Curiouser and Curiouser!

Curiouser and Curiouser! on knowledge-management http://matt.blogs.it/ RSS feed for topic knowledge-management Copyright 2006 Matt Mower Squib/0.1 self@mattmower.com self@mattmower.com en-gb Tool review: Summarizer Thu, 04 Jul 2002 11:33:27 +0100 I've added <A href="http://www.copernic.com/products/summarizer/index.html">Copernic Summarizer</A> output to some of my recent posts.  It's a fabulous tool recommended to me by Joe Rotello that I am using more and more. Here's how I use it. Often when I am browsing I come across a long article that I'm not sure I want to read.  If I have it in front of me I can click the summarizer button on the IE toolbar and let it go to work.  If it's a link on a page I'm on I choose "Summarize target" from the context menu.   Summarizer also has a live in-browser summary option. Summarizer opens and downloads the page.  It does a statistical analysis of the text to determine the key concepts.  Then it works backwards to identify the sentences that are most important in the document based on those key concepts.  It presents this as a summary list.   At this point I can read the summary, email it or print it.  I can also save it as an XML document (using Copernic's summary XSD scheme). I get to control how large or small the summary generated is using a simple controls like 10% of the text or 200 words and Summarizer will adjust the summary as I do so.  I can also remove concepts and have Summarizer re-jig things to reflect the new order of things. I was a little skeptical at first but that quickly changed when I saw the quality of summaries it was generating.  I usually use the 10% summary as a quick precis, then 25% for a little better understanding.  If it seems worth it I then go on to read the whole article. Summarizer also plugs into Adobe acrobat, Office and a number of other tools.  For those not directly supported you can summarize text copied to the clipboard or dragged onto it's system tray icon. There are things I would like to see developed for this product.  For example there is no easy way to jump from a summary line to that line in the original document (to obtain context) and the in-browse live summarizer seems a little buggy to me.  But all-in-all I think this is a great tool for the information professional and well worth $60. [Note I am not affiliated with Copernic in any way, I'm just a satisfied customer] <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » As a taster here is a 100 word summary of this posting: <UL> <LI>If I have it in front of me I can click the summarizer button on the IE toolbar and let it go to work.</LI> <LI>It does a statistical analysis of the text to determine the key concepts.</LI> <LI>Then it works backwards to identify the sentences that are most important in the document based on those key concepts.</LI> <LI>For example there is no easy way to jump from a summary line to that line in the original document (to obtain context) and the in-browse live summarizer seems a little buggy to me.</LI> <LI>But all-in-all I think this is a great tool for the information professional and well worth $60.</LI></UL>    </BLOCKQUOTE> http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00000096.html Complexity Theory & Business Sun, 07 Jul 2002 11:50:25 +0100 James Robertson of [<A href="http://www.steptwo.com.au/columntwo/">Column Two</A>] has been musing about how complexity theory relates to business and knowledge management. He's been drawing some interesting parallels between the complexity of human behaviour in organizations, the complexity of information in evolving systems and the behaviour of such complex systems as cellular automata, genetic algorithms and neural networks. Read more at: <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <A href="http://www.steptwo.com.au/columntwo/archives/000061.html">(I)</A> <A href="http://www.steptwo.com.au/columntwo/archives/000062.html">(II)</A>  </BLOCKQUOTE> http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00000112.html Software for Information Professionals Sun, 07 Jul 2002 12:39:02 +0100 I'm on the look out for software that improves my lot as an information producer/consumer.  I came across <A href="http://argus-acia.com/strange_connections/current_article.html">this article</A> by Peter Morville which talks about software for Information Architects. He identifies the following categories of tool: <UL> <LI>Automated Classification</LI> <LI>Automated Category Generation</LI> <LI>Search Engines</LI> <LI>Thesaurus Management</LI> <LI>Collaborative Filtering</LI> <LI>Portal Solutions</LI> <LI>Content Management</LI> <LI>Analytics</LI> <LI>Database Management</LI> <LI>Information Architecture Productivity</LI></UL> (Note some of the tool urls are now dead.  This article was written in 2001) As an individual I'm more interested in personal solutions than enterprise solutions.  This means that I like tools like Copernic Summarizer and Personal Brain which put me in the driving seat.  But I hope to have my own servers soon so I'll be interested in bigger solutions too. Do you have a tool that you swear by?   http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00000116.html Okay so what's next? Tue, 09 Jul 2002 20:38:57 +0100 Strangely enough being made redundant on Monday was not the most unnerving that has happened to me this week. What is more unnerving is my decision not to look immediately for another job.  Instead I have made the decision to see if I can make an adhoc mixture (as I see it now) of blogging, k-logging, knowledge management, intranets, collaboration and communities into a compelling business proposition and make a living from it. For some time now I have wanted to strike out in my own direction.  To lead rather than be led.  It seems fate just handed me my chance. This is not a risk-free strategy, and I'm just beginning to admit to myself what I'm letting myself in for. So from here onwards I will happily entertain any offers of work, suggestions about what works (and what doesn't).  Ideas, novel solutions, novel problems.  It's all good.   I've also got an acre of understanding to do, here goes! Suddenly I feel like I am growing into my weblog title. Matt   http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00000136.html More on liveTopics Wed, 10 Jul 2002 21:51:52 +0100 I gave an initial pitch of some of my ideas today.  Not a pitch that I would like to give to an objective audience but, then, this is only my second day <A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0107808/2002/07/09.html#a179">off the job</A>!! I was trying to show how liveTopics and blogPlex fit together. liveTopics really started life as a bootstrap technology for the blogPlex.  blogPlexing depends upon being able to extract meaningful information from what people say on their weblogs.  Until such time as technologies like Cyc or Summarizer (see Share in the sidebar) can deliver the goods I needed something else.  Hence liveTopics was born to allow you to annotate your posts with descriptive concepts.  From a very simple original concept it has taken on a life of its own which is kind of cool. There are two steps on the way to blogPlex that I think are worth sharing.  The first is topicRolling which I have discussed in another <A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0107808/2002/07/09.html#a181">recent post</A>.  Briefly topicRolling allows you to publish your topics & subscribe to the topics used by others.  This allows a group of people to develop a shared conceptual vocabulary or BlogSpeak. The second is the super-blog.  This was really <A href="http://www.wwpp.org/">Jack Foster Mancilla's</A> idea.  This is an extension of the Blog Topic Table of Contents (TTOC) idea which will be familiar if you click through any of the topic links on my page (or click <A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0107808/outlines/topics/allTopics.html">here</A>).   At the moment the TTOC is an individual affair, however pretty soon I am to provide the ability for a group of people to create a super-blog together. In the same way that the TTOC now lists each of an individuals posts under a topic, the super-blog will list the posts of every member creating a way to see what each member of the group has posted regarding specific concepts.  This makes topicRolling very important.  We will also need tools to support the merging and grouping of topics into <A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0107808/2002/07/09.html#a182">topicThemes</A>. My view at the moment is rather than embarking on a massive project to create some kind of control language or standardized vocabulary that we allow Darwinian pressures to select topics.  As has been written elsewhere people will gravitate towards "good" topics and abandon the bad (and there will be tools to help the losers graciously migrate).   The pressure will come from the other users of the plex, in order to be listed you have to use the right topics. I can imagine situations where two similar topics will grow equal in size.  Thats okay.  Clever software can work out that they are synonymous by examing their associations with other topics.  And the use of topicThemes will help to prevent unnecessary isolation. And then we reach the blogPlex itself.  At the moment I envisage this as a service subscribed to many blogs or klogs.  Using the data in each along with the topical metadata to create profiles of bloggers and kloggers. The value of the profiles is that they will allow the blogPlex service to match up bloggers who are writing about similar concepts - who are not already linking to each other.  This is a key point because it is this that enables new communities to form.   http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00000158.html Is KM a technology problem? Sun, 14 Jul 2002 21:16:16 +0100 <A href="http://www.kellogg.nwu.edu/faculty/mcgee/htm/blog/2002/07/09.html#a1788">What if knowledge management actually is a technology problem?</A>. I just came across a posting by Jim McGee in McGee's Musings that I found thought provoking. Here is how it starts : <BLOCKQUOTE>What if knowledge management actually is a technology problem? Current thinking holds that knowledge management's problems come from too much focus on technology when the key problems are about organizational processes and practices. I've said as much myself on many occasions. But this formulation risks perpetuating the myth that problems are either organizational or technological. We know the real world isn't that simple, of course. We shouldn't contribute to the confusion by oversimplifying our discussion. </BLOCKQUOTE>Like Jim, I have always thought that KM is about people - "psychology - not technology" but I always love it when so called 'truths' that we hold dear are questioned - including my own. We've only got to look back through history to see the many times when we thought we were right and had all the answers - only to see those views totally overturned a few years later. So what if KM is really all about technology and not people? I don't think so! Like Jim, I agree the real world is not that simple. We tend to like either-or arguments - [<A onmouseover="self.status='Book: I am Right you are Wrong';return true" onmouseout="self.status='';return true" href="http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/0/EF9CDBE1EAC49786802567F1006C3ED3/">right-or-wrong</A>] solutions - but reality is not like that - the answer is usually fuzzy and some where in between the extremes. So should KM be more about technology than people? Maybe its just that our current technology is poor or we are not using it appropriately. What role will technology play in the future? Take a look at what Jim has to say - some interesting thoughts ... What do you think? [<A href="http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/0/E79924B9B266C48A80256B8D004BB5AD/">Gurteen Knowledge-Log</A>] <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » I guess that my view is that where traditional KM fails it is not especially because the technology wasn't sophisticated enough (and sometimes the reverse) but because it failed to address the social, emotional needs of the individuals it was supposed to be serving. I think this is part of the reason why I suspect klogging will be such a huge success - it's a social thing.  People can create social capital by klogging.  They can network, foster communities, add evident value.  It creates new opportunities for them.  It's a win-win deal. Is klogging a technological victory?  Only in the sense of the technology getting the hell outta the way.  </BLOCKQUOTE> http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00000189.html TAO of topic maps Mon, 15 Jul 2002 21:52:39 +0100 <A href="http://www.steptwo.com.au/columntwo/archives/000090.html">The TAO of Topic Maps</A>. Steve Pepper has written a succinct introduction to topic maps, titled The TAO of Topic Maps. To quote Steve: Topic [<A href="http://www.steptwo.com.au/columntwo/">Column Two</A>] <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » I finally got a chance to read this paper on the tube going to London today.  A key paragraph that leapt out at me was: <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> "But knowledge is fundamentally different from information: the difference is that between knowing a thing versus simply having information about it.  And if, as one writer claims, 'knowledge management covers three main knowledge activities: generation, codification, and transfer', then topic maps can be regarded as the standard for codification that is the necessary prerequisite for the development of tools that assist in the generation and transfer of knowledge."</BLOCKQUOTE> In general the topic maps approach seems very sound to me with very laudible goals.  It also dovetails nicely with a lot of my liveTopics efforts and lends some new and credible directions. For example I have already implemented code in the liveTopics plugin to export the topical references in the weblog as an XTM topic map.   Additionally my idea for topic themes seems almost identical to the concept of themes in the document. It also highlights some things I should address.  The idea of synonyms and homynyms are clearly important once people start sharing their topics (via topicRolls).  It may also be useful to allow people to define their own glossaries (maybe integrated with the existing Radio glossary).  And in order to generate occurrence data the permalinks of each posting should be used as topic references to that posting. All in all a useful guide to the capabilities of topic maps.  What is required now is another work building upon this that details some of the applications that topic maps will enable.  </BLOCKQUOTE> http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00000199.html eXtreme KM? Fri, 02 Aug 2002 08:38:28 +0100 <A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0106188/2002/07/12.html#a221">Extreme programming, early learning, project management and KM!</A>. Brilliant ... for some reason I have only just come across the term [<A onmouseover="self.status='Direct Link: Extreme Programming';return true" onmouseout="self.status='';return true" href="http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/redirect?openform&redirect=http://www.extremeprogramming.org/">Extreme Programming</A>] (XP) ... a very similar methodology to one that Lotus Notes developers have been applying for the last 10 years or more and that was embodied in Lotus's AVM (Accelerated Value Methodology). I apply this methodology myself whenever I can and taught AVM for a couple of years and so can highly recommend such methodologies. An interesting insight though is that it can be applied to any project. Its about building rapid learning into the project - in fact it all about knowledge management. [<IMG alt=Smile! src="http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/(Images)/SMILE-EMOTICON/$File/smiley.gif?OpenElement" border=0 name=smile-emoticon>] <BLOCKQUOTE>Extreme Programming (universally referred to as XP) is a methodology of programming which involves short cycle times working closely with the customer. In XP, the development team works in two week cycles, and works on implementing customer stories: stories being small enough pieces of functionality that can be implemented in a short space of time. The theme underlying XP is "embrace change:" since we know user requirements will change, we make a virtue of it. XP uses the metaphor of driving to illustrate this: you don't drive from Los Angeles to New York by pointing the car in the direction of New York and then closing your eyes for the next 40 hours: you have to make small corrections along the way. </BLOCKQUOTE> [<A href="http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/0/E79924B9B266C48A80256B8D004BB5AD/">Gurteen Knowledge-Log</A>] <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » Pauses for some company somewhere to start marketing their "eXtreme KM" product suite... Oh wait, maybe I should do that :-)  </BLOCKQUOTE> http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00000246.html Integrating klogs with Big-KM Thu, 08 Aug 2002 23:08:31 +0100 In order for klogging to be successfully I think it is going to have to come to an understanding with Big-KM. Example:  BigCo has invested half a million dollars in a big knowledge management system for their world-wide operations.  This kind of investment can become a lode-stone around any other systems neck.  For klogging to thrive here it is going to have to integrate. Here's one idea I have for how this could work. <OL> <LI>Extend Big-KM System-X so that it can aggregate RSS feeds like Radio, MT and others do now.</LI> <LI>Extend your klogging software to allow per-post meta data.  (liveTopics does this for Radio)</LI> <LI>For each project in System-X define a set of topics that will act as trigger phrases for that project</LI> <LI>Get the kloggers to use those topics when they want to involve a post in a particular project</LI> <LI>Now subscribe System-X to every klog in the organization and watch as it indexes and archives all that information.  Each project grabbing only those postings that are appropriate (by use of the trigger phrases)</LI> <LI>This means that the klogs add value to the big-KM system.  Suddenly it doesn't just have the dry dusty project documention, but all the live vibrant stuff that people are really doing!</LI> <LI>Now extend System-X to generate a per-project RSS feed.</LI> <LI>If I am on the project I can subscribe to this feed.  Now instead of receiving email from System-X or having to go to an arbitrary web page, I get all the "official" project stuff (new documents, forms etc...) delivered in my RSS stream.</LI></OL> Closing the loop between the big-KM and the klog so that they both add value to each other. Just an idea....   http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00000276.html So what is klogging anyway... Thu, 15 Aug 2002 10:24:36 +0100 You know, I don't like the term klogging very much.  