Knowledge Matters™

By David Gurteen

Note-Taking: A Fundamental Skill of the Independent Learner via Stephen Downes.

Some time back I wrote about the importance of note taking - Simplest KM Tool - in a Gurteen Perspective article for Inside Knowledge magazine. So I am delighted to see that others recognize the importance also.

I find it odd that so few people take notes. At an academic KM conference recently, I looked around the room of maybe 120 people during the opening key note talk - I noticed only one lap top open and just a hand full of people taking notes - most just sat and listened and the audience was mainly students and academics. I was also the only one taking photos and video. It was the same throughout the conference. I don't care how you take notes. Use the computer, like I did today. Use paper and ink, like I did at the collaboration workshop last week. Take photographs, as I do when I travel. The main thing is, if you want to learn, take notes. Learning is not a passive act; it is an act of engagement, where you involve yourself physically and mentally, where you struggle to understand and integrate the material. Note-taking is your contribution to what is a two-way communication with the source of the learning. Maybe you'll review them again, maybe not. Keep your notes in good order, just in case. But the main this is, that you take them.

Credit: Amran Noordin

By David Gurteen

Like Patrick Lambe, I loved this story of telling stories to hear stories. Only wish I had thought of it when my children were younger. It's a great technique - well actually its not a technique at all - that would soon be seen through and is manipulative. What it is really about, is treating the person you are talking to with as an equal; not talking down to them or patronizing them. When you do that then you can have a conversation of equals. When I see my teenage daughter after school I would often ask how her day went, whether anything interesting happened at school, and the standard response is often monosyllabic: yep, nup. In fact the more questions I’d ask the shorter the answers. So I changed tack and rather than ask questions I simply recounted something that happened in my day. I would launch into something like, “I met a bearded lady today. This morning I drove down to Fitzroy to run an anecdote circle for …” and immediately my daughter would respond with an encounter from her day. A conversation starts and it’s delightful.

Credit: Shawn Callahan Its also what I try to do in my knowledge cafes - ensure that everyone is an equal - there are no table leaders; no people nominated to report back. Everyone has an equal voice and this helps free up the conversational flow.

By David Gurteen

I was recently interviewed for a report The digital company 2013: Freedom to collaborate. being written by Kim Thomas for the Economist Intelligence Unit. Key findings:

• Technology knowledge will permeate the enterprise.
• Social networks will be common in the workplace, like it or not.
• Beware information paralysis.
• Digital tools will democratise access to information.
• Digital tools provide employees with greater control over the information they can access.
• IT will also need to loosen the reins.
• Ceding technology control will be good medicine.

You need to look hard to find the quote from me LOL!

By David Gurteen

I recently tweeted this talk of J.K. Rowling, author of the best-selling Harry Potter book series, delivering her Commencement Address, The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination, at the Annual Meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association.

Its a great address and I had several people who commented how much they enjoyed it. It was brought to my attention by Heather Davis - thank you Heather. Here is a quote from the transcript that Heather sent me: You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case, you fail by default.

Credit: J.K. Rowling Enjoy the video!

By David Gurteen

One the many barriers to knowledge sharing!

By David Gurteen

Do you still not understand all the fuss over Twitter. Took me a while also but the penny has recently dropped for Jay Cross. See what he has to say.

Twitter provides an instant, real-time connection to the people you want to be connected to.
Credit:: Jay Cross

By David Gurteen

I recently gave a keynote talk at KM Brasil titled "People 2.0: Working in a 2.0 World". I only got to take a few photos but you will find them here though many more here.

Here is a description of the talk and the slides. If you have seen my KM 2.0: KM goes social presentation then you will recognize the early slides but fast forward and you will find the new stuff. People 2.0: Working in a 2.0 World
David Gurteen, Gurteen Knowledge

KM and the world of work is on the brink of a profound transformation.

Driven by new technology, increasingly, we are no longer consumers: of goods, services or education - we are prosumers - we can now both produce and consume. We have the potential to be participants in everything and not the “victims”. The emerging 2.0 work place will reflect this and be a fundamentally participatory world.

We are moving from an organizational world where we were told to do things; where things were structured and planned for us to a world where managers and staff work more closely together to decide what to do and how to do it.

This has deep implications for KM and already we see a move towards Social KM or KM 2.0 where new social tools such as blogs and wikis put the power and responsibility for knowledge sharing in the hands of the individual.

But the real challenge is in people's mindsets - both managers and individuals. Managers need to stop trying to manipulate people and doing things to them and to take a more participatory approach. On the other hand, individuals need to open up and grasp the potential that the new tools and mindset offers them - to be more proactive; to take responsibility for their work; to innovative and to work in new ways. It’s about a change of mindset, attitudes and behaviors.

If the central question asked by managers in the KM 1.0 world was “How do we make people share?” the question of the KM 2.0 era is “How do we get things done by better sharing, learning and working together?” And is asked by everyone!

