Unstructured Web 2.0 tools and structured systems

For some time now, I have been using and evaluating different 'Enterprise 2.0' systems.

This has led me to believe that Enterprise 2.0 has, potentially, some very powerful possibilities that go beyond Web 2.0, provided we approach it and think differently to standard web 2.0 usage.

In Web 2.0 we have separate tools, provided by separate providers. We can choose, and mix and match our tools to tweet, to blog, to create wiki's, to search, to be alerted, to collaborate in virtual teams, to conduct social bookmarking, social networking etc.

Because we tend to start with one tool, maybe blogging, we focus on the simple use of this until we gain confidence and understand its full potential. One by one, we may add these tools, initially, for simple reasons. But often, we only want to use one tool for one specific job.

The result is that we have people today on the Web who specialise, for example, as star bloggers with an enormous following and reputation as good writers, or thought leaders, or critics or whatever.

We have celebrities whose tweets are followed by fans.

People tweet from their phones to organize a revolution.

People use wikipedia as their online encyclopedia.

We use the social network facebook to keep connected to friends and their activities.

By and large, in our private lives, we use Web 2.0 tools to perform separate functions that help us communicate, learn and share in those areas that interest us.

They are hugely successful because they are each, very simple to get started, very intuitive, free at entry point, and enable us to participate globally, and to gain recognition to potentially huge audiences.

But now, through Enterprise initiatives, and pressures from private users of Web 2.0 tools, people are developing ways to use the same tools in the workplace, because as knowledge workers, we also need to find ways to better communicate, collaborate, learn and share knowledge and experiences, to help us become more productive, at least.

We start off by using the tools, one by one, in the workplace, for different activities. Frankly, if this improves our communications and ability to work better, in any way, that's simply great.

Eventually, however, some of us reach a stage that makes us think about how we could better use these separate tools by combining them, systematically, to create knowledge flows, perhaps to support our own work processes and knowledge deliverables?

But here, I suggest, we have to think differently from a simple to use and intuitive approach.

Here, we need BOTH unstructured AND structured information, we need to think both in intuitive and logical ways, we need both discovery and serendipity, and logical search and scanning, we need both creativity and innovation and knowledge management.

To me, its like the way our brains best function. Not totally logical (left hemisphere) and not totally creative (right hemisphere) but BOTH / AND. Interestingly, the Oxford Dictionary definition of genius is 'utilizing both the left brain and right brain faculties to the full'

So I suggest that successful Enterprise 2.0, if you are happy with that term, is beyond Web 2.0, and should allow BOTH free intuitive, informal, simple, unstructured, participation from which natural wisdom may emerge from the diverse crowds, on the one hand, AND logical, formal, structured process and review from experts and peer groups, working together towards organizational excellence. An organizational 'whole brain' approach.

What do you think?

Does this delight you or horrify you?

Could we start capturing ideas and blog learnings and insights spontaneously, yet within a framework towards structured knowledge flows towards Good Practices, for example?

In this case, the structure is achieved by chanelling the knowledge flow and knowledge objects towards managed wiki's, as well as self-managed wiki's, as appropriate.

Or should we restrict ourselves to the more unstructured usage only, as a key benefit to our work, and consider it as just one of the powerful tools to be used with other more structured tools in our organizations, to achieve specific objectives?

What's your take on this?

Ron Young

More at:
www.knowledge-management-online.com

My first successful experience of global knowledge sharing

It was actually in the early 1970's that I had my first successful experience of global knowledge sharing.

It happened by accident and through a great tragedy.

A very good friend and business colleague of mine was, like me, a passionate private pilot. But very sadly, he crashed and died with his wife and friends on board, in the misty hills and mountains of Snowdonia in Wales.

As the only computer programmer around that could understand his COBOL program, at the time, his employees asked me to keep running this main business application, to keep the company running.

This is how it worked.

Quite simply, all the major manufacturers of agricultural tractors, worldwide, all knew each other well. (Ford, Massey Ferguson, International Harvester, John Deere etc.) The agricultural industry was very old and mature indeed. As a result, most people had, at one time or another, worked also in several of the competitor companies.

The problem was that the tractor component manufacturers and the tractor manufacturers themselves were always either greatly overproducing or greatly underproducing to try to meet market demands.

So the manufacturers agreed to share, each month, their total shipments to their dealers and other production and distribution information and knowledge.

This was achieved by submitting their information, in strict confidence, to an independant computer bureau that would then produce the total picture without revealing the identity of the individual contributions. That was what I did each month.

It was perfect. It really helped tractor manufacturers and component manufacturers with their production. It saved lots of money. It increased efficiency and effectiveness.

This global information and knowledge sharing was so successful that within a few years only, we were running lots of global exchanges for all types of agricultural and construction machinery and equipment.

This really was a first successful experience of global knowledge sharing.

