Communities. Coaching.

The gap between inspiration and insignificance
The gap between action and thought
The gap between perseverance and pessimism
The gap between understanding and ignorance
The gap between enjoyment and boredom
The gap between I did it and If only I had done it
May quite easily be filled by the combination of......
......a competent coach and a capable and concerned community

Collective Learning

The more I think about it, the more it makes sense to change the way children learn into a more collaborative experience. At the end of the decade, for them to grow up and be good members of the society and achieve something meaningful, they must learn to listen deeply, appreciate others' views and let each person express himself while still arriving at independent conclusions. Eventually, though, it is about posing the right questions as a collective, putting everything together and filtering the noise. 


Update: So, why do you think this is funny? :-P Because it sounds contradictory and paradoxical? However, I do think I have not articulated what's in my head well enough.... 

I am not saying we must not think independently. Just saying we must learn the art of arriving at independent conclusions and at the same time learn to appreciate that others may have different views due to their own perceptions, experiences and background. We need to be able to see why they think the way they think! 

If we can then put various ideas together and filter out what the collective thinks is noise, it may lead to a good decision in corporate environments. Lone artists or innovators can still go ahead and do their own thing without checking with anyone ;-)

The Community Remote

What the remote is to a TV set, an internal micro-blogging platform could very well be for an organizational community. It could help each member of the community control the action and activity right from where she happens to be. Consider this:


a. Switching it on: If the community has been quiet for a while, all it takes is a single, short and provocative tweet to start something instantly 


b. Changing the volume: Increase the number of contextual tweets and tweet-conversations to make the community think actively about something and get a bit 'louder' when needed 

Courtesy: MS Office Images

c. Changing hands (Passing the control to someone else): Tweets are the perhaps the most convenient and easiest of ways to pass on the community 'handle' to any member, if he/she happens to be in the middle of the action and has a lot to share 


d. Simultaneous viewing of different channels: Where else but on a micro-blogging platform can one effectively and efficiently take part in multiple conversations (on different topics and with different people) at the same time? 


e. Storing favorite channels: Think #hash-tags. Tweets can easily be hash-tagged for reference by anyone and referred to at any time in the future


Can you think of some more extensions for the metaphor? 

Innovation and Communities

Discovered this interesting website on Collective Intelligence/Communities and read this article on "Innovation and Communities of Practice" today. I thoroughly enjoyed the article (it actually happens to be an extract/chapter from a book) and found myself highlighting and underlining quite a few thoughts/statements in it. 


Here are some extracts:


* People with talents in multiple disciplines are better poised to see and connect the dots of breakthrough possibilities
* Managers whose discussion networks more often spanned structural holes were more likely to express their ideas, less likely to have their ideas dismissed by senior management, and more likely to have their ideas evaluated as valuable
* Horizontal mobility is, no doubt, one of the ways to cultivate multidisciplinary performers, among which there is a higher concentration of disruptive innovators than among people with only professional identity 
* The fastest way to get smarter in any domain is to join its community of practice, and this is a trend likely to expand its reach to all industries
* The future belongs to organizations that learned to truly unleash the creative powers of self-organizing project communities, knowledge networks, open source teams, and other new ways of work and learning, based on free associations of people who are passionate about what they do together. Communities of practice are in the center of this widening innovation movement
* We nourish life with our generative relationships, as well as with value creation and exchange. Communities of practice are the “sweet spot” of those two dimensions
* The vitality of knowledge ecology--the rainforest of ideas, insights and inspirations - and innovation ecology depends on the same as the vitality of natural ecosystems: their diversity
* Innovation frequently recombines facts and assessments in existing knowledge and the relationships between them. Therefore, how well those community-based knowledge assets are organized and validated is a substantive factor of the organization’s innovation capacity
* When coordination is lubricated by trustful relationship amongst the players, then there is less friction, its transaction cost is lower and results are better
* The meta-capability of collaboration is the No. 1 competitive advantage in the innovation ecology
* Customer communities of practice are particularly essential to accelerate the adoption of an innovation if it is highly complex
* Radical innovation needs people who are members in multiple communities, and play a role of “cultural translators” between them
* Shift in deeply seated mental models, the mutual inspiration and push-back necessary to radical innovation, are most likely to occur in high-trust relationships fostered by the communities
* People freely associating with another, combining their talents, and sharing their learning edges to complete projects or upgrade their skills and invent new ones, are the most generative source of permanent innovation

