Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Day 1 & 2 of Practical KM Competencies programme at NPC India, New Delhi

Practical KM Competencies 16th - 20th August 2011, New Delhi, India

I have now completed Days 1 and 2 of a 5 day programme 'KM Competencies' organised by the National Productivity Council of India(NPC), with headquarters in New Delhi, and also sponsored by the Asian Productivity Organization, with headquarters in Tokyo, Japan.

The 5 day programme is available from NPC here.

The reason we launched a practical programme is because we know that people will never appreciate and realise the full power and benefit of KM in their daily lives by simply listening to KM teachers expressing concepts and theories.

Its rather like the vast majority of people who drive cars today. They are only really interested in getting from A to B. They are not interested in how the car or engine works, unless they are enthusiasts and engineers.

However, in the early days of introducing automobiles, they were unreliable and so they needed engineers who understood how they worked to drive them. I often think that this is where KM is today for many. They are not getting the results reliably from many teachers of theory only, but just from the few that have actually succeeded with KM practically themselves.

Furthermore, until people experience KM for themselves, they will never know what it really is. Its rather like flying. Imagine that I am trying to explain to you what it is like to fly in an aeroplane. I can talk about it all week long, but until you actually fly yourself, you will never be able to experience it.

Then you get the 'aha! so does that mean that I can now do ..... in my daily work?'

In Days 1 & 2, of the 5 day programme, everybody started to use the tools and think about them in the workplace in more meaningful ways. We focused on personal knowledge management and started to work with alerts and blogs.

So, first thing tomorrow morning, we will all review and share our new learning's and insights in a totally new way on the web together, and in the workshop.

Then we will work with tweets and personal social networks and wiki's.

But, primarily, tomorrow we will focus on team knowledge management, and we will use team wiki's and collaborative work spaces, and team blogs and generally work through the effective collaborative team process.

I look forward to writing about Day 3.

Ron Young

More at:

www.knowledge-management-online.com




Sunday, August 14, 2011

10.30pm Sunday evening in Singapore Airlines lounge working on KM 2012

Its 10.30pm in the Singapore Airlines Lounge in Singapore, waiting for the 2.15am flight to New Delhi, India.

At least the cafe latte is good, and the tuna sandwich is pretty ok too.

So what am I doing?

I am updating all my KM materials and producing a new version which will be ready for publication for January 2012.It encompasses all my new learnings and insights that I get through my KM consulting engagements, workshops and conference speaking around the world.

The great thing about doing this update, which I do religiously every year, is that this very process always triggers new creative and innovative thoughts. In fact, I get so excited by these new revelations that I sometimes forget the original purpose.

This makes me realise, once again, that the creative process of knowledge creation is often a function of time, to reflect, analyse, consolidate, synthesize, and update new thoughts and ideas with established thoughts and concepts.

Imagine how much more creative individuals and organisations could become, if only they gave more time and value to learning, reflecting, creating and applying knowledge?

I was told that Google demand that their employees spend 20% of their work time to learning, reflecting, creating and innovating. I am told that 3M were pioneers in doing this 80/20 time week.

I wonder how many of the really valuable, and maybe even radical,innovations come from this 20% usage of time for more effective knowledge working?

When will management understand and properly value knowledge creation against performance?

Meanwhile, another cafe latte? a glass of wine? 4 hours to go. I need some 80/20 time.

Ron Young

More at:

www.knowledge-management-online.com

Friday, August 12, 2011

Saturday morning in sunny Singapore

It's saturday morning in sunny Singapore and, I guess, that's my favourite time here.

Why?

Well, for many people around the world, it's normally because we have all been working hard during the week and its a time to relax. But, in Singapore, even more so because Singaporeans work very hard, very fast, and quite often, very long hours over the weekend too.

For me, my work finished about 10pm on friday night, after a skype videoconference with Kevin and Donovan in their Singapore office, and Douglas in Washington who was enjoying the friday morning, twelve hours behind Singapore.

This saturday morning I sat outside my hotel for breakfast, at Clarke's Quay down by the Singapore river. Just like every morning this week, but this time it was very different. Instead of gulping my breakfast and coffee,and reading notes in a very detached sort of way, about my meetings that day, I was able to sit and listen to the birds chirping away. Across the street, I noticed a guy was watering the plants around the building, smiling, and saying hello to people passing by.He was probably there every morning, but I hadn't noticed before.

What I really loved this morning, was that the beautiful green and lush plants under the palms were full of glistening white water jewels. Pearls of white that looked so fresh for a new day. They were especially magnified by the Singapore sun and bright light.

For me, only on a saturday morning, I had time to just browse through the Singapore Strait Times, and even just read articles I would simply not have the time to do during the week.

And the coffee even tasted so much better today.

Before I knew it, in a flash of timelessness, it was 11.30am and several beads of sweat were making themselves known on my forehead. It was time to go in to the hotel to cool down.

My first thought, back in the bustling lobby was 'how nice it would be if we could enjoy the beauty of our surroundings every morning'. Then I thought, 'but then we wouldn't have special saturday mornings'.

Happy saturday to all, everywhere.

Ron

www.knowledge-management-online.com