Well, alright then. I’ve been doing this bit on WZLX for over 4 years now, and I’ve got plenty of them, but considering I’ve been seeing more ripoffs of it, I thought I might as well stake my claim.

LG Arena KM 900

Das KM900 ist nicht nur vollgepackt mit anspruchsvollen Multimedia-Features, sondern überzeugt auch mit einer vollkommen neuen 3D-Benutzeroberfläche. Ergonomische und intuitive 3D-Touch-Menüs ermöglichen die unkomplizierte Suche in Kontakten und Multimedia-Inhalten. Reel Scrolling, also die Auswahl über rotierende Touchoberflächen, ordnet die Menüs wie auf einer Filmrolle an. Alle Audio-, Video- und Fotodateien des KM900 können dank 3G HSDPA und WLAN problemlos mit Freunden in Sozialen Netzwerken ausgetauscht werden.

Hello. My name is Art and I am the Chief Knowledge Integrator for my organization.  I used to be the Chief  Knowledge Manager, but times are changing and so is my role in the organization. I still am responsible for overseeing knowledge based activities such as tacit to explicit transfer as a means to reduce organizational knowledge loss, facilitation of collaborative communities to increase efficiencies and drive innovation, and working throughout the organization to infuse the processes, procedures, and policies that support an enterprise culture of collaboration that enables us to make better decisions faster and with better results, but now my organization needs more. The lines between Information Technology and Business Operations are dissolving. The CIO is now focused more on enabling the business then on managing IT resources, while the Operations Directors are now focused on delivering results faster and with more impact through the use of enabling technologies. My job as CKI is to develop the strategies, tactics, and techniques that connect the right information and knowledge to the right people at the right time in the context they need, and ensure they have to know-how to adopt and use the resources. My role is unique in the sense that I need to play a part in all aspects of the organization from strategy development, to operations, to education and training, to sales, to human resources, to finance and metrics and assessment. My goal is to focus the organization on maximizing our corporate knowledge and intellectual capital while minimizing knowledge gaps, and empowering the workers to leverage all the information, knowledge, and resources at their disposal.

I have also found that my new title resonates better with my organization then CKM did. For some reason people understand the notion of knowledge integration better than knowledge management. They can see how knowledge integration strategies can foster better decision making, promote business agility, and connect people to information in context more than they could in a knowledge management context. They also seem to understand that integration requires an organizational/cultural, people, and technology approach to be effective. Yes, I know that was the same with KM, but for some reason the notion of integration resonates better.

I am happy to be part of the next generation of knowledge leaders who will hold the CKI title. I expect that in the next 15 years the job will become obsolete as organizations continue to infuse IT and Business operations, and knowledge strategies, tactics, and methodologies are inculcated into the daily routine of operations, but until then I am proud to be a Chief Knowledge Integrator.

KM-025 Nagy-Hárs-hegy

Budaörsre készültünk bevásárolni, jön a Karácsony… de előtte felsétáltunk az Iharosra. A térképen világoskékkel jelzett utat jártuk be, visszafelé is ezen haladtunk. Nem mértem pontosan, de nagyjából oda-vissza 2,6 kilómétert tettünk meg.

A focipálya mellől indultunk…

Ködös párás idő volt, de ez nem szegte kedvünket. Szép szines levélszőnyegen és némi sárban haladtunk felefelé.

A Piros plusz jelzésen mentünk.

Megálltunk a Szily-kápolna mellett, majd a “P+”-on haladtunk tovább.

Felérve az egyik hangár tetején vertem tanyát. Csat a kézi rádió (VX-3) volt nállam és a szokásos antenna.

Jól ment az aktíválás, néhány perc alatt sikerült 5 összeköttetés, mikor hirtelen elfogytak a partnerek. Mivel a látótávolság 100 méter alatt volt és nem volt túl meleg sem, (5,9 °C mértem) így elindultunk lefelé.

A levelek között gonbák is bújkáltak.

Ilyen szép volt az erdő…

Köszönöm az összeköttetéseket, a LOG-ot feltöltöttem a SOTA adatbázisba.

A csúcs adatai a SOTAwatch-on: KM-029

Voua nu vi se pare ca timpul pur si simplu zboara si orice am face fuge, ceea ce este mai rau ca nu timpul trece ci chiar noi trecem fara sa ne dam seama de asta si fara sa realizam ceva important care chiar sa ramana in istorie ca un lucru foarte important realizat de un om tot atat de important.

Oamenii, in lumea in care traim, nu mai sunt catalogati prin ceea ce fac ci prin ceea ce par sa faca sau prin ceea ce fac cei din anturajul lor. Un om important in zilele noastre este acel om care sta pe langa un alt om important care a ajuns important prin aceleasi metode. Oamenii importantii in zilele noastre mai sunt si oamenii cu bani care se crede ca pot face totul si nimic nu le poate sta in cale, acesti oameni au devenit importanti datorita faptului ca au furat. Aceasta pare putin o culme, adica este ceva extraordinar facand ceva ilegal sa ajungi un om important, dar uite ca asta este posibil (mai ales in Romania).