There was so much to be gained by collaborating and not just competing.

Eventually, the manufacturers gained enough confidence and trust in the exchange system that they even then started to reveal their identities to one another, and not just anonymous totals.

Unfortunately, this successful evolution of global information and knowledge sharing had to end.

The European Commission decided that there was nothing at all wrong with the global exchanges of information and knowledge, but it had been brought to their attention that the annual meetings we held, with all manufacturers present, could be a potential breeding ground for collusion on prices and market shares etc.

It got so bad that every manufacturer even had to fully report the next day if they even accidentally met a competitor anywhere at, say, a trade fair or any event.

Eventually, the manufacturers had to greatly reduce this activity into remote, anonymous, monthly submissions of broad information only. This was in order to comply with European Commission, Treaty of Rome Article 85, on unfair competition.

But that was a long time ago. And I imagine it was one of the first, if not the pioneering, global exchanges of information and knowledge which had, initially, huge business benefits and success.

Ultimately, it could not be sustained because of issues of 'ethics and trust'

What can we learn from this today in our 21st Century knowledge driven corporates, organizations and institutions?

Ron Young

More at:

www.knowledge-management-online.com

Knowledge Asset Management: two minute video

In December 2010, I was invited to speak at KM India, held in Bangalore.

During the conference, I was video interviewed.

Here is the first, a two minute introduction to Knowledge Asset Management, that distinguishes between flows of knowledge and explicit knowledge objects.

Ron Young

More at:

www.knowledge-management-online.com

Mass global collaboration at its very best

 

This morning I was blown away. In fact, I was in tears of joy.

I picked up from a tweet, from Don Tapscott author of MacroWikinomics, a link to a YouTube video.

I curiously followed it.

As a knowledge management practitioner since 1995, and particularly since the era of Web 2.0, I have been very interested in examples of mass collaboration that have emerged on the web. Popular examples are, of course, Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia of Life, Genome project etc.

Mass collaborations, in such volumes, and such degrees of diversity, all coming together, can often distil truth, or get very close indeed.

They can break the boundaries of human knowledge to something much bigger, totally disruptive and uncontrollable, like a sort of knowledge tsunami.

Well today I saw for the first time a video from a TED talk from Eric Whitacre: A virtual choir 2,000 voices strong. Each person sang alone to a score and conductor from around the world, and the individual video uploads were edited into one production.

The result is simply wonderful, and truly so much greater than the sum of the parts! A magnificent global mass collaboration.

Take a look at this 14 minute video of the talk and final music video’s.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NENlXsW4pM

What truth does this distil for you?

Ron Young

More info at:

www.knowledge-management-online.com

Job: Knowledge Management Expert, The Netherlands, SABIC

A few years ago, I worked with helping SABIC in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, develop Knowledge Management competencies, and introduce KM initiatives into their research teams.

SABIC are expanding globally rapidly, expanding their KM activities, and now seek a Knowledge Management expert, based in the Netherlands.

Full details for the job application here

Ron Young

More info about KM at:

www.knowledge-management-online.com

Will Jeju, S.Korea, be the next Singapore as a Knowledge Hub?

I am sitting in the airport lounge at Jeju airport, South Korea, waiting for a flight to Seoul, and then onwards to London.

After just three days on the island, I ask, will Jeju be the next Singapore, as a Knowledge Hub?

Why do I say this?

Jeju is an island on the southern tip of South Korea. If you look on a map you will see that it is a short flight to Seoul, to Beijing, to Shanghai and to Tokyo, all major capital cities of S.Korea, China and Japan, with very high populations.

Very significantly, in 2002, the Korean Government designated Jeju as the Free International City by recognising its value, and designated Jeju as the Special Self-Governing Province in 2006, the only exceptions being national defence, diplomacy and administration of justice.

There is indiscriminate(no tax) reduction in domestic and foreign capital.

Today, Jeju, like Singapore many years ago, has a relatively low population. Around 600,000 people live there. At the moment, about 10 million people visit Jeju each year as tourists.  It is currently the main business. This is because Jeju is a staggeringly beautiful natural island, with a great climate, and a wonderful and majestic Mt Halla soaring high to embrace the entire island. Locals rightfully boast that water flowing from it, anywhere on the island, makes people feel good just by simply drinking it with hands.

The Hallasan Nature Reserve is spectacular, and the ancient volcanoes and Lava Tubes are beyond words. It is no surprise that it is a declared UNESCO World natural heritage area.

But that is now. What about the future?

Well the vision is for a ‘Free International City centering on mankind, environment and knowledge’. The first phase will be completed this year, 2011.

Secondly, South Korea are the most advanced in the world today with internet connectivity and infrastructure investment.

Thirdly, the world class International Conference Centre is within 2 hrs flight from Beijing, Shanghai, Seoul, Tokyo. The international airport infrastructure is world class.

