The actKM08 – Managing for Competitive Advantage conference program is now available from the actKM website. I know this of course, because I was the one that put it on the website – although this doesn’t explain why its taken me near 24 hours to post about it – that has more to do with the vagaries of the life expectancies of wheel bearings.
Anyway, after the (almost surprising) success of last year’s conference, great things are expected this year, especially with the line up of presenters including Dave Gurteen, Dave Snowden, Dave Williams, as well as KM practitioners and theorists who aren’t named “Dave”. Also expect a lot of “2.0” in some for or another – Web 2.0, World 2.0, KM 2.0, etc. I wonder if all the 2.0 will ever get out of beta testing, although my perspective is that good 2.0 is almost synonymous with beta testing, since continuous improvement and refinement is always part of it.
Also at the conference will be the actKM Awards, which recognise excellence in knowledge-based work. Last year's winner was a real cracker, and a great anodyne to the focus on 2.0 and technology (remember, this is ME saying that!). The awards are open to any Australian organisation, and the process and criteria for nominations is available here. If you’ve been doing something and would like to get the word out, you should have look.
Showing posts with label conference. Show all posts
Showing posts with label conference. Show all posts
22 August 2008
23 May 2008
Why Dave Snowden Doesn't Know Who Shot JFK
Yesterday I spoke about the presentation on SharePoint implementation at the recent NSW KM Roundtable. Today I want to talk briefly about the second presentation, which was on storytelling.
Well, it was billed as being about storytelling, because that how the audience thought of it, I suspect. It was actually about narrative and how to use it to supplement existing business reporting. So of course, when we're talking about narrative & business in Australia, who better to have come in than Mark Schenk from Anecdote.
Mark kicked off with a new story (or at least, one I haven't heard before), which I enjoyed. I won't tell it - It'll probably turn up on the Anecdote site sooner or later, so keep an eye out for a new "bathroom" story. Then he presented the framework for narrative, the old Cynefin, and used this to build on how to use narrative in business. All good interesting, and well worth listening to.
Anyway, I was looking at the Cynefin framework, and in particular the complex domain. Its been often (and better) explained in other places and forums, but basically, a complex problem is one in which you can only really make sense of what happened after it happened. Mark mentioned the Canberra bushfires as an example of this. Before the fire, we Canbrites (as I was at the time, and possibly still am given my despair over the performance of the Brumbies this year) blithely went on with life, giving little regard to the obvious danger we were in. The danger, however, was only so glaringly obvious in retrospect. After the fires, we could see all the factors that made it clear that 400 hundred homes would be destroyed on that fateful Saturday. This phenomenon of only being able to make sense of something after the fact has its own wonderful term (several, actually, but I like this one): retrospective coherence. Looking at it though, I began to wonder, "Isn't that how you get conspiracy theories?". This wonderful ability of humans to see patterns in the events that occurr around us also gives rise to the issue of seeing patterns where there are none:
These are all acts of retrospective coherence - albeit flavoured with a little bit of cognitive bias, I would guess - but I wonder how you get around this when you are looking at complex problems.
I didn't have the chance to quiz Mark on this, as I didn't want to derail the line of questioning into something that was probably going to be more advanced than the audience was interested in. I'm curious though - where does understanding a complex problem end, and building a conspiracy theory begin? And how do you prevent one from becoming the other? Do you sometimes want to ensure that one does become the other?
Well, it was billed as being about storytelling, because that how the audience thought of it, I suspect. It was actually about narrative and how to use it to supplement existing business reporting. So of course, when we're talking about narrative & business in Australia, who better to have come in than Mark Schenk from Anecdote.
Mark kicked off with a new story (or at least, one I haven't heard before), which I enjoyed. I won't tell it - It'll probably turn up on the Anecdote site sooner or later, so keep an eye out for a new "bathroom" story. Then he presented the framework for narrative, the old Cynefin, and used this to build on how to use narrative in business. All good interesting, and well worth listening to.
