Beyond knowledge management to better management
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... Continue Reading →
The historic battles between Athens and Sparta or between the Hatfields and the McCoys are nothing compared to the battle royal fought daily by parents determined to make their children eat their vegetables. After years of alternating between cajoling and threatening our children, we now learn that the right thing to do is to try... Continue Reading →
Are you ready to walk away from your major line of business? If not, you may be turning away a new, more profitable line of business. Or, you may find you're soon out of business altogether. Not convinced? Well then, spend a little while with Xerox. When you hear the word Xerox, you tend to... Continue Reading →
Apparently almost anything can be downsized, including a traditional New Orleans Mardi Gras parade float. Thanks to "Mardi Gras Floats for Dummies," you can find directions on how to scale down your ambitions from a typical float (which can exceed 50 feet in length) to a Radio Flyer wagon or even a shoebox. The instructions... Continue Reading →
Seth Godin recently wrote about Derek Sivers (founder of CDBaby), who built his company with one thought in mind: "What could I build that would be like a dream come true for independent musicians?" The post ends with the following provocative statements: If your business is a dream come true for customers, you win. Game... Continue Reading →
At a recent gathering of senior law firm knowledge management experts, an attendee asked two provocative questions: If all the knowledge management personnel in your firm were to fall off the face of the earth today, would it result in a decline in firm profits? And, if what we are doing does not have an... Continue Reading →
The tire jack is a great symbol for knowledge management. With the right amount of leverage, you can lift and support something much bigger than your KM effort. In the context of law firm knowledge management, one way of testing your KM leverage is to ask: for every hour I spend on KM, how many... Continue Reading →
A person stuck in KM1.0 spends much of their time maintaining their various content repositories. Unfortunately, it can be hard to keep up with those maintenance tasks. And if you fall behind, it becomes increasingly difficult to retrieve your content -- even if that content is pure gold. If you have dross mixed in with... Continue Reading →
During the Enlightenment, philosophers described God as an "absent clockmaker," who created the world and then stepped out of the way -- letting the creation run itself. I found myself thinking about this as I read Andrew McAfee's excellent post, I Know It When I See It. In his post he describes the criteria... Continue Reading →
Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com, wrote a great endorsement of Twitter in his recent post, How Twitter Can Make You A Better (and Happier) Person. For him, Twitter was instrumental in the following four areas: Transparency & Values: Twitter constantly reminds me of who I want to be, and what I want Zappos to stand... Continue Reading →
Above and Beyond KM 