It has meaning to us "in the know" but I think it's rather an opaque term. I would prefer a term like Personal Knowledge Publishing which actually says a little bit about what it means, and, harkens back to the DTP revolution. I think PKP will hail the same revolution for Knowledge Management by emphasizing that it is people that matter.  Process should follow people.  Let people do what they are good at (thinking, scheming, designing, creating) and help them get it down "on paper" and let process and automation do the rest for them. The technology should support the individual, not binding them. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00000321.html Personal or Professional..? Sat, 17 Aug 2002 23:43:07 +0100 Like me, <A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0001275/2002/08/11.html#a332">Gary Secondino</A> thinks that klogging is problematic as a term for 'weblogging as knowledge management.' I'm actually wavering over my own suggestion of 'Personal Knowledge Publishing.'  Although I want to make it clear that this is KM for people, I also want to be sure that it's clear that what is being published is useful. Mike O'Reilly's suggestion was 'Professional Knowledge Publishing,' or even 'Personal Professionl Knowledge Publishing.'  I think the last one is a bit of a mouthful. So, should it be Personal Knowledge Publishing or Professional Knowledge Publishing...? http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00000338.html Entropy, big-KM, klogging and the wheel Tue, 20 Aug 2002 19:57:17 +0100 <A href="http://www.rolandtanglao.com/2002/08/18.html#a2630">Roland's Natural Klog Progression.</A>. I spoke of <A href="http://dijest.com/2002/08/13.html#a1927">four klogging roles</A> last week: catalyst, coach, armorer, practice leader. <A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0107808/2002/08/19.html#a287">Matt Mower</A> advocates the the role of "Intranet Editor:" <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> Much as the users of a Wiki should occasionally re-factor pages that are becoming "busy" I think that a good intranet editor should be grooming the klogs in their organization and drawing together useful strangs to form part (or all) of the static intranet.</BLOCKQUOTE> <A href="http://www.rolandtanglao.com/">Roland Tanglao</A> builds on this: <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> I think <A href="http://www.rolandtanglao.com/categories/radiouserland/2002/06/02.html#a2066">a natural progression for knowledge</A> is: <OL> <LI>blog breaking news <LI>harvest it periodically (say weekly) into an FAQ and/or other knowledge base type of documents <LI>Put the link into a a directory that supports transclusion like Manila style directories. </LI></OL> K-Log => (FAQ or other knowlegebase article) => directory.   K-Logs need to be periodically (at least once a month) harvested for content that should go into an FAQ or other knowledgebase document and links that that should go into a directory. This is the job of a K-Log editor :-)! I have been trying to do this with VanEats but after a klog gets to a certain size, it really needs to have some time set aside for it.</BLOCKQUOTE> Practice Leader is probably the closest to a dedicated multi-author editor. Summarizing work in a field, showing the aggregate progress and useful threads. Structuring knowledge into FAQs or other KM systems may be a natural progression, especially as klogging tools and KM tools build bridges. Entropy, bad. Fighting entropy, expensive, slow.  Self-review is a powerful tool for learning. Going over my own posts for the past week, month, and quarter has shown patterns I missed, ideas I was skirting but never wrote outright. It reinforced brief social connections, blogs to which I linked to and people with whom I briefly corresponded. It takes concentrated time and effort. It helps me to print out all the pages on my blog for that period; something about shuffling through paper. Folks are trying hard to automate this work. Summarizers. Cluster analysis. Text to Structure converters. Taxonomy systems. But the expert author of the original content is often the best judge of relevance. [<A href="http://dijest.com/aka/">a klog apart</A>] <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » I think one of the things about klogs is that are no better than any other KM system when it comes to entropy.  In fact they are likely to be a hell of a lot worse -- it's just the entropy matters less.  Any information system that isn't properly maintained has the potential to quickly deteriorate into chaos. The fact is that most people don't want to have to find just the right place to put something.  Most people aren't going to review what they have done.   You can force this behaviour, you can encourage it.  But is it really necessary that everyone has to become a librarian in order to function in a knowledge environment? My alternative is that we recognize and promote the value of good editing (and, hence, good editors).  Have an editor/practice leader to head each area whose responsibility it is to aggregate good knowledge.  Then reward them when they do it well.   Example:  Look at the number of search engine queries for specific keywords.  Tie those keywords to projects/areas.  If the number of searches trends downwards something is working.  Okay, too simplistic? Then suggest something better! An area I have been thinking about is how I would integrate the idea of uploading files to a KM system when klogging.  One approach would be to provide some kind of clever dialogue to allow the user to specify where they want the file to end up.  That sounds like hard work for me & for the user. Alternative strategy:  Allow the user to put a file in an enclosure.  Radio will upstream it to the KM server as part of the RSS feed.  The KM server will toss the file into an upload bucket in an area based upon the metadata of the post (ala liveTopics).  It's then up to the practice leader for that area to decide where the document actually belongs and move it there (or indeed if it belongs at all). Is this less efficient?  Maybe so.  Is it more effective?  I think so. Agree? Disagree?  Ideas?</BLOCKQUOTE> http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00000387.html PKP is to blogging, as TKP is to klogging Wed, 21 Aug 2002 14:43:29 +0100 I've was speaking with <A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0112134/">Mike O'Reilly</A> about liveTopics, Radio, open source and what to call klogging.   He very kindly reminded me that I am old enough to be considered an anachronism by some people.  My love of "Personal Knowledge Publishing" comes from it's link to the DTP revolution.  But Mike made it clear that most people today didn't go through that.  To them DTP means Word and it's not exciting, it doesn't harken back to a revolution.  Oh well, drop that idea then. We then went through collaborative, professional, business, and didn't like any of them enough to agree on it. Then it occurred to me to cut to the chase: <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> klogging = Tacit Knowledge Publishing</BLOCKQUOTE> This captures both the personal element that I think is so important, and the collaborative element. It also supports the storytelling metaphor which I am coming around to in a big way. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00000415.html A klog is... Fri, 23 Aug 2002 15:13:07 +0100 <A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0110772/2002/08/23.html#a175">"A K-log is..." and lessons learned from a large-scale K-logging implementation</A>. "A K-log is a knowledge-management weblog, where you use weblogging tools (like <A href="http://www.blogger.com/">Blogger</A>, <A href="http://www.userland.com/">Manila, or Radio</A>) to write about your work, what happens, and what you know about. Presumably everybody else does too -- or some reasonable portion of "everybody else". Then you might use RSS to aggregate all this content, and you have the core of a knowledge management system." writes <A href="http://www.empire.net/~peterh/blog.html">Pete Harbeson</A>. [<A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0110772/">Seb's Open Research</A>] http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00000444.html Shared context valuable? It's a good story. Wed, 04 Sep 2002 18:44:16 +0100 <UL> <LI>Context sensitiveness was my group. We went for a bit philosophical discussion about the importance of context and tacit, but then turned to more practical things: ways to share context and tacit knowledge. We didnt have many answers, but more questions: <UL> <LI>What is context? <LI>What kind of value shared context adds? <LI>How to support sharing context? What technology can do and what not? What motivation and skills people need? What kind of environment? </LI></UL></LI></UL> [<A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0109961/">Mathemagenic</A>] <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » Good questions.  I'm reading some interesting articles (one is <A href="http://www.elearningpost.com/features/archives/001009.asp">here</A>) about story telling as a way of supporting shared context for knowledge transfer.  My gut feeling is that this is a powerful approach but one with a lot of pitfalls (as in: "the softer the approach, the harder the sell").   Mike (I really will write a blog entry one day) O'Reilly also tells me that <A href="http://www.narratology.net/">Narratology</A> is a very hot research field right now.</BLOCKQUOTE> http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00000489.html KM implies culture change Fri, 06 Sep 2002 09:13:09 +0100 <A href="http://www.highcontext.com/blarchive/2002_09_05.html">Fostering Change Without Getting Fired</A>. You may want to check out <A href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0875849059/">Tempered Radicals</A> by <A href="http://gobi.stanford.edu/facultybios/bio.asp?ID=221">Debra Meyerson</A>. She writes about the experiences of people who have decided to create change within a work place that doesn't match their values rather than leave the company. She focuses mostly on creating change on issues such as diversity, fair-trade products, family-friendly work hours, etc. However, I think the strategies that she discusses are just as valid and useful for trying to move an organization towards a more knowledge-based organizational culture. Her key themes are: leading by example, small early wins, turning threats into change opportunities, and taking a long view. No quick fixes, I'm afraid. [<A href="http://www.highcontext.com/">High Context</A>] <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » Effective take up of knowledge management practices is going to have to go hand-in-hand with organisational development.  Interestingly at yesterdays <A href="http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/0/072DFA35BF287A3180256C1C005C20C2/">Knowledge Cafe</A> meeting one of the topics that came up was strategies for persuading decision makers that Knowledge Management was even worth investing in.  This was a slightlly disappointing revelation as I had hoped the battle lines were drawn a little further forward than that.  </BLOCKQUOTE> http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00000499.html KM must be about achieving strategic business objectives Tue, 10 Sep 2002 08:57:35 +0100 <A href="http://www.steptwo.com.au/columntwo/archives/000215.html">CKO mistakes</A>. Udai Shekawat writes about Five Mistakes CKOs Must Avoid, which explores why many KM initiatives fail, from a Chief Knowledge... [<A href="http://www.steptwo.com.au/columntwo/">Column Two</A>] <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » Really good thoughtful article.  Some highlights: <UL> <LI>Solution: CKOs must execute their strategies in the context of the business problem, define the criteria for an ideal solution and then identify the closest technological match.</LI> <LI>After all, what good is a KM solution if employees do not use it?</LI> <LI>While the 20% of the organizational know-how that is represented in documents is indeed important, the remaining 80% of know-how walks out the door every evening.</LI> <LI>There is a natural tendency in large organizations to assess what knowledge resources already exist in the company and then select a KM solution that can best enable the employees to utilize those resources.</LI> <LI>It is the responsibility of every person in the organization to create, share, refine knowledge.</LI> <LI>So, coaching is a key -- you cannot take people out of the equation, and capturing the "context" or the story or the situation around the answer is just as important as capturing the answer or solution itself.</LI></UL> Especially interesting was the view that a CKO must take a strategic, demand-driven approach rooted in solving business problems.  Not KM for KM's sake.  This gels with the comments at Knowledge Cafe that it was hard to justify KM.  I'm not suggesting that the person who said that was not taking a strategic approach, simply that it is not necessarily widely understood.</BLOCKQUOTE> http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00000529.html Concrete KM Thu, 12 Sep 2002 13:11:48 +0100 Had a session with my life coach <A href="http://www.treeoflifecoaching.co.uk/">David </A>this morning.  We were chatting about some of the problems I am facing trying to market a product in the knowledge management marketplace. It seems particuarly challenging when so many of the argued for benefits seem very abstract.  I had just brought up the old adage that only 20% of the knowledge in a company is usually stored in knowledge-bases whilst the other 80% walks home every night and how, whilst this might be true, it doesn't seem to be effective in convincing people to invest in knowledge management. David then suggested a metaphor that I thought was wonderfully concrete: <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> "Imagine you are running a factory and every night 80% of the machinery walked home and maybe wouldn't come back the next morning.  How quickly do you think you would invest in ways of keeping it?"</BLOCKQUOTE> http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00000538.html Digesting knowledge management technology Tue, 15 Oct 2002 20:43:23 +0100 Over today I've been digesting <A href="http://researchweb.watson.ibm.com/journal/sj/404/marwick.html">Knowledge Management Technology</A> by A. D. Marwick It was an interesting although in some ways unsatisfying read.  I found the earlier more general sections more interesting and useful than the later sections which actually analysed the technology.  That may be because I had more to learn from those earlier sections. Some preliminary thoughts: "Knowledge" in this context includes both the experience and understanding of the people in the organisation and the information artifacts, such as documents and reports available within the organisation and in the world outside. <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » We value experience and tend to reward it commensurately.  In a down economy headcount reduction is often used to pair down expenditure but at the same time it tends to pair down experience.  Investment in knowledge management (particularly tacit->tacit and tacit->explicit) is a defensive tactic for dealing with this.  For the same reason it could be viewed as a hostile technology by staff who might see themselves as being "in the firing line."   </BLOCKQUOTE> Tacit knowledge is actionable knowledge. <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » Not sure I understand this point.  Is explicit knowledge not actionable?  I guess I'm going to have to understand the term 'actionable knowledge' a little better.</BLOCKQUOTE> The key to knowledge creation lies in the mobilization and conversion of tacit knowledge. <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » A key point from Nonaka.</BLOCKQUOTE> Creation of new knowledge takes place through the processes of combination and internalization. <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » An interesting point.  Ref Nonaka, Internalization is defined as: <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> explicit -> tacit (e.g. learn from a report)</BLOCKQUOTE> Combation as: <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> explicit -> explicit (e.g. e-mail a report)</BLOCKQUOTE> Need to think more on this.  I'm not quite there.</BLOCKQUOTE> Knowledge sharing is often done without ever producing explicit knowledge and, to be most effective, should take place between people who have a common culture and can work together effectively. <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » Follow up the Davenport & Prusak reference. It would be interesting to study the cultural differences and similarities of groups of webloggers who are sharing knowledge successfully.  What are the interesting cultural segments in blogland?</BLOCKQUOTE> Externalization (tacit->explicit): By it's nature, tacit knowledge is difficult to convert into explicit knowledge.  Through conceptualization, elicitation, and ultimately articulation, typically in collaboration with others, some proportion of a person's tacit knowledge may be captured in explicit form.  Typical activities in which the conversion takes place are dialog among team members, in responding to questions, or through the elicitation of stories. <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » Key section. We're in the meat of klogging here.  Attempting to convert our mental models into text the better to share and collaborate with others. Note: elicitation of stories in this sense could just as well be capturing best practice,...</BLOCKQUOTE> For example, knowledge creation results from interaction of persons and tacit and explicit knowledge. <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » Seems to contradict the earlier point slightly.  This one makes more sense to me.</BLOCKQUOTE> Through interaction with other, tacit knowledge is externalized and shared. <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » A key goal must therefore to be to make sure that we are able to interact with the right people and that our information is in a form that is suitable for sharing. Free text is obviously the most flexible but as many others have observed it may be useful to have templates that provide some form.  This might also be useful for introducing those who aren't comfortable with the idea of writing what they think. Rick Klau made an interesting observation when we met up.  To get people into klogging provide them with the Radio aggregator and simply tell them to re-post any item they think is interesting. This is sharing at it's simplest.  In my view once someone gets the hang of this they will make the next step - adding a simple commentary - themself.  Even if it is just one word here and there. What will be required to get full engagement will be an issue that they feel the need to speak out on.  A weblog is not just a bunch of text, it is a voice.</BLOCKQUOTE> the greatest value occurs from their (the 4 processes) combination since, as already noted, new knowledge is thereby created, disseminated, and internalized by other employees who can therefore act on it, and thus form new experiences and tacit knowledge that can in turn be shared with others and so on. <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » I think in reading this I was again reminded of the question: What is the value of new knowledge, of a new idea.  