We know too much and are convinced of too little, T.S.Eliot, Selected Essays 1928.

One of the pressures I try to resist is the feeling that I ought to keep up with the streams of thought and knowledge concerning my areas of interest. Apart from the fact that it would be a futile attempt, I am convinced that in these days of knowledge economy the way of wisdom may be, on occasions, to close the door and find time to reflect. Knowing as much as possible is no guarantee to right action.

Analysis and Profiling:

The starting point in coaching any individual or group for knowledge and information management is the acquisition of an adequate picture of their business and organisational role.

This must also be seen in relation to the overall organisational structure, business processes and business relationships (both internal and external).

Organisational and functional cultures comprise the environment within which knowledge and information is handled. This must be understood along with the national and professional culture of the group or individual in order to define appropriate interventions.

A profile which characterises existing knowledge processes and relationships is the basis for identifying changes that will enable greater individual and organisational effectiveness as well as turning knowledge resources into a factor for enhanced business competitiveness.

With so much material being generated on the web, how do we find those ideas that represent real quality? And how do we go about promoting content of our own that is worthy of the attention of others? I have experimented over the last year and a half with web-logging or "blogging". My motivation has been twofold.

Firstly, I have wanted to use a weblog as a tool for personal knowledge management. It has worked up to a point. I have noticed that I have not blogged as often as I have had ideas that needed to be jotted down. Instead I have waited until I had time to craft something I was happy to publish to the web. This has meant that I have not noted down some potentially useful ideas, meaning they don't get developed, and so some of the benefits of a weblog as a personal knowledge tool have been missed.

Heres an article I want to think through some more: Shirky: A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy

Knowledge Management is seen by some as just one more trendy business idea that has not quite lived up to its promise. What KM is actually about seems not entirely clear, and of those I have spoken to there are some rather diverse perspectives.

According to a recent article by Martin White in EContentMag.com, who borrows his title from elsewhere, Knowledge Management involves neither knowledge nor management. Any administrator of an academic organisation could tell about the difficulty of managing those that create, share, and convey knowledge. At best, management can administrate the context in which knowledge is created, and therefore act as a facilitator. But knowledge is personal and complex. It is not a commodity that can be organised and controlled according to strict rules.

Should we then eschew the term KM in favour of Knowledge Exchange, or KE, as suggested by Martin White? "Exchange" of knowledge certainly points toward the voluntary, personal, and networking nature of knowledge. But we are also concerned with the creation of knowledge, and with maintaining a context in which knowledge can flourish. And further than this, in the business context, the focus is clearly on improved company performance.

Whatever we call it, the knowledge dimension of productive work is closely related to the culture, values, and mission of a particular organisation. The latter are not managed! They are fostered, cultivated, developed. They are as vital a component for success as aspects of a business that can be managed.

My suggestion is that we talk of attending to the knowledge dimension, and reserve management to information and resources that form part of the knowledge enabling infrastructure. Perhaps the technology should be referred to as KSM, Knowledge Support Management.

KSM on its own, as many have proven over the last few years, does not in and of itself bring any improvement to business success. Cultivating the knowledge dimension is not a quantifiable process. But, as with culture, values, and mission, the organisations that stand out are those that have got it right.

elearnspace. Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age

by George Siemens
Behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism are the three broad learning theories most often utilized in the creation of instructional environments. These theories, however, were developed in a time when learning was not impacted through technology. Over the last twenty years, technology has reorganized how we live, how we communicate, and how we learn. Learning needs and theories that describe learning principles and processes, should be reflective of underlying social environments. Vaill emphasizes that ?learning must be a way of being ? an ongoing set of attitudes and actions by individuals and groups that they employ to try to keep abreast o the surprising, novel, messy, obtrusive, recurring events?? (1996, p.42).

Learners as little as forty years ago would complete the required schooling and enter a career that would often last a lifetime. Information development was slow. The life of knowledge was measured in decades. Today, these foundational principles have been altered. Knowledge is growing exponentially. In many fields the life of knowledge is now measured in months and years.

Read more: elearnspace. Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age

The management of knowledge is less of a technical or software problem than one of human ways of working. Email has become the predominant KM tool although it may not be the most suited. This article by Martin Roell explores how weblogs may be a more useful instrument.

CIO.com has an article with some excellent tips on encouraging knowledge sharing in an organisation.

• start with the enthusiasts, and get on board those that are the influencers that affect the emotions and attitudes of others.
• keep knowledge sharing initiatives to pressing business issues.
• embed knowledge collection and dissemination into workers existing tasks so that there is no extra cost to contributing.
• make sure that the effort of sharing knowledge is less than the value of participating.

The following is a thought provoking comment on my earlier post "Knowledge Creation and Multiple Communities"

I have been working in the UK health care sector
with functional teams who are being driven by a policy agenda to become
networked with clinical collegues from other organisations. The drivers for
this iniative are many and include learning , quality enhancement, resource
effectiveness and work force shortages. Within the subcultures of health care
we have witnessed a number of professional groups who find mulitple
membership a difficult thing to live with at a formal level. Our people tell
stories of how they find the conflicting agendas within the groups difficult
to understand and cope with.

As somebody that has made a career out of belonging to multiple communities, even multiple worlds, I sometimes envy those that have indwelt a single tradition or practice. There is an integrity and depth that comes from such a community of practice. I can quite imagine the difficulty of embracing foreign agendas and cultures.

For better or worse, we are in an environment in which change, the need to learn, and pressure on resources, demand that more of us cross the boundaries, and not only that, but also establish membership outside our natural home. That is not at all a comfortable experience. Sometimes it is also frustrating. Often it reduces efficiencies gained through specialisation.

A concern I have is how we preserve the value and strength of professional groups whilst also incorporating change and learning that is alien. My own opinion is that the latter should be a function of a minority who are able to connect different worlds. Maybe this calls for an explicit recognition of an organisational role that functions as a node, interfacing and translating between different professional and functional cultures.

It certainly calls for special skills, and it requires effort that draws away from the central focus of any specific professional group. For that reason alone it should be a specific role. I think that this is what should be meant by knowledge management, the realm of those that are professionals in recognising and catalysing the emerging knowledge in diverse but interconnected communities of practice.