Don't kid yourselves. If you haven't realized that knowledge management is about leadership, you're in the wrong business. It takes leadership to analyze and implement system reforms. It takes leadership to achieve behavioral and cultural change. It takes leadership to get all of this done when your colleagues aren't entirely sure they know what it... Continue Reading →
Capturing Content
In my last post I discussed Hardwiring KM Into Your Client Work as a way of improving your chances of actually capturing knowledge and making it available for reuse. The focus there was on specifically planning to capture knowledge and then organizing your project around that goal. But how do you actually capture that knowledge?... Continue Reading →
Hardwiring KM Into Your Client Work
If you want good knowledge management results, you have to find a way to bridge the divide in your colleagues' minds between getting their job done and doing KM. If they have a choice between racing to meet client needs and stopping to select and contribute content for the KM system, they will choose their... Continue Reading →
KM Autopsies
Even the best knowledge manager in the world has at least one project that flamed out spectacularly. But how many knowledge managers have conducted an autopsy to find the cause of death?By autopsy, I don't mean simply keeping a list of user complaints. What I have in mind is actually cutting the project open, digging... Continue Reading →
A Match Made in Heaven: KM +Organizational Learning
Knowledge management efforts that focus solely on deploying technology to deliver content efficiently are missing a vital element: they don't provide the means of helping the knowledge worker learn collaboratively from the experiences of colleagues. In other words, they don't create or exploit natural learning processes within an organization that lead to the adoption of... Continue Reading →
Getting Real About Law Firm Knowledge Management
In a recent post I discussed a 2007 study of the impact of knowledge management on the ability of Bolivian farmers to innovate and to support lasting change. The beauty of the cases studied is that the issues involved aren't merely theoretical. If the farmers don't get it right, they won't grow enough to live,... Continue Reading →
Knowledge Management “Bucket List”
Blame it on the Oscars, but I've got movies on my mind. In particular, The Bucket List. For those of you who haven't seen it, the "bucket list" refers to a list of things that two terminally ill men want to do before they "kick the bucket." This got me wondering. If you had a... Continue Reading →
Bolivian Farmers: A KM Case Study
What can a Wall Street law firm learn from Bolivian farmers practicing semi-subsistence farming methods? A lot with respect to using knowledge management to foster innovation and make lasting changes.In the case of these farmers, innovation was enhanced greatly when (i) knowledge management was the joint effort of multiple actors, including development agencies that provide... Continue Reading →
Snow Day
Large snowflakes are falling steadily outside my window, temporarily veiling the urban landscape. We heard breathless warnings this morning on the radio and TV of impending commuting disasters. We've been asked to stay home, but if we must travel, please use public transportation. New York City was winding up for one of those rare (but... Continue Reading →
Change or Die!
What if you were told that you must either "Change or Die"? Would you change?Now that you've had a minute to think about that and have probably answered the question with a resounding "Yes" (or "yeah, duh" depending on your age), think again. According to Alan Deutschman, you're delusional.In his recent book Change or Die,... Continue Reading →
Above and Beyond KM 