What is the most challenging question for the KM community? What is our biggest fear?
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Matt Moore <innotecture@...>
Hi,
I have been having a conversation with Stan Garfield about a potential talk. The thing I want to find out is: "What is the most confronting and challenging question for the knowledge management community? What is our biggest fear?" Now "Is KM dead?" is not allowed. That question has reached a similar stage to the Monty Python Parrot Sketch for me ("probably pining for the fjords"). Regards, Matt
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Madelyn Blair
Matt,
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I have recently been working with a company who expands regularly through acquisition. The question that came up in the KM work was -- How do you make KM part of the acquisition decision? Madelyn MADELYN BLAIR, PHD Author/ Speaker/ Resilience Advisor 301.371.7100 | 301.471.8721 mobile Skype: madelynblair Author Riding the Current and Essays in Two Voices Visit my blog: www.madelynblair.com Follow @madelynblair
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Douglas Weidner
In my experience, though usually hidden or downplayed, an acquisition often involves much retrenchment (savings due to duplication/overlap), with resultant loss of expertise. Analogous situations include downsizing. At the KM Institute, one of our most demanded follow on training/consulting domains is in K Retention/Continuity. We even have an advanced 'Certified K Specialist' designation focused on that domain. Douglas Weidner Exec Chairman, Chief CKM Instructor
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Douglas Weidner
Hi Matt, In my experience, which includes teaching the CKM around the world since 2001 (about 10,000 students, but who's counting?), few want to face up to the fact that successful KM requires a transformational approach, not just the traditional 'systems approach', but explaining that takes much more than just an email chat. Our CKM Program teaches both concepts, and it forces the certificant to decide the way forward for themselves, in the context of their own organization, especially its culture. Douglas Weidner Exec Chairman, Chief CKM Instructor
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I look at it in a more positive sense - I would say we also cover what's are some of the most significant opportunities we have in front of us. We all want to learn about what's possible. Dan
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Matt Moore <innotecture@...>
Dan,
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Thank you for replying - this is drawing out my initial, terse post. As I was writing the email, I thought: “Everyone’s going to want to turn this into something positive - esp. the Americans”. And your impulse to do so is reasonable and if that’s what works for you then do it. What do you see as being the biggest opportunity for KM? At the moment, I am interested in opportunities. But I am also interested in fears. Because people don’t want to talk about them and yet they are hugely important and they drive a lot of human behavior. I often think that people are more defined and driven by their biggest fears (of being poor, being alone, being incompetent, getting sick, dying) than their biggest hopes. So it is important to acknowledge and understand these powerful impulses rather than deny them. I don’t want to stay with fears (and I do want to talk about hopes) but I do want to start there. So here are a few to get things started. Some KM fears: - No one powerful cares about knowledge and what we do any more (if they ever did) - The technologists are actually right and people don’t actually matter. - We end up in cycle of applying the same partially successful techniques to the same organizational problems forever (like Groundhog Day). Regards, Matt Moore +61 423 784 504
On May 9, 2019, at 12:05 AM, Daniel Ranta danieleranta@... [sikmleaders] <sikmleaders@...> wrote:
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Matt, Thanks for starting this discussion. Here is my list of fears.
Regards, Stan
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Anthony Rhem
Madelyn, here are a few points to consider to make KM a part of the acquisition decision:
(This is essential to planning employee and/or business function consolidation or elimination)
I have written 2 books in which I included chapters on KM for Mergers and Acquisitions. These books include Knowledge Management in Practice and Knowledge Management in Law Firms: Expertise in Action.
Feel free to contact me if there are any questions.
Best Regards Tony
Dr. Anthony J. Rhem, PhD. CEO/Principal Consultant A.J. Rhem & Associates, Inc. Office: 312-396-4024
From: sikmleaders@...
Sent: Wednesday, May 8, 2019 9:13 AM To: sikmleaders@... Subject: Re: [sikmleaders] Question for the KM community
Matt, I have recently been working with a company who expands regularly through acquisition. The question that came up in the KM work was -- How do you make KM part of the acquisition decision? Madelyn MADELYN BLAIR, PHD Author/ Speaker/ Resilience Advisor 301.371.7100 | 301.471.8721 mobile Skype: madelynblair Author Riding the Current and Essays in Two Voices Visit my blog: www.madelynblair.com Follow @madelynblair
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Nancy Dixon
What I hear the most is that “we put in a system (e.g. sharepoint, confluence, slack) but we can’t get people to use it to collaborate.”