This idea of creating new knowledge doesn't seem as if it will play well in the downturn "evolution not revolution" "fix the leaky pipes" mindset. It's far more in tune with the "!garyhamel" mindset: Coming up with discontinuities that create new markets.</BLOCKQUOTE> In any case, automatic extraction of deep knowledge from documents is an elusive goal. <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » True.  Although it will be interesting to see what tools like "!cyc" will be able to do as they mature.</BLOCKQUOTE> However, the candidate pieces of extracted knowledge must still be presented to a human for review and final decision, so that the value of the system is in increasing the productivity of the human analysts. <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » Yep</BLOCKQUOTE> The greatest difficulty in knowledge management identified by the respondents in a survey was "changing peoples behaviour" and the current biggest impedement to knowledge transfer was "culture." <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » Key point. There is little technology can do about culture.  This maybe shouldn't worry us since because, as Seb pointed out in a <A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0110772/2002/10/08.html#a413">recent post</A> (regarding a Darwin article), "Natural selection will take care of those companies (and individuals) who can't or won't do it". Technology can come to bear on behaviour though.  Two enablers will be: <UL dir=ltr> <LI> <DIV>software that encourages & supports behavioural change</DIV></LI> <LI> <DIV>software that requires less behavioural change</DIV></LI></UL> as appropriate.</BLOCKQUOTE> Ackerman refers to this situation as a "social technical gap." <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » This is the gap that good software must attempt to bridge.  Current paradigm weblog software is I think a step forwards and a step backwards. Forwards in that it supports the right behaviour, but backwards in that the key to weblogging is writing and hence it smacks straight into the barriers discussed recently about "why won't people write."</BLOCKQUOTE>  Shared experiences are in important basis for the formation and sharing of tacit knowledge. <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » Again this relates back to the point about culture.  A shared culture implies a set of common experiences that form the culture.  Hence why storytelling is important.  So we need tools that support shared experience and, hence, the capturing of context.  (Again this relates to my recent reading on best practices)</BLOCKQUOTE> A richer kind of shared experience can be provided by applications that support real-time on-line meetings (i.e. groupware) <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » Yep.  I've <A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0107808/2002/10/15.html#a483">just been musing</A> on an IM client I would like to have to support richer online collaboration than "just text".  Also Marc Canter & co. have been working on the idea of <A href="http://blogs.it/0100198/2002/09/20.html#a184">multimedia conversations</A> for some time. For myself I would like to try experimenting with VideoBlogging.</BLOCKQUOTE>   More later...   http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00000734.html KM Europe 2002 Wed, 30 Oct 2002 14:31:29 +0000 I will be at KM Europe sometime between 13th-15th November (I haven't decided which day/days I will go yet).  Is anyone else going to be there?  It would be cool to meet up over an incredibly overpriced coffee, or maybe (if they are an enlightened crowd or there is a pub nearby) beer! http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00000794.html You know a good idea when you see one Tue, 05 Nov 2002 21:37:17 +0000 IdeaTools Weblog day 2: <A href="http://paolo.evectors.it/ideaTools/2002/11/05.html#a1087">Quick tour</A>. [<A href="http://paolo.evectors.it/">Paolo Valdemarin: Paolo's Weblog</A>] <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » Paolo's showing off IdeaTools: <UL> <LI>Stories and news</LI> <LI>Product catalog and shopping basket</LI> <LI>Events management</LI> <LI>Discussion group</LI> <LI>Rss News Aggregator</LI> <LI>Customer/Contents profiling</LI> <LI>Search engine</LI></UL> and that's just for starters.  Definitely worth taking a look.</BLOCKQUOTE> http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00000815.html Contributing to an intranet Fri, 29 Nov 2002 10:59:59 +0000 I'm trying to come up with more models for thinking about communication.  I came up with a question: What affects my contributions?  And some attributes of an answer: <UL> <LI>inertia - how hard is it for me to make a contribution</LI> <LI>reward - what do I get in return for contributing</LI> <LI>value - how much use can be made of my contribution</LI></UL> A powerful intranet system makes it easy for people to contribute, gives them a direct return on investment and allows what they have added to be re-used in as many ways as possible. Typically an employee can contribute via: <UL> <LI>e-mail</LI> <LI>bulletin board / discussion list / group mailbox</LI> <LI>document management system</LI> <LI>database</LI></UL> A cursory examination of these options follows: e-mail <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> It is very easy to write e-mails but often harder to know who to send them to for maximum value.  They often go unacknowledged, its very hard to tell if they've had the desired impact and it's increasingly hard to know if and how to re-use the content of an e-mail.  Also with the quantity of e-mail people receive these days I think the law of diminishing returns is at work.  More e-mail (even better e-mail) isn't going to make things any better.</BLOCKQUOTE> bulletin board <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> On the face of it bulletin boards and other discussion groups work very well.  However as long time users will attest they have many significant drawbacks.  The first is that it is very hard to keep on track as an initial discussion widens out in collaboration.  Inevitably people look to take the traffic "elsewhere".  Popular discussion groups can get croweded very quickly which is a curse and a curse.  A crowded group can intimidate new comers and makes it harder for members to find what they are interested in.  A corrolary of this is that it soon becomes impossible to find anything for re-use.</BLOCKQUOTE> document management system <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> These days web-based document management systems (which all call themselves knowledge management systems in the hope you won't know the difference) tend to be pretty easy to use.  As ways of storing and indexing large collections of documents they work very well, but they often fail to solve the underlying problems of managing an organisations knowledge.   This is because, often, the knowledge isn't in the formal documentation. Example:  I'm an engineer working for a company who make handheld wireless workstations.  I acquire through on-site testing some valuable knowledge about a problem with making our equipment work in their situation.  I could write this up in a document and post it in the DMS but more likely I will put it in a notebook or on a post-It or just tell my colleagues about it. This kind of micro-knowledge (micro-content) is often where the useful knowledge lies and it can be very hard to get at if your systems all work at the macro level.</BLOCKQUOTE> database <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> What company doesn't have at least a CRM system today?  Supposedly the channel for storing all information.  But if you take my previous example where does that knowledge go?  It's not information about the customer (at least not really).  And that assumes that your CRM system is flexible enough to handle unexpected data.  Most either aren't or are never properly implemented. Databases are often cumbersome, unfriendly and inflexible.  Also where information goes in, it is often much harder to get it out again in any sensible form (another Access report anybody?).</BLOCKQUOTE>   As I have written before I do believe that all of these systems have a valuable role to play in building a successful intranet, however they address only the macro level and much of the knowledge an organisation needs to gain an understanding of itself and a competitve advantage over it's peers is micro-content. What is required is a communication medium that has low inertia, rewards the constributor and builds shared value.  Answer: weblogs, or more accurately knowledge-logs. More later. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00000914.html Getting into practice Thu, 12 Dec 2002 08:12:45 +0000 <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <A href="http://interdependent.blogspot.com/2002_12_01_interdependent_archive.html#85423529">KM as Both Practice and Theory</A>. Ton Zijlstra uses his weblog to share self-directed learning experiences and think out loud about how to address issues in his company. [<A href="http://www.terryfrazier.com/weblog/">b.cognosco</A>]</BLOCKQUOTE> <A href="http://www.terryfrazier.com/weblog/">Terry</A> points to a good article about the perils of being a thinker and also the problems of getting your message across.  This: <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> This prospect viewed us a software company as the only product information he saw from us was one having to do with some software we happen to sell as a tool. This tool is part of a larger product that is in the area of consulting. So I talked with this prospect about what it is we actually do. Now how is it that this prospect got the wrong impression? Is our productinformation not clear enough? These are the sort of things my colleague and I want to talk about when meeting the other accountmanageing researchers.</BLOCKQUOTE> struck a chord with me.   http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00000984.html Personal Brain 3.0 Tue, 24 Dec 2002 09:00:41 +0000 <A href="http://www.thebrain.com/">TheBrain</A> have today released the first <A href="http://www.thebrain.com/products/personalbrain/support/downloadPBbeta.html">beta</A> of version 3.0 of PersonalBrain. This is fantastic news in as much as many of us had written PersonalBrain off as an abandoned product.  Better yet, Version 3.0 definitely delivers on many of the must haves that I and others have been sending them over the years. Well done to the TheBrain! Here's the skinny: <TABLE border=0> <TBODY> <TR> <TD width="100%">System Improvements</TD></TR> <TR> <TD width="100%"> <UL> <LI>Support for over 1 million thoughts per Brain - 32 times previous versions. <LI>Support for Windows XP. </LI></UL></TD></TR> <TR> <TD width="100%">Thought and Link Types</TD></TR> <TR> <TD width="100%"> <UL> <LI>Thought types let you create categories of information, such as people, projects, or places. Typed thoughts are color coded and separately searchable.  <LI>Link types let you label the connections between thoughts to give them meaning. For example, you could create a link type called "friend" and use it to show which of the people in your Brain are friends.  <LI>The use of Thought and link types allows you to create a much more sophisticated Brain. <LI>Thought and link types allow an extra layer of semantic meaning to placed on information in your Brain. <LI>Types can be setup via the Options menu or the "Edit types..." button on the properties pane. </LI></UL></TD></TR> <TR> <TD width="100%">Link Types</TD></TR> <TR> <TD width="100%"> <UL> <LI>Right-click on a link to set its type. <LI>Typed links are color coded and named - the name shows on mouseover. </LI></UL></TD></TR> <TR> <TD width="100%">Thought Types</TD></TR> <TR> <TD width="100%"> <UL> <LI>Thought types can be created with name, description, and color. <LI>Types can be set via right click menu or via the Type dropdown in the properties pane. <LI>Thought types are displayed on mouseover. <LI>Search tab contains new indexes for lists of each thought type. <LI>Find dialog can filter thoughts based on thought type. </LI></UL></TD></TR> <TR> <TD width="100%">Fast Brain Access</TD></TR> <TR> <TD width="100%"> <UL> <LI>Get instant access to your Brain with the Brain Hot Key - hold down the Windows key and type the letter B [Windows+B] to show your Brain.  <LI>To jump quickly to any thought, just type the first few letters.  <LI>The Brain Hot Key can be turned on and off in the Preferences menu. </LI></UL></TD></TR> <TR> <TD width="100%">Faster Access & Search</TD></TR> <TR> <TD width="100%"> <UL> <LI>The Find Thoughts feature, which lets you perform advanced searches, is now available via F9 or through the Options menu.  <LI>Find dialog box is easier to use and allows searching by thought type. <LI>Focus (keyboard input) returns to instant search window immediately after any dialog box closes. <LI>Instant search analyzes more history to determine best match. </LI></UL></TD></TR> <TR> <TD width="100%">General User Interface Improvements</TD></TR> <TR> <TD width="100%"> <UL> <LI>Thoughts in lists (Search, History, Instant Search, & Create Dialog) are drawn using thought type colors. <LI>Notes now contains a "Paste as Text" function in the edit menu or via [Ctrl+Shift+V]. <LI>Auto hide feature is animated, so that the window slides on and off screen. <LI>Built-in list of search engines now contains: AlltheWeb.com, AltaVista, Google, Lycos, Yahoo and a customizable setting. <LI>The progress window is smaller. <LI>Menu items have better keyboard compatibility. <LI>The PersonalBrain program directory now contains default folders for color settings and wallpapers. </LI></UL></TD></TR> <TR> <TD width="100%">Plex User Interface Improvements</TD></TR> <TR> <TD width="100%"> <UL> <LI>Thoughts in the plex are ordered by thought type first, then by name. <LI>Right-click menu allows unlinking of the selected thought from the active thought. <LI>The plex resizing circle is enabled with maximum and minimum sizes preventing unwieldy fonts sizes. <LI>The search box is smaller to show more thoughts in the Past Thought List. <LI>F2 renames the highlighted thought, not the active thought. <LI>F4 now uses the highlighted thought for Web searches. <LI>Improved Properties layout. <LI>Thought text color is more consistent - highlight and central text colors removed. <LI>Hints do not appear unless the mouse is held still for 1 second. </LI></UL></TD></TR> <TR> <TD width="100%">Bug Fixes</TD></TR> <TR> <TD width="100%"> <UL> <LI>The Web search dialog does not accidentally pop-up when closing other Windows. <LI>Filenames in PersonalBrain no longer get a "2" appended to them unless there is a name conflict. <LI>Dialogs are never hidden by the main window when in always on top mode. <LI>Removed listing of *.brs files from open dialog (these files are not supported). <LI>Wallpaper does not change when loading colors. <LI>Distant thoughts always draw in their correct color. <LI>Instant Brains are no longer included. <LI>Display of Brains with many links from a single thought is more stable. </LI></UL></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE> http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001011.html Hiring a KM system, the old fashioned way Thu, 02 Jan 2003 15:33:34 +0000 I read a lot about calculating ROI for Knowledge Management.  I also hear a fair amount about problems with doing so.  I think this is because: <UL> <LI>the value of knowledge is, in general, not well understood, e.g. how much is a new product worth? (it's particularly difficult when considering the risks involved with developing new knowledge and the opportunity cost in exploiting it) <LI>the relative value of different chunks of knowledge can be hard to estimate <LI>it's often hard to know what impact a KM system has had in capturing or leveraging knowledge, particularly before the fact <LI>knowledge is so tightly interwoven into the fabric of what we do that it can be hard to make sensible comparisons</LI></UL> In many ways I am inclined to think of ROI as a red-herring.  Here's my theory: At some point, somewhere, some accountant said: "Hey! We're spending all this money on IT equipment, but what does it ever do for us?" Then some clever person with a background in selling plant equipment or something said "let's use a funky calculation to make it seem like it saves lots of money."  And they did, and, fortunately, nobody ever went back to check the figures.  This quickly became the industry norm because the purchasing process was now so much easier "Look, the ROI numbers are great!"  Then came the great budget squeeze, the sky fell and everyone is wondering how to justify spending.  Suddenly we're stuck with ROI and we don't really know what it means. I'm not saying that ROI is specifically bad, just that it may not be applicable in all cases and that coming up with some arbitrary way of calculating things to satisfy the bean counters seems a poor justification for using, or not using, a knowledge management approach. But is there another way? I think so. I believe that knowledge is a fundamental aspect of our work.  If it wasn't then why would you bother with interviewing to fill new positions? With job specs?  With resumes?  If knowledge wasn't important then the first joe off the streets could fill any position (the goal of any turnkey business). So when you hire a new member of staff you are really buying packaged knowledge off the shelf.  Recruitment agents are really nothing more than knowledge shops! (And like all shops the service and quality of the product may vary). But when you hire new staff members do you ask "What's the ROI on this position?"  Well I guess you might, but I think it is more usual to work a different way around: <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> "We need to do X.  Hmm... we don't have anyone available.  Okay let's hire someone.  What's the market value of those skills?  We can't afford that!! Oh, alright then..."</BLOCKQUOTE> and so on.  A job description gets posted, resumes are sorted, interviews are held, someone is appointed.  Usually on a 3 or 6 month probation period.  At that point you decide whether to keep them (the need is being fulfilled) or let them go (their not right for the job, or the situation has changed). The key point for me is that the determination is not what is the ROI on this person but does the need get fulfilled at a price we can justify.  It's more about needs & their fulfillment than it is about costs & investment. And so, I think, it should be for knowledge management.  I believe companies would be more successful if they took the approach that buying a KM package was more like hiring a new employee or two (the capital costs are likely not dissimilar for SME's). Start with an understanding of what the needs are that must be fulfilled.  Ask how much it's worth to you to fulfill those needs.  Get the software on probation.  Run with it.  