On Valentine's Day my company HyperEdge will be running a one-day seminar/workshop titled - "Effective Stakeholder Engagement and Evaluation Using Social Network Analysis and Narrative Techniques". Further details are below, or you can read the detail and register here .

Stakeholder Engagement Context

Research by Patterson et al. (2006) found that 80% of all large organisations fail to meet their planned business objectives. The same research suggests human practices and behaviours are at the root of the problems. More than a decade of research by the Standish Group suggests business success is contingent on many factors, including clear objectives and management buy-in. However, effective stakeholder engagement is the foremost success factor, and accounts for up to 60% of all other factors.

People work in a network of relationships. Research at the of University of Virginia's McIntire School of Commerce suggests effective stakeholder engagement is contingent on positive relationships. In turn relationships are contingent on a conversation that results in shared understanding, which may be different to agreement. If shared understanding is absent the results can be disastrous, and the business network compromised. On the other hand if you get it right the business outcomes can be spectacular.

Therefore it follows, that effective stakeholder management must address people dynamics, individual understanding, and expand existing business networks.

I've been holidaying in New Zealand for the past week, although I did give a presentation to the New Zealand Knowledge Management Network. I spent most of my time in and around Wellington, which meant that I did the mandatory Lord of the Rings tour. This tour got me thinking about the value of "knowledge". Why?

Well there was no doubt our guide was knowledgeable. What he didn't know about J.R. Tolkien, the Lord of the Rings trilogy of books, how and where the films were made, or Peter Jackson the film director, probably wasn't worth knowing. I certainly didn't want or need to know more! In fact his depth of knowledge on this narrow subject was astounding. For example he found linkages I hadn't appreciated, and in many cases didn't care about. It was all a bit much though when he started speaking Elvish . The guide was even telling me that people come on the tour and spend the whole day conversing exclusively in Elvish! I have enough trouble with English, and can barely speak Pidgin English and Hebrew both languages spoken by millions, let alone learning a synthetic language. So is Elvish a representation of knowledge, and if it is is it valuable?

Well this introduces the hoary old question of what is knowledge, but it also introduces the philosophical disciplines of ontology, epistemology and axiology. Ontology is the philosophy of the world view of reality. Sometimes, and in particular in the systems thinking schools, world view is called ‘weltanschauung'. The seminal ontological question is - ‘Is there a "real" world out there that is independent of our knowledge of it?'