Dissident

Mark Prisk talks about the issues of running a small business in Briatin today

As a small business owner myself, struggling under the ever increasing burden of government regulations and stultifying tax, I had a vested interest in the eCademy networking event that took place on Tuesday 15th July, where Mark Prisk MP was guest speaker.

Mark Prisk  is MP for Hertford & Stortford, Shadow Minister, Enterprise, Deregulation & Competition and Shadow Minister for Cornwall  He presented on "Running a Business in Britain Today".

As a former businessman, Mark has a wide interest in all entrepreneurial activity. He is the vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary groups on Small Business and on Freelancers, the treasurer of the all-party group on Entrepreneurship, and a trustee of the Industry Parliamentary Trust

I captured the full presentation on video (24 mins) - well worth looking at if you have the time - a mix of amusing anecdotes, worrying statistics, and maybe hope for the future. Some key points I noted:

• There are currently 3000 business support schemes in operation, managed by 2000 different public bodies at a total cost to the taxpayer (i.e. you and me) of £2.6 billion (yes...billion!)
• A recent survey revealed that 75% of these schemes have no ideas whether their money is being spent effectively - i.e. there is no measure of success.
• Only half of one percent of business owners of these schemes were satisfied with their service.
• Government does not recognise the existence of home businesses or SME's with less than 50 employees - except of course when recovering business taxes - i.e. they are simply not on the radar.

So, if these statistics are not sufficient to warrant reform of the system, I don't know what is!

See also the Doug Richard's report (he of Dragon's Den fame) on the proposals to overhaul the Government's business support system, which it describes as "complex" and "out of control".

If you want to know more about the Conservative's ideas on small business reform, check out the website. There's also a link to a nationwide survey which Mark Prisk is coordinating to see how a Conservative Government could best help SME’s. Regardless of your political persuasion, if you are a small business owner, you may as well have your say.

 

Presentation: Communities of Practice in Local Government

Slides from my recent presentation "Communities of Practice in Local Government" for the Online Information Conference are available on Slideshare.

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Online Information Conference 2007 - Communities of Practice in Local Government

I will be presenting at the Online Information Conference 2007 on Wednesday 5th December, on the topic "Communities of Practice in Local Government", which is part of the overall theme of connecting users and harnessing intelligence using social networking and social media technologies/applications. The presentation is a case study of the project I've been working on for the Improvement and Development Agency.  The following is a synopsis of the session:

Social tools and technologies are changing the KM landscape, making it far easier to connect with peers and experts, and facilitating far more effective knowledge sharing and collaboration. We are moving beyond the factory model of ICT, which focussed on centralisation, standardisation and storage to a more diverse and less regulated environment.

For some, this provides the opportunity to break out of the silo working practices so prevalent across the public sector, and encourages a more productive and collaborative approach to online knowledge sharing. Others see this as undermining the integrity and quality of established (and centralised) knowledge repositories and best practice procedures, and equate social networking with purely leisure and entertainment activities.

The presentation will describe how the IDeA established Web 2.0 technologies and social media applications as the foundations for a new KM strategy for supporting communities of practice that would deliver service and productivity improvements across the local government sector, and how
resistance to this de-regulated environment was overcome. The key points covered in the presentation are:

1. moving from a culture of knowledge repositories (people-to-information) to one of knowledge collaboration (people-to-people),
2. introducing a sceptical and mature staff demographic to the concept of virtual collaboration using social computing/Web 2.0 facilities and
3. creating, developing and growing effective communities of practice in local government.

I'm hoping the session will be of particular interest to library and information professionals, since I believe these have a key role to play in support of these new collaborative KM initiatives, and communities of practice in particular. For example, they could be promoting the merits of personal content tagging to aid search and retrieval, and establishing best practice procedures for sharing knowledge and information via blogs and wikis. They could also be influential in the future development of Web 2.0 technologies and social media applications, ensuring librarian disciplines and standards are accommodated at the design stage and not introduced as afterthoughts.

I'm personally looking forward to the keynote presentation from Jimmy Swales, the session from Lee Bryant from Headshift and Euan Semple's keynote session. However, I will be following all the presentations that have a Web 2.0 and knowledge collaboration theme.

Social Bookmarking Video

Another great video from the Common Craft Show. This one explains Social Bookmarking.

Interview with Etienne Wenger

Knowledgelab have posted an interview with Etienne Wenger, and a full (90 min) lecture given by Etienne on the topic: "What if we assumed that society itself is a large-scale learning system?"

Etienne Wenger is one of the founding fathers of Social Learning Theory and the concept of “Practiced Communities”. People are learning together – every individual deals and engage in many different communities of practice. Here people negotiate and define what competence and knowledge is. To know something or to be competent builds on the individuals experiences of being in the world - learning is a constant transformation or journey of the self.

Social Networking in Plain English

Another great video from Common Craft. This one is about Social Networking. Enjoy!

Wikis in plain English

Thanks to my friends over at Studio 501c I was alerted to another excellent video presentation from the Common Craft Show, this time explaining clearly and simply what a Wiki is. I thought the  RSS  presentation  was a one-off, but  I realise I need to look out for new stuff from these folk.  Definitely worth a subscription.

Facilitation Toolkit

I am grateful to Hilary Messeter from the National College of School Leaders (NCSL) for agreeing to present at a recently Community of Practice workshop I co-hosted. The NCSL have created a Facilitation Toolkit for their community of over 100,000 members. This is primarily focused on communities within the education sector, but the toolkit is a great resource for anyone who is new to the world of on-line facilitation, or indeed for anyone who is currently supporting a community of practice.

Architectures for Conversation

I came across this excellent slideshow presentation from Andrew Hinton, which goes some way to explaining what is meant by "Information Architecture". It touches on Social Media, Web 2.0 and communities of practice, and even manages to draw some interesting parallels between social networks and the M-16 and AK-47 assault rifles. I particularly liked the quotation attributed to Groucho Marx - "Time flies like and arrow, but fruit flies like a banana". See how a banana might help you to cultivate your community of practice!   

Social Media Montage

Dave Briggs over at LGNemedia has assembled an excellent montage describing Social Media as a vehicle for collaboration and knowledge sharing. I'm looking forward to meeting Dave today at the IDeA's Community of Practice Workshop, which I'm co-hosting. We've also got Ed Mitchell and Hilary Messeter from the National College of School Leadership who will sharing their considerable knowledge of on-line facilitation with the assembled delegates, who are all members of the IDeA's Facilitator's Community of Practice