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Past Event
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London Knowledge Cafe: Are skills and behaviours more important than knowledge for modern day graduates?A Gurteen Knowledge Cafe |
 
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Date: Wednesday 2 October 2013, 6:00pm - 9:00pm. This is a free event. Please arrive at 6:00pm or shortly after, which will give you time to settle in and meet other people. Sponsors:The event is sponsored by Russ Hepworth, Business Development Manager from The Institute Of Knowledge Transfer (IKT) and Professor Chris Birch, Director of Enterprise and Innovation, from The Centre of Innovation, Imagination and Inspiration (i3 centre), Business School, University of Greenwich. Theme/Question: Are skills and behaviours more important than knowledge for modern day graduates? Universities are now measured on leavers getting graduate jobs, and this is a politically important metric with higher tuition fees and the exchequer wanting quick payback on loans. In consequence, many universities are prioritising the development of so-called employability skills and behaviours, and indeed assessing to measure these. Do we know what these are, indeed, should we be doing this? Hopefully, this event will shed some light on this! Purpose: The basic idea behind an open Knowledge Cafe is to create an environment where people can come together to have interesting conversations around a topic of mutual interest - typically on a theme to do with Knowledge Management, Education, Creativity, Innovation or Social Learning. This is a great opportunity to share thoughts and ideas that we could use to mould future strategy. About the Speaker: Professor Chris Birch has worked at executive level in two universities, including Pro and Deputy ViceChancellor roles for the past ten years. Currently, he is Director of Enterprise and Innovation at the University of Greenwich Business School, London. His responsibilities have included research, enterprise, employer engagement, income generation, regional development, estates and marketing. He has been integrally involved in significant change management programmes, borne out of both necessity and in recognition of the need to become more efficient and effective, in order that more selfgenerated resource can be used sustainably to support investment activity. He is committed to the principle of creating mutually valueadding partnerships, particularly when shared development of secondary functions lead to more resource being made available for the delivery of core business. He is clear that universities will now have to look very hard at all aspects of their work, and how they operate, as public funding becomes more constrained and contested and as the competitive global environment, underpinned by high speed and cheap communications infrastructure, increasingly challenges traditional university dominance in the provision of higher education services. About the Facilitator: David Gurteen is an independent Knowledge Management consultant, curator, speaker, writer and facilitator. He regularly presents and runs workshops on various aspects of knowledge management and social learning and is well known for his Gurteen Knowledge Cafes that he runs regularly around the world. He is the founder of the Gurteen Knowledge Community - a global network of 21,000 people in over 160 countries whose purpose is to connect its members with like-minded people, new ideas, and alternative ways of working. Members receive his free monthly Knowledge-Letter that is now in its 13th year. In June 2010, David won the Ark Group's lifetime achievement award for services to KM. About IKT: The Institute of Knowledge Transfer (Ikt) Is the body devoted to supporting and promoting the knowledge professional: those individuals involved in innovation, enterprise and the transfer, exchange sharing and management of knowledge. About i3 Centre: The i3 Centre specialises in Innovative support for both business start-ups and existing SME's through workshops, consultancy, mentoring and courses. Attendees: Academics, members of the IKT and interested businesses. Also members of the Gurteen Knowledge Community. Venue: The Centre of Innovation, Imagination and Inspiration University of Greenwich Business School Hamilton House HH103 15, Park Vista Greenwich London SE10 9LZ Directions: See here. Please report to the building reception The Gurteen Knowledge Cafe David has run hundreds of Knowledge Cafes around the world in the last few years in cities such as Moscow, Washington DC, Phoenix Arizona, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Bangkok, Sydney and Wellington. An open Knowledge Café is free and open to anyone who cares to participate. They are great social learning and networking events. Participants engage with the theme of the evening and some insightful, energetic conversations take place. Better still, the Knowledge Café process is one that you can take back with you and use in your own organizations to help create a more collaborative and innovative culture. What is a Gurteen Knowledge Café? A Knowledge Cafe is a means of bringing a group of people together to have an open, creative conversation on a topic of mutual interest to surface their collective knowledge, to share ideas and insights and to gain a deeper understanding of the subject and the issues involved. The Knowledge Cafe Philosophy Most people are not inclined to share their knowledge freely for numerous reasons. These include: the attitude that knowledge is power, a silo-mentality, a lack of time, lack of confidence, lack of trust and no perceived benefit - the list at times seems endless. But clearly today, "sharing knowledge is power". To achieve anything in this highly competitive wired world we need to work with people more than ever: to share with them; to learn from each other and to collaborate. However, you cannot mandate people to share. You cannot even teach them to share. People need to see the problems of not sharing and the benefits of collaboration for themselves. If they truly buy into the fact that “knowledge sharing is power” then they will overcome the barriers for themselves. A Gurteen Knowledge Cafe brings people together to talk openly about "knowledge sharing"; to identify the barriers and how to overcome them. The participants learn to see the subject in a new light - to better understand other people's perspectives and indeed their own. And to better understand the issues. Better understanding in turn paves the way for personal change and in its turn organizational change. This is just one application of the Cafe process but there are a multitude of others. Here are just three
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11:52 AM GDT |