Most importantly, Jeju International City has six core projects:

1. High-Tech Science and Technology Complex

2. English Education City

3. Healthcare Town

4. Seogwipo Tourism Port

5. Resort-Type Residential Complex

6. Myths – History Theme Park

After 3 days on the island, what is my prediction?

I strongly suspect, at least, that Jeju could become the Knowledge Hub of North East Asia, as Singapore has become the Knowledge Hub of South East Asia.

And finally, of utmost importance for success and growth, is the natural hospitality of the people.

Our host, Mr Jun-Ho Kim, Director,International Cooperation Department, Korea Productivity Center, totally surprised us all with a ‘cultural tour’ after meetings. We were introduced to female divers offering fresh seafood with a  Korean drink I can only describe as very very good cold saki. I am sure the Koreans consider it better. We were introduced to very local eating. We were sped around the coastline in a jet boat. We attended a Korean circus, we had lunch on a floating seafood hotel, we climbed the peaks, and saw the famous setting sun.

If Jun-Ho Kim is a typical example of hospitality, the rest of the world had better watch out. But I suspect he is extraordinary, by any standards, even though the local people were, indeed, most friendly and kind.

If I get some spare cash I know where I will be investing it!

I think Jeju, S.Korea, is a place to watch carefully in the growing global knowledge and experience economy.

Good luck Jeju.

Ron Young

(PS I will be adding my photographs as soon as I get back to Europe.)

More information at:

www.knowledge-management-online.com

From Government to Collaborative Governance

A great new learning for me this week in South Korea is the notion of transformation that is taking place in the Public sector, from 'Government to Collaborative Governance'.

Working with Dr Shin Kim, Director, Office of International Cooperation and Public Relations, The Korea Institute of Public Administration, he explained:

'In South Korea,we are well advanced and familiar with all the major Knowledge Management theories, concepts, frameworks etc and what we are seeking is more practicality in our KM initiatives. South Korea has made substantial investments in IT and technology infrastructure, but doesn't yet have the application and practical implementation of effective knowledge management.

The Government realised that it has a new paradigm, from governing, from 'government' to realising that it cannot possibly be truly effective unless it fully collaborates with stakeholders in a new paradigm around collaborating ', hence the development of 'Collaborative Governance'.

I do like the notion of collaborative governance of knowledge in the Public sector.

Ron Young

more information at:

www.knowledge-management-online.com

Japan Tsunami and effective Knowledge Management

I am writing this blogpost from Seoul airport, on my way to the South Korean island of Jeju.

There, I will be spending three days with the Asian Productivity Organisation, Korea Productivity Center, and KM and Innovation experts from Korea, Japan, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, and myself from the UK.

We arranged this expert meeting in January 2011, and a key objective is to write a book, collaboratively, probably entitled 'KM and Public Sector Productivity' in Asia

I was contemplating this meeting from my home in SW France last week, and I thought, 'If only we could direct our meeting focus to effective KM in public emergency and disaster recovery services'.

Japan clearly leads the world with excellence in planning and managing earthquake emergencies and very advanced building design,but nobody predicted the severity of the earthquake or the devastating tsunami. So I am sure that there will be more lessons to be learned in these critical areas.

My interest in effective KM for such situations started when I was asked to assist the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction UNISDR (2009) with HQ in Geneva, Switzerland and working from Bangkok for the Asia Pacific Region. I was introduced to the 'Hyogo Framework' developed at a meeting in Japan to help national governments and agencies minimize disaster reduction through better knowledge and understanding, strategies and tools, to proactively anticipate, and therefore minimize, possible loss of life and economic loss.


Imagine my attention was immediately drawn when one of the experts from Tokyo, Japan, Mr Naoki Ogiwara, from Fuji-Xerox, commented on Facebook that he was looking forward to the meeting in Jeju and, could not think of a more appropriate topic effective 'KM in the Public Sector' considering the emergency situation in Japan.

It begs the question:

How can effective KM contribute even more to critical Public Sector services such as Nuclear Energy Management, Transportaion, Healthcare, Disaster Management, Emergency Social Services and much more in this area.

It will be interesting to see how our discussions go this week. I will keep posting on any significant developments.

Ron Young

More information at

www.knowledge-management-online.com

Competitive Collaboration in a Global Knowledge Economy

I presented a paper at KM Middle East 2011, in Abu Dhabi, 15-16th March 2011, entitled

'Competitive Collaboration in a Global Knowledge Economy'.

You may read this paper here

Ron Young

Cairo, Egypt, Mubarak and Knowledge Management?

 

Following the historic event that took place yesterday in Cairo, Egypt with President Mubarak stepping down, I feel compelled to write down and share some thoughts that I have about open knowledge flows, trust, open communications, and the power of mass collaboration.

