Networks, Complexity, and Relatedness

Networks, Complexity, and Relatedness
Inquiry and learning into social networks, organizational network analysis, and the relationships among people and systems in complex organizations and networks.

This blog is MOVING: new site is almost ready: change your readers, now: http://www.pattianklam.com/blog

Saturday, August 21, 2004

The Collar of the KM Coat

I received an email from a very weak tie yesterday. Bijoy Goswami is former Nortel employee who knew someone named Greg (whom I can't remember with only a first name for a clue) who referred Bijoy to me. Bijoy noticed that Rob Cross gave me an acknowledgment in The Hidden Value of Social Networks, and so got in touch because he is doing work now on the "people side" of knowledge management.

In an article-to-be-a-book-chapter on his site, Bijoy uses the metaphor of The KM Coat, the collar more precisely. When you pick up a coat, it's best to pick it up by the collar, and Bijoy suggests that the collar is not document databases, it's not AI, and it's not change management. It's looking at people and their roles in the organizational structure.

Here's the part I really liked: he goes back to a concept developed by Marcus Buckingham in the book First, Break All the Rules. Buckingham summarizes three vital talents that good managers recognize in people:

Analytical
Relational
Results-creation

Bijoy then does a nice quick comparison of these to three of the roles described so well in The Tipping Point:

Mavens
Connectors
Evangelists

Good insight. Thanks, Bijoy!

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Friday, August 20, 2004

Innovation & Technology

I'm catching up on the reading pile, mostly looking at strategic directions in knowledge management technologies for a client report, and came across a couple of articles my friend David Hartzband (VP for collaboration at EMC/Documentum/eRoom). He summarizes the Software 2004 conference managed by Sand Hill associates, and one of the insights he reports from the conference is: "...the need to look to models outside of technology development for ways to focus on innovation," and "...that non-technical issues would be as important as technical ones over the next decade."

Uncertainty in economic models, the trend for innovations to come from small groups working at the margin, and the globalization of knowledge work are all pointing to the line of thought that it's not going to be new technology so much as new ways of bringing technology to people.

Through networks, presumably.

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Thursday, August 19, 2004

Expertise location via Buddy Lists!

Here's a great bit from Technology Research News passed on to me from a knowledge broker extraordinaire at one of my client sites: Messenger taps social nets describes research at the University of Michigan in the development of a tool that constructs expertise profiles for people on instant messaging buddy lists. If you and all your buddies have expertise profiles (and the tool helps build them for you based on what you've got on your own web site and in your browser favorites), then you can send a request to "SWIM" (Small World Instant Messaging) and if you're not the expert, SWIM will see if one of your buddies matches the query and forward it on.

If you get a match from a "friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend" who happens to be online and available -- Connection!

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Tuesday, August 03, 2004

AOK Connect

KM Magazine arrived yesterday. Jerry Ash, who has created an awesome conversational space in the AOK network, is on the cover. Full PDF available.

Coincidentally (or not), I was Googling "social network analysis" and "Tacit" (for Tacit the company), and discovered that Jack Vinson blogged my entry on Dennis' Smith's article. I know Jack through AOK conversations and was delighted to find his SNA blog archives, with great insights from a recent Chicago KMPro meeting. (Hi, Jack!)

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patti anklam. How to make networks work.

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ONA-prac. The online community for learners and practitioners in the emerging field of Organizational Network Analysis.

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