*** THE GURTEEN KNOWLEDGE-LETTER (ISSUE 30, 8 DECEMBER 2002) ***
Verna Allee has this to say about Knowledge Management:
"People generally take either an object view or process view of knowledge
management. From the object perspective comes a focus on databases or
other storage devices, mechanisms for sharing knowledge products such as
documents, and terms such as knowledge transfer. The process view focuses
on ways to facilitate collaborative processes, learning dynamics and
problem solving."
I like this description as it clearly points to the root of much of the
confusion concerning KM. KM means different things to different people.
Its not so much about first, second or even third generation KM but about
two fundamentally different perspectives. Or maybe three perspectives
because as Verna points out "Both views are valuable. A comprehensive
approach includes all of these."
It was through this 'lens' that I viewed KM Europe that was held at
Alexandra Palace in London on 13th to 15th November. The event from a
"knowledge as an object" perspective was excellent but from a "knowledge
as a process" perspective - disappointing. The focus to me was too much on
the technology which was not surprising given it is mainly the technology
vendors who can afford to exhibit and speak at these events. But I'm still
looking forward to a KM event that focuses on people and collaboration!
What I did enjoy about the event though was the opportunity to network. I
spent the three days just meeting and talking to people - many whom I had
met via the web such as fellow European k-loggers Ton Zijlstra, Andrea
Janssen and Martin Roell but had never met face to face. I think next
year I will try to arrange a more formal networking meeting with readers
of this newsletter - it could be great fun.
Verna Allee:
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X0020F076?open&r=3&p=0
Thank you for participating in KM Europe 2002:
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X0033C9F2?open&r=3&p=0
Gurteen Knowledge-Log:
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X00141D06?open&p=0
*************************** CONTENTS ***************************
1 - The Knowledge Café
2 - Knowledge-Raffle
3 - Learning-Stickers
4 - Japanese Research Lessons
5 - KnowledgeBoard Theme for December
6 - First KMPro UK Chapter Meeting
7 - Top Quotations
8 - News Log
9 - TrackBacks
10 - KMPings
11 - Collaborative Work
12 - Blogging, Klogging and Knowledge Management
13 - Whitepaper: Public-sector intranets: a small sampling
14 - Gurteen Knowledge-Calendar
********************** THE KNOWLEDGE CAFÉ **********************
The next Knowledge Café will be held in London at IBM, Southbank on Monday
the 9th December. The theme will be "Flexible Working". Over 30 people
have so far confirmed they will be attending so it should be a fun event.
Full details are published on my website including a short write up of the
last meeting on "The Role of Conversation in Business". Anna McAvoy has
also recently written a short article on the idea behind the Knowledge
Café.
Knowledge Café home page:
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X0024749E?open&p=0
Knowledge Café - Wednesday 16 October 2002
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X0033CCF2?open&r=3&p=0
The Gurteen Knowledge Café: A conversation with David Gurteen:
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X0033CD3E?open&r=3&p=0
*********************** KNOWLEDGE-RAFFLE ***********************
My Knowledge-Raffle is proving quite popular - 25 people entered the first
raffle and over 70 people have now entered the second raffle for a copy of
Steve Denning's book The SpringBoard. This closes on the 20th December -
so still time to enter!
I've now added another book - "How to become a successful IT consultant"
by Professor Dan Remenyi which has been donated by Dan.
The Gurteen Knowledge-Raffle
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X0028667E?open&p=0
*********************** LEARNING-STICKERS ***********************
One of the learning challenges we face is to extract the essence of a book
or a subject and to find a way of focusing and internalising its key
lessons. To help with this, sometime ago I started to experiment with a
simple web tool that I call Learning-Stickers.
For a given learning topic, typically a book, you can create a set of
"stickers", each of which briefly serves as a reminder of one key learning
point associated with that topic. Click on the learning topic and each
LearningSticker for that subject pops up in turn in a small window under
the control of a simple navigator.
Although this is not ground-breaking web technology - it is a powerful way
of affirming key learning points. While you are reading or doing something
else on your PC - these stickers can continually pop up or you can browse
through them at your leisure reinforcing the key points from a particular
book or subject area.
