Beyond knowledge management to better management
The spirited response to my last two posts (Librarians vs Knowledge Managers and Content Catalysts) regarding the relationship between librarians and knowledge managers drove home to me the importance of not getting too stuck on labels and stereotypes. To be honest, I did use for the purpose of argument a rather stereotypical (and as Nina... Continue Reading →
Knowledge managers sometimes divide the world into two camps: content creators (the folks on the front lines of an organization, as well as a small handful of knowledge managers with subject matter expertise) and content managers (the bulk of the knowledge managers and librarians). In this scheme, most knowledge managers are working well behind the... Continue Reading →
A startling blog post entitled reflection on KM and libraries in law firms came over the transom today. In it Morgan Wilson, a law librarian, recounted his experiences of working in a library that was part of a law firm knowledge management department. These experiences led him to the conclusion that it is not a... Continue Reading →
This is not about that solitaire game you play surreptitiously when you should be filling out expense reports. And, it's not about office politics or power struggles. Games at work is serious business and they offer interesting possibilities for law firm knowledge management and lawyer professional development. A press report about the recent acquisition by... Continue Reading →
I made a mistake yesterday. Although I started with the best of intentions, my error was apparent within minutes. In fact, as soon as my first mouthful hit my digestive track, it was obvious that I had eaten food that was on the verge of spoiling. Unfortunately, by the time my brain processed the bad... Continue Reading →
One constant challenge for knowledge managers in any organization is how to build support among your front line colleagues so that they adopt knowledge sharing behaviors and use your KM systems and tools. Some knowledge managers try various forms of marketing. Others simply harass their colleagues with pleas for better behavior. Still others co-opt senior... Continue Reading →
We have a friend who has great musical talent. So we were delighted but not surprised when we heard that one of his compositions had been selected to be added to a special collection at the Library of Congress. After all, his piece truly was beautiful enough to merit saving it for posterity. Unfortunately, I'm... Continue Reading →
One of the great challenges of KM 1.0 is that we have to make guesses about the future when populating our document repositories. When considering whether or not to add a particular document to the collection, we have to make a bet as to the likelihood that this particular content item will be useful or... Continue Reading →
Years ago, Saturday Night Live gave us the secret to effective knowledge sharing within the enterprise. In the famous words of Linda Richman on Coffee Talk: "Talk amongst yourselves!" I was reminded of this when reading Tweeting your way to closing the skills gap on your plant floor, which cites Benjamin Friedman, the co-author of ... Continue Reading →
It turns out that lawyers are human after all - at least with respect to their all too human inability to plan appropriately. Heidi Grant Halvorson recently published an interesting post on the planning fallacy, which is what psychologists call the inability to estimate accurately how much time an activity can take. Halvorson's review of... Continue Reading →
Above and Beyond KM 