twitter enhancements

Related:

Friendfeed : social filter conversations

[ADDED 7/7/08: 13 FriendFeed Tools for Twitter Refugees]

Tweet Boards - reminds me of Crowdstatus and Gridgit. Display widgets on one page for a bunch of Twitter users, similar is TweetPeek, but that’s more a stream. Here’s an example.

Twitscoop - a what’s hot tag cloud based on word frequency and graphs posting frequency, some of the Twitter search engines do this sort of thing

My Tweet Map - Displays a list of the latest tweets of people you follow on a map. Your stream is on the sidebar, just click on a tweet and it will take you to that users location. Most of the other Twitter map services are on auto-pilot, I liked the simplicity of this one. You can reply to tweets and post a new tweet.

Tweet Later - this service does a few things: a Twitter reminder, auto-responder tweets to new followers and an auto greeting tweet, and schedule 12 auto-tweets an hour…for more auto tweets see TweetResponse, TweetAhead, AutoTwit, and for more reminders see ReTweetMe and Twitter Timer.

Tweeqs - Twitter cliques…apparently I’m in 2 Tweeqs of 11 Tweeps

BONUS LINK
Twitter Handbook

One of our communities at work is on sharing solutions and tips for DMS support staff, this community is more than shared learning, it’s becoming like our business unit area where we announce team news…see more.

We have a blog to communicate and share, forums for discussions, and wikis for our solution website and to collaborate, and the latest is on our community homepage.

If we encounter an issue we consult the wiki solutions site, check out the forums and blogs, and if need be post a topic on the forum.

As a result we may add a solution to the wiki or share a tip in the blog, and if need be post a finishing reply on the forums.
So you can say we are using social tools to do our work, but it’s a sharing type of work, it isn’t exactly using social tools to start and finish a task.

Our community is a Shared Interest Group (SIG) even though we are a business unit. Our shared interest is not personal passion, it’s our job, a place to share and discuss support issues and solutions.
I do feel we have the SIG dynamics, but it’s a forced shared interest, kind of a formalised SIG, which is suitable for our purpose.

What our community isn’t doing at the moment?

Our main purpose in this CoP is to use it to deal with daily support calls, whereas a non-support task is something we don’t do using the CoP. We may discuss something in the forums in which a task surfaces for someone to action, but we don’t actually do the task in the CoP.

If I was to publish a post on our announcement blog requesting a colleague to help me on a task, eg. “need help entering existing solutions from a spreadsheet into our wiki”, how would this task be managed or performed?

A colleague may leave a comment on the blog post, and then I would email them and we would do the task in email.

I elaborated in a previous post on my concept of task rooms for tasks, rather than within the CoP, this especially rings true for cross-unit collaborations when you would have to find the right CoP to work in.

This is the juicy stuff I want to do using social tools, actually doing a task, more pure In-the-Flow work.

I could set up a folder in our CoP as a task room – and create a new blog, forum, and wiki for the task.

I would also just set permissions for just the other person and I.

Why?

1. Well I don’t want our task banter to pollute the homepage of the CoP, and I don’t want our task objects (blog, forum, wiki) to pollute our community subscriptions page.

2. Imagine after 50 tasks, our community subscriptions page would be littered with old task blogs, etc…

These two things wouldn’t happen if I set the permissions on the task folder for just the people involved, but this is making it private even though it doesn’t have to be…what if I want to show someone progress. Or once the task is finished open it up as public, then we have the 2 points discussed above happening.

So my idea is to use the same social tools we use in our community, but in a separate space called Task Rooms.

Unlike communities all workers should be able to set up a Task Room in a couple of minutes.

On our CoP we can create a wiki or a folder with shortcuts to all the task sites our members are working on. We can also use our CoP blog if we need to announce our progress on our task.

I’m just working around the limits of the vendor we are using (OpenText). If the OpenText wikis were more like Google Sites, then we could do tasks within the CoP.

Google Sites like most wikis are changing from a group edited website to a platform, hence called “sites”, not “wikis”.
Sure Google Sites has wikis, but it’s more than that, it has a task list, documents, blogs, and startpage type widgets…it doesn’t have forums. The great thing is you can make a dashboard page out of any objects.