Mie mi se pare ca timpul prea a iesit pe autostrada si nu are limitator de viteza sau ceva care sa-l incetineasca, eu v-as indemna pe fiecare sa plantam “stop-uri” pe marginea drumului, asta putem face numai prin reusirea a ceva important care sa ne ocupe timpul cu folos deoarece majoritatea timpului nostru trece fara nici un “stop”.

Spune si tu Stop!
Opreste timu-n loc!

Thanks for creating the environment where I can catch up with some old friends and meet lots of interesting new ones.  We used KMWorld09 as a platform to launch the new http://KMers.org community and it was very successful in that regard.

As requested from our in-person discussion, here are some specific recommendations for conference improvement.

• Create an online environment where attendees can provide feedback about the conference.  Not a survey, but quick comments.  Use a tool that lets everyone see each other’s comments and vote on whether or not they agree.  Try crowdsound, uservoice, or ideascale.  All very cheap and probably free for KMWorld in return for the exposure they would get to KMers.   Your audience will help you improve if you give them the tools.
• Create a physical Q&A room where speakers go after they finish speaking so that people can continue asking questions.  Put the Q&A room on the schedule.  If you don’t want to pay for another room, designate a table in the lobby where the speaker will hold court for an additional 30mins or so.
• Create a track which has only collaborative type sessions.  Nancy Dixon’s session was a great example.  Here is a description of another good format called Buzz
• Make sure that every speaker, speaks for a maximum of 2/3rds of the time slot.  Too many sessions I attended just ended with zero chance to interact with the content.
• Simulcast the keynotes online.  This will create significantly more exposure and therefore likely more awareness for next year’s conference
• Provide a place online where people can rate speakers and sessions.  Not sure how you were vetting sessions this year, but it seemed that everyone came from a reputable source, but some were downright embarrasingly poor at communicating.  I used to work at WSB so I know that the presentation is as important as the content for whether people enjoy and retain.
• Kudos for being on Twitter and for pushing out blog content during the conference.  However, the hashtag should be a communal conversation.  The tweeters are people and should be connected with as people.  The way you used Twitter this time around is akin to walking into a cocktail party and just talking to everyone you walked up to, never listening, and never responding to their ideas.  The best conferences are listening to their hashtag streams and engaging wherever they see an opportunity.
• Get the hashtag buzz going before the conference.  This will help with registration.
• There are a variety of ways to use Twitter in sessions.  Here is an article that I wrote for MPI’s One+ magazine

There are some excellent meeting planners who have great ideas about how to make conferences better

• Jeff Hurt: http://jeffhurtblog.com/
• Julius Solaris et al: http://www.eventcoup.com/
• Samuel J Smith: http://interactivemtgtech.wordpress.com/

Please let me know if I can help.  We all want KM to thrive.  Conferences are an important part of maintaining a solid community.

All the best,
Swan

Motivating knowledge workers in KM projects does not have to cost much money. A survey of 22 Asian organizations performing good KM practices (conducted by Asian Productivity Organization) reveal an interesting pattern: they employ various (low-cost) ways to motivate knowledge workers:

• Rewards and recognition schemes are often used. Airtel in India instituted the Knowledge Dollar (K$) as the unit of performance credit and the Joint President’s and CEO’s Knowledge Management Award. A Learning Award for knowledge transfer and an Enterprise Award for intrapreneurship were established by Unilever Indonesia. Wika in Indonesia instituted ten different awards. The Learning Award resulted in “new enthusiasm for learning, confidence in trainers to conduct sessions, new standards of module development… and preservation of knowledge not captured before.”
• Infosys uses measurable returns from KM initiatives to demonstrate the benefits and rationale for engaging in KM. Initial positive feedbacks on outputs/benefits of KM were encouraging and provided motivation for the continuing development of KM at Goldsun in Vietnam.
• At the Department of Health in the Philippines, members of the KM Team through a workshop surfaced their personal talents, passions and life goals and each member clarified how he or she can optimize the conscious convergence between personal and organizational goals.
• Management of Qian Hu in Singapore designed a mix of informal and formal communication modes to strengthen buy-in from employees and customers. This includes “floor walks”, tea sessions and informal gatherings besides more formal modes such as seminars and focus group discussions.
• At SCG Paper in Thailand, a balance of virtual interaction and physical or face-to-face meetings is employed. Physical spaces designed for interactions are provided that can foster openness and trust among employees. Similarly, Bank Negara Malaysia redesigned its library environment to make it more reader friendly, using ergonomics furniture and encouraging a more cheerful mood using paintings and appropriate color scheme for walls and furniture.
• The importance of senior management commitment or executive sponsorship was mentioned in many case studies. In a survey of more than 200 organizations in Thailand this factor was ranked highest among critical success factors for KM. At Siriraj Hospital in Thailand, the CKO (Chief Knowledge Officer) was selected on the basis of commitment, leadership ability and recognition from other staff. Leadership and policy was ranked second in a study in Malaysia of success factors in KM. JTC Corporation’s managers created “a motivational organizational culture characterized by a caring leadership behavior which supports active questioning and allows for mistakes… Employees are thus able to trust each other and to share their opinions about work related issues more freely.”
• Learning is a win-win activity for employees and the company. CAPCO in Taiwan established an on-line learning program for its employees, the Multimedia Cyber College. It has motivated its employees by including on-line training and certification as part of the employee evaluation and promotion processes.
• The motivational value of learning through face-to-face interaction in a team or CoP is mentioned in many case studies. Unilever Indonesia, SCG Paper and Siriraj Hospital in Thailand, and SAIT in Korea are examples of organizations that set up and nurture many CoPs. To sustain employee interest in KM activities, Bank Negara Malaysia initiated cross-functional teams, benchmarking projects and study visits or attachments.
• At SCG Paper, the honor of being a mentor or coach is seen as a motivating element in tacit knowledge transfer processes such as the buddy system, job rotation and cross-functional group activities. Designating functional heads as the knowledge champions and setting up a community of experts were instrumental in gaining buy-in for KM at Airtel. Wika and Bank Indonesia created the role of “begawan” (sage) for mature and experienced mentors.
• “Praise Ground,” which is an avenue for peer-to-peer public compliments for exemplary KM behavior, is an innovative process at Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology. According to the case study author,
  “A member identifies another employee who has done something worthy to be praised and writes a short, but entertaining note about it on the website. That member, then, identifies still another employee to praise and the process is repeated over and over… The Praise Ground is one of the most popular and most frequently visited website at SAIT. Most, if not all, members at SAIT consider it a great personal honor to be mentioned at the Praise Ground.”

If you wish to read more about these 22 KM case studies which I edited, click here and access the 3rd item in “Downloadable KM e-books”.

KM in Asia (22 case studies)

—

Note that there is an embedded link in this blog post. It shows up as colored text. While pressing “Ctrl” click on the link to create a new tab to reach the webpage pointed to.

=>Back to main page of Apin Talisayon’s Weblog
=>Jump to Clickable Master Index

Knowledege Management (KM) adalah sebuah strategi yang digunakan untuk dapat mengelola pengetahuan (knowledge) yang ada di suatu organisasi. Knowledge merupakan kepercayaan yang dapat dipertanggung jawabkan. (justified true believe). Pada prakteknya knowledge dapat berbentuk tacit (yang ada dalam fikiran manusia) maupun eksplisit (yang sudah tertuliskan).
Pada era globalisasi seperti sekarang ini, knowledge merupakan intagible aset yang sangat berharga, sehingga penerapan KM bagi suatu organisasi sangat diperlukan untuk dapat memenangkan persaingan.

Earlier this month the North American MAKE  (Most Admired Knowledge Enterprise ) award winners were announced and the list is as below:

• Apple
• APQC
• ConocoPhillips
• Fluor
• Google
• Hewlett-Packard
• IBM
• IDEO
• Microsoft
• MITRE

Some of the parameters on which MAKE awards are given are:

• Creating a knowledge-driven enterprise culture
• Developing knowledge leaders and workers
• Innovation (R&D, creativity and new product/solution/service design and delivery)
• Maximizing enterprise intellectual capital
• Enterprise-wide collaboration and knowledge sharing
• Creating a learning organization

The question I have is:

How many of the above organizations have a dedicated KM Function responsible for implementing KM within these organizations and full time CKO’s leading the KM Function? To the best of my knowledge, Apple, Google, IDEO do not have any KM function and yet they are considered.

Some time back I had written this post about “Does KM needs a Dedicated KM Function to be successful” where I had raised some questions about organizations like Apple, Google and others being truly representative of today’s knowledge led enterprises in every sense and do not need a KM function to practice KM. It’s just a way of being for them…

So, do we really need a dedicated KM function for achieving the above? Well, Apple, Google, IDEO and others don’t think so…

Surely, somewhere something is just not right in the KM world…

A simple tool for increasing the likelihood that employees will perform desired KM behaviors is to incorporate those behaviors into the periodic Performance/Personnel Evaluation System. Personally, I prefer that employees (for example through a briefing) are assisted to understand and appreciate KM and what KM can do for them (see previous blog on “T3-1 Showing a concrete benefit of KM to the knowledge worker”). Demonstrating success of a KM pilot project in a selected unit within the organization is even better. However, a combination of many approaches may be the best approach, whichever is suited to the culture and problem of the organization concerned.