Social Awakening....Jaago Re Campaign

A representative of the Tata Tea Jaago Re initiative left a comment on one of my blog posts about the movement. Thought I'd share it with you. Meanwhile, I visited the jaagore website and thought it was well-designed, bright and inspiring. Actually the website's colours are so bright that it can wake you up! :-) A perfect platform for India's youth to get together and change the country for the better.


If you're an Indian, I guess you would have surely spotted the cool Tata Tea commercials on Voting and Corruption. Here is a chance to take another step forward, register on the website, share and discuss thoughts on various topics like Voting, Education, Corruption, Children's Rights, Women's Rights, Global Warming and Health. Go ahead, wake up, grab a cuppa, join the community, see what beckons you and explore how you could potentially help India become a happier country! Three cheers to Tata Tea for stepping beyond their commercial objectives and contributing to social change in such an innovative and meaningful manner! Kudos to their CSR team and whoever else is behind this movement.


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The Jaago Re campaign was initiated in the year 2007 and the objective of this campaign was to initiate social awakening amongst Indians. The Jaago Re campaign made a great impact with the ‘One Billion Votes’ campaign and are currently targeting corruption with the ‘Khilana Band, Pilana Shuru’ drive.

Recently, Tata Tea has re-launched its flagship website www.jaagore.com. The portal which was, for the last one year, an online hot spot for aspiring voters to register and obtain all information related to Voter Registration, will now stand for social awakening in a broader sense. Jaago Re as a campaign has targeted the youth of the nation, urging them to take a stand on various issues such as voting and corruption and do their bit – thereby encouraging them to 'be the change they want to see’.

What makes www.jaagore.com unique is that it facilitates the flow of information and resources between individuals / groups / organizations – by bringing together, onto a common platform, those who possess information and resources and those who need them. NGOs can list themselves on the site, thereby making their presence felt with individuals who would like to work with them. On the other hand, individuals who wish to do their bit for society can volunteer their services with an organization of their choice.

It would be great if you can help us support us by spreading the word on Jaago Re's initiative through your blog. Hopefully readers of your blog, both NGOs and individuals alike, would be inspired enough to join the initiative.

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Preserving India's Knowledge

Almost three years ago, I posted about my discovery of the Bangalore-based FRLHT – Foundation for Revitalization of Local Health Traditions - and remember vividly that I was quite excited about it at that time. Now, three years of evolution or rotting (depending on the way you look at it ;-)) later, I followed the Twitter profile of a person (Mani) who happened to retweet one of my tweets (this is a distraction, nevertheless, in case you are curious what my retweeted tweet was about and are lazy to click on the link, let me tell you. It was about a KM product company – Trampoline Systems, if you want the name as well - that is adopting a crowdfunding approach to finance its future) and found something there that rang a huge bell in my mind and brought back memories of my spotting the FRLHT office bus. When I glanced through Mani’s recent Twitter updates, I was lucky enough to spot one of his tweets about the existence of an organization called CIKS - Centre of Indian Knowledge Systems! One look at the organization’s home page and I was mighty impressed by their projects, vision and achievements. Not surprisingly, as I glanced through the Trustees page, I realized that the key person behind FRLHT is one of the members of CIKS as well. That bell in my mind was spot on! Ding Dong! :-)