Anyway, I was looking at the Cynefin framework, and in particular the complex domain. Its been often (and better) explained in other places and forums, but basically, a complex problem is one in which you can only really make sense of what happened after it happened. Mark mentioned the Canberra bushfires as an example of this. Before the fire, we Canbrites (as I was at the time, and possibly still am given my despair over the performance of the Brumbies this year) blithely went on with life, giving little regard to the obvious danger we were in. The danger, however, was only so glaringly obvious in retrospect. After the fires, we could see all the factors that made it clear that 400 hundred homes would be destroyed on that fateful Saturday. This phenomenon of only being able to make sense of something after the fact has its own wonderful term (several, actually, but I like this one): retrospective coherence. Looking at it though, I began to wonder, "Isn't that how you get conspiracy theories?". This wonderful ability of humans to see patterns in the events that occurr around us also gives rise to the issue of seeing patterns where there are none:
The World Trade Centre attacks were funded by the US Government,
there had to be a second shooter behind the grassy knoll,
global warning has already doomed all life on earth and governments are covering it up, etc.
These are all acts of retrospective coherence - albeit flavoured with a little bit of cognitive bias, I would guess - but I wonder how you get around this when you are looking at complex problems.
I didn't have the chance to quiz Mark on this, as I didn't want to derail the line of questioning into something that was probably going to be more advanced than the audience was interested in. I'm curious though - where does understanding a complex problem end, and building a conspiracy theory begin? And how do you prevent one from becoming the other? Do you sometimes want to ensure that one does become the other?
22 May 2008
SharePoint cures cancer, ends world hunger - still fails to help solve business problems
Well, its been a while. The focus of my work lately has been on content management/ web design stuff, and so my KM learnings have been lean for the past few months. Still, the show goes on.
Anyway, I attended the NSW KM Roundtable yesterday, which was quite interesting. There was a presentation on SharePoint implementation, which wasn't bad, but was predicated on being given the choice of a range of solutions, and picking SP as the one you want. Nothing wrong with that, and more power to people that have the ability and the freedom to do that. What I probably wanted to hear, though, was success stories from people on to whom SP is foisted because their IT area purchased, and then told other areas that they had to use a SP solution for whatever their business need is.
My concern with SP has always been that it is very powerful tool, which can do just about anything that would be required by end users in your standard IT infrastructure, which is great. The problem with that is, for almost all functions, SP ranges from crap to average. EDMS - crap. Blogging - average. Content publishing - average to OK. Content management - average to crap. Wikis - crap. So of course, Sp has the power to convince people that these initiatives are too hard or deliver too little value, not realising that this is the fault of the system, not the idea. This is all aside from the fact that it locks you into a Microsoft solution for everything else, despite what it says on the box (and too be fair to MS, I don't think that's wrong - its not up to the vendor to throw away a competitive advantage to make life easier for you - you have to make them do it).
The driver here, I guess, is one of my favourite and enjoyable irritations - the command and control IT function. This is the practice of an IT area getting enough power to force a solution down everyone else's throat, then use that to leverage even more power by tyrannically controlling what can and can't be used. The IT departments that operate this way better wake up and smell the 21st century (the same way that 'Libraries' have to wake up and smell the 20th Century, and realise that just slapping up a few databases on a website to supplement loaning out books is the fast train to being closed - I'm looking at you Australian corporate libraries!).
If I have a Blackberry, Skype, mobile broadband, and remote access to my work files (and none of these things is particularly expensive - I could do the whole lot for less than $60 a month as well as use them for personal stuff), then I can basically bypass whatever IT solution they roll-out and use whatever the hell I want to do my work, that makes me the most productive.
