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Jane Dysart posted this in Conferences, Lib, IM, KM on September 10th, 2011 I agree with Bill Kaplan of Working Knowledge CSP (Concept, Strategy, Practice), long time KM practitioner and consultant. On a recent forum discussion he said, “ I believe KM is about improving performance at the individual, team and organization level. As such, it is about (1) enabling an ability to make better business or operational (mission) decisions based on what you know about what you do, (2) to solve problems or address challenges with existing knowledge, and (3) creating new knowledge to solve new problems or challenges. For private sector CEOs, CFOs and other accountable business leaders and also the public sector leadership who get it, and whose existence, and perhaps business and sometimes personal lives may depend on a rapid ability to leverage their knowledge (information + experience), in the end, they will tell you we shouldn’t confuse effort with results … and who cares what it is called.”
The term knowledge management means something different to almost everyone, in my opinion. I like to think of it as Bill does — sharing knowledge to improve performance, make better decisions, enable learning,problem-solving, innovation. This year’s KMWorld 2011, Nov 1-3 in DC has the theme, Networked Enterprises: Empowered to Share & Apply Knowledge, and is filled with practical tips and techniques for doing just that — sharing knowledge for bottom line performance improvement. Check out the high-powered speakers, practictioners and thought leaders. Register and join us for learning conversations, in-depth workshops, and lots of networking with colleagues. After all as Bill says, “it’s
Continue reading KM: The practical side!
Jane Dysart posted this in Learning on May 23rd, 2011 Learning is what humans do, whether it’s early learning from family, school learning from teachers and professors, self development or personal and lifelong learning through reading, viewing, listening, or watching. But we all need encouragement on the learning journey. I am blessed that my mother, a former elementary school teacher, instilled in me a curiosity and courage to learn and ask questions . Who else would go up to a nun in formal attire when they were 3 and ask, “Are you a penguin?” I have encouraged, I think, many people in my career. One close friend who was a one time was afraid to cold call people on the telephone and today is a worldwide thought leader and sought-after speaker. The other day, I was a conference, and during a table discussion heard a great process described. When it came time for the tables to share with the larger group, the person who shared this process hung back, and I encouraged her to speak up. She did and the whole audience was interested and conference leaders connected her with another attendee who really wanted to know more about her process. It takes so little to encourage others and give them the courage to speak up, share, and achieve. That’s what networking, mentoring, and caring are all about. Who have you encouraged today?
Rebecca Jones posted this in Conferences, Featured on August 27th, 2010 Information Today has redesigned its Taxonomy Boot Camp site, and networked with LinkedIn. This boutique conference holds its own in this economy as it brings together those working on taxonomies, metadata, repositories and any way to harness and organize information. They come from libraries, corporate environments, government departments and professional services to gather in Washington, DC this year November 15-16 —- cleverly co-located with KMWorld, Enterprise Search Summit and SharePoint Symposium.
Jane Dysart posted this in Conferences, Learning, Lib, IM, KM on August 12th, 2010 At IFLA‘s opening ceremonies, Jan Eliasson, former President of the United Nations General Assembly and Minister for Foreign Affairs for Sweden, talked about communication and access to information in a globalized world. He began by noting that the room here in his native city, was a reminder of the UN with the world in Gothenburg. [There are 3,334 registrants at the IFLA 2010 conference from 128 countries.] The city and his family gave him roots – stability & a sense of direction, and wings – a sense of adventure, discovery and search for knowledge. He has a respect for knowledge, a motivation to learn, and a fascination with the word. He used words in his job at the UN to mediate conflict resolutions and peaceful settlements. He described words as rich assets in problem solving, as tools; and if you have a big toolbox you can solve problems. Some quotes from Jan Eliasson: “words are action”; “knowledge is the strongest engine for development”; “Information is power and the key to direction for individuals and society”; “access to knowledge is unfairly distributed”; “No peace without development and vice versa, no development without peace, and no lasting peace or sustainable development without respect of human life”; “knowledge is a crucial part of human rights pillar and peace” He quoted the first paragraph of Bertand Russell’s 3 volume autobiography emphasizing the three passions the ruled his life: longing for love, search for knowledge, pity for suffering of mankind. His most tweeted comment
Continue reading The Power of the Word: Solving Problems
admin posted this in Leadership on May 20th, 2010 For months I’ve been mulling the similarities of the information profession to other professions. Having worked in HR and IT, I know how much we can learn from other professions, situations and perspectives. The 3 professions I keep sort of “circling to view” are HR, IT (no surprise) and medicine. HR and IT are, like the information profession, usually support and service functions that regularly grapple with the language they use (not always understood by clients or decision-makers) and with their position or value perception in their academic, school, public, corporate or government environment. Compare the programs for an IT or HR-related conference and you’ll be amazed at the similarities to a library, RM or KM conference.
