Evening Talk March '06

By Paolina Martin

The evening talk held on 23 March 06 impressed two groundbreaking developments in the KM field, corporate blogging and techniques for knowledge elicitation. There was a turnout of some 30 people who were interested to learn about these new developments and found the evening well invested.

The first talk was by Ms Quek Pek Noi, a Learning Development Officer with the SAFTI Military Institute. He talk was titled Building Capability through Cognitive Apprenticeship: The Singapore Armed Forces Competency-based Learning Project”.
The talk by Professor Peter Keen was an inspirational and enlightening one. The talk entitled “Knowledge Mobilisation: Leveraging and Extending Knowledge Management”, had Professor Keen presenting a new development in the knowledge management arena, particularly corporate blogging.

Overall, the presentations were light and informal and the participants had a lively and interactive discussion on the developments and techniques shared by the presenters.

The first talk was by Ms Quek Pek Noi, a Learning Development Officer with the SAFTI Military Institute. He talk was titled Building Capability through Cognitive Apprenticeship: The Singapore Armed Forces Competency-based Learning Project”.
Pek Noi shared techniques that her team had used to elicit knowledge from a group of consultants engaged for the SAF Leadership Competency Model training.

The techniques used by the team included observation, note taking, questioning and active listening. As the training by the consultants was intended to be an exclusive one with no future runs, it was important that the as much knowledge be acquired, documented and transferred to both the trainees and the Institute. The techniques used by the consultants were based on a competency-based learning (CBL) methodology, and the knowledge acquired was lodged in the CBL online repository to be accessed by SAF teams and the SAF instructor community.

The talk by Professor Peter Keen was an inspirational and enlightening one. The talk entitled “Knowledge Mobilisation: Leveraging and Extending Knowledge Management”, had Professor Keen presenting a new development in the knowledge management arena, particularly corporate blogging. Professor Keen shared that there was now a shift from managing knowledge (push approach, supply driven, knowledge as an organisational asset) to mobilising knowledge (pull approach, demand driven, knowledge as identity). He described his perspective on knowledge as identity as one where “what we share, when and with whom, is a reflection of who we are”. The examples he quoted implied that knowledge sharing behaviours are very much a reflection of our individual principles, values and even, ethics.

Prof Keen explained “knowledge as personal identity” as existing on three levels -
o Accountable: we have to share, it is our responsibility in our job role,
o Discretionary: we share what we want to share (and this is where most KM efforts are targeted); and
o Autonomous: "It’s none of your business" ie. sharing is totally trust-centred.

He emphasized the growing significance of corporate blogging as a form of knowledge mobilization, and how it will become more important that a company's website in future. Prof Keen shared that there are some sixty million blogs that are active, affecting corporate reputations through opinions, rumours, facts and community debate. “Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk With Customers” by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel was what he recommended as a good starting read on corporate blogging (see book review below?). On a final note, he shared that CNN in the US now have a newsflash (marquee) at 4 o'clock everyday on what the blogs are saying. Cool!

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Paolina Martin is Exco member of iKMS. Her detailed profile can be found on the iKMS website.

Comments

[Paolina Martin]

Hi Ivan, I do not have the detailed notes but have asked for his powerpoint slides to be posted on this website, if that is permitted. Thanks for the other references. Will certainly check them out.

[Ivan Chew]

Hi Paolina, you don't happen to have more detailed notes of Prof Keen's presentation, do you? Too bad I missed the talk but at least I'm reading about it here. I wonder what questions the audience had to ask about corporate blogging. I agree that "Naked Conversations" is a good book to start. After that, one could try Dan Gillmor's "We, The Media". And perhaps "Cluetrain Manifesto", which was really the basis for the subsequent books.