Jul 11
The Ways of Ignorance
This, courtesy of Anecdote, is a taxonomy of cognitive biases – at 73 ways in which we can be wrong, it’s a marvel we ever know anything at all.
Jul 09
Macbook Trilogy
Some months ago I bought a Macbook, just for playing with podcasting and other media friendly stuff. Within a weekend it had become my sole work platform. Now we’ve all switched. A new age dawns for Straits Knowledge.
Jul 09
Infrastructure Explained
I never thought it would be possible to explain infrastructure so entertainingly in 5 minutes or less, until I saw this (actually the point is made inside 3 minutes). Thanks to Savage Minds.
Jul 06
Information Management Survey
I’ll be keynoting at the Institute of Information Management’s (IIM) National Conference in Canberra next month, on the future of the Information Management Profession (I’ll also be leading a workshop on taxonomies).
In preparation for that, I’ve contributedsome questions to an IIM survey to find out what IM professionals are thinking – if you’re working in information management anywhere at all, do please follow this link and answer the questions. In return, I’ll post my conclusions here on Green Chameleon. Many thanks!
Jul 05
What Do Consultants Get Paid For?
My post of the other day sparked some impatience (and some abuse from a troll) over at Cognitive Edge. Dave Snowden’s response to my attempt to differentiate the roles that consultants play was to reduce the role to butterflies and bees who cross-pollinate but don’t get too deeply involved (though he backtracked a bit when challenged by Clive Flashman). He especially disliked the healthcare metaphor I borrowed from a matrix by David Maister (I still like it).
I actually like the bee metaphor (not so sure about butterflies, they are accustomed to doing flits). Dave takes it from Drucker, but Harrison Owen also uses it to describe styles of engagement in Open Space, and I believe cross-pollination brings value to consulting engagements (a) by helping to connect organisations to others facing related issues (b) giving consultants a broader palette of experience and patterns from different contexts (as compared to longtime employees in one organisation) so that they can read unusual situations faster (c) helping to introduce diverse ideas and practices into organisations.
But it’s too simplistic. Consultants play a much wider variety of roles, some of them good, some of them bad. So if Dave doesn’t like the two-by-two, and I’m not happy with a reduction to “cross-pollinator” I figured I should expand the horizons a bit.
Jul 05
Folksonomies in the Enterprise
Sarah Hayman has published a very strong and pragmatic paper on a combined folksonomy-controlled vocabulary approach which promises rich results for the application of tagging and exploitation of folksonomies in the enterprise.
It actually reads like a composite of two papers – the first half reviewing the strengths and weaknesses of social tagging, and describing a proposal for a combined folksonomy-taxonomy project, and the second half giving a well referenced discussion of the application of social tagging in the enterprise.
Jun 28
Vices and Virtues in Knowledge Management
The other day Dave Snowden asked via his blog for ideas on what would constitute Sin in knowledge management, for a presentation he was about to give at a conference. We had two hours to respond, and several did, a testimony to the speed afforded by the internet, and perhaps also to the eagerness with which we sit awaiting the latest gems from The Dave.
Tasty, I thought, and being Catholic, immediately thought of the Seven Deadly Sins. Being more versed in the practice than the theory, I scurried over to wikipedia and refreshed my memory, and I wrote on Dave’s blog:
Jun 28
A Lifestyle Disease: Chronic Organisational Knowledgeitis
About three years ago I had a persistent sore throat. Nothing agonizing, just persistent. I went to my doctor and he prescribed a course of antibiotics, to no avail. So he sent me to a specialist, who shoved a camera in a tube down my throat and poked around.
Afterwards, showing me the video (aesthetically speaking a worse experience than having the camera take it), he carefully pointed out a neat, four-node ulcer sitting just above the larynx.
Jun 27
Trust, Friendship and Maturity in Online Communities
Jon Husband has written a thoughtful piece commenting on Dave Snowden’s assaults this week on forum moderation arising out of the AOK debacle. He’s focusing on what happens in blogging, but I believe what he says pertains just as well to forums:
“I believe that there are few deep friendships which do not go through periods of testing and friction ... and it’s important to note as well that friendships, especially professional ones, aren’t always about blind support, loyalty and being nice, but as often are about honesty, directness, usefulness, pertinence ... but they all follow similar dynamics on the way to deep trust. It is in the way these tests are approached and resolved (or not) that define and deepen the friendship, helping to create solid bonds that enable even deeper trust and exploration, and yield richer fruits.”
Jun 25
Trouble at the AOK Corral
The AOK Forum has been a distinguished discussion forum in KM for several years. Founded by Jerry Ash it uses a unique model: “star” moderators - experts on some aspect of KM - are researched by Jerry, and brought in for 2-week long discussions. The membership list of AOK includes the great and the good, and the quality of the discussion over the years has been really quite high. Indeed, Jerry has been using his fine journalistic hand and turned those debates into material for the series of KM reports he produces through Ark Group (good solid material but at extravagant prices).
One downside of the forum (and a major reason why I never felt enough at home to actively contribute) was the moderation and editorialising - you could not be sure that your post would get through, or if it did, it might get heavy snipping or editorial reworking… long timers might just get comments appended from Jerry “clarifying” or “rounding out” their posts, and the only things that seemed to come through unsnipped (all of this is perceptions of an experienced lurker without access to the snipping room floor) would be enthusiastic praise or innocent questions. A little bit too much candy floss for me, but nevertheless there it was on my radar for the odd flash of insight that might get through. Picture Jerry with his green editor’s eyeshade labouring for long hours to make sure the posts are all “just right” - truly a labour of love that should not be demeaned, although to my mind misplaced, because what is a community if not a variety of voices?
Some months ago, the first hints of trouble arose in a vigorous campaign to remove moderation and let discussions roam freely. Jerry, reluctantly, it seemed, acceded, and withdrew from the field of moderation (in fact later told the group he was pleased not to have to do all his time-consuming moderation, so could concentrate on turning the newly revitalised discussions into his Ark Group reports).