My implementation is extremely basic. You could, however, visualise each
sticker, containing simple graphics, the addition of music, better
navigator control etc.
Some books are easier than others to "stickerize" as they contain lots of
nice lists. So I've played with a few of
these first.
Take a look at Learning-Stickers on my website:
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X0001117E?open&p=0
******************* JAPANESE RESEARCH LESSONS *******************
I've just discovered the notion of "Japanese Research Lessons" courtesy of
Mark Pratt, Deputy Head Teacher of Rounds Green Primary School, in England
who recently signed up for my knowledge-letter.
Google has found me a whole site on the subject. I've had little time to
read the material yet but it looks quite fascinating.
Pity that most of the site consists of PDF files and I can't find a short
one paragraph overview of what they are all about. I guess I am just going
to have to do a lot of reading! The best definition I have found so far is
about shifting from "teaching as telling" to "teaching for understanding".
Certainly in my school boy days at a traditional English boy's grammar
school some 40 years ago I was taught by 'telling'. Its amazing I ever
learnt or should I say 'understood' anything!
Japanese Research Lessons:
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X00317872?open&r=3&p=0
*************** KNOWLEDGEBOARD THEME FOR DECEMBER ***************
The European KM Community KnowledgeBoard website runs a different KM theme
each month with online and offline workshops, discussion forums, surveys
and interviews.
The Theme for December 2002 is hosted by the KM & SMEs SIG on Do I need KM
in my SME?
The Theme:
http://www.knowledgeboard.com/themes/
KnowledgeBoard:
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X0003CC12?open&r=3&p=0
**************** FIRST KMPRO UK CHAPTER MEETING ****************
The first meeting of the UK Chapter of KMPro (Knowledge Management and
Innovation society) will take place on 17 December 2002 from 19:00 to
21:00 at the Cap Gemini Ernst & Young facility, 2nd floor conference
suite, 130 Shaftesbury Avenue, London W1D 5EU. Map:
http://www.streetmap.co.uk/streetmap.dll?G2M?X=529893&Y=180974&A=Y&Z=1
KMPro is a US-based KM organization beginning a European-wide drive. The
focus of the UK London Chapter will be on practical solutions to business
problems, and the encouragement of innovation.
Darius Baria of Rolls Royce will be presenting his company’s initiatives,
lessons learned and unresolved problems and we will be using the
‘Interactive Knowledge Café’ brainstorming technique to provide feedback
to the speaker.
The meeting is open to anyone interested in KM. For more information on
benefits of membership, and KMPro's KM techniques, tools and training
please visit: http://www.kmpro.org
For further information on membership of the London Chapter please mail
the European Regional Director at:
mailto:[email protected]
************************ TOP QUOTATIONS ************************
Quotations are extremely effective at capturing and concisely
communicating thoughts and ideas. They can be inspirational but more
importantly quotations can help us reveal and assess the assumptions,
values and beliefs that underlie the ways in which we perceive the world.
I am continually adding new material to my website and have compiled over
350 quotations and short excerpts. Most of them relate to knowledge,
knowledge management or learning in some form but its an eclectic mix.
The three below are the most visited quotations on my site:
"An unexamined life is not worth living." Socrates
"To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the
affection of children; To earn the appreciation of honest critics and
endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty, to find the
best in others; To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy
child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; To know even one
life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have
succeeded." Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It
is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it.
Once we truly know that life is difficult - once we truly understand and
accept it - then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted,
the fact that life is difficult no longer matters." M. Scott Peck
On an unexamined life:
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X0003F2BA?open&r=3&p=0
On success:
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X001D5ADA?open&r=3&p=0
On life:
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X000586A6?open&r=3&p=0
*************************** NEWS LOG ***************************
One of the great things about having a development background is that I am
able to develop and maintain my website myself so hardly a month goes by
without my significantly adding to it in someway.
When I implemented my knowledge-log, I coded it in such a way that my site
could potentially support any number of weblogs as this was trivial to do
and gave me great flexibility for future development. I have now switched
this functionality on and added two new weblogs to my site.
The first is a News Log where I mainly capture news items reflecting what
is going on in the KM world.
The second is a Change Log for the site that I plan to use to log
structural changes to my site. This is clearly of use to me but will also
allow regular readers of my site to see what is new in terms of structure
as well as content.