Ultimately, and going back to the presentation at KMRt, I say if you go out and select SP because its the best match for supporting your business function, well done. I think you've already done better than most by deciding to look for a piece of tech based on a business function. If, however, you go out and buy SP because it makes it easiest to support your IT infrastructure, and expect the business functions to just adapt to it, well then, I hope you get a thrill out of being despised. And don't try to flog it as a solution to a problem just because you've been told it can (say for example, that SharePoint can be you "KM Solution"). I can use my butter-knife as a screwdriver, but that's only because I don't have access to a screwdriver, and I don't need to do a good job, and don't mind having to re-do the work in a few months time. Is that what you really want to do for your KM program (or corporate governance, or records management). SharePoint is good at what its designed to do, but it wasn't designed to do all that much.
A little rambling (what can I say - I'm out of practice), but there you go. I'll blog a little later on the second presentation, and the implications it had for understanding who really shot JFK.
Anyway, I attended the NSW KM Roundtable yesterday, which was quite interesting. There was a presentation on SharePoint implementation, which wasn't bad, but was predicated on being given the choice of a range of solutions, and picking SP as the one you want. Nothing wrong with that, and more power to people that have the ability and the freedom to do that. What I probably wanted to hear, though, was success stories from people on to whom SP is foisted because their IT area purchased, and then told other areas that they had to use a SP solution for whatever their business need is.
My concern with SP has always been that it is very powerful tool, which can do just about anything that would be required by end users in your standard IT infrastructure, which is great. The problem with that is, for almost all functions, SP ranges from crap to average. EDMS - crap. Blogging - average. Content publishing - average to OK. Content management - average to crap. Wikis - crap. So of course, Sp has the power to convince people that these initiatives are too hard or deliver too little value, not realising that this is the fault of the system, not the idea. This is all aside from the fact that it locks you into a Microsoft solution for everything else, despite what it says on the box (and too be fair to MS, I don't think that's wrong - its not up to the vendor to throw away a competitive advantage to make life easier for you - you have to make them do it).
The driver here, I guess, is one of my favourite and enjoyable irritations - the command and control IT function. This is the practice of an IT area getting enough power to force a solution down everyone else's throat, then use that to leverage even more power by tyrannically controlling what can and can't be used. The IT departments that operate this way better wake up and smell the 21st century (the same way that 'Libraries' have to wake up and smell the 20th Century, and realise that just slapping up a few databases on a website to supplement loaning out books is the fast train to being closed - I'm looking at you Australian corporate libraries!).
If I have a Blackberry, Skype, mobile broadband, and remote access to my work files (and none of these things is particularly expensive - I could do the whole lot for less than $60 a month as well as use them for personal stuff), then I can basically bypass whatever IT solution they roll-out and use whatever the hell I want to do my work, that makes me the most productive.
Ultimately, and going back to the presentation at KMRt, I say if you go out and select SP because its the best match for supporting your business function, well done. I think you've already done better than most by deciding to look for a piece of tech based on a business function. If, however, you go out and buy SP because it makes it easiest to support your IT infrastructure, and expect the business functions to just adapt to it, well then, I hope you get a thrill out of being despised. And don't try to flog it as a solution to a problem just because you've been told it can (say for example, that SharePoint can be you "KM Solution"). I can use my butter-knife as a screwdriver, but that's only because I don't have access to a screwdriver, and I don't need to do a good job, and don't mind having to re-do the work in a few months time. Is that what you really want to do for your KM program (or corporate governance, or records management). SharePoint is good at what its designed to do, but it wasn't designed to do all that much.
A little rambling (what can I say - I'm out of practice), but there you go. I'll blog a little later on the second presentation, and the implications it had for understanding who really shot JFK.
24 October 2007
actKM 2007 - Day 1
I just came back from the conference dinner (congratulations to the winners of the Gold Cultural Award), and have hurriedly collected my thoughts enough to write a little about my experiences of day one.
The presentations are available on the actKM website. Click here to go straight to the table of presentations.