CIKS seems to focus on preserving India’s agricultural knowledge amongst other things and speaks of some inspiring and admirable project areas to help India’s rural population through well-designed programs. Most of the projects revolve around organic farming methods but I guess the scope and potential for expanding this concept is immense! Not many weeks ago, I was having a conversation with two of my friends about the possibility of using KM in non-profit ventures and for social benefits and we’d touched upon areas like Education, Agriculture, Health-Care and Infrastructure. CIKS is a brilliant example of what can be done in the agricultural arena. More so because of the rich agricultural history that India has. Even though the focus at present seems to be only on preserving conventional agricultural knowledge, it would be quite easy to extend it to facilitate sharing of knowledge across farmers, providing them with the platforms and practices to network, collaborate and innovate! If proven to be a success here, I can’t think of any reason why it can’t be replicated in the Education and Health-Care sectors as well. Speaking of Education, I am reminded of India’s traditional and inspiring Gurukul system.

There is an urge to come back and look into this at length and expand on the ideas…..but what do you think?

A Guide to CoPs

Found this nice presentation on Communities of Practice in Slideshare.

Communities of Practice: Conversations To Collaboration

View more presentations from Steve Dale.

Conversations that Click...!

I had an intellectually stimulating conversation with a friend from the IAS (Indian Administrative Service) this morning. Such conversations don’t, however, come too often. Left me wondering “why not?”. Obviously, if you know me well, you might have guessed by now that I am likely to view such a topic through the “KM-glass” (knowledge management).

KM passionately advocates the sharing of knowledge. But the sharing of knowledge is definitely not a one-way process. It is about two-way interaction and conversations. It is not enough to just share what you know. You need to follow up to know if what you shared has reached the other person. You need to encourage questions, be open to the other person’s views and be ready to learn from her. You need to be totally engaged in the conversation in order to transfer and enhance the knowledge that you started with and create new knowledge. But, admittedly, things are not as easy as they seem. To document what you know may be with you the work of a moment but letting that evolve into something else via intense conversations is a challenge for many of us. More often than not, conversations are either abandoned, or result in no meaningful outcome, or are dominated by one of the parties, or involve two parties on two altogether different tracks that refuse to merge etc. On rare occasions, the conversations click and begin to make meaning. On unique occasions, such conversations further lead to a Eureka moment - what might be called an inspiring outcome that subsequently results in effective action or learning. So, what does it take to be involved in conversations that click? Or rather what does it take to create an environment that make conversations click? What does it imply for KM?

• A lot of us use the term “wavelength” pretty frequently when it comes to conversations and relationships. We supposedly get along well with people who “share the same wavelength”. I believe that this does not necessarily mean people who have a similar cultural or educational background. I think it goes beyond that and into a spiritual realm. There are some people that we can relate to irrespective of whether we share their views or not. We find it easy to listen to them and vice versa. We are able to have a strong argument without contemplating gifting a coffin at the back of our minds. Maybe it revolves around what we think are the intentions of the other person or the respect that we have for that person or something else on these lines. Which, by the way, is closely related to the topic of (natural and unconditional) trust.
• A lot depends on the frame of mind that we are in at the time of the conversation. What time of the day is it? What else is on your mind? Is something else bothering you and not letting you concentrate on the current conversation? Are you physically/mentally tired? Do you have the energy needed to be completely involved in a conversation? Are you in the “flow”?
• Obviously, your involvement and interest in the topic are major criteria. It not only decides the time you’re ready to invest in the conversation but also the ideas that you are capable of generating. Sometimes, it is the other person’s ability to draw your attention and inspire you into the conversation even if it isn’t a topic you understand too well. If the topic really excites you, you might even persist until the conversation clicks
• Another obvious factor that determines whether the conversation will click or not is based on the prior knowledge you have on the topic and more importantly your ability to understand your knowledge levels and accordingly dictate or listen to the other person

So, is there something that organizations can do to make conversations click or at least make them more tangible? Is it possible to get everyone on the same wavelength? That sounds ridiculous but not everything that sounds ridiculous is actually ridiculous, what? It may be quite possible to ‘find’ people who are tuned into the same thing and yet keep the population diverse enough for creative thinking. After all, this is the art and science of many start-ups.

