When I was a child we occasionally were allowed to watch a TV game show called “What’s My Line?” The object of the game was for the panelists to guess the occupation of the contestant by asking a series of Yes/No questions. Wikipedia’s summary of the game includes the following observations:
The panel usually adopted some basic binary search strategies, often beginning with several common broad questions, such as whether the contestant dealt in a product or service …, whether the contestant worked for a profit-making or non-profit organization, and whether a contestant’s product was alive (in the animal sense), worn, or ingested. Because “no” answers were to be avoided, panelists would often phrase their questions in the negative so that a “yes” answer would be more probable, starting questions with “Is it something other than…” or “Can I rule out…”
This trip down memory lane caused me to wonder how on earth a law firm knowledge manager would fare if seated in the hot seat during What’s My Line? You can just imagine the questions, as well as the consternation our answers might elicit. So let’s turn this around slightly. What exactly IS it that we do for a living?
- Create an environment that fosters knowledge sharing.
- Assist our colleagues to find the people and information they need to know.
- Train the lawyers in our firm to practice effective personal knowledge management.
That’s how I’d sum up my job today; it’s my “elevator speech.” What’s your line?
If you have a little time, here is some video of Salvador Dali and A friend of Donald Duck on What’s My Line. Enjoy!
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXT2E9Ccc8A
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ywCj-H6vNI&feature=related
[Photo Credit: Dunechaser]
Above and Beyond KM 
Hi Mary. I love your blog, but feel I need to challenge one point.you say your role is “Create an environment that fosters knowledge sharing”.I would suggest that even more important is to Create an environment that fosters knowledge seeking and re-use. Better to start with creating a demand, than with creating a supply. Demand will create supply, while vice versa is not always the caseSee here for more thoughtshttp://www.nickmilton.com/2009/02/push-and-pull…http://www.nickmilton.com/2009/03/knowledge-sha…
I take your point, Nick. However, my experience has been that in law firms there's lots of demand for knowledge/information. We tend to start by asking if someone has done this before. (Chalk it up to our love of precedent.) Couple that with the human tendency to avoid work and we find we don't have a demand problem. The real problem is on the supply side: people don't always realize that the content they have could be very useful to someone else. That's why I focus on knowledge sharing.Is this atypical in your experience?- Mary
I usually say I help people to not make the same mistake twice.marnix
That's exactly right, Marnix!- Mary
I take your point, Nick. However, my experience has been that in law firms there's lots of demand for knowledge/information. We tend to start by asking if someone has done this before. (Chalk it up to our love of precedent.) Couple that with the human tendency to avoid work and we find we don't have a demand problem. The real problem is on the supply side: people don't always realize that the content they have could be very useful to someone else. That's why I focus on knowledge sharing.Is this atypical in your experience?- Mary
That's exactly right, Marnix!- Mary