Not only do you have your homepage, but you can also make mini homepages (dashboards)
eg. I may have lots of blogs, task lists, wikis, and document cabinets in the one site, and I am able to weave together a selection of those objects into a dashboard (mini-homepage), and the main hompage can exclude content from any objects.

My main purpose for not doing tasks within the CoP, was that it would:

1. Litter the community subscription page
2. Create noise in the CoP homepage for those not involved in the task

3. There was a third point, in that cross business unit people could set up a neutral space, rather than trying to find the appropriate CoP to do work in, or set up a new CoP just for a small task.

Having a dashboard functionality within the CoP as a mini-homepage for a task, and to be able to exclude those objects (blogs, forums, etc..) from appearing in the main subscription page, and to exclude their content in the main homepage, would enable me to do tasks within the CoP.

Really who cares, in a hyperlinked world you are one click away, whether it lives at home or not…as long as we use don’t forget we can also use the CoP as a hub or gateway to all our scattered activity that lives elsewhere.

How are others doing tasks so they don’t create noise for the rest of the community?

I’m interested in hearing about Lotus Connections, Clearspace, Confluence, SocialText, GroupSwim, Tomoye Ecco, etc…

NOTE: I’m aware of (but haven’t used) project/task sites like Central Desktop, 37 Signals, Wrike, etc…but at the moment I’m getting a feel for how a CoP deals with tasks, rather than an additional vendor.
But I still will be interested in how people are using a CoP like Clearspace together with a project/task tool like Central Desktop…I’m aware they do have overlapping features.

The point of this post is do we need to deal with two products, one for communities and one for tasks?

A term I picked up on a while ago was from the e-gineer description of an aspect of the new knowledge flow concept of tacit exchange as a “work in progress” culture.

Rather than just sharing a finished product into a database, what about also sharing the experience of how you got there. This type of know-how; trials and tribulations, connections you utilised, ideas, musings, progress, can be shown in a blog, wiki, and research pages bookmarked.

If you read the deliverable, and then supplement that with the “work in progress” material, you are going to have so much more insight into the deliverable…the know-how behind the document.

For the creator whilst working on the document, taking a work in progress approach opens them up to attracting the knowledge and new connections from people who read the “work in progress” material. Managers get a progress of what’s going on, and can chime in at anytime…everyone can watch and be involved in the organic growth of the deliverable.

There you go, sharing tacit knowledge as a part of doing work.

In the offline world as you write a document you talk to lots of people and email…you have conversations, feedback, etc. Social tools allow this type of natural human experience to happen online as well.

The Transparent Office blog really honed in on this way of working, comparing it to traditional ways. There is more opportunity to learn and share know-how as it happens by being open and visible in the “workings out” stage, compared to reading a finished polished product.

You often hear it’s more about the journey, than the destination.

I also like the idea of a Shared memory.

The reason I’m going over this ground is that the Living By Design blog has a great metaphor for this:

“Steam - The thoughts, ideas and concepts that rattle around in our heads.

Ice - Books and polished documents that we reference from time to time.”

But it is mentioned that this is a dualistic view, and favours more a flux view with “knowledge as a dynamic, continuously flowing stream, with resulting artifacts passing through various stages of a knowledge lifecycle.”

This is all true, but when you isolate it, until now the steam was not open and visible, people usually like keeping unpolished fragments to themselves. Social tools enable our “steam” to be seen by all, before it solidifies into a polished product.

Next time you let off steam make sure everyone gets a serve of it

TwitterPark - get your dose of Twitter news via a pre-made startpage, similar idea to Original Signal

TweetAnswers - send a tweet to @tweetanswers (also put in a #topic if you like), then visit the site or follow tweetanswers to get answers in your reply stream. To answer question include the topicID.

TweetLists - stream of tweets that have links, sort by popularity, domain, popular people…also see TwitLinks, TweetMeme, Alpha Twitter, Twitt(url)y

Twellow - A Twitter Yellow Pages

TwitterCard - your Twitter profile and latest tweet in a widget

BONUS
Tweeternet

Tweet 2 Tweet - enter 2 Twitter users and see their @ reply conversations…you can also do this with a summize advanced search using the to: and from: fields.