In this talk, David will explore what it means to live and work in a 2.0 business world; to be a 2.0 worker and indeed a 2.0 manager. And what we need to do to make it a reality.

By David Gurteen

I gave a talk, well in fact two talks, back to back, to about 150 librarians at the IFLA conference (IFLA: The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions) in Quebec City in early August. My first talk was KM2.0 KM goes Social and the second was a rerun of a talk I gave at actKM Conference in Canberra last year where I look at how I use social tools. You can find the slides in SlideShare.


My talks were the lead in to three shorter talks from Mary Lee Kennedy, Executive Director, Knowledge and Library Services (KLS), Harvard Business School; Moira Fraser, Parliamentary Librarian & Group Manager, Information & Knowledge, New Zealand Parliament and Patrick Danowski, Project Manager, Statsbibliotek su Berlin. All ably chaired by Jane Dysart.

We then broke out into a panel Q&A and discussion. There was a huge amount of interest in KM and social tools from the librarians in the room. I think everyone was pretty much trying to figure out how they could apply social tools in their own organizations. And of course the perennial question came up : "how do you measure the benefits of social tools?"

There were some answers from the panel but my answer was that there are basically two approaches: 1. Was the traditional - figure out your business outcomes and measure against those and 2. if you don't understand social tools and what they can do for you then there is no way you can measure the benefits. So experiment and pilot first. (There is a short article or blog posty brewing in my head on this!)

More on the IFLA conference: if you can read Dutch then a short article from Karolien Selhorst and a blog post from Jane Dysart on the Social KM and tools session. And some photos. Also IFLA has a very active KM Section.

By David Gurteen

Joe Firestone has been writing for some weeks on KM 2.0 and Knowledge Management and is now on part eleven of his missive.

In his travels he looks at the views of many different people and so if you are looking for a comprehensive overview of the state of thinking on KM 2.0 then this series of posts is well worth the read.

In part eleven, he gets around to my views!

By David Gurteen

Lucas McDonnell has some interesting comments on what I have to say on KM 2.0 and "2.0" in general.

I understand his concerns. I too was hesitant, at first, to apply the "2.0" moniker more widely to KM and other areas. But I have come to believe that although it all started with Web 2.0 and the new participatory technology and tools that it is not just about the technology and that we are moving to a "2.0 world" - a more participatory one.

I feel that far from devaluing the "2.0" concept - it expands it and makes it more powerful.

And of course I agree, 2.0 is not the answer to everything and brings as many new problems as it answers old ones. That's the nature of things!

Read my original article and Lucas McDonnells post and decide for yourself.

By David Gurteen

I always love to learn new things and often its the little things that excite me the most. When I am in Thailand I love the way people greet you by placing their hands together and giving a little bow and I started doing it myself although I did not fully appreciate the meaning or the tradition.

And then recently some one signed off their e-mail with the greeting: "Namaste". I was intrigued and went straight to Wikipedia to discern its meaning and was delighted with my find. Take a look at the 7 global meanings. Which one works best for you? For me its : "All that is best and highest in me greets/salutes all that is best and highest in you." or maybe "The Divinity within me perceives and adores the Divinity within you." The precise meaning does not matter and I like it that the word can mean slightly different things to different people. Its the intent behind it that I so love.


Namaste

By David Gurteen

Gauri likes my cake!

By David Gurteen

Dilbert so often hits the nail on the head!

By David Gurteen

Teleos, in association with The KNOW Network, has announced the 2008 regional Most Admired Knowledge Enterprises (MAKE) Finalists:

2008 Asian MAKE Finalists

2008 European MAKE Finalists

2008 North American MAKE Finalists

Teleos will announce the 2008 regional MAKE Winners in October and release the list of 2008 Global MAKE Finalists in September.

By David Gurteen

I had a conversation recently when I was in Indonesia - I don't recall whom it was with but the subject turned to motivation and the person I was talking to started to talk about the need for rewards and charismatic leaders and the like but I did not agree and when I got back to my hotel room - I listed some of the things that I think motivate people - they certainly motivate me!

• listen to them
• show them respect
• help them find their voice
• have conversations with them
• show genuine interest
• give them help and support
• engage with them
• trust them
• give them responsibility
• give them recognition
• give them opportunities for self fulfilment and personal development
• don't try to tell them what to do

Now the crunch: you don't deliberately do these things to motivate people - that's not motivation - that's manipulation. You do them because you genuinely care in their development. Its more akin to the love you might show for a son or daughter than anything else.

