The growing phenomenon of Social Software seems to provide an opportunity to complement the top‑down approach based on central knowledge repositories with tools that are simpler, smarter and more flexible. This article in‑ cludes a brief description of the main categories of Social Software â€” weblogs, wikis and social networking sites â€” fol‑ lowed by an analysis of their utilisation in relation to the five core Knowledge Management activities of the Knowledge Management taxonomy proposed by Despres & Chauvel in 1999. Examples that illustrate the support Social Software could provide for knowledge management are presented. Finally, some of the problems that hinder the usage of Social Software tools, together with some of the latest developments and trends in the field are mentioned.
This paper is an exploration of knowledge work practices in a distributed software development setting. The author has undertaken an empirical study in the Irish subsidiary of a multinational company over a 16‑month period. Our methods were inspired by ethnography; by spending an extended period of time with a software development team working on a specific project, we had the opportunity to observe real work practices in a real work setting in the specific circumstances of distributed work. The purpose of the current study is to highlight the ways in which technical and social factors are inextricably entwined in distributed work settings.
Keywords: collaboration, work practices, distributed work environments, global software development, knowledge work, mutual knowledge, transactive memory