Tag Archives: Sparknow

KMUK12 opening: taking the plunge

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How do you set the tone for a two day event (KMUK) with a large gathering of skilled km practitioners many of whom can do such sessions in their sleep? Over a cup of tea at the National Gallery, Victoria Ward and I recalled an exercise Philip Gibson had run a few years back for an EDRM event I’d chaired.

‘Taking the plunge’ is intended to

  • Get people involved
  • Get them to interact with colleagues outside their immediate teams
  • Generate energy at the start of an event

Here’s how (with Philip’s help) I ran it:

I had six large signs, placed conspicuously around the room, reading:

pool side
changing room
diving board
shallow end
deep end
bar

I introduced the exercise with a picture of a swimming pool (actually Pells Pool in Lewes where I live which is the oldest outdoor pool in the country)

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I then said:

I’d like you all to imagine that you’re at the KMUK swimming pool. Where would you be?

at the pool side – for those still observing rather than being involved

in the changing room – for people who are preparing but not yet ready to take on their km role

on the diving board – for those who are about to ‘take the plunge’

at the shallow end – for those who are ‘testing the waters’ and not too sure if they want to get deeper

at the deep end – for those who are already well and truly ‘immersed in’ their km role

at the bar – for those who are celebrating achievements.

Now please would each of you go to the sign which you feel best represents where you personally have got to with your km role. You have two minutes to do this. Go to the stations which best represents where you think you are now in your role and NOT where your colleagues are going to!

At this point there was a lot of tooing and froing as the delegates decided where they should assemble. Once order was restored I invited them to:

Please take a minute to reflect in silence about why you’re where you are.

And then

I’d like each of you to pair up with someone near you, preferably someone whom you don’t already know well and take a minute or two each to share with them your reasons for being where you are. Let the first person in the pair begin while the second listens.

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Some of the delegates (including Arthur Shelley and David Gurteen) at ‘the Bar’

After a couple of minutes I asked them to switch and repeat the process. At the end of the first round (which took 6 minutes) I invited them to:

Now pair up with someone else near you whom you don’t already know well and repeat the exercise.

The session concluded after 15 minutes with this

I hope that’s got you thinking about your km role as well as helping you to get to know a few of your colleagues a bit better. I also hope that all of us will get further along through the day ahead. Now please take your seats.

Over the course of the 2 days many of the delegates and speakers referred back to the swimming pool and the individual locations became a good metaphor for discussions.

knowledge retention: a story collectors guide

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At the back end of May 2012 I was in Bogota and 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 during Victoria Ward’s trip to Colombia.

CIAT’s mission:

To reduce hunger and poverty, and improve human health in the tropics through research aimed at increasing the eco-efficiency of agriculture

is one Sparknow fully supports so it is a great pleasure for us to be able to help them bring this guide to fruition.

Soon, researchers jetting from country to country will have guidance and ideas on how they might go about noticing and collecting the stories and anecdotes that bring data, events and topics to life at their finger tips to complement traditional field data and observations. The field guide will challenge researchers to use sounds, photos, stories and other materials in order to share experiences and engage others.

Check out CIAT’s blog for an account of the Bogota meeting and plans for the guide’s publication.

Keep watching for further updates.

a knowledge retention technique: recognising contributions

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Knowledge retention is a big issue for many organisations. This blog first published in 2011 talks about how Sparknow planned for and marked the retirement (his second) of its Financial Controller Roger Doughty. I’ve republished it here since it addresses a key challenge namely that of recognition of the contribution made by an outgoing knowledge worker.

Roger was there in 1997 when Spark began. Through 14 years he has guided us through a maze of fiscal legislation, keeping a watchful eye on our finances and helping us become a limited liability partnership. That Sparknow has been able to develop the stellar list of client names bears testimony to the strength of our backroom support nearly all of which has been done on a virtual basis by Roger.

Our challenge is similar to that we’ve seen with clients when experienced people depart.

  • How to pass on the knowledge he’s gained much of which has been tacit.
  • How to ensure the same level of service is provided. And finally
  • How to recognise his contribution in a manner befitting of our style and values.

Tacit knowledge transfer has been/is being covered by a period of parallel running with his successor Mark Barrett who is also a Welshman with an accounting background. Mark has been shadowing Roger for the last couple of months and now that is reversed and Roger is shadowing Mark. I then hold monthly review sessions with the pair of them to see what issues have arisen and fine tune our processes. Our intention is ensure a smooth seamless transition which thus far it has been.

To recognise his contribution we asked a number of associates, friends, collaboration partners and clients to think of an image that best described Roger and then to write a brief anecdote.

The material was assembled; should we print off a set of postcards, produce a virtual card or make a set of recordings? Webster’s Pictorial provided the inspiration and with the help of Curtis James, a Brighton based ‘letter presser/purveyor of collections…’, Roger’s ‘book of memories’ was born.

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A very suprised and delighted Roger was presented with his gift at a garden party held in Lewes.