Then buy it, or go back to the market. I think you will find that, by the time you have a firm understanding of what your knowledge needs are, you will more than understand where the ROI comes from (even if your calculator displays it as "a suffusion of yellow!") Comments? http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001026.html Can you help me? Wed, 08 Jan 2003 13:45:42 +0000 Over the last several months I've been striving to develop a message about the problems and opportunities that I perceive for knowledge management.  The results of this activity are an evolving philosophy and the outlines of a methodology (which I am calling eXteme Knowledge Management). The journey is far from over, and yet I have already met a lot of great people who have had a profound influence on my thinking and helped me to many valuable insights.  The list is too great to mention but many of you are in my blog roll.  In many ways what I am doing has been successful, but in other, important, ways it has not. I have failed outright in making sufficient contacts in the trenches.  I haven't talked to enough people who are buyers, users and ultimately either victims or champions of KM.  In short I haven't spoken to the people the message is for...   What this means is that to a great extent this message is growing in a vacuum and that's not what I want. And so I turn to you, gentle reader.  Can you help me? I would be really grateful if anyone can give me names of contacts within companies that they think would wish to talk about Knowledge Management.  Better yet, if you felt confident to introduce me to people who you think might fit the bill. Before I go any further though, let me say that I am absolutely not looking for an opportunity to make a sales pitch.  I want the opportunity to listen to people and try and understand their pain a little better.  I want to discuss the message and get some feedback.  Do the ideas I am promoting make sense?  And, if not, can they be made to?  How should they be applied?  What are the concerns? I'm looking for an opportunity to converse, not to put on the hard sell. My primary focus is on project delivery (management, visibility, collaboration,...) and I would like to aim at: <UL> <LI>Pharmaceuticals</LI> <LI>Research & Development</LI> <LI>Software Houses</LI></UL> So, please, if you can help me, do get in touch. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001049.html Purpose is the No.1 P Fri, 31 Jan 2003 10:41:32 +0000 <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> Project Management's first P (there are eight): Purpose. <A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0107808/2003/01/29.html#a699">C and C</A> forwarded <A href="http://weblog.halmacomber.com/#90168412">this is nice piece</A> on Project Management, structured into eight 'P's: Purpose, Promise, Process, People, Planning, Practice, Performance, and Place. Eight 'p's are a little daunting so I might jot two or three onto an index card for my cubicle. Purpose is a good one to review on a weekly basis (for me at least, as I can wander into tangentia). Why are we doing the project? It would be interesting to track the answer from week to week. As the author says, "Purpose changes or evolves through time. We learn, conditions change, clients' views change." This is something I hadn't considered before: expect the first P (Purpose) to change with time. Allow it to change. If purpose remains constant, fine. If not, at least you won't be blindsided. Expecting purpose to change also motivates you to consistently revisit the first p. Revisiting p1 naturally reinforces p5: planning, but that's topic for another time. [<A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0111198/">Blogfish</A>]</BLOCKQUOTE> Alison picks up on the 8P's and makes a good interwingly point. Purpose is the key aspect of any project.  Without a clearly defined purpose what's the point? <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> "Hey you guys! We delivered it in time and under budget!" "Great. Now what the hell is it and why would I want one?"</BLOCKQUOTE> Most worthwhile projects (and nearly all worthless ones) take quite a while to deliver, during which time change happens.  Goals become outdated, or just plain wrong.  You have to keep raising the periscope and checking that the vision is still on target. This is quite a discipline.  Once people get up a head of steam, they don't want to have to make anything other than minor course corrections. It's one of the reasons why I like the doctrine of eXtreme Programming so much.  That huge multi-year project gets turned into hundreds of smaller projects.  This creates natural breaks where people can come up for air and check back with the customer that they are still doing something good. eXtreme Knowledge Management should be like this too.  Driven by the principle that people ask questions (and not just at the beginning): <UL> <LI>"Is this still valuable knowledge?"</LI> <LI>"How does it all fit together?"</LI> <LI>"When will I use it?"</LI> <LI>"How will I find it?"</LI> <LI>"Are there new pieces to the puzzle?"</LI></UL> For KM though there is something else, since,  KM is not an end, but a means to an end. The purposes of a KM project, and this is perhaps a cause of the failure of some KM projects, should be closely aligned with the purposes of the organisation at large. This means that people serving on KM projects really need to be keeping their radar at maximum and checking that the goals of the project still align with, and support, the goals of the organisation. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001119.html The purple cow of knowledge Tue, 18 Feb 2003 11:25:37 +0000 I've been reading <A href="http://pf.fastcompany.com/online/67/purplecow.html">In Praise of the Purple Cow</A> in which the author, Seth Godin, proposes that, in order to be truly successful, a product must be remarkable.  His claim is that being very good is also failure.  These days everyone is good or very good, you have to be remarkable to stand out and get the notices (good and bad). The purple cow idea jives very much with what I've read of Gary Hamel's notion of how revolutionary approaches create new markets and deliver profits.  Unless you also invest in new purple cows then building upon success is the road to stagnation.  Ask AOL, Palm and Yahoo.  This idea feels right to me. Which lead me to thinking about knowledge management products and how so many of them are good, but hardly remarkable.  <A href="http://www.thebrain.com/">Personal Brain</A> is a remarkable product which was never exploited.   The <A href="http://c2.com/cgi/wiki">Wiki</A> idea was remarkable, but none of the Wiki software I've used has been.  In fact when I think about it, the whole field of KM is dominated by the idea of being good enough. For example <A href="http://www.opentext.com/">OpenText Livelink</A> is a very successful KM product.  Which gives you some idea of the state of that market.  Livelink is a well-dressed document management system.  Hardly innovative, definitely not purple cow territory.  But it's been successful.  Why is that? I think the answer is partly about OpenText being an aggressive sales driven company, partly that the KM market is dominated by large, conservative, corporations, and partly because the whole market is ripe, waiting for a real purple cow. Can anyone say "Moo!?!" http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001171.html Purple thy name is: SocialText? Tue, 18 Feb 2003 16:41:05 +0000 Interesting, I just post about Wiki and here I read that the <A href="http://www.socialtext.com/">SocialText</A> crew (Adina Levin, Ross Mayfield, Peter Kaminski, and Ed Vielmetti) are releasing a Wiki product of their own called <A href="http://www.socialtext.com/projects/">NiceLittleWiki</A>.  I hope it will solve some of the current problems with Wiki software (ugliness, impossible media handling, lack of ability to format text when you need it, bad indexing, etc...). SocialText may turn out to be one of the Purple Cows of KM.  I await their next move with interest! (With thanks to <A href="http://www.terryfrazier.com/weblog/">Terry</A> for reminding me about SocialText) http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001176.html We're all knowledge workers now Mon, 24 Feb 2003 15:11:40 +0000 Here is a question: How do you bring knowledge management to people who do not see knowledge as part of their job? For example the workers in a process plant.  There is knowledge all around them and embedded in the work that they do.  How, in practical terms, to do you make them knowledge workers? The question isn't well framed yet as I'm still thinking out it's dimensions... i'll expand on it as I go and I welcome all input. (Hint: this question isn't entirely theoretical) http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001189.html Faculty on the Floor Tue, 25 Feb 2003 13:26:57 +0000 <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0107808/2003/02/24.html#a757">Matt Mower</A> asks: <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> "How do you bring knowledge management to people who do not see knowledge as part of their job? For example the workers in a process plant. There is knowledge all around them and embedded in the work that they do. How, in practical terms, to do you make them knowledge workers?"</BLOCKQUOTE> One of the companies in the UK who have embedded KM into a nuts and bolts business is <A href="http://www.unipart.co.uk/">Unipart</A>, which operates in the automotive components and logistics industry. At their head office in Oxford, you're confronted by the Unipart U and various learning facilities before you even get to reception. They also take the Unipart U and put it onto the shop floor where it is immediately available to production workers who need training for the task they're doing right now, who want to learn or share best practices, or who want to discuss issues with colleagues via the web and videoconferencing. Their approach is about "learning at 10:00am and doing at 11:00am". They call this the Faculty on the Floor. Take a look at their <A href="http://www.ugc.co.uk/learning/lea_0100.htm">introduction</A> to what they're doing. If you want more information, try contacting <A href="http://www.uals.co.uk">Unipart Advanced Learning Systems</A> and talk to some people who enthuse about knowledge workers within production processes with real passion and understanding. [<A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0118812/">Making Connections</A>]</BLOCKQUOTE> I was asking yesterday about how to make KM work with people who do not see themselves as knowledge workers. My thanks to Simon for providing a spot on example of a production business who seem to be doing something about making KM work.  I especially loved the "learning at 10:00am and doing at 11:00am" idea. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001199.html The trials & tribulations of a business journaller Fri, 28 Feb 2003 19:44:56 +0000 <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <H3>Contextual problems faced by business journalling</H3> Matt Mower [via <A href="http://paolo.evectors.it/2003/02/28.html">Paolo</A>] in <A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0107808/2003/02/28.html#a782">an interesting analysis</A> of the contextual problems faced by business journalling: <H6>I think that there are at least two problems which we must solve for business journalling to be a widespread success.  I'd be interested in hearing about other problems people have specifically identified.</H6> As an Internet professional working as an external consultant most of all for SMB companies, I'm often find myself trying to convince my clients of the importance of what I call the corporate knowledge recording, which is in many respects what Matt calls business journalling. I do that since I'm aware of the importance of it in my professional activity: personal memory is limited and faulty by nature, in the end. So I try to log and log and log, even if I didn't completely work out the problem yet (but I'm studying some solutions). Nevertheless, introducing knowledge management concepts and habits into client companies is every time a struggle. I'll try to summarize the problems I've been recognizing and facing. Business journalling takes time This is undoubtful, I see it over and over again, lack of time is, personally, my main problem about business journalling. But nobody tried to convince me to log, I wanted to start logging. For client companies is different: worker's time is an expensive resource, expecially for SMB companies whose personnel is often the minimum for a certain amount of work. Knowing that logging (or journalling) takes time, from the client perspective logging costs: the hard part is to convince the local boss that the cost will turn into a bigger revenue and, most of all, explaining that the ROI is not a matter of weeks or months but, probably, years. The long period scares most SMB companies whose plans, sadly, seldom reach the next year. People are lazy by nature Even when I succeeded in introducing business journalling practice into companies, I always found that suddenly the process stopped due to people's natural lazyness. After the first moment of enthusiasm, people tend not to keep on writing. The only way I see to win that lazyness is external motivation (see below). Competition is the problem People at work are competitive. Most of the times I deal with development teams and TLC companies, engineering and science environments in general. People working for those companies are competitive, tend to show "how good they are, how better than the others they are". This makes them jealous of their knowledge, tips and tricks. In addition, they know that spending more time producing than spilling their secrets will pay. Lack of external motivation People work on a utility basis. They give more to get more. Motivation comes from company prizes given for good results. There's no motivation in saying "Please log what you do so that it will be useful to others, especially when you'll leave the company and need to be replaced with somebody whose training will be faster thank to your knowledge logging". The only way to give journalling motivation to workers is to judge their merit not only on their "productivity" but also, and at the same degree, on their contribution to the corporate knowledge. Convincing the local boss to accept the journalling costs and give "monetary" motivation to the workers on behalf of the future benefits is the real challenge I always have to accept. And sometimes it's a really hard challenge. [<A href="http://www.cristianvidmar.com/">CristianVidmar.com</A>]</BLOCKQUOTE> Cristian adds some interesting factors to the mix of problems surrounding adoption of business journalling. <UL> <LI>Time <LI>Motivation <LI>Competition</LI></UL> I'll try to include these later. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001243.html What do weblogs do? Wed, 19 Mar 2003 10:42:58 +0000 <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0107808/2003/03/18.html#a815">What do weblogs do?</A>. from <A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0107808/">Curiouser and curiouser!</A>: <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> I don't think that weblogs do anything and I'm increasingly of the opinion that the benefits that we are seeing at the moment are simply those of tapping into a particular type of personality, i.e. the enthusiastic early adopters who will do something with anything you throw at them.</BLOCKQUOTE> I agree, but with a twist... what weblogs have done is help the <A href="http://www.alpern.org/weblog/php/blogsearch/philosophy.html">group of enthusiastic early adopters become self aware</A>, to recognize themselves as a group, and to help make strong social connections between people of like minds.  This is very valuable and I hope we can find other ways to partition the blogsphere so that, as other social networks come online (lawyers, doctors, teachers) they too can <A href="http://www.alpern.org/weblog/php/blogsearch/writeup.html">find themselves</A> and be stronger for having done so. [<A href="http://www.alpern.org/weblog/">Micah's Weblog</A>]</BLOCKQUOTE> I guess I was a bit too quick there...  I agree with Micah that weblogs have offered an improved medium for people who want to communicate with each other to do so.  So yes, I was wrong, they do do something. But what I'm trying to say is that enabling early adopters to communicate better isn't really doing what I'm interested in.  My take on the history of KM and it's technologies is that the early adopters are not a good predictor for how the rest of the wave will use a technology and I'm not sure that the early or late majorities, within organisations, will take to this medium as the early adopters do. What weblogs have done is provide an easy lowering of the technological barrier.  But this is just allowing what I consider the real, social, problems to rise to the surface.  Of course this still does something good.  Exposing these problems is the first step towards solving them.  In my own journey I think I started with a view that the problems were mostly technological -- get the technology right and the problem is solved.  I don't think like that at all any more. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001307.html Good culture Mon, 24 Mar 2003 16:30:21 +0000 <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <A href="http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2003/03/21/aircan030321">War and North American Airlines - Why Southwest Airlines is Different</A>. I suspect that an important casualty of this war will be the traditional North American "Full Service" airline. I suspect that they cannot be reformed as their basic flaw is one of culture. Yes Southwest have a number of operational differences such as a one model fleet, no hubs, no expensive reservation system and so on. But the real difference is in managerial culture. Southwest is where "Servant Leadership" is exemplified. Where the senior guys take the first pay cuts. Where staffing is mainly on attitude etc.  "They don't' have a unions" you say. But Southwest is 85% unionized - they have different relationship with their unions. Southwests secret is simpleYou fly one type of plane, you concentrate on short, point to point routes, you dont serve food and you dont assign seats. Kelleher slammed his fist down on the desk Anyone can copy that, and they have. But they cant copy the culture! Here is what the Chairman of Southwest Airlines, Herb Kelleher, thinks about this point. Manage in good times to prepare for bad times. To succeed in todays marketplace, the company cross trains employees  and increases their skill base so that individuals at all levels can take personal responsibility for keeping the company marketable, for maintaining high trust relationships, and identifying effective options for dealing with transitions. In addition Kelleher and his leadership team inspire loyalty by communicating openly and truthfully with their staff<A style="mso-comment-reference: RP_2; mso-comment-date: 20030314T1100"></A>, respecting the life work balance and fostering continuous learning. Southwest employees know that their voice matters and that they can implement new programs, make decisions and help customers in times of need. A guiding principle is: if you use your best judgment to do what is right, your leaders will stand behind you. Donna Conover, EVP Customer Service (an interesting tile in itself) at Southwest Airlines explains that the company has high expectations for each employee: Just doing your job well does not make you a good employee. The attitude and spirit towards others complete the needs the company has of the Employee. As leaders if we allow lack of teamwork or low productivity, we are being unfair to the rest of the team.