Knowledge Matters™

Now I know this isn't exactly about knowledge management or network analysis, but it is interesting. Time has announced their top 50 websites . Sadly mine didn’t feature! The top five sites, in order, are:

• Mozy.com ;
• StumbleUpon.com ;
• Last.fm ;
• Weebly.com ; and
• Etsy.com .

The only site I had heard of was StumbleUpon, and in any case I don’t use it. In fact the only sites in the top 50 that I have heard of are: ...

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This is not a blog about race, but rather a type of leader – the Black Leader. Black Leaders suffer from the dog syndrome – that is they must leave their mark wherever they go! They are experts at changing things, and feel compelled to set in place extensive change programs. More often than not the changes deliver savings or efficiencies in the short-term, but this short-term horizon is exactly the problem. Medium and long-term sustainability is rarely a consideration.

Take for example the spate of “right-sizing” and “out-sourcing” initiatives which were so prevalent in the Western world in the 1990’s and early 2000’s. How often was the baby thrown out with the bath-water? I know of more than one out-sourcing initiative that was initially successful because it employed casualties of the right-sizing activity. These casualties were trained in-house, and often had very specific knowledge that could only be acquired on the job! The same organisations that right-sized now no longer have in-house capability, but 10 years on find it difficult to out-source the activity because no-one trains people with the requisite skills. In every case these out-sourcing initiatives were led by Black Leaders, who were amply rewarded, and sometimes publicly honoured, but never stayed long enough in the organisation to see the negative consequences of their actions. ...

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One of my interests is philosophy, and in particular epistemology and ethics . I provide an invited presentation to the Australian Defence College twice a year titled – “Rwanda: A Case Study in Ethical and Leadership Dilemmas ” . The key points of the presentation are:

• Ethics are reflective of societal norms and vary within society and groups.
• Ethics are as much an attitude as they are a set of values, skills and knowledge.
• Ethics are not constant – they will vary from society to society, and group to group.
• Decisions are developed within an attitudinal framework.
• Do not expect your colleagues to apply your own ethics to their decisions.
• The focus should be on decision making, not on issues of ethics in isolation.

But I digress. Pat Byrne sent me this link to the Carnegie Council website , which is a great resource for anyone interested in ethics. (A good Australian resource is the St James Ethics Centre ). What caught my attention was the Ethical Blog Project , which naturally has its own blog called “The Ethical Blogger ”. Apparently this blog attracts thousands of visitors a day, and has been nominated by Google as a blog of note. I’ve added it to my bookmarks. ...

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actKM 08 will be held on the 14th and 15th of October 2008 at University House, the Australian National University, Canberra. The theme is 'Managing Knowledge for Competitive Advantage', which is hardly original, but the organising committee promise it will be highly participative and interactive. They are seeking submissions at the moment with a preference for interactive or experiential activities that engage conference participants in a learning or competitive environment.

I haven't made up my mind if I will attend actKM 08 because I've been asked to present a paper on network analysis to the Australian Institute of Professional Intelligence Officers (AIPIO) annual conference . This conference is at the Holiday Inn, Adelaide from the 14th to 16th of October 2008 inclusive, and the theme is ‘Improving Tradecraft'. At the moment I think I'll write a paper that compares the various network analysis tools on the market, highlights their strengths and weaknesses, and assesses their suitability for intelligence work. Even if I don't attend AIPIO 2008 the paper can be published in their peer-reviewed journal.

Assuming I attend the AIPIO conference I will head off to Hobart to attend the Australian Military Medicine Association's annual conference . ...

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Yesterday Patrick Lambe’s website was targeted by spammers, and mine by what appears to be a denial of service attack , but more likely was a spam bot attack. Patrick tells me his site is targeted via comments, but usually he picks up the attack fairly quickly. I’m not sure exactly what the target was on my site but I suspect it was something to do with my “Genocide Knowledge Management ” blog and the meta-tags associated with the blog. The spammers did not penetrate my site and all my security measures worked (thank goodness), but they did succeed temporarily in overloading the site with anonymous hits on the front page. I took my site down for a couple of hours and put a few more security measures in place, but they won’t beat me, and I will continue to blog about what I think is interesting and important.

Take for example the “Genocide Knowledge Management ” blog. I have witnessed first hand the aftermath of genocide and war. I have also witnessed first hand the bureaucratic workings of the Red Cross, and for that matter other aid agencies like Care Australia. I therefore stand by my comments, just as I stand by each of these blogs, which also created back channel controversy:

• “Halloween, MacDonaldization, and Knowledge Management ” ,
• “Where is the War on Drugs? ” , and
• “Archetypes Don't Matter! ”.

Of course spammers aren’t targeting me or Patrick because of our content – at least I think that is the case! They are cyber-vandals and take a perverted pleasure in crippling others work simply because they can. ...

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