How much does your firm value knowledge? It's not a complicated question, but the answer can be illuminating. The extent to which your firm values knowledge should be reflected in a proportionate investment in knowledge creation, capture and reuse. The extent to which the firm understands the economic benefits of knowledge should be reflected in... Continue Reading →
Personality and Law Firm Knowledge Management
In the hype about web 2.0 and social networking, you'd be forgiven for thinking that all you needed to do was purchase the perfect silver bullet (i.e., whatever technology the vendor of the day is hawking) and your organization would be transformed into a hip, reflexively-collaborative, effortless knowledge sharing, 21st century knowledge management heaven.But what... Continue Reading →
The Point of KM is Innovation
If you've ever had one of those days when you've wondered why you bother to chase down yet another after action review from a reluctant content contributor or wrestle with a difficult node in your taxonomy, take heart. There is a reason for this work, and that reason is Innovation. Innovation is the goal knowledge... Continue Reading →
Tangling with The Four Paradoxes of KM
In the inimitable words of Yogi Berra, it was "déjà vu all over again" as I read Andrew Gent's discussion of The Four Paradoxes of KM in his blog, Incredibly Dull. (Gotta love that name.)According to Gent, you cannot avoid confronting these paradoxes at one point or another in your knowledge management program, regardless of... Continue Reading →
KM in an Era of Information Snacking
In a recent letter to his customers about the eBook reader Kindle, Amazon's Jeff Bezos discussed the current tendency to engage in "information snacking":We humans co-evolve with our tools. We change our tools, and then our tools change us. Writing, invented thousands of years ago, is a grand whopper of a tool, and I have... Continue Reading →
Storytelling and Law Firm KM
As I was writing my earlier posts recounting Dave Snowden's concept of "fragmented knowledge" and Fred Nikols' strong recommendation that we focus knowledge management on human interactions and development rather than structured content, I must admit that I experienced mild anxiety about the implications of this for law firm knowledge management.For years we've been chasing... Continue Reading →
Hijacking Knowledge Management
Each week, Stan Garfield puts the following question to a different KM thought leader: "If you were invited to give a keynote speech on knowledge management, what words of wisdom or lessons learned would you impart?" This week's answer in The Weekly Knowledge Management Blog is from Fred Nickols, Toolmaker to Knowledge Workers.It seems to... Continue Reading →
Celebrating May Day
In many parts of the world, May 1 is the day on which they commemorate efforts to limit the working day to eight hours. They celebrate by taking the day off. For my colleagues in US law firms, an eight-hour work day may seem Utopian, and May 1st this year most definitely is a work... Continue Reading →
Above and Beyond KM 