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p> My bet is that United and Air Canada will be gone in 6 months. For us in Canada this will leave a huge vacuum. The worst move would be to prop up the Zombie. The best would be to allow the vacuum to be filled by a new system. The key will be culture [<A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0107127/">Robert Paterson's Radio Weblog</A>]</BLOCKQUOTE> Rob is delivering some really great content.  Some key points from this piece: <UL> <LI>Anyone can copy that, and they have. But they cant copy the culture!</LI> <LI>Manage in good times to prepare for bad times. </LI> <LI>company has high expectations for each employee</LI> <LI>Just doing your job well does not make you a good employee</LI></UL> What Southwest seem to have done is internalize a very healthy culture.  I wonder what kind of knowledge management practices they have in place. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001316.html Insight from David Gurteen. Tue, 08 Apr 2003 10:39:03 +0100 Results Oriented KM. Some recent thoughts on KM: <UL> <LI>KM is not an end in itself. It is a set of disciplines and tools to help us meet our business objectives. What is the point of doing KM if it does not help us meet our business objectives? KM can only be measured by its ability to help us meet our business objectives. <LI>KM needs to address the quality of our decision-making. What is the point of KM if we still make lousy decisions - if we do the wrong thing - even exceptionally well? We would do better to do the right thing badly and not bother with KM at all! <LI>KM needs to address the issue of our motivation and our ability to make use of the knowledge we have. We can be given all the perfect information and knowledge that we need to do our jobs but if we fail to use it then what is the point? <LI>KM should help us to improve our awareness and understanding. KM should not be just about helping us to know more. It is through increased awareness and understanding that we start to see our organizational world in new ways and identify new business opportunities. <LI>KM is about helping us to identify new opportunities and leveraging them. Measuring the results of KM is important but we should not forget that KM is also about identifying new opportunities. We can measure cost/profit etc but we cannot measure 'missed opportunities" by their very nature we do not see missed opportunities until it is too late. [<A href="http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/0/E79924B9B266C48A80256B8D004BB5AD/">Gurteen Knowledge-Log</A>]</LI></UL> Some insightful thoughts from David. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001369.html Can knowledge be captured? Fri, 02 May 2003 09:36:31 +0100 <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <A href="http://matt.blogs.it/2003/05/01.html#a896">Thinking about capturing knowledge</A>. <IMG src="http://matt.blogs.it/images/maps/knowledge_capture.jpg"> [<A href="http://matt.blogs.it/">Curiouser and curiouser!</A>] Matt - Does your well thought through and elegant  diagram suggest that knowledge can be "captured" by some system? If so I prefer the BP approach where they reject some form of "capture" and see instead that knowledge is most deep and useful in tacit form embedded in a person. So instead of capturing knowledge, BP make it easy to find the person who has the know how. For instance in my case as a novice blogger, Critt Jarvis has kindly given me the code to set up a category section and a blogroll. Now Richard Gayle is helping me automate the blogroll. This quite different fro  say a FAQ which would be the knowledge in "capture" form. For me the novice, being mentored by a person is 10 times better than reading about the technique. [<A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0107127/">Robert Paterson's Radio Weblog</A>]</BLOCKQUOTE> Interest points Robert.  I would have to say that my opinion is not well-formed right now.  I guess I do believe that knowledge (at least some knowledge) can be captured. Let me turn it around a second and ask this:  For BP to be able to "find" the person who knows something don't you have to know: <UL> <LI>what it is they know</LI> <LI>who they are</LI></UL> aren't these kinds of knowledge?  And doesn't making them available in a system mean capturing them first? http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001449.html Gurteen Knowledge Conference Wed, 11 Jun 2003 09:36:26 +0100 I shall be attending the <A href="http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/id/x0046b622?open&p=4121">Gurteen Knowledge Conference</A> being held in London next wednesday (18th).  David has a good looking line up including <A href="http://www-1.ibm.com/services/cynefin/biography_snowden.html">Dave Snowden</A> (a keynote speaker at KM Europe 2002), <A href="http://www.theobviousblog.net/blog/">Euan Semple</A>, and <A href="http://www.roell.net/weblog/">Martin Röll</A>. If you're going to be there I'd love to hear from you. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001479.html At the Gurteen KM Conference Tue, 17 Jun 2003 23:05:29 +0100 On Wednesday (18th) I am at the <A href="http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/0/9C7E34B34F92686A80256CE200715C3C/">Gurteen Knowledge Management conference</A> at the Novotel London West in Hammersmith.  Since I am probably the last person alive who hasn't heard <A href="http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&q=Dave+Snowden">Dave Snowden</A> speak I'm looking forward to that.  The day has a number of sessions in the morning and afternoon, all of which look good.  It's just a shame you can't go to them all!  Decisions, decisions... http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001489.html Intro to the conference Thu, 19 Jun 2003 09:01:02 +0100 Yesterday I spent the day at the <A href="http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/0/6A95D999AAB331EA80256CE6003C2E22/">Gurteen Knowledge Conference</A> organised by <A href="http://www.gurteen.com/">David Gurteen</A> in association with <A href="http://www.bizmedia.co.uk/">BizMedia</A>.  I've known David for nearly a year know through attending meetings of his Knowledge Café and it was a great pleasure to be able to go this is event.  Being David conversation was a central theme of the day which made a nice change from the standard conference fair.  I think he has succeeded in doing something different and am keen to see how this develops. I took a Wi-Fi card in the hope of maybe doing some live blogging but alas the Novotel London West has not taken that bold step into the 22nd century yet.  Subsequently my posts about the conference will probably be more substantive but have less of a 'now' feel to them as I edit them into shape. Sadly also it has to be said that I am not much of a photographer and the lighting in the conference rooms defeated me for the most part.  I have some excellent candidates for shadow puppet theatre but not many shots where you can identify the speaker.  Oh well. After coffee and pain au chocolate the day started with a brief introduction by David, who quickly handed over to Dave Snowden for his keynote. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001494.html Dave Snowden: Cynicism and Serendipity Thu, 19 Jun 2003 11:12:12 +0100 I've never heard Dave Snowden speak before so I was excited to finally get a chance and he did not disappoint.  His good reputation is certainly well earned; Normally the idea of listening to someone speak for 90 minutes at a conference would fill me with icy dread but Dave held us spellbound as he wove ideas around us faster and faster. He's been described as a 'radical Welsh philosopher' which is a label he warms to, he revels in the ancient celtish practice of ribbing the English.  Nevertheless there is no shortage of philosophical underpinning to what follows.  Please also note that this isn't a literal transcription, I may have inadvertently introduced errors or changes of meaning. <H3>Cynicism and Serendipity: A just in time approach to KM</H3> The basis of successful KM is an understanding of philosophy and cognitive psychology.  More important than computer science or business management which he describes as dead disciplines.   Understanding of human nature is the gateway to the future.  "Re-establishing the importance of human beings."  He describes himself as an optimist and sees that, whilst there is a long way to go, things are moving in the right direction. Dave described a little of the adventure behind the founding of the Cynefin centre and how, at times, IBM execs had tried to have him and his group thrown out of the company.  But he also said that, paradoxically, it can be much easier to innovate in large companies like IBM because there is no tight management.  You can often hide your project away by not arguing with the processes and justing getting on with things 'fying under the radar.'  Getting funding and agreement whilst operating this way requires a lot of human knowledge.  He said that John Pointdexter spoke of IBM as making the government look beauracracy free. However from nearly being thrown out they had worked to get to the position of being asked to train IBM's top 100 in a new initiative.  This lead to a joint project between IBM and the University of Cardiff and the founding of the Cynefin centre.  Dave was very enthusiastic about this development seeing an opportunity to bridge the divide between academics and practitioners. Moving on to the subject of their work Dave suggests there is a lot of confusion of properties with qualities.  The typical behaviour of management consultants is to attempt to generalise from a hypothesis about company behaviour:  e.g. successful companies have 'flat management structure' ergo flat management structure leads to success.  Dave suggests this is logically incoherent that it is like a man who steps off a boat in France and see's that everyone is wearing glasses.  He assumes that all French men wear glasses.  The management consultants then go on to assume that wearing glasses will make you French!  Life is more complex than this. Next Dave suggested banning of the term "best practice".   He went on to suggest that best practice is past practice, and usually a bad thing in a fast changing environment.  He also lamented the way Government keeps copying industry when the forces at work are completely different.  Without the profit motive there is no pressure to force things that don't work out of the system, and many of these things are incompatible with the service culture.  Why does it happen anyway?  Why does government keep taking up things which industry has abandoned as useless?  (E.g. balanced score card).  He suggests that consultants who have learned that business won't buy their methods look around for some poor dupe and government is it! At this point Dave said something that really resonated with me and the work that Paolo and I are doing: <UL> <LI>Major consultancies know that knowledge transfers through informal networks!</LI></UL> About the name Cynefin (pronounced kin-nev-in):  They choose the word from a "Language that only a few other million gifted people speaks" because it's meaning was less likely to be overloaded and confused.  Literally translated it means 'habitat' or 'place' however the word has a deeper meaning: 'The place of your multiple belongings.'  This is suggestive of the idea of multiple paths which profoundly influence who you are but about which you are only dimly aware & can never hope to fully understand.   This is reflective of the idea that methods based on predicting the future based upon cause & effect are fundamentally flawed because you are dealing with uncertain pasts. There are two schools of management: <UL> <LI>Technofetishists who believe that people are just there to enter data and that everyone wants to spend their lives in virtual chat rooms. <LI>New age fluffy bunnies who believe that technology is the spawn of Satan and that everyone should hug at the beginning of a meeting.</LI></UL> What is required is a more holistic approach that balances the spiritual with the empirical.  This view acknowledges that technology is a useful tool (by which we mean it fits the hand and can be used to do meaningful tasks).  But if you have to reengineer your hand to fit the tool then something is wrong.  Cynefin is about applying real scientific rigour to soft aspects of organisiations using the new sciences arising from biology & chemistry: complexity and chaos. It is worth noting that systems thinking, complexity, and Chaos are fundamentally different approaches. Dave introduces the story of Mulla Nasrudin and the falcon (from <A href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0863040225/ref=sr_aps_books_1_2/202-3393972-6382224">the exploits of the Incomparable Mulla Nasrudin</A>).  These are Sufi stories. <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> Nasrudin found a weary falcon sitting one day on his window sill. He had never seen a bird of this kind before. "You poor thing," he said, "how ever were you allowed to get into this state?" He clipped the falcons talons and cut its beak straight, and trimmed its feathers. "Now you look more like a bird," said Nasrudin. </BLOCKQUOTE> The purpose of the story is to highlight what happens in organisations when people are faced with things that they don't understand but need to pay attention to.  When faced with something successful people want it to look like something familiar.  This is a big problem. Dave claims that worst practice systems are far more useful than best practice.  What spreads fastest: stories of success or stories of failure?  Spreading stories of failure is a more important learning exercise.  We are cognitively detruned to stories of success.   Best practice doesn't work!  As an alternative he suggests that narrative databases create learning environments based upon serendipitous encounter.  These spread the net wide to get at experience but are not directive.  He asks: Why are we building other types of systems when they do not work? The word manage comes from the French meaing 'the ability to ride a horse in a dressage event.'  The horse executes perfect movements according to a plan.  Business consultants want to replace the horse with a mechanical horse that can execute these movements even more perfectly.  But managing complex knowledge requires disruption of expectations. <H3>The importance of the difference between categorization & sense making.</H3> Q:Why do we do KM? A: To improve effectiveness of decision making and create conditions for innovation.  Hence: action & innovation. Too many in the field have lost sight of this.  Dave says that knowledge management is a transformatory process shifting from Taylorism to the "new age".   The Cynefin centre looks across all discliplines. How do you improve decision making in conditions of extreme uncertainty and change?  How do you avoid the talon clipping problem? For 20-30 years we've operated a model of the human brain closer to cybernetics than neuroscience.  The assumption is that thought is a logical, rational, linear process.  This is wrong.  So is Myers-Briggs and all these other attempts to put people into boxes.  It is reminiscent of Brave New World: <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> "Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because they're so frightfully clever. I'm awfully glad I'm a Beta, because I don't work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki. Oh no, I don't want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They're too stupid to be able to read or write. Besides they wear black, which is such a beastly colour. I'm so glad I'm a Beta." </BLOCKQUOTE> The human brain is adaptive.  The way we see the world changes according to context.  Disruption changes brain patterns and the key thing in human intelligence is patterns.  We match stimulus against patterns to know how to act.   The brain creates patterns.  Hence KM has a problem: We cannot codify patterns for use in text books. As proof Dave offers an anecdote about how he met a bunch of macho developers at a seminar who wanted him to come do an intensive week with them.  Not wanting to spend a week in the Mid West of America with a bunch of macho developers he said "Okay.  It'll be £5,000 a day plus a 1st class air fare."  To his horror they agreed. During the week he found a lot of resistance to the idea that patterns cannot be codified.  So he offered them a challenge:  He would take their executive team for a day.  If at the end of the day they still didn't believe, he would refund his fee.  If they did, they would double it. That day he took them to a builders yard set up with a wall that needed plastering and all the correct tools and materials to do the job, along with copies of "10 easy steps to plastering" (an acknowledge good text book).  The challenge: Plaster the wall.   Towards the end of the day, when there was more plaster on the them and the ground than on the wall and they were arguing the ethics of bringing in a sanding machine to make the wall flat Dave introduced them to an old guy.  In 40 minutes he had a fully flat wall. They paid double. Dave calls Nonaka; the model that launched a thousand failed KM projects.  If you imagine you can make tacit knowledge explicit you only have to try the following test.  Use Google to translate a paragaph from English => French => English => French => English.  The process of making something explicit loses context.  You end up with rubbish. "Story virus."  Never get a celt angry: Blood unto the 7th generation. Human knowledge is stored in patterns far more than raw skills and artifacts.  Knowledge is in the fingertips and needs to managed in a different way.  This is both our power & our downfall.  It also means that you can't get knowledge from people by interviewing them because: <UL> <LI>I only know what I know when I need to know it <LI>The way we know things is not the way we think we do things <LI>"I know more than I can say.  I will always say more than I can write down. <LI>Knowledge can only be volunteers it can't be conscripted </LI></UL> This last is very important because it means that incentives and other attempts to make people share produce the wrong behaviour.  People will either camouflage, or dissemble. 3rd generation approach to KM (Post-SETI - Nonaka) separate knowledge into: <UL> <LI>context <LI>narrative <LI>content management</LI></UL> Content: Very high cost associated with proper codifications.  