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Nancy
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Stephen Bounds
Hi Matt & Stan, I believe that the most confronting question that we face is "Aren't all people doing KM already?" Because for the sake of trying to create engagement, we often cry "Yes!" and then fundamentally undermine the reason for our existence. My view is that a number of preconditions need to be met for something to count as "knowledge management":
Cheers, ==================================== Stephen Bounds Executive, Information Management Cordelta E: stephen.bounds@... M: 0401 829 096 ==================================== On 9/05/2019 9:14 am,
stangarfield@... [sikmleaders] wrote:
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We fear questions without certain, black and white answers. We lack the skill (or courage?) to work polarities and "wicked questions" which ask us to find a way to work with seemingly opposing demands and conditions. We struggle to shift our own mindsets while hoping to shift others'. We worry that at the moment when KM could really make a difference, we don't practice leadership, even if absent in our leaders. Are those gnarly enough? They have very specific, tactical implications!!! Nancy W
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Murray Jennex
At the risk of offending, I'll offer the following:
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I fear that the push for political correctness will supersede the quest for knowledge and thus turn KM into a discipline espousing political slogans and such....murray jennex
-----Original Message-----
From: Matt Moore innotecture@... [sikmleaders] To: Yahoo! Inc. Sent: Wed, May 8, 2019 3:55 am Subject: [sikmleaders] Question for the KM community Hi,
I have been having a conversation with Stan Garfield about a potential talk. The thing I want to find out is: "What is the most confronting and challenging question for the knowledge management community? What is our biggest fear?"
Now "Is KM dead?" is not allowed. That question has reached a similar stage to the Monty Python Parrot Sketch for me ("probably pining for the fjords").
Regards,
Matt
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Posted by: Matt Moore <innotecture@...>
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What I fear most is that KM is seen by knowledge workers and management as something 'extra' besides the primary work to be done (which is being productive and make money). The fear that knowledge workers and management are focusing on today only: knowledge workers producing deliverables and meet deadlines, management as 'firefighters' (reacting to ad hoc issues). While management express their commitment regarding KM and agrees that the organization needs to learn, in practice their commitment is not always noticeable. In fact, knowledge workers are mainly assessed by how successful they applied their knowledge (in meeting deadlines and quality of delivered work) and less by how they helped the organization to actually learn (at least that's my experience). This contribution was to answer the ‘fear’ question only. I do have more positive experiences as well 😉
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That's a great question, Matt. Our experience in the Canadian public service was striking and disheartening. As some know, I was chairperson of the Canadian Interdepartmental KM Forum for over 16 years and we saw hundreds of KM initiatives. Only 3 initiatives were successful: not a very good track record. All the rest may have accomplished something (IT, templates, Knowledge Audits, studies, etc) before fading into obscurity but with little or no business value, lasting effect or organizational awareness of the initiative's existence. I find that just plain weird for a domain like KM that is and should be transformative. I confess to still being amazed that KMers do not learn from the past. (That's the negative aspect) There is a wealth of good experience and insight to share and learn from and much of it is shown in our conversations here. IMHO we need to understand the simple factors of successfully applying KM to business needs. Throwing one stone into a pond doesn't have much effect. Throwing many stones into a pond can have much more effect. Quite simply, we need more real success stories. Best Paul
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Madelyn Blair
Tony,
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Thanks for responding to my point about M&A and KM. It is great to see confirmation of the points you made that I have already on my list. I think having a plan for KM assessment in preparation for making the acquisition decision is a great way to help senior execs understand the value of the knowledge asset that is most often the real reason for the acquisition. KM is more than patents. I also appreciate the references. Madelyn MADELYN BLAIR, PHD Author/ Speaker/ Resilience Advisor 301.371.7100 | 301.471.8721 mobile Skype: madelynblair Author Riding the Current and Essays in Two Voices Visit my blog: www.madelynblair.com Follow @madelynblair
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Anthony Rhem
Anytime Madelyn!
Feel free to reach out if you have any additional questions regarding KM and M&A or any of the references.
Best Regards Tony
Dr. Anthony J. Rhem, PhD. CEO/Principal Consultant A.J. Rhem & Associates, Inc. Office: 312-396-4024
From: sikmleaders@...