One immediate thing that comes to my mind is the role of knowledge and social networking tools such as Linked In, Facebook, and Twitter. These can help people find others who share the same wavelength from anywhere in the world. Organizational equivalent of such tools can help find people from within the organization (especially when it is a large one). [Meanwhile, some people are lucky enough to bump into humans in the same wavelength zone in their own teams/neighborhood etc but that’s a rare thing]

Increasing the frequency of conversations is something that may help improve the opportunities to have conversations that click. This will have to be via conferences, workshops, mixed-audience training programs etc. Encouraging a culture that values and celebrates conversations would certainly have an impact. The management must not only promote such a culture but also allow employees to act upon what is invented/discovered amidst such conversations. It may influence employees to engage in serendipitous conversations and act upon their pet ideas. [Google is a universal example for such an atmosphere – 20% employee time on pet projects]

Any thoughts? Stories about stimulating conversations you have had with people? What do you think is required for conversations to click?

Flip Service...

Finished reading the book Flip by Peter Sheahan. The book, as you may have guessed, is about doing the opposite of what conventional wisdom suggests.

Things to note...in no particular order:

- Sheahan says "there is no wisdom in crowds" and goes on to qualify that by saying crowds don't innovate but only validate an innovation. I don't, obviously, agree. To my mind, what is meant by "wisdom of crowds" is not that groups innovate as a single entity but that groups are a breeding ground for ideas as a consequence of conversations, combination of knowledge, brainstorming and so forth.

Happy to get that out of the way. Now, to some of the things I was able to relate to....

- Pg 65. "Only after making the decision emotionally do we call upon our cognitive processes to rationalize our behaviour" [Fascinating and quite true I guess!There are times when I've surprised myself after having to justify something in retrospect. But this could even be what Malcolm Gladwell's Blink is all about]

- As I read one of the chapters on how consumers decide to purchase something it made me ponder over how, many of us buy something not because we may identify with the brand and what it stands for completely but more because we want the world to associate us with that brand and what it stands for. (Drink Sprite if you want to be seen as a straightforward and blunt person. You may however not really be such a straightforward person! Drink Miranda if you want to appear a little crazy and lighthearted etc)

- The last two chapters were the most exciting part of the book. These were about "giving up control to get it" and "action before clarity". One of the examples that the author refers to, to demonstrate how giving up control can lead to success, is how TV programs have now changed with many reality shows now involving the audience and even letting them make decisions. For me, personally, the last chapter was a hard slap on the face. Sheahan has penned a very compelling and inspiring chapter on how we should not wait too long for clarity to emerge before doing something and sometimes it would be just right to take the plunge. He assures and convinces the reader that clarity will follow action. (That reminded me of some situations wherein I gave up on some colleagues who I thought will provide clarity and instead decided to let them come back with comments after we'd put something in place. Adopting such an approach is a lot less frustrating than waiting for information and understanding...though in the long run, it may mean more wastage in terms of time, effort and resources. Also, one needs to then grit one's teeth and bear the irony of accepting comments and inputs that could have very well been provided earlier)

Spidergrams

John's comprehensive post on Spidergrams for managing CoPs.

Individual Learning to Organizational Learning

Someone asked a question that is probably very key to the existence of Knowledge Management. “How do we convert individual learning into organizational learning?”. It could surely have been the root cause why KM was conceived and is now being pursued seriously within organizations. KM is not only about individual learning and competency development but also about converting it into something that the entire organization understands and can act upon. It exists on the premise that each of us learn different things and have our own unique strengths. When many of us come together to accomplish a common goal, we can only do things a lot more effectively and efficiently due to the pooling of knowledge, skills and expertise [provided we genuinely want to contribute and avoid herd mentality and are open to learning from others]. But how easy is it to convert individual learning into organizational learning? It, admittedly, is a very complicated affair. And whatever can be achieved can anyway be done so only after years of effort and passion.