In September last year, for the first time in my life, I had the privilege to travel to Cairo, Egypt to present a keynote paper at the KM Egypt Conference 2010. The theme of the conference was ‘Knowledge Management; a Catalyst for Innovation’.My presentation was entitled and focused on ‘Knowledge Management and Innovation in the Global Knowledge Economy’ The tracks, presentations and speakers can be found here. 

The conference was organised by The Egyptian Cabinet Information and Decision Support Center (IDSC), one of the distinguished think tanks in Egypt, which is primarily tasked with supporting decision-makers overs issues of relevance to economic, social and political reform. There were several hundred delegates with, mainly, a strong representation from government and public agencies. The conference was conducted under the auspices of His Excellency Dr Ahmed Nazif, The Prime Minister of Egypt and the conference keynote was delivered by Ahmed Darwish, Minister of State for Administrative Development, Egypt. It was an excellent conference and there was great participation by all. After discussions with many delegates and speakers, and the organisers IDSC, I left feeling certain that many people were very interested indeed in developing effective knowledge management strategies and implementations in their organisations.

I certainly do not want in this post, in any way, to deflect attention to the tremendous efforts and enormous feelings of the people in this historic revolution, as they have set a truly great example, not only for Egypt, but across the world, of people power and unity, individual human rights and freedom.

They should be very proud of this peaceful achievement and giant step towards a more democratic society, at last, and judging from their celebrations and exuberance in the Tahrir square last night, they are most happy indeed with their achievement.

But because I am a knowledge management consultant, and my primary role is to help individuals, teams, organisation and even nations and world regions, with better knowledge strategy understanding, development, and implementation, I cannot help but strongly see the world through a lens of knowledge and how it underlies and drives everything in society.

So, rather, my blog post today is not aimed to be political, but it is aimed at using these extraordinary historic events as lessons and strong examples, and reminders to us all, to briefly illustrate a few of the key principles of effective knowledge management.

I wish to remind us that TRUST in the lifeblood of any organisation, whether its a two person relationship, a small team, an organisation, or an entire country or world region.

Trust has to be earned. Trust cannot be learned. Trust creates the glue or stickiness of  a relationship and when trust breaks down, so does the relationship. Nothing could be more vivid than the clear loss of trust that a critical mass of people had in President Mubarak and I believe that this caused them to stay on in the square with such absolute determination that some said they would even die for this change.

And we will never forget that many did, of course.

This complete loss of trust propelled the people to refuse any level of negotiation from Mubarak. In other words, when trust is gone there is no two way negotiation at all. The relationship becomes irreconcilable.

The opposite of trust is FEAR and great doubt, and people cannot continue indefinitely in a very fearful environment.

But when there is, at least, sufficient trust, people will COMMUNICATE, and when there is good trust, people will COLLABORATE. When people are communicating and collaborating, especially when it is two way and frequent communications of rich information, they cannot help but LEARN and develop so much faster.

It was Jan Carlson, ex CEO of SAS, Scandinavian Airlines, who first taught me in the 1980’s a very powerful principle  “people without information cannot take responsibility, people with information cannot help but take responsibility”.

I believe that the new Social Media of today, especially Twitter and Facebook, Blogs and Wiki’s, do now play a very important and vital communications role in informing, and in teaching, and in organising people. So, of course, do mobile phones and texting etc, as they all greatly empower all individuals who have access to the internet, to a global degree never experienced in humanity before.

TV and radio and news media is a one-way ‘broadcast’ to the people.Social media has the ability for massive, collective, almost instantaneous, two way and multiple way shared communications. It has moved us from just a ‘SEND’ or push model to a new ‘SHARE’ or pull model.

Even in my personal example as a conference speaker, I am now very aware that it is simply not any more a one way stream of information from speaker to delegates, but, even more importantly, people are creating live conference tweets and blogging streams so that others connected to the internet can also benefit from the collective wisdom of the audiences, as they listen.

And finally, it is the case that when people sufficiently trust and communicate, and learn faster, and, as a result, they develop their knowledge, skills, confidence and competence faster, they ‘naturally’ want to share with others. This is perfect collaboration and massively powerful. Wikipedia is a great first example of global mass collaboration.

I believe that it is inevitable that all societies and countries in the world, when using these global communications tools and technologies, to better communicate, collaborate, learn faster and share their knowledge, will increasingly demand that the role of Government will be increasingly to ‘facilitate’ these communications of information and knowledge for the good of the whole. Governments will increasingly be expected to produce knowledge commons for its citizens. ‘Knowledge commons’ is about creating and sharing knowledge freely for all, for the common good of all, and for the sustainability of the planet.

What I have just described, I refer to as a virtuous upwards spiral. If you increase and improve any one of the elements of trust, open communications, learning and sharing knowledge, ALL the elements will increase even further.

