Multimedia

Previous artefacts have provided me with evidence to prove that people are much more willing to participate in Knowledge Management Initiatives when they know the people in the group and have a social support network. This teamed with being a new starter in a creative company myself, has lead me to think about the integration of new starters.

Being new anywhere provides problems such as learning colleagues names, understanding their job roles and the running of the company as a whole. In small companies where there are less than 10 employees this may not be such an issue, but more than this can become 'information overload'.

For my Final Artefact I am proposing to make an online application/website that addresses these issues. Currently I see this as a list of pictures, along with names, job roles and internal contacts such as telephone extensions and email addresses.

A version of this could be added to a company's website for a more personal approach and useful for clients to put a face to a name when in correspondance. I am looking at ways that this could be useful for existing staff and this could shape my 5th Artefact as I have skipped ahead!

PRP: Base Camp

BaseCamp is a online Project Management tool that enables a group of individuals to achieve a understanding of what stage a project is at quickly and efficiently. This is a really good tool for any project, allowing you to share files, set milestones and make to do lists. This could be a much more efficient way of running any project and potentially a more successful alternative to the forum we are currently using to plan our exhibition.

A focus on communication and collaboration. Basecamp brings people together.

Click here for tour

Some free alternatives:

BaseCamp (30 day free trial)

Copper Project(30 day free trial)

Teamwork (free forever) 5MB 2Projects unlimited users

Comindwork 20MB 1 Project

More information available at PM Sherpa

Year3, Year3 PRP Read More

PRP: Artefact4_online chat room

My previous artefact looked into the communication that occurs between people with varying knowledge of one another in a face-to-face scenario.

For Artefact 4 I am interested in how people are much more likely to talk to strangers online compared to face-to-face. Online communication provides a safer, more familiar environment, which can evoking more honesty and also interaction between people that may not know one another.

Currently meetings and an online forum have been set up to facilitate discussion concerning our course exhibition and limited involvement from many of the course members has proved to be an issue.

Combining both of these factors I am curious to see whether staging a exhibition meeting online would help this problem. I found Campfire through participating in a Chat Room set up by Erskine Design.

WHAT IS CAMPFIRE?
Campfire is a web-based group chat tool that lets you set up password-protected chat rooms in just seconds. Invite a client, colleague, or vendor to chat, collaborate, and make decisions. Link to a room on your intranet for internal communications.

Live image previews
Upload a GIF, JPG, or PNG, and it shows up right in the chat room.
(Quite handy when discussing catalogue and website designs)

Jump back in time
Read past chat transcripts anytime you want. Campfire keeps a history.
(This will allow me to analyse the communications that occur)

Basecamp integration
Use Campfire with Basecamp, the leading web-based project collaboration tool.

(If we were to Use BaseCamp this could encourage more participation)

Year3, Year3 PRP Read More

Light box alternative

I have used Lightbox for some time but it does have some limitations. One major one that has caused issues with my Wilder and Wilder website is how its is viewed on smaller screens. This application uses padding at the top of each image. This can be seen as wasted space and to make images accesible to all, they would have to be reduced in size to accomodate the padding.

Lightview provides an alternative. Similar to Lightbox, Lightview allows you to scroll through a gallery of images using previous and next buttons. However, unlike Lightbox, the padding (top/bottom and left/right) is reduced in correlation the the reduction of browser window. It also supports other media such as Flash, Quicktime etc.

Pop Eye
Fancy box

(E)2 Gallery Pro