Stepping Higher - Reflections on the Knowledge Age

Early October I was in Brussels attendeding a workshop of the Knowledge Management for Development Network ( KM4Dev.org ), the leading Community of Practice on KM issues in development. In one of the sessions there were several people with Twitter accounts persent, and we started twittering during the sessions with out laptops. It was really interesting to do this during a normal face-to-face session when one person was presenting and others in the room where adding context and opinions while the resource person spoke. This side communication (a bit like whispering in the classroom, but less disruptive) made the session very rich and added a lot of different perspectives. At one point we even exchanged comments across different sessions which took place in different rooms of the building at the same time. This created a connection and some information flow between events which otherwise would not have been possible. Then in the afternoon we scheduled a discussion session to be held in

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal published an interesting article on Web 2.0: Why Email No Longer Rules… And what that means for the way we communicate . After nicely outlining different implications of the new communication tools, it ends with a critical remark regarding the potentially time consuming aspect of Web 2.0: "We get lured into wasting time, telling our bosses we are looking into something, instead of just doing it, for example. And we will no doubt waste time communicating stuff that isn't meaningful, maybe at the expense of more meaningful communication." I've been asked this question many times before, and I realize that it is an particularly important issue for senior management witin organisations. However, I think the question approaches the topic from the right angle. I would rather look at this from a perspective of an empowered workforce. Unlike in past times, where we had one job for a lifetime and a clearly defined top-down hirarchy would dete

Being here in New York for already 1 month, it is high time to give an update on this site, which has been painfully abandoned by the author due to major stress caused by a change job and location. I've concluded my assignment as JPO with UNDP in Bangkok, funded by the German government, and moved on to a full staff contract with UNDP headquarters in New York. Since mid June I'm now with the Knowledge Management Group of UNDP's Bureau for Policy Development as Knowledge Services Specialist. My main area of work is the implementation of UNDP's new Knowledge Strategy, which entails as a major component the development and roll-out of a UNDP-wide Social Networking Platform, similar to Facebook. This is indeed something I was wishing for since I'm with the UN, as networking across countries and units is a critical factor not only for UNDP's work, but also for my own professional development. After having been able to comment on first concept stages of the project du

Lately I was asked what I would propose as major key ingredients to ensure the success of a Community of Practice (CoPs) in a United Nations environment. It made me think a little bit about the issue, as I've never pinned that down explicitely for my self before. Three items which immediately came to my mind (although these are surely not the only success factors) are "Needs monitoring", "Use of Web 2.0 opportunities" and "Linkage to Knowledge Products". Needs monitoring Communities of Practice are dynamic and sensitive animals which evolve, develop and change over time, both due to developments in the fields they are focusing on, as well as due to the constitution of its membership. They need to be carefully taken care of and require capacity to adapt to new developments. So, to ensure long term success of a CoP I think one should on one hand emphasize careful monitoring of the CoP in light of an organization’s business challenges and strategic object

Has anyone ever considererd, that e.g. FedEx or UPS may own the written letters or christmas gifts I send through them to my friends? Of course not. However, when it comes to internet content, these self-evident truths established as a common sense in modern society over years suddenly seem re-negotiable. Facebook now tried to strech this silent agreement to an extent which could be regarded as ridiculous - if it wasn't so outrageous. As reported by The Consumerist Blog , Facebook silently amended their existing Terms of Use a few weeks ago by a statement which allows Facebook to "use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you post" through Facebook. Basically do everything they want with any personal message or photo you send to your friends, even after you have deleted your account. The r