However,if you suppress and decrease any of the elements it then becomes a vicious downward spiral, and eventually breaks down.

The historic events in Egypt illustrate both the vicious spiral downwards to destruction, based on lack of trust and restricted one way, infrequent communications, and the amazing power of this virtuous spiral upwards based on trust, open frequent two way communications, faster learning, confidence, competence, sharing knowledge and, ultimately effective mass collaboration.

Governments need to remind themselves to practice these principles of effective knowledge management, to facilitate a truly transparent, and virtuous, spiral of development and growth for its people.

What and who is next?

Ron Young

More information at:

www.knowledge-management-online.com

Annual Lecture at CASS Business School, London, 24th January 2011

 

Well, it’s that time of the year again.

For the third year running, I gave my annual Knowledge Management lecture to 2nd year MBA students at CASS Business School, City University.

I always enjoy this time, primarily because it is very refreshing, always, to talk with students who have their lives and careers ahead of them, versus senior management of corporates, who, naturally through life long business experiences, have a more pragmatic, and even cynical business view. But, of course, we need the balance of fresh new, creative, no limits thinking, and knowledge and experiences from practical business realities.

But this year, I was even more conscious of the ‘one way’ channel of lecturing. This is because I am so much more conscious of the added power of more rapid, interactive, two-way, open discussion as a faster and richer way to learn. Of, course, I have no idea how much tweeting or blogging was going on whilst I was speaking (not much, judging from my direct questions to them about personal blogging and tweeting) but, generally, I felt ‘too one way’ and wanted to interact much more.

But afterwards, several students kindly complimented my talk and felt they had learned much, and I know that would not have been possible, to the same degree, if we had a different, and perhaps less focused, conversation.

At least, my lecture objectives for the students, were achieved.

So my new learning’s came at the end of the talk when I was questioned by students individually, and of course, through updating my lecture annually, based on new developments in KM as I travel the world.

My annual update lunch at CASS afterwards, with my long standing colleague Professor Clive Holtham, and lecturer Martin Rich, was a delight as always. Clive and I have one big thing in common, we both enjoy ‘walking meetings’, so much more invigorating, constructive and productive.

I look forward to my next CASS KM lecture.

My CASS lecture slides, and others, are available at:

http://www.slideshare.net/ronyoung/24-01-11-km-at-cass-business-school 

More information at my website

http://www.knowledge-management-online.com

Ron Young

Rapid Knowledge Transfer across generations

So what do you think is happening here? Is grandad teaching grandson maybe?

Well I am the apprentice! My grandson Joel, in my opinion, is a ‘Master of the iPad’. He started as a three year old and he will be four in a few days. He has been using the iPad for several months on a daily basis. I received my iPad a couple of months ago as a present from his mum and dad.

He has been teaching me how to naturally, and intuitively, navigate, interact and play, in ways I do not get in any manual or book.

If you look at the pictures, what do you think we are doing on our iPads?

He is having fun, and learning fast,with an interactive educational game that he plays almost daily. Like all children, he loves fun and games. This is the way to learn. We learn so much faster when it’s fun.

Here is the paradox. ‘Fun is serious business in the 21st Century Knowledge Economy’.

I am landing a Boeing 747 jet into San Francisco airport using instruments. As a past pilot for 20 years, I now love flying the iPad flight simulator, to keep my skills fresh, and, I am having so much fun too. But instrument flying requires both intellectual and experiential skills.

But now, after Joel’s teaching,  I can fly the simulator even better!

What can we learn from this in effective learning and knowledge transfer for the future?

Ron Young

http://www.knowledge-management-online.com/

Tools have a major impact on our knowledge creation and transfer

 

First of all, I should say that it has been several months since my last blog, primarily because of an intensive honeymoon with Twitter over the past years. I thought it replaced blogging, and to a degree that is true for me. But, nevertheless, I have had a growing feeling inside that I needed to blog again. I realised again, the power and need to capture and organise my learning’s and insights in ways that blogs can do well. The interesting thing is that it has been new developments for me, in technology tools, that have brought me back to blogging (and tweeting). Let me explain a little more.

As a KM consultant, I still get bombarded by people who say KM is not about technology, its about people.

Well they are half right. People create and apply knowledge, but the tools can have a major impact, and make a huge difference to how we create and apply knowledge. In fact, technology has been the fundamental cause of a revolution in information and knowledge throughout the world. I need say no more than World Wide Web and mobile wireless communication and computing technologies.

In the continual pursuit of better tools for myself, for capturing, storing, sharing and applying knowledge, as an intense and passionate knowledge worker, I found a better way this month. This has made a great difference and improvement in my productivity and knowledge creation.

Before, I found it messy and time consuming to integrate my photo’s and words into blogs instantly. So, as a result, I didn’t do it very well.

