1. Boom! Goes the Knowledge
A CONVERSATION ABOUT WHERE THE INFORMATION
TRANSFER HAS EXPLODED – ALL AROUND US
ANDREA R. BAKER
DIRECTOR OF ENTERPRISE 2.0
CHIEF SOCIAL ENGINEER
HASHTAG #WMTA01
@IMMUNITY
ANDREARBAKER.COM

2. Overview
 A little about me
 What is knowledge
 Knowledge and sharing throughout history
 Understanding the Generations and how they share
knowledge
 Life as a knowledge instigator
 Boom! Goes the knowledge … now help me find all
the pieces
 What’s next for knowledge?

3. What is Knowledge?
Princeton -- I say simply--
cognition: the Information that I have
psychological result of and you don’t, yet.
perception and learning
and reasoning
wordnetweb.princeton.e
du/perl/webwn

4. What Others Say About Knowledge
 An investment in  Although all our knowledge
knowledge always pays the begins with experience, it
best interest. does not follow that it
~Benjamin Franklin arises from experience.
 ~Immanuel Kant
Give people knowledge and  Every great advance in
they really eat it up and natural knowledge has
they appreciate it a lot and involved the absolute
the more that knowledge is rejection of authority.
made available to ~Thomas H. Huxley
people, the more they will  All wish to possess
utilize it and let it be a part knowledge, but
of them. few, comparatively
~La Monte Young speaking, are willing to pay
the price. ~Juvenal

5. Understanding the Generations
 The Greatest Generation (those born before 1928) “saved the world”
when it was young, in the memorable phrase of Ronald Reagan. It’s the
generation that fought and won World War II.
 The Silent generation describes adults born from 1928 through 1945.
Children of the Great Depression and World War II, their “Silent” label
refers to their conformist and civic instincts.
 The Baby Boomer label is drawn from the great spike in fertility that
began in 1946, right after the end of World War II, and ended almost as
abruptly in 1964, around the time the birth control pill went on the
market.
 Generation X from 1965 through 1980. Xers are often depicted as
savvy, entrepreneurial loners.
 The Millennial generation refers those born after 1980 – the first
generation to come of age in the new millennium.

6. The Greatest Generation (Before 1928)
 My grandmother – 62 years of Government
service, U.S. Navy and Department of Commerce
 Emails “batches” at a time, usually forwards and
chain letters
 Calls several times a week – usually early in the
morning
 Gets the paper everyday, clips articles and shares
them
 Tells long stories about family
 Has strong political views and shares them

7. Silent (1928 – 1945)
 Still emails “batches” at a time, and still forwards
chain letters from the Greatest Generation
 Calls when they need something, more than likely to
“fix” their computer
 Watches the evening news all evening, sometimes all
day
 Gets the paper, but not as often as daily
 Calls their friends to talk, share stories
 Goes out for conversations – churches, lunches

8. Boomers (1946-1964)
 Coming back into workforce into second / third career
 After slow start, nearly half of all Boomers online use
Social Media now; it's mostly Mom wanting to be in
touch
 Mom and Dad have joined Facebook is no longer news. It
has even been parodied on Saturday Night Live – way to
keep up with their grandkids photos and daily family
happenings (no more long phone calls)
 Deeply embedded to email, forwarding sent emails over
and over to get to the top of the inbox
 Prints, faxes, copies, scans
 Calls you to come “fix” their computer
 While Millenials have Facebook, Boomers have twitter

9. Generation X (1965 – 1980)
 First computer was Texas
Instruments TI-99/4A
 Emails, texts, calls when
frustrated that neither
works fast enough to
communicate point – or
walks over to discuss
 Instant Messaging
 Forums and BBS
 Remembers Prodigy and
AOL

10. Millennial
 1980 - January 3 Hewlett Packard introduces its HP-
85. A microcomputer with 16kB of RAM and a 5-inch
CRT display – computers for the home have been a
part of their lives.
 Always connected – log onto Facebook when they
first get on a computer.
 Text over call
 Rarely emails
 Instant Message, Facetime, Skype, Video Chat
 Will potentially be half of the workforce by 2014

