Gurteen Knowledge-Letter: Issue 104

Gurteen Knowledge-Letter: Issue 104 - February 2009

Contents

  1 Introduction to the February 2009 Knowledge Letter
  2 What is the one idea at work which is more powerful than any other?
  3 Dave Snowden's 7 Principles of Knowledge Management
  4 ADVERTISEMENT: Certified Knowledge Manager Training
  5 Change Your Behavior, Change Your Mind
  6 Conversation Kindling
  7 Six Reasons You Should Consider Reading Poetry
  8 LinkedIn KM Groups
  9 KM Event Highlights
10 Subscribing and Unsubscribing
11 The Gurteen Knowledge Letter

Introduction to the February 2009 Knowledge Letter    (top | next | prev)

As I mentioned in my January newsletter, I am connecting with all my professional contacts via LinkedIn and have over 1,000 established connections. Why? It's the one place I can guarantee finding an up to date profile of the people I know and a means of contacting them. But here are five other good reasons.

If you receive an invite from me - please accept it and if I have not invited you yet, invite me to connect with you.

You might also like to join the Gurteen Community group on LinkedIn and there are now over 30 other KM groups on LinkedIn that may be of interest.

What is the one idea at work which is more powerful than any other?    (top | next | prev)

One of the things I love about my website is that it as much for me as for anyone else. For example, I have over 750 quotations on my site that I have collected over the last 20 years. Not any old quotes, but ones that personally move and inspire me and I wish to share with others.

They are posted on my site, you can subscribe to a quote of the day by email, by RSS feed or through Twitter.

I also post a quote of the day on most pages of my website and this is the one I noticed for today:

In every great time there is some one idea at work which is more powerful than any other, and which shapes the events of the time and determines their ultimate issues.

Credit: Francis Bacon (1561 - 1626) English Philosopher

And it set me to thinking. What is that one idea at work today that is more powerful than any other? And wouldn't that make a great topic for a Knowledge Cafe. I must do it!

But this is the joy for me. Francis Bacon has provoked me to think about this but he has been dead almost 400 years! Another man that hugely inspires me is Henry David Thoreau but that's another story.

Dave Snowden's 7 Principles of Knowledge Management (top | next | prev)

Dave Snowden has recently expanded his 3 Rules of Knowledge Management to 7 Principles of Knowledge Management

Knowledge can only be volunteered, it cannot be conscripted.
We only know what we know when we need to know it.
In the context of real need few people will withhold their knowledge.
Everything is fragmented.
Tolerated failure imprints learning better than success.
The way we know things is not the way we report we know things.
We always know more than we can say, and we always say more than we can write down.

He has explained each one of them in more detail in his original posting on rendering knowledge. Great stuff! But the key one for me is:

Everything is fragmented. We evolved to handle unstructured fragmented fine granularity information objects, not highly structured documents. People will spend hours on the internet, or in casual conversation without any incentive or pressure. However creating and using structured documents requires considerably more effort and time. Our brains evolved to handle fragmented patterns not information.

Credit: Dave Snowden.

The real world is complex, fragmented and inherently messy and that is not necessarily a bad thing! As Dave says, we have evolved to handle that. Documents? A document is where knowledge goes to die. I think Bill French said this originally in the form email is where knowledge goes to die.

ADVERTISEMENT: Certified Knowledge Manager Training (top | next | prev)

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Change Your Behavior, Change Your Mind (top | next | prev)

If you change your behavior, you change your mind. This is an idea I have believed in for some years and have tried to practice it, so its great to see Michele Martin blog about this having been inspired by A.J. Jacobs. This is the essence:

If you change your behavior, you change your mind. This is one of those deceptively simple, profoundly important realizations. It's the "fake it till you make it" school of thought that says if you want to become something different, you have to start by behaving differently.

We tend to think the opposite, that our beliefs must change first and then our behavior will come along later.

Much of professional development is about trying to change people's attitudes by "training" them that they should think differently. This is often unsuccessful because in many cases, we need to first change our behavior before we can change our beliefs.

I'm not going to truly believe in the power of exercise until I actually begin doing it. I have to start with acting differently and it's the process of engaging in new behaviors that helps me start to develop new attitudes.

