I attended KM World 2012 in Washington, DC last month, for the first time since 2006 (when it was still in San Jose, California). Let me first just say that I enjoyed the new location very much, not just because it’s a much shorter flight for me, but it seemed more intimate–easier to meet and talk to people and find my way around. I did miss being able to visit all my friends in the Bay Area, but I will get out there again.
Okay, so on to what I learned and observed at KM World 2012…
I think one of the big things I observed was a shift away from all the talk of technology, don’t get me wrong, people still talked tech, but I found less of an emphasis on it this year and much more emphasis on the value of the network, i.e. the people-to-people connections. Certainly any of us who have been doing KM for a while know that this is the case, that technology just enables and supports the activities of the network, but for most of the last 15-20 years we have had to fight against the idea that technology was the silver bullet in KM, that if an organization implemented the right technology they would find a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
Other themes:
- Mobility and Internal Social Media
- Internal Communications (consistent and repetitive communications via multimedia channels)
- Strategic Alignment (km must always align with the business strategy of the organization to be successful)
- Measurement and Value (everyone is measuring trying to determine value, but everyone is also still measuring things differently, but that’s OK.)
- The importance of
- Governance
- Serendipity
- Complexity/interconnectedness of KM
- The DIKW pyramid is dead. Or is it?
- Don’t fall prey to echo chambers in your organization
- People’s knowledge goes beyond their job description which is untapped capital
- The power of influence by friendship through peer networks is real
- Seek forgiveness, instead of permission
- Ask yourself daily what your km clients would answer to the question, “What’s in it for me?”
Some of the presentations and keynotes are posted on the KM World website, https://kmworld.com/Conference/2012/ and Dave Snowden’s closing keynote is on his website, https://cognitive-edge.com/library/more/podcasts/km-world-2012-washington-dc-closing-keynote/
Finally, I have to thank Daniel Lee for his notes/thoughts on KM World, which I have incorporated in this post as well as in a presentation I did for Knowledge Workers Toronto and is posted on Slideshare.