Euan Semple on video conference from Germany

Euan Semple formerly head of knowledge management at BBC.

Knowledge management is about relationships.

At BBC he started off with bulletin boards, forums. Key decision was to make it viral. You have to get people in fast to get it happening but you can't do that if you're too prescriptive about what people can write about. Need to encourage a high degree of user ownership.

Immense benefit from being able to ask questions about work and get them answered. Plus discussions of what was done, why it worked or didn't.

The people at the edges find advantage in it firse but also valuable to senior management.

Managers don't lose control they only had the appearance of control. These tools give a powerful way of exercising influence.

The next tool introduced was a social networking tool a bit like facebook or myspace. Allowed people to navigate the informal structures that underpin the organisation.

Next did blogging. Hard to do first off, due to corporate cultures being antithetical to expressing opinions.

Executive bloggers were able to increase their profile in the organisation.

Also had team blogs, group blogs etc.

Then put in a wiki. Implemented in a low key way but grew faster than other tools. Basic purpose was a quick and easy way to set up a website. Wikis appealed to people to do business type stuff. Wikis a place for groups of people to come together to plan etc. Able to do a lot of stuff without meetings. Mostly used around project activities.

All tools had RSS feeds to allow people to stay across what was happening.

Also used tags. Some of his clients use social tagging - a real challenge because of people tagging things differently.

The big things companies worry about are significantly affected by E2.0 eg collaboration, creativity, efficiency but existing systems in organisations are 'inhuman' and work against achieving these goals.

Managers think going to meetings is real work.

E2.0 not utopian or a way of solving everything but they do make the organisation and its problems more visible and more accountable.

Besides the next generation of recruits see these tools and the interaction patterns and cultures they foster as normal and desirable, so organisations will have no choice but to use this stuff too.

Some of the tougher organisations have the most to gain by getting involved.