Gurteen Knowledge-Letter: Issue 130

Gurteen Knowledge-Letter: Issue 130 - April 2011

Contents

  1 Introduction to the April 2011 Knowledge Letter
  2 Balancing Contributions During Face-to-Face Collaboration
  3 Gurteen Knowledge Community Group on Linkedin
  4 Are KM, Enterprise 2.0 and Social Business: One and The Same?
  5 In a good conversation you can reach out and touch each other
  6 KM Australia - Asia Pacific Congress 2011
  7 Solve these whispering problems before they become bellowing ones!
  8 April 2011: Major upcoming KM Events
  9 PhotoSync: Syncs my Flickr Photos to Facebook
10 Hot knowledge tweets: April 2011
11 Subscribing and Unsubscribing
12 The Gurteen Knowledge Letter

Introduction to the April 2011 Knowledge Letter    (top | next | prev)

You may have noticed that I am starting to put a lot more effort into my Knowledge Cafes. They started out as a response to what I saw as death-by-power-point presentations. In the beginning (I ran my first Knowledge Cafe in London in September 2002) I simply wanted to make such presentations more conversational. But as I have run them and taught people how to run them all over the world I have discovered that they can be adapted to different purposes and are far more powerful than I ever realised ten years ago.

I will be running many more Knowledge Cafes in London in coming months and also around the UK, the rest of Europe and off course during my travels across the globe. I will also be running more Knowledge Cafe Masterclasses where I teach people how to adapt and run them for varying business purposes. The first of my regional Knowledge Cafes will be in Winchester on 10th May and I will be running a Knowledge Cafe Masterclass in Edinburgh on 7th June

To help share and develop knowledge in running Knowledge Cafes, I have recently created the Gurteen Knowledge Cafe Forum. This is a LinkedIn subgroup of the Gurteen Knowledge Community on LinkedIn.

So if you are interested in running Knowledge Cafes then join the group. And if you would like to learn more about the Cafes first hand - come along to one of my events.

No Knowledge Cafes in your neck of the woods! Then invite me to come and run one :-)

Balancing Contributions During Face-to-Face Collaboration    (top | next | prev)

Take a look at this Balancing Contributions During Face-to-Face Collaboration and see what you think.

My first reaction was one of horror. But when I read the actual paper An Interactive Table for Supporting Participation Balance in Face-to-Face Collaboration, I calmed down a little. The researchers seem to know what they are doing and recognise the limitations and pitfalls of this sort of technology. Though I'd still rather that people better understood their own conversational styles and were more aware during their conversations so that this type of technology was never needed.

On thing, I think never works, whether its a facilitator or technology, is trying to explicitly draw the quieter people into the conversation. In my experience if they feel they are being coaxed, encouraged or otherwise manipulated, they withdraw even more. I think the best approach is simply to create an ultra-safe environment, sit back and wait. If they are ever going to, they will emerge in their own time.

Gurteen Knowledge Community Group on Linkedin    (top | next | prev)

The Gurteen Knowledge Community Group on LinkedIn has grown by over 120 members from 2,289 members last month to 2,417 today and is amazingly active ... I don't get much time to take part in the discussions myself but there are some great ones taking place.

Here are three interesting ones that you might like to take a look at or join in:

You can join LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/reg/join and the Gurteen Knowledge Community Group here : http://www.linkedin.com/groupRegistration?gid=1539

Are KM, Enterprise 2.0 and Social Business: One and The Same? (top | next | prev)

Here is a rather interesting blog post from Luis Suarez on KM, Enterprise 2.0 and Social Business: One and The Same in which he quotes from my recent keynote talk at KM Middle east Don't do KM.

He concludes with the following:

If you thought that Enterprise 2.0 or Social Business do not have much to do with traditional Knowledge Management, after going through David's excellent presentation, I guess we will have to think about it once again, because, in my opinion, it surely has. In fact, if folks have stated how Enterprise 2.0 is the father of Social Business I would venture to say that KM is the father and grandfather of E2.0 and Social Business, respectively.

Credit: Luis Suarez

Here is my take as to whether KM, Enterprise 2.0 and Social Business are One and The Same.

In a good conversation you can reach out and touch each other    (top | next | prev)

I recently came across a post by Viv McWaters in which she advocates getting rid of tables in meetings or when facilitating group sessions. By and large I agree with all she says.

But I ran a lot of Knowledge Cafes at the end of last year when travelling, and on one or two occasions, I had no tables, not out of choice, but simply because there were no tables in the room or there was not enough room for tables. Although I like the idea of "no tables" in a Knowledge Cafe, I have found in practice that I would rather have them

The more I run Cafes the more I realise the importance of close physically proximity when having a conversation. My new rule is that if you can't reach out and touch the other people at the table then the table is too large or there are too many people. A 3 ft round table with four people is perfect.