Overall
It would be very easy - and I have to entertain the possibility that it might also be correct - to write off my enthusiasm and enjoyment of Day 1 as being biased on account of my involvement with actKM. But I think that I'm being fairly objective when I say that Day 1 was great. It started off with some controversy - though I agreed with the concept behind the proposition - and provided a good mix of presentations versus activities.
I really think that the mix was right for this approach, and that the number of participants is really conducive to making this work. Less, and you wouldn't be able to generate the interactivity, and more would stifle it in some quarters. If even I feel that I networked my arse off, there must be something right about the way things are being done!
Presentations
Presentation 1 - Patrick Lambe
Interesting first presentation from Patrick Lambe, on why knowledge managers should be sued. My take home message from it was that basically, knowledge managers need to be doing their job like their life - literally - depended on it. There were a few challenges from the audience, which was good, but I certainly thought Patrick presented a few arguments worth considering.He also presented some figures in response to a survey he was doing that suggested that - as bad as I think my involvement in the KM world is - perhaps I shouldn't complain, since the situation in Australia on average is even worse. Still, I like to complain, and since things should be better, I think I'll stick to it.
A very good start to the conference.
Presentation 2 - Dave Gurteen
This was great, as I finally got to participate in a knowledge cafe. To me, the novelty of the cafe as opposed to standard workshopping, is the definition of a successful outcome. Dave focused on this in his presentation on how cafes work - that the real value for the individual lies in the conversations, not in presenting a summary to the group that goes on a piece of butchers paper and hangs on a wall, to be later transcribed and distributed to the participants, at which point its value has been mostly lost.
The cafe itself was great - my initial feeling was that this was because I was at a good table - but then we had a larger conversation with all the tables, and I quickly realised that the entire group of attendees was good. My suspicion in the end is that - if you pose the right question - that the conversation will be of value almost irrespective of the participants, because you would have the freedom to direct conversation to the area of interest to you.
Presentation 3 - Luke Naismith and Richard Vines
After months of reading about Karl Popper and his 3 worlds, but not really understanding it, I'll be forever grateful to Luke and Richard for finally presenting this ... welterschleng? - in a way I (think) I could understand. The emphasis of this presentation was to populate a biological view of knowledge using Popper's worlds to tie together personal knowledge, organisational knowledge and the interactions in between. Some of the concepts expressed are still beyond me, I must admit, but since I came out of this presentation understanding more than I went in - and that understanding was of something I had been trying to wrap my head around for months, I'll take the small epiphany facilitated by this presentation as being well worth it.
Presentation 4 - Laurie Lock Lee
I'm still actually processing some of Laurie's presentation/activity, so it’s difficult to evaluate it just yet. Even so, this was one of 2 presentations that left me thinking that there was work for me to do away from the conference, both in terms of learning to be done, and tips to take on board. A lot of the presentation was focused on social network analysis, which I never really cottoned on to, not because I don't think its valuable, but I could never really see a way it was valuable to me. Laurie may not have changed my mind on this, but his presentation has me questioning my assumptions, and left me wanting to do a bit of personal exploration. Perhaps not the intention, but very valuable nonetheless.
Watch this space as I re-develop my thinking in this area - I'm certain I'll return to this topic again soon.
Presentation 5 - Troy Mallie
I think I speak for a fair majority of the attendees when I say "wow"! While enjoyed all the presentations today, this one had me the most emotionally involved by far. A real contrast to Patrick's assertion that knowledge managers aren't doing as well as they should be, Troy may very well be the exception that proves the rule. The work that is being done on Indigenous knowledge has been of interest me for several years, since I was first made aware of the Indigenous Knowledge Centres, but to see the power that can be derived from doing knowledge right was just amazing.
I think the conference really demonstrated its value here. I'm just not sure that this presentation would be accepted to a large KM conference, and that is a disturbing thought when you consider how important it is to see KM being done right.
