Rony Dayan's Blog: Recent Comments

Comment on What ever happened to good old KM?

2008-06-30T06:10:35Z

Hi Martyn,
sorry for the late response (I only now realized you have commented when receiving another comment). As you can see my blog hasn't been very active since I'm very busy with other activities).
One could claim that KM is reinventing itself through Web2.0, yet other would say this is already something else.
Keep in touch.

Comment on What ever happened to good old KM?

2008-06-30T06:04:38Z

Hi Atul,
thanks for your comment.
Please tell me more about your KM activity, for which organization is it exercized, and what is your method of convincing people about it?

Comment on What ever happened to good old KM?

2008-06-30T05:48:29Z

Hi Rony,

Quite agree with you, the biggest challenge is to convince people that knowledge is power is an outdated equation. And, it is this precise idea which leaves people not wanting to share. I do give people the example of a working woman who made millions selling her blog story to a Hollywood studio. Now, this is not to say that everyone can make millions from their blog, but when reputation is increasingly becoming an important part of social currency (i think it always has been, but probably more so now?), sharing can do wonders for you!

Comment on What ever happened to good old KM?

2008-01-20T18:15:54Z

I sense we are on a journey - quite a long journey - and I don't see any dilution or evaporation of interest in 'good old KM'. I see many organisations still working on it, some just recognising it as something 'possibly worthwhile'. No reasons that I can see yet for pessimism - the Web 2.0 elements are to a large extent complementary, I believe.

Comment on What ever happened to good old KM?

2007-12-31T09:36:34Z

The truth is that the whole world is facing now the syndrome of the 'baby boomers' matching the end of WW2 and the date at which we are. I'm glad some organizations at least are aware of the problem (as I understand US Federal Agencies are), yet this is a minority. Most organizations either deny the issue claiming new blood will have a better chance of not repeating the same mistakes (and with the right blend of old and young, this is many times very true), or just look the other way, care for the quarter end figures and hope the problem will occur not before the next management takes over.
The answer to your questions is not of the one-size-fit-all type, but it will include at least the four phases of KM as classically defined by Nonaka, I. and Takeuchi, H. (1995) (The knowledge-Creating Company, Oxford University Press, Oxford), or maybe those I've implemented at Israel Aerospace Industries for the last five years (Dayan, R. (2003), 'KM and culture change at Israel Aircraft Industries', The Knowledge Management Review, Vol. 6, No. 2, pp. 12-15.).

The problem I was refering to exposes the fact that the publicity of web 2.0 is getting, creates a situation where people tend to think this is were KM begins and ends, and either are not aware at all of the basics of KM or simply disregard them, just as they would disregard the experience, lessons learned, and mistakes already made once, by the 'baby boomers'.

Comment on What ever happened to good old KM?

2007-12-31T01:43:45Z

Rony, Good to hear from you. I have seen U.S. Federal Agencies struggle with this as people retire and are replaced with those who have no 'knowledge' of what went on before. Recording 'facts' vs. the 'knowledge' gained over years of experience and seeing what 'works' and what doesn't is a problem. It is compounded by the fact that much knowledge is shaped by the personality. An example is adult education in the workplace vs. 'training' of adults. An experienced Knowledge Manager (perhaps not even thinking of himself/herself by that tag) understands the importance of hands-on experience and networking and getting away from workplace in creating knowledge in the student...but when replaced through retirement or organizational change, the focus is on efficiency, reduced costs and multi-tasking of the 'student,' so that what the previous leader 'knew' (knowledge) didn't even have a chance of transfer. How do you capture and pass that on? Or any number of similar packets of knowledge that seem to depend on personality type and preference(what's your MBTI?). It is not just recording facts and ideas for posterity, but the whole idea of succession management, mentoring, and some frankly very inefficient corporate processes (at least at first, fiscally aware, glance). Knowledge management, the Learning Organization, and why we do things the way we do are all related.
Why things work the way they do and what we have learned about them and the processes and how to pass that on to the next generation are questions as old as history...and where people have failed to solve and resolve them have resulted in waste at the least, and serious, destructive consequences at the worst.
Focus on process vs end-result is often another problem that can affect knowledge management. 'Do things the way I do.' can be a destructive mantra if not accompanied by why this process works...and should be accompanied by an examination of whether or not other processes could achieve the same results. Most of the time it is because we have enshrined the process and do not even truly understand what the desired end result is...and we have confused the process with knowledge.
Enough for now...as you can tell, this is a frustrating area for me, with more questions than answers...so I look forward to the answers from your experiences...Dennis

Comment on What ever happened to good old KM?

2007-12-30T16:34:53Z

Well, I wonder if we are, as the new generation of KMers looks at Wiki and says "this is knowledge sharing", and they are right; they blog and describe how they do things and to them this is "knowledge externalization", transforming it from tacit to explicit, and again they are right! The problem is that they haven't experienced the agony of convincing people that "knowledge is not power" but rather that "sharing knowledge is power", so the basis of the KM structure is missing and therefore any engineer would tell you that it endangers the future high floors.

Comment on What ever happened to good old KM?

2007-12-30T14:16:42Z

Maybe we are finally learning what realy works?
Maybe "good old KM" was just an unavoidable stage in our learning journey re. how to manage knowledge work effectively?

Comment on Agenda for a KM forum

2007-10-07T05:09:08Z

Of course not. I just meant to say that in KM that there are still huge opportunities in both reducing waste and in creating new directions, ideas, products etc.
And, these two sides of the coin are related, and it make sense to focus on both.
Ron

Comment on Agenda for a KM forum

2007-10-06T10:24:03Z

Thank you Ron and let's remember it for the f2f. I assume that by negative you don't mean the lack of positive!
(Hmmm... Tough!)