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Many struggle to find a way that recognises the contribution of key people in a business so that when they depart their legacy lives on. Roger reading his ‘book of memories’ shows how much pleasure can be gleaned from a simple gesture.

Knowledge retention: questions that say a lot

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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.

While I am in Bogota, Colombia this week speaking at the 5th Knowledge Management & Organizational Learning Summit I am going to be continuing our ongoing enquiry into the evolving role of the ‘knowledge manager’ by asking the delegates to think about these simple questions:

  • How do you describe what you do to others?
  • Is there an image, an object or a sound that sums up your experience of working in this field?
  • What tool or technique do you find you use more than any other?
  • What is the biggest issue you have had to face in getting people to support what you are doing?
  • What aspect of your work are you most proud of?
  • Knowing what you now know what advice would you pass onto someone looking to follow in your footsteps?

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‘…it can be quite lonely at times’ I reflections from Henley KM’ers

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‘Dear John, I never imagined 10 years ago the true impact of knowledge. The bureaucracies of the paper world are gone and communities are what deliver value at a local and a global level.  All my knowledge of technology was of only passing value. The networking skills are what are helping me thrive.’

Just one of the many postcards sent back from the future (2020) to today by the delegates at Henley Business School’s 12th meeting of their KM Forum. Putting learning at the heart of the organisation was the theme of the annual two day retreat and I was there running a Sparknow timeline exhibit that featured highlights of the evolving role of the ‘knowledge manager’ research we’ve carried out.  More of that in a future post.

This post is about the exhibit and how postcards were used as a technique to develop a delegate view on the changing environment and role of a ‘knowledge manager’.

why a postcard?

In many ways the postcard serves a powerful metaphoric role for key dimensions of knowledge management and of time:

  • It is personal/private but at the same time both shareable and publishable via a noticeboard.
  • It maintains its quality of having been individually authored, so the link to the originator stays explicit.
  • It is light, compact, and highly portable.
  • It is asynchronous, but interactive and annotatable
  • It is an ideal vehicle for messaging
  • It is time saving for the author.
  • It is an early form of multimedia, allowing an almost infinite range of attached images

Sparknow’s research into the use of postcards goes back over a decade. Victoria Ward and Professor Clive Holtham of Cass Business School and others from Sparknow wrote about the uses of the postcard in re-forming organisational time, place and meaning” for the ‘In search of time’ conference, held in Palermo in 2003. A copy of that paper and one presented in 2010 on slow knowledge can be found here.

why a timeline?

Our experience suggests people respond best when they are asked to situate comments against a time and place (and often an object or event) as a backdrop.

postcards and time lines as a combination.

The visual impact of a series of postcards on a timeline is visually compelling.

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materials for the timeline

By putting up background material for the three focus points on the timeline (2002 > 2012 > 2020) we were able to provide context for the postcards people were writing; to get them thinking back from 2020 to today and then from today to 2002. We were particularly grateful to Andrew Curry and The Futures Company for letting us reference their work. Andrew wrote an interesting and thought provoking blog to accompany The World in 2020 publication we drew on to design the exhibit.

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looking back from 2020

the questions posed were:

Imagine you are writing back to someone in 2012 from 2020 (or to 2002 from 2012). Tell them:

  • about your daily life
  • what’s changed about your job as a ‘knowledge manager’ and the environment in which you work
  • what kit and tools are different now from then.

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looking back to 2002

and the outcomes

More than 25% of the delegates completed a postcard.  Each revealed something about the writer and their vision of the world.

A couple of revealing postcards from today back to 2002

You’re still in KM.  And for a while it’s even in your job title.  You do a lot of technology.  You spend a lot of time in “programmes” and service development, development in general, is project-based rather than continuous.  The KIM profession is government recognised, but frequently struggles to find direction and leadership.

Hello, we’ve almost forgotten how to pick up the phone or walk over to speak to people.  We spend a lot of time sending “texts” from our phones and reading about our friends’ activities from their “electronic” Facebook page.  It can be quite lonely at times.

Many felt strongly that being networked will be one of the key differentiators in 2020; that technological advances will continue to enhance our ability to work wherever and whenever we want to but that time savings (to enjoy more leisure) is a forlorn aspiration.

Few saw the ‘knowledge manager’ title as being around in 2020, it being best illustrated by this:

The Knowledge Manager is extinct. Culture and behaviors of the knowledge manager are embedded into all employees as the modus operandi.

though another said in 2020:

I am working as an advisor, consultant, advocate, counselor, co-creator. I work to Board level leadership but I roam The Organization, working to improve colleagues’ personal and group knowledge management.

Technology has simply become the channel, its just the ‘thing’.

a great piece of advice:

Try to write letters as much as possible because otherwise your handwriting will get even worse.

what would I do differently next time?

Actually not too much though I’d probably have more people versed in the material, able to explain the significance of the dates to ‘visitors’ to the exhibit. And I’d make sure I had enough people around to help put up an 18 foot poster when I arrived at the venue.