By David Gurteen

I recently came across this interview with Peter Taylor, research fellow and leader of the Participation, Power and Social Change Team of the Institute of Development Studies (University of Sussex). I love his ideas though that is hardly surprising given my own interest in the role of dialogue and participation in the transmission of knowledge. Here are a couple of quotes from the interview. My reason for wanting to see an integration of citizenship, sustainable development or multiculturalism in the curricula of universities is to enable people to learn in a way that is different from simply being passive recipients of preformed ideas. For me, education is about learning and learning is about change. So where we see the need for social change, for human and social development, which really is rooted in issues of rights, power and voice of people, then I think it is absolutely necessary for higher education to actually build the curricula upon these issues, not just to add them but actually to integrate them and use them as foundations for learning and teaching. A lot of educative curricula, especially in higher education, are still based on the idea of transmission of knowledge. In fact it is what Paulo Freire called “banking”, and it is still very common that university teachers provide information, that is to say, the idea of transferring knowledge from the expert to the passive recipient. For transformative education to take place there really needs to be a much more experiential form of learning, for people to actually engage in processes of change, to try things out from themselves, to address real world problems, and to realize that not all solutions can be found easily. And it’s when you start to ask the hard questions and grapple with some intractable problems that you begin, perhaps, to open up opportunities to learn in a different way.

By David Gurteen

Wikileaks - a document-leaking website has some amazing material that many people would rather wasn't shared! This is the power of the web for good or for bad. Its getting very difficult to keep secrets anymore. Take a look - there will be something there for you! I find the military manuals the most fascinating.

By David Gurteen

I recently created two Twitter feeds in addition to my regular one and received this email from my friend Lilly Evans. David,

Just a quick question re Twitter. You have created two other identities. Why? And, have you got any business from being on Twitter? Basically, what is the main benefit for you hanging in there?

Thanks Lilly This was my reply: Hi Lily,

Its not so much that I have 3 identities on Twitter more that I have created 3 Twitter feeds in addition to the 20 or so regular RSS Feeds that I support.

1. DavidGurteen is my personal feed that I use to keep people updated with where I am, what I am doing, thinking etc i.e. the traditional use of Twitter.

I embed this "what am I doing..." status on every page of my website so unlike many other twitterers I tend to only twitter once or twice a day and do not use the in-built Twitter messaging feature.

This status is also automatically displayed in FaceBook, Plaxo and other social tools like FriendFeed which is very useful for keeping people updated on what I am about.

2. GurteenQuotes - this starts out as an RSS feed that I generate from my website (where I have over 700 quotations stored) and feed through TwitterFeed to convert it from RSS to Twitter format. People can follow this (subscribe to it in RSS terms) and get a neat little quote from me each day.

A Lotus Notes agent does all the work here - only selecting those quotes in my database that are less than 140 characters and thus fit in the limited space allowed by Twitter.

3. GurteenNews - is similar to GurteenQuotes except that I post newsitems to my site and an agent releases one or two each day to an RSS feed that again gets turned into a Twitter feed via TwitterFeed.

I plan for most of these to be short hot items i.e. "Google releases Knol" along with a direct link to the announcement. When I come across such news items it takes me less than 30 seconds to post to my website and so the overhead is not high. Again a Lotus Notes agent running in the background takes care of all the detailed work.

As for money, I make no direct income from any of this but :

1. the cost and time of doing this is negligible and the feeds provide a valuable service to my community.

2. it helps build my network - people get to know me and visit my website; sign up for my knowledge letter; get to know me even better and this is how I get my work and ultimately my income.

3. also, by following people on Twitter I get to know them better and this helps me develop and build my relationships with them; additionally I get breaking news in near real time and lots of useful little insights to what is going on in the big wide world.

So the bottom line: I find the Twitter ROI high. I couldn't imagine life with out it!

I hope this helps!

Regards David

By David Gurteen

I just came across this article by Tom Davenport referring to an article on the KnowledgeBoard site in which supposedly IBM have stopped using the term Knowledge Management and have started to call to Knowledge Sharing as Knowledge Management implies command an control!

I understand the sentiment but it all seems rather silly to me - especially when KM is far more than just Knowledge Sharing. As I have argued for a long time - KM is not meant to be a descriptive term - its simply a LABEL, a NAME for a diverse collection of practices that seek to 'leverage' knowledge. But the IBM article is well worth a read as to my mind IBM really seem to have understood what KM is all about. See: IBM now sees organic and unimposed sharing as the biggest agent in the circulation of knowledge. Its stated strategy is to facilitate that sharing, not through any vertically integrated structure but through the empowerment of its many communities and individuals to network as openly and efficiently as possible.

Credit: KnowledgeBoard

By David Gurteen

Patrick Lambe recently interviewed Dave Snowden and Larry Prusak in Kuala Lumpur on the topic "Is Knowledge Management Dead?”. A great conversation and I think a "must watch" for all KMers.

Like Patrick, I believe that KM has not been irredeemably corrupted. To my mind, it is evolving rapidly under the impact of social tools and although it may be implemented differently and at times not even be called KM - it is still fundamentally unchanged as a discipline with similar goals and objectives.



In a conversation held in Kuala Lumpur on July 1st 2008, Larry Prusak, Dave Snowden and Patrick Lambe discuss the topic of whether KM is dead or dying, and what lies in store for it.