Does Follow - check if a Twitter user follows another Twitter user

TwitTag - latest tweets by tag, also see hashtags, twemes or a summize advanced search

TwitterCounter - a subscriber count badge for your blog

Twitter Ratio - the ratio of your followers to people who you follow.
Less than 1 - you are seeking knowledge
Around 1 - you are respected
Above 2 - you are popular
Above 10 - rock star

John Tropea
AKA: johnt
Tweet, tweet
Followers: 573
Friends: 202
TFF Ratio: 2.84
A Leader Among Men

You can also get your ratio score by sending a tweet to @tffratio

BONUS LINKS
Tweet Tees
Tweet Shirts

A recent workshop on an initiative for several government agencies to share knowledge was quite accepting by the attendees. The audience was a cross section of recent graduates to senior managers (we had a mix of baby boomers and netgen’s).

My presentation established the scene of working socially, all the benefits of social media, and an explanation of the tools. The grads were savvy with Facebook, wikis, del.icio.us and digg, and some of the boomers read blogs and wikipedia…it seems these tools are becoming known to the mainstream.

A further presentation would deal with knowledge sharing barriers, organisational culture, and collaboration, cooperation…but for the time being I think it was enough for people to absorb these new tools and the new way of working in a knowledge economy.

We did go over briefly the adoption methods and sustaining a community, such as rewards, incentives, champions (guides/harversters/moderators/senior role models).
- I mentioned that if a community reaches critical mass the the reward would be reputation

My presentation was followed by a demo on Sharepoint.

The main part was an open forum discussion on questions related to agencies sharing knowledge.

The questions were something like:

- What information are you prepared to share?
- What type of information would be beneficial?
- What tools would you like included in Sharepoint?
- What’s your knowledge sharing experience?

Everyone got into groups of 4 or 5 on 4 tables with a facilitator on each table
- each question was discussed for 15 minutes
- the facilitators moved to a different table for each question
- the top 2 answers were shared with everyone
- a graphic recorder documented it all, and kept all the sheets of paper to compile a list

I like the idea of a big piece of paper, but using a wiki did cross my mind.

I guess this was a type of knowledge cafe approach, but not really. In a knowledge cafe it seems each person at the table takes turns speaking without being interrupted, and they don’t write down any notes.
Then a discussion takes place as a whole group.

Another method I’d like to use next time is world cafe, and also speed networking as a starter. Also I like the idea of people writing a keyword on their name tags, whether it’s humour or an interest or a skill, it’s a great ice breaker.

The key point of group work was not just teasing out all the issues and points of view, but getting people to connect and start building relationships…this is why world cafe seems effective, as after each question most of the people on the table move to another table.

Some excellent advice from Nancy White (which I hope she doesn’t mind me sharing) is:

“If you can get away with it, I would NOT present on participation culture, I’d do some sort of activity that manifests that culture - that surfaces the power of what a group knows, then do a debrief and think of HOW we take advantage and really use that power.”

Results

The idea was to include tools in Sharepoint that people were interested in using, at this point you have to be careful not to feature creep people out.

The top requested tools were:
- Expert Locator
- Document Sharing
- Forum

People really wanted to browse profiles to look for experts
- I mentioned that not only do you find an expert, but you can read their contributions, get to know them
- I said it’s like today, not only are we wearing name tags online, but you don’t even have to be in the same room, and we have what we know drawn all over our sleeves…and you also know the people I know without me having to tell you
- Some said that this could be handy for capacity ie. sharing the talent of people who were between project and had idle time

Wikis were seen as handy for making your own websites (people nodded in agreement when I said you can make your own version of the intranet if you like, it’s an open slate).

But some mentioned that creating a lessons learned database whether it’s a wiki or a document repository is never used. No one could be bothered reading it and it may be outdated anyway.

I gave examples of using wikis in-the-flow eg. meeting agendas, lists…but I think this needs to be experienced, so people actually feel the benefits of working this way.

The grads mentioned blogs for personal growth, and the boomers didn’t really take to blogs as much.

I mentioned that blogs can be as informal, casual and disposable as email
- I’ve got to be careful not to use the term “publish”, as this has connotations of a formally edited piece read by your peers (like a journal article).