A very quick response to that question would be:

• Mentoring and coaching
• Shadowing (You let the knowledge-seeker shadow the 'expert' and watch and observe what he/she does rather than just restrict it to focused conversations and training sessions)
• Communities focused on collective thinking and learning
• Tools and utilities that you find on the Internet these days - allowing you to share your bookmarks, videos, articles, notes, ideas, book-reading habits, friends and so on. [Which basically means you begin to understand how individuals learn, from where they get their material, who the connect with and learn from, how they think etc]

Takes me back to my previous post on Calvin and Hobbes wherein Calvin wants to learn to be a Tiger and Hobbes tells him it is instinct and cannot be taught. Calvin’s retort is to look up the topic of Tigers in the Encyclopedia. The result of that exercise is anybody’s guess. So, there’s clearly a limit to what one can do to convert individual learning into organizational learning….

A Potential Recipe for Success

Downturns are when employee morale is likely to be at an all-time low. I think this is the time when organizations should create and use communities to engage employees in some conceptual thinking, meaningful internal projects and some long-term ideas (on business operations, strategic objectives, process improvements, tackling the downturn etc)!

I have a strong belief that people who have a sense of belonging and go the extra mile to contribute to the organization are likely to be the ones forming a strong and passionate community. And positive energy from such people, inevitably, rubs off.....leading to a happier environment! :-)

'Good' communities, in short, have the wherewithal to handle adversity. Ergo, I am inclined to think that KM programs must focus on creating and establishing communities in the current scenario. They can surely supply the motivation and ideas needed to chug along...

Come Unity

Have you read this one before? Emphasis mine...

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Liz Strauss - (Update: I had no clue that this is actually a blog post by Liz as I received it via Email from one of the forums/email lists that I am a member of. But thanks to Google and the Internet...Liz found this post and has brought it to my notice while thanking me for sharing it with the readers here. So, here is the link to the original blog post - http://www.successful-blog.com/1/the-top-10-ways-to-start-living-your-life/ - Her blog has a whole lot more such wonderful thoughts and inspiring write-ups! You may want to check them all out... :-))

Life — it's what we do between the time we get here and when we go. We only get one, and despite what other folks might suppose, it's ours to determine what to do with it. We don't measure life in hours and minutes. We measure life in memories and moments. What do you think of when you read this sentence? "It was the time of my life." We don't say that often enough. Life either happens to us, or we take hold of life and live it. Here are 10 ways start living your life.

1. Give yourself permission to claim your life. You're the only one who can decide you're in charge of your life. Turn off the editors, the "shoulds, have tos, and musts", and the rules that didn't come from you.
2. Define what living means to you. Picture yourself at the end of your life looking back. What words would you want to describe how you lived and who you are?
3. Stop living in the future. Every time you think "when I have time I will," stop. Ask yourself, "Why not now?" Choose your life every morning.
4. Surround yourself with people who enjoy living. They've obviously discovered how to have live. Why not hang with the pros?
5. Lay down your pain and your anger. Carrying them around makes living harder and less fun. It doesn't bring anything, and it steals a lot.
6. Let the other guy win. Don't argue about things that you don't care about. Unless there's a threat, let folks prove what they need to prove. Why waste living time trying to fix what doesn't matter?
7. Create energy. Jump to forgiveness and love, then figure things out. Most conclusions we imagine are both wrong and negative. Negative conclusions lead us to prepare a defense. Being defensive isn't living. It's hiding from life.
8. Learn the physical symptoms of when your head and heart become disconnected. We know when we're behaving badly. Key into to how it feels physically. Know the symptoms, and you can stop the behavior. Living will feel safer because you won't be shooting yourself in the foot.
9. Take small risks that push your boundaries in every way. When we stretch just a bit intellectually, physically, emotionally, we grow. Living is growing. Even our cells know that.
10. Value and protect the people and places you care about. Let the people you care about come first, and let everyone know that you do. Re-read numbers 1 and 2.

