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Gurteen Knowledge-Letter: Issue 123 - September 2010

   




The Gurteen Knowledge Letter is a monthly newsletter that is distributed to members of the Gurteen Knowledge Community. You may receive the Knowledge Letter by joining the community. Membership is totally free. You may read back-copies here.


Gurteen Knowledge-Letter: Issue 123 - September 2010

Contents

  1 Introduction to the September 2010 Knowledge Letter
  2 Counterintuition
  3 E2.0 folks learning what KM folks learnt long ago
  4 Questioning brainstorming
  5 Sal Khan is Bill Gates' favorite teacher
  6 Follow my Twitter Feeds
  7 Facebook Profiles, Pages and Groups explained
  8 Hot tweets: September 2010
  9 September 2010: Major KM Events over next 12 months
10 Subscribing and Unsubscribing
11 The Gurteen Knowledge Letter


Introduction to the September 2010 Knowledge Letter    (top | next | prev)

It was a busy period for me this month. I started by participating in ECKM 2010 in Portugal and then Know Tech 2010 in German; followed by KM Egypt in Cairo.

Three very different KM conferences but three very enjoyable ones. As ever, the real value for me was in the networking. I always seem to learn the most in my conversations with other people.

I wish I had a lot of material to share with you but I am sorry to say that I have not had time to blog or tweet the events.

As far as I know there are no good blog posts or strong Tweet streams from the events though KM Egypt had a live video stream and I am hoping the videos will be made available as there were some excellent talks and not all of them were in Arabic.

I now leave for my Australia, New Zealand, Singapore tour on 7th October and do not return until 15th November. This is my third such trip over the last 3 years. It takes a huge amount of effort to pull together but has always been well worth it. If you are in these regions, you should have received more information about my plans and I will be distributing updates by email soon. But drop me a line if you would like to meet up.

Counterintuition    (top | next | prev)

Johnnie Moore recently blogged on The Danger of Safety and pointed to some evidence that although you would expect that better brakes made for safe driving that is exactly the opposite of what happened in an experiment with a fleet of taxis.

So better brakes - can lead to more accidents!

This reminded me of some other articles I had read. So improved road signs may lead to more accidents and posting calories counts on food may lead to people eating more food rather than less.

The lesson? Many things we do, we do for what seem like good intuitive reasons. We don't question things enough. Where we can, we need to back decisions up with evidence not intuition.

See what Wikipedia says on Counterintuition.

E2.0 folks learning what KM folks learnt long ago    (top | next | prev)

Here is an interesting post from Gautam Ghosh entitled Driving Enterprise 2.0 behavior change where he points to an article Not every blog has its day in the Sydney Morning Herald. The article makes the point that "Fostering collaboration in the workplace involves more than just building platforms".

I had to smile as its really about E2.0 folks learning what KM folks have long known.

I learnt this myself with Lotus Notes 1989 - 1999 (in fact it was one of the prime motivators for my moving away from technology and starting to focus more on the people side of things); KM folks then learnt it 1999 -2009 and now the E2.0 folks are learning it.

To my mind, the lesson: "Don't implement a technology tool (impose it on people) and expect them to see the benefits and use it. Work with them to help them solve their problems and introduce them to new tools that you think will help. Let them select the tools that work for them. They need to have ownership."

But it takes time ... 20 years or more and people are still learning :-)

Questioning brainstorming    (top | next | prev)

When I was in corporate life, many things were inflicted on me that I either hated or felt very uncomfortable with. Brainstorming was one of them. I can't recall one where I felt anything useful resulted from them other than a pile of flip-chart paper.

It just never jelled with the way my mind works. I always felt the process far to controlling. I wanted to have conversations but that wasn't allowed. So I would accept and go along with brainstorming as no one else seemed to question it.

So I am so pleased to see in this Newsweek article (via an interesting post by Johnnie Moore) that people are questioning the method.

And take a look here Brainstorming wont bring you good ideas.

This to me, sums it up: "Ideas come out of relationships, they come out of conversations." and "good ideas are more likely to be the product of rambling conversations than brainstorming." Oh and yet another post from Johnnie Moore: Where (and when) ideas happen - "people simplify their ideas as solitary, Eureka moments, whereas ideas often happen in social environments."

There are some other good points made in the article too. "That people are attracted to the idea that complex things can be explained by a simple formula, or achieved by a step-by-step process. In this way, personalities are reduced to a number of types (such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) and pathways to success are promoted with the packaging of a number of rules."

How many times have I been asked for ten simple steps to implement KM? The world is too complex for that! And those of you who have seen Dave Snowden speak know his views on Myers-Briggs.

There is a lot of fundamental things that we have long taken for granted that need questioning.

Sal Khan is Bill Gates' favorite teacher    (top | next | prev)

I find it amazing and inspiring what some people manage to achieve almost by accident. They start out simply helping someone, doing what they love and it mushrooms into something much bigger without their really planning it. There is a lot of power in following your passion :-)

Take a look at Seth Kahn and his Kahn Academy or watch this PBS NewsHour video on the Khan Academy and Salman Khan .

