Practicing what he preaches, George Siemens has made his new book “Knowing Knowledge” available for download as a pdf, and posted it as a wiki. It’s also for sale on Lulu.com. Scanning it, part one is theory, part two appears to be more focused on practical implementation, but it effectively raises some interesting questions right off the bat:

Is the book still a viable vehicle for knowledge transfer? Think about it, a book is essentially a snapshot in time from one tiny pin-prick of a perspective. Business books typically assert an authoritative viewpoint — this is how to solve this problem. But how can someone sitting at a keyboard in a small room for a certain period of time anticipate the particulars of your specific problem? If that person is knowledgable, they can produce an artifact that has value, sure. But can they compete with say, a network of semi-experts?

Will kids being born today actually consult “books” when they reach adulthood? Or will all human knowledge be readily available, and accessible on the fly, in other formats?

“Social Computing is not a fad. Nor is it something that will pass you or your company by. Gradually, Social Computing will impact almost every role, at every kind of company, in all parts of the world.”

– Forrester Research, Social Computing – How Networks Erode Institutional Power, And What to Do About It

That appears as the foreward to a new e-book on social media (available here  in PDF) from Spannerworks, a search engine marketing firm in the UK. The free e-book presents an introduction to blogs, wikis, podcasts, social networks and content communities (also referred to as ‘folksonomies’), as well as Second Life and “the very real economy” that is emerging in that online world. Useful as a primer and a brief overview of this emerging sphere of audience-generated content.