An couple articles showed up in one of my knowledge management search feeds that link together a bunch of ideas that I appreciate, but I don't quite know how to write about them. This will serve as my own reminder that these exist.
Brain Alger discusses Weblog Design: Personal Knowledge Space, and Jeremy Hiebert calls it Personal Knowledge Networks. I'm not sure why these articles from early December have only just shown up in my search feed this week - maybe I have only just noticed them recently. Both reference an Educause Quarterly article by Ellen R. Cohn and Bernard J. Hibbitts, Beyond the Electronic Portfolio: A Lifetime Personal Web Space (v27, n4, 2004).
The Educause Quarterly article sets the tone for a hypothetical web place (lifetime personal web space - LWPS) in which one could store their information and networks from all aspects of their lives. Given that it is personal, one also gets to decide what parts of that space to share with others. Here is their blue-sky description.
What do we wish for? That every citizen, at birth, will be granted a cradle-to-grave, lifetime personal Web space that will enable connections among personal, educational, social, and business systems. What follows are some possible attributes of such a space, though we suspect EDUCAUSE Quarterly readers might imagine many more.
Hiebert takes these ideas, merges them with others, reflects, and recombines the LWPS idea into what it is today: a combination of weblog(s), furl, deli.cio.us, flickr, web feeds, search feeds and other aspects that are available and used widely today. The essence of the post is that people today have to be smart about their several web spaces to keep them properly connected, both for their own KM and to help visitors find relevant content.
Alger looks at the specifics of a weblog as personal space and the techniques for enhancing one's use of the archives, search features, article titles and tagging. He's also written other articles on the process of blogging that might be worthwhile exploring.