What I find in a Cafe with no tables is that groups tend to merge. So two groups of four tend to merge into one group of eight. People also move the chairs around. A small round table provides focus.

I ran one Cafe in Singapore for SAFTI (the Singapore Armed Forces Training Institute) last year. Here we had no tables and all the chairs had wheels. What I loved about this was that when we came to change groups, the participants did not even stand up ... they just scooted the chairs around while remaining seated ... I wish I had captured it on video. Like many good things in Cafes, it just emerged.

In a banked lecture theatre recently, (the worst place to hold a Cafe) people tended to naturally form groups of six to eight - often so broadly spread that people on the fringes were never quite part of the conversation. I vowed never, ever to run a Cafe in such a setting again!

If I have a choice now between large tables and no tables at all then I tend to go for no tables.

Think about it, in all good conversations, you are within touching distance of the other people and although I am not advocating that you do touch ... often you do ... it makes the whole conversation that much more natural and human.

KM Australia - Asia Pacific Congress 2011    (top | next | prev)

I am delighted that I will be chairing KM Australia - Asia Pacific Congress 2011 later this year (18 - 21 July in Sydney). And there is one very good reason - Ark Group Australia have agreed with me to make it a "conversational event". This is what they say on their website:

"The conversational format of this event is intended to create an informal, relaxed atmosphere in which you, the conference participants, can get to know each other, learn from each other and build relationships. Each speaker will conclude their presentation with a question and a short time will be given over to conversation where you can discuss the speakers talk and the question at your tables before going into a traditional Q&A. "

This was partly inspired by the way I prefer conferences to be run and how I have chaired them in the past such as at KM UK 2007 and KM UK 2009 but also by this blog post A Knowledge Management Conference that Actually Used KM Principles by Nancy Dixon.

It falls well short of being an Unconference or BarCamp or even having Unpresenters but its a step in the right direction.

If you live in the region - do come along - it should be a great KM event.

Solve these whispering problems before they become bellowing ones!    (top | next | prev)

When she first came to MIT, Khalea Robinson was set to become a builder of bridges and skyscrapers. "Their visibility and permanence appealed to me." But a talk she attended on some of the world's pressing problems shook her commitment to this path. Access to clean water, and other issues, should surely count more than her own private engineering goals, she imagined.

But after taking introductory courses in environmental and civil engineering, she realized that she "couldn't simply fall in line wherever there was a call, because there are so many calls, all of them worthy." Robinson felt that she should instead look for a field that would "bring forth my initiative, passion, drive, insight and courage," while also promoting justice and fairness. In a world "full of complex problems that need to be solved by many people," Robinson believes each of us "has a distinct voice that can and must be raised."

Credit: Khalea Robinson, Video of MIT World lecture

April 2011: Major upcoming KM Events    (top | next | prev)

This section highlights 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.

An Open Knowledge Cafe with David Gurteen in Winchester
10 May 2011, Winchester, United Kingdom

KM Legal 2011
11 - 12 May 2011, London, United Kingdom

APQC's 16th Annual Knowledge Management Conference 2011
12 - 13 May 2011, Houston, United States

Masterclass: Implementing Knowledge Cafes (Edinburgh)
07 Jun 2011, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
An opportunity to learn how to run and apply Knowledge Cafes.

KM UK 2011
21 - 22 Jun 2011, London, United Kingdom
I'll be running a Knowledge Cafe at this event.

10th Annual Information & Knowledge Management Conference
22 - 23 Jun 2011, Johannesburg, South Africa

KM Australia - Asia Pacific Congress 2011
18 - 21 Jul 2011, Sydney, Australia
I will be chairing this event.

i-KNOW 2011
07 - 09 Sep 2011, Graz, Austria

The 8th International Conference on Knowledge Management (ICKM2011)
12 - 14 Sep 2011, Amman, Jordan

KMO 2011 (Sixth International KMO Conference)
27 - 28 Sep 2011, Tokyo, Japan

13th KnowTech 2011
28 - 29 Sep 2011, Bad Homburg, Germany

International Conference on Knowledge Economy (ICKE2011)
24 - 28 Oct 2011, East London, South Africa

8th International Conference on Intellectual Capital, Knowledge Management & Organisational Learning (ICICKM 2011)
27 - 28 Oct 2011, Bangkok, Thailand

PhotoSync: Syncs my Flickr Photos to Facebook    (top | next | prev)

I usually take lots of photos at conferences and my knowledge cafes and for some years have been uploading them to Flickr. Some time ago, I regretted doing that as Facebook is by far the most social place to upload photos. Not only do more people get to see them on Facebook but the ability to tag the people in the photos is just brilliant.

But what should I do? It would take me an age to upload all my past Flickr photos to Facebook and in any case, Flickr made a much better backup for my photos as it held them at full resolution. So I continued to upload my photos to Flickr and just a select few to Facebook. Up until the other day, that is, when I discovered PhotoSync.

