On organisational network analysis

I arranged for Cai from Optimice to come into AusAID today to give a short presentation on organisational network analysis (ONA).  Some people may also refer to ONA as social network analysis (SNA).
I had previously talked with Cai and Laurie from Optimice at the recent KM Australia conference in Sydney.  Cai had offered then to [...]

On judgement

The KM Australia conference is over for another year.  There were some great presentations and I took plenty of notes.  Thanks to everyone involved.  In particular, I want to thank Aimee Rootes from Ark Group.  Aimee was always helpful and pleasant, and went out of her way to find people when I couldn’t find them.
I [...]

On outcomes and impact

There are many ways to find out about things. Research is obviously part of that. And research likes to use quantitative measures in order to maximise objectivity, even if these measures don’t give you much meaning.
Let’s look at hit rates on a website – a metric commonly used for “statistical purposes”. What does it mean? [...]

On a new city and a new job

It has been a while since my last post. I have been finishing up my work at the Fred Hollows Foundation and preparing for my move to Canberra with a newjob at AusAID. AusAID is the Australian federal government’s overseas development agency.
I am in the midst of the move fom Sydney to Canberra, with limited [...]

On narrative capture and drought

Having followed complexity theory and narrative for some time in the knowledge management literature, and enriched by the Cognitive Edge accreditation course I undertook this year, I have become more attuned to opportunities where narrative capture and sensemaking can be used to provide meaningful information for organisational development and as a guide for government policy.
I was therefore interested to read today [...]

Knowledge management and the world financial crisis

Since my last blog post, the world financial market has really taken a battering as large finanical institutions in the US, Britain and in Europe collapse under the weight of poor lending practices and even poorer management and control structures. The financial impact alone is enormous.
What has this to do with knowledge management, I hear you [...]

ON RMAA Convention 2008 – report (2)

In my blog post on Monday I gave a brief summary of the presentations I attended at the RMAA Convention in Sydney. I have finally sorted through my notes and here are some of the discussion points.
The keynote speaker was Dr Julie McLeod from Northumbria University who spoke about the adoption and adaption of records [...]

On complexity and strategic planning

A couple of weeks ago I organised a half-day workshop for my team and our key internal stakeholders as part of the planning process for next year. I wanted to hear from my stakeholders what they thought about my team and the work we do, as well as to tease out themes and priorities for my team [...]

On management read-in

Patrick Lambe’s blog post about getting management read-in is very timely for me.
Patrick discusses how we might tackle an organisational audit across information management, records management, and knowledge management. The usual response is to write a report, perhaps do a presentation to senior management after the report has been read, and then establish the level of [...]

On my new job

I start my new full-time job at the Fred Hollows Foundation tomorrow. I will be in charge of the information, knowledge management and education unit of the organisation. I am really looking forward to working back in the NGO sector and in international development. It will also make my involvement in KM4dev and Society for [...]

On five common mistakes in innovation

I want to share five common mistakes in innovation that were recently presented in an article in BusinessWeek. It seems to me that they are just as applicable in the context of developing initiatives for knowledge management inside the firm, and knowledge diffusion between organisations.
1) An over-reliance on pilot initiatives – pilots tend to focus [...]

On information research

The latest issue of the e-journal, Information Research, is now available.
There are some really interesting papers, especially the paper by Marcia Bates on browsing behaviour and the paper by Judit Bar-Ilan on librarian blogs.
There are several book reviews too, including this one on David Weinberger’s book, Everything is miscellaneous (a book I am currently reading).
 All [...]

On sins and other things

It’s been quite a week since I lasted posted. I have been confronted with some technical issues regarding web access and have been limited in the online time available to me. A wireless 3G account might have to be arranged…
Anyway, I can give some follow-up to a couple of activities from last week. Firstly, Patrick Lambe [...]

On librarians as knowledge managers

I had a fruitful discussion a short while ago about librarians and web 2.0, and research and knowledge management. In the same vein, a recent post from Dave Pollard with a link to his presentation on “librarians as knowledge managers” posits some interesting thoughts. Pollard presented at the recent Special Libraries Association conference in Denver, Colorade, USA. In the [...]

On research and knowledge management

I am sometimes asked whether or not research is actually one of the multitude of activities under the umbrella of knowledge management. The researcher undertakes primary or secondary research (or both) and thus contributes to the information and knowledge base. The researcher can even use the information (that has been sourced, evaluated and organised) to compose a written or [...]