Now I still take pictures on my iPhone, plug them into my Samsung Netbook while travelling, and using Windows Live Writer, I can simply post pictures and words and links into my blogs, and publish without thinking. I imagine you will say, ‘I have always been able to do that, so what?’. Well maybe the tools were there and I didn’t see them easily, but this one appeared and works for me fine.

Equally, last night, I discovered yet another amazing app on my iPad to draw creatively, called ‘Penultimate’. Together with the app iThoughtsHD, I am creating mindmaps again in a much better and naturally creative way.

My point is that it is these mobile wireless tools, together with global web technology and infrastructure, have made a major impact in my knowledge creation and publishing ability and productivity.

I look forward to more amazing tools for the knowledge worker.

Ron Young

http://www.knowledge-management-online.com/ 

(PS The above pic is of a simple but miraculous free skype personal videoconference with my daughter Emma and our family)

From Knowledge to Innovation video

Following my last blog, which included the slides of my presentation and a transcript,
I am glad to say that the KM Singapore 2010 Conference have kindly video'd my keynote presentation here

Ron Young

More at:

www.knowledge-management-online.com

KM Singapore 2010 - my keynote paper and my learning's

The information and Knowledge Management Society of Singapore held their annual conference KM Singapore 2010 on 16/17th September 2010.At this website you will find full conference details and proceedings.

The theme this year was Knowledge and Innovation.

I had the pleasure to give the international keynote speech 'From Knowledge to Innovation' and a copy is available here

The accompanying presentation slides are available on SlideShare here

I greatly enjoyed the conference this year. The iKMS Awards Presentation for Knowledge Excellence was excellent and Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) were the first to receive a Platinum Award, ever.

As the conference is well blogged and covered well on the iKMS Singapore and KM Singapore websites, I will just add my key personal learning's.

1. I was pleasantly amused in the workshop sessions when one facilitator suggested people could sms their questions to speakers if they fely embarrased. Nice.

2. Arthur Shelley said 'I don't teach. I have conversations with students'. Nice.

3. I am not sure I agree with the speaker from Shell Global Solutions who said Shell do not use the word knowledge management but use knowledge sharing instead. I think better knowledge sharing is only one component of effective knowledge management, and better knowledge protecting is the other.It's about knowing when to better share and when to better protect. But Shell now have knowledge advisors instead of knowledge managers, so let's see what happens.

4. I certainly do like Shells 'ASK, LEARN and SHARE'mantra.

5. One speaker/teacher said her students were too shy to speak so she got in to their world using Virtual Life to engage. Great. I don't think it is just shyness though. I think this is the way the young and future generations want to communicate. Avatars are certainly more fun for them.

6. The Supreme Court of Singapore say 'culture leads and technology supports'. It's interesting how they use wiki's to create legal knowledge repositories. A cautious nice.

7. I really enjoyed the facilitated '3 minute story session' from Nate Allen from the US Army. Each table delegate (4 to a table) tells a 3 minute story about personal experiences with Communities Of Practice. When all delegates have done this, after 12 minutes, everyone changes tables and tells the same stories to new people. After doing this for four rotations, everyone stands together in the room. people then have to go and put their hand on the shoulder of the person who's story was most interesting. A great engagement and a great idea.

8.Professor Eric Chan gave good presentations, as always, and I enjoyed some new perspectives from him on taxonomy and folksonomy. He and I also share the same views about the critical importance of personal knowledge management.

9. I do recommend the KM Aids, a set of KM Diagnostic Cards, Organisation Culture Cards, KM methods Cards and KM Approaches Methods and Tools - A Guidebook, from Straits Knowledge

I enjoyed Nate Allens final remark 'We all leave a wake, what do you want your wake to be?'

I do hope to participate next year in KM Singapore 2011.

Ron Young

More at www.knowledge-management-online.com

Understanding the Four Dimensions of Knowledge Management - personal, team, organizational and inter-organizational

Recently, I have been running Master Classes in London and Singapore in 'Understanding the Four Dimensions of Knowledge Management'.

By request, here is the paper I circulate before my Master Classes to explain the importance of all four dimensions, before deeper class discussions and knowledge sharing.

My next scheduled Master Class for this is at KM Asia in November 2010. You can download the brochure details here

Do you agree with this?

As always, I would be very glad indeed for any feedback.

Ron Young

More at:

www.knowledge-management-online.com

Similarities between KM and Quantum Physics

A few weeks ago, sitting in my home in the vineyards of South West France, I was thinking again about KM and Quantum Physics.It has been bubbling up inside of me over the past few years.

I have always been somewhat concerned about the polarity that exists between KM practitioners.

For example, the 'people approach' versus the 'process and technology approach' that still exists today. The 'complexity of systems and emergent properties approach' and the 'codified reusable kbase and best/good practices approach'.

