Contents
- Introduction to the February 2020 Knowledge Letter
- Tribal thinking
- Conversational Leadership Workshop, Summer 2020
- The last of human freedoms: the freedom to choose
- Frazzled Cafe
- Please help support my work
- TED Circles
- Knowledge Cafés at PSMA, Australia
- Gurteen Knowledge Tweets: Februry 2020
- Upcoming Knowledge Events
- Unsubscribe
- The Gurteen Knowledge Letter
Introduction to the February 2020 Knowledge Letter
Starting in March, I plan to run a small number of experimental online Zoom Virtual Knowledge Cafés. Each Café will be themed on a post from my online blook on Conversational Leadership.
You can learn more on my Knowledge Café website.
If you are interested in participating then please make sure you register for my Zoom Virtual Café mailing list (separate from this one) and I will keep you informed of my upcoming online events.
Tribal thinking
We, humans, are innately tribal. We have a strong need to belong to groups and maintain fulfilling relationships with others. This need to belong, however, warps our reasoning ability. It is known as tribal thinking.
In my blook, I have started to write about tribal thinking, it is still work in progress but has enough substance to make it a worthwhile read. The surprising results of experiments, by Dan Kahan, a Professor of Psychology at Yale Law School make it clear that we are not rational creatures, we are rationalizing ones.
The more factual information we have and the better our science literacy, the more likely we are to double down on our false beliefs.
Conversational Leadership Workshop, Summer 2020
I hope you have read about the Conversational Leadership workshop that John Hovell and I are running in the UK again this summer. If not, you will find full details here.
You will spend much of your time in conversation during the workshop.
- First, to make sense of the Conversational Leadership concept and its principles.
- Second, to practice and improve your conversational skills.
- Third, to build strong relationships with the other participants and create a sense of community.
Over the week, you will learn about and experience two powerful conversational methods, the Knowledge Café and the C-group.
We have chosen the same amazing venue as last year - the Elevetham - a Victorian Gothic Mansion set in an estate of 4,000 acres in the Hampshire countryside and a history dating back to the 11th century.
Drop me an email or call me if you have any questions.
The last of human freedoms: the freedom to choose
We all have the freedom to choose if we choose to.
Several people have made this point in different ways, including Viktor Frankl, Steven Covey and Peter Block.
Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked.
In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life, he can only respond by being responsible.
Credit: Viktor E. Frankl
Frazzled Cafe
Love this idea.
Frazzled Cafe is a registered charity that operates with the purpose of providing a safe, anonymous and non-judgemental environment where people who are feeling frazzled can meet on a regular basis to talk and share their personal stories.
Credit: Frazzled Cafe
Please help support my work
I have been writing and publishing this Knowledge Letter every month for over 19 years and most of you have been receiving it for 5 years or more. My Knowledge Café also had its 17th birthday last September.
If you enjoy my work and find it valuable, please consider giving me a little support by donating $1 (or more) a month to Become a Patron or making small one off contribution.
I am not going to get rich on this but it will help cover some of my website hosting expenses.
I have over 50 patrons so far. A big thanks to you all.
TED Circles
You will be familiar with TED Talks, where people talk at you, but now you can take part in or host TED Circles. It's about time, we had less "talking at" and more "talking together".
TED Circles is an open platform of small groups that meet for conversations about ideas.
Hosted by volunteers, these weekly or monthly gatherings empower us to dream and debate. Each TED Circle is unique and all are virtually connected through the TED Circles platform - making it possible for local conversations to reach a global scale.
Anyone can host a TED Circle! Volunteers are required to register as a host and list each gathering. Once registered, you receive host resources, gain the ability to list the date and location of your Circles, and join a growing global community of TED Circle hosts.
Credit: TED Circles
But I'd love to see more conversational talks.
If you are giving a talk/presentation in an internal meeting or at a conference, it is easy to allow time for the audience to engage in a little conversation.
Credit: Conversational Talks
Knowledge Cafés at PSMA, Australia
I am always on the look out for Knowledge Café stories especially where they have been adapted and used in innovative ways.
I have a chapter in my blook on Conversational Stories that includes a number of stories and I have recently added a new one that describes how PSMA Australia have used the Knowledge Café process to run a Knowledge Management Forum. Take a look.
Gurteen Knowledge Tweets: Februry 2020
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.
- Why It's a Good Idea to Listen to Opposing Views. https://buff.ly/2RQkr3z #ConversationalLeadership
- What can we do to create more open cultures?: Poor behaviour and a culture of avoidance and denial are not necessarily improved by additional regulation @judywalker5 https://buff.ly/2SOA7EQ /everyone needs to take responsibility
- “Thanks to virtual reality, this mother can see and speak with her deceased daughter” https://buff.ly/2UOHnDd /this is an emotionally disturbing "experiment" with virtual reality. Beautiful and creepy at the same time. Use Google Translate to translate into English.
- “Who are you and what do you stand for?” https://buff.ly/37L3wpN /I think this might make a good Knowledge Café question :-) But for now, read Jo's article, think about it for a moment, and answer the question in your head.
- ‘Schools are killing curiosity': why we need to stop telling children to shut up and learn | Teaching | The Guardian https://buff.ly/2S1B4t9
- "In complexity... you define a direction of travel, not a goal, because if you start on a journey you will discover things you didn't know you could discover which have high utility, if you have an explicit goal you may miss the very things that you need to discover" - D. Snowden
- The spread of teams in more and more arenas is one consequence of the growing complexity of our world - and will force us to challenge some of the core assumptions of meritocracy, suggests @Scott_E_Page http://bit.ly/2V2oZag
- How do we cultivate curiosity in the workplace - perspective by @DrDianeHamilton In my view, it begins with the recognition that our institutions today are fundamentally hostile to curiosity, except in carefully guarded research labs http://bit.ly/2HilTqf
- We live in a world of increasing connectivity and complexity - three scholars affiliated with the Santa Fe Institute explore some of the challenges in shaping that kind of world http://bit.ly/38rSo1r
- Mastering the art of speaking up: the importance of trust https://buff.ly/38CBixx #ConversationalLeadership
If you like the Tweets then subscribe to my Tweet stream.
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.
The University of the Future
Wed 26 Feb 2020, London, United Kingdom
Accelerating Change Masterclass
28 Feb - 29 Jan 2020, Vienna, Austria
Clear Leadership
02 Mar - 10 Jan 2020, Victoria, BC, Canada
KM Showcase 2020 - Learn, Collaborate, Apply
04 - 05 Mar 2020, Arlington, VA, United States
APQC 2020 Knowledge Management Conference
27 Apr - 01 May 2020, Houston, United States
Social Now 2020
04 - 05 Jun 2020, Lisbon, Portugal
TAKE 2020 - Theory and Applications on the Knowledge Economy
01 - 03 Jul 2020, Sttutgart, Germany
7th European Conference on Social Media
02 - 03 Jul 2020, Larnaca, Cyprus
Conversational Leadership Workshop 2020
03 - 07 Aug 2020, Hartley Wintney, United Kingdom
10th Knowledge Management International Conference
17 - 19 Aug 2020, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
21st European Conference on Knowledge Management
03 - 04 Sep 2020, Coventry, United Kingdom
15th European Conference on Innovation and Entrepreneurship
17 - 18 Sep 2020, Rome, Italy
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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
