THE GURTEEN KNOWLEDGE-LETTER (ISSUE 8, 16 JANUARY 2001)
=======================================================
Welcome to the new year and the eighth issue of the Gurteen
Knowledge-Letter. For those of you who regularly visit my web site,
I have created an additional page that dynamically displays the new
and modified pages during the last month. There is a link from the
home page called "Recent Updates" or you can follow the link below.
You will also notice that "new" and "updated" icons are shown against
the page links on all page lists on the site.
Also as so many people like my quotations, rather than only
displaying one on the home page I now display a random one on every
page of the site. There are over 150 of them. Enjoy!
For a list of the latest pages on my web site:
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X00030DE6?open&p=0
CONTENTS
========
1 - Book Review: Conversation: How talk Can Change Your Life
2 - Lotus K-Station & Discovery Server
3 - Storytelling
4 - Lotusphere Webcasts
5 - Quick Clicks
6 - The Google Toolbar
7 - The 2nd European Conference on Knowledge Management
8 - Exploring New Forms Of Organizing Update
9 - Events
BOOK REVIEW: CONVERSATION: HOW TALK CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE
========================================================
This is a fascinating little book by Theodore Zeldin - a fellow of St
Anthony's College, Oxford.
Basically the book is about the importance of conversation in our
lives. It explains how conversation is at the root of creativity; how
it is better than laws in helping to change our mind-sets and how it
can make life more interesting, friendly and passionate.
Its real aim seems to be to stimulate conversation itself and our
thinking about how and why we talk. As the author points out - we
often think more about what we will wear to social gathering than
what we will talk about. It is a stimulating book though it does tend
to focus on extolling the virtues of good conversation and is rather
light on explaining how to hold good conversations.
One of the books best features is its shortness - its a pocket book.
I came across it by chance in an airport book shop on my way from
Heathrow to the KM2000 Conference in Brussels last November. I had
read the whole book by the time we landed and was primed for some
interesting conversations with the other delegates I met there!
What has conversation got to do with Knowledge Management and
Learning? Well - its in conversations that we frequently create new
knowledge and start to really learn about the world - both from a
business and personal perspective.
If you would like to get a flavour for the book take a look at the
article in FastCompany magazine - see the link below.
See the book "Conversation"
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X00031686?open&p=0
See the article "Talk Is Cheap. Let's Have a Conversation"
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X00033F7E?open&p=0
LOTUS K-STATION & DISCOVERY SERVER
==================================
Many of you will have heard of the Lotus Development Knowledge
Management suite of products codenamed "Raven". The first component
of Raven is K-Station and was shipped in early December last year. At
Lotusphere - Lotus's customer conference in Orlando this week - the
second component called the Lotus Discovery Server has also been
announced. For more information on both these products follow the
links below.
For more on Lotus K-Station see:
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X00023A7E?open&p=0
For more on Lotus Discovery Server see:
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X000366F6?open&p=0
STORYTELLING
============
"If stories are powerful, and if stories are going to be told, true
or false, official and underground, flattering and humiliating, then
leaders and managers need to be part of the process". Tom Stewart,
Fortune Magazine.
Microsoft, The World Bank and Intel are amongst the world's largest
organisations that have adopted story telling as a means of
communicating knowledge throughout the organisation.
If you would like to know more about storytelling, Stephen Denning of
the World Bank has recently published a book on the subject called
"The Springboard: How Storytelling Ignites Action in Knowledge-Era
Organizations". Or if you are based in Ireland, a two day course on
storytelling conducted by Dave Snowden of the Institute of Knowledge
Management takes place in Dublin, February 1-2, 2001
For more information on Stephen Denning's book:
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X000366FA?open&p=0
For more information on Dave Snowden's Masterclass:
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X00031AEE?open&p=0
LOTUSPHERE WEBCASTS
===================
How many of you have yet to watch streaming video on the web - so
called "webcasts"? If not - you really must take a look. Each year
Lotus Development runs its "Lotusphere" customer and developer
conference in Orlando. Its running this week and if you follow the
link below you can watch some of the webcasts. There are some
interesting presentations - for example on their new Knowledge
Management products.
I've been watching these webcasts for the last few years and each
year the quality gets better. This year - the quality is exceptional
and I'm only using a dial-up 56K modem. You get video, audio and a
separate window that shows the slides as high quality JPGs. Brilliant
- its as if you were there!
You will need to download either RealPlayer or Windows Media if you
do not have them installed on your PC. They are both free. Click on
the link below to my Products & Services view on my site and you as
well as these two media players you will find a number of other
useful tools in the Software Tools section at the bottom of the page.
To view Lotusphere Webcasts:
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X000366FE?open&p=0
For RealPlayer or Windows Media downloads:
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X0001AF6A?open&p=0
QUICK CLICKS
============
This month's quick clicks:
Association for Management Education & Development
- UK Management Development Association
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X00004DEA?open&r=1&p=0
The Findhorn Foundation
- World renowned organization for Personal Development Education
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X0002E21E?open&r=1&p=0
The Foresight Institute
- Nanotechnolgy - building materials & products with atomic precision
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X0000E7F2?open&r=1&p=0
The Thinking Page
- Resource for organizational and individual thinking
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X00004396?open&r=1&p=0
THE GOOGLE TOOLBAR
==================
To my mind Google is one of the best search engines around. With the
recent introduction of their toolbar it is probably now the ONLY
search engine that I'll ever use again.
The Google Toolbar greatly improves your ability to find information
from anywhere on the Web. You can access the Google search engine
from any web page; search only the pages of the site you are
visiting; find your search terms wherever they appear on the page;
highlight your search terms as they appear on the page, each word in
its own color; see Google's ranking of the current page and access
detailed information about a page including similar pages, pages that
link back to that page, as well as a cached snapshot. Got take a look
- it really is good!
Google Web Site:
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X00031C16?open&p=0
THE 2ND EUROPEAN CONFERENCE ON KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
===================================================
The 2nd European Conference on Knowledge Management will be held at
the Bled School of Management, Slovenia on 8-9 November 2001. If you
are interested in speaking you will find full details of the "Call
for Papers" on my site.
Call for Papers:
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X0002EC86?open&p=0
EXPLORING NEW FORMS OF ORGANIZING UPDATE
========================================
As I explained in Issue 6 of this newsletter I am working with the
Bath Consultancy Group to form a "Learning Network" of people who
seek to be at the leading edge in developing "New Forms of
Organizing" to meet their business objectives.
The development of the network is progressing well and several more
large organizations have expressed an interest. The first meeting
will probably be held now in the spring. If you would like to learn
more then please contact me.
To learn more about the Bath Consultancy Group:
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X0001AA4E/
Resources on New Forms of Organizing:
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X00023A1A/