An innovative approach used by SEAMEO INNOTECH in lieu of a generic Performance/Personnel Evaluation System is the individualized Personnel Development Plan whereby each employee, in consultation with his/her superior, commits to take specific actions or duties towards gaining or enhancing specific competencies during an evaluation period. Presently, the management of INNOTECH is considering incorporating the practice and learning of specific KM competencies in the Personnel Development Plan.

—

Note that there is an embedded link in this blog post. It shows up as colored text. While pressing “Ctrl” click on the link to create a new tab to reach the webpage pointed to.

=>Back to main page of Apin Talisayon’s Weblog
=>Jump to Clickable Master Index

That’s it, the francophone community of practice about knowledge management for development is standing on its legs: SA-GE was created on the back of the francophone discussion that took place in Brussels on 5 October 2009. It represents a combination between Savoirs and Gestions and that name itself is the result of a long discussion started in Brussels and that still keeps quite a few people ‘perplexes‘ (including me); yet, at the end of the day, what matters is what goes on on the platform, not what is going on with its title.

Anyway the discussion group site is here: http://dgroups.org/Community.aspx?c=532af1c1-1d65-419c-a52c-7af6c8b7451a; you can register on to it (provided you speak French and have some interest in knowledge management/sharing for development, that is following this link: http://su.pr/7h3yPF or alternatively contact me to get on it.

It’s an interesting initiative because there is a lot of knowledge to be shared between francophones – we have been – actively or not and consciously or not – sidelined by the global discourse in English (oh, am I writing in English here?). And perhaps because a lot of francophones are good at talking i.e. face-to-face rather than writing, not a hell of a lot has happened in terms of creating text-based communities of practice (CoPs). If I’m wrong, I’d be happy to hear about very successful large francophone CoPs in the field of development.

This time, SA-GE stems from the global KM4DEV community so it comes with some kind of legated identity but hopefully it will develop its own dynamics and discourse based on peculiar areas of interest etc. And that’s the fascinating side of being part of this new community of practice: observing perhaps entirely different patterns of discourse emerging. The very use of different words has an impact on one’s worldview. Insisting on ‘capitalisation’ and its integrated approach is not quite the same as the toolkit-approach of the Anglophone world… Let’s see what flares up.

As I said on a previous post, for me it will also mean developing a split personality between the global (English-speaking) and the Francophone groups. Though if discourses and agendas differ between the two there could be a really great opportunity to share across communities, to get different world views acquainted with each other (and hopefully to solve my multiple personality disorder, at least partly)…

The increasing specialisation in different language groups may well pose the threat of creating new silos, but bridging and connecting silos

Blending cereals from different silos to get a healthy mix...

(or bashing them down to create only one big market of grains happily mixing with each other on the edges) will become all the more essential for that reason. And if we’re good at bridging, we should be one step closer to recognising multiple knowledges and the beautiful diversity of this world. A natural diversity that reinforces us rather than an over-engineered conformity that weakens us, as testifies the impoverishment of nature in the face of our apprentice wizardry: think decreasing bio-diversity because of us engineering nature as a landscape and encouraging monoculture.

Alors à quand les premières discussions sur SA-GE ?



The following is a guest blog posting from David Yetman, Manager of Knowledge Mobilization at the Leslie Harris Centre with Memorial University in St. Johns, NL. Visit their web site at www.mun.ca/harriscentre

I am a part-time PhD student and a full-time knowledge broker. And today I feel like Sisyphus. You never heard of him, hey? He was the poor Greek son of a… king who took pleasure in killing and was sentenced to a life’s struggle of pushing a boulder up a hill, only to reach the top with the curse of it falling down the hill again. Never (never!) to reach the top. Sounds a bit like positioning academic research to contribute to society. You think the change is happening… and then… before you know it, you are back to the base of the hill.

The graduate student gives me hope. I have no background in pedagogy or theories of learning. I have no need to fulfill tenure requirements. But I do have an inkling that graduate students could be the most important human resource in our modern society.

What makes graduate students so very different? Their post-modern view of the world? Their affinity for drinking copious amounts of European beer? (OK, different, but not unique) Not at all. Graduate students are unique human beings because they have a passion for knowledge and they want to share that knowledge for the betterment of the world around them. Is that unique you ask? Everyone carries knowledge and wants to change the world (existentialists exit here). But graduate students do it with a special thrilling insight into how knowledge can change society. And they have special knowledge.

I make no apologies for saying that, in my humble opinion, academic knowledge is the peak of the highest learning mountain. It is the supreme athlete of the learning arena.  The peer-to-peer battle over ideas gives knowledge its strength. Peers beat the pulp out of knowledge for a reason; so it can stand on its own merits. And graduate students take that torch with vigour. They are interested, focused and committed. At Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada this year, there is a record number of graduate students. 2758 full and part-timers. 2758. That’s ten times the amount of people than the small community I grew up in. That’s 250 times the size of the average municipal council in Newfoundland and Labrador. That’s a lot of changing power.