So why do I also look at medicine? A while ago I blogged about a fabulous article by “The Inward Journey of Leadership,” in the Journal of Surgical Research, April 2006 by Dr. Wiley Souba. I’m now following his regular writings on leadership in medicine because, as it turns out – ah ha! – many in the medical profession, just like many in the information profession, prefer to do “the work” rather than the managing or leading. And, if we read and explore the insights of other professions, like medicine, our viewpoints widen and deepen.
Atul Gawande, teaches at Harvard Medical School and writes for The New Yorker. He’s recently published “The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right.” He looked at other professions, like pilots, who use checklists constantly in their roles to
Continue reading Checklist Manifesto for Information Professionals?
Jane Dysart posted this in Conferences on February 22nd, 2010 What a great idea, the Human Library. I’m so pleased to be participating in the Human Library @ OLA as the “Networking Librarian” on Thursday morning Feb 25th at 10 am at the Ontario Library Association Super Conference at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. Come join me. Here’s the idea:
The Human Library in its initial form is a mobile library set up as a space for dialogue and interaction. Visitors to the Human Library are given the opportunity to speak informally with “people on loan”; this latter group being extremely varied in age, sex and cultural background.
With these principles in mind, OLA is featuring a career focus for conference delegates who wish to borrow a Living Book. The purpose is to encourage open discussion about interesting, unusual, or leadership career positions with a view to: exploring and expanding the scope of career opportunities for people to consider, and debunking stereotypes (good or bad) associated with career paths (let’s face it – we have them!). The delegates may be students developing their career ambitions, or seasoned professionals who are intrigued by the career path you have taken.
Delegates will be informed of our loan policy: “please remember that all Living Books have kindly volunteered to be lent out as examples of some intriguing career paths. They must be returned to us in the same condition, as they were in at the time of check-out. You are encouraged to ask questions and share your own point of view, but
Continue reading Human Library @ OLA
Rebecca Jones posted this in Uncategorized on November 18th, 2009 There’s no tougher time slot to speak in at a conference than that dreaded “post lunch.” Humour & good story telling always helps. And that’s what Susan Reisinger & Gregor McLeod brought as they presented “Tools for Knowledge-sharing: Wiki Success Case Study for the US Navy’s Global Distance Support Centre. Imagine for a moment trying to implement technology to deploy highly sensitive information in an extraordinarily security conscious environment — oh, with no budget. And, that the information may be about how to move a cat from one country to another, or it may be about informing next of kin that their family member is deceased. Oh — and that many of the influencers in the organization have “tribal knowledge” and have been chiefs who held that information. Those information holders know quite a bit, and they know who to know & who does know. You definitely want them on board (no pun intended.)
The platform chosen had to have an easy access and easy to use, & allow ppl to attach documents; it had to have a training application, as well as a way to relay and highlight new, hot information – and threads for discussions. The wiki supports 20 ppl working in the call centre that are responding to the requests of more than 250,000 ppl. Wow.
