Knowledge Management Rules by Dave Snowden
A few days ago I mentioned how I was really glad that Dave Snowden had finally ventured into the blogosphere and created a weblog in Cognitive-Edge. I bet I was not the only one who was very much looking forward to that. I am not sure about you folks, but I haven’t been disappointed one single bit ever since he got to write different enlightening and thought provoking weblog posts that would certainly make you think about things twice before you could just move into the next thing. Yes, I am glad he actually got started with Cognitive-Edge’s weblog. Most people out there wouldn’t probably know that Dave was actually one of the main reasons why I entered the Knowledge Management world few years ago. Back then, when he was still working for IBM, I had the privilege of attending a number of different conference events where he was one of the speakers and his knowledge and in-depth views of what Knowledge Management is all about inspired me in such a way that by the end of the event I knew I wanted to follow a career path within KM, whether it would be inside IBM or elsewhere.
So why am I saying all that ? Well, mainly because one of his latest weblog posts that he has just published contains some of the rules that I have been trying to apply to any KM strategy I have been involved with from the very first beginning and which, still today, makes perfect sense to me, even though it was a couple of years back when he came up with those KM rules in the first place. Take a look into the following quoted text, directly off Volunteer not conscript:
"1. Knowledge will only ever be volunteered it can not be conscripted.
2. We only know what we know when we need to know it.
3. We always know more than we can tell and we will always tell more than we can write down."
I doubt there would be a better way of defining what Knowledge Management is all about. Most KM advocates would probably tell you how there are hundreds of KM definitions, perhaps every single KM advocate would have their own, like I tried to point out elsewhere, but I must say that those three rules that Dave has been advocating for all along would be good enough for me to help people understand some of the different principles and challenges that KM has been facing all along, up until today. And to help clarify further more some of those principles here is another quote from the same weblog post which I can certainly identify myself with it 100%:
"[...] if you ask someone, or a body for specific knowledge in the context of a real need it will never be refused. If you ask them to give you your knowledge on the basis that you may need it in the future, then you will never receive it."
Enough said ! Don’t you think ? Just in case, over at Complex Acts of Knowing – Paradox and Descriptive Self Awareness you would be able to read some more about this very same subject.
Tags: Knowledge Management, KM, Cognitive-Edge, Dave Snowden, KM Principles
[...] Knowledge Management Rules by Dave Snowden 1. Knowledge will only ever be volunteered it can not be conscripted. 2. We only know what we know when we need to know it. 3. We always know more than we can tell and we will always tell more than we can write down. [...]
Well, there are many nice sayings around KM. What about: KM is managing the empty spaces between functionalities?
Hi Mathias! Thanks a bunch for the feedback ! Hummm, that is indeed a nice and quick definition of KM and, to be honest, I think a good one, too ! Because if there is anything that KM has always tried to do is to fill in the gaps in between within the area of knowledge sharing and collaboration, along with content management and learning. So it can certainly be considered the glue between functionalities to make it work. However, perhaps the only caveat that I can think of is that sometimes too much glue is not good because it tends to make KM rather large.
That is why I am finding it very useful lately that KM is being split up in different sub-disciplines and that each of them is gaining more and more traction on their own to make a much stronger KM than ever before. Perhaps that is the approach we should have taken in the first place, but, as they say, better late than never!
Thanks again for the feedback comments!
[...] "1. Knowledge will only ever be volunteered it can not be conscripted.2. We only know what we know when we need to know it.3. We always know more than we can tell and we will always tell more than we can write down." (Does it ring a bell? cf. Dave Snowden) [...]
[...] Over the last few hours, now that the fires are on the verge of being totally extinguished, there have been a number of different discussions, mainly taking place locally, on whether this catastrophe could have been avoided, at least, to some extent. There have been some concerns about some degree of lack of coordination between the different groups involved and the local population, and while those discussions keep going on, I just couldn’t help thinking about a weblog post I created a while ago where I commented on some Knowledge Management Rules by Dave Snowden. [...]
[...] — Re-discover again Dave Snowden’s three rules to Knowledge Management in this new context, and some incredibly inspiring quotes, like this one from Chris Collison and Geoff Parcell: "You can’t manage knowledge – nobody can. What you can do is to manage the environment n which knowledge can be created, discovered, captured, shared, distilled, validated, transferred, adopted, adapted and applied" [...]
[...] I strongly believe this is our right to be more productive at work, getting the job done connecting and collaborating with the right group of knowledge workers and, above all, have the choice of deciding the tools we would want to make use of to share our knowledge, collaborate and innovate with other fellow knowledge workers (Remember "Knowledge will only ever be volunteered it can not be conscripted."?). So where do you stand? Bookmark this article in:These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]
[...] I am sure that by now, if you have been reading this blog for a while, you may identify how this very same topic goes along the very same lines of what I have been saying for some time now and which also comes pretty close to Dave’s words of wisdom on some Knowledge Management rules: [...]
[...] didn’t know it, because no-one asked! And we all know what happens with that, right? "We only know what we know when we need to know it". Thus now is the time to fully embrace that corporate environment ruled by peers of networks [...]