I was reading on old University Affairs article the other day and it said only 51% of graduate students will go on to be academics. The other 49% will work in the public sector, not-for-profits, or start their own businesses. I’m not great at math, but that’s half. Half of all graduate students will choose not to be academics. I was shocked at that statistic, and enthused.

Imagine. Half of graduate students will be future academic researchers, half of them policy-makers. For the knowledge broker (able to leap silos in a single bound) it’s a future match made in Heaven. It is an infiltration of like-minded people who believe in the power of research. Who want to change the evidence-free decision-making culture in our system. 2758 (to infinity) pushing the boulder simultaneously, with a passion to push it over the top.

That Guy –Pees in Public

We were inside putting down beers like Kevin puts away microwaved dingdongs when we heard screams and cursing coming from the yard. People started running inside like they were being chased by something terrifying and terrible, like a football movie starring Sandra Bullock or the Jay Leno show.

Turns out, while there were a ton of drunk people out back filling their gullets with some natty ice, there was one really drunk guy on the Roofdeck above who was emptying his bladder. Yep, we had a douchnozzle pull an R Kelly, and coincidently, our that guy for this week. That Guy who just loves to pee in public.

This dumpcake will whip it out and water the lilies at his grandmother’s funeral if he feels the slightest need to tinkle. He considers public restrooms more useless and unhelpful than Lawrence Maroney. In the pool; in the back alley on the way back from the bar; and apparently, off a roofdeck onto a bunch of unsuspecting fellow partygoers.

This polesmoker will pull out his pudstick and piddle a puddle of pee before Pete can praise his putter. Look, champ, I know what’s it like to have slammed a sixer in 60 minutes and I know that makes you need to race like a pisshorse, but the world is not your urinal, you’ve got to at least make an attempt to find a toilet. You can’t be walking about whipping it out and whizzing away like you were the pats pissing away timeouts last night.

 This poodlehumper shows less enthusiasm for finding a proper place for his waste than The Colts’ coach shows human emotion or communication. I don’t care if you pee silver coins and naked pictures of that hot redhead from Mad Men, we’ve had working indoor plumbing for ages now, it’s about time you put it to good use. So before you shower me in the same way ESPN will be spurting Peyton Manning love this week, why don’t you holster your trouser-snake or put a cork in it until you can find a bathroom.

Otherwise, I’ll kick you in the nethers so hard, you’ll only be able to do that sitting down from now on. Oh, and cram it up your cramhole yourself, because there ain’t no way I’m touching your dangly bits. Do me a favor, don’t be that guy.

Urinals.  Do you spend much time looking at them?

This is just a guess, but for half of you, I’m assuming that the answer is “no”.  The other half of you are wondering where I’m going with this line of enquiry.

 If you have had the pleasure of using the urinals at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, you will have noticed that each one is embellished with a lifelike image of a fly, under the glaze – just near the drain.  Initially I dismissed this as merely an example of quirky humour from a Dutch sanitary-ware manufacturer, but I was too hasty. Apparently, since incorporating the fly into their urinals, airports and other public places have noticed a decrease in the amount of cleaning required. Some of these have improved to the extent that they have saved money by reducing the number of cleaning shifts.    If you haven’t figured out the link between the fly and the cost reduction, ask any small boy!

All of this got me thinking about how on-target we are in the way we exchange knowledge, good practices, worst practices and stories.  Despite our best efforts, do people sometimes miss the mark when it comes to knowledge exchange? 

As knowledge professionals, we work hard to use processes and social technologies to bring people together collaboratively.  On some precious occasions, we get to design and facilitate face-to-face knowledge-sharing events.  Occasionally, we even get to work on leadership behaviours and organisational design. 

In all of these worthy activities, we sometimes forget that knowledge management can also help groups of people to agree upon and describe their practices – and hence connect and share more efficiently because they have negotiated a common language.

Here’s an illustration.  In KM circles, we have talked for years about the value of nurturing communities of practice, and rightly so.  However, if we were to turn our “Community of Practice toolkits” out onto the table, the majority of our tools play into the notion of Community: role descriptions and training programmes for leaders and facilitators, templates for community charters, designs for launch events, no end of technology options for social collaboration and document management.

But what about the Practice bit?  Do we have anything in our toolkits to offer groups of professionals who want to agree upon “what’s important” and describe “what good looks like”?  Yes, we can provide wikis where people can discuss and build glossaries, definitions and reference material, but that’s a platform, rather than a process.

I’m advocating that as Knowledge Management professionals, we should be able to offer any group a simple process for describing their practices qualitatively, thereby enhancing their knowledge-sharing.   That could involve the creation of a self-assessment tool (maturity model) – or perhaps a knowledge asset which helps others to navigate through a distillation of past learning, current good practice, examples and key contacts. 