The answer? the wiki — a commercial wiki was free, with access controlled via the internet. It met all the criteria, plus it could be customized by any call centre to
Continue reading KMWorld: Using a wiki for km in high security & low budget
Rebecca Jones posted this in Lib, IM, KM on November 17th, 2009 Kiho Sohn, Chief Knowledge Officer for Pratt Whitney Rocketdyne raised an interesting question: why, at KM conferences, do we talk about innovation, but at innovation conferences there’s no mention of KM? Hm….. at PWR the expertise is in-house — not too many other companies are designing rocket engines. So they’ve concentrated on helping employees generate ideas that lead to solutions — and out of this they’ve developed many new patents, using the TRIZ method within a 2 day innovation workshop.
TRIZ is founded by a Russian scientist — the practitioners of TRIZ will say it’s the greatest method out there. It relies on a semantics-based technology which has the logic built in. While listening to Kiho, I checked out TRIZ on wikipedia – TRIZ is the theory of solving inventor’s problems” or “The theory of inventor’s problem solving”. It was developed by a Soviet engineer and researcher Genrich Altshuller and his colleagues starting in 1946. It has been evolving ever since.
Interesting – I’m going to follow-up with Kiho after today’s sessions to get a better understanding.
Kiho Sohn overview of innovation process at KMWorld 2009
Rebecca Jones posted this in Uncategorized on November 17th, 2009 Gordon Vala-Webb’s (Nat’l Director, KM, PriceWaterhouseCoopers Canada) session on Knowledge Sharing Using Social media Tools in the Enterprise has already given me some pause for thought…..he’s talking about the difference between networking and collaborating in a team/work environment. Hm…..it makes perfect sense, as Gordon would, I just hadn’t thought about it. When ppl network, they do so voluntarily, and the actual outcome of their networking is unknown. But when they collaborate in a work environment, they aren’t doing so as volunteers and the output is the end goal. Those are very different starting points for people, and drive their behaviours. There’s a difference between team work and net work.
So what? Well, the issues today that clients want help with require a very broad perspective & broad network; yet ppl won’t net work at work & express their opinions if they don’t feel safe to do so. I picture ppl on a highwire with a “net” to save them if they fall off. Is that a metaphor for net working on the wire, or wireless, as the case may be?
“Ambient Awareness” Gordon says, is really the need to have some sense of what else is out there in order to connect when needed. That’s net working. Email is still the #1 social collaborative tool in all organizations — I’d say beyond organizations too, but I may be wrong. Team collaboration spaces have only a 14% adoption rate — and that’s for all age groups. why? these spaces are obviously
Continue reading KMWorld: Gordon Vala-Webb – net work is not team work
Rebecca Jones posted this in Learning on November 17th, 2009 Next session at KMWorld 2009, with Tracy Conn and Kathy Valderrama discussing the experience of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland with lessons learned (LL). Banks are notoriously conservative culture where ‘mistakes’ aren’t usually widely shared. But they started the KM work in 2000 with after action reviews, looking for improvement opportunities. But they found cynicism growing and the experience was pretty negative — not what they really wanted to achieve. It also wasn’t connected to their core business of examining banks.
So, in 2005 they began to formalize their approach, and then, as is so often the case, a senior vp asked if new hires were being made aware of a case where a bank had failed in 2000. That’s how it happens, isn’t it? A senior voice asks the right question.
Kathy & Tracy tell a good story — and that’s the approach they adopted with LL: they tell stories; they involved as many ppl as possible in interviews, with a facilitator to guide the process (using appreciative approach – yeah!), ask the questions & probe a bit; the interviews are recorded & the project managers set the context for the situation being discussed. They not only talk about the problems encountered, but the solutions used – or what they wish they’d used –& then on-going follow-up and advice to future teams.
They also created some Balance Scorecard metrics. That’s a lot! phew! Developing the process took them about 6 months & introduced the process at a department
Continue reading Bringing new hires up to speed with embedded training
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