11. Born in the Wrong Generation?

12. I Attribute My Knowledge Awaking to 1985
 We are the world/Live Aid – Opened me up to world issues
 June 24 – STS-51-G: Space Shuttle Discovery completes its
mission, best remembered for having Sultan bin Salman bin
Abdulaziz Al Saud, the first Arab and first Muslim in space
 Back to the Future is released
 Knorr, Robert Ballard, Jean-Louis Michel, and crew, find the
wreck of R.M.S. Titanic
 VH1, Elmo, Thundercats, Golden Girls, Jem, Mr.
Belvedere, Growing Pains, and Moonlighting all premiere on
TV
 David Lee Roth quits Van Halen, Madonna’s first
tour, Michael Jackson buys the rights to the Beatles catalog

13. Life as a Knowledge Instigator
 In 2000, I was on a project at the Defense Intelligence
Agency called PKO. Production Knowledge Online.
 The goal of the project was to capture the knowledge of
Baby Boomers, those who would be retiring within the
next 5 years.
 Around the same time, I was also working on my passion
project, Band Promotion and Management.

14.  In 2006, I was at the Central Intelligence Agency
working on a little project that had been in pilot the
previous year, Intellipedia. I had a passion for wikis
and blogs .
 I joined the Intellipedia Development Cell as one of
them and become the first community manager.
Again the goal was to capture tacit and implicit
knowledge of not only boomers, but of every-one's
contribution.
 Developed community management into a viable
business practice for Government agencies.

15.  Its now the end of 2010 and where do we stand
today?
 Who has responded and who is embracing the
adoption of Social Media for Business aka Enterprise
2.0 methodology for this knowledge capture?
 Well its still not the boomers, the average age of a
user of these tools is in their early 30s, that makes
Generation X the leader.
 So how can Gen X bridge the gap of the tech-hungry
millennial and the retiring boomer?

16. Why Can’t I?
 Use the search in  Have my LinkedIN
Facebook to actually find account seamlessly
the knowledge I want attach to Facebook and
from the friends that then when I connect to a
provided it. If someone colleague, they see only
shared something with the business side of my
me through their wall or life, per established
activity screen, why is it business filtering?
only useful to me if I was
lucky to see it within the
past 30 days it was
posted?

17. Facebook Seamless Messaging
The Next Generation will have unified comms
 From Facebook.com’s blog: Relatively soon, we'll
probably all stop using arbitrary ten digit numbers
and bizarre sequences of characters to contact each
other. We will just select friends by name and be able
to share with them instantly. We aren't there yet, but
the changes today are a small first step.
 With all this way to connect are we getting more
knowledgeable or are we dumbing ourselves down?

18. Ponder If You Will?
 Are these statements true?
 I no longer need to remember phone numbers. Most the
numbers I do recall stem from before cell phones were
common.
 When I need to know the definition of a term or a piece of
knowledge, I look it up on the internet first (Google or Bing)–
most likely Wikipedia is the first hit.
 When you plan a trip, do you use TripIt or Google Docs – share
with family & friends your itinerary – much easier than writing
out your schedule and posting it on the fridge.
 If you need a service or help, you post to Twitter or other social
network and most likely receive a response within an hour or
less.

19. Are We a More Knowledgeable Society?
 We are definitely more connected.
 We have instant access to people, even if they are in other time
zones, countries or even speaking different languages.
 We have “smartphones”.
 We have more than one web connected device in the home, or
quite possibly near or on our person right now.
 So does this make us more knowledgeable or give us
access to more knowledge?

20. Thanks for the Resources
 http://www.flickr.com/photos/nationaalarchief/4193509510/
 http://pewsocialtrends.org/2010/02/24/millennials-
confident-connected-open-to-change/
 http://pewresearch.org/millennials/quiz/index.php
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985
 http://www.computerhope.com/history/198090.htm
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Instruments_TI-99/4A
 http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/11/15/national/main
7055992.shtml
 The New Social Learning – 2010 – Tony Bingham, Marcia
Conner