Reflections, space and sabbaticals beside the sea in Eastbourne

I do some of my best thinking on my daily ‘walk to work’. It’s a ritual I’ve followed from my early days as a commuter and I’ve found that, no matter what I am working on (or where), this reflection time is vital. I’m fortunate; I live close to the sea (in Eastbourne & LIsbon) and today as the tide was going out the scent of moss on rocks and seaweed filled the air.…

Earlier this week I was invited to run a session for the business community where I live in the UK.

Here's the account of that session which I hope is useful for many in the KM4Dev community who get limited 'facetime' with decision makers and need to make an immediate impact!

Last week was fun. It started with a Masterclass, jointly presented with Eric Hunter, and continued at the first combined KMUK / KM Legal event now styled the KM Summit expertly compiled by Nick Stone which I had the pleasure of closing.

I took away

• A sense that KM’ers are becoming increasingly agile: despite the onrush of technological disintermediation there is still a role (especially around the 4 ‘ates – Facilitate, Collaborate, Communicate and Curate).
• The…

Growing up, one of the chores I associated with holidays was the sending of postcards to family and friends. With no social media or smart phones, we kept in touch via letters and cards.  Yet the postcard is still highly effective as it is a tactile, non-technological and versatile object.

Here’s a few examples of how I have used it over the past few years:

To prompt future stories

Often at big events (especially the annual corporate 'show and tell') delegates…

I've been in Khartoum. I was there as President Trump announced the ban on travellers from 7 countries which included Sudan. The impact on morale (a week after the outgoing Obama administration had eased sanctions on the country) was palpable. Bans don't hit the powerful they hit ordinary people with families overseas or like many I spoke to who visit the US for work or research.

a week on "Managing Knowledge in a Connected World"

So it was a poignant backdrop to the week…

A recent email exchange with Eva reminded me that I have not been updating this space with some of the relevant blogs I've written over the past few months. Rather than reproduce them in full here's three of the highlights with links in case you are interested:

“Anytime, anywhere, any device”: Working smarter in a knowledge…

I recently wrote a Blog Post  I think might be of use to members of KM4Dev dealing as it does with the challenges around finding stuff in organisations.

I hope its of use.

Paul

I first worked in the City in 1972 as a summer intern in the cheque processing arm of Lloyds Bank Ltd.  No typing, just machine minding!

15 years later I was sitting in the machine room of the Marriott Hotel in Jeddah faxing, over an encryted line, a confidential trip memo for my secretary to type up and distribute to selected directors.  Laptops were only just appearing on the market and as for typing, Managers in those days didn’t. If you wanted to communicate confidential…

Most organisations go down the Knowledge Capture route – they create buckets (increasingly in SharePoint) to store what they have captured to make sure that the best knowledge is available when a bid, a presentation or a decision is to be made.  And that’s fine as far as it goes. Rarely do organisations add on the Knowledge Harvesting step.

This post examines the how and the why:…

I went to a very interesting event on Wednesday evening on a subject that touches everyone in the development and charitable sectors. My comments can be found here: http://knowledge-manager.sparknow.net/post/37908355860/a-bold-discussion-on-the-3rd-sectors-use-of-childrens

In case this helps others, here's a blog about how I closed KMUK 2012.

http://knowledge-manager.sparknow.net/post/26485358784/getting-wet-in-the-shallow-end

I hope its of use?

Paul

Here's an account of the swimming pool icebreaker exercise I used to launch KMUK 2012.

Ambassador, Decathalete and Cox. Some of the 'Olympic' roles speakers at next week's KMUK conference saw themselves as performing in their businesses.

Check out this blog for more insights: Olympics, KM and the Mexican Wave.

A few weeks ago in Bogota I met a team from the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) to discuss the timetable for completing the story collectors guide first conceived during the second half of 2011.

Check out CIAT's blog on the subject.

My observations from 5th Knowledge Management & Organizational Learning Summit Bogota. 

One technique Sparknow uses when trying to understand how information and knowledge flows in and around an organization is to ask a set of short simple ‘vox pop’ questions. They are short questions, the answers to which are usually very insightful.



I am going to be asking a few in Colombia this week and would like to widen the net to include the KM4Dev community.  If you are interested in joining in please post a comment here: …

Worth taking a look at  Carol & Victoria's excellent blog.

http://stories-and-organizations.sparknow.net/post/21846149742