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Person

Dave Snowden

Founder & Chief Scientific Officer - Cognitive Edge

 




Profession(s)

Author, Knowledge Consultant, Speaker

External Links

http://www.cognitive-edge.com 

Categories

Organizational Complexity; Knowledge Management; Storytelling; Sensemaking

Location

United Kingdom, London

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Dave Snowden 

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Dave Snowden
Dave Snowden has been one of the leading figures in the movement towards integration of humanistic approaches to knowledge management with appropriate technology and process design. Well known for his work on the role of narrative and sensemaking, he is an entertaining speaker and a formidable realist, and one of the few thought leaders who can bring together the academic and practitioner perspectives into a single, comprehensible purview.

He is Founder & Chief Scientific Officer -Cognitive Edge (formerly the Cynefin Centre) which focuses on the development of the theory and practice of social complexity. The Cynefin Centre spun off from IBM in July 2005 to allow it greater freedom to explore new trans-disciplinary and participatory approaches to research and the creation of an open source approach to management consultancy. The Cynefin framework which lies at the heart of the approach has been recognized by several commentators as one of the first practical application of complexity theory to management science and builds on earlier pioneering work in Knowledge Management.

A native of Wales, he was formerly a Director in the IBM Institute for Knowledge Management where he led programmes on complexity and narrative. He pioneered the use of narrative as a means of knowledge disclosure and cross-cultural understanding. He is a leading keynote speaker at major conferences around the world and is known for his iconoclastic style, pragmatic cynicism and extensive use of stories to communicate what would otherwise be difficult concepts. Tom Stewart, the new editor of Harvard Business Review in his latest book states in the context of tacit knowledge "Dave Snowden, the best thinker I've found on the subject ..." although by way of counter he also comments "he is Welsh and a bit mad".

Dave Snowden has an MBA from Middlesex University and a BA in Philosophy from Lancaster University. He is adjunct Professor of Knowledge Management at the University of Canberra, an honorary fellow in knowledge management at the University of Warwick, Adjunct Professor at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and MiNE Fellow at the Universita Cattolica Del Sacro Cuore in Italy. He teaches on various university programmes throughout the world. He regularly consults at the board level with some of the world's largest companies as well as to Government and NGOs and was recently appointed as an advisor on sense making to the Singaporean Ministry of Defence. In addition he sits on a number of advisory and other bodies including the British Standards Institute committee on standards for Knowledge Management.

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Blog Post
  Dave Snowden is blogging!
Gurteen Knowledge-Log, David Gurteen, 17 August 2006

  How Do We Make People Do Things?
Gurteen Knowledge-Log, David Gurteen, 12 November 2007

  A Leader's Framework for Decision Making
Gurteen Knowledge-Log, David Gurteen, 14 November 2007

  A summary of Dave Snowden's recent work
Gurteen Knowledge-Log, David Gurteen, 28 November 2007

  Satisfaction Surveys (Are you satisfied?)
Gurteen Knowledge-Log, David Gurteen, 18 February 2008

  Setting targets for knowledge sharing
Gurteen Knowledge-Log, David Gurteen, 7 June 2008

  Is KM Dead? Larry Prusak, Dave Snowden, Patrick Lambe
Gurteen Knowledge-Log, David Gurteen, 6 July 2008

  Dave Snowden's 7 Principles of Knowledge Management
Gurteen Knowledge-Log, David Gurteen, 22 February 2009

  Can you measure personality?
Posted to Gurteen Knowledge-Log by David Gurteen on 26 September 2009

  The best defintion of KM yet!
Posted to Gurteen Knowledge-Log by David Gurteen on 27 September 2009

  How to organise a children's party
Posted to Gurteen Knowledge-Log by David Gurteen on 15 November 2009

  The chef & the recipe book user
Posted to Gurteen Knowledge-Log by David Gurteen on 15 November 2009

  A talk by Dr David Vaine on 4th generation knowledge management!
Posted to Gurteen Knowledge-Log by David Gurteen on 16 November 2009

  The Tyranny of the Explicit
Posted to Gurteen Knowledge-Log by David Gurteen on 17 December 2009

  On data, information, knowledge and wisdom
Posted to Gurteen Knowledge-Log by David Gurteen on 11 February 2010

  A colossal Knowledge Management failure!
Posted to Gurteen Knowledge-Log by David Gurteen on 8 March 2010

  Blogging and tweeting from the recent HKKMS Conference in Hong Kong
Posted to Gurteen Knowledge-Log by David Gurteen on 4 April 2010

  Does willpower have its limits?
Posted to Gurteen Knowledge-Log by David Gurteen on 28 July 2010

  Questioning brainstorming
Posted to Gurteen Knowledge-Log by David Gurteen on 27 September 2010

  A good video collection of interviews with a number of KM people
Posted to Gurteen Knowledge-Log by on 20 February 2011

  Think for yourself about KM
Posted to Gurteen Knowledge-Log by David Gurteen on 19 June 2011

  What is the function of KM?
Posted to Gurteen Knowledge-Log by David Gurteen on 19 November 2011

  Visionary knowledge management: Trends and Strategies
Posted to Gurteen Knowledge-Log by David Gurteen on 22 January 2012

  Explore the range of possibilities then experimentally evolve
Posted to Gurteen Knowledge-Log by David Gurteen on 19 September 2012

  KM Europe is relaunched
Posted to Gurteen Knowledge-Log by David Gurteen on 20 February 2013

  The 3 Davids of KM: Knowledge Management Workshops
Posted to Gurteen Knowledge-Log by David Gurteen on 23 July 2013

