Every once in a while I feel like I've switched on a turbo-boost button in my brain and I'm somehow able to absorb large quantities of material in relatively short periods of time. At these same times, it feels as if one discovery leads miraculously to THE THING I've needed to know.
I have a friend from an old writing group who called this phenomenon "synchronicity." She refuses to believe that these flashes of insight and 'rightness' had anything to do with luck or serendipity; rather she believes that when you feel like you're on a bit of a learning tear like this, you're really and truly on the right path for you, and that the universe is rewarding you with little bursts of inaudible applause along the way. (I personally prefer to hear these inaudible applause in the form of the good pinpon noise -- like on a Japanese game show when a correct answer is given. But whatever.) Anyway, for my present purposes, I think this definition works and I'm going to go with it. A synchronicity it is.
My synchronous and turbo-boosted right path these days has -- remarkably -- to do with knowledge management. I've been struggling for nearly a year now to generate true community support among my peers and superiors for the idea of creating and supporting a company-wide knowledge management strategy. I've pursued this even while I logically acknowledged that it wasn't going to happen overnight and while I went ahead with some 'quick win' strategies and plans in the foreground. I let it stew on the back burner.
And now, wham: the semi-hidden Blog system that we built into our knowledge base is taking off. Employees are using it -- and generating honest discussion! People are stopping me in the hallways asking when we're going to be offering Podcasts of our knowledge. People are talking about communities -- and departments are actually fighting over who's going to 'own' them. 'Where's our Scoble?' I'm being asked. 'Let's go ahead and free this previously walled-in, top-secret material', I'm being told. And everyone is gaga for 'Web 2.0' -- even if they don't quite get what that means. (Um, what does it mean, anyway?)
So OK. All my dreams are coming true. How did it all happen? And is it really going to continue?
This, I do not know. But when I suggested some of these things a year ago, nobody gave me the time of day. Nobody knew or cared what knowledge management was. Now, at the very least, they are interested. Or perhaps people are just finally, simply realizing that we can't go anywhere else as a company without figuring out how to learn, and then apply what we've learned, in some reasonably effective manner. In any case it's a great thing to watch.
For me, a few things have come together. The first was reading Verna Allee's "The Future of Knowledge: Increasing Prosperity through Value Networks." It may not sound thrilling, but for me it was. I was attending GDC 2006 and even skipped a party to read it. For me, that's serious. What Allee has to say is, perhaps, not groundbreaking in itself. But for me, after having struggled through books upon books and sites upon sites taking in all the conflicting 'rules' about managing knowledge and after analyzing a host of approaches that I felt just couldn't work within my company -- given my particular circumstances -- it spoke to me.
Fundamentally, what Allee has to say is this: knowledge management is about managing anything at all; rather it is about attending to. It is about ackowledging the very basic reality that there are existing systems akin to living organisms -- living networks, as it were -- already in operation, and that we must understand and find the tools to work within them most effectively. Here's what she has to say:
Perhaps what we really need is to manage less and attend more. The word "attend" has a range of meanings that are far more appropriate for leaders and managers in the current socioeconomic environment: "to pay attention to, to look after, to be present with, to apply oneself, to apply one's mind and direct one's attention." What do we need to attend to in order to be successful and create a more hopeful future?
She says more:
As business people, our core learning challenge is to understand network principles and apply them all across our business practices, from technology networks, to human networks, to business networks. Networks constitute the pattern of organization for living systems, which are far too complex to control or engineer. This means learning new tools and methods that will help us see network patterns and work with what is emerging.
1. Operationally, we must understand how digital networks and technologies support people in creating, organizing, and accessing the everyday knowledge they need to complete their tasks and make good decisions.
2. Tactically, we need to understand how social webs such as knowledge networks and communities of practice help create, diffuse, and leverage knowledge and innovation.
3. Strategically, we need to understand our organizations as participants in multiple business networks where intangibles are important for building relationships and smoothing interactions.
4. Everyone, especially leaders, needs to learn the new ethical underpinnings of success for networked organizations, and how to engage with each other in the conversations that matter.
Amazing, isn't it? You may not think so. Regardless, it was simply exactly what I needed to learn at that moment.
Next, I attended one of Dave Snowden's "Sensemaking" workshops. While I found many of the activities completely irrelevant (again for my company's particular circumstances which may or may not be utterly unique but which by God appear as such) what I LOVED was the idea of quite possibly being able to develop a decision-making framework that would not only take into account the worlds I live in (Chaos! Unorder!) but that would allow the decision-maker to thrive within them. If you haven't already, I encourage you to investigate the Cynefin framework and see if it may work for you.
Since then, I have been reading non-stop: blogs, books, articles, and probably talking non-stop as well and thereby learning more. I've attended local events like VidFest that introduced me to some brilliant thinkers in the fields of design, digital media, and community development (Josh Davis, Mark Pesce and George Oates of Flickr spring most readily to mind). And most recently I've helped to set up the second in a series of knowledge management workshops for some of the key stakeholders in my company, which I am very much hoping will ignite in those attending the same passion I'm feeling for the power to truly change and improve our current situation.
If this is synchronicity I'm all for it.
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