Contents
- Introduction to the July 2017 Knowledge Letter
- Benjamin Franklin's Junto Club led to the birth of the first US Public Library in 1731
- Promoting Knowledge Management activities through my website
- Conversational Spaces
- Is everything well, even though it is a mess?
- Two Recent Podcast Interviews with me
- Zooming around
- Embedding Change: delivering value from knowledge and learning
- Upcoming Knowledge Events
- Gurteen Knowledge Tweets: July 2017
- Subscribing and Unsubscribing
- The Gurteen Knowledge Letter
Introduction to the July 2017 Knowledge Letter
The Gurteen Knowledge Community Group on LinkedIn has now grown to over 5,500 and is one of the more active of all the KM LinkedIn groups.
You can join LinkedIn here and join the forum here.
Unlike many of the other forums, I try to limit the number of blog posts, articles or ads posted and try to focus on the purpose of a forum and that is discussion.
Benjamin Franklin's Junto Club led to the birth of the first US Public Library in 1731
I was driving into town recently and switched on the car radio and caught the last few minutes of BBC Radio 4 programme called Making History and was gobsmacked at my serendipitous discovery of a so-called "Conversation Society" founded in 1727!
I have downloaded the audio and clipped out the key passage and uploaded to YouTube - it is only two minutes long. (I am sure the BBC won't mind.)
I googled around to find more information on the Conversation Society that is mentioned. It was called the Junto Club. More information here on the Benjamin Franklin History website and here on Wikipedia
So Benjamin Franklin was convening a Book Discussion Café (well not really but it's a nice fantasy) back in 1727 that morphed into the Library Company of Philadelphia - the first public library in the US in 1731.
I love the thought that they bought books to inspire their conversations and that this book collection was the foundation of the public library.
An absolutely amazing story!
Why not start your own Junto Club. It has some very KM like features. All you need to do is update Benjamin Franklin's 24 questions into modern day English and a business environment - and you have it!
Promoting Knowledge Management activities through my website
I am always looking to help promote activities in the KM field. To this end you can:
- post events on my site
- post jobs on my site
- post books or reports on my site
- post news items on my site
In each case, the submission is held in a queue until I have checked it out and categorised it. This normally only takes a day or two. If the item is off topic or I feel it is inappropriate for any other reason I reserve the right to delete it. The service is free.
Conversational Spaces
My blook on Conversational Leadership continues to grow and take shape.
Content tagged with a "*" is freely readable but if you wish to access the blook in its entirety please request access and I will I will grant it,
If you wish to take a look at just the latest material visit the Recent Updates page.
One recent addition - is a new chapter on Conversational Space. It is still rather bare but includes a substantial post on the Enlightenment Coffeehouses of 17th and 18th century London, and more rudimentary posts on Stammtisch Tables, the Dewaniya, the Salons of France, the Viennese coffee houses and of course the Junto Club. I have more conversational spaces to add and much more to write about them - both the specific spaces themselves and more generally what makes a good conversation space, their purpose and benefits.
If you have any conversation spaces specific to your culture such as the Kuwaiti Dewaniya - I would love to hear about them,
Is everything well, even though it is a mess?
A book that has had a huge influnce on me is Awareness by Anthony de Mello.
Here is a quote from the opening chapter.
You know, all mystics - Catholic, Christian, non-Christian, no matter what their theology, no matter what their religion - are unanimous on one thing: that all is well, all is well. Though everything is a mess, all is well. Strange paradox, to be sure. But, tragically, most people never get to see that all is well because they are asleep. They are having a nightmare.So what do you make of the idea that "all is well?"
Credit: Anthony de Mello
When I reflect on the reality of the world in an everyday way then it is hard to see that "all is well" but deep down I understand what de Mello means.
Somewhere else in his book "Awareness" he says that "problems only exist in the human mind". If we look at the universe in its totality and from a perspective of its evolutionary history then its hard to see that it could be any different.
So maybe in a strange sort of way "all is well". That thought though should not stop us from striving to make it a better place!
But I think I know what Tony would have said "Don't try to change it - it will change of its own accord".
Quite a paradox indeed!
Two Recent Podcast Interviews with me
It's not very often I get interviewed for a podcast but here are two recent ones that may interest you.
- The first by Paul Sloane of Destination Innovation
- The second by Edwin Morris of Pioneer Knowledge Services.
Zooming around
I ran another Zoom virtual Knowledge Café a few days ago. Yet again it went exceptionally well and I had some great feedback.
