The Social Connectedness of Knowledge

Listen to my XLRQ internet radio Embrace the Noise piece titled The Social Connectedness of Knowledge.

pii 2010

Privacy Identity and Innovation 2010 conference will take place in Seattle Washington, USA on 17-19 August 2010.

It's an all-hands-on-deck conference where industry executives, technologists, consumer advocates, policy experts and other stakeholders will come together as a group to examine critical issues like:  

• How emerging technologies & business models are impacting the way data is created, shared and aggregated
• Effective approaches for building online trust with users
• Ways in which user preferences and social norms are shifting
• Changes in the regulatory landscape, in the U.S. and internationally
• The role of anonymity and the future of reputation management on the Web
• The latest developments in user-centric identity management

Blacklisting Companies

An interesting phenomenon is taking place and I am all for it.  It's called blacklisting companies.

This started because job seekers were/are tired of being ignored by company HR departments. Yes, HR departments are probably inundated with resumes these days, but that is no excuse for not politely responding with a "thanks but no thanks" communication.

As  economic conditions rebound, knowledge workers should and will consider carefully the companies they seek employment with.

My own personal check list is as follows:

1. Does the company encourage and support open and honest communication and collaboration?
2. Are reasonable collaboration tools provided and used?
3. Is non-business related internet access blocked, screened or monitored?
4. Does the company support and use social media to connect to their employees, customers and business partners?
5. Do overly restrictive security policies  detract from or enhance productivity?
6. Do the majority of employees have a passion for what they do and a belief  that the organization is providing value to its constituencies?
7. Does management embrace knowledge management and continuous learning?

Cloud Identity Summit

Keyston, Colorado USA

http://www.cloudidentitysummit.com/index.cfm

The 'T' word

“Trust is present or it is absent. Grab a nerd and he’ll tell you that even the absence of trust is a measure of trust and that particular measure is zero. When trust is non-zero (which is better, believe me) it is based on one of two methodologies -- empiricism or transparency (the other T-word).”

http://www.assetinternational.com/ASMW/PostDetail.aspx?id=876&blogid=226

Trust has been a cornerstone of Knowledge Management from the beginning.  The referenced post resonates with me because it very succinctly describes what trust is and the inherent value of trust to our personal and professional lives.  Trust is also transparency; we have all experienced the breakdown of trust because of a lack of transparency.  The explosion of the social graph is made possible through trust and transparency.  Transparent people engender trust and at the same time foster and facilitate knowledge sharing without even consciously trying to make it happen.

Passion, Curiosity, Learning

If you have never read the book "Hackers" (Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution) by Steven Levy I highly recommend it.  Originally published in 1984 it describes the passion and insatiable curiosity of the pioneers of the personal computer.

[amtap amazon:asin=0141000511]

Now, 25 years on, Levy revisits the "hackers" and how they have changed the world.  Lest you think otherwise, a hacker is someone good, not a rogue criminal as used by the news media.

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/04/ff_hackers/

"...hacking’s values aren’t threatened by business — they have conquered business. Seat-of-the-pants problem-solving. Decentralized decision making. Emphasizing quality of work over quality of wardrobe. These are all hacker ideals, and they have all infiltrated the working world."

The same values described in the quote above from Steven Levy embody the same purity, freshness and altruistic vision that the early Knowledge Management community embodied.  KM, just like the term Hacker was misappropriated and exploited to sell product.  It is OK to make money via KM, but when the outcome becomes all about money and not value creation, that is where I believe a line has been crossed.

As practicioners of KM we should constantly be learning.  Our passion and curiosity should drive us to be leaders within our organizations, to help make connections that generate and add value personally and professionally.

 

Happy at Work?

I found the TechCrunch guest post by Vivek Wadhwa - How To Be Happy At Work... to be very enlightening.

Being happy with your work does make a person more productive.  Vivek gives some great advice about looking at the things that are right about your job and not the things that are wrong with it.

Below are a couple of great quotes and things that are truth:

"When workers achieve arbejdsglæd, the business benefits from higher productivity, because happy people achieve better results; higher quality, because happy employees care about quality; lower absenteeism, because people actually want to go to work; and less stress and burnout, because happy people are less susceptible to stress."

"...those who choose to view life as a learning opportunity to take responsibility for their own actions are also the most confident and the happiest."