Only where it's needed and we have stablity of knowledge.  Knowledge goes out of date before you complete the documentation process.  (A big problem in government). Narrative: What I can speak but not write down. Context: What I can neither "say down", nor write down.  Context is the basis for the success of apprentice schemes and the reason they are being re-introduced (e.g. Cynefin's IBM Inside programme).  The most effective way of doing complex knowledge transfer.  You only qualify once the master agrees you've got it, exams are not enough. Cynefin is doing work in social network stimulation.   The idea is to design the informal network of an organisation for use in mergers.  They have identified that in a merger the the side with the most rigid processes tends to dominate.  This is because they tend to have an established beauracracy which can be made common to both sides.  This is a bad thing.  In the process of the merger informal networks get destroyed.  It can takes 4-5 years to build the networks back which is why mergers often fail.  The approach is to stimulate the informal network quickly. You need all 3 pieces but most current KM are only content management systems. It's a problem of perspective.  When electrons were particles, we looked for particles & found them.  When they became waves we looked for waves and found them.  In the same way knowledge is paradoxically both a thing and a flow.  But content manages only acknowledges flows. Expertise management systems are effective.  Connect people when they need to be connected.   If we are asked a question about something which we know and care we tend to respond with honesty, some examples: <UL> <LI>An old friend asks you a question.  You understand what they mean by it and how they will understand your answer.  Knowledge moves freely. <LI>An unknown colleague asks the same question.  Normally you will help but you will be inhibited as you consider what they mean and to what end they might put your knowledge. <LI>An idiot CKO wants to "know what you know."</LI></UL> Dave thinks that the knowledge is power motive not that strong, fear is much stronger. How did KM throw common sense out the window? The answers lie in cognitive psychology.  Nobody makes rational decisions.  What actually happens is a first fit pattern match with previous experience.  2 minutes later you have rationalised it retrospectively.  This is a key concept when dealing with complexity.  The nature of the decision is a pattern match.  Note not best fit, but first fit.  What happens when there is no pattern?  We hypothesise patterns until we find the first pattern that fits. You can see this in the American reactions post 9-11.  There were no patterns.  Now patterns have been hypothesized.  But they are patterns for dealing with the past - the terrorists won't use planes next time. The stories we develop as children & grow up with are very dominant.  Growing up in the 70's you learned that if you didn't occupy the University at least once per term you weren't a real revolutionary.  You could differentiate 16 types of marxist.  In Washington today anyone slightly to the left of Tony Blair is a raging communist.  You can differentiate 16 varieties of the religous right.  Patterns are based upon stories which determine how we see things. <H3>Perspective is vital</H3> We all suffer from pattern entrainment.  Dave offers up an advert to consider: <OL> <LI>At first you see a mean looking skin head with a police offer hot on his heels.  An obvious thug.  What does this suggest to you? <LI>Then you see that he is running towards a guy with a briefcase clutched to his chest.  Obviously a rent-collector stereotype, the case is full of cash. <LI>Finally you see the skinhead pushing the guy out from under a load of falling building materials.  Saving his life.</LI></OL> The caption is "For a different perspective, read the Guardian." Faced with a thug you don't rationalise, the patterns you have entrained guide you quickly to a decision.  This is a big issue in decision theory: "When do you stand still?"  "When do you rationalise?" Patterns allow faster processing.  Human language is not a serial change from animal languages.  Dave seemed to reject Chomksky's view that it differs by bigger vocabulary and accumulated complexity.  However cognitive science teaches that human beings start with abstractions and then move to the "read world."  Human beings are permanatly in a phenomenological state.  When the patterns go wrong there is disaster but the next group learns from this.  Decision making requires learning about patterns. It's wrong to take more time to understand patterns. How do you tell if someone has winked? or blinked?  It's a very important question:  In a bar late at night you can get your face slapped.  In international dimplomancy is can be the difference between war & peace.  In the Cuban missile crisis did Kennedy wink or blink? Is behaviour intentional or unintentional.  Our assumption tends to be: Other people do things intentionally we do things by accident.  This can lead to creating circumstances you try to avoid.  Accidental results of pattern entrainment, not rational intentional acts.  This has a huge impact on KM. Blair can do no wrong.  Blair is a spin doctor.  Blair is a liar.  Patterns.  How humans work. Human beings don't have unitary identity.  We are not ants.  We all have multiple identities which we move between without thinking about it.  This is not a sign of mental illness.  It's fundamentally how we work.  Dependent upon the context we will see the world a differnet way (father, son, husband, lover). Fluid identities, non-rational thinking.   In contrast with current management thinking which assumes rational behaviour and unitary identity. Strong attractors create patterns around themselves & the patterns create meaning.  Gas under pressure, becomes vapour.  Then water.  This phase shift happens suddenly.  Stability. Same thing in human interactions.  Not pre-ordained. There is a distinction to be made between ordered and unordered systems.  Ordered systems lead to targets, optimization and a cause & effect view.  Unorder is characterised by possibilities, inconceivability, complex systems.  Unorder: "It's order Jim, but not as we know it."  Characterized by non-repeating relationships between cause & effect, i.e. things repeat as long as they repeat until they don't. These asymmetric collapses create deep shock.  However once the phase shift has happened you can't go back - the energy required to return to the original state is too high.  Working on the past doesn't work because the patterns have changed.  You are learning the wrong lessons.   Terrorists next time they will do something different.  Human dynamics: Conflict is critical to detecting weak signals.  Without conflict you end up playing follow the leader and destroy the capability for innovation.  Unordered systems are matters of managing patterns.  This is the key to survival. Tom stewart: Managing with your gut (Business 2.0)  There is a science behind 'gut feel'  The way we manage a complex space is the way we manage a party of 12 yr olds.  Do you have a process plan and incentive schemes?  If you do you're a very sad individual.  Instead most people draw a line in the sand "Cross it and die" with multiple interventions to stimulate the creation of beneficial patterns.  You manage a complex space by managing the patterns.  Create boundaries, do interventions, stimulate attractors. Not the same as managing order but not abrogating managing. Disorder:  The state of not knowing where you are. This leads to the basic Cynefin framework:   A sense making framework not a 2x2 consultantany model.   They did a test with a group of management consultants.  They gave them 500 items of which only 200 would fit in the 2x2.  The consultants made all of them fit and believed that they did. Category thinking is closed down to new opportunities.  Tendencies to categorisation is rigid in management science.   Sensemaking is the process of creating boundaries between things so you can make sense of them.  Definied by their own histories and futures.  Boundaries emerge from context and are not pre-given. <TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=16 border=1> <CAPTION>Domains of order & unorder</CAPTION> <TBODY> <TR> <TH>Unordered Domains</TH> <TH>Ordered Domains</TH></TR> <TR> <TD>Complex: The domain of many possibilities: Cause and effect coherent in retrospect, repeat accidentally.  Looks like Empirically knowable from the past. </TD> <TD>Empirically knowable: The domain of the probable.  Cause & effect separated over time but repeat.  The domain of experts.</TD></TR> <TR> <TD>Chaos; The domain of the inconceivable:  No Cause & effect visible.  You have to do something.</TD> <TD>Emperically known.  The domain of the actual.  The only place where best practice makes sense.  Inappropriate in other domains.</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE> The average life span of a Fortune 500 CEO is now 11 months.  When they have been successfully was it what they did?  Or did they just get lucky?   An interest experiment by spammers: Take 500,000 email addresses and split them 50/50.  To the first 50% claim a stock will go up, the second 50% claim it will go down.  Let's say the stock goes up.  Ignoring the second 50%, take the first 50% and split them.  Repeat the experiment.  You eventually end up with a small group who absolutely believe in your ability to predict the stock market: ready to be scammed. <TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=16 border=1> <CAPTION>Decision Models</CAPTION> <TBODY> <TR> <TD>Probe Sense Respond</TD> <TD>Sense Analyse Respond</TD></TR> <TR> <TD>Act Sense Respond</TD> <TD>Sense Categorise Respond</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE> Understanding the phases is key, knowing whether you are in complexity or chaos.  The Cynefin framework leads to you being able to make the right decisions.  Many corporations don't understand the unordered domains and treat everything as belonging the ordered domains.  This is a disaster as the decision models are completely wrong.   The anti-terrorist problem is the the same as emerging market opportunties from a management perspective. <TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=16 border=1> <CAPTION>Network linkages:</CAPTION> <TBODY> <TR> <TD>Weak central Strong distributed</TD> <TD>Strong central Strong distributed</TD></TR> <TR> <TD>Weak central Weak distributed</TD> <TD>Strong central Weak distributed</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE> The goal of management is to move from chaos to complexity to the knowable in a watchful fashion by sending out multiple probes and watching the results. <UL> <LI>Patterns we don't like disrupt. <LI>Patterns we like we reinforce. <LI>Shift to the left to exploit it.</LI></UL> Mathematical approaches to complexity fail.  Humans can impose order, ants are condemned to be constantly complex.  Shifts to the right are temporary expediencies.  Most organisations oscillate between known and knowable. Creativity is not innovation.  Creativity is neither necessary nor sufficient for innovation. Trust is not a property.  It's an emergent property.  You can't make people trust each other.   You can't train people to have qualities.  It doesn't work. To be useful Communities of Practice require regular sheep dipping into Chaos.  A CoP should be destroyed after 12 months.  If it's valuable it will go underground and reemerge. Funded CoP's become a huge conservative force.  Look at the histroy of science.  Innovation is not a logically planned process.  Dipping into chaos to create new complex patterns. <H3>The Cynefin programme</H3> Cynefin dynamics:  Innovation cycles.  Just-In-Time KM focuses on creating environments that allow complex systems to emerge and move into expert environments.  Complex acts of knowing.  Rounding level in large organisations is $250M.  $49M gets rounded down to 0.  A different world! Shifting consultancy from a utilization model to a software model.  Fed up with teams of consultants.  Email detoxification: Cold turkey organisations to get them out of bad email habits. Surving in their own environement represented as a metaphorical model.   Sensing organisational structures which will work post-merger. Culture. Trust. Collaboration.  Big problems that companies have but don't know how to solve.  Cynefin will tackle 1 problem per year. Looking through a complexity lense puts things into a context where you can shift R->L, from looking at order to unorder. Western canada is a fabulous example of aborigine integration.  Shamans are heart surgeons and nurses. PERSPECTIVE. PERSPECTIVE. PERSPECTIVE. New patterns emerge from complexity. Flagship discovery program.  A huge mutli cultural experiment. Corporate values.  Rituals in absence of belief.  Singing the company song.  Create rituals that align people with belief systems. I got caught up at the end. [I wanted to ask a question about patterns and pattern languages but felt a bit intimidated.] Questions: Paradox program. Questions: Knowledge Audits.  Never ask a direct question.  Identify knowledge use (decision, judgements, resolutions). Cluster to entities to create a meaningful context.  Heuristics are more common than explicit knowledge.  What experience is vital to what you do?  Create coherent knowledge objects which can be managed and organised to affect core processes & activities.  Portofoli of knowledge managament (amortises risky projects in terms of the tangible benefits of low risk activies)  2-stage emergence:  Dissolve patterns in the spce.  Stimulate the space to form new patterns.  Rinse & repeat.  Never tackle the low hanging fruit in KM.  Tackle high vulnerabilit to loss of knowledge areas which core processes depend upon Questions: http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001497.html David Gurteen: Using Knowledge Productively Thu, 19 Jun 2003 14:00:20 +0100 What are the barriers to making KM a reality in organisations?  It's not so much to do with the people who don't get KM as it is with us, the KM evangelists. <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> "What we have here is a failure to communicate."</BLOCKQUOTE> KM at the moment is a movement not a discipline.  It has followers who are enthusiastic, sometimes zealous.  It also has a somewhat bad reputation. To change this the KM Movement requires self-recongition, to shake off the tarnished image of "KM Envangelists", and to focus on actions and results.  Rejecting the labels we are assigned. Steps to making KM a reality in organisations. In good times KM means "Knowledge Management" in bad times it has come to mean "Kill Me."  There has been a clear failure to demonstrate the value to people in organisations.  They don't see what it's in it for them.  We need popular support.  As Dave Snowden says you can't force people to share and incentives can lead to the wrong behaviour patterns forming. Asking "How do we make people use our KM system?" is asking the wrong question.  Buy in from Senior management is not enough it requires buy-in across the entire organisation.  David quotes the example of a company where no time was allowed to talk to the people who would actually be using a system because "management wanted the system yesterday."  This is stupid! stupid! stupid! KM is about interpersonal communication.  Communicating value.  Bob Buckman says do it 'one person at a time' if necessary. You have to believe it yourself. David referenced an article about the need to communicate within an organistaion to get across what KM is about.  [David link please?] The real answer to addressing KM is to acknowledge that you don't do KM.  What you actually do is to solvebusiness problems.  KM is 'tool' (Cynefin) to help achieve this. David told an anecdote about a senior IT manager telling him "I don't know why we do all this KM stuff, it can be outsourced."  To him KM was simply more IT infrastructure (which can be outsourced), he didn't have a perspective that allowed him to see the bigger picture.  He didn't understand the message. Focusing on business results: <UL> <LI>cut costs</LI> <LI>improve efficiency</LI> <LI>increase sales</LI> <LI>improve customer retention</LI></UL> Jargon is a problem.  KM is an oxymoron, We must stop using Jargon & coming up with bad labels.  Instead we should talk in business terms.  Coming to a common understanding of terms is hard.  There has been a failure to differentiate between knolwedge & information. We must come to a common agreement as to what is is, a common framework.  It's noticable how speakers often gloss over these things saying "it's hard to agree."  We need to address the problem. Focus on role of the individual.  Failed KM initiatives come from the top, not the bottom. Knowledge resides in individuals and is expressed by their actions.  The individual is essential.  No amount of money, coercion can make KM a success. There was a point from the floor about how the "everyone is a knowledge worker" statement makes the term meaningless.  We need a new definition of knowledge worker.  David suggests "the do-ers, the self-motivated."  Coercion does not work, however subtle.  From the floor:  Not everyone is a knowledge worker, but everyone has the potential to be a knowledge worker. We need to focus on decision making:  In times of rapid change, best practice can be actively harmful. This reminds me of the arguments about effectiveness vs. efficiency and leadership vs. management. <UL> <LI>Managers do things right.</LI> <LI>Leaders do the right thing!</LI></UL> http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001498.html Jon Thorne: Resourcing your knowledge intiative Thu, 19 Jun 2003 16:43:09 +0100 Jon's session was very hands-on, group activity based so I don't really have notes.  This will be from memory. Jon's thesis is that it is much easier to get a KM initiative funded if you focus on the benefits of your work rather than the approaches used or the specifics of the technology or situation.  He recommends to focus on the pain and outline the golden future without that pain.  This resonated for me with the Geoffrey Moore 'Leaky Pipes' stuff I was thinking about a <A href="http://matt.blogs.it/2002/09/28.html#a435">little while ago</A>. What he then did was to outline a situation in a major corporation with an aproximately $9bn turnover.  They had moved from a situation of being very country focused with 30 brands in each country to a single set of brands across all countries.  Bringing everything together like this created a somewhat chaotic situation in their IT systems.  One example might be HR people inputting data on a tuesday which would be required for a payroll run on a monday. Jon's challenge to us was to come up with a 5 minute or less pitch to the CEO of this company to persude him to fund an initiative addressing this problem.  He further came up with a list of banned phrases including all the usual suspects like knowledge, collaboration, communities of practice, solution, forums, etc... We split into 3 groups with about 20 minutes to discuss our proposals.  