On conversation

One of the questions I am often asked is why people in knowledge management are so preoccupied with conversations. Why does conversation need to be facilitated, is another question.
Let me answer with the following points:
1) Sometimes conversations inside organisation need permission since there is still the belief that conversation is just idle chatter. Knowledge managers like [...]

On stories and leadership

Last night I watched a documentary on Edmund Hillary, the New Zealand mountaineer who (with Tenzing Norgay) became the first men to climb to the summit of Mt Everest in Nepal. Hillary died last fortnight, so the documentary wasn’t just coincidental!
The documentary was particularly revealing to me about the actual mission and ascent up the Himalayas by [...]

On poetry

I had a coffee and a chat with Matt Moore last week and he told me about his poetry project. He has been blogging about it recently but this post is the one I want to think about today.
When I was at high school my favourite subject was English. Naturally, this education included novels, plays and poetry. [...]

On internal communication

Continuing my unplanned theme on communication types, I wanted to make a couple of comments about the importance of internal communications.
The responsibility for internal communication often sits with Marketing, a position that invokes the spectre of PR and political spin. In other cases, internal communication is expected just to happen, miraculously, without much thought, planning, or quality [...]

On writing abstracts

One of the illuminating insights I came across during the summer break was in relation to abstracts. Now abstracts are common in the professional journal literature as a summary of the full text article, a skill in itself with definite requirements. Abstracts are also written to collate information about articles in particular subjects for subscription-based (often online) bibliographic services. [...]

On back in touch

I am back from some time away on the coast soaking up the sun and waves. What has been most apparent has been my itching to get my computer and go online to get back in touch with my favourite blogs and people! Not having a computer and not reading/seeing any news media on my holiday has [...]

On a new year

Today is the first day of January - the beginning of the new year (well, in most countries). I am beginning the new year with a new WordPress theme to give “Plain Speaking” a bit of a change of look. I have switched to a three column format. I quite like the new look and hope that [...]