Presentation 6 - Arthur Shelley and Patrick Lambe
I had fun with this. After getting ideas for short, fun knowledge sharing activities, we then put a few into practice. Not being the best networker in the world, I was a bit hesitant about the speed dating, but - for me - I did pretty well, and had some interesting conversations. There were some really fun ideas from this, I hope that I'll have the opportunity to share some of the, by putting them up on the actKM Knowledgebase.
The presentations are available on the actKM website. Click here to go straight to the table of presentations.
Overall
It would be very easy - and I have to entertain the possibility that it might also be correct - to write off my enthusiasm and enjoyment of Day 1 as being biased on account of my involvement with actKM. But I think that I'm being fairly objective when I say that Day 1 was great. It started off with some controversy - though I agreed with the concept behind the proposition - and provided a good mix of presentations versus activities.
I really think that the mix was right for this approach, and that the number of participants is really conducive to making this work. Less, and you wouldn't be able to generate the interactivity, and more would stifle it in some quarters. If even I feel that I networked my arse off, there must be something right about the way things are being done!
Presentations
Presentation 1 - Patrick Lambe
Interesting first presentation from Patrick Lambe, on why knowledge managers should be sued. My take home message from it was that basically, knowledge managers need to be doing their job like their life - literally - depended on it. There were a few challenges from the audience, which was good, but I certainly thought Patrick presented a few arguments worth considering.He also presented some figures in response to a survey he was doing that suggested that - as bad as I think my involvement in the KM world is - perhaps I shouldn't complain, since the situation in Australia on average is even worse. Still, I like to complain, and since things should be better, I think I'll stick to it.
A very good start to the conference.
Presentation 2 - Dave Gurteen
This was great, as I finally got to participate in a knowledge cafe. To me, the novelty of the cafe as opposed to standard workshopping, is the definition of a successful outcome. Dave focused on this in his presentation on how cafes work - that the real value for the individual lies in the conversations, not in presenting a summary to the group that goes on a piece of butchers paper and hangs on a wall, to be later transcribed and distributed to the participants, at which point its value has been mostly lost.
The cafe itself was great - my initial feeling was that this was because I was at a good table - but then we had a larger conversation with all the tables, and I quickly realised that the entire group of attendees was good. My suspicion in the end is that - if you pose the right question - that the conversation will be of value almost irrespective of the participants, because you would have the freedom to direct conversation to the area of interest to you.
Presentation 3 - Luke Naismith and Richard Vines
After months of reading about Karl Popper and his 3 worlds, but not really understanding it, I'll be forever grateful to Luke and Richard for finally presenting this ... welterschleng? - in a way I (think) I could understand. The emphasis of this presentation was to populate a biological view of knowledge using Popper's worlds to tie together personal knowledge, organisational knowledge and the interactions in between. Some of the concepts expressed are still beyond me, I must admit, but since I came out of this presentation understanding more than I went in - and that understanding was of something I had been trying to wrap my head around for months, I'll take the small epiphany facilitated by this presentation as being well worth it.
Presentation 4 - Laurie Lock Lee
I'm still actually processing some of Laurie's presentation/activity, so it’s difficult to evaluate it just yet. Even so, this was one of 2 presentations that left me thinking that there was work for me to do away from the conference, both in terms of learning to be done, and tips to take on board. A lot of the presentation was focused on social network analysis, which I never really cottoned on to, not because I don't think its valuable, but I could never really see a way it was valuable to me. Laurie may not have changed my mind on this, but his presentation has me questioning my assumptions, and left me wanting to do a bit of personal exploration. Perhaps not the intention, but very valuable nonetheless.
Watch this space as I re-develop my thinking in this area - I'm certain I'll return to this topic again soon.
Presentation 5 - Troy Mallie
I think I speak for a fair majority of the attendees when I say "wow"! While enjoyed all the presentations today, this one had me the most emotionally involved by far. A real contrast to Patrick's assertion that knowledge managers aren't doing as well as they should be, Troy may very well be the exception that proves the rule. The work that is being done on Indigenous knowledge has been of interest me for several years, since I was first made aware of the Indigenous Knowledge Centres, but to see the power that can be derived from doing knowledge right was just amazing.