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I just went and lost my cool this morning, raised my voice and argued aggressively with a team member. It was a cumulative expression of pent up anger and frustration. But, the silly thing that I am, the timing was absolutely inappropriate....enough to perhaps make the opposite party wonder whether it is time to refer me to a good doctor. I think I do best when I have energetic and enthusiastic people around me...people who want to be the best at what they do and are extremely passionate about and have a strong sense of purpose in what they're doing. Sometimes I can perhaps be such a source - rub it off on others - but at other times it is a fuel I look forward to from others. No wonder communities are so important - communities are a realization of the fact that one person cannot perpetually create magic. Being a part of a community mostly made up of people who are capable of taking turns to create magic and supply positive energy can make all the difference in the world. Blessed are the organizations that have even one such community...!

Does that sound like an irrelevant rant in the context of this post? Could be....but some of the points above help me recover from my silly mood. :-))) The tags are going to be funny - Life and Communities - or maybe not!? :-)

ISPIM - Innovation Symposium

OK. I've finally managed to resurface into Blogosphere. Do you see me now? I've not been hiding but I've been running hither and thither. Whoever said "You can run but you cannot hide" had a brilliant brain. (Give me a teeny weeny opportunity to make an out of the context statement and be sure I'll grab it with both my hands! ;-])

Righto! I am sure you're waiting for the real story now. I was off to torture people at the Innovation Symposium conducted by ISPIM in collaboration with the Singapore Management University. I presented an idea that has been brewing in my mind for more than a year now. The idea revolves around establishing random connections between the employees of an organization to promote innovation. At a minimum level, I believe the implementation of the idea is likely to usher in a sense of belonging in the employee and help her understand how the organization works...by understanding the various parts of the organization and then connecting the dots to make out what the big picture looks like. When I conceived the idea, I was hardly familiar with Twitter. In retrospect, I believe that this idea will find a new form if implemented on a tool like Twitter.

While at the symposium, I came across three key ideas that I found to be fascinating!

- Phantom Innovation - It was a study by two people from Sweden on inventions that solved a problem/challenge not originally meant to be solved by that particular invention. In other words, innovations that found accidental use in other unrelated areas. Not surprisingly, this paper won an award.
- Bionics - This one isn't really new. Product development inspired by nature! The imitation/emulation of nature's ideas. A car that looks like a Box Fish, a structure that resembles a spider's web and so forth. I have been fascinated by Biomimicry ever since I first read about it a few years back. In fact, I've been looking to buy the book by Janine Benyus but it doesn't seem to be available anywhere in Bangalore! :-(
- Blue Ocean Strategy - I got to go through a workshop that provided us with practical tools to enable people to use the concepts of Blue Ocean Strategy for innovation.

And then there were other familiar and yet exciting tidbits like studies to establish a link between KM and Innovation. I was thrilled to find that a lot of Innovation professionals were gravitating towards studies on collaboration and collective thinking. There was, as expected, a lot of talk about communities and wikis in the context of innovation.

One another interesting aspect of the conference was a very large representation from the Nordic countries like Finland, Spain, Netherlands, Austria...the countries that stand tall in the worldwide Innovation Index! Overall, it was the first ever time I got to see such a diverse set of Europeans all in one place!

Also, even though I tried very hard not to go on adding to my collection of unread books, I simply couldn't control the urge to pick up a book during the trip - Uncommon Wisdom by Fritjof Capra. Eager to read it. Will probably replace another book in my "Next 3 books to read" list.

Cha(llen)nge

From Dave Pollard's blog: I love this list on Change Management....(emphasis mine)

1. Communities are the basis for change, and what they need more than anything now is excellent stewardship. Facilitators, please stand up.

2. The great value of networks is that they enable groups of people to organize, collaborate, do the work each is best at, and share the work needed to bring about the change, and then show others its value.

3. Change has to start with an identified need, not with a good idea. Generally, we only change when we must. Listen for needs.

4. We need to create safe places to explore and work on bold ideas. Skunkworks can often accomplish more than large amounts of funding.

