Over at Anecdote Mark (Hi Sean!) has been sharing a worrying and troublesome post dealing with how some Knowledge Management Yahoo Groups have been disappearing lately and for no good reason. And how one of them, one of my favourites dealing with the world of KM and from which I have learnt a great deal, has been wiped out altogether: actKM (That is a new group created afterwards, but most of the information has been lost !). Indeed, in Disappearing Yahoo! Groups Mark details what has actually happened and, since the already existing discussions cannot longer be recovered, he actually mentions what will happen next with such a thriving and energetic KM virtual community with members from all over the world.
They have gone ahead and right away launched the new actKM web site, which, in my opinion, is way better than the actual Yahoo! group that was in place before. The web site is actually a weblog with a whole bunch of different sections that will help get this virtual community up and running in no time. There is even a discussion list which is available at this URL which will bring things back to the initial stages when everything was working fine. Since they have lost part of the membership list details they have asked members from the former Yahoo! group to actually spread around the message about what is happening with the new actKM new site in order to get the full membership back to what it used to be. And this is the main reason for this weblog post, folks. If you were a member from the now gone Yahoo! group actKM you may want to check out the new web site and engage further in the discussions from there.
Or if you already knew about this but you think that others may not have been aware of it by all means go ahead and continue spreading the message. We just cannot let this virtual KM community disappear or get damaged just like that because of whatever the technical issue and for no apparent reason.
At least, the good thing about this unpleasant episode happening over at that KM community is the fact that whenever it is possible if you are planning to make use of Internet resources make sure you are able to look after them yourself, instead of having to depend on others, no matter how big their name(s) may be. At least, you would be in control and if any problem arises you would be able to get back things in place and restore them at your own leisure and without loosing any of the conversations and knowledge shared over a specific amount of time. I have had similar experiences in the past myself and although I could recover completely it was one of the main reasons why elsua.net is now live and kicking.
I wonder though if Yahoo! will ever reply back indicating what actually happened and if they could recover all that fountain of knowledge and resources that has now been lost for good. Or, perhaps they may be busy with something else. Who knows. Either way, spread the message. actKM has got a new home !
Technorati Tags: Knowledge+Management, KM, actKM, Yahoo+Groups, Anecdote