I think the conference really demonstrated its value here. I'm just not sure that this presentation would be accepted to a large KM conference, and that is a disturbing thought when you consider how important it is to see KM being done right.
Presentation 6 - Arthur Shelley and Patrick Lambe
I had fun with this. After getting ideas for short, fun knowledge sharing activities, we then put a few into practice. Not being the best networker in the world, I was a bit hesitant about the speed dating, but - for me - I did pretty well, and had some interesting conversations. There were some really fun ideas from this, I hope that I'll have the opportunity to share some of the, by putting them up on the actKM Knowledgebase.
12 October 2007
actKM Conference 2007
Just a quick plug/reminder that the actKM Conference is being held in Canberra, in just over a week from now. This year, the conference also has a number of un-conference activities, as a way of providing some hands-on experience for practitioners in the workings of some cutting-edge methodologies. My experience of previous conferences is that it is a lot less formal than other KM conferences, and provides a lot of opportunities to meet and talk with other practitioners.
26 August 2007
KM in the News
I came across an article from telegraph.co.uk looking at management fads, and KM got a mention. I was particularly interested in this paragraph:
The article places the emphasis on the technology side of KM, while also mentioning that "[s]ome knowledge management is cultural", which places the above paragraph in a neat context. The interest to me here is the perception of KM outside the domain of KM theorists and practitioners, as essentially an IT-driven process.
I'm of the firm opinion that this perception that this article has the idea barse-ackwards, but my opinion doesn't matter. Clearly, more needs to be done to promote the importance of knowledge-sharing culture within organisations, rather than the systems that support it - which are often crucial, but not the deciding factor.
Basically, the best IT system available may have no impact on KM outcomes. Most of the really good KM initiatives I have seen over the years have come not from brining in a new system to solve the problem, but from using existing systems to make cultural changes.
This was well demonstrated at the recent KM Australia conference, with the presentation that impressed me the most over the 2 days - Cheryl Walker's experiences of building k-sharing culture at National Australia Bank. Having worked for 2 of the big 4 banks in Australia in the past 10 years, my regard for the organisation and the way it supported it staff was not good, so I was expecting much. Instead, I was blown away by how much Cheryl was achieving with the small resourcing she had available. No new technology platforms, no major IT investment, but still getting results.
Such experiences are the ones that give me the most hope.
The general idea of knowledge management is hard to argue with. Few do. It's still broadly in favour. However, many knowledge management schemes put in by different companies have come under attack for being needlessly complex, and for saving too much useless information.
The article places the emphasis on the technology side of KM, while also mentioning that "[s]ome knowledge management is cultural", which places the above paragraph in a neat context. The interest to me here is the perception of KM outside the domain of KM theorists and practitioners, as essentially an IT-driven process.
I'm of the firm opinion that this perception that this article has the idea barse-ackwards, but my opinion doesn't matter. Clearly, more needs to be done to promote the importance of knowledge-sharing culture within organisations, rather than the systems that support it - which are often crucial, but not the deciding factor.
Basically, the best IT system available may have no impact on KM outcomes. Most of the really good KM initiatives I have seen over the years have come not from brining in a new system to solve the problem, but from using existing systems to make cultural changes.
This was well demonstrated at the recent KM Australia conference, with the presentation that impressed me the most over the 2 days - Cheryl Walker's experiences of building k-sharing culture at National Australia Bank. Having worked for 2 of the big 4 banks in Australia in the past 10 years, my regard for the organisation and the way it supported it staff was not good, so I was expecting much. Instead, I was blown away by how much Cheryl was achieving with the small resourcing she had available. No new technology platforms, no major IT investment, but still getting results.
Such experiences are the ones that give me the most hope.
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