Credit: Change Your Behavior

But, interestingly, Michele goes on to talk about trust - a question that is often asked by KMers "How do we build a culture of trust in our organization?". My answer has always been just start engaging with people and trusting them. Michele says pretty much the same: Act trusting and trustworthy and trust in yourself and others will follow.

Dave Snowden also has some interesting thoughts on trust (see his posting on Confusing symptoms with cause) where he sees it as an emergent property of people working together and not something you can create as such or tell people to do.

These two views may seem opposed but I am not so sure that they are. Yes, trust is an emergent property of people working together but then so is distrust. Entering into a working relationship where by default you trust people (even if you are not too sure of them) is much more likely to lead to a truly trusting relationship than entering in to it with an attitude of lets wait and see.

Conversation Kindling (top | next | prev)

You are probably aware of my love of conversation and my belief in its importance in our lives. So you will understand why I find this blog Conversation Kindling by Jim Ericson so amazing. Here is what is says about it.

The purpose of this blog is to share stories, metaphors, quotes, songs, humor, etc. in hopes they'll be used to spark authentic and rewarding conversations about working and living fruitfully. There are at least three things you can gain by getting involved in these conversations.

First, you'll discover new and important things about yourself through the process of thinking out loud.

Second, you'll deepen your relationships with others who participate by swapping thoughts, feelings, and stories with them.

Finally, you'll learn that robust dialogue centered on stories and experiences is the best way to build new knowledge and generate innovative answers to the questions that both life and work ask.

Credit: Jim Ericson - Conversation Kindling

At the end of most of the postings are some beautiful afterwords (quotes that relate to the post) and questions for conversation. And don't miss the post on Schindlers List.

Six Reasons You Should Consider Reading Poetry (top | next | prev)

One of the reasons I love Twitter is that I trip across little gems like this one on poetry tweeted by Mary Abraham.

I have little artistic or literary inclination and my knowledge of poetry is limited though there are still one or two poems that I was forced to learn at school that I can still recite almost word for word such as: The Burial of Sir John Moore after Corunna by Charles Wolf and Adlestrop by Edward Thomas.

The joys of a Grammar School education! My old boys Grammar School in Worcester has recently merged with the Alice Ottley, a private girls school, to create the RGS Worcester & The Alice Ottley School Family. And to think in my day they did everything possible to keep us away from the girls but on the other hand my first serious girlfriend at 17 was from the Alice Ottley. LOL.

But I thought I'd share with a poem that has been my favorite for over 40 years.

With Annie gone,
whose eyes to compare
with the morning sun?
Not that I did compare,
But I do compare
Now that she's gone.

Credit: Leonard Cohen

Couldn't get much shorter but sums up so much in life.

LinkedIn KM Groups (top | next | prev)

There are a growing number of LinkedIn Groups many of them dedicated to KM. There is no KM directory but here are most of the Groups (in no particular order) that I have found:

KM Event Highlights    (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.

The Second Annual Global Learning Summit
24 - 27 Feb 2009, Singapore City, Singapore

The Effective Knowledge Worker
10 Mar 2009, London, United Kingdom
This workshop is proving very popular.

Engaging the Customer: getting it right with social media
11 - 12 Mar 2009, London, United Kingdom
I will be chairing this conference

The Gurteen Knowledge Café Masterclass
21 Apr 2009, Rotterdam, Netherlands
I will be facilitating this masterclass in Rotterdam.

Congres Sociale Netwerken
22 Apr 2009, Rotterdam, Netherlands
I am giving the keynote talk at this conference.

Imagining the knowledge technologies of the future
28 Apr 2009, London, United Kingdom
This should be an interesting evening at the BCS.

Knowledge Management Africa 2009
04 - 07 May 2009, Dakar, Senegal

APQC Knowledge Management Conference 2009
14 - 15 May 2009, Houston, United States

Implementing a Knowledge Cafe
19 May 2009, London, United Kingdom
I am looking forward to facilitating this Masterclass in May.

KC UK 2009
08 - 09 Jun 2009, London, United Kingdom
I will be participating in KC UK this year.

International Conference on Knowledge Management
24 - 26 Jun 2009, Kampala, Uganda
I am hoping to speak at this conference if we can find a sponsor.

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