Gurteen Knowledge-Log

Knowledge Cafe Insights

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 09:22:29 +0100

By David Gurteen

While in Scottsdale for the BSEC 2008 Conference, I took the opportunity to run an open Knowledge Cafe. Mark Goldstein has captured the essence of the event in the photos he took and posted on Flickr along with some of mine.

Amazingly Twitter brought us one extra participant Colleen Carmean who blogged a little on the Cafe; said some nice things about me (blush) and had some interesting comments about the format that I had not quite seen before given my closeness. Here are two quotes from her:

David uses a specific, distributed, what I would call "emergence" format where 'the whole is greater than the sum of the parts' for encouraging knowledge transfer amongst participants. No leaders, no report outs, no death by PowerPoint. Everyone matters, every voice counts.
Credit: Colleen Carmean

The closing moments of a Knowledge Cafe reminded me of a Quaker meeting. You don't speak unless you're compelled to share an important thought, realization, or theme that emerged from your multiple small group discussions. Some participants violate the framework and just need to be heard, but like the Quakers, everyone listens respectfully and reflects on the thought without the need for comment or debate.
Credit: Colleen Carmean

Media is moving from a source of information to a site of action

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 09:04:55 +0100

By David Gurteen

Thanks to Nerida Hart in Australia I recently discovered Clay Shirky and this quote from him:

Media is moving from a source of information to a site of action.

Credit: Clay Shirky

When I read this, a light bulb flashed. When working at home, I am a documentary junkie - the UK History Channel and other documentary and news channels are pretty much all I watch. But time and time again I get a angry when I see the program makers turn the problems facing the world into entertainment. Their objective is not even to educate but to entertain. Often I switch off and throw the remote at a distant chair (a soft one I might add as I never get that angry)!

What I have long wanted more media companies to do - is to start taking the problems seriously and move from saying "here are the problems - isn't it tragic; isn't it crazy" to "here are the problems and here is what you can do to help solve them. And this is what we are setting up to help support you".

But the participatory web is moving us in this direction. In 50 years time I think we will look back at old news clips and documentaries of today in a similar way we look back at the propaganda newsreels of the Second World War and wonder why so many people at the time did not see things for what they were.

Here is a video of one of Clays talks.

Building Trust

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 08:41:43 +0100

By David Gurteen

Whenever I meet new people with whom I would like to work I often say lets find a small project on which we can work together so we can build mutual trust. The process is simple.

We work on something small and build trust.
Having built trust we work together more and the trust grows.
Its an iterative process: work together; build trust; work together build trust ... but this is key - it always starts by working together.
If at any time either of us lets the other down badly or abuses the relationship then the trust is pretty much destroyed and its unlikely that we will ever work together again.

Dave Snowden sums it up well in this post on Confusing symptoms with cause.

Trust is an emergent property of the process of engagement not a precondition.

Credit: Dave Snowden.

The trust question is a classic confusion of symptoms with cause, just as creativity is a symptom of innovation not its cause, so trust is the symptom of interaction over time. If that interaction is not testing, then the trust is fragile. If the trust is simply the result of few contextual exercises (throwing yourself backwards off a brick wall is the classic) then it is temporary. Focus on the process, rather than trying to preset emergent outcomes and you get a more sustainable solution.
Credit: Dave Snowden.

And note his point creativity being a symptom of innovation and not its cause!! Dave is so right we often confuse symptoms with cause.

FriendFeed

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 21:27:18 +0100

By David Gurteen

Would you like to know almost everything I or friend has been up to of late then take a look at FriendFeed.

FriendFeed enables you to keep up-to-date on the web pages, photos, videos and music that your friends and family are sharing. It offers a unique way to discover and discuss information among friends.

Sign up for FriendFeed, invite some friends, and get a customized feed made up of the content that your friends shared - from news articles to family photos to interesting links and videos.

FriendFeed automatically imports shared stuff from sites across the web, so if your friend favorites a video on YouTube, you get a link and a thumbnail of the video in your feed.

And if your friend likes a news story on Digg, you get a link in your feed. FriendFeed makes all the sites you already use a little more social.

