I ran a lunchtime session at the National School of Government on Friday, and used the video below to illustrate that knowledge management is an oxymoron. It's really about managing (creating, nurturing, protecting, supporting, technologically enabling) the environment for knowledge sharing - not attempting the impossible cat-herding task of managing what's in the heads of individuals... More detailed comment from me on this topic on the Uncommon Knowledge Blog. Meanwhile, here's that video - an oldie, but goodie! [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SmgLtg1Izw]
Lonely Hearts...
I wrote 50 Valentine cards today. Actually that's a lie - 51 in total, if you include the one for my wife.
In a moment of madness I offered to follow-up on an "offers and requests" process at a recent meeting of the Henley KM Forum looking at the topic of Collaboration. The participants had just finished a post-it note exercise, identifying their needs and offerings on a set of flipcharts. It's hard to keep the momentum going, even with a good network like this one, once people have left the room.
So... I spent today matching up people "who have something to share" with people who have "something to learn". Seeing as tomorrow is a day for matchmaking, we're sending each of the potential "knowledge dates" a personalised electronic Valentine card like this mock-up - but with their photos. (With apologies to Cilla Black and Leonardo!).
There's a lot of KM and networking insights to be drawn from Dating agencies...
Seven deadly syndromes...
Those nice people at KM Review have put one of my articles up for general viewing by the non-paying public - thanks Alex! http://www.melcrum.com/articles/barriers_to_km.shtml
Here's a recent one on the seven deadly syndromes which reduce knowledge sharing in organisations. Anyone care to raise the stakes from seven?
Word association...
Funny what you come across when you search for yourself in Technorati (Narcissist? Moi?). Here's an unlikely post from Dr Grumble's blog, which picks up on the metaphors I used in a recent presentation to the NHS. Dr Grumble wasn't there, but he discovered the slides and blogged them anyway. http://drgrumble.blogspot.com/2006/12/tall-poppies-toppling-cranes-and-nudist.html
So now I'm tagged with nudist beaches and tall poppies. Looking forward to the spam that that will generate!