I must admit that, at this point, I was highly skeptical of the exercise.  It just seemed a ridiculous thing to expect us to do this in 20 minutes.  However we discussed it and came up with something we hoped was short, punchy and to the point. I think we were close, we delivered a 44 second pitch, but we did spend some time restating the problem.  Another group were closer than us and got within a hairs breadth of the real solution (since this was a real case study) which was: <UL> <LI>We'll deliver the right information, first time, every time.</LI></UL> Now that's a real elevator pitch! I guess somewhere around here I was having an "ah ha!" moment that made this a very worthwhile experience for me.  If a business is going to be investing in KM it has to be on the basis of meaningful results.  I realised that over the last year I have drifted away from that too far.  When the inner workings are fascinating to you it can be hard to realise that others don't share your opinion. It's been quite a thought provoking experience. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001499.html When aggregators attack Mon, 18 Aug 2003 14:28:23 +0100 <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <A href="http://scriptingnews.userland.com/2003/08/18#wiredOnAggregators">Comments here</A> on Wired's <A href="http://www.wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,60053,00.html">article</A> on news aggregators. [<A href="http://www.scripting.com/">Scripting News</A>]</BLOCKQUOTE> The title of the article  Aggregators Attack Info Overload  suggested to me a slightly more in depth piece looking at the value of using RSS and aggregators to communicate and share.  In this, I think it fell short. I'm also disappointed because it meant that <A href="http://w4.evectors.it/">K-Collector</A> didn't get a mention.  We may be the new kid on the block but with RSS+ENT I think we're doing something really interesting in this space. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001553.html Is being effective enough? Thu, 21 Aug 2003 17:35:41 +0100 <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <A href="http://www.mcgeesmusings.net/2003/08/19.html#a3609">Jim McGee</A>.  A shift from managing knowledge to coaching knowledge workers.  Excellent. <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> The fatal flaw in thinking in terms of knowledge management is in adopting the perspective of the organization as the relevant beneficiary. Discussions of knowledge management start from the premise that the organization is not realizing full value from the knowledge of its employees. While likely true, this fails to address the much more important question from a knowledge worker's perspective of "what's in it for me?". It attempts to squeeze the knowledge management problem into an industrial framework eliminating that which makes the deliverables of knowledge work most valuable--their uniqueness, their variability.</BLOCKQUOTE> [<A href="http://jrobb.mindplex.org/">John Robb's Weblog</A>]</BLOCKQUOTE> The approach i've taken towards knowledge management is to treat it as a problem of (and solution to) being effective.  This seems to me to be approachable at both levels since one can consider the effectiveness of an organisation in achieving it's goals and then drill down to the effectiveness of the people in the organisation and show how closely the two are linked. The win, then, for the individual is in being more effective in what they do.  But is that enough?  And what else can we offer anyone?  In these days nobody believes that being twice as effective leads to getting half the week off.  But maybe they do believe that being more effective makes them more valuable and perhaps it helps them to feel better about the job that they do. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001572.html Engage with the mission Wed, 27 Aug 2003 21:08:28 +0100 <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <A href="http://weblog.halmacomber.com/2003_08_24_archive.html#106186599821410744">A Blogger in Their Midst</A>. Harvard Business Review, Sept 2003, leads with a case study on blogger behavior at work. The case is kinda fun. A woman writing a blog calling herself "Glove Girl" is responsible for a big increase in the sale of the company's products, but she blogs without permission, and without following the company line. (Imagine that.) What is the CEO to do? [smirk] As usual, HBR invites four 'experts' to offer their views on what to do. The advice is not bad. It ranges from figure out how to take this blog-marketing thing mainstream to what's wrong with the way you communicate internally that you didn't know Glove Girl was blogging. Here are my comments: (I used to be a Chief Operating Officer for a design-build commercial builder.) <UL> <LI>Create mechanisms for employees to engage fully in the mission of the company. Some people are just dying to make bigger contributions. Blogging is just one way to share ones voice. <LI>Blog with company bloggers. <A href="http://www.ozzie.net/blog/">Ray Ozzie</A> founder of <A href="http://www.groove.net/">Groove</A> took up blogging and discovered his own voice along the way. (If you can't beat 'em, join 'em?) Learn first-hand how the blogging medium (genre) can support the company mission. <LI>Encourage group blogging. As companies become more and more virtual (physically separate) we risk becoming detached from our peers. A group blog, where each of us can post, read, and comment as it serves us and the group, nurtures relationships. Group blogging may be the safety net for distributed project teams. <LI>Bring the marketing department together with the company bloggers. Prepare yourself to mediate the conversation! My experience of bloggers is they are VERY well-intended. Help people find ways to create something new from an intentionality between the groups. <LI>Look for other 'marginal practices' that may be contributing to the success of the company. Instant messaging for supporting clients immediately comes to mind. <A href="http://c2.com/cgi/wiki">Wikis</A> for supporting the folks who are supporting the customers? How about unsanctioned websites? </LI></UL> Creating a blogging presence was too easy. It took me all of 3 hours on a weekend. Just imagine what is happening at work with all the 'friendly support' available! Don't wait...harness it. [<A href="http://weblog.halmacomber.com/">Reforming Project Management</A>]</BLOCKQUOTE> I really like #1: <UL> <LI>Create mechanisms for employees to engage fully in the mission of the company. Some people are just dying to make bigger contributions. Blogging is just one way to share ones voice. </LI></UL> Companies clueful enough to want to listen to their participants will find blogs to be a great way to tease them out and get them interacting. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001601.html Forms and XML Tue, 23 Sep 2003 20:26:47 +0100 One of the projects I am involved with at the moment involves a large scale application of forms, XML and document management.  We're looking at using Adobe Forms as the front-end technology and hoping to have them produce XML (although it remains to be seen if this will be possible in the pilot timescale). Today I started playing with <a href="http://www.w3.org/XML/Schema">XML Schema</a> in anger.  Since I don't want to edit by hand I am testing tools for both schema and general document editing.  Currently I am evaluating <a href="http://www.tibco.com/solutions/products/extensibility/turbo_xml.jsp">Tibco's Turbo XML</a>.  It seems quite capable if a little clunky.  Does anyone have any opinions?  Or recomendations of tools they like? Even though the client has OpenText Livelink we're taking a good look at XML storage.  In particular <a href="http://www.sleepycat.com/products/xml.shtml">Sleepy Cat's DB XML</a> seems to have a lot going for it.  Native XML storage and query has a lot of attractive possibilities. More later. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001642.html A journey with Phil Tue, 23 Sep 2003 20:33:41 +0100 So, I don't have the patience to do a complete re-write but here is a recap of some of the highlights of my <a href="http://dijest.com/aka/2003/09/22.html#a2623">conversation with Phil</a>. Obviously, since we were using it, we talked about Skype (i'm pronouncing it 'sky'-'p'). I guess I'm both impressed and frustrated in equal measure. Most of the time (we were talking for hours, god knows what state Phil was in the next day) the quality was good, but it did crap out on us quite a bit. It definitely needs a cell-phone style signal meter. We even mused that, since Skype knows your address it could tap into the <a href="http://www.internettrafficreport.com/main.htm">Internet Weather Report</a> to tell you what sort of call to expect! We talked about the possible applications for a good, free, VOIP client and there are many. One in particular appeals to me and that is seeing Skype support bundled with the software I buy. What I want is that when I need to contact a vendor I can press a Skype me button. This lets them know that a CSA or Techie should get in touch with me. It's convenient for me because it means that I will be at the computer when they call. The win for the vendor is that they only need to call when they see me online and the cost is significantly cheaper than how they do this today. (As an example, doing webcallback via Netcall means the vendor has to pay for 2 PSTN calls. One from the Netcall server to the CSA and one from the Netcall server to the customer. Then they have to pay Netcall to manage it all as well. Gets expensive). Phil and I are both lefties so we rapped about the war, Bush and the Dean campaign. It's incredibly for a guy that seemed such an outside 12 months ago that if you search for Howard on Google, <a href="http://www.deanforamerica.com/">Dean for America</a> is no. #2. What is particularly impressive is the way the Dean campaign have leveraged their digital savvy into on the ground support. Would that any UK politician had the same nouse. I can't imagine being so impressed with any MP I have come across that i'd actually go talk about them. I would love to feel differently though! I gave Phil a quick head's up on the work we are doing with <a href="http://w4.evectors.it/">K-Collector/W4</a>, he hadn't seen it since <a href="http://blogtalk.net/">BlogTalk</a> (it seems so long ago now...) and we've put a lot of effort in since then.  We also <a href="http://dijest.com/aka/2003/09/22.html#a2623">talked about what's needed to get corporates into blogging</a>. Oh he put me onto <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0451459156/ref=sr_aps_books_1_2/026-1765779-1917222">Ruled Brittania</a> (by Harry Turtledove) which is an alternate reality novel set in an England conquered by Spain.  I'm a complete sucker for this stuff so that went straight onto my <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/registry/2VBDDIPM7ZWQP/ref=wl_s_3/026-8728199-5122817">wishlist</a>.  In return I suggested <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0099263815/ref=sr_aps_books_1_1/026-1765779-1917222">Fatherland</a> (by Robert Harris) a detective thriller set in a victorious post WW II Germany and <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/014017172X/ref=sr_aps_books_1_2/026-1765779-1917222">The Man in the High Castle</a> (by Philip K. Dick and personal favourite of mine) set in an America split down the middle by Germany and Japan. There was lots more but I'm running out of steam... http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001647.html Knowledge Centrifuge Sun, 26 Oct 2003 21:13:00 +0000 As we get closer to release I've found myself explaining what <a href="http://paolo.evectors.it/">Paolo</a> and I are doing with <a href="http://w4.evectors.it/">K-Collector</a>, what the product is about. So far the best explanation I have come up with is: <div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 40px;">Realtime Knowledge Management </div> What I've been trying to do is make the case that knowledge management and document management aren't the same thing. Most knowledge in a company begins life as a granule of information, micro-knowledge. It exists for a time and, if not exploited, likely dies away to be discovered again later if needed. Quite often the inertia that has to be overcome in order to turn such a granule into the sort of document you would load into Livelink, Documentum or some equivalent product is overwhelming compared to the perceived value, at that moment, of the knowledge itself. It is only when the cost of repeated rediscovery begins to bite that someone finally does the decent thing. The corrollary to this is that the benefits of knowing that you know this information are not felt until quite late in it's lifecycle. I would guess that, by the time a lot of information is formally documented, it's probably well on the well to being out of date or irrelevant (is this your intranet?) By contrast the K-Collector approach collects information while it is still fresh and combines it with other related information before presenting to users for them to see if it meets their needs. That which is good can be promoted to a more appropriate place (for example a <a href="http://www.socialtext.com/">Wiki</a>) Things which don't make the cut fade into the background but, crucially, are not lost. I imagine K-Collector as being a kind of knowledge centrifuge, spinning together all kinds of different bits of information and separating out the good stuff for you. At the heart of K-Collector and determining what makes 'the good stuff' are topics. Topics act as markers for points of interest around which information can be clustered. The Who, What, Where, When metaphor we have adopted is - we think - a really simple way of considering what is important to us all (although, prompted by <a href="http://www.henshall.com/blog/">Stuart Henshall</a>, I have been wondering about Why as a 5th W). I think of K-Collector as a kind of multi-dimensional database where each topic slices through the available information. We're working on some pretty cool topic related trickery for future versions that will take this idea and make it a lot more powerful. I'm hoping to get back to writing soon and share more about what we are doing. I hope this is useful in the meantime. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001680.html Learning templates for organising content Mon, 10 Nov 2003 11:14:26 +0000 I've just come across Denham Grey's <a href="http://denham.typepad.com/km/2003/11/information_gat.html">Information Gathering Template</a> post.  I'm not sure how I missed it before, I'm subscribed to Denham's feed.  Anyhow it's really interesting. What he's done is to publish his informal framework for categorizing information when doing research.  It goes like this: <ul> <li>People</li> <li>Places</li> <li>Problems</li> <li>Promises</li> <li>Principles</li> <li>Patterns</li> <li>Products</li> </ul> Please read Denham's post for his excellent notes on each category.  Obviously this is very similar to the approach we have taken with <a href="http://k-collector.evectors.it/">K-Collector</a>. <ul> <li>Who</li> <li>Where</li> <li>What </li> <li>When</li> </ul> to which I think it might make sense to add 'Why'.  In this case our framework is simpler, conflating: problems, promises, principles, patterns, and, products into what. Although W4 is less expressive than Denham's template we think making it simpler keeps it suitable for general use (Denham is a consultant and far more experienced than most people.)  However if we can find a way to layer additional levels of meaning without giving up that simplicity I think we will do it.  It makes sense to enable users who can benefit from that extra expressability and for all users to benefit from the new relations we can build among topics.  Since K-Collector's architecture allows us to do this it's just a matter of working out the best way and Paolo and I have been talking about this recently.  We'll also be sounding out beta testers and customers to see what they think. I'm keen to hear from anyone about their frameworks for collecting & organising content.  I do think we have many lessons to learn and want <a href="http://w4.evectors.it/">K-Collector</a> to reflect that learning as much as possible. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001714.html The document triangle Tue, 11 Nov 2003 12:02:27 +0000 <div style="margin-left: 40px;"><a href="http://www.steptwo.com.au/columntwo/archives/000965.html">The interdependence of the structure, information and presentation dimensions</a>. Peter J. Bogaards has written an article on the three aspects of documents: structure, information and presentation. To quote: Every paper and digital document shares three basic dimensions: structure, information and presentation. Although these dimensions are always interwoven, some people... [<a href="http://www.steptwo.com.au/columntwo/">Column Two</a>] </div> An interesting overview of the relationships between different aspects of documents and the data presented within them. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001717.html I am not a vector. I am a free man! Mon, 24 Nov 2003 15:22:16 +0000 We've posted an <A href="http://www.evectors.com/itkcollector/story$num=4&sec=1&data=kcollector">essay</A> which attempts to highlight where we think organisations can benefit from blogging. <%softShadow("http://paolo.evectors.it/stories/vectorWorkers/images/img6.gif")%> It continues our effective organsiations theme and uses what we think is a very strong visual metaphor for understanding how different organisations can apply similar amounts of effort but get wildy different results. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001772.html ETCon'04 - We won't be there Fri, 16 Jan 2004 08:57:46 +0000 <blockquote><a href="http://socialsoftware.weblogsinc.com/entry/4114434910144189/">ETECH is coming up....</a>. <A href="http://socialsoftware.weblogsinc.com/entry/4114434910144189/">O'Reilly's Emerging Technology Conference...</A>. <H2>OReillys Emerging Technology Conference</H2> <H3>Posted Jan 15, 2004, 6:54 PM ET by Judith Meskill</H3><IMG src="http://conferences.oreillynet.com/images/et2004/etcon_butterfly.gif" align=right> <A href="http://conferences.oreillynet.com/etech/">OReillys Emerging Technology Conference</A> taking place at the Westin Horton Plaza, San Diego, CA, Feb. 9-12, 2004 will have a <A href="http://conferences.oreillynet.com/pub/w/28/track_social.html">Social Software track</A>. This promises to be an excellent event with a broad spectrum of notable speakers that includes (but is certainly not limited to): <A href="http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/et2004/view/e_spkr/1686">Helen Greiner</A> - iRobot Corp., <A href="http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/et2004/view/e_spkr/521">Cory Doctorow</A> - EFF, <A href="http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/et2004/view/e_spkr/1730">Lili Cheng</A> - Microsoft Research, <A href="http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/et2004/view/e_spkr/1727">Gilman Louie</A> - In-Q-Tel, <A href="http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/et2004/view/e_spkr/363">David Sifry</A> - Technorati, <A href="http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/et2004/view/e_spkr/1703">Joichi Ito</A> - Neoteny, <A href="http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/et2004/view/e_spkr/1669">Elizabeth Lawley</A> - Rochester Institute of Technology, and, of course, <A href="http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/et2004/view/e_spkr/416">Tim OReilly</A> - OReilly & Associates. [<A href="http://socialsoftware.weblogsinc.com/">The Social Software Weblog</A>] This is the key event of the year.  