I have been using it for a month or so now but I'm not yet convinced of its use as it gives me TOO much information. But the good thing about social tools - what does not work for me might work for you and vice-versa.

Thoughts on the human touch

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 13:05:44 +0100

By David Gurteen

I recently wrote about Kiva - an amazing microfinace website and then on the human touch - the importance of face to face communication in my Knowledge Cafes and so I was delighted to receive this email from Larry Gardiner that I have included in full:

First an update on your item about Kiva. We asked our family and friends to send Kiva Gift Certificates instead of cards and presents at Christmas after reading about Kiva.org in your newsletter. 15 Kiva certificates have now been redeemed and we receive regular bulletins on our portfolio of micro-finance investments from Cambodia, Vietnam, Peru, Mexico, Nigeria and Kenya. Each of our investments is thriving and the most rewarding part of watching their progress is the sense of solidarity which I think is also a feature of the human touch you were talking about.

We have started convening Parent Cafe's too. The purpose here is to facilitate knowledge sharing around the development of parent and peer advocacy for families with disabled children (http://www.parentadvocatestogether.org.uk). We also have used the time-discipline you talked about so that each person has the same amount of air-time.

We have not intentionally set out to create a therapeutic knowledge cafe, or I suppose what would be a support group session, but to simply borrow from a framework of ideas (which we do use to promote emotional support and 'discharge' in other parent support groups convened for that specific purpose). I suppose that when everyone knows that they will get their own space, their own air time and their own opportunity to think and listen out loud, it makes it easier for us to relax and to listen and to process on what what each speaker is saying.

While we didn't deliberately set out to do this awarely; solidarity and mutual self-help and assistance are what we seem to be eliciting in each of our own knowledge cafe ventures. It is very satisfying and rather beautiful both to see and to experience. It is rather that the experience of using co-counselling tools in that setting that has enabled us to cross-pollinate some of the ideas. We have noticed that they have been useful in promoting an emotional safety allowing people to enjoy and even to revel in the human touch you talked about.

You are absolutely right to claim that it is this human touch which is the key distinguishing feature of the knowledge cafe phenomenon. Essentially, we now set out purposefully to cultivate, nurture and promote every opportunity for creating that human touch you have described in every knowledge cafe where we participate. From experience we can state that 'the human touch is also the magic touch!' As far as culture change is concerned; this is simply a smarter way to work.

Best wishes,

Larry Gardiner
Secretary - Parent Advocates Together

Luke's Dubai Adventure

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 16:29:16 +0100

By David Gurteen

When I was in Dubai I met up with two Aussies KMers working there - Luke Naismith and David Rymer whom I met for dinner at the Madinat Jumeirah - we had a great evening. The Madinat Jumeirah seemed like Disney World - an amazing place.

Much of Dubai has this Disney feel to it at times but Luke is blogging his stay in Dubai and his blog is a great way to get to see a lot more of Dubai and the region that is far from Disney-like!

I was also delighted to see this post on Theodre Zeldin and conversation in Luke's Knowledge Futures blog and a quote of Theodore's that I love.

Conversation needs pauses, thoughts need time to make love.

Credit: Theodre Zeldin

The idea of thoughts making love - what a lovely metaphor!! Two thoughts coming together, intermingling their DNA to create new baby thoughts with a unique life of their own. I am getting carried away now!

World 2.0

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 16:59:51 +0000

By David Gurteen

I recently spent the whole of January in SE Asia; giving talks and running knowledge cafes in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok. As always I learnt as much as a I taught at these events.

Most of us understand what Web 2.0 is all about as we move from a read-only web to a read-write or participatory web.

And we are starting to come to grips with so called Enterprise 2.0 where the concept and technologies and social tools of Web 2.0 are moving from the open web into organizations.

It is still early days and there are many issues to be grappled with as we try to balance the structure and stability of the old world with the more fluid and complex nature of the new.