People mentioned sharing documents such as progress and close out
- I mentioned what about writing brief blog entries while this is happening, kind of like stuff your are learning or stuff that is interesting along the way
- I said then you can compare a close-out document with blog posts on the close-out
- I mentioned that you will know a lot more of what went on by reading the blog posts (more know-how, more the experience, rather than the end result, plus it’s documented as it happened)

A lot of people would like to share information about tendering but they couldn’t quite work out how because of its sensitive nature.
- I mentioned that blogs don’t have to be a personal soap box, they can be a group blog on a topic, like sharing insight on the tendering process (more an academic feel almost)

An attendee came up with a clever adoption idea of a blog carnival
- a themed week, where blog posts are shared about a topic or issue
- I thought this was an excellent kick starter to get used to the tools
- you don’t have to think what to share
- it doesn’t have to be personal
- a shared theme is almost like a forced meme
- you will get lots of comments (discussion) if people are blogging about the same topic
- this is a great condition to create conversations and get people connected (build relationships)

In the break a baby boomer mentioned that the netgen knew how to work in a socially productive way but they don’t really know anything yet, so there is a real need for them to connect with the baby boomers, like mentoring.
- I mentioned that mentoring doesn’t have to stop when you are not in the same physical space
- social tools can be used for perpetual mentoring

Along these lines I also mentioned that you don’t have to wait for the next meeting to connect and share like we are today, the online tools can make that perpetual…see more.

I tried to make clear that it’s not only about sharing knowledge, it’s also a way to do work
- I quite often mentioned that, next time you send an email, just think could this be a blog post, a forum topic, or maybe a wiki website/collaboration
- and an exercise for champions was to reject emails by replying and requesting the email be re-purposed using the correct tool
- people are in the routine of using email that they need to be disciplined, it’s no big deal, it’s something everybody is addicted to

Someone said that if they wanted to share or work on private information with only a couple of members from other agencies, that they would use email
- I mentioned they could set up a private room type of space so they can still benefit by using social tools to do work
- but this did bring to mind that people were starting to think of email as private and social tools as open (which is a good thing)

What I’ve read lately

I’ve read 3 posts recently that add to this discussion of working socially.

Steward Mader posted on the 90-9-1 rule, and how it differs in the enterprise. He poses a 60% frequent contributers, and 40% infrequent contributers, and that this 40% may be encouraged to participate by default. eg. if most of the team use a blog to share tips, and one guy is still doing it via email, the team will naturally say get with the program, we are using blogs now.

App Gap has an insightful post on social influence in the workplace. Now that we are more aware of what people are doing due to openness, visibility and transparency means we are more connected and influencing each other. They way we think and act is absorbed by others and may have a positive impact on the enterprise…basically we are perpetually learning off each other.

Rex Lee talks about the speed of trust is, well, more speedy. In a more open participation model we are able to connect with and subscribe to people. We read their informal experiences, their comments elsewhere, what projects they are on, etc… In essence we almost feel we know that person as they are visible both on and offline, I guess you could say ambient intimacy.
When you find an expert you may not need to speak to them as their contributions have an answer for you. If you do meet them you already have something to say as you know something about each other, actually you may know a lot if you interact online.

The other benefit is that you have already established your level of abstraction, ie. you already know what wavelengths you are both operating on. So when you meet up you don’t have to try and work out what level of understanding each other has, you can go straight into conversation, knowing the other person will be able to understand your level of intellect and your knowledge of tools, processes, etc…

We know trust is the most important factor for collaboration, and participating online creates more opportunity for conversation, connecting and building trust.

MyTweeple - the creator of this site wants better contact management in Twitter, their site enables you to manage who you follow and who follows you, any changes you make reflect on Twitter. There is also a place to Tweet (Temp Tweets) when Twitter is down, a bit like Twiddict. Also check out Twerp Scan.

TwitterSnooze - when someone you follow is tweeting too much, put them on snooze

Who Should I Follow? - enter your username and it recommends Twitter people to follow, you can even use location as a parameter…also see TwitsLikeMe, and Twubble

Twit 2 SMS - create a widget for your blog where visitors can send you an SMS that is delivered as a Twitter direct message

Twisky - To display a users latest tweets enter their name in the “Who” box. To display latest tweets about a keyword enter a term in the “What” box. Combine these together to display who is saying about what.
eg. this is what I’m saying about Google Reader Who: johnt What: Google Reader

It’s based on the Summize Twitter search engine, in the advanced search I did the exact same search.
eg. This exact Phrase: Google Reader From this Person: johnt

BONUS LINK
My Tiny Jesus - Jesus blurting random Tweets