John Stepper discusses how people can get started working out loud and shows examples of different types of networks that one could connect with. It’s very easy to understand, but not quite so easy to do. Most people are too busy managing in the industrial/information age workplace and have no slack to try to learn how work in the network age.

But they probably won’t. Because they’re already busy. Because they’re afraid to make a mistake or unsure of their writing or speaking skills. Because they’re simply not used to working this way.

The most important step in learning a new skill is the first one. This same step has to be repeated many times before it becomes a habit. As John concludes:

For these people I offer some very simple advice: Schedule time in your calendar for working out loud. Start with simple contributions. Keep shipping.

Over time, you’ll develop the skills you need to be effective and the habits you need to do it regularly.

I strongly suggest that the first step of starting to work out loud, as part of personal knowledge management, has to be as simple as possible.

Free Your Bookmarks: This is a very simple shift that only requires a slight deviation from a common practice: saving bookmarks/favourites on your browser. Using tools like Diigo, or Delicious moves them off a single device, makes them more searchable, and (later) makes them shareable. Being able to share is usually not a prime reason why people start using social bookmarks.

Aggregate: Driving as many information sources as possible through a feed reader such as Google Reader or Feedly, saves time and helps stay organized. It’s amazing how many people do not understand RSS or how to grab a feed and save it. Aggregation makes information flows much easier to deal with.

Connect: How do you get started micro-blogging on a platform like Twitter? I suggest beginning with an aim in mind, such as professional development or staying current in a specific field. Use the search function to find people who post about your area of interest. Then follow no less than 20 and no more than 30 interesting people. Dip into the stream once or twice a day and read through any posts that interest you. Over time, as you follow links, you may add or delete feeds. Within a week or two, you should be able to sense some patterns and then can modify your stream to help you in learning more about the areas that interest you.

Sometimes we get all caught up in the latest social media tools. Getting started working out loud is not complicated and should not involve a steep learning curve on a complicated system. Start with simple tools and frameworks and then use your experience over time to modify them.

I’m still playing with Google Plus and have not made it an integrated part of my personal knowledge management process yet. One aspect of G+ I do not like is the inability to add tags or categorize what I find of interest, or to easily share with other networks. Sharing inside, of course, is easy, as Google would prefer you stay inside their ecosystem. What I usually do with G+ posts I like is 1) post them to Twitter, 2) add as Twitter favourites 3) and then curate them on my weekly Friday’s Finds blog post. It’s a bit convoluted but it kind of works. I could do the same by checking my ‘+1′ tagged items and regularly curating them on my blog.

I really like the Google Plus Hangout feature, which allows for immediate video conferencing, for up to 10 people, and integrates tools such as Google Documents for collaborative writing. Using the ‘On Air’ function lets you live broadcast your meeting via YouTube, which is then automatically recorded and saved as a YouTube video. It is seamless. The audio/video is very high quality with much less lag than Skype.

There is a feature of G+ that makes me think it can be the one to rule them all. These are circles. You add people to circles (which you can name) and then post updates on G+ to one or more circles of your choosing, or make them Public. Almost all of mine are public. But circles work both ways. You can control how much you see from each circle. I would suggest starting out by creating four circles, one for each setting. The settings slider appears on the right when you click on one of your circle names from the G+ Home page.

 There are four settings available:

• Show nothing
• Show some posts
• Show most posts (what G+ recommends, but that’s for them, not you)
• Show every post

There is also a bell symbol on the right  to subscribe to notifications (it’s a push function so you don’t miss anything). You see these settings explained when you hover your cursor over the slider.

So if you create four initial circles, you could use them as a filter to get better signal and less noise. You don’t need to spend a lot of time making a decision on where to put someone, as it’s easy to move a person from one circle to another. Fine-tuning this over time  could make your G+ stream a valuable information resource.

None: For people who have you in their circles, but you are not really interested in what they have to say, but feel you should be connected anyway. This group is handy if you don’t want something to be Public but want to reach a broader audience.

Some: These are people you know slightly or perhaps post too many updates.

Most: For people you know better, or usually post interesting things, but you don’t feel to you need to see everything.

Every Post: Good for work teams or fellow employees. I use this for my Internet Time Alliance colleagues.

I have found some deep conversations on G+, which is not limited by 140 characters. It integrates with other Google platforms, so it’s easy to share from Google Reader to Google Plus. Over time, I am finding it a good place to have some meaningful conversations. As with Twitter, if you find G+ boring, then you are following (circling) the wrong people.

I was asked to elaborate between collaboration and cooperation in my last post. I responded that in the network era, collaboration specialists need to cooperate. Cooperation is quite different from collaboration, but is necessary for a networked, coherent enterprise. I hope this image makes it clearer.

I also looked at how PKM is a core skill set in a networked enterprise, empowering workers to take control of their own learning. A Seek-Sense-Share framework helps people to seek new contacts in their social networks, and communities of practice. The basic flow goes from outside, to inside, and back out.

First seek information and connections in your social networks and communities of practice. This of course requires that one connects in the first place. Good filtering skills are necessary to ensure a decent signal to noise ratio.

Filtered information can then be used in our sense-making processes. A key aspect of sense-making is creating something. This can be an information product or an action, like a probe, or experimental way of doing something, like a new work practice.

An important aspect of sharing is knowing when, with whom, and how to share. It may be posting to the web, like this blog, or it may be more directed and to a certain community. Sharing using a blog, with permalinks, categories and tags, makes it easier to share when a need arises in your networks or communities. Sharing with intent is curation, while PKM can be viewed as pre-curation. It takes discernment to know when and how to share.

A shotgun approach to knowledge sharing will not work. Showing discernment in knowledge sharing helps to build trust. Becoming a trusted node in your communities and networks (with a good signal to noise ratio) ensures that your voice will be heard.