That’s more than installing a wiki, a Drupal community or a set of SharePoint libraries.  It requires  us to roll up our sleeves and engage with the subject  experts and practitioners.  It involves us in helping them to agree and describe their practice in an accessible way.  By helping them to produce a common model of the practices which make up their functional area, they will be able to target their knowledge-sharing far more precisely, and hence get more value from KM tools and techniques.

Or to put it another way – if our knowledge workers have something more clearly defined to aim at, then we’ll have to spend less time clearing up after them.

 First Published in the October Edition of Inside Knowledge

(ANSA) – BRUXELLES, 15 NOV – Dopo l’Olanda, anche il Belgio pensa di introdurre la tassa chilometrica per colpire l’uso dell’auto privata. Il principio da adottare sarebbe: chi piu’ usa (e inquina) paga. Il segretario di stato federale belga ai trasporti Etienne Schouppe ritiene che la proposta possa essere valida per ridurre il traffico e l’inquinamento in Belgio. Sull’esempio dell’Olanda, in Belgio si lavora all’idea di introdurre una nuova tassa per ogni chilometro percorso.

jag längtar till den dag då de där 3 km bara känns lätta o sköna! hur blev det så här, hur gick det till att ingen tvingade mig att börja träna… ingen, någonsin?! *jag förundras*

Ma a Naszály volt a célpont. Az időjárás jónak ígérkezett ezért elindultunk, 11:40-kor értünk Kosdra, a falú szélén hagytuk az autót. A térképen látszik a megtett utunk, a sárga a felfelé, a narancs a lefelé utat jelzi. A tanösvényen haladtunk felfelé ami becsatlakozik a Kék jelzésbe. Lefelé egy darabig szintén a tanösvényen jöttünk, majd a Sárga + jelzésen, és a végén egy jelzetlen erdei úton, ahonnan a falú alatt visszatértünk a tanösvényre.

A csapatunk (+ a fotós ) és mögöttünk a Naszály a villanydrótok mögött.

Ahogy az lenni szokott itt is volt egy sorompó, nyitva találtuk, ami nem igazán érdekes mivel úgy is gyalog megyünk.

Megnéztük a bányász emlékmüvet, majd folytattuk utunkat felfelé. A lehullott levelek vízesek és csúszósak voltak.

Végig szépen fel vannak festve a jelzések, nem csak a tanösvény hanem minden más is.

A kopasz-tetőről szép kilátás nyilik a környékre.

Megnéztük a Sárkánygödröt is, de nem volt sehol a sárkány…

Felérve a csúcsra kicsit átőltöztem (polo csere, kicsit megizzadtam), egy kabátot is felvettem, majd irány a torony. És aktíválás… 8 összeköttetést sikerült összehozni.

A geotornyot már csak lefelé indulva fényképeztem le.

Ilyen volt a kilátás Vác felé, kicsit párás volt a levegő.

Az útbaigazító tábla a tanösvény, Zöld háromszög Sárga + csomópontban.

A Pádimentom-kő.

És a végére egy csoportkép.

Úgy terveztük, hogy mire a Nap lenyugszik addigra visszaérjünk a kocsihoz, ez sikerült is, negyed ötkor indultunk el Budapest felé.

Szép őszi időnk volt, kicsit szeles, de napos a csúcson 11,5 °C-ot mértem. Körülbelül 9 kilómétert gyalogoltunk és 450 méter szintkülönbséget emelkedtünk túránk során.

Köszönöm az összeköttetéseket, a LOG-ot feltöltöttem a SOTA adatbázisba.

A csúcs adatai a SOTAwatch-on: KM-006

That Guy – Who hates PIZZA

Well hey there, teenie weenies. So I had to go play nice this week and go out to one of the girlfriends’ old college buddies place to watch the Pats and the Dolphins, trust me, it wasn’t my first choice of things to do, in fact it was behind caddying naked for Pete and picking the toe jam from underneath Kevin’s mangled nails, but it was better than hearing the girlfriend nagging me about it, so I went.

It started off better than I expected, as her friends are good people, there was more than enough beer, the guy-to-girl ratio was a little too balanced for my liking for a day of watching football, but again, the ample supply of beer helped me come to terms with that. I didn’t exactly have high hopes for the entire endeavor, I even had an escape clause in my head just in case things went south, but luckily enough for all involved, things went reasonably well, so I didn’t have to swallow those 5 rolls of quarters and laxatives and I didn’t have to show them my slot machine impression after all.

What didn’t sit well with me was the fact that we plowed through the chips and salsa before the Dolphins could run their first wildcat play, and there were no reserves in sight. Well, I had already dialed the first 6 numbers to L street diner and was asking what everybody wanted on their pie when all of a sudden, This choadstain pipes up and says “ugh, you know what I just want a sub.” Why? we’re all getting pizza, just go with the flow and the special on this doorknob flyer, but this guy ain’t having it. Turns out, he’s that guy. That guy who doesn’t like Pizza.

