Ten Years, Ten Thoughts

In compiling my ebook, Seeking perpetual beta: a guidebook for the network era, I tried to cover all the posts that resonated with readers, clients, and colleagues over a decade. Here are some highlights, representing one thought per year.

1. Taking control of our learning is a challenge for individuals used to working inside hierarchies that demand conformity and compliance.
2. The mainstream application of knowledge management and learning management over the past few decades was mostly wrong; we over-managed information, knowledge, and learning because it was easy to do.
3. The basic structure of the job presumes common skills and the mechanistic view that workers can be replaced without disruption.
4. Value in the new economy, with mostly intangible goods and services, is created by people with passion and initiative.
5. Because it is so difficult to represent our knowledge to others, we have to make every effort to continuously share it.
6. Stories are the glue, holding information together in some semblance of order, for our brains to process into knowledge.
7. An informal professional learning network, with its redundant connections, repetition of information, and indirect communications, is a much more resilient system than any designed professional development program can be.
8. Leadership in networks does not come from above, as there is no top.
9. Successful individuals in a network society will see that their connections change over time, and that openly sharing will make them more valued nodes in the long run.
10. Whoever creates an organizational structure that bridges the individual-organizational knowledge sharing divide may have significant business advantages.