I consider knowledge management: the art and science of both invisible knowledge flows and visible knowledge assets, to follow the same laws as classical physics and quantum physics.

The physical world of ‘what we can see’ follows the laws of Newtonian Physics, and we can rely completely on these laws of gravity, thermodynamics, aerodynamics etc.

The sub-atomic world of ‘what we cannot see’ follows the laws of Quantum Physics with both waves and electrons, infinite possibilities, entanglement, and total interconnection etc.

It is not either/or but both/and to give us a complete understanding.

Turning specifically to the area of KM. If you listen to a speaker who comes primarily from the more right brained ‘invisible’ world of complexity thinking, symbols, flows, emergent patterns, apparent fragmentation, you simply cannot disagree with this explanation of this world, because it is right. It follows quantum thinking at the sub-atomic level. Here, there is no real place for the laws and management and measurement of visible knowledge assets.

Actually, whenever I listen to such speakers, I get inspired because they put me in a predominantly right brain mode.

If you listen to other KM speakers, who comes primarily from a more left brained ‘visible’ world of knowledge bases, distilled knowledge from practices and lessons learned, knowledge managers and knowledge areas, you simply cannot disagree with this explanation of this world either, because it is right. In predominantly left brain mode I get equally inspired with good stories.

For example, as a pilot I simply love this eloquent story of the way BA discovered that ice can freeze fuel lines at high altitude and how, within 30 days of the BA crash landing at LHR, all pilots in the world had their flight checklists updated with a new procedure to strictly follow, to cover this learning. Although this distilled universal knowledge in the checklist came from a detailed ‘in context’ accident report, that led to detailed new knowledge creation theory and tests, and then lessons learned and best practices repositories, the pilots were not interested in access to raw source materials of what occurred at LHR, they just wanted the best applicable knowledge to apply now, for safety. A few months later, in USA, a flight had the same freezing occur. The pilots immediately followed the checklist and the passengers were none the wiser.

I see effective knowledge driven organizations needing both effective knowledge flows and techniques, and I see the absolute need for evidence based knowledge creation, knowledge bases, and application.

I see, this both/and approach for each key knowledge area, key knowledge communities/networks and knowledge bases.

So what is my conclusion? There is a key KM principle here:

‘Knowledge Management is SITUATIONAL.’

We need both 'quantum knowledge flows' and 'physical knowledge assets', to be able to understanding both worlds properly. If we live in just one world we may perish, or get mediocre results, at best.

A holistic approach to invisible tacit and visible explicit knowledge, supported by understandings like both Newtonian and Quantum physics, will ensure more effective knowledge management.

In 2003, a team of us working on a European Commission funded project project called Know-net tried to express this, as best we could, from our research and findings in our book Knowledge Asset Management - beyond the process centred and product centred approaches.

There is also another brain principle here, I think.

You will think or feel like you are listening to the truth, depending on whether you are predominantly in your left or right brain hemisphere, and its associated laws, but the whole Truth requires whole brain thinking .

That’s my vineyard inspired philosophy for today.

What do you think?

Ron Young

More at
www.knowledge-management-online.com

My new KM learning's and insights in Tehran, Iran

It was certainly a great privilege and pleasure to be invited to Tehran, Iran, to present and facilitate a six day in-depth Knowledge Management programme during the period 8th - 13th May 2010. Whilst there, I gained some very valuable and new learnings and insights into KM which I believe are unique to Iran. This aspect I wish to share and discuss here.

The event was hosted by the National Iranian Productivity Center (NIPC), as part of an 'Expert KM initiative' organised by the Asian Productivity Organization, Tokyo (APO).

APO have National Productivity Centres in each of the 21 Asian member countries. Although I am based in Cambridge, UK, I have been intensively working with APO for three years, and this trip to Iran has now taken me to 11 Asian member countries, so far, in their mission to increase the productivity, quality and profitability of Asian organizations through effective knowledge management.

My greatest new leaning and insights came from an organised study trip on day 5 to the Iranian Research Institute for Scientific Information & Documentation (IRANDOC). IRANDOC is the main national and governmental center for accumulating, organizing, processing and disseminating scientific and technological documents. Its main activities are in Research, Training, Information and Knowledge Management services.

As a national organization, established in 1968, it has created and maintains a directory and database of all University theses in Iran. It is mandatory for each student to submit their thesis, through their University, to this organization.

To date, 126,000 theses have been captured, of which 110 are related to Knowledge Management. This is a systematic and collective process.

The first 15 pages of each thesis are freely available to all online in PDF format and, in total, up to 30 pages can be made available for a small nominal cost. IRANDOC maintain the national archive. A recent law in Iran is concerned with publishing all information and IRANDOC are currently discussing copyright with the students.

