Recently in KM Category

I was reading yesterday about how the problem of "information overload" isn't recognized by the youth of today -- the digital natives, if you will.  It made me think that maybe we older people feel overloaded because we need to take the time to reflect on all this information and hang it off our mental frameworks.  We need to mull it over and then make decisions about whether it passes muster.  It takes more time to evaluate so we're more apt to feel an overload.

Digital natives don't have a non-digital past to overcome.  No command line interfaces to compare things to.  No bowling leagues instead of twitter.  There are just fewer comparisons to make and less previous experience to filter the new reality through.

I have no idea if this is true or how to measure it if it were, but I thought the notion merited a blog entry.  I'm doing my part to clutter the minds of the young.  :)

Does anyone know if there's been an analysis of the content gaps on Wikipedia as compared to other encyclopedia sources? I know the content is skewed towards popular culture and technology. My thought is, if the gaps are known and published, then invitations can be sent to SMEs in those fields. Or, newbies would have a sense of where they could contribute without running into the (sometimes) overwhelming norms of community behavior in other parts of Wikipedia.

Anyone know? A search of gap analysis on wikipedia takes me to an interesting article that makes me think I'm not using the term correctly. However, it's hard to search Wikipedia for information about how it's run.

I'm helping with a Knowledge Management class where we've introduced blogs as part of the learning and reflection process. Since this started, I've naturally noticed other efforts to use blogs to aid the teaching/learning process.

Derek John Boczkowski (of Ohio State University) had his first year writing class leave comments on blogs mentioned in the book Never Threaten To Eat Your Coworkers: Best of Blogs. A large number ended up on The Defective Yeti, Matt Baldwin's site. The results? The educational experience has been taken beyond the classroom. Everyone and their brother is now involved in the comments, the quality of the assignment, the results of the assignment, the class blogs, etc. I'm not sure if Boczkowski's students will end up better writers because of this, but it has been an interesting display of networking and high-profile blogging.

Anyway, it gave me the giggles because I had a vision of our KM class commenting en masse on David Snowden's blog. heheheee...I'm easily amused.

I just returned from an internal conference filled with outside speakers, panel sessions and smaller group presentations. Sessions were live-blogged, table topics at lunch were encouraged, and evening activies were planned.

Did all of this produce engagement and knowledge exchange? I'm not sure. I think some of it resonated with people, and it seemed to be an improvement over past conferences. Still, people just didn't seem to open up and talk about what they did and what made their jobs work.

However, I did have an interesting conversation with a colleague one evening in the hotel bar that I think was a good example of knowledge exchange between peers - war stories. Everyone has a war story, something that typifies an experience and proves that you can hold forth on a topic. My colleague and I talked for a couple hours. We started with the war stories, but then it gradually moved into a more positive, productive discussion about our jobs and how to improve them. It also gave me a better appreciation of his situation. Even though we hold the same jobs, how we're able to perform them varies because of where we are in the organization. For me, it was the best part of the conference.

Now I'm left wondering how to build a conference that starts with war stories and moves to that sense of engagement between peers. Open space conferencing is one solution I know of, but I think it requires an atmosphere that's more open than a typical corporate environment. Has anyone tried it in a corporate setting? What was your sucess? Any other suggestions?

BTW, I came across this paper that discusses "soft" knowledge management practices, like war stories, in organizations.

What happens when a world-class violinist sets up a busking station at a DC Metra stop during rush hour? Nada. Over a thousand people passed by one of the premier musicians in the United States without stopping to watch him perform. Why? He was so completely out of context that people could not appreciate what they heard.

I read the article and I couldn't help but think of knowledge management and its positioning in most organizations. Knowledge management can add so much value, but too often it's dressed up in poor technology, sponsored by someone too low-level to influence real change, or heaped onto the plates of employees who see extra work and no reward. In other words, it's presented with all the appeal of busker in a train station.

Even if you don't see the KM connection, it's an interesting article.