I also joined a KMI KM workshop in Washington DC with John Hovell and give a short talk/conversation on Conversational Leadership via the Zoom platform and it worked a treat! It is the second one John and I have done together and I think John may have cracked how to do the Q&A session by passing an iPhone around the room also with Zoom loaded.
If you would like to be the first to hear about my Zoom events, please sign-up to my Virtual Café mailing list.
Embedding Change: delivering value from knowledge and learning
The Henley Forum for Organisational Learning and Knowledge Strategies (known as the Henley Forum) is a members-only forum but some of its events are open to the public.
They have a 1 day event coming up on 27th September at their Henley Campus - Embedding Change: delivering value from knowledge and learning and have a limited number of guest places available at £175+VAT. Contact [email protected] for further details if you are interested.
I will be there as a participant. Do come along if you are based in the UK. It should be an engaging day. It is a reasonable cost. It's a great campus. And you get to experience the Henley Forum too.
Upcoming Knowledge Events
Here are some of the major KM events taking place around the world in the coming months and ones in which I am actively involved. You will find a full list on my website where you can also subscribe to both regional e-mail alerts and RSS feeds which will keep you informed of new and upcoming events.
KM Australia 2017
01 - 03 Aug 2017, Sydney, Australia
KMO 2017: the Twelfth International Conference on Knowledge Management in Organizations
21 - 24 Aug 2017, Beijing, China
2017 Southern African Knowledge Management Summit
29 - 31 Aug 2017, Johannesburg, South Africa
Reflections 2017 Global Conference
06 - 09 Sep 2017, Montreal, Canada
18th European Conference on Knowledge Management
07 - 08 Sep 2017, Barcelona, Spain
12th European Conference On Innovation and Entrepreneurship 2017
21 - 22 Sep 2017, Paris, France
KM Asia 2017
15 - 16 Nov 2017, Hong Kong, China
6th International Conference on Innovation and Entrepreneurship 2018
05 - 06 Mar 2018, Washington DC, United States
Gurteen Knowledge Tweets: July 2017
Here are some of my more popular recent tweets. Take a look, if you are not a Tweeter, you will get a good idea of how I use it by browsing the list of micro-posts.
- IFLA KM @IFLA_KM Newsletter June 2017 http://buff.ly/2uwiKw9 #KM #KMers #IFLAKM #KnowledgeManagement
- 8 Ways to Get a Difficult Conversation Back on Track http://buff.ly/2uzsWXi
- Donald Clark Plan B: New evidence that ‘gamification' does NOT work http://buff.ly/2t7l37f
- There are no such things as best practices. There are only practices that are good within a certain context. #KM #KMers
- Conversational competence might be the single most overlooked skill we fail to teach http://buff.ly/2vjKIu8
- Paul Sloane @paulsloane lists twelve Jobs that Robots cannot do - Destination Innovation http://buff.ly/2vgrntx
- Agile strategy is a verb not a noun - Meeting Magic @MeetingMagicLtd http://buff.ly/2t38gqh
- The Naturalistic Decision Making Approach by Gary Klein http://buff.ly/2udsw98
- The Hidden Knowledge Problem in Organizations http://buff.ly/2ucX7Ug #KM #KMers
- Introduction to Zoom Video Conferencing as a platform for virtual Knowledge Cafés http://buff.ly/2tkzwzm
- Jordan Peterson's rousing call for people to SPEAK UP because silence is WORSE http://buff.ly/2slOHFc /Oh boy I love this man!
- (Un)Conferencing for knowledge mobilisers http://buff.ly/2tg8gSX
If you like the Tweets then subscribe to my Tweet stream.
Subscribing and Unsubscribing
You may subscribe to this newsletter on my website. Or if you no longer wish to receive this newsletter or if you wish to modify your e-mail address or make other changes to your membership profile then please go to this page on my website.
The Gurteen Knowledge Letter
The Gurteen Knowledge-Letter is a free monthly e-mail based KM newsletter for knowledge workers. Its purpose is to help you better manage your knowledge and to stimulate thought and interest in such subjects as Knowledge Management, Learning, Creativity and the effective use of Internet technology. Archive copies are held on-line where you can register to receive the newsletter.
It is sponsored by the Henley Forum of the Henley Business School, Oxfordshire, England.
You may copy, reprint or forward all or part of this newsletter to friends, colleagues or customers, so long as any use is not for resale or profit and I am attributed. And if you have any queries please contact me.
David GURTEEN
Gurteen Knowledge
Fleet, United Kingdom
If you are interested in Knowledge Management, the
Knowledge Café
or the role of conversation in organizational life then you my be interested in this online book I am writing on
Conversational Leadership
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