This is just an amazing little program. I connect it to my Flickr and Facebook accounts; tell it what sets (folders) of photos I want to sync and then it just goes away and syncs my Flickr photos with Facebook. Awesome! So if you are following me on Facebook and have seen all the photos pop up ... its all down to PhotoSync.

The app seems a little buggy right now ... I get a number of error messages every time I use it but despite the messages it still seems to work!

I love it! And I have a lot more photos to copy across ... just doing a few folders at a time for now. I also have a whole backlog of photos I have not uploaded. Maybe I have a litle more motivation now.

Hot knowledge tweets: April 2011    (top | next | prev)

Here are some of my more interesting Tweets for March - April 2011. 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. And if you like what you see then subscribe to my Tweets.

Conversational writing kicks formal writing's ass http://bit.ly/7mmK8Q
2011-04-26 09:15:42 UTC
RT @DanielPink: This month's Sunday Telegraph Column: Why you should heed Peters & Collins & create a "to-dont" list. http://t.co/iDYWpbA
2011-04-24 22:10:34 UTC
Wow! I have just discovered "Unpresenting" http://bit.ly/fuccFs #like #KCafe #GoodToTalk
2011-04-23 10:22:43 UTC
RT @stoweboyd: Font Size May Not Aid Learning but Its Style Can - Benedict Carey http://sto.ly/gB0YV8 Deep thought is the best learning tool
2011-04-21 11:42:09 UTC
RT @rossdawson: Serendipity is at the heart of today's emerging society http://bit.ly/eK9pwU
2011-04-21 11:30:17 UTC
RT @euan: business is about doing stuff and social media is talking about the stuff you are doing. Doesn't have to be hard.
2011-04-21 07:01:20 UTC
What people seem to be responsive to is driving toward purpose http://bit.ly/gTWa00
2011-04-18 09:00:33 UTC
If you care about Education - Watch this! http://bit.ly/e8iTUh
2011-04-16 12:11:14 UTC
All languages traced to African 'mother tongue' http://bit.ly/eO06jh
2011-04-16 11:40:56 UTC
Have you ever thought about how completely irrelevant structured learning is? http://bit.ly/g0Wu5q
2011-04-16 09:35:45 UTC
How do you structure a conversation to lead to powerful, creative + practical conclusions http://bit.ly/gb9Vhh #GoodToTalk
2011-04-15 07:48:00 UTC
The bonus myth: How paying for results can backfire - 06 April 2011 - New Scientist http://bit.ly/iioHBg #NoRewards
2011-04-15 07:24:48 UTC
Carrots and Sticks Don’t Work (respect does) http://bit.ly/hxzoEP #NoRewards
2011-04-14 13:29:57 UTC
Dear Google: You Can’t Threaten People Into Being Social http://bit.ly/guR3QO #NoRewards
2011-04-14 09:40:45 UTC
Forget Motivating Staff With Incentives http://bit.ly/fl5mQJ #NoRewards
2011-04-13 17:46:59 UTC
RT @guijti Shocking statistics on female infanticide in India. http://www.oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/?p=5065
2011-04-13 09:23:43 UTC
Short film illustrates power of words to radically change your message + your effect upon the world http://bit.ly/hYPTMT /via @elsua
2011-04-13 07:39:52 UTC
Rewards get gamed - watch this potty training video http://bit.ly/fBykkc #NoRewards
2011-04-11 15:24:03 UTC
Is knowledge management failed or simply a fad? Studies suggest the concept is alive and well. http://bit.ly/gOrs5s #KM
2011-04-10 13:53:44 UTC
Knowledge Management is Older than you Think http://bit.ly/gcMwF2 #KM
2011-04-02 10:58:12 UTC
We need your help...The Knowledge Management Observatory™ Global 2011 Survey http://linkd.in/fzLwLl #KM
2011-03-30 14:42:08 UTC
Can you spot a story? The Story Test. http://bit.ly/eiRXW8 #KM
2011-03-30 13:52:41 UTC
KM, Enterprise 2.0 and Social Business: One and The Same by @elsua http://bit.ly/fwf6Nz #KM
2011-03-30 13:51:12 UTC
The New Edge in Knowledge by Carla O'Dell http://bit.ly/h2EFLJ Book review by @JackVinson #KM
2011-03-27 15:23:07 UTC
How Barefoot College is empowering women through peer-to-peer learning and technology http://bit.ly/hvTKP3 #SocialGood #GirlEffect
2011-03-26 09:13:30 UTC
RT @maggiedoyne: 3.3 billion girls and women = 3.3 billion ways to change the world. http://bit.ly/fuLSkg @girls20summit #girleffect
2011-03-26 07:13:30 UTC

Subscribing and Unsubscribing (top | next | prev)

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 (top | next | prev)

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 Knowledge Management 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