5. Change, like great research, begins with asking important questions, and provoking respondents to self-change instead of trying to persuade or impose it.

6. To bring about change, be prepared to work with people, listen and understand what works and what is important for them, and engage them in ways they see value in and relate to. And be totally, brutally honest about what you don't know, aren't sure about, or difficulties in the path of desired change. And stay open to other ideas and concerns.

7.If you want to accomplish great change, give up the idea of getting the credit for it.

8. Experiment. The best, profound changes come from masses of iterative learning and exploration of possibilities.

9. Create the starting conditions for momentum, enthusiasm, sufficient resources, the right people, and don't worry about outcomes.

10. Make it easy. When you make it easier to change, to do the right thing, it will succeed more quickly and profoundly than if it requires a lot of work from every person.

Google Vs Wikipedia

Bill talks about Google's potential decline in the wake of more sophisticated versions of Wikipedia. Being a big fan of Google, I am not sure I know how to respond, without getting a bit emotional. But then I am a fan of Wikipedia as well. :-) Coincidentally, the other day, when I was in a local KM community meeting, someone spoke about an article that apparently suggests that the birth of effective and meaningful social networking hints at the death of search. That was surely an Aa..ha! moment for me and I continue to entertain the idea. (After all, it is akin to organizational KM's shift from repositories to communities...isn't it?) Only time can tell how true this prediction is going to turn out to be. But here's some food for thought....whenever I want to learn about something brand new, I tend to visit the Wikipedia while I go to Google if I am looking for a specific article or ideas on something I am somewhat familiar with. Does this tell you something? And, btw, how do you choose between W and G?

Bill points to this elaborate article on Google Vs Wikipedia 3.0.

Update: Atul's interpretation of this post has made this debate/dialogue even more interesting. Go here to read his thoughts and my response to them.

Prosperity Index

The last time I got really involved and excited about deciphering and analyzing such a matrix was, I think, when I worked on some assignments in the Economics class. Thanks to MT for pointing to this intriguing report.

Believe me, this index can really challenge some of your beliefs if you're looking at it for the first time. Some of the discoveries as reflected in the Index reminds me of the proverbial battle between perception and reality (reality here means government-generated numbers and surveys which, of course, can also be challenged). I think it is fascinating to see the correlation between the last two parameters of the index - Religious Freedom vs Religious Belief. (I find the whole concept of including 'Social Supports' parameters in this index to be a very worthwhile idea.). What can possibly surprise you is the discovery that India does well on the 'Low Unemployment' column and does not do as well as we might have generally imagined on the 'Religious Belief' column.....what with India being considered the spiritual capital of the world. Australia tops the overall ranking. Singapore tops the Economic Competitiveness ranking (and, of course, the 'Commercializing Innovation' ranking). South Korea's high ranking on the 'Commercializing Innovation' column goes a long way to reiterate how the country has leaped into the limelight over the past decade or so. India does not do well in the 'Better Education' column! :-( And no surprises on discovering that European countries are great on the 'Comparative Liveability' parameters.

There's no end to the number of indirect discoveries and conclusions one can arrive at based on each of these columns and, of course, based on correlations between some of the columns. If you happen to make some interesting discoveries, please do leave your thoughts here.

PS: Can't help wondering about the direct and indirect implications of the countries' performance in the 'Better Education' and 'Community Life' columns, in the context of KM and Collaboration....! ;-)

Emotions - Influence - Crowds

Not so new. But good reading. Focuses on emotions in the context of accepting advice.
Brings out the importance of understanding the subject's emotions - state of mind - before attempting to influence her. This is a bit of a digression, but as a KMer, I not only 'am thinking of influencing individuals but also groups of people - mass communication - and that is a different ball-game altogether. It is a paradox that influencing a crowd can either be very difficult due to there being a complex set of independant minds or very easy due to there being a flavour of herd mentality. But then, one must remember that herd mentality cannot be sustained and can only cause harm because of its sole reliance on emotions.

'Collective' Thinking....Collective Thinking....