But the "2.0 meme" is starting to affect everything. In a talk in Kuala Lumpur I was asked how you implement Enterprise 2.0 and I was talking about some of the barriers when someone spoke up and said "We will never have Enterprise 2.0 until we have Managers 2.0!” In other words it was managers and their out-dated mind sets that was a major barrier to change,

And a few days later while giving another talk at the National Library in Singapore I found us talking about Libraries 2.0 and Learning 2.0. It then hit me that “2.0” thinking was permeating everything. People were also taking about Business 2.0 and Education 2.0.

So what does this mean in its broadest sense? Well, we are no longer consumers: of goods, services or education - we are all prosumers - we all have the opportunity to create and consume. For the first time we are participants in everything and not the “victims”. Fundamentally it is about "freedom".

We are moving from a world where we were told to do things and where things were structured or planned for us to one where we get to decide what works best for us. We are moving from a mono-culture to a highly diverse ecology.

We are moving from a simple world to a rich, complex, diverse one. One where power is less centralized and more distributed. We are moving from a command and control world to a world where people can do as they please within the boundaries of responsibility.

Another talk I gave in SE Asia was to SAFTI (the Singapore Armed Forces Training Institute) and there I realized that the 2.0 concept could be applied to the military too. In the past warfare was a relatively simple affair; there were rules of engagement and things such as the Geneva convention. It was a male dominated world but now with terrorism, men, women and children are actively involved in the fighting - there are few rules of engagement. Its complex – everyone participates.

The SAFTI talk was the last of 20 talks and Knowledge Cafes over a period of a month and they helped crystallize my thinking. It’s not just about Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 - about tools and technology. Its far more than that. It’s about World 2.0. The “2.0 meme” touches everything.

More than anything we need "Mindset 2.0" or "Thinking 2.0" - new ways of looking at and thinking about the world and seeing the opportunities to work in new innovative ways that these new technologies allow.

Here is a brief comparison of the two worlds. This thinking can be applied in business, in education and learning, to adults and to children and to government and to society. Its not just about technology!

World 1.0	World 2.0
Knowledge sharing and learning is imposed additional work	Knowledge sharing and social learning is a welcome natural part of people's everyday work
Work takes places behind closed doors	Work takes place transparently where everyone can see it
IT Tools are imposed on people	People select the tools that work best for them
People are controlled out of fear they will do wrong	People are given freedom in return for accepting responsibility
Information is centralized, protected and controlled	Information is distributed freely and uncontrolled
Publishing is centrally controlled	Anyone can publish what they want
Context is stripped from information	Context is retained in the form of stories
People think quietly alone	People think out loud together
People tend to write in the third person, in a professional voice	People write in the first person in their own voice
People especially those in authority are closed to new ideas and new ways of working	Everyone is open to new ideas
Information is pushed to people whether they have asked for it or not	People decide the information they need and subscribe to it
The world is seen through a Newtonian cause and effect model	The world is recognized to be complex and that different approaches are needed

Working Transparently

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 15:27:50 +0000

By David Gurteen

I wrote a Gurteen Perspectives article for Inside Knowledge Magazine recently titled Open and transparent? where I talked about the concept and need for openness and transparency in the way we work today. So I have been delighted to see others say similar things:

In this post KM 2.0 is about showing your workings out by John Tropea, John quotes from Michael Idinopulos:

“The real paradigm shift in Web 2.0, I believe, is the blurring the line between publication and collaboration. In the old days, people collaborated in private. They talked to their friends and colleagues, wrote letters. Later they sent emails. All the real thinking happened in those private conversations. Eventually, once the key insights had been extracted, refined, and clarified, they published: books, articles, speeches, blast memos, etc.”

“…the really exciting thing that’s happening in Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 is that more and more of those private “pre-publication” interactions are happening in public (or at least semi-public). I think of this as the dawn of the “Work in Progress” culture. We no longer think that something has to be finished before we let strangers into the conversation.”

And then Gerry McKiernan in this post on Science 2.0.

A small but growing number of researchers--and not just the younger ones--have begun to carry out their work via the wide-open blogs, wikis and social networks of Web 2.0. And although their efforts are still too scattered to be called a movement--yet--their experiences to date suggest that this kind of Web-based "Science 2.0" is not only more collegial than the traditional variety, but considerably more productive.

Take a look. How might you work more transparently?