  Why we should lay off "best practice" in KM
Posted to Gurteen Knowledge-Log by David Gurteen on 27 January 2014

  Dave Snowden: A succinct overview of his groundbreaking work
Posted to Gurteen Knowledge-Log by David Gurteen on 28 February 2018

Book
  Knowledge Horizons (2000) by Charles Despres , Daniele Chauvel 
The Present and the Promise of Knowledge Management

Category
  Organizational Complexity [12 items]

Link
  Cognitive Edge
Dave Snowden's Cognitive-Edge Organization (formerly the Cynefin Centre)

  Cognitive Edge Newsletter: Fragments

Media File
  Video: Dave Snowden on fluffy bunnies & techno-fetishists

Past Event
  KM Middle East 2015
Knowledge Sharing and Collaboration in the Arab World,
16 - 17 Mar 2015, Success Steps Conferences & Seminars 
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Person
  Dave Snowden Founder & Chief Scientific Officer - Cognitive Edge

  Ralph Stacey Professor of Management & Director of the Complexity & Management Centre at the Business School of the University of Hertfordshire, UK

  Ron Donaldson Senior Knowledge Ecologist, English Nature

Quotation
  On eureka innovation by Dave Snowden Founder & Chief Scientific Officer - Cognitive Edge

  On KM and certification by Dave Snowden Founder & Chief Scientific Officer - Cognitive Edge

  On knowing more than we can say (KM Principle 7) by Dave Snowden Founder & Chief Scientific Officer - Cognitive Edge

  On knowing what we know (KM Principle 2) by Dave Snowden Founder & Chief Scientific Officer - Cognitive Edge

  On Knowledge Management and idealistic solutions. by Dave Snowden Founder & Chief Scientific Officer - Cognitive Edge

  On the fragmentation of knowledge (KM Principle 4) by Dave Snowden Founder & Chief Scientific Officer - Cognitive Edge

  On the idealistic verses naturalistic approach to business by Dave Snowden Founder & Chief Scientific Officer - Cognitive Edge

  On the way we report what we know (KM Principle 6) by Dave Snowden Founder & Chief Scientific Officer - Cognitive Edge

  On tolerated failure and learning (KM Principle 5) by Dave Snowden Founder & Chief Scientific Officer - Cognitive Edge

  On true values by Dave Snowden Founder & Chief Scientific Officer - Cognitive Edge

  On volunteering knowledge (KM Principle 1) by Dave Snowden Founder & Chief Scientific Officer - Cognitive Edge

  On withholding knowledge (KM Principle 3) by Dave Snowden Founder & Chief Scientific Officer - Cognitive Edge

Story
  Don't re-invent the wheel by Dave Snowden
A story on not reinventing the wheel



Quotations from Dave Snowden:

 True Eureka innovation is not going to happen by an internal training programme but from engagement in the real world.

Dave Snowden, Founder & Chief Scientific Officer - Cognitive Edge



 I have a passion for KM as one of the first disciplines that used properly puts people first and is itself a learning environment which should encourage diversity.

That passion means that I will fight attempts to standardise or "certify" the discipline.

Dave Snowden, Founder & Chief Scientific Officer - Cognitive Edge



 We always know more than we can say, and we will always say more than we can write down.

Dave Snowden, Founder & Chief Scientific Officer - Cognitive Edge
Rendering Knowledge 



 We only know what we know when we need to know it.

Dave Snowden, Founder & Chief Scientific Officer - Cognitive Edge
Rendering Knowledge 



 Knowledge Management should be focused on real, tangible intractable problems not aspirational goals.

It should deal pragmatically with the evolutionary possibilities of the present rather then seeking idealistic solutions.

Dave Snowden, Founder & Chief Scientific Officer - Cognitive Edge
Dave Snowden's weblog 



 Everything is fragmented.

Dave Snowden, Founder & Chief Scientific Officer - Cognitive Edge
Rendering Knowledge 



 In the idealistic approach, the leaders of an organization set out an ideal future state that they wish to achieve, identify the gap between the ideal and their perception of the present, and seek to close it.

This is common not only to process-based theory but also to practice that follows the general heading of the "learning organization".

Naturalistic approaches, by contrast, seek to understand a sufficiency of the present in order to act to stimulate evolution of the system.

Once such stimulation is made, monitoring of emergent patterns becomes a critical activity so that desired patterns can be supported and undesired patterns disrupted.

The organization thus evolves to a future that was unknowable in advance, but is more contextually appropriate when discovered.

Dave Snowden, Founder & Chief Scientific Officer - Cognitive Edge



 The way we know is not the way we report what we know.

Dave Snowden, Founder & Chief Scientific Officer - Cognitive Edge
Rendering Knowledge 



 Tolerated failure imprints learning better than success.

Dave Snowden, Founder & Chief Scientific Officer - Cognitive Edge
Rendering Knowledge 



 True values are not taught and declared, they evolve through the acts and interaction of the living, they are understood at a near tacit level by those who live them.

Dave Snowden, Founder & Chief Scientific Officer - Cognitive Edge
Dave Snowden's weblog 



 Knowledge can only be volunteered; it can never be conscripted.

Dave Snowden, Founder & Chief Scientific Officer - Cognitive Edge
Rendering Knowledge 



 In the context of real need few people withhold knowledge.

Dave Snowden, Founder & Chief Scientific Officer - Cognitive Edge
Rendering Knowledge 



If you are interested in Knowledge Management, the Knowledge Café or the role of conversation in organizational life then you my be interested in this online book I am writing on Conversational Leadership
David Gurteen


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Wednesday 4 December 2024
06:06 AM GMT