We're gonna party like is USED to be 1999. I'll be there - sponsored by <A href="http://laszlosystems.com">Laszlo Systems</A> and I'll be giving a :05 minute talk on FOAF and the PeopleAggregator. But clearly the most exciting event will be the field trip to TJ and the House of Mole.  Something not to be missed. [<a href="http://blogs.it/0100198/">Marc's Voice</a>]</blockquote> Anyone out there want to sponsor three Europeans with a kick-ass new RSS based collaborative knowledge organisation tool to go to ET'04? http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001811.html Everything depends upon the context. Fri, 13 Feb 2004 08:51:06 +0000 <blockquote><a href="http://denham.typepad.com/km/2004/02/documentation_k.html">Documentation & knowledge</a>. A oft repeated question / assertion in KM is the link between explicit documentation and knowledge. The point I'm trying to make, is documentation alone does not = knowledge. To retain knowledge against attrition you have to have a community... [<a href="http://denham.typepad.com/km/">Knowledge-at-work</a>]</blockquote> I have formed the view that it is intrinsic to knowledge that it be actionable. By this I do not mean that it necessarily provokes action, but that it enables it. From this viewpoint the question is documentation knowledge? doesn't matter very much. Any particular document may, or may not, be knowledge; to different people, and at different times. Everything depends upon the context. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001879.html Terminology: The management in KM Wed, 25 Feb 2004 15:30:04 +0000 I've been pondering the term Knowledge Management a little. In particular the use of the word manage. A dictionary search for 'manage' brings up, among others, the following meanings: <ul> <li>to direct or control the use of</li> <li>to exert control over</li> <li>to make submissive to ones authority, discipline, or persuation</li> <li>to direct the affairs or interests of</li> <li>to make subservient by artful conduct</li> <li>to bring around cunningly to ones plans</li> <li>to exercise in graceful or artful action</li> </ul> with the following synonyms: <ul> <li>to direct</li> <li>govern</li> <li>control</li> <li>wield</li> <li>order</li> <li>contrive</li> <li>concert</li> <li>conduct</li> <li>transact</li> </ul> From the latin manus meaning hand. To me this terminology sounds all wrong. It is the language of control, of dominance. It is the lanuage of the <a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=the+scarcity+mentality&btnG=Google+Search">scarcity mentality</a> which says "I Win, You Lose" or "You Win, I Lose". That's not how I want to think/talk about knowledge. Unlike, say, <a href="http://www.webelements.com/webelements/elements/text/Pu/key.html">Plutonium</a>, knowledge is only as scarce as we make it. As I impart my knowledge to you I don't lose it, instead we both have it. And maybe more, between us we may synthesize something that I could not have created alone. Giving my knowledge to you has, at the very least, increased the total amount of knowledge, not reduced it. (Fortunately Plutonium doesn't work this way!) So I think the terminology doesn't fit. In the context of a healthy organization knowledge isn't something that we should want to manage. Rather I'd say it's something we want to plant and watch grow. What is required, I think, is to recast the principles of knowledge management in a language which emphasizes abundance without unduly frightening those people who may tend toward a scarcity mentality. I'm still thinking about how that goes... http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001911.html Terminology: Killing off KM Wed, 25 Feb 2004 21:46:32 +0000 In response to "<a href='http://matt.blogs.it/2004/02/25.html#a1341'>Terminology: The management in KM</a>", <a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/">Richard McManus</a> agrees and suggests Information Flow (a term he has been <a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/2004/02/21.html#a205">musing about</a>) as an alternative. Whilst I do like the way information flow sounds I don't think it replaces knowledge management because it describes the goal and not the activity. Hence: <ul> <li>information flow is to X, as</li> <li>managed knowledge would be to knowledge management</li> </ul> The question remains: What is X? http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001913.html 3rd Gurteen Knowledge Conference on Managing Organisational Complexity Wed, 03 Mar 2004 20:13:46 +0000 Spent today at <a href="http://www.gurteen.com/">David Gurteen's</a> 3rd Knowledge Conference on Managing Organisational Complexity. It was a great day and I took lots of notes and photos (to the extent that I annoyed most everyone!) Sadly Dave Snowden was not able to attend in person due to personal circumstances, however we got virtual Snowden which was still very good. Today certainly added a new layer to my thinking and i'm going to be percolating all this stuff for days and weeks to come. Right now I'm up to my ears in a market research exercise for K-Collector so expect blogged notes & photos probably Friday. Plus I got to meet Ian Glendinning of <a href="http://www.psybertron.org/">Psybertron</a> which was cool. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001951.html Saving the world one conversation at a time Thu, 04 Mar 2004 19:30:40 +0000 Just had a great Skype call with Dave Pollard. This is the first time I've talked to Dave - I was motivated to get in touch with him after reading a post he made on the AOK-Knet list - but I hope it won't be the last. Dave was very engaging and, as you would expect if you've ever read his blog, interesting. He knows KM and presented me with some viewpoints that I find personally challenging. He's made me question some of my assumptions about where KM is (or should be) going and what I see as the future. As hard as that is, I'm grateful :-) http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001966.html A little light reading Sun, 14 Mar 2004 13:26:15 +0000 Papers I read on the plane home yesterday:<ul> <li><a href="http://jroller.com/page/rickard/20040306">Implementing dynamic AOP using abstract schema</a> by <a href="http://www.jroller.com/page/rickard">Rickard Öberg</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.cognexus.org/">Sense-Making and Knowledge Collaboration Tools</a> by Dr. Jeffrey Conklin.</li> </ul> Rickard is doing a lot of thinking (& acting) in the Aspect Oriented Programming (AOP) field. I think it's pretty exciting and fully expect AOP to be as mainstream, in 3-5 years, as OOP is today. I'm playing with <a href="https://dynaop.dev.java.net/">Dynaop</a> which is a very low impact AOP solution for Java written by <a href="http://crazybob.org/roller/page/crazybob">"Crazy Bob"</a>. It's a great package and laughably easy to get started with. Sense making is I guess one of my key themes these days. My work has taken me from the mainstream of KM (i.e. document management) into the world of organisational complexity, deep collaboration, wicked problems, patterns in information and making sense of it all. In particular this paper introduced me to Issue Based Information Systems (IBIS) and how they affect tools & approaches. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001984.html 3rd Gurteen Knowledge Conference on Organisational Complexity Sun, 14 Mar 2004 23:18:32 +0000 I've finally gotten round to editing my notes from the 3rd Gurteen Knowledge Conference on Organisational Complexity. This was held on the 5th March so apologies that it's taken me this long to come up with the goods. In the end I had about 30 pages of rough notes which I am working up into 4 postings, 1 for each session. Tonight I shall be posting the first piece correspoding to Dave Snowdens presentation on the Cynefin framework and dynamics. I have also put up a <a href="http://matt.blogs.it/Gurteen%20Knowledge%20Conference%203/GKC3.html">selection of photographs</a> to give a flavour of the event. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001992.html Techno-fetishist or Fluffy-bunny? Fri, 26 Mar 2004 09:17:00 +0000 Attended David Gurteen's <a href="http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/0/89FC3E957C3552A180256E4F0039794C/">Knowledge Café</a> last night. The theme for the night was: Techno-fetishist or fluffy bunny which are you? If that sounds a little weird it may help to know that these are Dave Snowdens archetypes for those who, on the one hand, believe that knowledge management is a purely technical problem and, on the other, believe it's all about the people. What made tonights event a little different from normal was the number of new people there. I think for the first time over half of the people were attending their first café. David decided to start with 15 minutes of speed networking (Find someone you don't know, then you each have 60 seconds to tell the other person about yourself). I have to say I groaned inwardly (It had been a long day and this sounded like hard work) at the thought. Nevertheless it turned out to be quite good fun although my voice didn't hold up too well. There followed 40 minutes of good discussion about the role of technology in KM. Some good observations from around the room, I can't remember most of them but a few that struck me: <ul> <li>You can have an organisation without technology, but you can't have an organisation without people. People are the key and technology is an enabler.</li> <li>How you see yourself (techie vs. fluffy) is only one aspect of, as it is also important how others see you. Someone made the observation that a number of his team of KM workers were seen around the organisation as techies even though (mostly being from a journalistic background) they were the fluffiest people you could wish to meet.</li> <li>Design is important in building knowledge systems. Consider how good a job companies like Amazon and Ebay have been.</li> <li>Technology is a good way of holding information and allowing it to be sifted and, in due course, preserved when it meets the criteria of being Hallmark Knowledge.</li> <li>You can make people use a new finance system. You can't make people use a KM system. Incentive systems often provoke the wrong behaviour (what happens when the incentive stops). You need to involve people from early stages and get buy in. I would ask the question: What's in it for me?</li> <li>Do people see what they have as knowledge? They won't share what they feel is not valuable. This has to be addressed.</li> </ul> I think there was definitely a fluffy bunny conscensus in the room at the end of the day. So there is hope for us yet! We all excused ourselves to the pub to finish the evening. Thanks to Alison Leahy of Universities UK for providing a great venue, coffee and directions to the pub! http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00002025.html #joiito, #kmtalk Fri, 09 Apr 2004 18:24:19 +0100 Since the <a href="http://matt.blogs.it/2004/04/02.html#a1394">dinner</a> last week I have found myself hanging around in <a href="http://joi.ito.com/joiwiki/IrcChannel">#joiito</a> quite a bit.  <a href="http://chocnvodka.blogware.com/blog">Suw</a> kindly introduced me to the folks there.  It's a great group - if a little schizophrenic at times - full of interesting people.  You can always be assured of something to whet the appetite! But, beyond this, I've realised what a fabulous community building tool IRC is.  Instant messenger has become an essential tool and IM (and I imagine, even more so, Skype) conference chats are great for focused collaboration.  IRC seems to have something different.  It's something about the way the channel is permanent, but people drop in and out as they can.  Bots are written to offer assistance.  Conversations run into side conversations.  It's all a big mess, but a beautiful one and it works. For this reason I am now going to hang around in a channel called #kmtalk on <a href="http://www.freenode.net/">freenode</a> IRC (details of how to get there are <a href="http://www.freenode.net/using_the_network.shtml">here</a>).  If anyone is looking to chat about knowledge management, communities of practice, collaboration, effectiveness or any of those sorts of topic I am offering this as a good starting point. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00002055.html More on #kmtalk and IRC integration Tue, 13 Apr 2004 17:58:47 +0100 A couple more visitors to <a href="http://matt.blogs.it/2004/04/09.html#a1399">#kmtalk</a>.  First there was the author of <a href="http://jcwinnie.us/MT/weblog/">Your Guess Is As Good as Mine</a> (Jonathan Smith?).  Also <a href="http://www.terryfrazier.com/weblog/">Terry Frazier</a> and <a href="http://www.rklau.com/tins/">Rick Klau</a> stopped by.  Terry demonstrated his l33t skills by signing in using his Treo 600 (using <a href="http://www.smittyware.com/palm/upirc/">upIRC</a>). Anyone and everyone who is interested in knowledge management, communities of practice, collaboration, wiki, social networks and other related topics is welcome to stop by.  Right now I am interested in how IRC can be linked to other tools (including <a href="http://www.evectors.com/itkcollector/">K-Collector</a> of course). For example might it be useful to link K-Collector topics (e.g. <a href="http://w4.evectors.it/itentdirectory/topic?topic=knowledge_management&chunck=1">Knowledge Management</a>) to IRC channels?  For example topics like <a href="http://w4.evectors.it/itentdirectory/topic?topic=knowledge_management&chunck=1">Knowledge Management</a>, <a href="http://w4.evectors.it/itentdirectory/topic?topic=k_logs&chunck=1">K-Logs</a>, <a href="http://w4.evectors.it/itentdirectory/topic?topic=knowledge_organisation&chunck=1">Knowledge Organisation</a>, <a href="http://w4.evectors.it/itentdirectory/topic?topic=knowledge_work&chunck=1">Knowledge Economy</a>, <a href="http://w4.evectors.it/itentdirectory/topic?topic=collaboration&chunck=1">Collaboration</a>, <a href="http://w4.evectors.it/itentdirectory/topic?topic=commercial_blogging&chunck=1">Commercial blogging</a>, ... could all be linked to the #kmtalk IRC channel. Topics about different subjects could be linked to other channels. The idea is that people viewing the web topic could see who was talking in the channel (want to join in?) and recent traffic in the channel (have something to add?) Could this be a useful application? http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00002074.html First outing for People Centred Knowledge Management Thu, 22 Apr 2004 13:04:12 +0100 <blockquote><a href="http://blog.xrefer.com/2004_04_01_xrefer_archive.html#108246245765384532">City Information Group April seminar - A trip to t ...</a>. <a href="http://blog.xrefer.com/#108246245765384532"></a>City Information Group April seminar - <a href="http://www.cityinformation.org.uk/Events/FutureEvents/April04.htm">A trip to the virtual world</a> - 27 April 2004 - London, UK - Roger Brown from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), will describe the dramatic transformation of the GSK libraries from physical to virtual, focussing on the implications for their information vendors. Matt Mower, partner in Evectors Software, will discuss exciting new developments in people-centred knowledge management. He will focus on "social software" including weblogs, aggregators and instant messengers [<a href="http://feedster.com/rss.php?q=evectors&sort=date&ie=UTF-8">Feedster.com Results For: evectors</a>]</blockquote>I shall be speaking on April 27th to the <a href="http://www.cityinformation.org.uk/">City Information Group</a>.  I am presenting the first fruits of the work that <a href="http://paolo.evectors.it/">Paolo</a> and I have been doing over the last couple of months.  I'll be presenting our theme: People Centred Knowledge Management, talking about issues such as collaboration, innovation, and trust, and illustrating how social network tools from weblogs to wikis to IRC combine to address those issues in a way existing tools cannot. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00002109.html Presenting People Centred Knowledge Management at the CiG Thu, 29 Apr 2004 18:16:24 +0100 On Tuesday night I did my first proper speakers gig, giving a 20 minutes presentation of People Centred Knowledge Management (PCKM) to members of the <a href="http://www.cityinformation.org.uk">City Information Group</a> (I'll link to their event page when it's been updated). I had a great time doing the event and I've had some positive feedback - I hope everyone there got something out of it. My thanks to the <a href="http://www.cityinformation.org.uk/Committee/committee.htm">organizers</a> Jackie, Genevieve and Nick. <ul> <li><a href="http://matt.blogs.it/gems/presentations/CIG_apr_2004/CIG%20Presentation.htm">Web</a> version of the presentatin. (Should work in all browsers, but you know PowerPoint) </li> <li><a href="http://matt.blogs.it/gems/presentations/CIG_apr_2004/CIG%20Presentation_export.pdf">PDF</a> version of the presentation here. (447K)</li> <li><a href="http://matt.blogs.it/gems/maps/cig_apr_2004/Speakers%20notes.html">Speakers notes</a> (This will give you a better idea of what I said).</li> </ul> I'd like to express my thanks to <a href="http://paolo.evectors.it/">Paolo</a>, <a href="http://www.dijest.com/aka/">Phil</a>, <a href="http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/">David</a>, and <a href="http://chocnvodka.blogware.com/blog">Suw</a> who were all invaluable in helping me to get prepared. I think it really paid off. Update: It occurs to me that really you don't get very much from my slides. The presentation was a lot about me talking, waving my arms and hopping up and down. You don't get that from PowerPoint. Next time I'd like to be able to webcast the presentation. Anyone have any advice about that sort of thing? http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00002139.html Show me the value Wed, 19 May 2004 12:01:46 +0100 Met with <a href="http://www.alphaport.com/categories/alphaBusinessCommunities/">Torben Anderson</a> yesterday for a very agreeable drink in his local pub.  We chatted about how social tools (people tools and software tools) are going to be important in making knowledge management more valuable to organisations.  Torben has a great philosophy about keeping projects practical and delivering client value quickly - this is very much in tune with our own people centred approach. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00002247.html