All in knowledge management
Sharon Richardson at Joining Dots had a piece on "Investing in knowledge" a few weeks ago. Sharon provides a suggestion for how to think about how an organization values knowledge and where current projects fall with respect to people, information and data.
Malcolm Ryder has another great essay on KM, this time "How Not To K.O. KM." I can't help but appreciate the way Malcolm synthesizes what has to happen in the world around the worker for "knowledge management" to be successful.
Dale H. Emery defines Information as "Data that reduces uncertainty." I particularly like the link to uncertainty because most people don't like dealing with uncertainty in making decisions.
In "Social Software: Knowledge Management Redux?" Mike Gotta draws the connection between knowledge management and social software that I have seen as well.
Dave Chu has proposed an Organizational Knowledge Model, where Organizational knowledge results from processes that enable people to transform information.
Bill Brantley has written a paper that combines knowledge management and theory of constraints, "Strategic Knowledge Management: Using the Theory of Constraints for Better Knowledge Management." Rather than designing a KM system to scratch an itch in the organization, Bill suggests that KM is best used in support of the strategic process for the organization.
Ton Zijlstra writes his viewpoint that relationships are more valuable than information exchange. And that social software helps build the relationships, overlaid with the transitory exchange of information.
Day 2 of KM in the Modern Law Firm is over, and it closed out with more energy than yesterday. There were three sessions today: Is KM morphing into Practice Support, KM and Professional Development, and a brainstorming session on Making KM client-facing.
The first day of KM in the Modern Law Firm is over, and I found myself fairly comfortable, even though I'm not a lawyer. The KM topics discussed today looked at deeper integration of KM (and information management) into the firm; life cycle management of information central to the business of the firm; the cultural concerns with implementing KM-like changes; and what KM can do as the firm looks outside (the panel on which I participated).
Bill Brantley has a nice writeup of a "TOC Analysis of Technology" based on the Goldratt audio book, Beyond the Goal. The key idea is that technology is beneficial if and only if it diminishes a limitation.
At the non-billable hour, guest-writer Ron Baker says "Attorneys Aren't Knowledge Workers," based on comments of his colleague, Dan Morris. This is a great set of thoughts about knowledge work and follows very much on the original idea of knowledge workers by Peter Drucker: companies need knowledge workers more than they need the company.
I have been interviewed by the Knowledge Management Center, a Chinese KM group, based in Beijing. The connection was made through one of my students at Northwestern.
Danny Ayers found an entertaining quote on delegation by Dan Connolly, "formalizing knowledge allows us to delegate tasks to the machine." This is one of those hidden fears about knowledge managent, but it need not be.
One of the big ideas for me in a personal approach to knowledge management is that I get to consider what's important for me and how I want to manage and use it. I get to look at my skills and preferences and consider how this fits with where I am in life, so why not apply this to the job search process.
A commonly-discussed problem in knowledge management implementations is the issue of knowledge hoarding, generally associated with the idea of "knowledge is power." Kaye Vivian sees this as a myth.
Jeffrey Phillips picked up on the WSJ article "Companies Struggle To Pass On Knowledge That Workers Acquire" and goes onto talk about some of the barriers for traditional KM, focusing on critical mass.
"Sharing Knowledge by Design - Building Intellectual Capital in a Virtual World" by Nancy Settle-Murphy and Stan Garfield. The authors provide a set of ten ideas on how to build knowledge-sharing into the fabric of teams and into the organization as a whole. The focus is on growing the capacity for knowledge sharing in the organization, rather than on any specific KM technologies.
Oren Harari responds to an Economist article with "Knowledge Workers (That's Us!) Need a New Organization." Oren is particularly interested in the juxtaposition between what knowledge workers need and how companies approach it.
Kaye Vivian has written up a list of concerns that managers have voiced over many conversations in her organization: "Managers Look at the Risks of KM." It's a great (or scary) list of barriers and concerns that need to be addressed for any big change project.
The next KM Chicago meeting will be 14 Feburary, at it's normal time from 5-7 pm. The topic is "KM in the Asia-Pacific region."