Beyond knowledge management to better management
Have you noticed the breathless, starry-eyed approach of some Enterprise 2.0 advocates? To be honest, I've been guilty of it myself on occasion. In part, it comes from the excitement experienced when you first glimpse the transformative powers of social media tools and let your mind race ahead to the day when organizations operate differently... Continue Reading →
Be grateful for your insightful friends. Their wisdom can speed your path to learning. Accordingly, I'd like to thank Mark Gould and Jack Vinson, both of whom were kind enough to comment on my earlier post, The Four Chickens Problem. In that post I discussed the challenges to adoption that organizations distributing bed nets face... Continue Reading →
Have you ever been to the Burger Joint in New York City? If you do go there you won't find a large menu. You won't find expensive decor. You won't find a fancy staff with attitude. Rather, it's what you might call a "well-edited" offering: Hamburger or cheeseburger. Soft drinks or beer (but only one... Continue Reading →
When you use a search engine, you're thinking aloud. It's almost as if you're standing in the middle of Central Park or Hyde Park shouting, "Does anyone know anything about [X]?" In Central Park, at least, people are likely to ignore you and just keep walking. What would happen, however, if someone stopped, paid attention,... Continue Reading →
The most effective way to prevent death by malaria is by using long-lasting insecticide-treated bed nets. Yet organizations that distribute these nets have discovered that the folks who receive the nets sometimes choose to trade them for four chickens rather than use the nets. Why? The four chickens solve an immediate, obvious and painful problem... Continue Reading →
In New York City's glittering social scene, I've never heard of a failure party. Apparently, you have to be on the A-list in Indianapolis to be invited to one. In 2004, The Wall Street Journal published an article on Eli Lilly's failure parties. These parties were started in the early 1990s by W. Leigh Thompson,... Continue Reading →
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it ... collaborate. That was my initial reaction when I read Michael Sampson's post, Who Owns "Collaboration" in Your Firm? He describes ownership of collaboration in the following ways: has the responsibility for analyzing work processes and recommending ways of improving those through collaboration... Continue Reading →
To be honest, I never used to pay much attention to the quality of a vendor's representative. As long as they weren't offensive, I was willing to ignore them and focus on the product. And then, we had a very interesting experience when a vendor's rep showed up to present a product that colleagues at... Continue Reading →
"Take this Enterprise 2.0 pill, it's good for you." These words seem to encapsulate how many organizations are encouraging the adoption of social media tools behind the firewall. Unfortunately, the list of things that are good for us but we don't try is longer than any blog post I've ever written. And yet we persist... Continue Reading →
"The floggings will continue until morale improves" is a famous pirate saying that could well be the motto of some old school knowledge managers who are trying to join the cool folks at the social media party. At least twice in as many weeks I've heard reports of misguided flogging within organizations in New York.... Continue Reading →
Above and Beyond KM 