Take a look below:
Knowledge-Log:
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X00141D06?open&p=0
New-Log:
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X002FED12?open&p=0
Change-Log:
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X002FEE36?open&p=0
************************** TRACKBACKS **************************
TrackBack is a simple mechanism that allows a 'back link' to be created
from a page on another site to a page on your own website. Quite simply,
if I create a link to another site then if trackback is enabled a message
is automatically (or semi-automatically) sent to that other site (it is
pinged) to tell it that I have created the link. In turn, the pinged site
automatically creates a link back to my site.
In short, it allows you to effectively create a bidirectional link between
two sites.
Yes you might not "get it" immediately but read on and take a look at the
implementation and at some point the "penny should drop".
This feature was originally developed for weblogs so that weblog postings
that linked to other weblogs could automatically generate 'back' links and
thus improve the distributed and interconnected nature of weblogs and
their utility for hosting discussions.
I implemented TrackBack for the whole of my site sometime ago. Not only
can you ping my site using the conventional TrackBack protocol, but if
your site does not support TrackBack I have provided a link at the bottom
of most of my website pages that allows you to create a TrackBack link
from my site to yours by filling in a simple form.
Not only can you see TrackBack links from my site to individual pages on
other sites - they are listed at the end of each page of my site (see the
bottom of my home page for some examples)but I have a single page that
lists ALL TrackBack links to my site.
If you run a website or an intranet site - take a look - this technology
is cool! Its also exceedingly simple to implement.
Trackback Specification:
http://www.movabletype.org/docs/mtmanual_trackback.html
Gurteen Knowledge website trackbacks:
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X001DF2CE?open&p=0
**************************** KMPINGS ****************************
An interesting application of TrackBack is that whenever you create a
weblog posting or a new page on your website on a given subject then a
central indexing site can be pinged to inform it of the new posting and
thus build a chronological list of published articles on that subject.
KMPings is an example of one such site. For example, when ever I publish a
posting to my k-log or website that I think is of general KM interest - I
ping KMPings by clicking a button in Lotus Notes to inform it of my
posting. It in turn publishes a TrackBack link to my page on its central
index. Take a look it is a neat idea and as TrackBack establishes itself
is slowly becoming a great KM resource.
KMPings:
http://www.highcontext.com/kmpings/http://www.highcontext.com/kmpings/
********************** COLLABORATIVE WORK **********************
On December 3rd and 4th at the Online Information 2002 Conference &
Exhibition in London I gave 2 short talks on Collaborative Work. Each was
attended by about 50-70 people and seemed well accepted.
As I was not talking about technology but the human interpersonal skills -
I was not too surprised when one or two people walked out at the start of
my talk but that was more than made up for by the people who approached me
afterwards to say how much they had enjoyed the talk and how it had taken
them by surprise as they were not expecting someone to talk about 'soft'
skills.
If you are interested, you will find information about the talk including
a download of the presentation on the home page of my website.
Collaborative Work Talk:
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X000A4B42?open&r=3&p=0
********** BLOGGING, KLOGGING AND KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT **********
Captured in my knowledge-log and the k-logs of my k-log community are a
lot of information, knowledge, thoughts, ideas, insights and perspectives
about what is going on the KM world.
My Knowledge-Log:
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/id/x00141d06?open&p=0
In talking with the publishers of Bizmedia Knowledge Management magazine
we thought it would be a great idea to publish each month a few of the
more interesting postings. Is this a first in the blogging world?
The links below will take you through to PDF versions of the published
articles.
Blogging, Klogging and KM:
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X0033BDBE?open&r=3&p=0
The David Gurteen K-Log Diary, November 2002:
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X0033BDC2?open&r=3&p=0
Knowledge Management Magazine (Bizmedia):
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X000063D2?open&r=3&p=0
***** WHITEPAPER: PUBLIC-SECTOR INTRANETS: A SMALL SAMPLING *****
Twenty public-sector intranets surveyed as part of the Intranet Peers in
Government forum. Looks at size, usage and key intranet issues. Published
by Step Two Designs, Sydney Australia.
Whitepaper: Public-sector intranets: a small sampling:
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/ID/X0032ADEE/