A fascinating story. I wonder what in initiatives like this mean for the future of education?

Follow my Twitter Feeds    (top | next | prev)

I have three Twitter feeds. Follow:
  • DavidGurteen if you wish to track my personal feed that I use to point to interesting stuff, keep people updated on where I am, what I am doing, thinking etc.

  • GurteenQuotes if you would like to receive a quotation each day.

  • GurteenNews if you would like to track new and updated pages on my website.
The last two feeds, Gurteen Quotes and GurteenNews and automated Tweets fed by RSS feeds from my website. Up until recently, these have only been working intermittently but I think I have the problem cracked now by switching from twitterfeed to dlvr.it

Facebook Profiles, Pages and Groups explained    (top | next | prev)

I don't know about you but I have always been confused by the different types of Facebook entities: Profiles, Pages and Groups. Here is a brief description of each entity and how I am using them.
  • A Facebook Profile is meant for individuals. This is what most people use. You can see my profile here:

    David Gurteen's Facebook Profile

  • To build a fan base on Facebook, in addition to a Profile, you can set up a Page. Pages can be for individuals, such as authors or celebrities, or for non-human entities such as products, companies, organizations and campaigns. I have created a Page for the Gurteen Knowledge website though I am not making much use of it at the moment:

    Gurteen Knowledge Fan Page on Facebook

  • A Facebook Group used to be the only place to really build a community on Facebook. However, now Groups look similar to Pages, which look similar to Profiles. Groups on Facebook are where deeper discussions can take place, whereas Pages and Profiles tend to be used for shorter comments.

    I have created a Group for the Gurteen Knowledge Community. This has a little activity and I would encourage you to use it more. But the prime on-line location for the community is the Gurteen Knowledge Community Group on LinkedIn.

    Gurteen Knowledge Community Group on Facebook
Take a look here if you want to read in more death about Facebook Profiles, Pages and Groups.

Hot tweets: September 2010    (top | next | prev)

Here are some of my more interesting Tweets for the month of September 2010. Take a look, if you are not a Tweeter, you will get a good idea of how I use it by browsing the list of micro-posts. And if you like what you see then subscribe to my Tweets.


September 2010: Major KM Events over next 12 months    (top | next | prev)

This section highlights some of the major KM events taking place around the world in the coming months and ones in which I am actively involved. You will find a full list on my website where you can also subscribe to both regional e-mail alerts and RSS feeds which will keep you informed of new and upcoming events.

Gurteen Learning: An interactive open forum on what needs to be done to Drive KM within our business
13 Oct 2010, Sydney, Australia
I will be running this workshop during my October trrip to Singapore, Australia and New Zealand.

actKM Conference 2010
18 - 19 Oct 2010, Canberra, Australia
I will be speaking at this conference on "What KM practitioners can learn from Positive Deviance".

International Business-forum on Knowledge Management
25 - 26 Oct 2010, Moscow, Russia

7th International Conference on Intellectual Capital, Knowledge Management & Organisational Learning (ICICKM 2010)
11 - 12 Nov 2010, Hong Kong, China

KMWorld & Intranets 2010
16 - 18 Nov 2010, Washington DC, United States
This event will be in Washington DC this year but I won't be attending.

KM Asia 2010
23 - 25 Nov 2010, Singapore City, Singapore
I will not be at KM Asia this year.

Online Information Conference 2010
30 Nov - 02 Dec 2010, London, United Kingdom

3rd Iranian Knowledge Management Conference
08 - 09 Feb 2011, Tehran, Iran
I will be speaking at this conference in Tehran

Henley Knowledge Mangement Forum Annual Conference
16 - 17 Feb 2011, Greenlands, Henley on Thames, United Kingdom

Online Information Asia-Pacific 2011
23 - 24 Mar 2011, Hong Kong, China

KM UK 2011
21 - 22 Jun 2011, London, United Kingdom

Subscribing and Unsubscribing    (top | next | prev)

You may subscribe to this newsletter on my website. Or if you no longer wish to receive this newsletter or if you wish to modify your e-mail address or make other changes to your membership profile then please go to this page on my website.

The Gurteen Knowledge Letter    (top | next | prev)

The Gurteen Knowledge-Letter is a free monthly e-mail based KM newsletter for Knowledge Workers. Its purpose is to help you better manage your knowledge and to stimulate thought and interest in such subjects as Knowledge Management, Learning, Creativity and the effective use of Internet technology. Archive copies are held on-line where you can register to receive the newsletter.

It is sponsored by the Knowledge Management Forum of the Henley Business School, Oxfordshire, England.

You may copy, reprint or forward all or part of this newsletter to friends, colleagues or customers, so long as any use is not for resale or profit and I am attributed. And if you have any queries please contact me.

David GURTEEN
Gurteen Knowledge
Fleet, United Kingdom



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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