Posted by Denham on June 25, 1997 at 20:00:37:

In Reply to: Been to a KM conference lately? posted by Mezei on June 25, 1997 at 14:13:00:

I get the impression that the spate of KM conferences and those planned have much the same speaker list. Does this reflect an inner circle, a tight community of KM experts spreading the good word, or collusion on the part of conference organizers.

Very little of the conference material finds its way onto the web, making it difficult to evaluate the originality and contribution of the speakers. One thing is clear there is little variation in the topics addressed. Look to see:
a) How to measure intellectual capital
b) Profiting from best practices & lessons learned
c) Difference between data, info and knowledge
d) Ways to capture corporate memory / knowledge repository
e) Role of knowledge in the global economy and society
f) How we do KM at "xyz" corp
g) Using (add favorite groupware tool) to foster collaboration.
h) Internets / extranets lower costs, save paper, help with publishing knowledge, ...
i) The "intelligent" organization
j) Benchmarking or industry surveys (add your flavor of the day)

Is this a good indication of where KM folk are spending their time and attention? I would doubt that is the case. Like expert systems a few years ago conferences reflect yesterdays success stories not current headaches, issues or opportunities.

So what is hot?
1) Knowledge sharing, building collaboration and learning
2) Market intelligence through stronger customer relationships.
3) Communities of practice, knowledge creation & innovation in small informal groups
4) Data mining, video ethnography and patterns
5) Knowledge ecology (relationships not representations)
6) Psychographics and virtual communities
7) Complexity & emergence

What is missing?
a) How to create knowledge (dialog, critique, trust)
b) Rewards for knowledge sharing
c) Ways to test & refine information and turn it into individual knowledge
d) Critical thinking skills & cognitive diversity
e) Stories, metaphor, analogy not rules, objects, inference

Hop on the bandwagon before you find yourself in the dust. Wisdom emergence is waiting around the corner to oust KM from the spotlight.

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• Re: Is KM conference circuit a clique? Mezei 12:52:20 6/26/97 (0)

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