Thinking about knowledge, multiple perspectives, wisdom and the like....

In retrospect, I think most of the times that I've been able to come up with a very simplified version of why something is the way it is, or what something is all about or how something works, that simplified conclusion has more often than not, been preceded by excessive rambling and collection and consolidation of information and knowledge from all over the place. Sometimes it seems like just a little bit of introspection but something tells me that introspection is a mysterious process in which the subconscious refers to all the stuff that it knows and somehow manages to quickly see through the piles of information, pull out what's most relevant and connect everything that matters to arrive at a simple explanation. Of course, this isn't a radically new discovery that I need to be awarded for but something that many people out there may have already spoken/written about. But it occurred to me this morning.....and reminded me of one of the prominent innovation methods which recommends that we adopt divergent thinking and follow it with convergent thinking to find a solution to a problem.

So, what am I getting at finally?

Point #1: More often than not, simplifying something requires accepting and absorbing and filling ourselves with loads of information and perspectives.

Point #2: With relevance to KM and Collaboration, point #1 is perhaps one of the key processes and reasons why it (KM and Collaboration) makes all the difference. When people are sincere and serious about collecting information from various nodes and encourage the bringing forth of multiple perspectives, someone in the group/community begins to see the connections, the relevance, the irrelevance etc. Someone else may pitch in at this point and discover something through such a connection. One more person then joins in and so forth. Then, somewhere down the line, it suddenly hits the entire group or maybe just one passionate person or some involved people in the group that the whole damn thing can be simplified to mean XYZ....!

Thus, a group of people who are keen to gain knowledge and not reluctant to voice their thoughts and opinions and not waiting to gain credit for themselves for things that are discovered are bound to have fun and achieve a lot. Of course, the biggest problem is that this doesn't seem to happen in organizations most of the time.....whereas it may quite happen in Internet-based communites....where there are no organizational politics, deadlines, pressures and incentives to worry about.

PS: Now I know why we use the term Collective Thinking....collect....reflect.....simplify....
;-) I heard you say..."collective means....many heads together...dudhead"

KM Learnings

And I’ve got miles to go, before I sleep. Indeed. Sigh.

There’s so much to read and so little time. Time does fly.

Anyways, it doesn’t prevent me from collecting more articles and putting them in a folder called “Read or die”.

Chuckle. Nothing. Just wondering why I am not dead yet! :D

The good thing is that out of the N number of articles I save for later, there are a few that I do skim through immediately. Here’s one such nice article I discovered and went through immediately.

Ten Things I've Learned about Knowledge Management by Bruce Karney

Bruce is a KM veteran and was with HP for many years before becoming an entrepreneur.

A few things from his list that made me nod in acknowledgement (based on experience) were:

Ø As Thomas Stewart wrote in his book The Wealth of Knowledge, connection, not collection, is the essence of knowledge management. (To which I’d like to add – Collection based connection is perhaps even better)

Ø Face to face knowledge sharing is not a luxury. The pity is that in many organizations it is perceived as being one. There are indeed examples of effective knowledge sharing in the absence of face to face, but these are far outnumbered by examples of ineffective computer-based and phone-based collaboration.

Ø Communities of Passion are what businesses should be trying to create and sustain, not Communities of Practice. When there is no passion, communities are unlikely to produce useful results.

Ø Search is the killer app of document-centric KM, and Google sets the standard.

Some things that I probably have come across before but which made me think again were:

Ø The word knowledge is misused often. If you replace knowledge with experience and the sentence sounds wrong, you're talking about information, not knowledge.

Ø It's easier and more effective to manage ignorance, by eliminating it, than to manage knowledge. Humans' natural ability to notice exceptions and aberrations makes it easier for us to eliminate what we don't want (e.g., smallpox, garbage, air pollution) than to manage, sort, and organize what we do want and have plenty of (e.g., knowledge).

Ø For all the money that many organizations spend on information technology for KM, they often have no more ability to effect change than the leader of a Yahoo! Group has for free.