The IKI Talks Questions

First, my apologizes for being a bit late with this post.  It's been a crazy month in a good kind of way.

In keeping my eyes open for new ideas and information, this arrived amongst the various Linkedin notifications that I get daily.  The Institute for Knowledge and Innovation South-East Asia Bangkok University, IKI-SEA for short, has interviewed 34 international KM practitioners and will be posting short videos for the next 34 weeks. The series is called IKI Talks. If you want to see the videos, the first three are up here.

I thought for this week’s blog post, I would consider and answer the five questions that were posed to the 34 KM practitioners IKI-SEA talked to.

And so: without further ado, here are the questions and my answers:

1. How do you explain the difference between information and knowledge?

I would start off by saying that in general terms, information is knowledge's work product.

Beyond that, information is also a bridge between one person's knowledge and another person getting that knowledge so that it's useful to them. When people recognize what they know and how they know it, in either in an explicit or back of mind kind of way,  they can start to tell stories or write things down, making tangible information out of knowledge that is sometimes hard to get a handle on. As this happens, knowledge becomes information that can be passed around.  Once some who will see it as new information gets it, they go through whatever their information processing model is, bringing the new information into their knowledge in a way that is useful to them.

2. What will be the most important topic in knowledge management in the future?

In my view knowledge management doesn't ask questions, it answers them. Knowledge Management is a set of tools to help organizations to become great.  So I think the most important KM question in the future will continue to be the one we are being asked to answer now: How do we best help those we work with achieve their strategic priorities?

There is a catch here, and that's that KM needs to fight to get a seat at the strategy table to be able to do that work. So I believe that the most important topic in KM in the future is: How do we learn to have better conversations with those we work with in order to do our work so that our clients or the organizations we work with get the world changing results?

3. How do you foresee knowledge management as a discipline in the future?

I see the discipline evolving beyond what has become traditional KM in organizations.  I see the leaps forward in technology, neuroscience and behavioural sciences changing our understanding of how and what we do to achieve our goals.

I think we live in a really exciting time with core financial market principles shifting and changing, with our populations aging, and with technology providers introducing world changing products on a regular basis.  I see KM, and it may not actually be called KM in the near future, becoming the way that all this noise gets clear and talks to each other.  I see great opportunity for people with an understanding of how people know what they know, the related science and the related technologies.  I think people who are able to work with organizations to leverage all these pieces becoming an key and essential ingredient for organizational success.  Key and essential in the way that if you've got KM you'll succeed and if you don't, you won't.

I think the only thing missing right now is that those of us who are KM practitioners and experts need to learn to have different conversations with those of who aren't experts.  We need to hear what our 'clients' are saying and then speak with them about what we do in a way that they can understand so that we can show our value and get to do our work.

4. How do you explain the link between knowledge management and innovation?

Innovation never starts in a vacuum. Something happens in an organization or firm's markets that asks a very pointed question. The organization then needs to recognize the question, clarify it and work to answer it. Making up that answer starts from the platform of skills, strengths, resources and information that is either explicitly or tacitly available to a person or group or organization.  Knowledge management's role in this process is to allow or make the conditions so that the most useful skills, strengths, resources and information are on the tip of the tongue or at the fingertips of the people looking to answer the question in a way that changes the world.

5. How do you foresee the future of innovation management?

People have been making new things and solving problems for centuries.  People naturally solve problems with what they know as a part of their daily lives. I think the future of innovation management lies in not managing innovation at all but in allowing and supporting people in what they do naturally.

Rather than managing innovation, we need to find the courage to encourage people to dream and play.  Day dreaming, following distractions, going for walks, watercooler conversations; things like this are all useful in that they allow the seeds of innovation to come into being and grow.

Once the seed is planted, then, yes, there is some managing that needs to be done, but usually the managing is to manage to get out of the way of the excitement and energy that making something new creates.

See you next week!

Navigating the Writing Path: Start to Finish – I C Publishing Summer Blog Tour

Welcome to the I C Publishing Summer Blog Tour on navigating our writing paths from start to finish. I was delighted when my friend and Senior Partner at NLP Canada Training Linda Ferguson invited me to be part of this Summer Blog Tour. Linda’s passion and skills help people open up fresh perceptions so that they can recognize new strengths in themselves and become better at supporting strength and collaboration in others.

If you’ve arrived here from LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook, Linda’s blog is here and you can read Sheri Andrunyk’s post that launched the tour here.

And now, without further ado: here is my contribution to the tour.

How do you start your (writing) projects?

I start by reading.  I read a lot anyway, but when a particular project is front of mind, I allow most of my reading to be directed toward what might be useful for that project.  History, social sciences, fiction: it doesn’t really matter, I just fill my brain.  Once I start to feel like I’m getting filled up,  I then start to let it all spill out.  Framed by the project, thoughts and ideas start to form, and those thoughts begin to make it onto paper. They land on the page in the shape of what could be called word clouds, as I write things down wherever there is space on the page or card.  

 

And I start analog. I always begin with pen and paper.  Yes, I am one of those who still uses a fountain pen.

 

How do you continue your writing projects?

I let my projects take their own time.  When it is time to write, I get to work and write, but I let things move at their own pace.  I obey Micheal Ondaatje in this: he wrote in In the Skin of A Lion “Meander if you want to get to town."   My projects begin with a central kernel and move out towards the edges, and I write and assemble the pieces of writing like pieces of a puzzle, allowing what I know to be the through line of the plot or idea to govern sequence, what stays and what goes and what gets added to ensure clarity and cohesion.  

 

How do you finish your project?

To begin with endings, I go do something else. The something else can be as simple as making lunch. I give myself some time and space in order to freshen my own eyes and clear my head a bit so that I can better see into what I’ve written.  Then I try to be as merciless as I can be with my words: trimming, rewriting, adding and finally crafting what’s on the page or in the machine into the what my imagination saw when the reading started to encourage the first kernel to grow.

 

Include one challenge or additional tip that our collective communities could help with or benefit from.

I think of all the tips I could give after twenty plus years of making art this one is the one that has served me the best and the most consistently: go for a walk.  If you find yourself stuck, staring at a cursor: walk to the coffee shop or grocery store.  If you need to sort out a plot point or make sense of facts that are connected but don’t seem to hang together: walk to and through the neighborhood park.  Allow the movement and change of scenery give your head and body a break and a distraction.  I have found that things sort themselves out when I am moving through a different mental and physical space.

 

Passing the Pen

And now, I am delighted to introduce you to the next contributor who will be sharing her experiences, challenges, and tips, on navigating the writing path from start to finish. Check out her link, and watch for her blog post on Wed, July 9th. 

Adrianna Prosser is one third of The Smashing Trio, a promotional trio who love to host unique events with unavoidably good times. She is also a playwright of historical adaptations of Canadian history and of "Everything But the Cat..." a bereavement piece on tour right now: www.everythingbutthecat.net - her mental health blog invites guest bloggers to share their struggles and triumphs in hopes of creating a community online and off where stigma is a thing of the past. Find out more about this fiery redhead at www.adrianna-prosser.com and follow her at @adriannap. Her blog is here.

Check out the links and watch for her post next week.

And I’ll see you all back here next week after a week full of National Holidays and ever more important football ( soccer ) matches (for those us who care about these things).