I am not an expert in such education systems internationally, but to my knowledge, I have not heard of similar national new knowledge collective systems in the USA, Europe, other parts of Asia and the rest of the world?

Through this blog, as a KM practitioner and consultant, I ask experts in government and education around the world if similar systems exist in their countries? To my knowledge this only occurs at a University level?

IRANDOCS advised us that there is not as much collaboration between Universities as they would like to see (as I have experienced also in the rest of the world) but I think this central archive and repository is an excellent inter-organizational infrastructure to help building increased collaboration across Universities.

So I was further impressed by the process whereby each University must make a proposal, at the moment by letter and later online, to ensure that each new thesis is non-repetitive and true new knowledge. (I have often doubted the existing University procedures around the world that just 'do a critical review of the literature' as I am certain that this could be error prone, on occasions, and this could lead to academically 're-inventing the wheel'.

Imagine, educational politics aside, a global repository of theses across all Universities, from a global knowledge management perspective.

The next initiative that greatly impressed me, at IRANDOCS, is how they also capture nationally a 'Who's Who' list of experts. Each University is the main input, and submits a bio and information which is indexed to affiliates, associates, advisors, readers, projects worked on etc.

Furthermore, from each national and international conference held, further keynote speakers, speakers and workshop leaders are added to this national expert locator and database. It is new and very popular.

Again, through this blog, I ask experts in government and education around the world if similar national expert systems exist in their countries? To my knowledge this does not occur, either? Please let me know.

I thought to myself that if you combine the national explicit repository of theses together with the national expert directory of tacit knowledge, and mix them together with robust collective and systematic knowledge processes, as they are starting to do, you have a very powerful national knowledge leadership and edge.

Finally, we were presented with an update of a new initiative to integrate all the libraries across Iran, to start with. There are no integrated systems as yet, and many are incompatible, but the vision and aim is clearly there, based on inter-library law to maximise the use of all documents. In this system, today, it is possible for an individual to ask IRANDOC for any book, which they will locate and send, on a temporary basis. I think this system of national library integration is proceeding across the world right now.

Politics aside, imagine a worldwide digital integration of libraries, which is a clear aim of organizations like Google, for example.

IRANDOC concluded by advising us that their next research project has gone beyond the Universities to 'Organizations'. The public sector must report, and gain full access, and the private sector is commencing with summary information, not as detailed.

Back in the KM in-depth workshop that I was leading, we discussed this new learning and KM initiative against the progress each participant organization was making in KM.

Of the 24 delegates, we had KM practitioners and representatives from 4 national banks. The Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran, in particular, was well advanced over several years implementation, in developing 'learning objects' in the training division, and turning them into 'knowledge objects' in the organization as a whole. Other representatives, from other Banks, Industrial Development and Renovation, Chamber of Commerce, Mines and Mining Industries, Ministries of Science, Research and Technology, Education, Road and Transportation, Government Strategic Planning and Control, and NIPC, were embarking on their KM implementations. Many were using the APO KM Framework and KM Implementation methodology as central components of their KM strategies.

Towards the end of the 6 day event, inspired by my friend and colleague, David Gurteen, I introduced a Knowledge Cafe, which was most refreshing, successful, and gave us all the time and an opportunity to reflect and share more deeply, what we had all learned during the week.

The people I met during the trip were so kind and courteous, very inquisitive indeed, and a joy to work with.

If you have the opportunity to visit Tehran, Iran, make sure you try the ice cream too ... its beyond words.

Ron Young

more at

www.knowledge-management-online.com

Tokyo - the sunny pink city

Here are a few pictures captured on my iPhone on arrival in Tokyo.

1. Arrival at Narita Airport, 9.30am Tuesday 6th April 2010






2. I love this one. Could be the Japanese version of Beatles 'Abbey Road'
Note the lovely avenue of cherry blossom :-)



3. Japanese taxis have lots of technology



4. More Cherry blossom on the way to the hotel





5. View over the Royal Palace from my hotel



More later ..

Is genius a natural gift or can it be developed?

In the pursuit of methods, tools and techniques for developing higher or 'extraordinary' knowledge, I came across this definition of genius:

'a person who has discovered how to increase the vibration of thought (consciously or unconsciously) to the point where they can freely communicate with sources of knowledge not available through the 'ordinary' rate of vibration of thought'.

There is a suggestion here of 'keying up' to higher rates of vibration, for example, when in highly enthusiastic states, intensive desires and passions, high levels of creative imagination etc.

Another definition of genius I have come across is:

'using the faculties of the left and right hemispheres to the full and in unison'

Both definitions suggest that we can all personally develop conditions that lead to genius, as opposed to the common belief that genius is natural for the gifted few.

We can agree that genius is exceptional natural ability, but what are your thoughts on this? Can genius be cultivated at schools, in the workplace?

Ron Young

More at:

www.knowledge-management-online.com