Lately I've been thinking about whether law firms value knowledge management and how to measure knowledge management ROI. The underlying concern is that law firms don't know how to measure and value knowledge management activities. (If you ask most law firm knowledge managers if their firms are doing a good job valuing KM, I suspect... Continue Reading →
The Key to an Effective Knowledge Management System
Is the key to an effective knowledge management system a "non-optional mindset"? This is an attitude that says that a certain activity (e.g., contributing content or collaborating) is a necessity and must be done. It cannot be avoided, evaded, delayed or ignored. Therefore, it takes precedence over all optional activities.In his provocative post, How to... Continue Reading →
Measuring Knowledge Management ROI
We've achieved unprecedented levels of unverifiable productivity! That's the punch line from a fabulous Dilbert cartoon I saw last year. And, it sums up so much of what passes for measuring the Return on Investment (ROI) of knowledge management. All too often knowledge managers report on their level of activity because that is concrete, but... Continue Reading →
Crisis Prevention & Recovery KM Toolkit
The Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery (BCPR) of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has published an interesting Knowledge Management Toolkit for the Crisis Prevention and Recovery Practice Area. BCPR "is responsible for consolidating UNDP’s CPR-related knowledge and experience; providing a bridge between humanitarian response and the development work of UNDP; and acting as... Continue Reading →
Are You a 19th Century Knowledge Manager?
Are you a 19th century knowledge manager? The answer to that question most likely is yes if you work in a 21st century US law firm. Now, before you start rebutting my assertion by reciting the long list of cool 21st century tech tools you've deployed at your firm, let me state that I'm focused... 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 →
Above and Beyond KM 