What? I… I don’t believe you. No really. Get the fuck out. It’s just not possible. You don’t. Like. Pizza. Fuck you. No seriously, fuck that. What, Do you not like puppies and rainbows too? What other awesome thing do you not really care for? Joy? Sunshine? What’s your stance on free money? Are you lactose intolerant? If so, it shouldn’t matter; just pick the cheese off, dill weed. It’s still delicious. Better than any stupid sub.

How do you possibly not like pizza? Does the delicious cheesiness block you up a bit; make it a little too tough to poop? Too bad! The delightful toppings too delectable? Deal with it! Pizza is one of the best things ever. It’s a better invention than Penicillin, the Printing Press and Pudding Pops. It’s like walking into a public bathroom as the janitor is walking out after cleaning it. It’s like kicking off that frozen slushy muck that clumps up behind your tires in the winter.

It’s better than hitting all the green lights on your way home, or removing a price tag completely in one quick peel, or walking out of a room as the intern is walking in, and knowing Kevin just let a killer fart loose that’s going to destroy his soul.

It’s fitting everything that’s dirty in the dishwasher perfectly, and then coming home to find somebody else emptied it. It’s better than the smell of Play D’oh, cinnamon buns, and fresh laundry put together. You don’t like pizza. Come on. What else don’t you like? Freedom? Short acceptance speeches? Sucker-punching a guy in a Yankee hat during a bar fight? When your boss decides to work from home?

This is America sir, and we love our pizza here, Chicago style, New York style, with sausage and hamburger or goat cheese and pineapple, and you’ll learn to like it or you can get out. Pizza is the food equivalent of walking into a strip club right before a shift change and the hottest stripper in the bunch hasn’t quite made enough cash to pay the babysitter.

It’s always satisfying, quick, easy, and the best thing before drinking, during drinking and after drinking. You know what? You gonna slag pizza? Fine. No pie for you. I’ll tell you what I will do, after we’re done with all this deliciousness, I’ll take the empty greasy box (you should be familiar with one of those, I’ve seen your girlfriend)  and cram it up your cramhole. Do me a favor, don’t be that guy.

KM for development-oriented organizations (government agencies, non-government organizations or civil society organizations, non-profit foundations, aid or donor agencies, social enterprises, etc.) is more complex than KM for private corporations. In development-oriented organizations, external KM (or KM to serve stakeholders) must consider the multiplicity of stakeholders and external actors, each with their own different or sometimes conflicting interests and agendas, complex power relations, differences in cultural background, different “knowledges” or epistemological assumptions, etc.

A simple way of quickly grasping the differences in interests and power relations among a group is through a sociogram. Below is a sociogram drawn for the members of the Executive Committee of an ad hoc network consisting of local and national government, non-government, private and academic members.

The sociogram was constructed after interviewing and iterative discussion/refinement of the diagram with a knowledgeable informant who knows and have worked with everybody in the Executive Committee. The sociogram has two dimensions: extent of informal power/influence and position along an issue or policy dimension, in this case environmental beliefs or ideology. Note the following:

• The members are generally clumped at the high-power, right-leaning end of the diagram. This means somewhat general agreement and power equality.
• The widest gaps between any two members show the potential conflicts. An actual conflict can be depicted in red. In the figure the widest gap is more horizontal then vertical, which means that the conflict is more along beliefs than along power differentials.
• The Chairperson (Person #1) and Vice-Chairperson (Person #2) are more-or-less ideologically at the center of the group, which means that they are in a position to mediate or balance the groups “to the left” and “to the right”. The vertical position is informal power. Note that the Chairperson is at the top: he has both formal and informal power. However, there are two members (Persons #6 and #7) who exert slightly more power than the Vice-Chairman, and they are both “rightists”. Hence, if the Vice-Chairman takes over, he may not be able to play the balancing role because two “rightists” may tend to overpower him.
• The person with the most extreme position in the group, or the farthest away of everybody else is Person #4. She is the head of a network of local civil society organizations. She is somewhat aligned with Person #3. She is always at odds with Person #7 who is represents a private corporation. The power of Person #7 comes from the fact that this corporation is a major funder of the operations of this group.

Can you see now that a simple sociogram can give you that much insight?

In fact, an ordinary organizational chart tells you very little, namely, only the formal reporting relationships. It shows vice presidents at the same level but we know that in reality, vice presidents are never equally close to the president, and they often have unequal informal power or influence. In fact, it can happen that the secretary to the president is more powerful than any of the vice presidents! Ha ha!

—

=>Back to main page of Apin Talisayon’s Weblog
=>Jump to Clickable Master Index

Dave Snowden in his address on Social Computing & KM during the KM India summit brought about a point on how current organizational structures are not suited for creating social networks and hinder performance. Dave explained this with the Matrix Organizational Structure where people have multiple reporting relationships and no one is sure which way their loyalties should be.

