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Reflections on Knowledge Management and Organizational Innovation

A professonal diary of learning and reflection on knowledge management and what I'm calling organizational innovation (differentiated from product/service innovation).

The Dark Side of Web 2.0December 22 2008

I recently attended a good environmental scan / overview presentation about what's happing "out there" in terms of information management, technology, and the internet. As I was listening to the speaker, my mind turned, somewhat uncharacteristically, to a "dark side" perspective. Many speakers / thought leaders extol the virtues/promise/potential about Web 2.0 and social technologies, but perhaps there really is a down side, or at least a few considerations for a more balanced view:

The rise of the opinionated - Emerging technologies gives a voice to all participants (yes, like me). But not every voice is worth hearing. And since these voices are manifested in an explosion of content in a wide variety of types and formats, determining best quality and value is a significant challenge.

The rise of aggregation vs. new and innovative thinking - We first heard about it in the context of students plagiarizing internet content for projects, but now it’s rampant. On the internet, content is so easy to find that there is a tendency to copy and re-use, often without citing sources, rather than create / innovate something new. Granted, re-use saves time and money, but not in all circumstances. Sometimes new and innovative approaches are required to solve problems created by status quo thinking.

The rise of aggregation and fall of awareness / access to original, authoritative sources - The technological capabiliti

Serendipitious Information DiscoveryDecember 5 2008

I was reading a John Tropea's Library Clips blog entry about My recent article on KM Review - When Two Worlds Collide and noticed that he had used a service called Scribd to put a copy of the actual KMReview article directly inline with the blog post. Interesting, I thought. (I'm wondering the value of this type of approach to providing easy access via blogs, wikis etc. to corporate documents in a document management system.)

But, what I wanted to point to is that once on the Scribd site with John's article on my screen, I scrolled through the Related Documents list and uncovered Belonging Networks, a 217 page document that explores the people and technology sides of implementing social networking inside organizations.  Very interesting.

Belonging Networks Corporate Social Networking

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Marketing Business

December 3 2008

The National Institute for Mental Health in England's definition of knowledge management:

Knowledge Management (KM) is the cultivation of an environment within which people want to share, learn and collaborate leading to individual, team and organisational improvement.

The first one I've come across with a primarily cultural focus.

What Traditional Management and Economics Theories Have In CommonDecember 2 2008

In a recent news article titled We Told You So, author Dan Gardner writes about Robert Shiller's books (The Subprime Solution and Irrational Exuberance) and the author's accurate predictions of both the housing crisis and the tech crash. Gardner's article points to Shiller's positioning of two flaws in conventional economics thinking that was a major factor in both economic events (and the Dutch tulip mania of 1637 as it turns out):

• Flaw number one - the premise that people are always rational, and make rational decisions based on facts and what is in their best interests as opposed to "buy a house at grossly inflated price and expect its value to keep rising."
• Flaw number two - "efficient markets theory" - prices are always reasonable and correct based on all publically available information, and markets are never wrong.

Gardner also references the emergence of behavioural economics over the last 12 years or so, and coincidentally I just stumbled across a Tom Davenport article titled Voting for Behavioral Economics (And Aga

Understanding the Millennial GenerationNovember 8 2008

In a recent blog entry, Shawn at Anecdote posted a link to this YouTube video titled Generation We. The book by Eric Greenberg is available for free download on the www.gen-we.org web site.

Generally, I find discussions about the impact of this generation in the workplace fascinating for the variety of opinions espoused by the boomers Gen "x"ers, conflicting research on similarities and differences between the generations, and the sheer volume of conversations about the topic. I'm looking forward to reading the book, and seeing how it compares.

I do admit, though, thinking a bit to myself that this is very professionally done, and wondering if it was marketing to either encourage people to vote, or to market the book. What a cynic I am. But I got over it.

I think the messages in the video are right on - boomers and the preceding generation are leaving the world in a mess, and it's up to the millennials to fix it.. unfortunately. I also like how that generation is portrayed in the video - concerned, involved, energized, engaged. That's been my experience. And a very positive one.

Sometimes I wonder if business managers are doing themselves a disservice by generalizing group characteristics to help "deal" with demographic change