Sent: Thursday, May 9, 2019 10:54 AM To: sikmleaders@... Subject: Re: [sikmleaders] Question for the KM community
Tony,
Thanks for responding to my point about M&A and KM. It is great to see confirmation of the points you made that I have already on my list. I think having a plan for KM assessment in preparation for making the acquisition decision is a great way to help senior execs understand the value of the knowledge asset that is most often the real reason for the acquisition. KM is more than patents.
I also appreciate the references.
Madelyn
MADELYN BLAIR, PHD Author/ Speaker/ Resilience Advisor 301.371.7100 | 301.471.8721 mobile Skype: madelynblair Author Riding the Current and Essays in Two Voices Visit my blog: www.madelynblair.com Follow @madelynblair
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Richard A Vines <plessons@...>
Matt,
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I very rarely post stuff these days, and don't really read posts much either. Despite this, I thought I would respond to your question. My sense of knowledge management grew out of a range of inter-related experiences. One of these experiences was in relation to the book production industry (from content creation to content consumption workflows). During that time, I came to be aware that after the invention of the Gutenberg Printing press in roughly 1453 and the manufacture of the bible with again roughly 1200 pages, it took about 100 years (perhaps slightly less) for the concept of a table of contents to be included in the production of books. So from the concept of assisting readers navigate content to realising the reality of this, 100 years. And the social effect .... it worked towards the exact opposite effect of what Gutenberg hoped to enable ... the centralisation of power around Rome and the Catholic Church.. And, so, we are now perhaps 40-50 years into a transformation of the manufacture of multi model content of a scale of complexity way way beyond the typographic world of the traditional print industry. And what might out equivalent table of content be that might take a 100 years to come into being? One wold have to put up there that this so called table of content must surely be related to "monitoring systems". Energy, ecological, water quality, notions of science-based sustainability. monitoring systems as tables of content, with real time feedback loops at various levels of focus.that allows people options to modify behaviour, adapt and get on. It might sound slightly utopian, perhaps even politically correct. But there is a required sense of humility if this quest for developing contemporary tables of content becomes understood as a knowledge management challenge. Look at the challenges of the Murray Darling Basin in Australia. A huge experiment in basin scale resource management allocation moving towards real time resource allocation decision making. Initially set up without any commitment to monitoring.or ability to navigate river flows. No access to navigate real time feedback loops. And so strangely in this same year in Australia, with the widespread and serious drought across the Murray Darliing Basin, we also find that the Lake Eyre basis is filling with water at levels not seen since around 1973. Go figure. As they say ... this notion of knowledge and knowledge management may not necessarily be in my life time .... but perhaps worthy of planetary, as well as localised consideration given the perilous creep of our impact on the planet. Richard
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Guillermo A. Galdamez
Hi all, In brief: KM becoming too insular - looking inwards too much, instead of looking out to capitalize on new opportunities. Talking among ourselves too much, instead of talking to our stakeholders and learning to speak in their language, in terms they care about. Focusing too much on what KM is, and not on what KM can do for the organization. Thanks for the question Matt! I'm loving the ideas and discussions generated. - Guillermo
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Douglas Weidner
Richard, Interesting insights. One concern. Most knowledge is and will remain tacit (personal) vs. explicit (codified), and we need to realize that KM is much more than managing codified K, though that seems to be our primary focus. Ultimately, it will be all about optimizing human potential in the K Age, where K is the driver not muscle power, as in all prior ages (Hunter-Gatherer, Agrarian, Industrial (and Information/Digital Ages). Douglas Weidner Exec Chairman, Chief CKM Instructor
On Thu, May 9, 2019 at 5:19 PM 'Richard A Vines' plessons@... [sikmleaders] <sikmleaders@...> wrote:
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Richard A Vines <plessons@...>
I agree with you Douglas. But is this not why we need much greater clarity of the role of knowledge in the emergence of "socio-technical systems".
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Not social systems in isolation, not technology in isolation but socio-technical systems. these redefine boundaries between encoded and implicit knowledge and over time also have impact on tacit knowledge. My sense is that the rise of mass iiteracy did the same thing after the invention of the printing press. The fact that we can read - what sort of knowledge does this draw upon? There is a relationship between the reader and the object that includes tacit knowledge does it not? Thanks, Richard
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