Dave talked about the “Crew or Military Model” of team formation which he termed as more adaptive in nature based on the concepts of  “Role” & “Expectation of role”. He explained this with an example of how teams are formed in airlines or ships. People who may or may not have worked before come together to form a team and work as a team based on an understanding of what each persons role is and what to expect from that role.

In the IT industry this model, in intent, is a model that most software development organizations ‘aspire’ to implement while creating teams for developing software. I believe that in theory this is a good concept but there are several questions that need to answered and various soft aspects thought.

• “Crew” model would work for teams where the tasks are repeatable, tasks which have little room for variation and have to be done “the same as before way” on time. Tasks which have the procedures defined and the job of the person doing is to just follow the procedures and do it.   For example;  airline crew. pilot, co-pilot, air hostess, stewards, checkin counter assistants. The kind of tasks involved are routine, repeatable, well documented, and need to be performed with precision every time.

• In the software industry, for example each development project is unique and the development life-cycle is ‘not predictable‘ to say the least.  To compound matters, skills required may not be available and training may have to done while on the job. This is not the case in crew model where almost all the times things are predictable and follow a predictable sequence.  For example, in an airplane you can predict what would happen from the time you take a boarding pass and go to your seat to the time you get down from the flight. It is all very very predictable, linear & sequential. There is no room for variation — unless it is a private chartered russian flight

• Though one may say that even in software development we have roles like PM, Technical Leads, DBA’s etc etc and we know what is expected of that role. However, the reality is that software development is an iterative, some what chaotic, emergent process. There is a complex interplay between all stake holders to create the ‘intangible’ software that people want. Now by very nature of their business, airlines/ships can’t have an iterative, some what chaotic, emergent process to the nature of work that teams do there. Imagine a team of  air hostess emulating an iterative, some what chaotic, emergent process to serve the passengers.!!!

• Another important element is the “customer engagement” in the whole development life-cycle itself where requirements are fluid and can keep changing. Now one could argue that even in a ship or a airplane there is engagement required with the customers, but that engagement and the choices available and hence the options that the crew can exercise are from a limited set that is almost well known in advance.  It would be only in an adverse situation of a ship capsizing or a plane mishap (e.g. hi-jack) that the engagement model between all the participants becomes fluid and relatively unknown.

• The most important aspect I feel is the “nature of work” itself.  By very nature, software engineering calls for continuous learning & updation of skills while on the job. This is not necessarily true for airline or ship teams. Not to say that they don’t need to learn or improve their skills but that is within a very narrow band and at a slow pace than in software engineering. This aspect leads to totally different  behavioral, motivational, aspirational & emotional factors within individuals that then influence people, teams & how they work.

• I also think that teams in crew models the teams need to “coordinate” with each other to perform the task whereas in software development teams need to “collaborate” with each other to perform the task. These two things may look similar but call for totally different actions, engagement models within teams.

The above are just some of the many questions out there. What do you think?

Would ‘Crew or Military’ models of team formation work effectively in software developments? What could be other challenges and opportunities?

Speeches from the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in SF are available on [E2 TV]. I posted some interesting tweets from the conference attendees earlier, here are some more:

1. When people talk about “breaking down” silos they add fuel to the fire that E20 is a crock. Silos collaborate they don’t break down. (@mikojava)
2. Change agents have always existed, 2.0 tech brings agents together (@nitinbadjatia)
3. Knowledge Management used to be a dusty destination, ent 2.0 allows it to be dynamic and responsive to individual requests (@paulmirvine)
4. @CarolineDangson: E2.0 should perhaps be considered more like digital dna, the knowledge backbone of an organization (@paulmirvine)
5. Start behind the firewall, open to all employees, educate rather than prohibit, trust is returned (@dcoleman100)
6. Clara Shih: people are using FB and Twitter so their friends can serve as social filters for content. (@cjnash)
7. @nenshad: “Marketing creates the brand, Support keeps the brand alive.” (@JuliaMak)
8. Luxury hotel implemented Six Sigma and eliminated it because it didn’t allow them to overdeliver on Customer Service (@uwehook)
9. E2.0 culture change: “Imagine if a store with low sales accused their customers of “resistance”!” (@timoelliott)
10. Adoption is not a matter of resistance. If your store that wasn’t being trafficked, would you blame resistance?(@marciamarcia)
11. “When you grow up on the internet, client-server looks like green screen today.” (@nenshad)
12. Nike talks about “lessons shared”, rather than “lessons learned”. (@lehaweslive)
13. @rotkapchen: Why do so many people use the term “enterprise-wide” then? Why not “enterprise-deep”? (@richardveryard)
14. @rotkapchen: The first sign that someone has absolutely no clue about E2.0…when they keep referring to “users”. (@ekolsky)
15. @marciamarcia: If culture eats strategy for breakfast, how do you feed culture? (@ajeanne)
16. Innovation occurs at the intersection of contextually disparate concepts brought together creatively and with an open mind(@paulguyandersen)

(source)